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
life, effecting for the final state of humanity what the theological
synthesis effected for its primitive state. For this purpose Abstract
philosophy is undoubtedly sufficient; so that even supposing that
Concrete philosophy should never become so perfect as we desire, social
regeneration will still be possible.
[In my Theory of
Development, the required
Synthesis of Abstract
conceptions already exists]
Regarded under this more simple aspect, our system of scientific
knowledge is already so far elaborated, that all thinkers whose nature
is sufficiently sympathetic may proceed without delay to the problem
of moral regeneration; a problem which must prepare the way for that
of political reorganization. For we shall find that the theory of
development of which we have been speaking, when looked at from another
point of view, condenses and systematizes all our abstract conceptions
of the order of nature.
This will be understood by regarding all departments of our knowledge
as being really component parts of one and the same science; the
science of Humanity. All other sciences are but the prelude or the
development of this. Before we can enter upon it directly, there
are two subjects which it is necessary to investigate; our external
circumstances, and the organization of our own nature. Social life
cannot be understood without first understanding the medium in which
it is developed, and the beings who manifest it. We shall make no
progress, therefore, in the final science until we have sufficient
abstract knowledge of the outer world and of individual life to define
the influence of these laws on the special laws of social phenomena.
And this is necessary from the logical as well as from the scientific
point of view. The feeble faculties of our intellect require to be
trained for the more difficult speculations by practice in the easier.
For the same reasons, the study of the inorganic world should take
precedence of the organic. For, in the first place, the laws of the
more universal mode of existence have a preponderating influence over
those of the more special modes; and in the second place it is clearly
incumbent on us to begin the study of the Positive method with its
simplest and most characteristic applications. I need not dwell further
upon principles so fully established in my former work.
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