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HUMAN NATURE

AND MORALS

ACCORDING TO AUGUSTE COMTE

WITH

NOTES ILLUSIRA1IVE OF I HE PRINCIPLES OF
POSITIVISM

BY

JOHN K. INGRAM, LL.D.

AUTHOR OF "OUTLINF:S OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION

Connais-toi pour t'ameliorer.
Vivre pour autrui.

LONDON

ADAM & CHARLES BLACK
1901

PRINTED AT THE

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fEB 21 1950

PREFACE

T N the Preface to my Outlines of the History of
1 Religion I explained that, for all the essential
ideas of that book, I was indebted to Auguste
Comte. I have a similar statement to make with
respect to the present publication. In Chapters II.
and IV. of the portion of it entitled Human Nature
and Morals I follow closely in substance, though
not always in arrangement, his treatment of the
subject in Chapter III. of the Politique Positive,
borrowing additional materials from other parts of
his writings. Chapter V. is in the main new, but
the doctrine stated in it in contrast with that of
Butler, is Comte' s. In Chapter I. and the Notes a
greater freedom is used, but their contents are also
largely derived from him, various portions being
founded on passages, not only in the Politique, but
in the Philosophic and in the Discours Preliminaire, or
(as it is called in Dr. Bridges' translation, happily
—unlike the translation of the entire Politiqiu

vi Preface.

procurable by all English readers) General View
of Positivism. The Notes, it may be added, at
first intended as developments or explanations
of particular passages in the Human Nature and
Morals, are now placed on an independent basis
as elucidations of fundamental points in the Philo
sophy and Religion of Comte.

His Cerebral Theory, explained in the present
volume, may be regarded as a renovated form of
the system of Gall. Those who can recall the
forties and fifties of the nineteenth century will
remember how much progressive intellects in these
islands had been impressed by the Phrenological
doctrine, which, for the first time, placed the
study of the Moral and Mental nature of Man on
the right basis. Never has greater injustice
been done than has befallen the memory of its
illustrious founder. He is, in many minds, con
founded with the crowd of charlatans who once
successfully traded on the popular interest he
had awakened. And men of Science who have
profited by his labours have often refused him the
honour which was his due. It is true that his
method was too purely empirical, not resting on a
broad philosophic basis, his conclusions as to the

Preface. vii

localisation of functions too sporadically and, it
would seem, accidentally arrived at, and his proofs
often inadequate. But he is not to be estimated
by his inevitable partial failures in a new and
difficult enterprise, any more than are others who
have yet made the most valuable contributions to
our knowledge. It is his immortal merit to have
established for ever the four propositions laid down
in the Avertissement prefixed to his Fonctions du
Cerveau :
" i. That the moral qualities and the intellectual

faculties are innate ;

"2. That their exercise or manifestation is de
pendent on our physical organisation ;
"3. That the brain is the organ of all the incli
nations (penchants), sentiments, and faculties;
" 4. That the brain is composed of as many par
ticular organs as there are penchants,
sentiments, and faculties, which are essen
tially distinct."

All study of the moral and intellectual life of
Man must be founded on these fundamental dis
coveries. This is now more and more seen ; and
it is not surprising to find Mr. Alfred Wallace
regretting the neglect into which Phrenology has

viii Preface.

fallen, and seeking to recall public attention to it.
But it is only with the more philosophical character
given to it by Comte, and the particular modifica
tions he has introduced, that it will take the place
which it deserves. It is my conviction that Posi
tivism is the subject which ought now, most of
all, to engage the earnest study of thinking men;
and this essential branch of it— the Positive Theory
of Human Nature— calls for special attention.

Comte had, long before the close of his career,
projected as an element of the Subjective Synthesis—
which was to contain a view of the whole of
science as co-ordinated by Religion — a Treatise
on Morals, to consist of two volumes, entitled,
respectively, " Theoretic Morals, instituting the
knowledge of Human Nature," and "Practical
Morals, instituting the improvement of Human
Nature." This treatise he unfortunately did not
live to write ; but we find numerous anticipatory
indications of its contents in his published works.
For the present publication I have, as above men
tioned, drawn largely on these anticipations so far
as they relate to Theoretic Morals ; and it is my
hope to follow it up by a book on the second
branch of the subject, which is virtually the Positive

Preface. ix

Doctrine of Education. Whilst not professing to
present a complete view of either side of the great
theme, I have thought that I should do useful
work in offering to my fellow-countrymen, in a
brief and simple form, the leading ideas of Theo
retical and Practical Morals, as Comte conceived
them, so far as those ideas can be gathered from
the partial treatment of the subject which he was
able to place on record and to bequeath to us.

What we possess of his, if rightly utilised, is
sufficient, first, to supply the essential basis of
the great religious and social regeneration which
it was the labour of his life to prepare, and,
secondly, to guide his disciples in the regulation
of their individual lives. It will remain for some
one of his sacerdotal successors in the future,
adequately endowed by nature and with his heart
and mind formed by the influences of the Religion
of Humanity, as well as by mature encyclopedic
studies, to produce the definitive volumes which
will represent the Master's intended, but unwritten,
contributions to the Subjective Synthesis.

JOHN K. INGRAM.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS

I. INTRODUCTORY, . . . . . I
IT. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL POWERS OF MAN, . 1 6

III. CEREBRAL ORGANS OF THE MORAL AND INTELLEC

TUAL POWERS, ....... 39

IV. _POSmVIST MORALS^ . . . 49

V. THE MORAL SYSTEM OF POSITIVISM COMPARED WITH

BISHOP BUTLER'S, 62

NOTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF
THE PRINCIPLES OF POSITIVISM

i. 'ABSOLUTE' AND 'RELATIVE,' ... -77

II. * ABSTRACT ' AND 'CONCRETE/ 8 1

III. LAWS AND CAUSES, 86

IV. ' OBJECTIVE ' AND ' SUBJECTIVE,' .... 90

v. 'STATICAL' AND 'DYNAMICAL,' . ' . . . .96

VI. FINAL CAUSES, . . IOO

VII. MATERIALISM, 107

VIII. PSYCHOLOGICAL INTROSPECTION, . . . . IIO

IX. CARTESIAN THEORY OF THE AUTOMATISM OF ANI

MALS, . . .114

TABLE OF POSITIVE CLASSIFICATION OF THE EIGHTEEN

INTERNAL FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN, at end.

HUMAN NATURE AND
MORALS

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE object of the following pages is to give to
English readers a brief, but — it is hoped — not
altogether inadequate account of Auguste Comte's
theory of the moral and intellectual constitution
of Man, and the practical consequences deducible
therefrom. The widespread and growing reputa
tion of its illustrious author naturally attracts
attention to his treatment of so important a
theme ; and his doctrine on the subject appears to
be by far the most satisfactory that has ever been
proposed.

It would indeed be desirable that the student
should undertake the examination of the theory as
a part of the entire philosophic system expounded
in the Politique Positive, and in connexion with the
investigations by which it is there preceded and
followed. But copies of the English translation of
the Politique are rarely to be procured, and, even
if this were not so, many persons who may be

B

Introductory.

specially interested in the subject here dealt with,
might not have leisure or inclination to apply them
selves to the integral study of that great work.
It has therefore been thought expedient, before
presenting the direct exposition of the theory, to
supply some preliminary philosophical considera
tions on Science generally, and particularly on the
Sciences conversant with man, in order to guard
the reader against certain common misconceptions,
and to place him, as far as possible, at the same
point of view which he would have occupied if he
had approached Comte's doctrine of Human Nature
in the course of a regular perusal of the Politique.
It is not necessary to enlarge on what all rational
intellects agree in recognising — namely, the impor
tance of right method as an essential condition of
success in every scientific inquiry.

Three different modes of philosophising on the
phenomena of nature, whether material or moral,
have been pursued in the past and are still more or
less practised in the present. We may regard those
phenomena as produced by the action of quasi-
human supernatural beings, by whose wills the
entire series of events is determined ; or we may
conceive them as resulting from abstract forces or
entities inherent in the various existences which
exhibit them ; or, lastly, setting aside, as radically
inaccessible, all inquiries as to the essential mode
of production of phenomena, and to Causes First or
Final, we may simply endeavour to ascertain the

Introductory.

laws to which they conform, or, in other language,
the invariable relations of similitude and succession
to which an immense and unvarying induction
shows them to be subjected. These three methods
are those known respectively as the Theological,
the Metaphysical, and the Positive. The first is
provisional and preparatory ; it is that which arose
spontaneously from the earliest contemplation of
the world by our remote ancestors; the second,
which is really a modification of the first,* his
torically succeeded to and superseded it in each
branch of research ; and the third represents the
final and permanent point of view at which the
human intellect arrives in the normal course of its
development. This is the Law of the Three States,
discovered by Comte, without the recognition of
which it is impossible to understand the movement
of thought in the past, or the several varieties of

* The metaphysical stage is naturally transitional, because the
entities which it recognises may be regarded either as emanations
from the divine agents, enabling the objects in which they per
manently reside to undergo the operations of those agents, which
would be in accordance with the Theological view, or may be
gradually subtilised so as to pass insensibly into the position of
being merely abstract names for the phenomena, which would not be
inconsistent with the mental attitude of the Positive stage. It is
from its equivocal character and its consequent power of facilitating
this transition, that the metaphysical mode of thinking derives its
historic importance. Originally only a modification of Theology, it
afterwards became its effectual solvent. But, though having been
thus serviceable and even necessary in the past as a critical agency,
it is henceforth both philosophically and socially useless, being
incapable of construction and therefore impotent for organisation.

B 2

Introductory.

theoretic opinion which exist in the human family
in our own time.

But, though indispensable, this Law is in
sufficient for the explanation of the general course
of the history of Science. For, whether we regard
different epochs in the past, or different co-existing
forms of opinion in the present, we are led to the
conclusion that the human mind, social or individual,
does not pass with equal velocity in the several
branches of inquiry through the two first of the
three states above-mentioned, and therefore does
not arrive equally soon at the third and definitive
state. There is a hierarchy of the Sciences, founded
on their fundamental dependences in relation to
each other, and on the diminishing generality and
increasing complexity* of those which succeed each
other in the series ; and it is in accordance with
this order that these Sciences respectively assume
the characters of the three historic states, and thus
attain the ultimate normal state, in which method
and doctrine are alike positive. This Law of
the Encyclopedic Scale, which is complementary to
the former, and which also we owe to the genius
of Comte, disposes the fundamental (or abstract)
Sciences in the following order : — Mathematics,
Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Sociology,

* It maybe added, though not necessary to our immediate purpose,
that the phenomena of the later sciences are also, by reason of their
complexity, the most modifiable, and therefore afford the largest
sphere for human intervention.

Introductory.

and Morals. We need not here enlarge on the
earlier terms of the series ; but, with respect to the
last three, some remarks are necessary.

The position of Biology in the series sufficiently
indicates its dependence on the Sciences of inor
ganic Nature which precede it in the scale. Living
bodies are subject to the laws of Physics and
Chemistry, and, through them, to those of the earlier
Sciences in the series. But, besides these, they have
laws of their own which must be separately investi
gated. These laws relate either, on the one hand,
to structure, or, on the other, to life. And the true
spirit of Biology consists in the constant harmony
to be exhibited between Anatomical and Physio
logical (or, in other words, Statical and Dynamical)
considerations — between the ideas of Organisation
and of Vital Activity. In fact, the most general
problem of Biology is — given an organ to discover
its function, or, reciprocally, given a function to
determine the corresponding organ.

Now, since the labours of Gall (though much
of his work, as we shall see, was premature and
transitory), it cannot be disputed that the study of
the moral and intellectual constitution of man, as
of all animals, is, in part — though, as will appear,
only in part — a branch of Biology. The intellectual
faculties have always been recognised as seated in
the brain. The opinion long prevalent, and held
even by Cabanis and the great Bichat, that the
affective qualities — the feelings and the inclina-

Introductory.

tions — have their seats in the principal organs of
vegetative life, is now universally repudiated, and it
is agreed on all hands that these, as well as the
intellectual faculties, have their residence in the
brain. The study of both is therefore the subject
of Cerebral Physiology ; and the ideal of achieve
ment in this department of research is the discovery
of laws enabling us to connect each cerebral organ
with the function which belongs to it, or vice versa.

In thus seeking to establish a relation between
the Anatomical and the Physiological characters of
the brain, we are free to set out either from the con
sideration of structure or that of function. Now
the mere structure of an organic apparatus rarely
indicates its function, and this is eminently true of
the brain. Its descriptive anatomy, though pretty
accurately known, aids us little in determining the
functions of the several constituent parts. If we
could divide the hemispheres into distinct and well-
defined regions wearing the appearance of organs
prior to the discovery of their functions, the task of
ascertaining the latter would be much facilitated.
But the surface of the hemispheres is continuous,
and apparently similar throughout, and there are
no obvious indications of the appropriation of
different portions to special uses. It is there
fore, not only expedient, but necessary, to begin
with the study of the functions as more directly
accessible — to enumerate and classify these, leaving
it to further inquiry to determine the corresponding

Introductory.

organs. This is, in fact, what has been often
attempted in the history of Mental Science in the
metaphysical stage, but with little real success.

The French, German, and Scottish schools
have, in different ways, endeavoured to con
struct schemes representing the primary pro-
pensions and faculties of man. But there has been
a prevailing disposition to study principally, or
even exclusively, the Understanding, and to neglect
or entirely subordinate the affective qualities, so
that a decisive progress was marked by the title of
Hume's early Treatise of Human Nature (1739).
The notion, too, of the soul as an absolute unity
long prevented, or, at least, obscured the recogni
tion of the great variety of different powers and
more or less discordant tendencies existing in the
same individual, and led metaphysical thinkers to
reduce all the human qualities to one or a very few
principles, as, for example, to represent all the
sentiments and affections as modes of self-love
(Hobbes), and all the intellectual phenomena as
transformed sensations (Condillac).

When we approach the subject from the Positive
point of view, we have to ask in the first place—
What resources has general Biology to offer, which,
with due modifications, will be available for the
study of the cerebral functions ?

This question, indeed, will not arise if the
pretension of the Psychologists can be maintained,
that the one and sufficient organon for the study of

8 Introductory.

the moral and intellectual nature of Man is what is
called internal observation* But the truth is, that
such a process is, in general, radically impossible,
and, even if possible, would be untrustworthy. It
is, of course, true that only from our consciousness,
as made known by memory, we can acquire the
elementary notions of the several mental and moral
impressions and acts ; but that their laws can be
investigated and discovered by self- observation
is certainly an error. The idea that a man can
contemplate himself thinking is absurd ; the mind,
like the eye, sees everything but itself. How
could it, at the same time, pursue some train of
thought and observe its behaviour in doing so? It
must divide itself into two, in order to be thus
simultaneously subject and object. In the case of
feeling, the supposition of its observation by the
intellect is not so absurd; but when the feeling has
any considerable strength, the cerebral excitement
produced is radically opposed to the work of obser
vation; through memory we can receive some ideas
of the nature of the several passions — that is, of the
meaning of their names — but such vague notions,
if not otherwise supplemented, must be of little
scientific value. And, as we have said, if this
internal observation could furnish any substantial
results, they would be untrustworthy, because the

* See the Note on Psychological Introspection in the present
volume.

Introductory.

facts would necessarily be coloured by the idiosyn
crasies of the individual, who would be led to erect
his own constitution into a type of the whole
species ; they would represent the mental pheno
mena appropriate to a particular temperament, sex,
age, state of local and contemporary civilization
and scientific advance. It is no wonder that the
psychologists during their prolonged study of Man
have achieved so little solid success when they have
followed so irrational a mode of inquiry.

What, then, are the real resources available for
the study ? We answer, all those Positive (that is,
genuinely scientific) methods which can be used in
general Biology. First, Observation, not of self,
but of other men, and their normal intellectual and
moral acts and products ; secondly, observation of
pathological cases ; and, thirdly, the comparison of
the like phenomena in other animals, especially
those occupying the higher grades of the organic
series, and therefore most resembling man.

As to the first of these resources, we may add
to the every-day observation of men, which con
tributes so much to the formation of practical
judgment and (in the best sense) " knowledge of
the world," the many just delineations of our
fundamental nature which are to be found in the
poets and other imaginative writers ; and we may
occasionally invoke the common sense of mankind,
too much contemned or overlooked by systematic
theorists. Science, in general, is only a prolongation

I o Introductory.

of popular good sense, which arrives at its con
clusions by essentially similar, though less regular
and guarded, processes. And this authority de
serves to be treated with special respect in regard
to the subject of human nature, so long and
habitually the object of general contemplation and
reflection. Many just notions respecting it are
embodied in proverbs and other common sayings,
and even in individual words, which often indicate
a remarkable sagacity in the apprehension of real
relations.

As to the second resource, bearing in mind the
general biological principle of Broussais, that the
morbid state does not differ radically from the
normal, but is only an exaggeration or reduction
of some of its elements beyond the limits of
variation habitually proper to them, we see what
important aid may be rendered by the study of
insanity in its several forms and degrees. Such
cases, in fact, supply spontaneous experiments,
where we should be debarred from instituting
artificial ones. And we are thus enabled to watch
the manifestations of a particular faculty or moral
tendency, acting in an intensified degree, and un
controlled by thoughts and feelings by which it is
habitually directed or restrained. And, as to the
third resource, it being true that the higher animals
present, in broad outline, though in various degrees,
the same fundamental qualities and tendencies as
man, their study offers the same advantages for the

Introductory. 1 1

investigation of his moral and intellectual nature
as Comparative Physiology furnishes in general
biological research. This comparison with the
other members of the animal series will be especially
useful in determining the really innate and universal
attributes of Man, unmodified by systematic culti
vation or social influences. Any moral propension
or intellectual function alleged to be a constituent
element of human nature, but totally absent in the
other higher zoological types, must be disallowed
as an elementary principle and regarded as a
complex result of artificial culture or of the social
relations.*

It is to be remembered that the cerebral functions,
from the biological point of view, with which we are
here concerned, are regarded only with relation to
the primary destination of animal life generally, as
aiding and facilitating vegetative life, by procuring
materials and avoiding dangers. Man has been
described as "an intelligence served by organs" ;
but he might more justly be characterised, with
respect to his original and fundamental position, as
" a group of organs served by an intelligence." This
relation, it is true, afterwards tends to be inverted,
at least in the higher human types ; but such in-

* See the remarkable Lettres sur les Animaux of Georges
Leroy, edition of 1862, with an excellent preface by Dr. Robinet.
An English translation appeared in 1870. This work is in the
Bibliotheque Positiviste, and Leroy' s name is in Comte's Historic
Calendar.

1 2 Introductory.

version (never more than partial) is the result of
the prolonged and continuous action of the social
state on the individual members of the race. When
we study Man under the head of Biology, we pro
visionally abstract from those social influences,
which remain to be considered at a later stage of
our inquiries. They belong to the province of
Moral Science, which is posterior to Sociology in
the Encyclopedic scale, and presupposes its results.
The principal importance, indeed, of the study of
Cerebral Physiology lies precisely in the fact, that
at least a first outline of it is a necessary pre
liminary to Sociology, which requires as its foun
dation this partial study of the units whose combined
action and continuous development it has to exhibit.
But even for such partial study the subsequent
reaction of Sociology is most valuable; for, the
nature and working of the propensions and faculties
being identical in the individual and the species,
they can be viewed on a larger scale, and therefore
more distinctly seen in the history of the human
race than by observation of their personal mani
festations. When we come to construct moral
theory on the basis of Sociology, we must return
to the consideration of the affective and intellectual
functions of Man, and we shall then be able to regard
them from a higher than the merely biological point
of view, as exercised, cultivated and enlarged by
the social evolution.

Though the primary object of the present study

Introductory. 1 3

is to exhibit a draught of our elementary powers
and tendencies, as distinct from a determination
of the corresponding cerebral organs, it must be
always kept in view that the latter is indispensable
to the scientific completeness of the biological
theory of Human Nature. Every function which
is proved to exist must have its own organ in the
brain, the determination of which, though it may be
postponed, is a task which cannot be indefinitely left
unaccomplished. Here, as in every branch of Bio
logy, a correspondence between organ and function
must be established ; neither the anatomical nor the
physiological aspect can permanently stand alone,
whatever precious instruction either, especially the
latter, can singly furnish. Gall, when laying the
foundations of Cerebral Physiology, was forced to
attempt a detailed scheme of localisation of the
functions, in order to be able to propose a doctrine
capable of general discussion. This was a perfectly
legitimate exercise of the right of forming scientific
hypotheses, which is limited only by the condition
that they should be ultimately verifiable. But the
effort was premature, and his scheme, as a whole,
was certainly a failure, though it contains many
elements likely in the end to find acceptance. What
is now insisted on is that we must always carry with
us the conviction that, to every elementary function
of whose existence there is adequate proof, there cor
responds in the cerebral apparatus a definite organ,
real, though — it may be — at present unassignable.

1 4 Introductory.

We say " to every elementary function " ; for there
can be no doubt that in cerebral action several
organs habitually take part in producing a result,
sometimes in the way of concurrence, and some
times in that of conflict. This is obvious in the
case of different affective impulses, and as between
those impulses and intellectual acts. And it will
be seen hereafter that the scholastic faculties —
reason, judgment, imagination, and the like — are
really composite, the result of the simultaneous
operation of more organs than one. When we
have arrived at a definite number of elementary (or
irreducible) propensions and faculties, it will remain
to show how, by their various combinations, states
of feeling and thought are produced which a hasty
speculator would be apt to attribute to the action
of a single organ. The followers of Gall have
undoubtedly multiplied, without necessity, hypo
thetic organs, especially, as we shall see, in the
department of intellect. For the rectification of
these errors, we shall require a more thorough study
than has yet been carried out of the sympathies
and synergies — as well as the antagonisms — of the
different constituents of our moral and intellectual
nature.

Another preliminary observation must here be
made as to the necessity of recognising the reaction
of the vegetative viscera on the cerebral functions.
This was not sufficiently attended to by Gall, and
thus his construction was injured by its too great

Introductory. \ 5

separation from general Biology. Such a tendency
was heightened by the adoption of the special title
of Phrenology* for the study of the mental and
moral attributes of Man — a title which Gall himself
never used. This name is now further objectionable
on the ground of its appropriation by the vulgar
Cranioscopists, who have compromised the theory
in public estimation by their ignorance and charla
tanism, though they could not destroy the abiding
fame of its illustrious founder, based on the powerful
impulse he gave, and the valuable contributions he
made, to the scientific study of Man.

* The term 'Phrenology,' which was introduced by Spurzheim,
has some advantages. It involves no ontological idea such as is im
plied in Psychology. The Greek word, too, from which it is derived,
includes the affective as well as the intellectual nature. Hence
Comte, in the Philosophic Positive (Le9on 45), suggested the use of
the name Phrenological Physiology, which would prevent the
isolation of the study from general Biology ; but he did not in his
later writings use this name. Cerebral Physiology seems the title
least open to objection.

CHAPTER II.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL POWERS OF MAN.

WE now proceed to the actual analysis of the
mental and moral nature of Man. We shall
reduce our treatment of the subject to a series of
comments founded throughout on the text of Comte,
and relating to his final Table, which is reproduced at
the end of this volume — the " Tableau Systematique
deTAme," otherwise entitled "Positive Classifica
tion of the Eighteen internal functions of the Brain."
With this Table the student should make himself
thoroughly familiar, and should test it by frequent
applications.

It is, in the first place, evident that these
functions are divisible into the two primary classes
of the Affective and the Intellectual. It is, further,
obvious from observation, as well of man as of
the animal kingdom in general, that the heart
(understanding that word metaphorically, in accord
ance with popular usage, to denote the affective
tendencies collectively) preponderates over the
intellect in determining the nature and life of the
individual. These tendencies are instinctive ap
petencies towards particular external ends, inde-

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 1 7

pendent of any intellectual determination, and
not implying a conscious and deliberate pursuit
of the corresponding outward object, or even
necessarily a distinct apprehension of such object.
They are, in fact, blind propensions, stimulating to
action in particular directions, but unable, apart
from the intervention of the intellectual faculties,
to judge of the eligibility of the desired ends or to
indicate the means of attaining those ends. Each
of them may exist in various degrees of strength or
activity, from passions of great intensity to mere
sentiments or modes of feeling. There are normal
limits to their respective energies, and some of
them may enhance or counteract others. All
impulses to action must come from the affective
elements of our constitution. The intellect can
only appreciate facts, not supply motives. It may
by its representations give occasion for the action
of the emotions, may judge of the fitness of
indulging them or point out the means of gratifying
them ; but the practical stimulus lies wholly in the
affective principles. \ The intellectual powers them
selves require to be awakened or stimulated by
those principles, which present to them more or less
definite and permanent aims, and so disperse the
torpor or concentrate the vague activity which
would otherwise, in ordinary cases, benumb or
distract theirs] There is, it is true, inherent in all
our powers, bodily or mental, a demand for their
appropriate exercise, leading, when unsatisfied, to

c

1 8 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

ennui and sometimes even to life-weariness ; but
this, though a real force, is indeterminate in its
character, and is, in general, insufficient to produce,
and still more, to maintain, either practical or
theoretic effort, in the absence of a special emotive
impulse.

Besides the affective tendencies, properly so
called, there are in our nature certain other
qualities, in some sense intermediate between them
and the intellectual faculties, rather aptitudes than
impulses, which are popularly summed up in the
word character, taken in its more limited application,
as when we speak of a " strong character/' or note
a case of the conjunction of a good heart or a
superior intellect with a " weak character." These
qualities it is that determine the more or less
successful results of operations prompted by the
affective tendencies and recommended by the
intellect. These three elements of our being — the
affective motor, the intellectual monitor, the prac
tical director— are combined in every complete act ;
and their joint operation, and the corresponding
triplicity of our nature, are represented by Comte's
"systematic verse" :—

" Agir par affection, et penser pour agir."
(We act from affection, and think in order to act.)

Thus we arrive at a broad general conception of
our cerebral constitution.

We next pass to the consideration of the several

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man . 1 9

particular qualities comprised in the three classes
already recognised.

The Affective motors are evidently divisible into
the personal and the social. The latter appear, more
or less, in all the grades of animality above that at
which the sexes are completely separated. The
entire moral life of Man consists (as we shall see) in
a permanent struggle between these two groups of
motors ; and this struggle must not be regarded as
foreign to the other animal species; it exists in
the higher forms, though with less intensity, and
especially with less continuity, than in the human
type. The personal motors naturally tend to pre
dominate, being inherently stronger than the social.
It is necessary that it should be so ; for the animal
life in general has for its destination in the indi
vidual the maintenance and accommodation of his
vegetative existence, and the needs of this existence
which are always felt and cannot be evaded, domi
nate the being, when his principles of conduct are
found altogether within himself. This spontaneous
prevalence of the egoistic instincts is true of Man,
as well as of the other animals, when he is consi
dered apart from Society. In the social state,
whilst the demands of personal conservation are
still indispensable to give a fixed direction to our
activity and a determinate collective aim, there
is a tendency to an inversion of the comparative
energies of the self-regarding and the altruistic
motors; the "great problem," how personality can

c 2

2O Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

be systematically subordinated to social feeling-
self to the species — is thus proposed. But this
problem is peculiar to our race, and must be dealt
with, not by Biology, but by Morals.

Our next step must be to arrive at an enumera
tion of the really simple and irreducible personal
motors. Taking them in the order of decreasing
energy and increasing dignity (by which last is
meant their appearance only in the higher ranks of
the animal series) we have successively the impulse
which aims at the material conservation of the indi
vidual, or ( i ) the nutritive instinct, where ' nutritive '
implies not the only, but the most obvious and
habitual of its acts ; next, those which tend to con
serve the species, namely, (2) the sexual and (3) the
maternal instincts.

The first of the three is the most indispensable,
and is universal throughout the animal world. In
man it is the most deeply seated and strongest of
all. Comte quotes, in illustration of this, the cele
brated sentence of Dante, in which he speaks of the
parental feelings of Count Ugolino as overborne
by the demands of hunger : -

Poscia, piu che '1 dolor pote '1 digiuno.

Inf. xxxiii. 76. •

The sexual instinct is stronger in the male than
in the female sex of animals in general, and, taking
our race as a whole, is certainly stronger in it than
is required for its useful efficacy. It is satisfied by

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 2 1

the possession of the desired person of the other
sex, without any regard to his or her well being.
We must not deceive ourselves by regarding the
primary instinct as at all identical with the highly
composite sentiment which social influences develop
between worthy types of the sexes, in which a
tender and reverent friendship becomes the princi
pal element of the feeling. It is the nobleness and
wisdom of Humanity that has made the coarse
original passion the basis of the admirable moral
progress resulting to both sexes from a well con
stituted marriage.

The maternal (or parental) instinct, too, essen
tially belongs to the egoistic side of our nature.
Not only in other animals, but also in man, we can
see that it is in fact primarily a propension to con
trol and manage, not to love, our offspring. But
the sympathetic feelings, to be considered hereafter,
are developed, as in the case of the sexual instinct,
by the natural contacts arising from the relation,
chiefly in the mother, but secondarily also in the
father ; and there is thus associated with the instinct
in the finer natures of several animal races a special
tenderness noted and celebrated by the poets of all
ages.* Here again, the providence of Humanity

* Compare the "admirable picture of the moral existence of a
bird," which, as Comte says, Dante has "placed amidst the sub
limities of his Paradise " — " Come 1' augello intra 1' amate fronde,"
Par. xxiii. i ; and the self-denial of the mother- bird, briefly, but
beautifully, touched in Homer, //. ix. 324.

2 2 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

has modified the relation, and so has elevated the
feeling. Society, especially in modern times, has
acted on the family ; and the child, originally a
chattel, often exposed at birth, or sold, or other
wise made an instrument of sordid cupidity, or
subjected to cruel severity or wanton caprice, has
become (though these vicious practices are far from
being altogether obsolete*) more and more an object
of fond devotion, calling out the most beautiful and
noble efforts of self-sacrifice. In the absence of
offspring, the feeling often leads to adoption, or
shows itself in fondness for the children of others or
even for the young of other sociable species. The
early development of the instinct in the human
female is seen in the behaviour of girls to younger
children, and the pleasure they take in managing,
dressing, and talking to their dolls.

Next in the scale follow two, which are also
primarily directed to personal satisfaction, but
are capable, through the reaction of outward cir
cumstances, of becoming promoters of the most
important social ends. Man and the higher animals
seek to improve their position, and this in two
different ways — by the destruction of obstacles and
by the construction of means, or, in other words,

* We have been startled of late by the great number of cases in
which the Societies for the prevention of cruelty to children have had
to restrain or punish the oppressive conduct of parents. Comte
points to the influences of cupidity in determining for children their
professional destination or matrimonial connexions, with little consi
deration of their wishes or probable happiness,

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 23

\ ;

if we designate them by their most obvious social
results, by (4) military-®? (5) industrial action, which
may properly furnish names for the corresponding
instinctive tendencies. The destructive instinct is
not peculiar to the carnivora, but shows itself in
the herbivora also, who must destroy many objects
for their subsistence, and sometimes even other
animals, especially in struggles arising from want
of food or from the sexual impulse. In man, it is
chiefly, though with least useful efficacy, developed
in the less advanced phases of social existence,
where it does not lead, as at a later stage, to per
manent conquest. It is, however, no less than the
constructive instinct, a necessary function at every
stage, and the two must always continue side by
side, though the industrial element, in the course
of human history, has tended, and still tends, to a
decisive predominance ; for, however successful
conviction and persuasion may be in preventing or
abating social evils, compulsion will never cease to
be required. And it is to be observed that the
destructive tendency in man is not limited to the
exercise of physical resistance or constraint, but
may be seen in the energy of political or moral
protestation or in the fire of an orator tearing a
sophism to tatters.

To this couple succeeds another, which works
still more distinctly towards social ends ; seek
ing, indeed, personal satisfaction, but indirectly,
through the opinion of others respecting us, or their

24 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

submission to our control. One of these is the desire
of domination, the other the desire of approbation ;
often known respectively as (6) Pride and (7) Vanity,
though these are names belonging rather to their
excessive than to their ordinary action. They are
sometimes confounded with each other, but are in
fact entirely different. Vanity is the higher, because
the more social, of the two, seeking to establish
personal ascendancy on the basis of opinion instead
of on force. Pride is more connected with temporal
power — command ; Vanity with spiritual influence
—counsel. They are the special germs in our
individual nature of the social institutions of the
Patriciate and the Priesthood.

Having now completed the series of the personal
instincts, from the lowest to the highest, we arrive
at the social, or altruistic, motors. Here dignity
increases, whilst energy diminishes. The latter
inferiority is compensated, to some extent, by the
wider range open to them ; all can participate in
them, not merely without mutual conflict, but to
the greater satisfaction of each. These noble
inclinations are common to several animal races,
exhibiting sometimes in them greater intensity
than in man. There, too, they are seen, free from
the effects of intellectual development, and un
affected by the peculiar influences which act upon
them in human society ; and thus their innate
character is unquestionably proved. Indeed, the
most irresistible evidence of their natural existence

Intellectual and Moral Poivers of Man. 25

in man, which theological and metaphysical soph
istry has often denied, is furnished by the con
vincing proofs of their presence in those inferior
species.

The Altruistic impulses cannot, without con
fusion, be reduced below the three recognised by
Gall, namely (8) Attachment, (9) Veneration, and
(10) Benevolence. In fact, such inclinations may
first be divided into those which have a special
application, and those having a general. The
former are the more intense, but the less noble.
One of them is that which is adapted to the most
circumscribed relations — principally, though not
exclusively, to the domestic circle. It binds
together most strongly two beings at a given time,
and sometimes throughout life. It is the natural
foundation of monogamy and of perpetual volun
tary widowhood. It is developed, sometimes very
strongly, among the lower animals. Veneration is
of wider, but still of limited application. It consists
essentially in voluntary submission, and it naturally
has chiefs or leaders for its objects, whilst Attach-
jnent prefers equality. Many animals are capable
of the sentiment. The dog sometimes honours even
his dead master.* The distinguishing character

* This may recall to our memories Wordsworth's poem, entitled
Fidelity — "A barking sound the shepherd hears." The same poet
finely touches the feelings of attachment and wider sympathy in the
lower animals in his "Incident characteristic of a favourite dog,"
and his " Tribute to the memory of the same dog," See also
Matthew Arnold's beautiful poem—" Geist's Grave,"

26 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

of Benevolence — otherwise goodness (bonte) or, in
Christian phrase, Charity — is its collective desti
nation, as it has for its object a tribe, a popu
lation (in Patriotism), or the whole race, or even
all sentient beings. It becomes weaker, however,
as its sphere extends. Compassion is a form of it.
It is not peculiar to the human race ; but the lower
animals participate in it less than in the two more
special affections. It is so characteristic of humanity,
that that word is equivocal, meaning sometimes
the race, sometimes the affection.

When we come to the study of Morals, the
distinction of the three altruistic motors, previously
established by Biology, becomes of great practical
value, as indicating the true, because the natu
ral, mode of educating the sympathetic feelings —
a discipline which is often,, particularly by the
Socialists, misconceived, as if man were to pass at
once to the supreme sentiment without the previous
training of those which are more special and less
elevated. Our individual lives are naturally and
necessarily subordinated to the three collective
existences — Family, Country, Humanity ; and our
highest wisdom and best happiness consist in the
knowledge and practical recognition of these several
subordinations.

One of the most important conclusions from the
analysis of the affective tendencies which we have
now completed, is the normal classification of
individual natures to which it leads. In judging

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 27

a man, we have to ask what are the motives that
habitually determine his conduct, whatever may be
the means his intellect devises for the attainment
of his ends. The answer will be with respect to
some men, the Altruistic ; with respect to others,
the Egoistic ; and a man must be pronounced good
or bad, according to this criterion, if the inclinations
are well marked. But the majority fluctuate between
these classes, which never contain very many indi
viduals ; to the multitude, those strongly-distinctive
epithets cannot be applied. There is a third type,
directed chiefly by the inclinations intermediate
between the altruistic and egoistic — desire of
power and desire of approbation. From this class,
in the sociable species, most leaders are drawn.
In human society, they seek to command others or
to influence them by counsel, according as they are
led respectively by the one or the other of these
instincts. This classification is applicable, with
due modifications, to all the important animal
races, and the character of a species — as well as
of a social group or a nation— is determined by
the proportions of the several types which compose
it.

Whilst we thus classify individuals in relation to
the affective motors only, which do really fix the
general nature and life of each, we must bear in
mind that the types thus discriminated will depend
in part for their effective action on their possession
of intellectual ability. Accordingly, we now pass

28 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

to the consideration of the mental powers, which
discover the proper means for satisfying the several
affective inclinations. It is here that Comte differs
most widely from Gall. The latter, notwithstanding
his want of a definite scientific method, was kept
substantially right as to the affections, partly by the
indications of popular good sense and partly by the
guidance supplied by animal comparison. But for
the study of the intellect these aids are insufficient.
Popular ideas with respect to it are too vague
and confused to furnish much instruction, and the
observation of animals, though it may confirm,
cannot suggest a true theory. Biology alone is
incompetent to deal successfully with the problem.
Sociology must react on the inferior science; with
out a Positive theory of the collective evolution of
the human race, which was in fact its education, the
nature and march of the intellectual functions can
not be clearly brought to view, though, when thus
apprehended, they can be verified not only in the
human individual but in the more or less cognate
animal species. Gall multiplied the intellectual
powers unduly for want of the sociological inspira
tion, through which alone a just analysis can be
attained ; whilst a recoil from the extravagances of
Condillac and others led him to restrict too much
the domain of the external senses, transferring some
of their operations to special cerebral organs. What
is really strong in him, on this branch of our subject,
is his critical discussion of the doctrines of the

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 29

psychologists and ideologists.* He shows conclu
sively that they err in representing judgment,
memory, and imagination as elementary faculties ;
but he is wrong in viewing them as modes of action
common to all the cerebral organs, affective as well
as intellectual. This last is a grave error. The
powers in question, so prominent in the traditions
of the schools and so familiar to us in ordinary
language, whatever may be their nature otherwise,
are purely intellectual. They are altogether foreign
to the affective part of our constitution. The acts
of the latter have always been justly regarded as
blind, being restricted to feeling and desiring, though
they influence the mental faculties, determining
their destination and stimulating their exercise.
Emotion and impulse are theirs, but these exhaust
their domain ; they are incapable of judgment. Nor
does memory belong to them ; we often cannot recall,
though most desirous of doing so, emotions vivid in
the past, unless they have left behind them traces

* Sur les Fonctions du Cervea,2i et sur celle de chacune de ses
parties, Paris, 1822-1825; see especially Vol. I. A similar criticism,
marked by much acuteness and force, will be found in Broussais's
L } irritation et la folie, Paris, 1828, Preface and Part I.
chap. 5. Broussais at first rejected Gall's system, but became
a convert to it, and, as Comte says, " honourably crowned
his noble career by the conscientious energy with which he
studied and disseminated a doctrine which he had previously
misunderstood." The reference in these words is to Broussais'
Cours de Phrenologie, Paris, 1836, in which work, however, the
illustrious physiologist, whilst treating the general foundations of
the theory with great ability, adopts too indiscriminately the mental
analyses and localisations of Gall and some of his successors.

3O Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

which enable the intellect to present such images
and signs as are fitted to reproduce the vanished
feeling. Imagination, for like reasons, must be
denied to the affective side of our nature. The
only power attributed to the intellect by some meta
physical thinkers, which really belongs to the
affective province, is Will. It is the last state of
desire, when the intellect has recognised a dominant
impulse as one which should be allowed to pass into
action. A true will, capable of determining action,
can never emanate from the intellect ; it is always
the product of an affective motor.

Judgment, Memory, and Imagination being thus
intellectual attributes, are we to regard them as
Elementary functions? Not so; they are really
composite results of several primary mental opera
tions. In judging, the intellect is at once active
and passive ; there is always a combination of
observation and reasoning. The simplest appre
ciation of an external fact is similar in principle
to the solution of a scientific problem. It is an
application of the universal precept of Positive
logic — to form the best hypothesis capable of
representing the ascertained phenomena, or, in the
present case, the immediate data of the senses.
Still less possible is it to regard memory and
imagination as elementary functions.* In order to

* Sir M. Foster, in his learned and instructive " Lectures on the
History of Physiology " (p. 299), says, we are "within measurable
distance of being able to assign, not as feeble, short-lived hypo-

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 3 i

recall past events, complex acts of the mind are
often required, inductions and deductions founded
on the mutual relations of things ; the only
spontaneous part of the process is the tendency of
impressions to reproduce themselves according to
a general law of animal life. And in imagination
there is always joint action of several speculative
powers, and its pictures sometimes imply combina
tions as profound as are involved in scientific
thought, though not of equally abstract nature. A
consideration confirming these conclusions is the
following — that all the classifications of the several
branches of knowledge founded on these pretended
faculties, such as those of Bacon and D'Alembert,*
are admittedly failures ; and the same may be

theses, but as proved experimental results, to sensation its seat, to
memory its seat, and even to imagination its seat." On this I may
be permitted, first, to observe that the writer leaves out of account, as
much as did the older physiologists, the affective elements of our
nature, which he would not, I suppose, localise in the viscera, and, se
condly, to venture the prediction that distinct organs of memory and
imagination will never be assignable, but only organs whose com
bined action produces the effects commonly attributed to those
powers. I doubt the existence, which he implies, of a sensoritim
commune, additional to the several ganglia of sensation.

* Bacon says (Advancement of Learning, Book ii.): — "The parts
of human learning have reference to the three parts of Under
standing, which is the seat of learning : History to his Memory,
Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason." D'Alem-
bert, in the Explication detaillee du Systeme des Connaissances
humaineSy prefixed to the Encyclopedic, founds his classification, as
Bacon did, on the supposed principal faculties of the understanding
above-named, and indeed adopts the entire scheme of his prede
cessor, introducing only minor modifications especially relative to
the head of " Philosophy, or Science."

3 2 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

confidently asserted with respect to classifications of
individual intellects which it is attempted to base on
them. The particular memories alleged by Gall -will
be found, on thorough examination, to be results of
situation or training, combined with special differ
ences of energy in some of the universal faculties.

In considering the question — What are the
primary or irreducible intellectual powers ? we have
to keep in mind that all our real knowledge consists
exclusively of facts and laws, that is, of phenomena,
either particular or general.

The irreducible operations must be abstract in
their nature, so as to be applicable alike to all the
products of our intelligence. The march of the
intellect is always essentially the same, whether in
practical combinations, or in theoretic compositions,
aesthetic or scientific*; and we must therefore reject
the too special faculties sometimes admitted by
Gall's successors in cerebral physiology.

There are, in the first place, two sorts of mental
faculty, relative respectively to conception and
expression. That these are distinct, their morbid
affections prove. In the normal state the latter are
subordinate to the former. In childhood the power

* This subject of the fundamental similarity of the processes fol
lowed by the human mind in its various labours is ably treated in Mile.
Sophie Germain's posthumous treatise — " Considerations generates
sur 1'etat des Sciences et des Lettres." See her (Euvres Philoso-
phiques, edited, with a biographical notice, by H. Stupuy, Paris,
1879. Comte highly esteemed her philosophic powers, and gave her
name a place in his Historic Calendar.

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 33

of expression is earliest developed ; formulas are
learned— before they can be really understood.
Different human types and different animals pos
sess these two sorts of faculty in varying propor
tions.

When, in the ascending order of the zoological
series, the training of the young and a real domes
tic life, with something of a social state, come into
existence, the function of Conception, which at
lower stages was probably single, is divided, and
takes two separate forms, Contemplation and Me
ditation. The one receives from without through
the sensory organs the primitive materials of
mental constructions. On the basis of these, Medi
tation forms the more or less general combinations
which are to direct habitual conduct.* _ Ideas, pro
perly so called (that is, images), belong to Contem
plation, while Meditation produces thoughts. It is
an entire mistake to regard either of these faculties
as a peculiar appanage of our species. In the higher
grades of the animal kingdom, as we have said,
they both exist in different degrees, being as neces
sary there as they are for us in personal, family,
and especially social life. The nutritive wants, the
sexual relations, and the care of the young excite
every day not only observations but reflections.

* Contemplation is more developed in woman : meditation in man.
And a similar difference between the sexes exists in relation to
Inductive and Deductive meditation.

3 4 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Me

an.

Sagacity, prevision, and invention cannot be rea
sonably denied to several of the inferior animal
races.

Thus, so far, we have arrived, primarily, at a
combination — Conception and Expression — and
afterwards, by analyzing one of its members, at
a progression which represents the natural march
of the intellect — first, Contemplation, then Medita
tion, and, finally, Communication. We must further
decompose the two former, following our general
method of classification according to increasing
speciality and decreasing importance, in order to
obtain really elementary, that is, irreducible func
tions. The communicative faculty, that of language,
does not admit of division. But Contemplation,
which observes facts, is twofold. It is either (n)
Synthetic, Concrete — consisting in the observation
of beings, and therefore most subservient to Art ; or
it is (12) Analytic, Abstract — appreciating events,
and therefore specially active in Science. Ideas,
properly so called, emanate only from Concrete
Contemplation, a true image being always of a
being, never of a pure phenomenon. Meditation,
which discovers laws, is also divisible, as either
(13) Inductive, which compares, forms groups, and
generalises; or (14) Deductive, which co-ordinates,
forms hierarchies, and systematises. Thus Con
templation observes (a) beings, then (6) events;
Meditation (a) elaborates principles, (<£) then
derives consequences.

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 35

As to (15) Language, it is the final issue, in
domestic and social existence, of this mental series.
It is also capable of employment by the human
individual, as a test of the maturity of his concep
tions, and a means of improving them. In the
lowest animal species, where life is purely personal,
expression results from acts themselves, which in
voluntarily indicate the impulses from which they
emanate. Elsewhere, a clearer and more direct
transmission of feeling and thought is necessary
for the establishment of concert between different
beings with a view to obtaining sympathy or assist
ance. Language, as an institution, begins with the
imitation of natural signs. These are insufficient
when relations become complex and frequent, and
a more or less artificial language arises. Its first
elements result from decomposition of spontaneous
cries or gestures. It is gradually developed and
systematised till it becomes the continuous depository
of the collective sense of the community. The
domestic transmission of the "mother tongue" is
the most precious part of the heritage of each
human individual, and is the first basis of all
instruction.

The essential office of the faculty — the invention
and learning of signs — does not change when,
instead of mimetic movements, vocal sounds come
to be chiefly or exclusively employed. The uni
versal preference of the latter as instruments of
expression is not only determined by the greater

D 2

36 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

comprehensiveness and definiteness thus attained:
it depends also on the spontaneous correspondence
between the voice and hearing ; we can talk to
ourselves, and this makes oral expression capable
of continuous improvement.

The importance of language for the solitary
utterance, and so, either for the calming or ex
altation, of sentiment is most appreciable when
we consider religious practices. Its reaction on
thought is universally recognised. For true lan
guage, as distinct from empty verbiage, the cerebral
faculty of expression must be subordinated to the
four other intellectual powers — to the two species
of Contemplation, respectively, for names of sub
stances and of properties ; to the two sorts of
Meditation for means of comparison and processes
of co-ordination.

Now, having sufficiently dealt with the affective
impulses and the consultative work of the Intellect,
we have to pass in review the qualities of Character,
properly so called, on which depends the final reali
sation of the result wished for and prepared. These
practical aptitudes evidently are (16) Courage (or
Energy) to undertake an operation, (17) Prudence
(or Circumspection) in executing it, and (18) Firm
ness (or Perseverance) to carry it through. No
practical success can, in general, be achieved
without a sufficient combination of these three
qualities. They are in themselves independent
alike of the affective nature and the intellect ; their

Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man. 37

exercise, like that of the emotions, is blind ; they
are as much disposed to assist bad designs as good,
and obey the impulses alike of the higher, the mean,
and the lower inclinations ; and they may be called
into energetic exercise in pursuit of chimerical ends
and impossible projects, though, of course, practical
efficiency is much furthered by right feeling and
sound thinking.

Each of the eighteen cerebral functions which
we have now completely enumerated can act apart,
but our operations usually require the concurrence
of several faculties. The synergy of the affective
and active regions is scarcely denied ; it is only
for the intellect that independence is claimed. But
the truth is, that it can only choose between two
masters, the personal inclinations and the social.
When it believes itself free, it is in fact obeying the
egoistic instincts. Every sort of intellectual opera
tion is stimulated by a moral impulse. Attention,
even in its lowest degree, depends on some affection ;
and this is still more true of meditation. Again,
the intellect is dependent on the character no less
than on the heart, The theorician, as well as the
practical man, requires courage, circumspection,
and perseverance. Failure of the intellect is less
frequently due to its own insufficiency than to an
ill-regulated heart or an impotent character. This
joint action of different cerebral faculties or qualities
is the most important harmony in the animal con
stitution ; but it should never be forgotten that the

3 8 Intellectual and Moral Powers of Man.

brain must also be studied in its relations with the
whole organism, not only with the mechanisms of
sensation and motion, but with the vegetative
viscera. Without such a study we must fail to
appreciate the consensus of the human system as
an indivisible whole, and should not do justice to
the synthetic character of Physiological Science.*

* Comte always recognises the vitalistic school of Stahl and
Barthez as compensating its ontological tendencies by its synthetic
spirit. In estimating the merits of Stahl and fixing his position in
the history of Science, his great philosophical service in this respect
is sometimes not sufficiently considered. Justice can be done to him
without depreciating the important work of the physico-chemical
school, though it was affected by the opposite vice of a materialistic
tendency.

CHAPTER III.

CEREBRAL ORGANS OF THE MORAL AND
INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

HAVING completed the theory of the moral and
intellectual functions of human and animal
nature, we turn to that of the corresponding organs.
Whilst recognising the valuable practical results
to be attained by the physiological study considered
separately, and without entertaining an exaggerated
notion of the importance of the anatomical comple
ment, we must yet regard it as requisite for a com
plete cerebral theory that a sufficient correlation
should be established between the functions and
the organs.

Comte's anatomical theory of the brain is, he
admits, less precise and less convincing than his
physiological theory. He did not judge it possible
to do more at present than to assign the situation of
each organ, leaving indeterminate their respective
forms and magnitudes. Even the situation is more
or less hypothetical ; and it must be the work of
anatomists in the future to ascertain the shape and
size of the eighteen organs whose existence is
inferred from the physiological investigation. One

40 Cerebral Organs of the Moral

day there must be brought to light such differences
— physical, chemical, or of minute structure — be
tween different portions of the brain as will indi
cate the limits and the dimensions of the several
organs; and then, the various applications of the
Comparative Method will gradually supply a well-
supported scheme of localisation. But even previous
to this verifying process, the hypothetic arrange
ment proposed by Comte will be found highly useful.
It is the best concrete representation ever suggested
of the entire nature of man and the higher animals,
enabling us to recall readily, and to place in their
proper relations to each other, the several faculties
and tendencies which compose that nature. This
operation of assigning situations to the several
organs is, indeed, in Comte' s view, founded
altogether on the general principle, that their rela
tive situations must be conformable to the true
relations of the corresponding functions already
enumerated.

The first application of this principle is in de
termining the respective positions of the two groups
of the intellectual and the moral organs (the latter
comprehending the character as well as the heart].
Now, the former must be so placed as to be in con
nexion with each sensory apparatus through which
they appreciate the outer world, and must therefore
have their seat in the frontal region — a conclusion
which agrees with the inspirations of ordinary good
sense. The rest of the brain — much its larger

and Intellectual Powers. 4 1

part — will thus belong to the affective qualities and
the practical aptitudes.

The affective region has no direct apprehension
of, or immediate action on, external things ; but it
is in communication with the intellectual and prac
tical regions, receiving from the former impressions
which awaken its emotions, and transmitting to the
latter impulses which emanate from its desires. The
seat of the active aptitudes must be intermediate
between those of the affective qualities and the
intellect. The affective motors — themselves blind —
require the intervention of the intellect, but only to
judge of the fitness of their desires ; whilst the
executive aptitudes need to be informed by the
intellect of the whole outward situation in order to
accomplish the wished-for result. The practical
qualities are thus more closely connected with the
intellectual functions, and their organs must be
nearer to the frontal region than to the postero-
inferior. This view represents to us in a pictorial
form the general economy of human and higher
animal nature — the relations of its affective, specu
lative, and active constituents — heart, intellect, and
character. The affective region is the essential
centre of moral existence and animal spontaneity,
and chiefly determines the nature and life of the
being. The other two regions are in relation with
external things — the one to know, the other to
modify them. Feeling, whilst inspiring and sus
taining both these, has no direct cognisance of

42 Cerebral Organs of the Moral

what is without ; but it is acted on by the vege
tative viscera, and, in its turn, reacts on them.

It is obvious that some organs may be median ,
that is, occupying a continuous space divided be
tween the right and left hemispheres ; or bi-lateral,
consisting of two portions apart from each other,
but similarly situated in the two hemispheres. In
either case the symmetry recognised by Bichat as
characteristic of the animal portion of the organism
exists, and enables each organ, by intermittence of
function of one of its two divisions, to alternate,
without absolute cessation, periods of activity and
repose. The entire organ will at times be quies
cent. Comte, however, believed that, whilst the
action of the intellectual and practical organs, con
nected as it is with external impressions or move
ments, may be entirely suspended, the affective
region is never wholly dormant, and thus, even
in sleep, the animal continuity is preserved, and
the cerebral action on the vegetative functions is
uninterrupted.

We shall first assign the most probable seats
of the affective motors, beginning with the seven
egoistic instincts.

That which has for its province the material
preservation of the organism, and is, as we have
seen, the most indispensable and fundamental ele
ment in the entire cerebral system, is best placed in
the central portion of the cerebellum ; whilst that
which has for its office the continuation of the

and Intellectual Powers. 43

species is to be regarded as residing in its double
lateral expansion. The seat of the maternal instinct
is above the cerebellum in the median part of the
lower posterior brain ; this situation harmonising
with the increased dignity and diminished energy
of function. The higher, but still personal, impulses
of the military and industrial instincts are to be
conceived as lodged, the former in a bi-lateral
organ, at the sides of the maternal instinct, the
latter, in a median, above it. The desire of power
and that of approbation, more elevated and social
qualities than those hitherto enumerated, should be
placed, the former at the sides of the industrial in
stinct, the latter immediately above it on the median
line. Thus is completed the group of organs cor
responding to the egoistic motors, and the relatively
great volume of this group is conformable to the
natural ascendancy of these impulses in the animal
constitution.

Coming next to the three altruistic motors, we
place the noblest of all the moral instincts — that of
Benevolence — in the highest median portion of the
frontal brain, in immediate proximity to the in
tellectual region. Directly behind it is the seat of
Veneration. To the rear of the latter we leave for
the present a blank space, to be hereafter appropri
ated to one of the practical organs. Attachment
we conceive as adjoining Veneration on either side,
and extending backwards so as to be in contact
below with the Desire of Approbation ; and thus

44 Cerebral Organs of the Moral

the local continuity of the affective principles is
maintained.

The speculative region can now be considered,
corresponding to the powerswhichjudge of the oppor
tuneness of the affective impulses, and suggest the
means of satisfying them. It contains, as the phy
siological investigation has shown, five organs, four
presiding over the processes of conception, and the
fifth over the expression of the results. Passive Con
ception (or Contemplation) must be in direct relation
with the organs of sensory perception, and is there
fore situated in the lower frontal region. The upper
portion of the same region naturally belongs to
Active Conception (or Meditation), which elaborates
the materials transmitted by Contemplation. This
disposition places in contiguity to the affective
region that intellectual organ which, when furnished
with information from without, gives the final deci
sion on the impulses emanating from the several pro-
pensions. But, as we saw in the preceding part of
the present treatise, neither Contemplation nor Medi
tation is an absolutely irreducible function. They
are, each, divisible into two simpler operations.
These are designated, in the case of Contempla
tion, by the respective epithets " Concrete" and
"Abstract," the former dealing with beings, the
latter with events. The former is more, the latter
less, directly connected with external impressions.
Concrete Contemplation has a double organ, each
of its parts above one of the eyes and extending

and Intellectual Powers* 45

towards the corresponding ear, whilst the seat of
Abstract Contemplation is on the same level in the
frontal median line. Meditation, again, as we have
recognised, is twofold — Inductive, acting by com
parison, and Deductive, by co-ordination. The
former resides in a double organ placed at the
sides of the upper frontal region and touching the
seat of Concrete Contemplation, whilst Deductive
(or Systematizing) Meditation is situated in the
middle of the same superior region, where it is in
immediate contact with the noblest of the affective
motors, to whose service it is especially devoted.
The fifth and last intellectual function, that of
Language — the invention and use of signs — has its
double seat at the lateral extremities of the specu
lative region, and is thus equi-distant from the eye
and the ear, which are its chief auxiliaries, accord
ing as expression is by gesture or by speech. It
is also in contact with the practical region, with
whose functions it specially co-operates, and is, in
fact, the link which connects that region with the
intellectual organs.

We come lastly to the closer consideration of
this practical region, which presides over the
execution of projects originated by the affective
motors and sanctioned by the intellect. Firmness
(or Perseverance) is a median organ situated in the
space formerly left vacant, behind Benevolence and
in front of the Desire of Approbation. Prudence
(or Circumspection) is a double organ at the sides

46 Cerebral Organs of the Moral

of Firmness, inclining forward towards the intel
lectual region, and crossing, at its outset, Attach
ment, which stretches in the opposite direction.
The remaining practical aptitude, Courage, occu
pies the sides of the double organ of the Desire of
Approbation. By this arrangement, the practical
region touches both the affective and the intellec
tual, with which its offices are in relation — at once
receiving counsel and carrying wills into effect;
and it is in contact alike with the nobler, middle,
and lower affective motors, to all of which it is
occasionally subservient.

This completes Comte's scheme of localisation,
which — as we have already said — is limited to the
single question of relative situation, without seeking
to fix the forms or magnitudes of the several organs.
It is essentially founded on the relations of the
functions, considered in themselves, apart from any
but the most obvious anatomical suggestions. It is
accordingly hypothetic, but conforms to the logical
conditions of normal hypothesis by being ultimately
verifiable, and representing best all the positive
notions on the subject at present attained or avail
able. It will be the work of anatomists in the future
to test its conclusions, and to establish a complete
harmony between the Subjective method of study,
which must here, by the nature of the case, have
the initiative, and the Objective, by which it is
highly desirable, if not absolutely necessary, that it
should be supplemented. The resources available

and Intellectual Powers. 47

for this anatomical study are mainly those of the
Comparative Method, which is specially character
istic of Biology. It admits of varied applications
to different individuals, ages, sexes, nations, and
animal races. Morbid phenomena — those of intel
lectual delusion and moral perversion, of insanity
and of certain forms of crime, will also be subjects of
study from this point of view, affording — as they do-
real experiments.* But the violent processes often
resorted to, such as the removal or mutilation of
portions of the living structure or such alterations
of the medium as are destructive of the organism, are
not only in the human case impossible, and in their
application to the lower animals open to objection
on moral grounds, but will commonly fail in cerebral
research, owing to the general disturbance thus
introduced into an economy which, more than any
other, is characterised by an intimate consensus.

In the meantime, until this further research is
completed, the scheme above explained is certainly
much superior to the first draught due to the founder
of cerebral physiology, even as judiciously modified
by some of his successors, and offers at least a
sufficient synthesis of statical and dynamical con-

* The true nature of scientific experiment does not lie in the
artificial arrangement of the circumstances of a phenomenon, but in
the rational selection of cases which are best adapted to bring" to
light its essential character. The cases may be spontaneous or
factitious, and the former may be as instructive as the latter. The
one thing needful is a well-defined change of the conditions, leading
to a corresponding variation in the phenomenon.

48 Organs of the Moral and Intellectual Powers.

ceptions to supply a working theory and to inspire
rational general views bearing on Sociology and on
practical Moral discipline.

This last is really the final goal of all intellectual
research ; and the doctrine here expounded enables
us to state in complete form and in definite Positive
terms the great Human Problem which must preside
alike over thought and action, namely — How to
make the three altruistic organs, seconded by the
five intellectual, habitually surmount the seven
egoistic motors, so as to consecrate the three active
powers to the continuous service of Humanity.

CHAPTER IV.

POSITIVIST MORALS.

IN seeking to construct a system of Morals we must
set out from the conclusions arrived at in our
Biological investigations. We recall the fact that
there are in Man a number of affective instincts which
impel him to action and determine the nature of
his activity. A few of these — and they intrinsically
the less energetic — incline us to love and serve our
brother-men and our sentient fellow-beings gener
ally ; whilst a larger group lead us to pursue certain
outward objects without any regard to the welfare of
others. The former we call the altruistic, the latter
the egoistic, feelings. These are the only motor
impulses which exist in our nature ; they alone
prompt to action. Intellect suggests considerations
which recommend or discountenance the gratification
of those impulses, and devises means of attaining
the ends at which they aim ; but it has no impelling
power, and, in their absence or inertia, would leave
us quiescent. Such is the multiplicity and variety
of our affective principles that, if they were left free
to work according to their respective energies, the
individual would be impelled, at different times, not

E

50 Positivist Morals.

merely in different, but often in opposite directions,
and no continuously predominant temper of the soul
could be attained. The man would be the sport of
every "random gust" of feeling within, and, as the
result of this, his external activity would be marked
by fluctuation, irresolution, and inefficiency. But
the demand for internal harmony and outward con
sistency and continuity is a real and abiding force.
The poet justly speaks of "the weight of chance
desires"; he is tired of an "unchastened freedom";*
and in these words he gives expression to a universal
consciousness out of which arises " the great Human
Problem" — how to establish and maintain a suffi
cient unity in our being — a sufficient convergence
of our motor principles to a common destination,
without which it is obvious, and is experimentally
known to us, that we cannot be at peace with our
selves, t

It might at first be supposed that there are two

* These phrases are quoted from Wordsworth's fine " Ode to

Duty."

fj. S. Mill is somewhat impatient of Comte's insistance on
" unity." But surely its importance is recognised by all notable
moral teachers. " How long halt ye between two opinions ? " " No
man can serve two masters ... ye cannot serve God and Mammon."
See St. James i. 6, 8. Or consider the following words from the
Imitation : " Cui omnia unum sunt, et qui omnia ad unum trahit et
omnia in uno videt, potest stabilis corde esse et in Deo pacificus
permanere. . . . Quanto aliquis magis sibi unitus et interius sim-
plificatus fuerit, tanto plura et altiora sine labore intelligit, quia
desuper lumen intelligentise accipit." Positivism accepts fully the
spirit of these sentences.

Positivist Morals. 5 i

different modes in which this unity could be attained,
according as the personal or the altruistic impulses
are habitually predominant ; and it is true that unity
is reached on the former basis in the lower grades
of the animal series, where the sexes are not separated
and the nutritive instinct has almost undisputed
control. As our observations ascend through the
biological scale, we find germs of a unity founded
on sympathetic feeling. In the highest animal
races there are sometimes noble and beautiful
examples of unselfish devotion, especially to their
offspring, as well as of voluntary subordination and
self-dedication to the service of Man. But, taken as
.a whole, the basis of such unity as they possess is
egoistic. In our own species, the consensus of the
individual — his inner harmony — if it is to be
thorough and abiding, must rest on the ascendancy
of the altruistic instincts. Not only is the life of
relation more fully developed in individual human
nature, but the social state, domestic and civic,
which, in any high degree, is peculiar to our race,
demands a large development of sympathy, and
also constantly tends to repress egoism and evoke
altruism. It is the admirable property of the
benevolent affections that, whilst intrinsically a
source of the deepest and purest satisfaction and
reproducing themselves by virtue of their inherent
charm, they involve no conflict, such as the self-
regarding feelings often create, between different
individuals, but, on the contrary, awaken responsive

E 2

5 2 Positivist Morals.

sentiments and propagate themselves by moral
contagion.

But though the influences of social life produce,
in some degree, such an effect, nourishing our
sympathetic and atrophying our selfish instincts,
a more profound as well as systematic and con
tinuous action on the heart is necessary to solve the
Human Problem — to invert the relative energies
of those opposite motors, and subordinate the
naturally stronger to the feebler but more noble
impulses.

To establish human unity is the work of
Religion, and a complete solution of the problem of
unity is for the first time reached in the final — that
is, the Positive religion, which makes known to
us Humanity, not merely as an aggregate of in
dividuals, but as a real collective Being, superior to
ourselves whilst homogeneous with us, controlling
our destinies and sympathising with our efforts, and
to which we are indebted for immense benefits. In
earlier social stages, mankind attributed to imaginary
Powers, not only the phenomena of the outer world,
but also the happy influences exerted on our lot by
the collective life ; and, through willing subordina
tion to these supposed benefactors, a certain unity
was rendered possible, and was in fact increasingly
realised. But that unity was necessarily imperfect
and precarious — imperfect, because those ideal
existences were often conceived as not only diverse,
but mutually hostile : and precarious, because the

Positivist Morals. 53

corresponding beliefs, even when rationalised to the
utmost, being purely subjective, discrepant amongst
themselves, and at variance with scientific fact,
tended in process of time to be enfeebled and to
disappear. A conviction of the subjection of all
phenomena to invariable laws has been gradually
reached, as the outcome of a vast induction ; and
the theory of the government of the world by
supernatural wills has become incredible. There
has risen in its place — as we have said — the re
cognition of Humanity as a perennial Power,
submitted — like all other beings — to the unifor
mities of co-existence and succession constituting
the spontaneous order of the world, but modifying
that order through Her acquired knowledge of
natural laws, and inspired by the conscious per
sistent aim of working out on our planet, so far
as is consistent with our fatalities and limitations,
a scheme of universal good. Using, then, the
language of Religion, we say that the definitive
unity of the individual will be reached through
devotion to this true Great Being, whose existence
and attributes no scepticism can dispute, and
whose constant benefits, when rightly appreciated,
must excite gratitude and love^ Religion, appeal
ing to and fortifying the altruistic principles in
our nature, calls upon us to suppress every in
ternal movement and abstain from every act which
is opposed to the maintenance and development
of the life of Humanity, and to cultivate all

54 Positivist Morals.

the tendencies that promote Her well-being and
further Her work. To know Humanity within
the attainable limits becomes the task to which
intellect should be consecrated, to serve Her
the work to which our practical energies should
be devoted ; and thus a profound harmony is
established between the different elements of our
nature — Affection, Thought, and Action. And,
whilst the altruistic impulses are made predominant,
the personal instincts retain their due place; they
are recognised as indispensable in the conditions of
our life; their legitimate satisfaction is justified,
and, though subordinated, they are dignified as the
necessary basis and condition of useful social
activity.

Except in some happily constituted natures, a
perfect spiritual harmony, though always the ideal
type or limit, is reached only in brief periods of
exaltation and self- surrender. The characteristic
fact of our ordinary moral life, as we have more
than once indicated, is the recurring conflict
between the personal instincts and the social
affections. The former are felt to be the stronger
in themselves; but the latter are always present
and protest against the ascendancy of the others ;
and the question is again and again debated which
are to prevail; moral progress being marked by
the more frequent and easier prevalence of the
altruistic motors. This is the struggle which St.
Paul recognised when he spoke of the Spirit and

Positivist Morals. 55

the Flesh — of nature and grace — as in constant
antagonism.* Positivists differ from him only in
this — that the office which he attributed to super
natural grace, they assign to natural agencies,
which they seek by organised intervention to
strengthen and generalise.

It will be observed that, in our enumeration of
the fundamental elements of human nature, the
name of Conscience, or of the so-called Moral
Sense, does not appear. There does not, in fact,
exist in our constitution any principle which knows
intuitively, and pronounces with decisive authority
on, the duties of men. We have, indeed, spontane
ous sentiments of moral approval and disapproval,
but they are the result of indirect and composite
actions of our cerebral nature. The instincts which
impel us to benefit others, imply and contain within
them a feeling of good will to those who manifest
similar affections, and of sympathy with the actions
prompted by those affections ; and, as liking
implies disliking, we are repelled by sentiments and
acts which are at variance with those affections.
Our earliest moral appreciations are of the
sentiments and acts of others. When our own are
made objects of our contemplation, they necessarily
affect us in the same way, unless self-partiality

* So also the great Catholic Mystic : "Quis habet fortius certamen
quam qui nititur vincere seipsum ? Et hoc deberet esse negotium
nostrum : vincere videlicet seipsum et quotidie fortiorem fieri et in
melius proficere, . . . Oportet ut discasteipsum in multis frangere."

56 Positivist Morals.

should dull, or violent passion distort, our feeling.
When a vicious impulse has been gratified, and so
becomes quiescent, regret, or even remorse, is felt,
because the altruistic instincts, no longer silenced
by passion, speak once more, and we are dissatisfied
with ourselves.

But whilst all morality has its origin in the social
affections, these are far from supplying an adequate
guidance to conduct. That can be found only in a
rational study of the consequences of feelings and
acts as affecting public or private welfare — con
sequences which are not, by any means, always
obvious, for we must remember that benevolent in
clinations are, in themselves, as blind as the egoistic,
and may, in practice, sometimes defeat their own
end. The altruistic impulses being supposed duly
operative, the question remains — What are the real
tendencies of any act or habit in relation to the well-
being of Humanity, which those impulses set before
us as the aim of our action ? And this is matter for
scientific investigation. Moral precepts are capable
of demonstration, as resting on the knowledge of
our personal arid social nature and the facts of our
situation ; and convictions founded on that know
ledge may be as strong as those based on scientific
evidence in other provinces. Such convictions, if
early formed and deeply impressed upon the mind,
will be able to resist not only the persistent pressure
of the selfish instincts, but — what are more danger
ous — their sudden and unforeseen assaults.

Positivist Morals. 57

Whilst the determination of duties is a matter of
scientific proof, there may, and perhaps always will,
be persons incapable of apprehending, in some in
stances, the demonstrations which establish moral
rules; but under the Positive regime, they will be
accepted on similar grounds to those on which, for
example, the Earth's double motion is universally
recognised. Moral beliefs, in fact, except in simple
cases, where their foundations are obvious, will
be just and beneficent social prejudices ; they will
always be demonstrable, but seldom demonstrated.
It is not by the teaching of moral theorems that
virtue is to be so much promoted as by the direct
expansion of the social sentiments, which must,
therefore, be developed from the earliest age by all
the artifices which a sound philosophy or a sagacious
empiricism can suggest. The principal resource
will be the cultivation of practical habits ; for in the
moral art, as in all others, we learn to do things by
doing them.

The special feature which distinguishes Positivist
Morality is its pervading social character, All moral
questions are referred to the well-being of Humanity.
The " duties to ourselves/' on which moral theorists
sometimes dwell, have, as such, no meaning for the
Positivist. The duties themselves, which are in
tended, are indeed real ; but they are to be regarded,
not from the personal, but from the social, point of
view. The corresponding virtues are obligatory,
because they adapt us for the better service of

58 Positivist Morals.

Humanity. Without the practice, for example, of
sobriety and continence, we cannot perform our
social functions aright. This way of regarding
personal morality removes all that is arbitrary in
the conduct of our individual lives, and leads us, in
contemplating particular acts, even such as might at
first seem indifferent, to look beyond them to the
habits they form and the capacities they develop,
which are generally more important than their im
mediate consequences. And we are thus taught,
not only to condemn undue self-indulgence, but to
disapprove (whilst respecting the motives which
sometimes dictate them) such excessive austerities
as weaken forces which ought to be husbanded for
social uses.

Two further remarks are needed for the complete
elucidation of Positivist Morals.

i. " Right" and "Wrong" are commonly re
garded as qualities inherent in actions, whatever the
vague word "inherent" maybe supposed to mean.
But it is plain that these qualities have relation to
the contemplative and meditative action of an
observing intellect, as well as to the sympathetic
sentiment of an affective nature. This considera
tion, whilst it renders it impossible for us to speak
of Morality as "eternal" and "immutable," does
not at all make it either arbitrary or dependent
on the peculiarities of the individual. Its funda
mental rules of conduct are indeed relative; but
it is to collective Humanity that they are relative,

Positivist Morals. 59

and they are, therefore, valid so long as the essential
nature and situation of man remain what they are,
being the necessary outcome of the general con
stitution of the species and its relation to the per
manent environment. But the more detailed and
special rules are relative also to the successive
states of society arising from its dynamical laws.
They become more numerous with the progress of
social development and the growing complexity of
social life, and are modified in their substance by
our increasing knowledge of sociological, and even
cosmological, laws. Obvious examples are supplied
by the cases of Slavery and Polygamy, and by the
altered duties imposed on individuals by changes in
the system of civil government or by the evolution
and recognition of a Spiritual Power.

2. For Positivists, " rights" of individuals do
not exist in the sphere of morals ; with the dis
appearance of supernatural wills, from which alone
they could originate, they lose their meaning.
Apart from special prescriptions of human law, on
which, no doubt, rights may be founded which in its
sphere are valid, we recognise only duties, and this
at once changes the spirit and tone in which ques
tions of mutual obligation are approached. For
stormy self-asserting controversy, peaceable im
partial study is substituted. By a "duty" we
understand a useful social function voluntarily dis
charged. When it is so regarded, all that is vague
and mystical in the notion of a " right" is cleared

6o Positivist Morals.

away ; and the claim of Humanity on our service
takes its place. The one right (if we will persist in
using the word) which any member of society can
demand at the hands of his fellows is that of being
free to do his duty, and being, within reasonable
limits, enabled and assisted to do it.

For the moral regeneration of society, which is
the great aim on which Positivism seeks to con
centrate human effort, the principal resource must
lie in Education. And the Education of the future
must be, principally and throughout, religious, not
indeed in the old, but in the Positive sense. The
modern intellect has revolted against this truth,
when proclaimed especially by Catholicism, because
it repudiated the ascendancy of the decadent faiths.
But the Religion of Humanity re-asserts the claim,
which lost its hold on progressive minds by being
associated with retrograde beliefs. It will begin, in
the domestic circle and under the guardianship of
the mother, to train the heart of the child and dis
cipline his habits, so as to prepare him for the
future effective service of the true Great Being.
The germs then deposited will be developed by the
priesthood in the later systematic education of the
youth, all knowledge, from the most elementary
truths of science upward to its highest regions,
being sanctified by this presiding destination. And
these influences will be continued in the maturer
life of the believer by the permanent consultative
action of the Sacred Order, by the Social Sacra-

Positivist Morals. 6 1

ments which will be the moral landmarks of his life,
by the regular practice of private prayer, and by
the solemn and imposing festivals of the Church of
Humanity.

CHAPTER V.

THE MORAL SYSTEM OF POSITIVISM COMPARED WITH
BISHOP BUTLER'S.

THOUGH Positivists are generally averse to con
troversy, especially to criticism directed
against the best of the preparatory religious systems,
it has been thought expedient, for the better under
standing of the doctrine expounded in the present
volume, to place beside it an authentic statement,
with the necessary comments, of views which
the Christian theologians of recent times have
generally adopted, so that it might be easily seen
how far the two bodies of opinion on the Nature of
Man and the Foundation of Morals agree and in
what respects they differ. We have chosen the writ
ings of Bishop Butler as expressing the Theological
doctrine, because he is regarded as the ablest writer
on Morals who belongs to that School. He, says
Stewart, " has gone farther towards a just explana
tion of our moral constitution than any other modern
philosopher"; and a similar judgment would, we
believe, be expressed by the so-called "orthodox"
British moralists with scarcely a single exception.*

* The comparison here instituted will necessarily involve a certain
amount of repetition of what occurs in the earlier part of the volume,
the Positivist doctrines requiring to be re-stated.

Comparison with Butler* s Moral System. 63

Butler's Philosophy is not, however, uniformly
and consistently theological ; this is, indeed, no
more than can be said of all moralists of that
school. But theological considerations predomi
nate; in general, with him, what should deter
mine conduct is the divine will. But the meta
physical view also sometimes appears ; and we find
that, after all, the will of God is not the ultimate
determinant. Thus he says: — "Hatred, malice,
and revenge are not only directly contrary to the
religion we profess, but to the nature and reason of
the thing itself. The divine will is conformable to
the law of truth, and in this the moral attributes
of God consist" ; so that behind this Will stands
an antecedent and independent rule, which is its
regulator, and conformity to which is its justifica
tion. In a well-known Note to the Analogy, he
says, "it seems . . . inconceivable to suppose God to
approve one course of action or one end preferably
to another . . . without supposing somewhat prior
in that end to be the ground of the preference,"
and he does not " deny that the will of God is
determined by what is fit, by the right and reason
of the case." This is the mode of treating Morals
which Butler describes as that of inquiring into
" the abstract relations of things."

Positive conceptions are also found in him, but
blended with these theologico- metaphysical ideas.*

* Butler is not free from the common equivoque as to the meaning
of the word 'law.' In one — the scientific — sense, it signifies a

64 Comparison with Butler's Moral System.

He recognises the existence of a natural or spon
taneous morality in man, prior to precepts or rules
of life. " There is," he says, " a natural disposition
to kindness and compassion, to do what is of good
report, . . . that part of the nature of man which,
with very little reflection, and of course, leads him
to society, and by means of which he naturally acts
a just and good part in it, unless other passions or
interest lead him astray. There is a fellow-feeling
which each individual has in behalf of the whole
species as well as of himself." Here he is plainly
right ; if there were not such a natural morality (or,
as a Positivist would say, innate altruistic impulses)
in man, education and discipline could never pro
duce a systematic one. What we have to do is to
strengthen and develop it.

He wavers as to the question whether in human
nature Benevolence (or, to speak more properly, the

general fact in material or moral nature, without further implication ;
in another, it means an ordinance respecting conduct, deriving
authority from a power which imposes and enforces it. " Man," he
says, " is a law to himself without the distinct consideration of the
positive sanctions of that law, the rewards and punishments which
we feel, and those which, from the light of reason, we have ground
to believe annexed to it. ... Your obligation to obey this law is its
being the law of your nature. ..." This sounds like an appeal to
something in our constitution as, in itself, a sufficient basis for moral
distinctions and obligations ; but no — he presently subjoins — "it is our
natural guide, the guide assigned us by the author of our nature" —
which brings us back to the theological point of view. The equivoque
here referred to is the same which leads to the Theistic argument —
"laws of nature imply a law-giver," which really begs the question
at issue.

Comparison with Butler* s Moral System. 65

altruistic affections, which include Attachment and
Veneration along with the more general affection)
does, or does not, cover the whole field of virtue.
"Vice, in general," he says, "consists in having
an unreasonable and too great regard to ourselves
in comparison to others " —and "that mankind is
a community, that we all stand in a relation to each
other, that there is a public end and interest of
Society, which each particular is obliged to promote,
is the sum of Morals." These statements a Posi-
tivist can accept, though, whilst recognising the
facts, he does not proceed with Butler, going
beyond the facts, to refer the felt obligation to a
divine command, or to hold that, if we ought to do
good to others, it is because we were " intended to
do it." But in the Essay on Virtue (which is, in
the opinion of the present writer, one of the
weakest of his productions) he declares that
" benevolence and the want of it . . . are in no
sort the whole of virtue and vice" — at the same
time, however, securing for himself a retreat from
this position by reserving the questions "how far,
and in what sense, virtue is resolvable into bene
volence, and vice into the want of it." However
this may be, he, in the passages previously quoted,
regards the instinctive social feelings as laying the
foundations of human morality, which is, without
doubt, the true conception.

But there being, as he has abundantly shown, a
great variety of conflicting propensions in our nature,

F

66 Comparison with Butler* s Moral System.

only a partial and precarious moral order will
spontaneously exist ; they cannot be left to their
unregulated play ; some permanent control will be -
necessary. And Conscience (or Reason, as he some
times calls it) he regards as a faculty placed within
us, to govern those propensions. " Reason alone,"
he says, " whatever anyone may wish, is not in
reality a sufficient motive of virtue in such a creature
as man; but this reason, joined with those affections
which God has impressed on his heart." Here his
language conveys a decided misconception. The
intellectual powers can never act as motors ; they
cannot prompt to any line of action. Such impulse
belongs only to the affective part of our nature.
Apparently he came to see this ; for he elsewhere
represents Conscience as not a distinct faculty, but
a compound of intellect and feeling ; and both do in
fact generally take part in moral action, but not
intellect — only feeling — can impel, can ultimately
determine our acts. Two offices, and two only,
intellect can fulfil in relation to conduct. It can
show us how to arrive at the ends at which our
affections aim, and it can point out the consequences
to ourselves and others which will certainly or
probably arise from our action. The affective
principles alone can move us to act ; reason can only
present considerations which may awaken dormant,
or stimulate languid feeling ; if the feeling were not
there, we should remain passive.

Stewart, too, speaks, as people habitually do, of

Comparison with Butler s Moral Syst

em.

67

"yielding to the suggestions of Reason in opposition
to the impulse of Passion" ; but though we may
adopt this popular way of speaking, we must always
remember that only feeling — an affective instinct —
can impel to action or restrain us from it. When
Reason seeks to influence conduct, it must do so by
appealing to one of those instincts. If we say to a
man contemplating an act — " It will injure your
reputation," we appeal to his love of approbation ;
if we say " it will injure your family," to his parental
affection; if we say, "it will cause you material
loss," to his love of wealth (industrial instinct); if
we say " it will ruin your health," to his self-preserv
ing instinct; if we say, " you should not submit to
tyranny," to his military instinct ; if we say, " it
would be unkind," to his benevolence, and so of the
other motors.

Butler speaks of conscience as unerringly leading
any plain honest man to solve aright every question
of conduct.* This proposition he elsewhere modifies
into — " almost every fair man in almost any circum
stances." But the Positivist does not believe that
there is any such absolute principle in us, whether

*As if there were no cases of conscience, or systems of casuistry ;
as if Taylor and Sanderson, not to speak of Suarez or Escobar, had
never treated them ; and as if some men had not much more delicate
moral feeling than others. Besides he here leaves out of account the
indisputable fact that moral opinion varies, within certain limits, in
the course of the historical development of Society — a fact, which as
has been elsewhere shown, does not at all lead to the conclusion
tthat morality is arbitrary.

F 2

68 Comparison with Butler s Moral System.

simple or composite, dictating our duties ex cathedra
by a sort of intuition. Only by observation and
reflection as to the results of conduct were the
rules of duty ascertained, and only in the same way
can further convictions respecting them be now
produced.

Butler is not without occasional glimpses of the
true account of Conscience. " To be a just, a
good, a righteous man," he says, " plainly carries
with it a peculiar affection, to or love of, justice,
goodness, righteousness, when those principles are
the objects of contemplation. Now, if a man
approves of, or hath an affection to any principle, in
and for itself, incidental things allowed for, it will be
the same whether he views it in his own mind or in
another — in himself or in his neighbour. This is the
account of our approbation, of our moral love and
affection to good characters, which cannot but be
in those who have any degree of real goodness in
themselves, and who discern and take notice of the
same principles in others. ' ' A Positivist would say —
All men, in proportion to the strength of their
altruistic affections, love and esteem those affections
in others, approve of the actions proceeding from
them, and disapprove of those which are at
variance with them ; this is what is real in the
Moral Sense ; the thing so-called represents indirect
results of the benevolent instincts. And the moral
appreciations thus generated first and most directly
apply to the feelings and conduct of others, and

Comparison with Butler* $ Moral System. 69

secondarily to our own, in which latter case^ they
take the name of Conscience.

By nothing are Butler's views so much confused
as by his admission of another regulative principle
besides Conscience, of what he calls " rational self-
love." Often as the name Self-love is heard,
no such principle exists in human nature. We
have a number of appetencies or propensions which
aim at particular ends. Some of them have relation
to the good of others ; some — the egoistic — only to
our own. One affection of the latter kind is the self-
preserving (or, as Comte calls it from its chief
action, the nutritive) instinct. But this is no rational
principle, any more than, for example, the maternal
instinct. It acts automatically. "Self-love," he
says, may "set us on work" to gratify our affec
tions, appetites, and passions. But this, as we have
already pointed out, is an error. The only stimuli
to action are these affections, appetites, and
passions ; the self-love superadded is an imaginary
appendage. The intellect, as we have said, may
show us how to gratify these, or may recognise one
of them, whether self-regarding or altruistic, as
rightly protesting against such gratification ; but
they alone can impel or "set us to work," and a
principle of "self-love," distinct from them, has no
meaning at all. "Every man," he says, "has the
principle of self-love, which disposes him to avoid
misery and consult his own happiness" ; but what
is happiness ? It must lie in the gratification of

7O Comparison with Biitler s Moral System.

some of our inclinations, which do not require
self-love to excite or strengthen them. When he
says that because " the private interest of the
individual would not be sufficiently provided for by
reasonable and cool self-love, therefore the appetites
and affections are placed within as a guard and
further security," he inverts the true relations of
things, for private interest would have no meaning
in the absence of the affections and passions. He
appears to have had a partial perception of this ;
for he seeks in the Preface to distinguish between
" cool or settled selfishness," and " passionate or
sensual selfishness," giving to the first only the
name of self-love. To this he adds what is plainly
impossible, that the former may create the latter,
that self-love, properly so called, may produce
movements towards external objects. " All men,"
he says, "form a general notion of interest, some
placing it in one thing, some in another, and have
a considerable regard to it throughout the course
of their life ; so, on the other hand, they are often
set on work by the particular passions themselves,
and a considerable part of life is spent in the actual
gratification of them, i.e., is employed, not by self-
love, but by the passions." He then goes on to
present considerations which are really fatal to this
view; as, indeed, it is obvious that if men place
their interest (that is, as he himself explains, their
happiness), some in one thing, some in another,
what he calls " rational self-love " would consist in

Comparison with Butlers Moral System. 71

following the corresponding particular impulses, so
far as they are not overborne by others.

There is, indeed, in human beings, the practical
quality of " prudence," but its nature is commonly
mistaken. It is not a selfish principle; it has no
necessary relation to the preservation or the interest
of the individual. It only determines the character
of our action as cautious and circumspective. It
may give that character to the service, either of self
or of others, of vice or of virtue. Its highest office
is to secure a wise benevolence, and to remove
obstacles from the path of well-doing.

Butler affirms, that there is "no greater compe
tition between benevolence and self-love than
between any other particular affection and self-
love." And he tells us that men, in general, have
not the principle of self-love in excess, that it would
be better for the world if it were stronger; yet,
alongside of this, he speaks of the " overfondness "
and "partiality for ourselves, which we are all so
liable to," as leading us into evil. And elsewhere he
admits that benevolence, " though natural in man
to man," yet is " kept down by interest and competi
tions." These paradoxes and inconsistencies arise
from his assumption of a self-love which has no
special relation to the egoistic, or self-regarding,
instincts. When we see that no such motor really
exists, we distinguish men as they are habitually
under the control of those egoistic feelings, or
under that of the altruistic affections. Thus, that

72 Comparison with Butler* s Moral System.

a man habitually devotes the aptitude which we call
"prudence" to securing the objects which only
gratify him personally, stamps him as an egoist,
and places his nature more or less in opposition to
that of a man who exercises his gift of circum
spection in pursuing the good of society. Men's
actions are prompted by their affections. The
whole moral question is, what the predominant
affections are.

" Duty and interest," he says, "are perfectly
coincident; they mutually carry on each other."
As we understand from him that " interest " means
merely " that an appetite or affection enjoys its
object," these assertions imply that there is no real
opposition, as to their effect on the conduct of the
moral agent, between the self-regarding and the
altruistic feelings. In that case the conflict indi
cated by St. Paul would not exist, nor what Comte
calls "the great human problem"; intelligent
selfishness might be made the rule of life. What
is really true is, not that these principles in our
nature are harmonious, but that they may be
harmonised — only, however, on the basis of the
permanent subordination of the one group to
the other. On this subordination, according to
Positivism, true happiness depends.

On the fundamental question of the ultimate
motive to virtue, Butler, as usual, fluctuates. Some
times he distinctly puts forward the doctrine of
personal Eudsemonism, "Nothing can be of con*

Comparison with Butler* s Moral System. 73

sequence to mankind or any creature but happiness."
" Though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed
consist in affection to, and pursuit of what is right
and good as such ; yet, when we sit down in a cool
hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any
other pursuit, till we are convinced that it is for our
happiness, or at least not contrary to it." This latter
sentence has shocked some of Butler's admirers ; it
might, indeed, have been written by a Hobbist. It
is plain that he held no definite and clear opinion on
the question. His intellect easily got entangled in
metaphysics.*

He discourages the consideration of the general
consequences of conduct (at least in the present
life), as if it ought not to enter into our moral
estimate of acts, and says, " The happiness of the
world is the concern of him who is the head and
proprietor of it"— a proposition which must be
emphatically denied. Quite independently of theistic
belief, it is the business of all men, according to
their capacities and opportunities — indeed, with his
habitual inconsistency he appears elsewhere to
admit this.

Positivists have a decided view as to both the
questions, What is virtuous feeling ? and what is

* Generally speaking, we may pronounce that his forte did not
lie in analysis. In the first note on Sermon V., in replying to
Hobbes, whose view he rightly rejects, he absurdly represents that
philosopher as making the pity for friends equivalent to fearing our
friends.

74 Comparison with Butler" s Moral System.

right conduct ? According to them, Virtue consists
in the habitual subordination of egoism to altru
ism, or, in the language of their Religion, in the
systematic service of Humanity. And it is the
function of the intellect to discover how Humanity
can be best served. Love must be the motor of
virtuous action ; interpreted experience is its
necessary guide.

NOTES

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF

POSITIVISM

I.

'ABSOLUTE' AND 'RELATIVE.'

COMTE has the following sentence — 'Tout est re-
latif; voila la seule proposition absolue.' He
observes that so characteristic of his philosophy
is the principle of relativity, that, if the name
* Positivism ' did not offer superior advantages, it
might be called ' Relativism.'

All our knowledge, in fact, being confined to
phenomena, is purely relative. We can know
nothing of ' things in themselves'; but only of their
relation to us and to other things— how they affect
us, and how they modify other objects. The want
of a single sense shuts out from us the knowledge
of one whole class of physical facts ; and, no doubt,
the acquisition of an additional sense would reveal
to us another class now outside the range of our
observation.

Further, all events depend on conditions, and
are determined by them ; and, in this sense also,
there is nothing absolute. Creations and first
origins are inaccessible to us. Phenomena are

* Absolute* and* Relative?

simply changes ; and it is a uniform fact within the
whole range of our experience that, previous to any
given change, definite conditions must be satisfied,
and that, when they exist, they render the change
inevitable.

The Positivist does not consider perfect know
ledge of the outer world, of society, or of human
nature, to be either attainable by us or necessary
for us. He thinks the right aim is to attain such
knowledge as will be useful for real human needs,
and he regards much that is accessible as valueless,
and the labour spent on its acquisition as wasted.
The true end of all knowledge — he holds — is to
be the guide of practice — whether in action on the
physical world, or in the regulation of our hearts
and lives ; and whatever cannot be shown, or does
not appear likely, to tend directly or indirectly to
that end may safely, and indeed ought to, be
neglected. But of course, in applying this rule,
we must beware of forming hasty or narrow judg
ments.

Observation forms us to the habit of expecting
and estimating degrees in the properties and acts
of things and of persons. We do not find perfec
tion anywhere, only different grades of approx
imation to it. And hence the Positivist, whilst
honouring all useful existences, especially such as
are superior to himself in moral qualities, does not
prostrate himself in spiritual self-effacement before
any. In his aspirations towards goodness, he does

''Absolute' and * Relative? 79

not place before him a goal of flawless excellence ;
but, impressing on himself a constant sense of his
shortcomings, aims at daily becoming better. So
also in social affairs, he is neither an optimist, nor
a pessimist, but a " meliorist" ; recognising, with
Leibnitz, the present as, in its essential features,
the child of the past and parent of the future,
he wishes for such a gradual progress as shall
be " the development of order." For the re
generation of society, to which he looks forward,
sentiments and opinions, in his view, must come
first ; then habits of action ; and lastly institutions,
which may be prematurely, as well as too tardily,
created. In his judgments respecting historical acts
and institutions, he cultivates the same tendency
to relativity, regarding them in the light of the
character and circumstances of the times to which
they belonged ; but he does not approve them
indiscriminately.

These modes of thinking have their most import
ant application with respect to Religion. Knowing
that there is an ascertained law of ordered change
in men's opinions, by which, in process of time,
they regularly move from their primitive state
towards the final Positive synthesis, he recognises
the natural relation of the religions of the past to
the contemporary and local civilizations, and there
fore, instead of condemning them, seeks to under
stand and explain them, and to appreciate their
real, though only transitory, usefulness. But he

8o 'Absolute ' and l Relative.'

gratefully acknowledges the progress which has
taken place in passing from the earlier to the
maturer systems, and proclaims the inferiority of all
the preparatory syntheses to the final, which is alone
adapted to the stage of civilization now attained by
the most advanced communities.

The relative character of Positivism is very
clearly seen in its system of commemoration, as
exhibited in the Historic Calendar constructed by
Comte. In this, all who have from the earliest
times made important contributions of whatever
kind to the progress of Society, find their appropri
ate places, none being excluded on the ground of
their religious doctrines.* Such a comprehensive
glorification of services rendered to Humanity was
impossible under any of the theological creeds, and
especially so under Monotheism, the most absolute
of them all.

* Even those who are not Positivists will find this Calendar most
valuable as a concrete representation of the course of history, and
may be advised to adopt its system of dates, in conjunction with that
in present general use, as bringing frequently before their minds the
immense benefits bequeathed to us by the Heroes, Saints, and Sages
of the past.

II.

'ABSTRACT' AND 'CONCRETE.'

THERE is often a good deal of vagueness and
confusion in the use of these words, and it
is desirable that we should conceive distinctly the
contrast which they imply. In the study of the
natural order, we may adopt two different modes of
proceeding. We may, firstly, examine the nature
and manner of existence of a body inorganic or
organized, taking into account all the properties it
exhibits and all the influences which affect it. When
we have a practical aim in such a research, it is
usually that of improving this body or the circum
stances under which it exists. Or, secondly, we
may study, not a body, but an event, or, in scientific
language, a phenomenon. This phenomenon must
be, as far as possible, isolated from every other
which in any real case coexists with it, in order so
to ascertain the necessary and sufficient conditions
of its manifestation. We separate it in idea from
the body in which it appears, and group it, not
with the other properties of that body, but with

G

82 'Abstract' and l Concrete"

phenomena similar to itself which are observable in
other bodies or classes of bodies. And, if we have
a practical object in ascertaining the law of the
phenomenon, it is usually that of being able to
foresee and thus to facilitate, prevent, or modify
its accomplishment. Now, of these two modes of
proceeding, the former is concrete, the second
abstract.

These considerations determine the distinction
between Abstract and Concrete Sciences. A Science
is abstract, if it discovers independently the laws
of a distinct general order of phenomena ; whilst,
if it derives its truths altogether from a com
bination of the results of other sciences, and
does not rest on special inductions of its own, it is
Concrete. Thus, for example, Astronomy is an
abstract Science, because it establishes the law of
gravitation, which is not implied in the Mathematical
laws of magnitude and motion ; and Biology is an
abstract Science, because the vital laws cannot be
wholly derived from those of inorganic nature.
But Geology is a concrete Science, because it
announces no new law respecting any mode of
existence, but merely supplies a theoretic history of
the action of laws already established on the
condition of the Earth's surface. And Meteor
ology is a concrete Science, the phenomena of the
Atmosphere being composite results of simpler
phenomena whose laws belong to almost all the
Abstract Sciences.

'Abstract'' and 'Concrete.'' 83

A complete systematisation of Concrete Science
is impossible, as beyond our feeble powers of
combination. It is only Abstract Science that we
can truly systematise, and this not in an absolute
sense, but sufficiently for our real needs. For
philosophical ends, apart from industrial require
ments — for a right understanding of the general
economy of nature — for the construction of an
intellectual and moral synthesis — for the religious
co-ordination of all our theoretic ideas round the
central conception of Humanity, so as to supply
a foundation for the conduct of life (which is
the ultimate aim of all speculation), the Abstract
Sciences, as a whole, are sufficient ; and hence
these alone enter — but they all enter — into Comte's
classification and into the synthesis which he
constituted, and they will for ever form the basis of
the Positive system of universal education. On the
other hand, for industrial purposes, such combina
tion of laws as is required for the solution of special
problems must be committed to practical men ;
and not only so, but for the conduct of practical
.operations generally, even in the highest depart
ments of human affairs, as for example in politics,
we must mainly rely on special experience and the
sagacity it develops, Abstract Science furnishing
only such indications as may enable the practician
to generalise and co-ordinate his conceptions.
Abstraction, though necessary for these objects,
always involves the omission of some of the features

G 2

84 'Abstract' and 'Concrete.'

which present themselves in any particular case,
and therefore diminishes the reality of our scientific
statements. When precision of actual fact is
required, we have to re-introduce the omitted
features. This is often a difficult and sometimes
an impossible process ; and either the neglect of it,
or the unsuccessful attempt to effect it, not unfre-
quently leads to dangerous errors of practice, as in
action founded on the (so-called) Science of
Political Economy. In the art of morals alone it is
true that all men are alike practicians ; and the
philosopher, or, more properly, the priest, must
teach not only the theory, but the practical applica
tion of it. And this was provided for in Comte's
scheme of education, as well as in the book which
was to form the most important part of his
4 Subjective Synthesis' and of which unhappily his
death deprived us ; the first volume of this book
was to have had for its subject Theoretical Morals,
or the Knowledge of Human Nature, and the
second Practical Morals, or the Improvement of
Human Nature.

There are in Comte some uses of the word
* abstract,' in which it is "not fully explained by
the above observations. Thus, in speaking of the
elementary or irreducible intellectual powers, he
says: — " they must be abstract in their nature, so
as to apply indifferently to all the varied products
of the intellect." The meaning is, that in their
application to different subjects of contemplation or

'Abstract'' and 'Concrete' 85

meditation, their processes are essentially identical.
Afterwards, when enumerating the intellectual
faculties, he recognises two modes of Contempla
tion, one Synthetic, referring to objects, and more
used in Art, the other Analytic, taking cognisance
of events, and more used in Science ; and, of the
latter, he adds, "its nature is, therefore abstract."
As he had previously asserted the abstract nature
of all the intellectual faculties, he does not intend
(as indeed he expressly mentions) to discriminate
between the two sorts of Contemplation as in
volving the idea of different mental processes
being followed in Science and Art ; both sorts are
employed, though not equally, in the two domains ;
but one regards objects, the other phenomena or
the properties of objects.

III.

LAWS AND CAUSES.

I

.

IT is known that Comte discountenanced the use of
the word ' cause' in relation to natural pheno
mena. In his view, it was inseparably associated
with pre-scientific conceptions. He repeatedly em
ploys the phrase * the double causality ' to express
the first two stages of thought respecting the facts
of nature — the Fetishistic and the Theological —
that which attributes them to direct volitions of
the individual objects which present them, and that
which refers them to the action of beings distinct
from the objects, and presiding respectively over
particular classes of phenomena. Most writers,
however, have regarded it as possible to preserve
the word ' cause/ giving it a purely scientific
interpretation ; and J. S. Mill, in \i\sLogic, argues in
favour of this course. If we thus positivise the term,
it will mean a fact, which is invariably followed by
another fact. This invariable conjunction, as Hume
long since showed, is all that we can predicate as
to the so-called ' causal ' connexion between two

Laws and Causes. 87

events, and, whenever it can be predicated, that
one which precedes the other may properly enough
be spoken of as its cause. There is no decisive
objection to the use of the word in this way, so long
as it is really emptied of any fictitious theory.

Yet it may be questioned whether it does not,
as Comte thought, almost inevitably suggest the
exploded doctrine and tend to revive it in our
intellects. We think of a ' cause ' as a sort of
semi-personal agent enforcing the sequence of an
effect. So long as the theological idea of nature
subsisted, the cause, being, a spiritual volition, or
an inherent entity, was essentially single. But when
scientific analysis succeeds, we see that the cause is,,
in general, multiple ; it is an assemblage of con
ditions, sometimes numerous, that determines the
effect. As J. S. Mill says, in his Logic (Bk. in.,
chap. 5), "the cause, philosophically speaking, is
the sum total of the conditions, positive and nega
tive, taken together; the whole of the contingencies
of every description, which being realised, the con
sequent invariably follows." And hence he goes
into lengthened explanations as to when and how
far one of these several conditions, even a negative
one, may rightly be called the ' cause.' It would
perhaps be more accordant with reality and would
prevent misconception, if we spoke of the collective
conditions of a phenomena as its ' determinants/
and dispensed altogether, in philosophic discussion,
with the use of the word ' cause.'

88 Laws and Causes.

There appears to be a lingering notion that
some degree of the mystery attaching to the mode
of production of all phenomena alike, is removed
by the resolution of a given law into a higher law.
But this is not so ; it is only that one mystery
is exchanged for another of wider range. It is
indeed desirable that derivative laws should be
reduced to more comprehensive ones, but the gain
is only a simplification in relation to our memories
and logical processes. All that we can attain in
the way of ' explaining ' or * accounting for ' laws
is of this nature, and even this sort of explana
tion is restricted within narrow bounds, — a fact
which men of science do not always sufficiently
keep in view. "Even when Science," says Comte,
" has become aware of the inanity of [ontological]
causes, and gradually establishes the reign of laws,
it aspires, as much as Theology and Metaphysics,
to complete objectivity, dreaming of a universal
explanation of outward things by means of a single
law as absolute as gods and entities, in accordance
with the Academic Utopia." Such an objective
unity is chimerical ; a subjective unity, founded on
the moral destination of Science, is alone attain
able, and has been constituted by Positivism.

Whilst endeavouring to exhibit, as far as
possible, the several uniformities which exist
amongst phenomena as cases of more compre
hensive laws, we must remember that the really vital
questions respecting any law, derivative or other,

Laws and Causes. 89

are — Is it true within the limits within which we
have occasion to use it ? And does it really enable
us, in a certain degree, to arrive at prevision, and so
serve to guide our conduct ? By far the greatest
number of those that are practically important to
mankind are empirical in the sense that they are
possibly, or even probably, derivative,* and that we
do not know the laws from which they would be
deducible. But we must not be prevented by any
philosophic purism from valuing them as they
deserve, and utilising them, though we have not
succeeded, and may never succeed, in resolvin'g
them. The great desideratum is to find, in any
attainable measure, unity amidst diversity.

* Such are, as Mill mentions, the laws of chemical action, as at
present known, the laws of vegetation and organic life, all truths of
common experience, constituting a practical knowledge of mankind,
and all the laws of human society, inferred from history.

IV.

'OBJECTIVE' AND 'SUBJECTIVE.'

THE order of the Sciences in the encyclopedic
scale may be fixed on two different principles.
We naturally first arrange them as, in the in
tellectual evolution of our race, they successively
became subject to Positive (or genuinely scientific)
treatment. This order was by no means either
arbitrary or accidental ; it naturally and necessarily
coincided with the line of least resistance, and
therefore depended on the mutual relations of the
several elements of the series, that is, on the
diminishing generality and increasing complexity
of the phenomena with which they deal. When we
follow this ascending order, rising from Mathe
matics to Sociology, it is natural to suppose that in
this last we have reached the highest degree of
speciality and complication. And this was at first
Comte's view. But it was one of the results of his
latest and best period that he added to the series
a distinct science of individual human nature, for
the study of which he had 'previously thought

*" Objective"* and ''Subjective.'' gi

sufficient provision was made in Biology (especially
in the cerebral theory), and in the moral analyses
necessarily introduced in Sociology. One reason for
this addition is given in the Posit ivist Catechism ; and
it is conclusive from the objective point of view. This
reason is the necessity, in the interest of theoretic
completeness, of having regard to the cerebral re
actions of the vegetative viscera, which are not
considered in the general theory of life, and which,
since, by the diversities of individual temperament,
their effects are neutralized when society is viewed
as a whole, form no part of the proper subject-matter
of Sociology.

But there is another way of looking at the whole
system of the sciences. The individual may set out
from the standpoint of Practical Morals. Conscious
of the conflicting tendencies of his being, and tired
of the irresolution and inefficiency (not to speak
of worse consequences) arising from this internal
dissonance, he may propose to himself the question
of self-discipline — how the heart, and through it,
the conduct is to be regulated ; how man can
attain the harmony of feeling and the unity of aim
which constitute the health of the spiritual nature.
He will easily discover that not within himself is
the solution of this question to be found, the
random and undisciplined play of various and even
opposite affective impulses which there exists
being the very evil from which he seeks deliverance.
His salvation must be in voluntary subordination to

92 ' Objective* and 'Subjective?

something outside and above himself, which, when
theological fictions have lost their hold on him,
must be the collective existence which rules his
life. Thus he will be led to recognise the necessity
of studying Humanity — of learning the nature of
the social medium in which he is plunged, and
which incessantly modifies him — in other words, he
will see that Sociology must precede Morals in the
scientific hierarchy. But Sociology will plainly
require a previous knowledge of the general laws
of life, which condition and dominate Society.
Vital science leads us back to Cosmology, the
outer world being the scene of the phenomena of
life, and material laws influencing organic acts and
structures. First, Chemistry, and then Terrestrial
Physics are thus introduced into the scale ; and
these must have for their basis Celestial Physics or
Astronomy, which, again, pre-supposes Mathematics
as teaching the general laws of universal existence
— those, namely, of motion, extension, and number.
This completes the scientific system ; and thus is
reproduced, from the Subjective and synthetic point
of view, the same construction which the Objective
method had previously created by dispersive and
analytic efforts. But, in the second method, we
reverse the process first pursued, and pass through
the several steps of the scale, not in the ascending,
but in the descending order; the members of the
series taking the same respective places as be
fore, but not on the ground of their increasing

' Objective'' and ' Subjective? 93

complexity, but on that of the increasing closeness
of their relation to Humanity.

And, from this standpoint, looking back on the
history of Science, we see that all the great
theoretic minds, from Thales and Pythagoras to
Bichat and Gall, were occupied, not perhaps always
consciously, in preparing the materials necessary
for the ultimate systematisation which was to be
the guide of practical life. The result of their
labours was the formation of a body of positive
conceptions relating to the outward world and to
social and individual man, which, when completed
and properly co-ordinated, were to compose the
dogma of the final Religion, and on the basis of
which its discipline was to be constructed.

We may justly say that there is, in reality, but
one science — Morals, or the Science of Man, which
implies and potentially comprises all those below
it in the hierarchy, since they deal with actual
elements or conditions combined in Man, whose
nature contains in itself all inferior forms of being,
whence some of the ancients called him a micro
cosm. If, notwithstanding the legitimacy of such
a conception, we maintain the multiplicity of steps
in the series, it is because the lower orders of
phenomena cannot be directly studied in man ;
logical necessities compel us to examine them in
the simplest cases of their manifestation. And,
ascending, one by one, the successive grades of
the scale, we are thus at last brought back to
Morals as the crown of the edifice, where, the

94 l Objective* and l Subjective.'

abstract and the concrete at last coinciding, man is
considered in his indivisible existence, all the pre
ceding- sciences contributing their methods and their
conclusions to this highest department of research
with a view to the practical end of the adaptation
of the individual to the service of the Great Being.
Besides the methods best exemplified in the
several simpler sciences — Deduction in Mathe
matics, Observation in Astronomy, Experiment in
Physics, Nomenclature in Chemistry, Comparison
in Biology, and Historic Filiation in Sociology,
Morals has a method peculiarly appropriate to
itself, namely, the Subjective, which proceeds not
from the world to man, but from man to the world.
It presides over construction, as distinct from
deduction and induction ; and we have given an
example of it in its mode of constructing the En
cyclopedic hierarchy. We cannot admit the claim
of Intellect divorced from Feeling, to the supreme
control of our systematic thought. When, having
traversed the inorganic and vital provinces, we come
to the directly human domain, the social point of
view becomes paramount ; and it is seen that intel
lect must take for its function the enlightenment
and service of the social sympathies, abandoning
its tendency to speculative digressions which have
no relation to the welfare of Humanity. It is the
work of the Subjective Method, which succeeds to
the Objective without superseding it, to direct the
action of the latter, to supply the light in which
the whole system of laws, and each order of them,

''Objective' and 'Subjective? 95

is to be regarded ; to set aside inaccessible or idle
inquiries ; to propose the questions requiring
solution in the human interest, and to suggest the
lines of that solution ; and, where ascertained laws
leave open a selection, to satisfy our aesthetic im
pulses by framing the best mode of representing
phenomena — the best, that is, in relation to the
improvement of our nature, as tending to the
development of synthesis and sympathy. It has to
keep in view what might otherwise be overlooked,
and is habitually overlooked in the pursuit of
the dispersive specialities of Knowledge (whether
science or erudition) — namely, the final religious
purpose of all research as well as of all activity.
Theology once inspired this conviction, and culti
vated the corresponding mental habits ; but its
action was vitiated by the search after chimerical
causes. The Subjective method, the only one it
used, could not arrive at solid results till it had
been preceded by the entire development of the
Objective, which was directed to the normal aim
of the discovery of laws, but tended to subordinate
unduly the spirit of generality to the spirit of detail.
But, having now, from absolute and personal,
become relative and social, it must again, in this
amended shape, exercise the regulating and co
ordinating office which rightly belongs to it, and
present Science as an indivisible whole, disciplined
and unified by social sentiment.

V.

'STATICAL' AND 'DYNAMICAL.'

THESE words are of course borrowed from Me
chanical Science, and have relation primarily
to the states of equilibrium and motion of a body or
system of bodies. As applied in Biology, they
indicate respectively the facts of organisation
(Anatomy) and the phenomena of Life (Physi
ology). By Comte their use was extended to
Sociology, Social Statics being the title of that
portion of the Science which describes the condi
tions of existence common to all human societies,
and persisting throughout the course of their
development, or, in other words, the Theory of
Order ; and Social Dynamics, the name of that
portion which ascertains the laws of the evolution
of Societies, or, in other words, the Theory of
Progress. Both these studies are necessary for
the constitution of a Positive Sociology.

They are far from being absolutely independent
of each other. As, in Mechanics, Dynamics is
essentially connected with Statics; as, in Biology,

'Statical* and 'Dynamical? 97

the doctrine of growth implies that of healthy
existence ; so Social Statics and Social Dynamics
are bound together by the general fact enunciated
by Comte that " Progress is the development of
Order."* In fact, in each of these Sciences the
two points of view, while clearly distinguished,
must be habitually combined.

But here arises a question which cannot be over
looked. In the study of Society there are plainly
three distinct subjects to be considered — first, its
constitution as regards the several social forces co
existing and working in it at a given time ; secondly,
the play of these forces amongst themselves, their
mutual action and counter-action ; and, thirdly,
the changes which take place from time to time,
whether by way of normal development or of de
generation, in either the organs of the Society or
the functions of those organs. Do, then, Social
Statics and Dynamics, taken together, cover the
whole of this ground ? Ought not the division of
Sociology to be, not binary, but ternary ? Should
Social Statics be regarded as dealing exclusively
with structure, as the analogy of Anatomy might
seem to indicate? Is the name of "Dynamical
Laws" of Society to be applied only to those
changes by which it passes to a higher or lower
plane, and not also to those of the inter-action of

* This may be regarded as analogous to D'Alembert's Principle
in Mechanics.

H

9 8 'Statical* and ' Dynamical?

social elements in which its daily life at any period
consists ? Comte, whom no question of method
escaped, saw that this doubt arose, and gave it a
definite solution.* " With regard to every living
being," he says, " we must introduce, between the
connected ideas of organisation and life, an inter
mediate idea, hitherto too vaguely conceived, for
which we must reserve the special name of ' exist
ence.' Applicable to all real substances, this word
expresses always their proper and continuous
activity. In Biology it corresponds to what is
radically permanent in each system of vital phe
nomena ; so that the ' life ' of a being consists in
the series of modifications which its * existence '
successively undergoes in a series ending in death."
. . . " In Sociology the term * existence' expresses
the fundamental economy of the great organism."*
Social Statics must comprise the study, not only
of structure, but of existence — of the essential
functions, which in fact conserve the structure,
whilst Social Dynamics, on the other hand, deals
with the life of a society in the large sense of that
word — the successive changes which in process of
time modify, whether the social structure or the
functions of the several organs composing that
structure. These changes are indeed continually
in progress, but in Social Statics, when considering
the several elements of a Social state and their con-

* Pol. Pos., II., chap. 6.

'Statical' and 'Dynamical" 91

sensus, we " abstract, as far as possible, from the
fundamental movement which is perpetually modify
ing them all."

This conclusion as to Sociological method
harmonises with the conception now universally
accepted, that in Biology, Anatomy and ordinary
Physiology should be kept in close relation, organ
and function being thus studied combinedly ; whilst
the study of Development, not in the individual life
alone, but in the animal series (whether we adopt or
reject the Darwinian hypothesis), forms a second
great division of the subject. And, carrying back
the same conception into Mechanics, we see that
quite similar is the division between the study of
the structure and ordinary activity of a system of
bodies on the one hand, and that of its general
modifications on the other — as, in the Solar System,
its constitution is in our view to be combined with
its general movements regarded as permanent,
whilst a separate study is made of the changes,
whether constant or periodic, wrought in it by
perturbations, and possibly in the past or the future
by, e.g., the cooling of the Sun or of the several
planets.

H2

VI.

FINAL CAUSES.

THERE are strong expressions in the writings of
the most eminent philosophers as to the worth-
lessness of the consideration of Final Causes. Bacon
says, in often-quoted words, " Causarum finalium
inquisitio sterilis est, et, tanquam virgo Deo con-
secrata, nihil parit" (De Aug. Sc., in. 5). And,
under the head of Idola Tribus (Ib. v. 4), he notes
as a grave error "quod homo fiat quasi norma
et speculum naturae; neque enim," he adds,
"credibile est ... quantum agmen idolorum
philosophise immiserit naturalium operationum ad
similitudinem actionum humanarum reductio, hoc
ipsum, inquam, quod putetur talia naturam facere
qualia homo facit." And again, in Nov. Org.,
lm 48, — "Causas finales, quae sunt plane ex natura
hominis potius quam universi, atque ex hoc fonte
philosophiam miris modis corruperunt." Similarly
Descartes — " Let us never found any of our reasons
concerning physical phenomena on the ends which
we may imagine God or nature had in view in the

Final Causes. 101

constitution of the universe" (Principia, i. § 28); and
" I am of opinion that the whole of this speculation
concerning Final Causes is altogether useless,
because I do not think that we can, without rash
ness, presume to investigate the designs of God"
(Meet. iv.). Stewart labours (Act. and Mor. Powers,
Bk. in. chap. 2) to show that these objections were
made only against the introduction of Final Causes
m\o physical investigations ; but, if just, they plainly
lie against the use of such considerations in the
research into all sorts of natural facts.

It has been argued against this exclusion of
Final Causes from the domain of Positive Science
that the consideration of ends or uses may lead —
and, in fact, has led — to discovery, especially in
Biology ; and the well-known case of Harvey and
the circulation of the blood, as related by Robert
Boyle, has been appealed to* (Stewart, op. et loc.
cit.). But, in so far as the study of Final Causes
can be made available for the discovery of Biological
laws — the principal province of its application-
Positive philosophy replaces the theological dogma
by the scientific principle of the conditions of ex
istence, which, without involving any hypothetic
element, recognises the simple fact that, as a given
organ (or element of structure) enters into the com-

* Harvey's discovery (or rather, demonstration) of the circulation
did not, however, rest exclusively on the consideration of the direc
tion of the valves in the bloodvessels. See Foster's Lectures on the
History of Physiology, chap. n.

IO2 Final Causes.

position of a living body, it must necessarily concur,
in a definite, though possibly, an unknown manner,
in the series of acts which constitute the existence
of the body ; and thus, that there is no more an
organ without function than a function without
organ* (see PhiL Pos., in., p. 459), When we have
ascertained the existence of a function, we cannot
be surprised to find, on anatomical examination,
an organ (or a structural character) which enables
the function to be exercised. But this principle
leaves it open to us to argue on independent
grounds, special to the case, that the organ is
imperfectly constructed, or that the function is an
unnecessary complication. Thus, for purposes of
research into the laws of organic nature, it appears
that the principle of "conditions of existence"
effects all that the study of Final Causes has been
alleged to do ; and its scientific usefulness is by no
means limited to that department of things.

This, however, does not exhaust all the questions
that may be asked on the subject of design and
adaptation. Any candid observer must admit that
there are in nature many things that bear, at least
on the surface, and at first view, the appearance of
being the result of the design of a mind constructed
like the human. But when we ask, Are they really
the fruit of design ? the more the subject is

*This principle is not to be taken as inconsistent with the existence
of rudimentary organs— however these are to be explained — or of
organs which have become atrophied by desuetude.

Final Causes. 103

considered, the more it will appear that we cannot
arrive at a satisfactory answer to the question,
whether in the affirmative or the negative. Positivists
prefer to refrain from urging the considerations
which are adverse to the theistic view, because they
recognise the fact that the inquiry is radically in
accessible to our means of exploration, and that, with
respect to the facts of nature, we can sometimes
answer the question — How they occur, but never
the question — Why ? They contemplate the
opinions which have existed on the subject from
the historical point of view exclusively.

Primitive men naturally supposed that the really
inscrutable causes which produced phenomena
were Wills similar to the human, either dwelling in
the objects, as the Fetishist thought, or outside
them, as the Theologist supposed. But these
hypotheses must be taken simply as spontaneous
imaginations, not admitting of proof, and inter
esting to us only as marking temporary stages in
the intellectual development of the race.

Our true attitude in relation to the question is
not to exhaust ourselves in endless debates, which
cannot lead to any issue, but, recognising once
for all that it is insoluble, to put it aside, and
concentrate our attention on really accessible sub
jects, which vitally affect our destiny. What is in
fact at present leading mankind more and more
to neglect such inquiries is our better understand
ing of our situation and our real wants, and the

IO4 Final Causes.

consequent change in the direction of our specula
tive efforts. When Science has once satisfied us
that events do not depend on divine volitions, but
take place according to invariable relations of simili
tude and succession, the question of Theism loses all
except a historical interest, because it ceases to have
any practical importance for us, since we cannot, as
the Theologist believed, influence events by appeals
to supernatural intervention. The belief thus tends
silently to disappear, surviving only in conven
tional formulae, whilst the truth is increasingly
recognised, that the one real Providence is that of
Humanity, and what we have all to do is, in our
several degrees, to regulate its exercise for the
benefit of Society at large, present and to come.

In these tendencies there is nothing common
with Atheism, regarded, not as a mere phase of
transition, but as a permanent doctrine— either in
its inherent character, or in its reaction on the heart
and the intellect. Whilst Positivism transfers our
allegiance from God to Humanity, and founds on
voluntary subordination to the latter as presiding
Power, and on the ascertained laws of the physical
and the moral world, a definite scheme of de
monstrable duties, which constitute its principal
province, and absorb its chief attention, Atheism
occupies itself with questions incapable of solution
as to cosmical origins, the beginnings of animal
life, and the like, drawing us away from the scienti
fically accessible subjects, which are really inv

Final Causes. 105

portant for us, especially those dealing with the
natural laws which regulate political and moral
phenomena.

We do not enter into the question suggested by
the somewhat obscure pronouncement of Renan,
that " God is the category of the ideal," a ground
on which some might rest the necessity of pre
serving Theistic belief. For it is obvious that
God cannot supply the human ideal. A being sup
posed to transcend immensely our conceptions,
and to exist under conditions — if any — either unin
telligible to us, or utterly different from those to
which men are subject, can never furnish an imitable
type/or them. The recognition of this is implied,
when the last and best of the decadent religions
humanises its God, and presents to us, not the
divine, but a supposed perfect human character, as
the model for our imitation.

Similar observations apply to the Future Life,
as conceived in Theologism. Such a life is
entirely incapable of proof, and we can make no
affirmation or negation respecting it. The Positive,
as distinguished from the Theological doctrine on
the subject, is a statement of undeniable facts.
Every servant of Humanity has two successive lives
—one objective and temporary, in which his direct
work is done, the other subjective, a life in the
minds and hearts of others, where he works in
directly but permanently, the result of his labours
and example being eternally preserved in the sum

io6 Final Causes.

of things, though his name may be forgotten.
This is the true immortality, consisting in the
perpetuity of service, not in personal survival.

But, it may be said, must not the mere possi
bility of a personal future life, or any, the smallest,
ground for regarding its probability as prepon
derating in the scales of judgment, have a potent
effect in determining our conduct ? To suppose
this would contradict all we know of human nature,
which is little influenced by expectation of remote
and dubious consequences. Now that Science has
thoroughly undermined theological doctrines, re
solutions overmastering our selfish instincts and
directing our whole behaviour, often in trying
circumstances, cannot be inspired by such vague
and uncertain bases of belief. They must in future
be -dictated by profound convictions, resting on
rational study of the demonstrable results of
different systems of conduct — those convictions
operating chiefly on the altruistic affections which
Theology and Metaphysics have often denied, but
which Science has proved to be amongst the real
elements of our nature.

VII.

MATERIALISM.

ONE of the most important views presented by
Comte relates to the nature of what is called
Materialism. It is often regarded as consisting
in a particular opinion as to the intimate essence
respectively of matter and mind — a subject quite
inaccessible to our researches. Its true significance
appears on an examination, from a special point of
view, of the Encyclopedic Scale. Each science in
that scale borrows conclusions from the preceding
and simpler sciences. But each also requires inde
pendent inductions of its own, which give it its
individual character. Now Materialism consists in
denying or overlooking the latter fact, and attempt
ing to construct one of those sciences exclusively
from the materials supplied by its predecessors.
This vicious procedure may take place in relation
to any science after the first in the series. It is
Materialism to attempt — ignoring the fundamental
dualism of Inorganic and Organic bodies — to seek
to explain the facts of life from Cosmological laws

I o 8 Materia liswi .

alone. Especially is this true when the attempt is
made with relation to the phenomena of Cerebral
life. It is Materialism, again, to represent the
science of society as a mere corollary of Biology,
neglecting the historic inductions on which it is
chiefly founded. So is it also to reduce Morals to
Sociology, overlooking the laws of personal unity —
of the internal harmony of the individual. The
general tendency of these errors is to compromise
the originality and dignity of the higher fields of
research and to degrade them to the level of the
lower. The radical vice is everywhere the same, and
it extends even to the internal repartition of each
science, which, when rightly framed, is regulated
by the same principles as the arrangement of the
fundamental members of the Hierarchy — namely,
the diminution of generality and the increase of
complexity of the corresponding phenomena.

It is in relation to the noblest speculations that
this tendency is most dangerous, and has been felt
by the public instinct to be so. It would, indeed,
be unjust to impute to those who have fallen into
this error a moral culpability, or to suppose that
their principles of conduct are necessarily perverted
by it. On the contrary, the mode of thinking here
described, by being associated with the insurrec
tion against the oppressive domination of Theolog-
ism, has been in many instances invested with a
progressive character, and has been allied with
generous inspirations. Still, it is undeniably true

Materialism. 109

that, especially since Negativism has ceased to be
an instrument of progress, the mental tendency
here characterised has usually the effect of dead
ening the finer feelings and creating an habitual
depreciation of the affective as compared with the
intellectual life, the latter being regarded as more
explicable by the materialistic hypothesis. Histori
cally, an opposition has been offered to it by
Spiritualism, which is, however, no less irrational.
But now an adequate barrier against it is erected
by the Encyclopedic Hierarchy, which gives the
due weight in methodology, on the one hand, to
deduction from earlier sciences, and on the other,
to the original inductions belonging to each suc
cessive stage in the order of research ; and which
represents the final science as presiding over the
whole system and repressing the effort at invasion
of the lower elements into the higher domain.

VIII.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTROSPECTION.

THE late Professor Huxley, both in a special Essay
which he devoted to Auguste Comte, and in
occasional references to him elsewhere, betrayed a
spirit of what might almost be called malignity
towards the memory of that great man, and assumed
a de haut en das air which, to those who know what
Comte really was, would be ridiculous if it were
not offensive. One of the most curious, and even
amusing, exhibitions of this feeling and tone
appears in the volume on Hume, which Huxley
contributed to the series entitled "English Men of
Letters." It is well known that Comte attached
little value to the introspective method of the so-
called Psychologists, believing that the direct
observation of one's own mind in the act of
thought, or under the influence of emotion, could
not lead to trustworthy results. Of course, he did
not dispute that our knowledge of the general
nature of thought and emotion — of what is meant,
for example, by such words as 'memory/ 'love,' &c.,

Psychological Introspection. \ 1 1

could only be had from consciousness ; but he
maintained that the laws which regulate our mental
operations and the phenomena of our moral nature
could not be discovered by such a process. Here
is the passage in which Huxley, after speaking of
the combination in Comte of " scientific incapacity
with philosophical incompetence," goes on to com
ment on the view which we have just stated :—

" The Positivists, so far as they accept the
teachings of their master, roundly assert, at any
rate in words, that observation of the mind is a
thing inherently impossible in itself, and that
psychology is a chimera — a phantasm generated
by the fermentation of the dregs of theology."

[It is scarcely necessary to say that no such
words as these last were ever used by any Positivist.
The mention of theology is introduced merely to
create prejudice, and to conciliate the ' orthodox.']

' ' Nevertheless, if M. Comte had been asked
what he meant by ' physiologic cerebrale,' except
that which other people call * psychology,' and how
he knew anything about the functions of the brain
except by that very ' observation interieure ' which
he declares to be an absurdity — it seems probable
that he would have found it hard to escape the
admission that, in vilipending psychology, he had
been propounding solemn nonsense."

He goes on to contrast with Comte' s alleged
error the sound judgment of Hume in hold
ing that " the inquiry into the contents and

1 1 2 Psychological Introspection.

the operations of the mind must be conducted
upon the same principles as a physical investiga
tion, if what he calls the ' moral philosopher '
would attain results of as firm and definite a
character as those which reward the ' natural
philosopher.' ! He then quotes with approbation
a passage of some length from the Introduction
to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature to show that
the author agreed with him, in opposition to
Comte, as to the usefulness and necessity of the
method of internal observation. But, when we
read the passage, we find with surprise and, as I
have said, with amusement, that Hume really
takes the contrary side and agrees with Comte.
" Moral philosophy," he says, " has this peculiar
disadvantage, which is not found in natural, that,
in collecting its experiments, it cannot make them
purposely, with premeditation, and after such a
manner as to satisfy itself concerning every
particular difficulty which may arise. When I
am at a loss to know the effects of one body
upon another in any situation, I need only put
them in that situation and observe what results
from it. But should I endeavour to clear up in the
same manner any doubts in moral philosophy, by
placing myself in the same case with that which I
consider, 'tis evident this reflection and premedi
tation would so disturb the operation of my natural
principles, as must render it impossible to form any
just conclusion from the phenomenon. We must,

Psychological In trospection . 113

therefore, glean up our experiments in this science
from a cautious observation of human life, and take
them as they appear in the common course of the
world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs
and in their pleasures. When experiments of this
kind are judiciously collected and compared, we
may hope to establish on them a science which
will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much
superior in utility, to any other of human com
prehension."

Huxley seems to have discovered, on further
considering the passage, that it really cut the
ground from under his feet ; and so he subjoined
to it the following note : — " The manner in which
Hume constantly refers to the results of the
observation of the contents and processes of his
own mind clearly shows that he has inadvertently
overstated the case ' ' ; that is to say, Huxley
understood better than Hume the opinion of the
latter on the subject in hand.

IX.

CARTESIAN THEORY OF THE AUTOMATISM OF
ANIMALS.

IT is not necessary to combat this theory, which
has had no recent supporters. But we find in
Comte the following excellent note (Phil. Pos. Legon
45), which illustrates well the important and often
misconceived subject of the place of Descartes in
the history of thought — " Perhaps nothing charac
terises better the difficult situation in which the
mind of Descartes was placed ; namely, that of
a constant struggle between the Positive tendency
which was so strong in him and the theologico-
metaphysical impediments imposed by his epoch —
than the paradoxical conception to which he was,
in my judgment, very naturally led, on the intelli
gence and instinct of animals. Wishing to limit,
as far as he believed it possible, the empire of the
old philosophy, and yet not being able to conceive
the extension of his fundamental method to such
an order of phenomena, he took up the daring
position of systematically denying their existence
by his celebrated hypothesis of Animal Auto-

Cartesian Theory of the Automatism of Animals. 1 1 5

matism. Once arrived at Man, the evident
impossibility of applying1 to his case the same
philosophical expedient forced him to come to a
compromise — so to say — with metaphysics and
theology by abandoning to them, or rather
maintaining for them, by a sort of formal treaty,
this last part of their original offices. Whatever
may have been the real and grave inconveniences
arising from this singular automatic theory, it
is important to observe that it was precisely in
order to its refutation that the physiologists, and
especially the naturalists of the eighteenth cen
tury, were gradually led to the demolition of the
radical separation which Descartes had thus
attempted to establish between the study of man
and that of animals, which has finally brought
about in our days the entire and irrevocable
elimination of the whole theological or metaphysical
philosophy in the most advanced intellects. Thus
this strange conception has not really been by any
means useless to the general progress of the human
mind in recent times."

THE END.

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