PAGE Social Physics the indispensable remedy for our mental and moral Anarchy 605 The Political History of Savants harmonises with the Law of the Three Confusion of the Spiritual and Temporal Powers in Antiquity 618 618 The Modern Revolution characterised by a rejection of the Division between the Spiritual and Temporal Powers 621 The decline of the Spiritual Power the cause of International Wars in 622 Hence also flow disorders in the Internal Organisation of each People 623 The moral union of Europe and Humanity the second office of the Spiritual 631 The Spiritual Power must regulate Molern Industry, as based on the 632 Individual freedom resides in the application of ascertained principles THE SIXTH AND LAST PART. EXAMINATION OF BROUSSAIS' TREATISE ON IRRITATION. Physiology has only lately become a Positive Science Cabanis and Gall on mental and moral phenomena Futility of the so-called method of Internal Observation Positive Pathology based on General Anatomy. Bichat and Broussais 645 . 645 . 646 649 651 655 SYSTEM OF POSITIVE POLITY. SYNTHETICAL VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF MAN. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. II. of to In the two preceding volumes I have explained, in Vol. what the human order is in its primary constituents; in Vol. III. what has been the course which its developement, broadly considered, has necessarily taken. On the basis these two explanations, my task in this fourth volume is construct, once for all, the stand-point from which true wisdom may embrace the whole range of human thought and action, combining for this purpose, as a last step, in Morals the two correlative aspects which science was obliged to keep provisionally distinct. But if Philosophy requires that they should be appreciated in succession, not less does Religion require that they should be habitually united, as so only can they guide our active life, whether private or public. ally con The fusion finds its natural place in this concluding volume, Intellectu as throughout it, in order to determine man's future, I have sidered. to bring into continuous connection the statical and dynamical inquiries hitherto carried on in succession. In every conception of that future, we must in fact respect equally the general laws of man's constitution, and the great leading series of his antecedents. Lose sight of these two constant conditions, and prevision in Sociology would be inevitably defective either in coherence or in precision, and as such inadequate to fulfil its Prevision as admissible in Sociology as elsewhere. The fusion considered religiously. practical purpose. When we undertake, as my eminent precursor Condorcet undertook, to base political science on history, our judgment of the past must be so far reduced to system as to enable it to reveal the future. The continuity this implies requires as the condition of its attainment that man's progress never represent aught but the developement of an unchangeable order; the previous study of this order consequently presides over all historical explanations. But conversely, by a judicious fusion of the two points of view, we may judge the future with as much certainty as the past, so irresistible is the conviction inspired by a satisfactory agreement between our statical conceptions and our historical judgments; and it is in this ultimate determination of the future that we see on the one hand the principal aim of the two branches of Sociology, on the other the conclusive test of their reality. We are in no way bound to discuss the prejudices by which, on empirical grounds, the process is rejected as inapplicable in social matters, though there is an unanimous recognition of its admissibility in the case of all other phenomena. The inconsistency only proves the non-extension as yet of the Positive spirit to the most complex order of events. The true characteristic of science in all cases is prevision, as its object at once and its test, at least in the eyes of all who recognise the subjection of all phenomena to invariable laws. This theoretical conclusion holds good in Sociology more than in any other science, as its phenomena are at once the most important and the most modifiable. Hence it was that Condorcet was led to conclude his sketch of the past with an outline of the future, and the failure of my spiritual father was solely due to the absence of a systematic view of history. From the religious point of view, the definitive combination of the two previous volumes which this volume is intended to form, consists in the giving full effect to the supremacy in the scale of the sciences of Morals over Sociology properly so called, in obedience to the principle established in Vol. II. Ch. I. In fact, any really systematic guidance of man, even in his private conduct, is impossible without a certain determination of the future. This future depends in some degree on our own efforts, and therefore can never admit as exact a judgment as the past. But over and above the inutility of such exactness under this condition, to be efficacious our interference must adapt itself always on one side to our nature which is unchangeable, on the other to the developement of that nature through successive ages. It follows that Morals, and this is true even of practical morality, are objectively dependent on Sociology-on statical Sociology in the first place, then on dynamical-as determining the primary direction of all our tendencies without exception. If our advance is to be really positive in its character, it must rest on the theory of order and of progress equally, the one indispensable as a security against caprice, the other necessary to ensure relativity. Without the theory of order the inadequacy of our conviction of the prevailing unity would expose us to indefinite oscillations; without that of progress we should have for guidance nothing but inapplicable or vague precepts in default of any particular adaptation to the given situation. To ensure the final and complete fusion of the two aspects of Sociology, its dynamical must, whilst retaining their own proper character, be kept in constant subordination to its statical conceptions. The necessary and systematic elimination. of time in these latter in no way impairs their reality, either from the scientific, or even the practical point of view. The paramount importance we justly attach to them is due to this, that from them we draw directly our conception of that fundamental unity towards which our nature, individual and social, more and more is tending. In imagination we often mix up all the ages in order to place more vividly before us the permanent conditions of existence, witness in particular the greatest of all epic poems, the Divina Commedia.' The general supremacy thus accorded to Statical Sociology is peculiarly appropriate to it when dealing, as in this volume we deal, with the future, for in that future we have man in his maturity, whereas in the past we see merely the gradual and preparatory evolution of the type. Although, however, as science or as art, Morals must always be statical rather than dynamical, yet if they are to be in the full sense of the term Positive, there must be a large admixture of the historical spirit and feeling. If deficient in this respect, they would fall short of the relativity indispensable to the reality of all our conceptions, but nowhere so indispensable as in the immediate systematic direction of our conduct. Individual existence, as national, is so influenced by the situa Dynamical ordinated to ceptions. to be sub statical con The histori cal element ever present. The dynamical appreciation as presented in tion resulting from its history, that to regulate it as a whole we have always to modify the general conceptions of human unity by taking into account the actual stage of its developement. In no other way can we form the manners and habits appropriate to each period, avoiding aberrations traceable to misconceptions of the difference of times, such aberrations being either the simple result of routine, or due to a false system. Hence it is that history remains barren, nay, often becomes misleading, for we see in it a mass of examples instead of looking for a series of preparations, in the inter-dependence of which lies their real utility. In the preceding volume the dynamical conception is always so presented as to form the complement of the statical, this volume. on which it rests as its basis; each period, that is, is regarded as intended more fully to embody the type common to all, the type gradually, though imperfectly, evolved by its predecessors. I have now to carry on the succession of the ages-the filiation of man-so far as to determine the normal state, the advent of which is shown by the whole past to be at hand. Direct observation is here unattainable, but as a compensation we have the more complete predominance of statical ideas, and the more extensive series of historical judgments. To guard against illusion, in every step of our argument we have but to see that we are in entire accordance on the one hand with the nature of man, on the other with the sum of his antecedents. Thus doubly checked, we may, in regard to the future, arrive at conclusions as demonstrable as, though less exact than, the conclusions reached in regard to past periods; the investigation of which could not be of equal logical value from the want of a sufficient field for observation. Completion of the method and the doctrine. In accordance with the object of this concluding volume, its task is to complete the Positive doctrine and method by subjecting them, as it does quite naturally, to a treatment hitherto inadmissible, and yet the only one which can establish a satisfactory agreement between theory and practice. In it the judicious combination of statical and dynamical Sociology will define the legitimate position of time in the sum total of human conceptions. In it Morals will take their place at the head of the encyclopædic hierarchy as a direct consequence of the normal convergence of all positive theories towards the regulation of the conduct of nations and individuals. |