doctrine. Such an absurdity is referrible to the cloudy prevalence of the metaphysical philosophy, which perverts and confuses men's notions in politics, as it did formerly, during its short triumph, in all other orders of human conceptions.

Fatal to Order.

It is not only as an impediment to progress that the preponderance of material conceptions is to be deplored. It is dangerous to order. When all political evils are imputed to institutions instead of to ideas and social manners, which are now the real seat of the mischief; the remedy is vainly sought in changes, each more serious than the last, in institutions and existing powers. The failure of the last change is forgotten; and hopes are concentrated on the next, showing how ineffectual are the lessons of experience when the results are not elucidated by a rational analysis. Such changes must occur, in our progress to a better state. What it is fair to require in regard to them is that they should be recognized as provisional, and be guided by some philosophical consideration of the social question at large. Another consequence of the prevalent preference of institutions to doctrines is, besides its prematurity, its engendering errors of the most serious kind, and of a permanent character, by including in the domain of temporal government what belongs to the spiritual. For their

neglect of this grand distinction, the various governments of Europe have been punished by becoming responsible for all the evils of society, whencesoever they might have arisen. The illusion is yet more injurious to society itself through the disturbances and mortifications which it induces. An illustration of the case is presented by the discussions and attacks which have so often menaced the institution of Property. It is impossible to deny that, when all exaggerations are stripped away, an unquestionable amount of evil remains in connection with property, which ought to be taken in hand, and remedied, as far as our modern social state permits. But it is equally evident that the remedy must arise from opinions, customs, and manners, and that political regulations can have no radical efficacy; for the question refers us to public prepossessions and usages which must habitually direct, for the interest

of society, the exercise of property, in whose hands soever it may be lodged. be lodged. We may see here how futile and how blind, and also how disturbing, is this tendency to refer everything to political institutions, instead of fixing expectation on an intellectual and moral reorganization.

Thus we proceed, securing neither order nor progress, while we consider our sufferings to be of a physical, whereas they are really of a moral nature. Modifications of ancient systems have been tried, and have given no relief; and our ideas of political progress are narrowing down to that of a substitution of persons, the most disgraceful political degradation of all, because, directed by no plan, it tends to subject society to an interminable series of catastrophes. The material order, which is all that is contemplated, is confided to a power which is regarded as hostile, and perpetually enfeebled by a systematic antagonism. The restricted view of each of the agents of such a mechanism prevents their co-operation, except under the immediate alarm of material anarchy, when they suspend their useless controversies till the storm has blown over, when they go on as before, till some catastrophe ensues, taking everybody by surprise, though any one might have foreseen it. In this discarding of social speculation for the sake of material and immediate considerations, we see a fresh indication that intellectual anarchy is the main cause of our social maladies.

A fourth characteristic of our social conIncompetence dition is a natural consequence and comple- of political ment of the preceding; the incompetence of leaders. the minds which occupy the chief political stations, during such a condition of affairs, and even their antipathy to a true reorganization: so that a final, and not less disastrous illusion of modern society is that the solution of the problem may be looked for from those who can do nothing but hinder it. From what we have already seen, we must be aware that the gradual demolition of all social maxims, and, at the same time, the attenuation of political action, must tend to remove elevated minds and superior understandings from such a career, and to deliver over the poli tical world to the rule of charlatanism and mediocrity. The absence of any distinct and large conception of a social

future is favourable to the more vulgar forms of ambition; and presumptuous and enterprising mediocrity has never before had so fortunate a chance. While social principles are not even sought, charlatanism will always attract by the magnificence of its promises; and its transient successes will dazzle society, while in a suffering condition, and deprived of all rational hope. Every impulse of noble ambition must turn the best men away from a field of action where there is no chance of scope and permanence, such as are requisite to the carrying out of generous schemes. It is, as M. Guizot has well said, a social period when men will feebly, but desire immensely. It is a state of half-conviction and half-will, resulting from intellectual and moral anarchy, offering many obstacles to the solution of our difficulties. It is important, however, not to exaggerate those obstacles. This very state of half-conviction and half-will tends to facilitate by anticipation the prevalence of a true conception of society which, once produced, will have no active resistance to withstand, because it will repose on serious convictions: and at present, the dispersion of social interests tends to preserve the material order which is an indispensable condition of philosophical growth. It would be a mere satirical exaggeration to describe existing society as preferring political quackery and illusion to that wise settlement which it has not had opportunity to obtain. When the choice is offered, it will be seen whether the attraction of deceptive promises, and the power of former habit, will prevent our age from entering, with ardour and steadiness, upon a better course. There are evident symptoms that the choice will be a wise one, though the circumstances of the time operate to place the direction of the movement in hands which are anything but fittest for the purpose. This inconvenience dates from the beginning of the revolutionary period, and is not a new, but an aggravated evil. For three centuries past, the most eminent minds have been chiefly engaged with science, and have neglected politics; thus differing widely from the wisest men in ancient times, and even in the Middle Ages. The consequence of this is that the most difficult and urgent questions have been committed to the class which is essentially one under two names, the civilians and the meta

INCOMPETENCE OF POLITICAL LEADERS.

181

physicians, or, under their common title, the lawyers and men of letters, whose position in regard to statesmanship is naturally a subordinate one. We shall see hereafter that, from its origin to the time of the first French Revolution, the system of metaphysical polity was expressed and directed by the universities on the one hand and the great judiciary corporations on the other: the first constituting a sort of spiritual, and the other the temporal power. This state of things is still traceable in most countries of the continent; while in France, for above half a century, the arrangement has degenerated into such an abuse that the judges are superseded by the bar, and the doctors (as they used to be called) by mere men of letters; so that now, any man who can hold a pen may aspire to the spiritual regulation of society, through the press or from the professional chair, unconditionally, and whatever may be his qualifications. When the time comes for the constitution of an organic condition, the reign of sophists and declaimers will have come to an end; but there will be the impediment to surmount of their having been provisionally in possession of public confidence.

The survey that we have made must convince us only too well of the anarchical state of existing society, under its destitution of guiding and governing ideas, and amidst its conflict of opinions and passions, which there is no power in any of the three schools to cure or moderate. As preliminary considerations, these facts are deeply disheartening; and we cannot wonder that some generous and able, but ill-prepared minds should have sunk into a kind of philosophical despair about the future of society, which appears to them doomed to fall under a gloomy despotism or into mere anarchy, or to oscillate between the two.

I trust that the study we are about to enter upon will give rise to a consoling conviction that the movement of regeneration is going on, though quietly in comparison with the apparent decomposition, and that the most advanced of the human race are at the threshold of a social order worthy of their nature and their needs. I shall conclude this introduction by showing what must necessarily be the intellectual character of the salutary philosophy which is to lead us into this better future:

and its dogmatic exposition will follow in the next chapter.

Advent of the The preliminary survey which I have just Positive Phi- concluded led us necessarily into the domain losophy. of politics. We must now return from this excursion, and take our stand again at the point of view of this whole Work, and contemplate the condition and prospects of society from the ground of positive philosophy. Every other ground has been found untenable. The theological and metaphysical philosophies have failed to secure permanent social welfare, while the positive philosophy has uniformly succeeded, and conspicuously for three centuries past, in reorganizing, to the unanimous satisfaction of the intellectual world, all the anterior orders of human conceptions, which had been till then in the same chaotic state that we now deplore, in regard to social science. Contemporary opinion regarded the state of each of those sciences as hopeless till the positive philosophy brought them out of it. There is no reason why it should fail in the latest application, after having succeeded in all the earlier. Advancing from the less complex categories of ideas to the more complex and final one, and comparing with this experience the picture just given of our present social condition, we cannot but see that the political analysis and the scientific concur in demonstrating that the positive philosophy, carried on to its completion, is the only possible agent in the reorganization of modern society. I wish to establish this principle first, and in this place, apart from all considerations about my way of proving my point; so that, if my attempt should be hereafter condemned, no unfavourable inference may be drawn in regard to a method which alone can save society, and that public reason should have nothing to do but to require from happier successors more effectual endeavours in the same direction. In all cases, and especially in this, the method is of even more importance than the doctrine; and it is for this reason that I think it right, before closing my long introduction, to offer, in a brief form, some last prefatory considerations.

This is not the place in which to enter upon any comparison between the positive political philosophy and the