I have alluded in the 17th Lecture to the theory of Positivism, and have spoken of the battle between it and the doctrine of St. John, as, perhaps, the last which will be fought in the world; as one which will be no battle merely of words or merely of swords, but in which all human interests will be involved. Auguste Comte had the wisdom to perceive, and the honesty to proclaim, that we are in an age of Science; that the words Knowledge and Science are synonymous; that whatever by its nature cannot be known, must, in such an age, be assumed not to be. This being the major of his syllogism, what was the minor? That was furnished not by him, but by a multitude of orthodox Christian theologians and philosophers. They have said, ‘God cannot be known. That He is, we have probable reasons for thinking; throw in the danger of doubt, if our guesses should prove true; and that is sufficient warrant for believing His existence, or acting as if we believed it. What He is we can only describe by negativing certain conditions of our own nature. The Bible, what we call the Revelation of God, tells us certain things which we have to believe about God, because we are ignorant, and must be ignorant, of that which He really is.’ Comte held that such a belief as this cannot stand in an age of Science. I am convinced that he was right. But I am convinced also that it could as little stand in an age of faith
If St. John belongs to an age of Faith, he teaches that which seems to me the only possible doctrine for an age of Science; that God can be known; that the knowledge of Him is the root of all other knowledge; that we are only capable of knowing our fellow-creatures, and of knowing the world of nature, because we are more directly related to Him than to them; because His knowledge of them is imparted in a measure to the creatures whom He has made in His image. If this be so, Science demands God, as its foundation; the effect of denying God will be to rob us of all the fruits of Science; ultimately of all belief in the possibility of Science.
But in the meantime the life of Auguste Comte seems to me to give us a beautiful and consolatory intimation how God guides an earnest man out of his theories, and if not into an acknowledgment of Himself, at least so many steps in the way to the acknowledgment of Him, as can leave us no doubt of what the seeker will behold when he is no longer bewildered by the mists of this world. The following sketch of his career appeared recently in ‘The Leader:’—
The main facts of his history are soon told. Born, in 1797, of Catholic and Royalist parents, he was educated at one of the Bonaparte lyceums, where he early distinguished himself by his love of speculation, and his profound dissatisfaction with the existing philosophic schools and actual social condition of his country. On leaving college he became acquainted with the celebrated Saint-Simon, and being attracted by his personal character, and charmed by the originality of his views, he joined the band of brilliant disciples which the genius and ambition of that distinguished social reformer gathered around him. Being the youngest amongst them, he was known as the Benjamin of the Saint-Simonian school;—a soubriquet which his enemies maliciously said his subsequent career fully justified, his philosophical system being, according to them, a genuine Benjamin’s mess. As a favourite pupil of Saint-Simon, Comte not only assisted him in the preparation of his text-books, but undertook, in 1820, at the suggestion of the master, an independent work designed as an exposition of the scientific basis of the system. This work, entitled ‘Système de Politique Positive,’ while approved of in the main by Saint-Simon, was described by him as defective in its exposition of the religious and sentimental aspect of his views. On the death of its founder in 1825, Comte deserted the Saint-Simonian school, to found one of his own; and during the next twenty years devoted himself to the elaboration of an original system of scientific thought, since known as the ‘Positive Philosophy.’ The great text-book of his system, entitled ‘Cours de Philosophie Positive,’ extending to six thick volumes, gradually appeared at intervals between the years 1830 and 1842. During this time he led a quiet, scientific life, as Professor of Mathematics in the Ecole Polytechnique; and almost immediately after the conclusion of his great work published two popular treatises connected with the subject of his chair, one on Analytical Geometry, the other on Astronomy, both of which were very successful. In 1844 he issued an outline and defence of his system in a single volume, entitled ‘Discours sur l’Ensemble du Positivisme.’ Soon after the publication of this work, an emotional crisis happened in his history, through which he became conscious that his own system was defective—as his early exposition of Saint-Simonism had been—on the religious side. The occasion of this was an ardent but virtuous attachment to a lady named Clotilde, whose death, a year after he had first met her, left him miserable in himself, and dissatisfied with his philosophy. Comte’s life divides itself into three eras; in the first, he is a disciple expounding the views of others; in the second a master, a philosophic legislator, unfolding a system of his own; in the third an apostle, proclaiming a new religion. In the first period he naturally accomplished but little, and his efforts in the last were, as we have said, to a great extent abortive; but in the middle era, that of his philosophic activity, he accomplished a scientific reform such as few men can ever individually achieve. Whatever may be thought of the positive philosophy either as to the perfection of the parts or as to its completeness as a whole—and it is undoubtedly open to criticism in both respects—it cannot be denied that to Comte belongs the honour of being the first who grasped the true principle for the co-ordination of the sciences; that in an age of vast speculative and scientific activity he first rose from the empirical classification of facts to a genuine science of principles. Even his enemies allow that he possessed great general force of intellect, rare speculative power, and that he reaches the happiest generalizations in every branch of science he undertakes to expound.
From this profoundly interesting narrative we learn that human love awakened Comte to a conviction of the inadequacy of his philosophical scheme. He must have a religion to graft upon it. There is no help for it; he must deny facts—facts which he has realized—if he pretends that his notion of Science is sufficient to explain them. His followers perceive clearly and complain bitterly—that by taking this course he is giving up the principles for which they had hailed him as the last great discoverer, as the man ‘who had grasped the true principle for the co-ordination of the Sciences.’ If there is something that lies beyond this Science—an indefinite, immeasurable Love, which is not and cannot be included in it,—a Love which must have a Worship in some way attached to it, we are not in the age of Science, we must still beg some contributions from the bygone age of Faith. Nor is it only Comte’s consistency which is imperilled by this his later experience. His new worship must have all the superstition—I would say boldly more than all the superstition—which has been found in the worship of any age or any country. It is grounded simply upon a feeling,—a deep human feeling, but still upon a feeling. It must be liable to all the varieties and excesses of that feeling. Christianity, Mahommedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, have always, in their most corrupt forms, recognised a Science as somehow connected with them; this religion is avowedly an excrescence upon, and a violation of, the ascertained principles of Science. Of what changes and developments, of what outrages upon Reason and Morality, must it not be susceptible?
And yet it is as much the offspring of experiment,—true, honest, practical experiment,—as any which ever led to a change in the opinions of any physical student! I leave the disciples of Comte to ponder on these apparent contradictions. The more their study is accompanied by a reverent and affectionate admiration of their master, and by a determination to part with none of the convictions into which he had been the means of leading them, the better. The more they determine not to part with any of the genuine and recognised characteristics of the scientific temper, patience, quietness, courage, awe,—the less I fear for the result. And if there comes in, apparently to disturb this temper, some pure but overpowering human attachment or passion, I trust they will give it entertainment as Comte did, and not resolve to be inhuman, lest they should be unscientific. Then, I think, they will find at last that a God, of whom it can be said, ‘He is Truth, He is Love,’ is the ground on which an age of Science rests, as much as an age of Faith; that Science without Him becomes a System which must exclude all new facts, which deals at last only with dead things; that Faith which is not based on Him becomes a belief in that which is not; in that which the believer chooses to hold; therefore an imposture.