next up previous contents
Next: IX Up: Sociology: Comte and His Previous: VII   Contents


VIII

It cannot be too much emphasized in any discussion of Comte's philosophy that he had no use for any knowledge of which he did not see the practical use.16.67And ``the purpose of the establishment of social philosophy is to reestablish order in society.''16.68 Nothing seems to him ``more repugnant to the real scientific spirit, not even the theological spirit,''16.69 than disorder of any kind, and nothing is perhaps more characteristic of the whole of Comte's work than ``the inordinate demand for `unity' and `systematization,' '' which J. S. Mill described as the fons errorum of all Comte's later speculation.16.70 But even if the ``frenzy for regulation''16.71is not quite as preponderant in the Cours as it became in the Système de philosophie positive, the practical conclusions to which the Cours leads, just because they are still free from the fantastic exaggeration of the later work, show this feature already in a marked degree. With the establishment of the ``definitive''16.72 philosophy, positivism, the critical doctrine which has characterized the preceding period of transition has completed its historic mission and the accompanying dogma of the unbounded liberty of conscience will disappear.16.73 To make the writing of the Cours possible was, as it were, the last necessary function of ``the revolutionary dogma of free enquiry,''16.74 but now that this is achieved, the dogma has lost its justification. All knowledge being once again unified, as it has not been since the theological stage began to decay, the next task is to set up a new intellectual government where only the competent scientists will be allowed to decide the difficult social questions.16.75Since their action will in all respects be determined by the dictates of science, this will not mean arbitrary government, and ``true liberty,'' which is nothing else than ``a rational submission to the preponderance of the laws of nature,''16.76 will even be increased.

The detail of the social organization which positive science will impose need not concern us here. So far as economic life is concerned, it still resembles in many respects the earlier Saint-Simonian plans, particularly insofar as the leading role of the bankers in guiding industrial activity is concerned.16.77 But he dissents from the later outright socialism of the Saint-Simonians. Private property is not to be abolished, but the rich become the ``necessary depositaries of the public capitals''16.78 and the owning of property is a social function.16.79 This is not the only point in which Comte's system resembles the later authoritarian socialism which we associate with Prussia rather than socialism as we used to know it. In fact, in some passages this resemblance to Prussian socialism, even down to the very words used, is really amazing. Thus when he argues that in the future society the ``immoral'' concept of individual rights will disappear and there will be only duties,16.80 or that in the new society there will be no private persons but only state functionaries of various units and grades,16.81 and that in consequence the most humble occupation will be ennobled by its incorporation into the official hierarchy just as the most obscure soldier has his dignity as a result of the solidarity of the military organism,16.82 or finally when, in the concluding section of the first sketch of the future order, he discovers a ``special disposition toward command in some and toward obedience in others'' and assures us that in our innermost heart we all know ``how sweet it is to obey,''16.83 we might match almost every sentence with identical statements of recent German theoreticians who laid the intellectual foundations of the doctrines of the Third Reich.16.84 Having been led by his philosophy to take over from the reactionary Bonald the view that the individual is ``a pure abstraction''16.85and society as a whole a single collective being, he is of necessity led to most of the characteristic features of a totalitarian view of society.

The later development of all this into a new religion of humanity with a fully developed cult is outside our subject. Needless to say that Comte, who was so completely a stranger to the one real cult of humanity, tolerance (which he would admit only in indifferent and doubtful matters) ,16.86 was not the man to make much of that idea, which in itself does not lack a certain greatness. For the rest we cannot better summarize this last phase of Comte's thought than by the well-known epigram of Thomas Huxley, who described it as ``Catholicism minus Christianity.''


next up previous contents
Next: IX Up: Sociology: Comte and His Previous: VII   Contents