CHAPTER III. THE POLITICS OF COMTE. THAT the elevation and expansion of the individual is the true end of Government will be still further apparent if we turn to those thinkers who have made the order and stability of Society as a whole their chief concern, and endeavour to point out the great laws of human life which they have neglected. In recent times the most distinguished of these have been Comte and Carlyle. I am, of course, aware that in making Comte the representative of order at the expense of progress, I am running counter to his own express announcement. He distinctly asserts that progress is the end of his social scheme, and that order is merely his basis, his means, his instrument. Nevertheless, if we examine his system carefully we shall find that he has sacrificed his end to his means, and that, in his zeal for order, he has gone far to strangle progress. For a writer's principles are, after all, to be judged not by the magnificence of his scheme in general, but by the tendencies of its provisions in particular, as a man's aims are determined, not by the grandeur of his professions, but by the objects he is actually seen striving to realize. Comte was an accomplished thinker, and was fully cognizant of all the conditions essential to the solution of the great problems of modern society. It was not likely, therefore, that in his general outline he should overlook any important factor. On the contrary, he has been careful to surround himself with a philosophical network so extensive and all-embracing as to leave little chance of anything important escaping him. He has made provision for order and progress, for culture and aspiration, for action and contemplation. But when we strip off the superficial phrases and generalities that obscure his real plan, and examine its true bearing, we shall find that each of its parts is so constructed as to promote the order and stability of society as a whole, at the expense of individual expansion and enlargement. In saying that Comte has gone far towards sacrificing progress to order, I do not mean to infer that he was indifferent to progress. On the contrary, he has declared, that order and progress are both equally necessary to the welfare of society. But order and progress, although equally necessary, are, like the poles of a battery, mutually opposed; and, in consequence, it is as difficult to hit both with equal directness by one scheme as by one blow to hit two objects that lie in opposite directions. For, just as the harmonious movements of the stars are secured, not by one compound force, but by the two opposite centrifugal and centripetral forces, so the orderly progress of States is best secured by the existence of two political parties, each of which is pledged to one side alone. If no one scheme, then, can hit with equal directness both order and progress, the only alternative for a speculative thinker is to decide which of these ends he thinks most important; to aim at that, and trust that the other will be hit in the rebound. Comte preferred order; and his choice drew after it the same artillery of means as if it had been his exclusive aim. For it may be laid down as a law that although in practical life you can temper your principles to the exigencies of the occasion, it is impossible to do so in any general scheme of life constructed without reference to time, place, or circumstance. A good instance of this is seen in the teaching of Carlyle and Emerson. These eminent Thinkers both saw that men on the one hand were radically alike in their essential natures, and on the other that they were unlike in their range of thought and sentiment. But to lay out a scheme of life and conduct that would equally embrace these opposite truths was not possible. They were obliged accordingly to choose which they would prefer to satisfy the identity or the diversity. Emerson chose the identity or likeness of man as the basis of his teaching, Carlyle the diversity. The consequence was that Emerson's teaching ran into the extreme of liberty, Carlyle's into the extreme of despotism. So, too, with Comte. Having made Humanity as a whole the centre both of his religious and his social system, he was bound to subordinate the expansion of the individual to the symmetry and stability of society as a whole, until, at last, by the very nature of things, he was driven into drawing the cords of order so tight as to strangle individual expansion and development. With these preliminary observations I now propose to examine Comte's political and social scheme, with the view of pointing out the great laws of human life which he has neglected. But, before we can grasp his scheme in its logical completeness, we must discover the reasons for his making Humanity the central point of his system. Previous to his time there was no general science of Sociology; that is to say, no general laws had been discovered to which the progress and development of Mankind as a whole could be referred. Humanity at large was regarded much in the same way as a flight of crows or a forest of trees is regarded, viz., as a mere aggregate of isolated individuals. And as each of these individuals was liable to be moved by influences-supernatural and other-which defied all law and calculation, no one likely to dream that a Science of Society was possible. from the time when it began to appear that these supernatural conceptions themselves were the products of human thought; that they were not capricious and casual, but followed a regular course and order of development, men began to entertain the hope that great general laws might be discovered to which the total movements of Humanity could be shown to conform. Comte professed to have discovered these laws, and to have marked out the stages through which mankind has passed in its course and development, and so, for the first time, was enabled to figure Humanity, not as a mere aggregate of But 1 isolated individuals, but as a unity, an organism, a life. Hence, it is that he represents Humanity as a Great Being, and pictures it as some immense mammal which in its growth and development has come down from the Past and is stretching onward into the Future; the individual being but a cell or molecule in its huge frame. And just as it is only the animal organism as a whole that can be regarded as a real entity, the cells of which it is composed having no distinct independent life, so Comte constantly repeats that 'Humanity is the only real existence, the individual being a mere metaphysical abstraction.' Such is the train of thought by which Comte arrives at his conception of Humanity as a Great Being, and by which he makes it, and not the individual, the centre of his system. Now, from this conception and from the analogies that exist between Humanity and other vital organisms, his whole scheme of social reorganization may be logically deduced. A few broad instances will suffice to make this apparent. In the animal body, for example, the organs, tissues, and cells of which it is composed do not exist on their own account, but to do the special work assigned them; they are not independent and unrelated, but have vital connexions with every other part, and are kept in strict surordination to the welfare of the body as a whole. So, in Comte's scheme, the special classes and individuals of which society is composed have each to do the special work assigned them, and keep themselves strictly subordinated to the welfare of society as a whole. Priests and bankers, manufacturers and merchants, women and workingmen, have each their respective functions minutely defined by him—functions not to be altered except at the behests of high necessity. For, just as any attempt on the part of an organ or tissue to set up for itself and to do as it pleased, would end in the disruption of the body, so any attempt on the part of an individual to follow the bias of his own genius or character would, Comte thinks, end in the disruption of society. Accord L ingly, he preaches the duty of each individual to occupy the position assigned him, not the right of every man to choose his own path according to the secret impulses of his nature. Liberty and the Rights of Man, he thinks, lead to anarchy, and are therefore to be repressed. His new watchword is, 'Duties, not Rights.' But as the power of deciding what particular function a man is to fulfil must be vested in the hands of one or more persons, the scheme, as we should expect, ends in despotism. For it is the essence of despotism that the lives and fortunes of men should be placed, not in the hands of Fate and Nature, with their just and equal laws, but in the hands of some poor creature like ourselves, who, ignorant of himself perhaps, impudently professes to gauge the hidden depths and capacities of other souls, and with easy assurance proceeds to distribute them into the niches they are best fitted to occupy. But this analogy between Humanity and the animal organism is carried by Comte still further into his scheme of social reorganization. He figures the animal body as made up of two distinct and independent sets of organs-the nutritive and the cerebral-which have distinct and independent functions. The nutritive organs consist of lungs, heart, liver, and other tissues, and carry on the nutrition and support of the body. The cerebral organs consist of the brain and nervous system, and their function is so to co-ordinate and regulate the action of the nutritive organs that they shall all work harmoniously for the good of the whole. Now, corresponding to these organs of nutrition and cerebration in the animal body, are the temporal | and spiritual powers in the body politic. The Temporal Power consists of governors, directors and administrators; and its function is to superintend the organization of industry and carry on the work of practical administration. The Spiritual Power consists of the philosophical Priesthood, and its function is to moderate, by its moral pressure, the exercise of the Temporal Power for the benefit of the community at large. And just as Comte finds the organs of nutrition and inervation |