LOGICAL COHERENCE OF POSITIVE SOCIAL DOCTRINE. 183 Logical coherence of the doctrine. other social theories which have been tried; but, while still deferring the scientific appreciation of the positive method, and before quitting the political ground on which I have, for the occasion, taken my stand, I must point out in a direct and general way, the relation of the positive philosophy to the two great necessities of our age. The ascendancy of a positive social doctrine is secured by its perfect logical coherence in its entire application-a characteristic property which enables us at once to connect the political with the scientific point of view. The positive polity will embrace at once all the essential aspects of the present state of civilization, and will dissolve the deplorable opposition that now exists between the two orders of social needs, the common satisfaction of which will henceforth depend on the same principle. It will impart a homogeneous and rational character to the desultory politics of our day, and it will by the same act connect this co-ordinated present with the whole past, so as to establish a general harmony in the entire system of social ideas, by exhibiting the fundamental uniformity of the collective life of humanity; for this conception cannot, by its nature, be applied to the actual social state till it has undergone the test of explaining, from the same point of view, the continuous series of the chief former transformations of society. It is important to note this difference between the positive principle and that of the two other schools. The critical school treats all times prior to the revolutionary period with a blind reprobation. The retrograde school equally fails in uniting the present with the past, and uniformly disparages the position of modern society during the last three centuries. It is the exclusive property of the positive principle to recognize the fundamental law of continuous human development, representing the existing evolution as the necessary result of the gradual series of former transformations, by simply extending to social phenomena the spirit which governs the treatment of all other natural phenomena. This coherence and homogeneousness of the positive principle is further shown by its operation in not only comprehending all the various social ideas in one whole, but in connecting the system with the whole of natural philosophy, and constituting thus the aggregate of human knowledge as a complete scientific hierarchy. We shall see hereafter how this is accomplished, and I mention it now to show how the positive philosophy, finding thus a general fulcrum in all minds, cannot but spread to a universal extension. In the present chaotic state of our political ideas we can scarcely imagine what must be the irresistible energy of a philosophical movement, in which the entire renovation of social science will be directed by the same spirit which is unanimously recognized as effectual in all other departments of human knowledge. Meantime, it finds some points of contact in the most wilful minds, from whence it may proceed to work a regeneration of views. It speaks to every class of society, and to every political party, the language best adapted to produce conviction, while maintaining the invincible originality of its fundamental character. It alone, embracing in its survey the whole of the social question, can render exact justice to the conflicting schools, by estimating their past and present services. It alone can exhibit to each party its highest destination, prescribing order in the name of progress, and progress in the name of order, so that each, instead of annulling, may strengthen the other. Bringing no stains from the past, this new polity is subject to no imputation of retrograde tyranny, or of revolutionary anarchy. The only charge that can be brought against it is that of novelty; and the answer is furnished by the evident insufficiency of all existing theories, and by the fact that for two centuries past its success has been uniform and complete, wherever it has been applied. Its effect on As to its operation upon Order, it is plain that true science has no other aim than the establishment of intellectual order, which is the basis of every other. Disorder dreads the scientific spirit even more than the theological, and, in the field of politics, minds which rebelled against metaphysical hypotheses and theological fictions submit without difficulty to the discipline of the positive method. We even see that while the mind of our day is accused of tending towards absolute scepticism, it eagerly welcomes the least appear BENEFICIAL EFFECT OF POSITIVE POLITY. 185 ance of positive demonstration, however premature and imperfect. The eagerness would be fully as great if the idea were once formed that social science might also be conducted by the positive spirit. The conception of invariable natural laws, the foundation of every idea of order, in all departments, would have the same philosophical efficacy here as elsewhere, as soon as it was sufficiently generalized to be applied to social phenomena, thenceforth referred, like all other phenomena, to such laws. It is only by the positive polity that the revolutionary spirit can be restrained, because by it alone can the influence of the critical doctrine be justly estimated and circumscribed. No longer roused to resistance, as by the retrograde school, and seeing its work done better than by itself, it will merge in a doctrine which leaves it nothing to do or to desire. Under the rule of the positive spirit, again, all the difficult and delicate questions which now keep up a perpetual irritation in the bosom of society, and which can never be settled while mere political solutions are proposed, will be scientifically estimated, to the great furtherance of social peace. By admitting at once that the institutions of modern societies must necessarily be merely provisional, the positive spirit will abate unreasonable expectations from them, and concentrate effort upon a fundamental renovation of social ideas, and consequently of public morals. Instead of indifference being caused by this carrying forward of political aims, there will be a new source of interest in so modifying modern institutions as to make them contributory to the inevitable intellectual and moral evolution. At the same time, it will be teaching society that, in the present state of their ideas, no political change can be of supreme importance, while the perturbation attending change is supremely mischievous, in the way both of immediate hindrance and of diverting attention from the true need and procedure. And again, order will profit by the recognition of the relative spirit of the positive philosophy, which discredits the absolute spirit of the theological and metaphysical schools. It cannot but dissipate the illusion by which those schools are for ever striving to set up, in all stages of civilization, their respective types of immutable government; as when, for instance, they propose to civilize Tahiti by a wholesale importation of Protestantism and a Parliamentary system. Again, the positive spirit tends to consolidate order, by the rational development of a wise resignation to incurable political evils. Negative as is the character of this virtue, it affords an aid under the pains of the human lot which cannot be dispensed with, and which has no place under the metaphysical polity, which regards political action as indefinite. Religious, and especially Christian resignation is, in plain truth, only a prudent temporizing, which enjoins the endurance of present suffering in view of an ultimate ineffable felicity. A true resignation, that is, a permanent disposition to endure, steadily, and without hope of compensation, all inevitable evils, can proceed only from a deep sense of the connection of all kinds of natural phenomena with invariable laws. If there are (as I doubt not there are) political evils which, like some personal sufferings, cannot be remedied by science, science at least proves to us that they are incurable, so as to calm our restlessness under pain by the conviction that it is by natural laws that they are rendered insurmountable. Human nature suffers in its relations with the astronomical world, and the physical, chemical, and biological, as well as the political. How is it that we turbulently resist in the last case, while, in the others, we are calm and resigned, under pain as signal, and as repugnant to our nature? Surely it is because the positive philosophy has as yet developed our sense of the natural laws only in regard to the simpler phenomena; and when the same sense shall have been awakened with regard to the more complex phenomena of social life, it will fortify us with a similar resignation, general or special, provisional or indefinite, in the case of political suffering. An habitual conviction of this kind cannot but conduce to public tranquillity, by obviating vain efforts for redress, while it equally excludes the apathy which belongs to the passive character of religious resignation, by requiring submission to nothing but necessity, and encouraging the noblest exercises of human activity, wherever the analysis of the occasion opens any prospect whatever of genuine remedy. Finally, the positive philosophy befriends public order by ON ORDER AND ON PROGRESS. 187 bringing back men's understandings to a normal state through the influence of its method alone, before it has had time to establish any social theory. It dissipates disorder at once by imposing a series of indisputable scientific conditions on the study of political questions. By including social science in the scientific hierarchy, the positive spirit admits to success in this study only well-prepared and disciplined minds, so trained in the preceding departments of knowledge as to be fit for the complex problems of the last. The long and difficult preliminary elaboration must disgust and deter vulgar and ill-prepared minds, and subdue the most rebellious. This consideration, if there were no other, would prove the eminently organic tendency of the new political philosophy. Its effect on continue to In I have dwelt on this influence of the Positive philosophy, in favour of Order, because it is that which is, as yet, least recognized, while the retrograde and stationary schools found their claims upon that very point. There is less mistake about its favourable influence on Progress. all its applications, the positive spirit is directly progressive; its express office being to increase our knowledge, and perfect the connection of its parts. Even the illustrations of progressions are, at the present day, derived from the positive sciences. Whatever rational idea of social progress (that is, of continuous development, with a steady tendency towards a determinate end,) anywhere exists, should, as we shall hereafter see, be attributed to the unperceived influence of the positive philosophy, in disengaging this great notion from its present vague and fluctuating state by clearly assigning the aim and the general course of progress. Though Christianity certainly bore a part in originating the sentiment of social progress by proclaiming the superiority of the new law to the old, it is evident that the theological polity, proceeding upon an immutable type, which was realized only in the past, must have become radically incompatible with ideas of continuous progression, and manifests, on the contrary, a thoroughly retrograde character. The metaphysical polity, in its dogmatic aspect, has the same incompatibility, though the feeble connection of its doctrines renders it |