POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 269 society. This was a sound view introduced in the midst of fantastic hypotheses about the state of nature and the social contract; and it was valuable accordingly. Bossuet's share in the work of preparation is more obvious and less disputed. I have before pointed out the value of his historical survey, where, for the first time, political phenomena are regarded as subject to invariable laws, which, by rational treatment, may be made to determine each other. The theological principle which prevails in this work impairs this very enlightened conception, but cannot altogether disguise its importance, nor intercept its beneficial influence on the historical studies of the ensuing period. It was the last great inspiration of Catholicism which, as we have seen, was much more adapted than the negative philosophy to form an estimate of human progress, which indeed the negative philosophy could not justly appreciate at all. The nature of Bossuet's great service appears in its destination; which was to propose systematic history. as the necessary basis of political education. The third phase of the period was, in this Third phase. case again, simply a prolongation of the The Scotch second. The Scotch school appears here favourably circumstanced in regard to Morals, by the speculative independence which it enjoyed, both as being Presbyterian in. the midst of Anglicanism, and as having no sympathy of. principle with either side of the controversy on external and internal conditions of mental development. The value of this school was solely in the merit of its individual thinkers, who had no systematic connection with each other. In an intellectual view, Hume, one of the chiefs of the illustrious. group, treated of the theory of causation with great originality and boldness, but with the imperfection inseparable from a sundering of philosophy from science. He here proposed the true character of positive conceptions; andnotwithstanding its serious defects, this work appears to me to be the only great step that the human mind has taken towards understanding the relative character of sound philosophy, since the great controversy between the Realists and the Nominalists. In this connection I must point out again the able survey, by Adam Smith, of the history of the sciences, and of astronomy particularly, in which he perhaps approaches even nearer than his friend Hume to the true sense of rational positivity. It gratifies me to record here my special gratitude to these two eminent thinkers, whose influence was very useful to my early philosophical education, before I discovered the great law which necessarily guided it from that time forward. Political Political philosophy made a great advance philosophy. during the last century, inasmuch as social development became more and more the express object of historical treatment. The process was defective, of course, from the absence of all theory of evolution, by which alone any scientific dignity can be given to works which, without it, remain essentially literary. One class of students were at work whose labours have obtained too little credit,—the scholars who employed themselves during the second phase as well as the third in elucidating separate points of history by antiquarian and literary research. These labours are, in regard to positive sociology, analogous to those which at a former time accumulated provisional material for the future formation of chemistry and biology; and it is only by means of the lights thus afforded that sociology can begin to rise out of that preparatory state through which every science has passed on its way to its station in systematic positivism. Idea of The one great conception which belongs to this third phase is that of human progress, as an express view. It could only arise from the scientific evolution as a whole; for the idea of true progression could no otherwise be so clearly conveyed as by the succession of terms through an unquestionable filiation. Pascal, who first expressed the philosophical conception of human progress in the maxim which I quoted before, certainly derived it from the general history of the mathematical sciences. The innovation however could not produce any effect while only one kind of evolution was studied; for two are required for generalization on the simplest subjects of speculation; and then a third case is indispensable to confirm the prior comparison. The first condition was fulfilled through the evident conformity between scientific and industrial progression; but no third : IDEA OF PROGRESSION. 271 case was ready for the spirit of the times caused a strange misjudgment of the merit of the æsthetic movement, which ◄ was supposed to be retrograde when it was much otherwise. From a comparison of modern with ancient Art, the discussion extended to other social aspects, and the result was that, though the original question remained doubtful, the idea of human progress, sustained by the universal instinct of modern civilization, was established as systematically as it could be before the clearing up of the apparent anomaly of the Middle Ages,-a difficulty which ' I may hope to have now removed. Political Economy afforded an indirect aid towards the close of the period, by fixing general attention on the industrial life of modern society, and by marking out the temporal differences between our civilization and that of the ancients, which again favoured a political understanding of the intermediate social state, according to the logical rule that a mean condition can be judged of only from a comparison of the extremes. We have seen the result in the enterprises of Turgot, Condorcet, and Montesquieu, whose merits and imperfections I pointed out in the first chapter of this volume. At the close of our review of philosophical progress, from its origin in the Middle Ages to the beginning of the great French crisis, we cannot but see that, in the aggregate, made up as it is of a mass of remains, with a few rare and desultory materials of value, it is a merely preliminary affair, which can issue only in a direct institution of human regeneration. Though this conclusion has resulted from each of the several kinds of progress that I have treated of, its vast importance compels me to educe it again from their general approximation, by pointing out the chasms which remain to be filled, and which are common to and characteristic of them all. Gaps to be supplied. In each kind of progression, pursued without a sense of its connection with the whole, an instinct of speciality must prevail, exalting the spirit of detail, at the expense of a more general view. This partial and desulIn Industry. tory development was obviously the only one possible at a time when all systematic views related to a system which must pass away, and when it was only in such special pursuit that the new forces could manifest their character and tendency. Such a course, however in.evitable, could not but produce the anti-social dispositions proper to those preparatory progressions, out of which the elements of future combinations could. arise only very gradually, not having even yet attained any real association. This dispersive empiricism did not come to an end when its destination was fulfilled; and it is now the great obstacle in the way of final regeneration. It insists that neither industry, nor art, nor science, nor philosophy itself requires or admits of any systematic organization in our modern social state; so that their respective progress must be left, even more than ever, to special instinct in each case. Now, the most complete exposure of the radical vice of this conception will be found in the proof that each of these four kinds of progress has been more and more impeded by the increase of the primitive empiricism. With regard to Industry, first, by which modern society is constituted, there is no case in which there has been stronger opposition to organization,-the doctrines of political economy having been constructed under metaphysical and negative influences. We have seen that industrial progression was at first concentrated in the towns; and thus the main element, the agricultural, was left so far behind that it adhered more than all others to the ancient organization. We have even seen that, where feudal repression was insufficient, the opposite course of town and country industry often occasioned direct collision. This is the first case in which we recognize the need of a systematic action, bringing into a homogeneous state the elements which must thus be hereafter combined.—Again, if we observe only town industry, we see that, owing to the spread of individualism and speciality, the moral development is far in the rear of the material, though we should suppose that the more Man acquires new means of action, the more moral control is requisite at the same time, that he may not use his new powers to the injury of himself or society. As the whole industrial province lay outside of religious regulation, never having been contemplated in the theological scheme, it was tacitly abandoned DEFICIENCES OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. 273 to the antagonism of private interests, except that some vague general maxims were preached that there was no power to enforce. Industrial society was thus destitute, from its modern beginning, of all systematic morality which could regulate its various common relations. Among the innumerable connections of producers and consumers, and among the different industrial classes, especially capitalists and labourers, it seems agreed that the spirit of recent emancipation shall be preserved, unimproved,every one seeking his own interest, without any conscious-ness of a public function: and this is the state of things to which the economists have given their sanction, in dogmatic form. Again, the blind empiricism under which the industrial movement has gone on has raised up internal difficulties which can be got rid of in no other way than by a systematic management of the industrial province. The characteristic of modern industry is its improving to the utmost every inorganic agent, leaving to man little but the intellectual action of directing the apparatus. We have seen how the use of machines followed naturally upon the personal the personal emancipation of labourers; and it is evident that this action upon external nature, under the guidance of science, must tend to elevate not only the condition but the character of Man. But, whatever may be the effects of the great change when it is completely wrought out, it occasions a serious difficulty meantime which must be solved before the industrial movement can fully benefit society. The hap-hazard extension of the use of mechanical agents is directly hostile, in many cases, to the legitimate interests of the most numerous class; and the collisions and complaints thence arising grow more and more serious, and will continue to do so while industrial relations are committed to a mere physical antagonism. I am speaking not only of the use of machinery, but of every kind of improvement in industrial processes. Every accession of the kind diminishes the number of labourers required, and occasions more or less disturbance in the life of the workingclasses. This mischief is a consequence of the specializing practice hitherto inherent in modern industry, which has never risen to any comprehensiveness of view, or therefore |