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
Such, in outline, is the Positive theory of Moral Force. By it the
despotism of material force may be in part controlled. It rests upon
the union of the three elements in society who are excluded from the
sphere of politics strictly so called. In their combined action lies
our principal hope of solving, so far as it can be solved, the great
problem of man’s nature, the successful struggle of Social Feeling
against Self-love. Each of the three elements supplies a quality
indispensable to the task. Without women this controlling power would
be deficient in purity and spontaneous impulse; without philosophers,
in wisdom and coherence; without the people, in energy and activity.
The philosophic element, although neither the most direct nor the most
efficient, is yet the distinctive feature of this power, because its
function is to organize its constitution and direct its operations in
accordance with the true laws of social life. As being the systematic
organ of the spiritual power it has become identified with it in
name. This, however, may lead to an erroneous conception. The moral
aspect of the spiritual power is more important than the intellectual.
While retaining the name as an historical tradition of real value,
Positivists attach a somewhat different meaning to it. It originated in
a time when theories of society were unknown, and when Intellect was
considered as the central principle of human nature.
Spiritual power, as interpreted by Positivism, begins with the
influence of women in the family; it is afterwards moulded into a
system by thinkers, while the people are the guarantees for its
political efficiency. Although it is the intellectual class that
institutes the union, yet its own part in it, as it should never
forget, is less direct than that of women, less practical than that of
the people. The thinker is socially powerless except so far as he is
supported by feminine sympathy and popular energy.
Thus the necessity of associating women in the movement of social
regeneration creates no obstacle whatever to the philosophy by which
that movement is to be directed. On the contrary, it aids its progress,
by showing the true character of the moral force which is destined
to control all the other forces of man. It involves as perfect an
inauguration of the normal state as our times of transition admit.
For the chief characteristic of that state will be a more complete
and more harmonious union of the same three classes to whom we are
now looking for the first impulse of reform. Already we can see how
perfectly adapted to the constitution of man this final condition of
Humanity will be. Feeling, Reason, Activity, whether viewed separately
or in combination, correspond exactly to the three elements of the
regenerative movement, Women, Philosophers, and People.
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