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
And yet this is the only real system of universal education which the
world has hitherto seen. For we cannot give that name to the so-called
University system which metaphysicians began to introduce into Europe
at the close of the Middle Ages; and which offered little more than
the special instruction previously given to the priesthood; that
is, the study of the Latin language, with the dialectical training
required for the defence of their doctrines. Morals were untaught
except as a part of the training of the professed theologian. All this
metaphysical and literary instruction was of no great service to social
evolution, except so far as it developed the critical power; it had,
however, a certain indirect influence on the constructive movement,
especially on the development of Art. But its defects, both practical
and theoretical, have been made more evident by its application to
new classes of society, whose occupations, whether practical or
speculative, required a very different kind of training. And thus,
while claiming the title of Universal, it never reached the working
classes, even in Protestant countries, where each believer became to a
certain extent his own priest.
The theological method being obsolete, and the metaphysical method
inadequate, the task of founding an efficient system of popular
education belongs to Positivism; the only doctrine capable of
reconciling these two orders of conditions, the intellectual and the
moral, which are equally necessary, but which since the Middle Ages
have always proved incompatible. Positivist education, while securing
the supremacy of the heart over the understanding more efficiently
than Catholicism, will yet put no obstacle in the way of intellectual
growth. The function of Intellect, in education as in practical life,
will be to regulate Feeling; the culture of which, beginning at birth,
will be maintained by constant exercise of the three classes of duties
relative to Self, to the Family, and to Society.
I have already explained the mode in which the principles of universal
morality will be finally co-ordinated; a task which, as I have shown,
is connected with the principal function of the new spiritual power.
I have now only to point out the paramount influence of morality on
every part of Positive Education. It will be seen to be connected at
first spontaneously, and afterwards in a more systematic form, with the
entire system of human knowledge.
Positive Education, adapting itself to the requirements of the Organism
with which it has to deal, subordinates intellectual conditions
to social. Social conditions are considered as the main object,
intellectual as but the means of attaining it. Its principal aim is
to induce the working classes to accept their high social function of
supporting the spiritual power, while at the same time it will render
them more efficient in their own special duties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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