CapĂtulo 1
CHAPTER I
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF POSITIVISM 8
The object of Philosophy is to present a systematic view of
human life as a basis for modifying its imperfections--The
Theological Synthesis failed to include the practical side of
human nature--But the Positive spirit originated in practical
life--In human nature, and therefore in the Positive system,
Affection is the preponderating element--The proper function
of Intellect is the service of the Social Sympathies--Under
Theology the Intellect was the slave of the Heart; under
Positivism, its servant--The subordination of the Intellect to
the Heart is the subjective principle of Positivism--Objective
basis of the system: Order of the external World, as revealed
by Science--By it the selfish affections are controlled; the
unselfish strengthened--Our conception of this External Order
has been gradually growing from the earliest times, and is but
just complete--Even where not modifiable, its influence on the
character is of the greatest value--But in most cases we can modify
it; and in these the knowledge of it forms the systematic basis
of human action--The chief difficulty of the Positive Synthesis
was to complete our conception of the External Order by extending
it to Social Phenomena--By the discovery of sociological laws
social questions are made paramount; and thus our subjective
principle is satisfied without danger to free thought--Distinction
between Abstract and Concrete laws. It is the former only
that we require for the purpose before us--In our Theory of
Development the required Synthesis of Abstract conceptions already
exists--Therefore we are in a position to proceed at once with
the work of social regeneration--Error of identifying Positivism
with Atheism, Materialism, Fatalism, or Optimism. Atheism, like
Theology, discusses insoluble mysteries--Materialism is due to the
encroachment of the lower sciences on the domain of the higher,
an error which Positivism rectifies--Nor is Positivism fatalist,
since it asserts the External Order to be modifiable--The charge
of Optimism applies to Theology rather than to Positivism. The
Positivist judges of all historical actions relatively, but does
not justify them indiscriminately--The word Positive connotes all
the highest intellectual attributes, and will ultimately have a
moral significance.
ďťżThe Project Gutenberg eBook of A General View of Positivism
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: A General View of Positivism
Author: Auguste Comte
Author of introduction, etc.: Frederic Harrison
Translator: John Henry Bridges
Release date: December 24, 2016 [eBook #53799]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Charlie Howard, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GENERAL VIEW OF POSITIVISM ***
Transcriberâs Notes:
Italicized text is enclosed in underscores.
Narrow text within square brackets are sidenotes; numbers within square
brackets refer to footnotes at the end of this eBook.
âV^eâ in Footnote 3 indicates that the âeâ is a superscript.
Other notes will be found at the end of this eBook.
The New Universal Library
A GENERAL VIEW OF POSITIVISM
A GENERAL VIEW
OF POSITIVISM
Translated from the French of
AUGUSTE COMTE
By J. H. BRIDGES, M.B.
Late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford
A New Edition, with an Introduction (1908), by
FREDERIC HARRISON
And the Additional Notes in the last French
Edition (Paris, 1907)
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
Published by the kind consent of Mrs. Bridges and the Positivist
Committee, to whom the copyright of this translation belongs.
Republic of the West
Order and Progress
A GENERAL VIEW OF
POSITIVISM
Or,
SUMMARY EXPOSITION OF THE
SYSTEM OF THOUGHT
AND LIFE
Adapted to the Great Western Republic, formed of the Five Advanced
Nations, the French, Italian, Spanish, British and German, which,
since the time of Charlemagne, have always constituted a Political
Whole
RĂŠorganiser, sans dieu ni roi, par le culte systĂŠmatique de
lâHumanitĂŠ.
Nul nâa droit quâĂ faire son devoir.
Lâesprit doit toujours ĂŞtre le ministre du coeur, et jamais son
esclave.
Reorganisation, irrespectively of God or king, by the worship of
Humanity, systematically adopted.
Manâs only right is to do his duty.
The Intellect should always be the servant of the Heart, and should
never be its slave.
By
AUGUSTE COMTE
Author of âSystem of Positive Philosophyâ
PARIS, 1848
INTRODUCTION
By FREDERIC HARRISON
Although Positivism has been pretty widely discussed of late, not only
by those interested in philosophy and religion, but by the general
reader and the public press, perhaps but few of them, whether readers
or critics, have exactly grasped the full meaning of it as a system at
once of thought and of life. The vast range of the ground it covers and
the technical, allusive, and close style of Comteâs writings in the
original have made it difficult to master the subject as a whole. It
has accordingly been thought that the time has come to add to the âNew
Universal Libraryâ a translation of The General View of Positivism,
i.e., the careful summary of the Positive Polity which Auguste Comte
prefixed to the four volumes of his principal work. The translation
which was published by Dr. J. H. Bridges in 1865 is at the same time
a most accurate version by one of Comteâs earliest followers, and
also it is turned in an easy and simpler style, with the references
and allusions explained, marginal headings to the paragraphs, and a
complete analysis of the contents.
Positivism is not simply a system of Philosophy; nor is it simply a new
form of Religion; nor is it simply a scheme of social regeneration.
It partakes of all of these, and professes to harmonize them under
one dominant conception that is equally philosophic and social.
âIts primary object,â writes Comte, âis twofold: to generalize our
scientific conceptions and to systematize the art of social life.â
Accordingly Comteâs ideal embraces the three main elements of which
human life consists--Thoughts, Feelings and Actions.
Now it is clear that no such comprehensive system was ever before
offered to the world. Neither the Gospel nor any known type of religion
undertook to give a synthetic grouping of the Sciences. No synthetic
scheme of philosophy ever attempted to correlate religion, politics,
art, and industry. No system of Socialism, ancient or modern, started
with mathematics and led up to an ideal of a human devotion to duty,
with a ritual of worship, both public and private.
Now Comteâs famous Positive Polity did attempt this gigantic task.
And the novelty and extent of such a work explains and accounts for the
extreme difficulty met with by readers of the original French, and also
for the fascination which it has maintained more than fifty years after
the authorâs death. It has been talked about, criticized, and even
ridiculed, with an ignorance of its true character which can only be
excused by the abstract and severe form in which Comte thought right to
condense his thoughts. Comte was primarily a mathematician, and neither
Descartes nor Newton troubled themselves about âthe general readerâ.
Kepler, they say, declared himself satisfied if he had one convert
in a century; and philosophers have seldom had justice done them
until some generations have passed. The difficulties presented by the
scientific form of Comteâs works have been obviated for English readers
by the versions of his English followers, which are at once literal
translations, analyses, and elucidations. For the âgeneral readerâ
nothing could be more serviceable than Bridgesâ clear presentation of
Comteâs own âgeneral viewâ, or summary of his system.
The translation itself is a literary masterpiece. It renders an
extremely abstract and complex French type of philosophical dogmatism
into easy and simple English, whilst at the same time preserving and
even elucidating the somewhat cryptic allusions and nuances of the
original. The thought in the French is full, pregnant, and suggestive,
at once subtle and abstract, and rich with words of a new coinage--such
as altruism, sociology, dynamics (i.e., history), and old
words used in a special sense. This difficulty Dr. Bridges surmounts
by breaking up the involved sentences, supplying names and facts
indirectly referred to, and by transferring technical language into
popular English. The success of the translation has been proved by the
thousands of copies sold in the original 12mo edition of 1865, in the
8vo edition of 1875, and in the stereotyped reprint of 1881.
A pathetic interest attaches to the history of the translation. In
1860 Dr. Bridges, just settled as a physician in Melbourne, lost his
young wife by fever. He at once returned to England, bringing the
remains of his wife for interment in the family graveyard in Suffolk.
In those days of sailing vessels the voyage home round Cape Horn
occupied at least three months. Dr. Bridges resolved to conquer his
sorrow, shut himself in his cabin during the voyage home and completed
the translation (in 430 pages of print) within the time at sea:--
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
Auguste Comte always spoke of the Positive Polity as âhis principal
workâ. The Discours sur lâEnsemble, or General View of Positivism,
formed the introduction to the four volumes. It forms a summary of the
entire work, and it is indeed a systematic application of the doctrine
to the actual condition of society. As the Polity, taken as a whole,
professes to embody a set of doctrines for the regulation of thought
and life, the present Introduction is designed to show the need of
such a body of doctrine, the result that they would produce, and the
mode in which they are likely to work. Thus, one who desires to see in
one view the social purpose which Positivism proposes to effect would
find it in no single volume better than in this treatise.
The work consists of six chapters, treating Positivism respectively
in its intellectual aspect, its social aspect, its influence on the
working classes, on women, on art, and on religion. In other words it
illustrates the application of the system to Philosophy, Politics,
Industry, The Family, Poetry and The Future. It opens with a comparison
of Positivist doctrines with those of the leading extant philosophies.
It closes with a picture of society should those doctrines be realized.
It is thus both a criticism of current theories, and an utopia of a
possible Future. Of the intermediate chapters, the first deals with the
principal changes proposed in our actual political system: the next
chapter deals with the changes proposed in our present social system.
Then come the last two chapters, dealing with the principal agents,
Art, Poetry and Religion, by which those changes may be promoted. The
book is therefore a practical introduction to the subject as a whole;
for it sets forth the aim of Positivism as a system, and then how it
seeks to effect that aim.
TABLE OF CONTENTS