A General View of Positivism: Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and LifeComte, Auguste
Philosophy
A General View of Positivism: Or, Summary exposition of the System of Thought and Life
Comte, Auguste
Positivism
One step in this direction they have already taken of their own accord,
though its importance has not been duly appreciated. The well-known
scheme of Communism, which has found such rapid acceptance with them,
serves, in the absence of sounder doctrine, to express the way in which
they are now looking at the great social problem. The experience of
the first part of the Revolution has not yet wholly disabused them of
political illusions, but it has at least brought them to feel that
Property is of more importance than Power in the ordinary sense of the
word. So far Communism has given a wider meaning to the great social
problem, and has thereby rendered an essential service, which is not
neutralized by the temporary dangers involved in the metaphysical forms
in which it comes before us. Communism should therefore be carefully
distinguished from the numerous extravagant schemes brought forward in
this time of spiritual anarchy; a time which stimulates incompetent
and ill-trained minds to the most difficult subjects of thought. The
foolish schemes referred to have so few definite features, that we have
to distinguish them by the names of their authors. But Communism bears
the name of no single author, and is something more than an accidental
product of anomalous circumstances. We should look upon it as the
natural progress in the right direction of the revolutionary spirit;
progress of a moral rather than intellectual kind. It is a proof that
revolutionary tendencies are now concentrating themselves upon moral
questions, leaving all purely political questions in the background.
It is quite true that the solution of the problem which Communists are
now putting forward, is still as essentially political as that of their
predecessors; since the only mode by which they propose to regulate the
employment of property, is by a change in the mode of its tenure. Still
it is owing to them that the question of property is at last brought
forward for discussion: and it is a question which so evidently needs
a moral solution, the solution of it by political means is at once
so inadequate and so destructive, that it cannot long continue to be
debated, without leading to the more satisfactory result offered by
Positivism. Men will see that it forms a part of the final regeneration
of opinion and of life, which Positivism is now inaugurating.
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