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political deformation must be regarded as destined to re-establish that
primitive state: and what is that but organizing a universal retrograda-
tion, though with progressive intentions. The applications of this doc-
trine have been in conformity to its philosophical constitution. When it
was necessary to replace the feudal and catholic regime, men did not fix
their contemplation on the social future, but summoned up their imper-
fect remembrances of a very distant past, trying to substitute for a de-
crepit system a more ancient and decrepit system still, but, for that very
reason, nearer to the primitive type. Instead of a worn-out Catholicism,
they proposed a sort of metaphysical polytheism, at the same time that,
in polity, they desired to replace the Middle Age system by the radically
inferior regime of the Greeks and Romans. The very elements of mod-
ern civilization, the only possible germs of a new social state, were
endangered by barbaric condemnation of the industrial and artistic ad-
vancement of modern society, in the name of primitive virtue and sim-
plicity. Even the scientific spirit, which is the only principle of intellec-
tual organization, was stigmatized as tending to institute an aristocracy
of knowledge which was as incompatible as any other aristocracy with
the origin equality that was to be set up again. Lavoisier was the martyr
of this state of opinion, and it is his case that will illustrate the period to
our remotest posterity. It is useless for the metaphysical school to repre-
sent such results as portentous or eccentric incidents. Their legitimate
descent from the revolutionary polity is evident and certain; and we
should witness a repetition of them if it were possible (which it is not)
for this polity to become prevalent again. The tendency to social retro-
gradation, under the idea of returning to the primitive state, so thor-
oughly belongs to the metaphysical polity, that the new sects who, in
their brief day, have most haughtily censured the revolutionary imita-
tion of Greek and Roman types, have unconsciously reproduced the
same error in a far more marked way by striving to reestablish the con-
fusion between the temporal and spiritual power, and extolling, as the
highest social perfection, a return to the Egyptian or Hebrew theocracy,
founded on fetichism, disguised under the name of pantheism.
As the metaphysical doctrine was the issue of the theological, and
destined to modify it, it was a matter of course that it should vindicate
the general foundations of the old system, even after having destroyed
its chief conditions of existence. Every reformer, for three centuries past,
134/Auguste Comte
while urging the development of the critical spirit further than his prede-
cessors, assumed to set immutable bounds to it; deriving his limitations
from the old system. All the absolute rights proclaimed as the basis of
the new doctrine were guaranteed by a sort of religious consecration, in
the last resort; and this was hidispensable, if their efficacy was not to be
impaired by continual discussion. It was always with an invocation of
the principles of the old polity on their lips that the reformers proceeded
to demolish the spiritual and temporal institutions in which they were
embodied; and the whole realize fell through the conflict of its chief
elements. Hence there arose, in the intellectual region, a Christianity
more and more attenuated or simplified, and reduced at last to that vague
and impotent theism which. by a monstrous conjunction of terms, meta-
physicians have entitled Natural Religion, as if all religion were not
necessarily supernatural. The pretension to direct a social reorganiza-
tion by this strange conception is merely a recurrence to the old prin-
ciple that social order must rest on it theological basis. This is now the
most fatal inconsistency of the revolutionary school; and while armed
with such a concession, the advocates of Catholicism will always have
an incontestable logical superiority over the irrational defamers of the
old faith who proclaim the need of a religious organization, and yet
disallow all the necessary conditions. It is clear that society would be
condemn to a perpetuity of the intellectual anarchy which characterizes
it at present if it were to be for ever made up of minds which admit the
want of a theological regime on the one hand, while on the other, they
reject its principal conditions of existent; and those who thus acknowl-
edge themselves incapable have no right to discredit the only rational
way to reorganization which remains open, and by which every other
order of human conceptions has been happily retrieved and established.
The social application of the positive philosophy remains as the resource,
and the only resource, after the failure of both the preceding systems.
In its temporal application the inconsistency of the metaphysical
doctrine is as conspicuous as in the spiritual. It strives to, preserve, if
not the feudal. at least the military spirit in which the feudal had its
origin. The French nation did, it is true, in their revolutionary enthusias-
tic, proscribe war from that time forward: but when the armed coalition
of the retrograde forces of Europe brought out an immense amount of
energy for self-defence, for the sake of the progressive movement, the
sentiment, which was grounded on no principle, soon disappeared, and
France was distinguished by the most conspicuous military activity, in-
Positive Philosophy/135
vested with its most oppressive characteristics. The military spirit is in
fact so congenial with the critical doctrine that any pretext will serve for
its indulgence: as for instance which it is proposed to regulate by war
the action of the more advanced nations upon the less advanced. The
true logical consequence of this would be a universal uproar: but, hap-
pily, the nature of modern civilization saves us from danger. The ten-
dency of the critical regime in this respect is shown by the perpetual
endeavours of the various sanctions of the revolutionary school to rein-
state the memory of the man who, of all others, strove for political ret-
rogradation, by wasting an enormous amount of power in the restora-
tion of the military and theological system.
Before quitting the subject calf the inconsistencies of this school, I
must, in justice, point out one more contradiction which, as being of a
progressive character is honourable to those most advanced minds which
entertain it, and which alone understand its necessity, opposed as it is to
the dogmas of independence and isolation which constitute the spirit of
the critical school. I refer to the principle of political centralization. The
two parties seem here to have changed sides. The retrograde doctrine,
notwithstanding its proud pretensions to order and unity, preaches the
distribution of political centres, in the secret hope of preserve this old
system yet a while longer among the most backward of the populations, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]