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THE INCREDIBLE NOT ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLE. To...
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Comte's Positive Philosophy". By Gr. H. ...
me the sustaining faith which previous speculation had scattered , not to desire that others should likewise participate in it . For ten years it has been with me , surviving all changes of opinion , and m odifying my whole mental history ; and my debt of gratitude is inexpressible in words . If , after this recognition , I shall be found dissenting from some opinions energetically maintained by Comtb and his unhesitating disciples , it is only necessary to call to mind that Reverence is not incompatible with Independence . ' ' .
Auguste Comte was born in 1797 . His family was eminently catholie and monarchical—a detail not without its significance in considering his philosophic education ; to which may be added the further detail of his collegiate education having commenced in one of those institutions wherein Bonaparte vainly endeavoured to restore the antique preponderance of the theologico-metaphysical regime . It was at college , in his quick and eager youth , that Bacon rose up in scorn against the scholastic course of study , and planned the first sketch of the Novum Organum . It was at college that that Descartes grew painfully conscious of the incompetence of the
Aristotelian method , and the vanity of the reigning sciences . It was at college Locke grew impatient at the quibbling pedantries which passed current as philosophy , and learned to despise all education except self-education . And at college Comte first felt the necessity of an entire renovation of philosophy , and , impressed with the conviction that the restriction of the scientific method to the phenomena of the inorganic world was an absurdity , he saw thus early the absolute necessity of applying that method to vital and social problems . Bacon was thirteen , Comte fourteen , wheli this reforming spirit awoke .
He was in this condition of mind when he became acquainted with the celebrated St . Simon , and worked under him as one of his most active disciples . In after-life he characterized St . Simon as " a very ingenious but very superficial writer , whose nature , more active than speculative , was assuredly not very philosophic , and was really moved by nothing but an immense personal ambition . " The coincidence in their point of view , viz ., the necessity of a Social Renovation based upon a Mental Revolution , brought them together ; and the charm and personal ascendancy of St . Simon seems to have subjugated Comte , who considers , however , that their inter * course only troubled and interrupted the genuine course of his own speculations by directing them towards futile attempts at direct political action .
His career was interrupted in another and more painful manner in 1826 , whefi over-work and heait-anxieties brought on a cerebral excitement , which , under the care of mad doctors , was fostered into confirmed insanity . After the doctors had declared him incurable , he was cured by domestic care and tenderness . He has himself boldly stated this episode in his life , in anticipation of the perfidy of antagonists , who would not fail to fling it in derision at him . That this insanity was but a transient cerebral disorder , no reader of his volumes need be told ; for , whatever opposition his opinions may excite , however false and absurd they may appear , they assuredly have nothing of that extravagance and flightiness to which the imputation of madness can be applied .
His life appears to have been a quiet scientific life , his daily bread earned by teaching mathematics , both in private and at the Ecole Polytechnique , where he was professor ; and his leisure occupied with the slow elaboration of his philosophy . He has told us the story of his persecutions , in the preface to the sixth volume of the Philosophie Positive j but , of course , he has only told his view of the matter , and we know that men writing the story of their wrongs are not always the most accurate of historians . That he had offended Arago , and most of his brother professors , is quite clear ; and the fact of his gradual destitution from one post after another is as indisputable as it is deplorable . So that the reader will learn with pain that Comte , in his fifty-fifth year , is thrown upon the world , with no other resources than such as his friends and admirers can collect for him !*
Besides his official teaching , Comte has for many years been accustomed to deliver gratuitous lectures on sections of the positive philosophy , every Sunday , for six months in the year , by this means , disseminating among the people general truths of the most important nature . And these avocations may be said to have constituted his life , varied by two constant recreations—Poetry and Music . His writings , which already amount to ten thick volumes , have been composed with a rapidity almost incredible . The whole of the first volume of the Philosophie Positive ( 900 pages ) was written in three months ! and so of the rest : a rapidity which will in some
measure account for the imperfections of his verbose style . But there are two grand divisions in his life , corresponding with the two fundamental divisions of his philosophy . The lonely man of science , whose days were passed in meditation and the task-work of tuition , who led a purely intellectual life , was well fitted for the great mission of elaborating a philosophy of the Sciences , and thereby laying the immutable basis of a new Social Doctrine , —in other words , of elaborating a Philosophy as the indispensable preparation for a Religion ; but this intellectual life , in proportion as it fitted him for the coordination of scientific principles , rendered him unfitted , by its cxclusiveness , for that intense and enlarged conception of our moral or emotional life , with which Religion and Morality are inseparably connected . I am touching here upon a characteristic of the Positive Philosophy , which , for a long time to come , will be an obstacle
to its acceptance , for paeu of Science will reject with a sneer the subordination of the Intellect ; to jthe Heart , of Science to Morality ; and the unscientific , while they feel the deep find paramount importance of our Moral Nature , will be repelled from a philosophy which rests upon a scientific basis . Logic and sentiment—to use popular generalizations—have long been at war , and they will severally reject Comte ' s system , because it seeks to unite them . ¦ ... ¦' ,.. .. : . . . ¦/ . .. - . / . , .. ;\ . ; ¦ .-. ¦ , ; ¦ . . ;} ¦ . , - . ¦• . ¦ ¦ ,.. ; ¦ . ¦ ¦ That the Intellect is not the noblest aspect of man , is a heresy which I have long iterated with the constancy due to a conviction ; and there will never be a Philosophy capable of satisfying the demands o f Humanity , until the truth be recognised that man is moved by his emotions , not by his ideas ; he uses his Intellect only as an eye to see the way . In other
words , the Intellect is the servant , not the lord of the Heart ; and Science is a futile , frivolous pursuit , unworthy of greater respect than a game of chess , unless it subserve some grand religious aim , unless its issue be in some enlarged conception of man ' s life and destiny . I say this without much fear of being misunderstood . My opinions on religion have been too often , and too unequivocally pronounced , to admit of the supposition , that in thus placing Science in subordination to Religion , I wish to countenance the current declarations of orthodoxy . I agree with the spirit of those de c larations , while totally disagreeing with the opinions they imply . Although I do not owe to Auguste Conate the conviction of moral supremacy , I have been greatly strengthened in it by observing its growth in his mind .
At the age of forty-five , Comte fell in love with an , unhappy and remarkable woman , separated from her husband . One whole year of chaste and exquisite affection changed his life . He had completed his great work on Positive Philosoph y * His . scientific elaboration was over . He was now to enter upon the great problems of Social Life ; and by a fortunate coincidence , it was at this moment that he fell in love . It was then this Philosopher was to feel in all its intensity the truth which he before had perceived , viz ., that in the mass , as in the individual , the great predominance
is due to the affections ., and to them the intellect ministers . A new influence , penetrating like sunshine into the very depths of his being , awakened there the feelings dormant since childhood , and by their light he saw the world under new aspects . He grew religious . He learned to appreciate the abiding and universal influence of the affections . He gained a new glimpse into man ' s destiny . He aspired to become the founder of a new religion— -the religion of Humanity , about which I shall have to speak hereafter ; my present object is a . biographical sketch , not a critical investigation .
For one long blissful year , Auguste Comte knew the inexpressible happiness of a profound attachment ; and then the consolation of his life was withdrawn from him—the angel who had appeared to him in his solitude , and opened the gates of heaven to his eager gaze , vanished again , and left him once more to his loneliness ; but although her presence was no longer there , a trace of luminous glory left behind in the heart of the bereaved man , sufficed to , make him bear ^ his burden , and to dedicate his days to that great mission which her love had sanctified . Such is the Philosopher ; let us now try to apprehend the Philosophy .
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""" Tf any onerous lovor of philosoph y roodim ; this , will f 0 ™? }*?™*™^'*' will bo OTatoTull . y added to tho nubscriptfona I ondoavour in private to collect . Address , Leader Office , 10 , WoMngton-atreot .
The Incredible Not Always Impossible. To...
THE INCREDIBLE NOT ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLE . To G .- . H . Lewes . My Dear Lewes , —I have just read your article on the ' ¦ Fallacy of Clairvoyance . " Certain portions of it seem to me to call for a rejoinder on my part , as the writer of the series of letters , entitled " Magnetic Evenings at Home . " In the first place , allow me to acknowledge the liberal and temperate spirit in which you have written ; and let me further admit , that I consider you , personally , quite justified in your disbelief in clairvoyance by the failure of the personal experiment which you made as a test of its truth . I am not writing to remonstrate with you ; but to defend myself- —or , in other words , to show that , if your disbelief is founded on what you term
" a crucial instance , " my belief is founded on " a crucial instance' too . Referring to the experiment related by me , in No . 102 of this journal , you endeavour to account for the extraordinary results which I relate as having been obtained , by assuming that the clairvoyante was prompted m her answers by " leading questions , by intonations , by the hundred suggestions of voice and manner . " You further admit , that the gentlem an who put the questions ( not the magnetizer , remember ) , denied your explan ° tl 011 ' and assured you that he had remained perfectly passive . His statemen does not appear to have staggered you in your theory . I suppose you witness
doubled whether the person who put the questions was the best a to how the questions were put . At any rate , you resolved to " test t e clairvoyante when she knew nothing , when her operator knew nothing , when no other human being but yourself knew what the real case was . It is on this part of your letter that I wish to make one or two commen . 1 . I beg to repeat what I have already stated in the " Magnetic Evenings "—i . e ., that in the case of clairvoyance now under review , ana i the others which I have reported , I took down in writing the questions a ^ answers as they passed , and sent them to press in the Leader irom notes thus taken . Is this evidence of the verbal correctness of my rep of the questions , or is it not ? Do scientific men , like the 1 > J . w » you quote , disbelieve other people ' s ear * as well aa their eyes ; am a ( J
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 3, 1852, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03041852/page/20/
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