Lest it should be suY>posed that our course ^ p„j„i;*., will lead us into a wilderness of such special studies as are at present the bane of a true positive philosophy, we will briefly advert to the existing prevalence of such special pursuit. In the primitive state of human knowledge there is no regular division of intellectual labour. Every student cultivates all the sciences. As knowledge accrues, the sciences part off; and students devote themselves each to some one branch. It is owing to this division of employment, and concentration of whole minds upon a single department, that science has made so prodigious an advance in modern times; and the perfection of this division is one of the most important characteristics of the Positive philosophy. But, while admitting all the merits of this change, we cannot be blind to the eminent disadvantages which arise from the limitation of minds to a particidar study. It is inevitable that each should be possessed with exclusive notions, and be thei'efore incapable of the general superiority of ancient students.
who actually owed that general superiority to the inferiority of their knowledge. We must consider whether the evil can be avoided without losing the good of the modern arrangement; for the evil is becoming urgent. We all acknowledge that the divisions established for the convenience of scientific pursuit are radically artificial; and yet there are very few who can embrace in idea the whole of any one science: each science moreover being itself only a part of a great whole. Almost every one is busy about his own particular section, without much thought about its relation to the general system of positive knowledge. We must not be blind to the evil, nor slow in seeking a remedy. We must not forget that this is the weak side of the positive philosophy, by which it may yet be attacked, with some hope of success, by the adherents of the theological and metaphysical systems. As to the remedy, it certainly does not lie in a return to the ancient confusion of pursuits, which would be mere retrogression, if it were possible, which it is not. It lies in perfecting the division of employments itself, — in carrying it one degree higher,- — in constituting one more speciality from the study of scientific generalities. Let us have a new class of students, suitably Proposed new prepared, whose business it shall be to take class of stu- the respective sciences as they are, determine dents. i\^Q sjjirit of each, ascertain their relations and mutual connection, and reduce their respective principles to the smallest number of general principles, in conformity with the fundamental rules of the Positive Method. At the same time, let other students be j)rei3ared for their special pursuit by an education which recognizes the whole scope of positive science, so as to profit by the labours of the students of generalities, and so as to correct reciprocally, under that guidance, the residts obtained by each. We see some aj^proach already to this arrangement. Once established, there would be nothing to apprehend from any extent of division of employments. When we once have a class of learned men, at the disposal of all others, whose business it shall be to connect each new discovery with the general system, we may dismiss all fear of the great whole being lost sight of in the pursuit of the details of knowledge. The organization of scientific research will then be FIRST BENEFIT. 11 complete; and it will henceforth have occasion only to extend its development, and not to change its character. After all, the formation of such a new class as is proposed would be merely an extension of the principle which has created all the classes we have. While science was narrow, there was only one class: as it expanded, more were instituted. With a further advance a fresh need arises, and this new class will be the result.
The general spirit of a course of Positive Advantages of Philosophy having been thus set forth, we the Po.sitive must now glance at the chief advantages t*liilosopliy. which may be derived, on behalf of human progression, from the study of it. Of these advantages, four may be especially pointed out.
I. The study of the Positive Philosophy lllnstratesthe affords the only rational means of exhibiting Intellectual thelogical laws of the human mind, which have function, hitherto been sought by unfit methods. To explain what is meant by this, we may refer to a saying of M. de Blainville, in his work on Comparative Anatomy, that every active, and especially every living being, may be regarded under two relations — the Statical and the Dynamical; that is, under conditions or in action. It is clear that all considerations range themselves under the one or the other of these heads. Let us apply this classification to the intellectual functions.
If we regard these functions under their Statical aspect — that is, if we consider the conditions under which they ■exist — we must determine the organic circumstances of the case, which inquiry involves it with anatomy and physiology. If we look at the Dynamic aspect, we have to study simply the exercise and results of the intellectual powers of the human race, which is neither more nor less than the general object of the Positive Philosophy. In short, looking at all scientific theories as so many great logical facts, it is only by the thorough observation of these facts that we can arrive at the knowledge of logical laws. These being the only means of knowledge of intellectual phenomena, the illusory psychology, which is the last phase of theology, is excluded. It pretends to accomplish the discovery of the laws of the human mind by contemplating it in itself; that is, by separating it from causes and effects. Such an attempt, made in defiance of the physiological study of our intellectual organs, and of the observation of rational methods of procedure, cannot succeed at this time of day.
The Positive Philosophy, which has been rising since the time of Bacon, has now secured such a preponderance, that the metaphysicians themselves profess to ground their pretended science on an observation of facts. They talk of external and internal facts, and say that their business is with the latter. This is much like saying that vision is explained by luminous objects painting their images upon the retina.
To this the physiologists reply that another eye woiild be needed to see the image. In the same manner, the mind may observe all phenomena but its own. It may be said that a man's intellect may observe his passions, the seat of the reason being somewhat apart from that of the emotions in the brain; but there can be nothing like scientific observation of the passions, except from, without, as the stir of the emotions disturbs the observing faculties more or less. It is yet more out of the question to make an intellectual observation of intellectual processes. The observing and observed organ are here the same, and its action cannot be pure and natural. In order to observe, your intellect must j^ause from activity; yet it is this very activity that you want to observe. If you cannot effect the pause, you cannot observe: if you do effect it, there is nothing to observe. The results of such a method are in proportion to its absurdity. After two thousand years of psychological jjursuit, no one proposition is established to the satisfaction of its followers. They are divided, to this day, into a multitude of schools, still disjjuting about the very elements of their doctrine. This interior observation gives birth to almost as many theories as there are observers. We ask in vain for any one discovery, great or small, which has been made under this method.
The psychologists have done some good in keeping up the activity of our understandings, when there was no better work for our faculties to do; and they may have added something to our stock of knowledge. If they have done so, it is by practising the Positive method — by observing SECOND BENEFIT. 13 the progress of tlie liuman mind in the light of science; that is, by ceasing, for the moment, to be psychologists.
The view just given in relation to logical Science becomes yet more striking when we consider the logical Art.
The Positive Method can be judged of only in action. It cannot be looked at by itself, apart from the work on which it is employed. At all events, such a contemplation would be only a dead study, which could produce nothing in the mind which loses time upon it. We may talk for ever about the method, and state it in terms very wisely, withoi:t knowing half so much about it as the man who has once j^ut it in practice ujDon a single particular of actual research, even without any philosophical intention. Thus it is that psychologists, by dint of reading the precepts of Bacon and the discourses of Descartes, have mistaken their own dreams for science.
Without saying whether it will ever be possible to establish a priori a true method of investigation, independent of a philosophical study of the sciences, it is clear that the thing has never been done yet, and that we are not capable of doing it now. We cannot as yet explain the great logical procedures, apart from their ajiplications. If we ever do, it will remain as necessary then as now to form good intellectual habits by studying the regular application of the scientific methods which we shall have attained.
This, then, is the first great result of the Positive Philosophy— the mai^ifestation by experiment of the laws which rule the Intellect in the investigation of truth; and, as a consequence the knowledge of the general rules suitable for that object.
II. The second effect of the Positive Must re^ene- Philosophy, an effect not less important and late Educafar more urgently wanted, will be to regene- *^'^"-rate Education.
The best minds are agreed that our European education, still essentially theological, metaphysical, and literary, must be superseded by a Positive training, conformable to our time and needs. Even the governments of our day have shared, where they have not originated, the attempts to establish positive instruction; and this is a striking indication of the prevalent sense of what is wanted. While encouraging such endeavours to the utmost, we must not however conceal from ourselves that everything yet done is inadequate to the object. The j^resent exclusive speciality of our pursuits, and the consequent isolation of the sciences, spoil our teaching. If any student desires to form an idea of natural philosophy as a whole, he is compelled to go through each department as it is now taught, as if he were to be only an astronomer, or only a chemist; so that, be his intellect what it may, his training must remain very imperfect. And yet his object requires that he should obtain general positive concej^tious of all the classes of natural phenomena. It is such an aggregate of conceptions, whether on a great or on a small scale, which must henceforth be the permanent basis of all human combinations. It will constitute the mind of future generations.
In order to this regeneration of our intellectual system, it is necesary that the sciences, considered as branches from one trunk, should yield us, as a whole, their chief methods and their most important results. The specialities of science can be pursued by those whose vocation lies in that direction. They are indispensable; and they are not likely to be neglected; but they can never of themselves renovate our system of Education; and, to be of their full use, they must rest upon the basis of that general instruction which is a direct result of the Positive Philosophy. Advances HI- The same special study of scientific sciences by generalities must also aid the progress of the combining respective positive sciences: and this constithem. tutes our third head of advantages.
The divisions which we establish between the sciences are, though not arbitrary, essentially artificial. The subject of our researches is one: we divide it for our convenience, in order to deal the more easily with its difficulties. But it sometimes happens — -and especially with the most important doctrines of each science — that we need what we cannot obtain under the present isolation of the sciences, — a combination of sevei'al special points of view; and for want of this, very important problems wait for their solution much longer than they otherwise need do. To go back into the past for an examj)le: Descartes' grand THIRD AND FOURTH BENEFITS. 15 conception with regard to analytical geometry is a discovery which has changed the whole aspect of mathematical science, and yielded the germ of all future progress; aud it issued from the union of two sciences which had always before been separately regai'ded and pursued.
The case of pending questions is yet more impressive; as, for instance, in Chemistry, the doctrine of Definite Proportions. Without entering upon the discussion of the fundamental principle of this theoxy, we may say with assurance that, in order to determine it — in order to determine whether it is a law of nature that atoms should necessarily combine in fixed numbers, — it will be indispensable that the chemical point of view should be united with the physiological. The failure of the theory with regard to organic bodies indicates that the cause of this immense exception must be investigated; and such an inquiry belongs as much to physiology as to chemistry. Again, it is as yet undecided whether azote is a simj^le or a compound body. It was concluded by almost all chemists that azote is a simple body; the illustrious Berzelius liesitated, on purely chemical considerations; but he was also influenced by the physiological observation that animals which receive no azote in their food have as much of it in their tissues as carnivorous animals. From this we see how physiology must unite with chemistry to inform us whether azote is simple or compound, and to institute a new series of researches upon the relation between the composition of living bodies and their mode of alimentation.
Such is the advantage which, in the third place, we shall owe to Positive philosophy — the elucidation of the respective sciences by their combination. In the fourth place IV. The Positive Philosophy offers the only solid basis for that Social Reorganiza- „^,j.\.^„;„(!;' ' tion which must succeed the critical condition in which the most civilized nations are now living.
It cannot be necessary to prove to anybody who reads this work that Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos; in other words, that all social mechanism rests upon Opinions. The great political and moral crisis that societies are now undergoing is shown by a rigid analysis to arise out of intellectual anarchy. While stability in funda- 16 - POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY.
mental maxims is the first condition of genuine social order, we are suffering under an utter disagreement which may be called universal. Till a certain number of general ideas can be acknowledged as a rallying-point of social doctrine, the nations will remain in a revolutionary state, whatever palliatives may be devised; and their institutions can be only provisional. But whenever the necessary agreement on first principles can be obtained, appropriate institutions will issue from them, without shock or resistance; for the causes of disorder will have been arrested by the mere fact of the agreement. It is in this direction that those must look who desire a natural and regular, a normal state of society.
Now, the existing disorder is abundantly accounted for by the existence, all at once, of three incompatible philosophies,— the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. Any one of these might alone secure some sort of social order; but while the three co-exist, it is impossible for us to understand one another upon any essential point whatever. If this is true, we have only to ascertain which of the philosophies must, in the nature of things, prevail; aud, this ascertained, every man, whatever may have been his former views, cannot but concur in its triumph. The problem once recognized cannot remain long unsolved; for all considerations whatever point to the Positive Philosophy as the one destined to prevail. It alone has been advancing during a course of centuries, throughout which the others have been declining. The fact is incontestable. Some may deplore it, but none can destroy it, nor therefore neglect it but under penalty of being betrayed by illusory speculations. This genei'al revolution of the human mind is nearly accomplished. We have only to complete the Positive Philosophy by bringing Social phenomena within its comprehension, and afterwards consolidating the whole into one body of homogeneous doctrine. The marked preference which almost all minds, from the highest to the commonest, accord to positive knowledge over vague and mystical conceptions, is a pledge of what the reception of this philosophy will be when it has acquired the only quality that it now wants — a character of due generality. When it has become complete, its supremacy will take PRECAUTIONARY OBSERVATION. 17 place spontaneously, and will re-establisli order throughout society. There is, at present, no conflict but between the theological and the metaphysical philosophies. They are contending for the task of reorganizing society; but it is a work too mighty for either of them. The positive philosophy has hitherto intervened only to examine both, and both are abuudaiitly discredited by the process. It is time now to be doing something more effective, without wasting our forces in needless controversy. It is time to complete the vast intellectual operation begun by Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, by constructing the system of general ideas which must henceforth j^revail among the human race. This is the way to put an end to the revolutionary crisis which is tormenting the civilized nations of the world.
Leaving these four points of advantage, we must attend to one precautionary reflection.
Because it is proposed to consolidate the No hope of rewhole of our acquired knowledge into one chiction to a body of homogeneous doctrine, it must not single law. be supposed that we are going to study this vast variety as proceeding from a single principle, and as subjected to a single law. There is something so chimerical in attempts at universal explanation by a single law, that it may be as Avell to secure this Work at once from any imputation of the kind, though its development will show how lui deserved such an imputation would be. Our intellectual resources are too narrow, and the universe is too complex, to leave any hope that it will ever be within our power to carry scientific perfection to its last degree of simplicity. Moreover, it appears as if the value of such an attainment, supposing it possible, were greatly overrated. The only way, for instance, in which we could achieve the business, would be by connecting all natural phenomena with the most general law we know,^ — which is that of Gravitation, by which astronomical phenomena are already connected witli a portion of terrestrial physics. Laplace has indicated that chemical phenomena may be regarded as simple atomic effects of the Newtonian attraction, modified by the form and mutual position of the atoms. But supposing this view jjroveable (which it cannot be wliile we are I. c I. c without data about the constitution of bodies), the difficulty of its application would doubtless be found so great that we must still maintain the existing division between astronomy and chemistry, with the difference that we now regard as natural that division which we should then call artificial. Laplace himself presented his idea only as a philosophic device, incapable of exercising any useful influence over the progress of chemical science. Moreover, supposing this insuperable difficulty overcome, we should be no nearer to scientific unity, since we then should still have to connect the whole of physiological phenomena with the same law, which certainly would not be the least difficult part of the enterprise. Yet, all things considered, the hypothesis we have glanced at would be the most favourable to the desired unity.
The consideration of all phenomena as referable to a single origin is by no means necessary to the systematic formation of science, any more than to the realization of the great and happy consequences that we anticipate from the positive philosophy. The only necessary unity is that of Method, which is already in great part established. As for the doctrine, it need not be one; it is enough that it should be homogeneous. It is, then, under the double aspect of unity of method and homogeneousness of doctrine that we shall consider the different classes of positive theories in this work. While pursuing the philosophical aim of all science, the lessening of the number of general laws requisite for the explanation of natural phenomena, we shall regard as presumptuous every attemj^t, in all future time, to reduce them rigorously to one.
Having thus endeavoured to determine the spii'it and influence of the Positive Philosophy, and to mark the goal of our labours, we have now to proceed to the exposition of the system; that is, to the determination of the universal, or encyclopaedic order, which must regulate the different classes of natural j^henomena, and consequently the corresjionding jDositive sciences.
VIEW OF THE HIERARCHY OF THE POSITIVE SCIENCES.
IN proceeding to offer a Classificatiou of the Sciences, we must leave on one side all others that have as yet been attempted. Snch scales are those of Bacon and D' Alembert are constructed upon an arbitrary division of Faihireof prothe faculties of the mind; whereas, our posed classitiprincipal faculties are often engaged at the cations, same time in any scientific pursuit. As for other classifications, they have failed, through one fault or another, to command assent: so that there are almost as many schemes as there are individuals to propose them. The failui-e has been so conspicuous, that the best minds feel a prejudice against this kind of enterprise, in any shape.
Now, what is the reason of this? — For one reason, the distribution of the sciences, having become a somewhat discredited task, has of late been undertaken chiefly by persons who have no sound knowledge of any science at all. A more important and less personal reason, however, is, the want of homogeueousness in the different parts of the intellectual system, — some having successively become positive, while others remain theological or metai^hysical. Among such incoherent materials, classification is of course impossible. Every attempt at a distribution has failed from this cause, without the distributor being able to see why; — without his discovering that a radical contrariety existed between the materials he was endeavouring to combine. The fact was clear enough, if it had but been understood, that the enterprise was premature; and that it was useless to undertake it till our principal scientific conceptions should all have become positive. The preceding chapter seems to show that this indispensable condition may now be considered fulfilled: and thus the time has arrived for laying down a sound and durable system of scientific order.
We may derive encouragement from tbe example set by recent botanists and zoologists, whose philosophical labours have exhibited the true principle of classification; viz. that the classification must proceed from the study of the things to be classified, and must by no means be determined by a priori considerations. The real afiinities and natural connections presented by objects being allowed to determine their order, the classification itself becomes the expression of the most general fact. And thus does the positive method apply to the question of classification itself, as well as to the objects included under it. It follows True principle that the mutual dependence of the sciences, — of classifica- a dependence resulting from that of the corretion. sponding phenomena, — must determine the arrangement of the system of human knowledge. Before proceeding to investigate this mutual dependence, we have only to ascertain the real bounds of the classification proposed: in other words, to settle what we mean by human knowledge, as the subject of this work.
„,.. The field of human labour is either speculalioundaries or, ■,.,,i ^, -v our field ""^^^ ^■'' ^^ction: and thus, we are accustomed to divide our knowledge into the theoretical and the practical. It is obvious that, in this inquiry, we have to do only with the theoretical. We are not going to treat of all human notions whatever, but of those fundamental conceptions of the different orders of phenomena which furnish a solid basis to all combinations, and are not founded on any antecedent intellectual system. In such a study, speculation is our material, and not the application of it, — except where the application may happen to throw back light on its speculative origin. This is probably what Bacon meant by that First Philosophy which lie declared to be an extract from the whole of Science, and which has been so differently and so strangely interpreted by his metaphysical commentators.
There can be no doubt that Man's study of nature must furnish the only basis of his action upon nature; for it is only by knowing the laws of phenomena, and thus being able to foresee them, that we can, in active life, set them THE VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 21 to modify one another for our advantage. Our direct natural power over everything about us is extremely weak, and altogether disproportioned to our needs. Whenever we effect anything great it is through a knowledge of natural laws, by which we can set one agent to work upon another, — even very weak modifying elements producing a change in the results of a large aggregate of causes. The relation of science to art may be summed up in a brief expression: From Science comes Prevision: from Prevision comes Action.
We must not, however, fall into the error of our time, of regarding Science chiefly as a basis of Art. However great may be the services rendered to Industry by science, however true may be the saying that Knowledge is Power, we must never forget that the sciences have a higher destination still; — and not only higher but more direct; — that of satisfying the craving of our understanding to know the laws of phenomena. To feel how deep and urgent this need is, we have only to consider for a moment the physiological effects of consternation, and to remember that the most terrible sensation we are capable of, is that which we experience when aiiy phenomenon seems to arise in violation of the familiar laws of nature. This need of disposing facts in a comprehensible order (which is the proper object of all scientific theories) is so inherent in our organization, that if we could not satisfy it by positive conceptions, we must inevitably return to those theological and metaphysical explanations which had their origin in this very fact of human nature.— It is this original tendency which acts as a preservative, in the minds of men of science, against the narrowness and incompleteness which the practical habits of our age are apt to produce. It is through this that we are able to maintain just and noble ideas of the importance and destination of the sciences; and if it were not thus, the human understanding would soon, as Condorcet has observed, come to a stand, even as to the practical applications for the sake of which higher things had been sacrificed; for, if the arts flow from science, the neglect of science must destroy the consequent arts. Some of the most important arts are derived from speculations pvu'sued duriBg long ages with a purely scientific intention. For instance, the ancient Greek geometers delighted themselves with beautiful sj^eculations on Conic Sections; those speculations wrought, after a long series of generations, the renovation of astronomy; and out of this has the art of navigation attained a perfection which it never could have reached otherwise than through the speculative labours of Archimedes and Apollonius: so that, to iise Condorcet's illustration, " the sailor who is preserved from shipwreck by the exact observation of the longitude, owes his life to a theory conceived two thousand years before by men of genius who had in view simply geometrical speculations."