[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
and never surpassed. Thus much I have said, in the way of homage to
the first manifestation of human genius on the great subject of govern-
ment, notwithstanding the evident influence that it has exercised upon
philosophical meditation, from its own day to this.
166/Auguste Comte
The works which succeeded need not detain us. They were merely
an accumulation of fresh materials, classified by the type that Aristotle
had furnished. The next period worth notice is that in which the prepon-
derance of the positive spirit in the study of phenomena caused the first
clear comprehension of the meaning of general laws, and in which the
idea of human progress began to assume some consistency; and, to find
these two conditions in concurrence, we can hardly go further back than
the middle of the last century. The first and most important series of
works which then presents itself is that of Montesquieu, first, In his
treatise on the “Greatness and Decline of the Romans,” and afterwards
in his “Spirit of Laws.” The great strength of this memorable work
appears to me to be in its tendency to regard political phenomena as
subject to invariable laws, like all other phenomena. This is manifested
at the very outset, in the preliminary chapter, in which, for the first time
in the history of the human mind, the general idea of low is directly
defined, in relation to all, even to political subjects, in the same sense in
which it is applied in the simplest positive investigations. The progress
of science which had been effected by the labours of Descartes, Galileo
and Kepler, a century before, had rendered the most advanced minds
familiar with an incomplete notion of progress. Montesquieu’s concep-
tion was a generalization of this incomplete notion: and, instead of de-
nying originality to so eminent a service, we may well be amazed that
such a conception should be offered, before the positive method had
extended beyond the simplest natural phenomena,—being scarcely ad-
mitted into the department of chemistry, and not yet heard of in the
study of living bodies. And, in the otter view, a man must have been in
advance of his time, who could conceive of natural laws as the basis of
social speculation and action, while all other able men were talking about
the absolute and indefinite power of legislators, when armed with due
authority, to modify at will the social state. The very qualities, however,
which give its pre-eminence to Montesquieu’s work prove to us the im-
possibility of success in an enterprise so premature in regard to its pro-
posed object, the very conditions of which were still impracticable. The
project of the work is not fulfilled in its course. and, admirable as are
some of its details, its falls back, like all others, upon the primitive type
offered by Aristotle’s treatise. We find no reference of social phenom-
ena to the laws whose existence was announced at the outset; nor any
scientific selection and connection of facts. The general nature of his
practical conclusions seems to show how far the execution of his work
Positive Philosophy/167
was from corresponding with his original intention, for his desultory
review of the whole mass of social subjects ends in his setting up, as a
universal political type, the English parliamentary system, the insuffi-
ciency of which, for the satisfaction of modern social requirements was
not, it is true, so conspicuous in his day as it is now, but still discernible
enough, as we shall have occasion to see. It was honourable to
Montesquieu’s philosophical character, that he steered wide of the meta-
physical Utopias which lay in his way, and resorted rather to the narrow
anchorage at which he rested; but such a resort, so narrow and so bar-
ren, proves that he had wandered away from the course announced by
himself. The only part of the book which bears any true marks of sus-
tained positivity is that in which the social influence of permanent local
causes,—of that which in political language we may call climate,—is
considered. This view, evidently derived from Hippocrates, manifests a
tendency to attach observed phenomena to forces able to produce them,
as in natural philosophy; but the aim has failed. The true political influ-
ence of climate is misconceived, and usually much through the common
error of analysing a mere modification before the main action is fully
understood; which is much like trying to determine planetary perturba-
tions before ascertaining the chief gravitations. This error was inevi-
table under Montesquieu’s necessary ignorance of the great social laws,
while he was bent upon introducing the Positive spirit into the domain
of politics. He naturally betook himself to the only class of social specu-
lations which seemed fit for his purpose. Pardonable or unavoidable as
was his failure, it is a new evidence of the vast gap which lies open at
the outset of the science. Montesquieu did not even perceive, any more
than others the fact which should regulate the whole political theory of
climate;—that local physical causes, very powerful in the early days of
civilization, lose their force in proportion as human development admits
of their being neutralized:—a view which would certainly have occurred
to Montesquieu if he had possessed himself of the fundamental notion
of human progression before he treated of the political theory of cli-
mate. Thus, this great philosopher proposed a grand enterprise which
was premature in two senses, and in which he could not but fail,—first,
by bringing social phenomena under the operation of the positive spirit
before it had been introduced into the system of biological science; and
again, in proposing social reorganization during a period marked out
for revolutionary action. This explains why a mind so eminent should
have exercised, through its very advancement, an immediate influence
168/Auguste Comte
very inferior to that of a mere sophist, like Rousseau, whose intellectual
state, much better adapted to the disposition of his contemporaries, al-
lowed him to constitute himself, with so remarkable a success, the natu-
ral organ of the revolutionary movement of the time. It is by our poster-
ity that Montesquieu will be duly estimated, when the extension of the
positive philosophy to social speculations will disclose the high value of
the precocious attempts which, though doomed to failure, yield the light
by which the general question must be laid down.
After Montesquieu the next great addition to Sociology (which is
the term I may be alloyed to invent to designate Social Physics) was
made by Condorcet. proceeding on the views suggested by his illustri-
ous friend Turgot. Turgot’s suggestions with regard to the theory of the
perfectibility of human nature were doubtless the basis of Condorcet’s
speculation exhibited in his “Historical Sketch of the Progress of the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]