Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

“ In a word, as soon as the whole of science shall have become positive, philosophy will necessarily be positive also: For we only have at our disposal one point of view concerning things. All our real knowledge bears upon phenomena and their laws. If, therefore, considered one by one, all the orders of phenomena are conceived according to the positive mode of thought, how could it be that considered together, and in their totality, they should be conceived according to a mode of thought completely different, and even inconsistent with the former one? ”

“ The minds of men recognise no common discipline. Not a principle subsists which negative and “corrosive” criticism has not attacked. The individual erects himself as a judge of all things—philosophy, ethics, politics, religion. The opinion which he adopts most frequently without any special qualification for so doing, and according to his passions, always appears to him to have as much right to be admitted as those of other men. He claims to be amenable to no one for his thoughts. And this scattering (later on Comte will say insurrection) of intelligences is what he calls a state of anarchy. ”

“ Thus, in the “transformation of science into philosophy,” what is transformed at bottom is not science which remains itself while becoming general from being special: it is philosophy rather which is transformed. The latter will henceforth undoubtedly be conceived as the highest and most comprehensive form of positive knowledge, but as constituting a part of that knowledge. It has been said that Comte does away with philosophy, by reducing it to being merely the “generalisation of the highest results of the sciences.” ”

“ If we consider a man by himself, positive science only allows us to define him as an animal, in whom as in all others, the end of animal life is to insure organic life. Do we wish to define him by what is essentially human in him, that is to say, by intellect and sociability? One must then pass from the consideration of the individual to that of the species. From the strictly biological point of view M. Bonald’s saying must be reversed; we must say that man is an organism served by an intellect. ”

“ Empiricism, in its turn, is no less than mysticism contrary to the spirit of science, Empiricism signifies for Comte the knowledge which does not go beyond the pure and simple ascertainment of a fact. ”

“ To speak accurately, sociology with him, hardly ever considers anything except a single organism. Let us leave aside the little that it says of animal societies. It represents the human race as constituting, in time and in space, “an immense and eternal social unity, whose various organs, individuals and nations, united by universal solidarity, each, according to a determined manner and degree concur in the evolution of Humanity.” ”

“ History will become the “sacred science” of humanity. To put it more simply, it will be the ever clearer consciousness which humanity will have of itself, through the study of its intellectual and moral activity in the past. Gradually, with the progress of the historical spirit, the idea of an evolution subject to laws, the idea of “order conceived as capable of development,” will become substituted to the prejudice which attributes to man boundless power of action upon social facts. ”

“ Is not the conception of things from man’s point of view, one of the essential forms of the theological mode of thought, according to Comte himself? Does not positive philosophy teach that man must not consider himself as a sort of “imperium in imperio,” but as a being subordinate to the whole of nature? If therefore we must substitute the objective to the subjective point of view in which man at first spontaneously places himself, how can the classification of the sciences be at the same time “anthropocentric” and positive? ”

“ To know for the sake of knowing, appears to Comte to be a wrong use of the human intellect. The Newtons and the Laplaces in the past have fulfilled a necessary function, and humanity owes them eternal gratitude. They struck a decisive blow against theological and metaphysical philosophy; and secured the victory for the positive spirit. In their time scientific speculation which tended to the discovery of the laws of phenomena, and especially of celestial phenomena, was at once the most sublime and the most useful occupation which those men of genius could set themselves. ”

“ But, once sociology was created, and with it positive philosophy, it became possible to embrace the whole of the fundamental sciences in a single conception. For, from that time, they can be represented as being various aspects of the development of the human intellect.
Truly, the object of science is single, and the divisions which are introduced into it for our convenience, without being arbitrary, are artificial. All the branches of our knowledge, that is to say all the fundamental sciences, must be considered as issuing from a single trunk. ”

“ He who has only lived for himself, who has selfishly sought for life, has lost it: for death takes him away altogether. He who has lived for others, he who has not sought life for himself, has found it: for he survives in others. In the religions of the past, salvation was found in union with God: in the positive religion, salvation is found in union with humanity. ”

“ Will the individual approbation of all the members of society be required, and a kind of consecration by universal suffrage? As a matter of fact, such unanimity will perhaps never be realised. In justice it is not necessary. When we demand it we forget that Politic science is a positive science, the highest and most complicated of all. No one possesses any authority in the sciences if he is not competent. The people has no thought of making its opinion prevail in them; and, in matters of science, all who are not in a condition to understand demonstrations are the people. ”

“ Is it not fair to allow them the enjoyment of a patrimony as ancient perhaps as humanity herself? Somewhere, Comte compares language to property.227 Like it, language has facilitated acquisitions and preserved social wealth. But it has an advantage over property, that of admitting of equal possession by all at the same time. Art presents this advantage no less than language. Works of art are the common property of the whole of humanity and no one should be deprived of that inheritance. ”

“ Subjective immortality, renewed by an uninterrupted sequence of successive resurrections, will last as long as humanity itself. “To live with the dead,” says Comte “constitutes one of our most precious privileges.”368 But, in the same way, the dead live with us. They live in us, and those who have been most truly men, those who have made humanity by the effort of their intellect and their will, they are within us the best and most lasting part of ourselves. For, when our generation disappears, it is this part of us which will survive. ”

“ Thus all men to-day believe in the theory of the solar system which we owe to Copernicus, to Galileo and to Newton. Yet how many are in a position to understand the demonstrations upon which this theory rests? They know, however, that what here is a matter of faith to them, is a matter of science to others, and would be so equally for themselves had they gone through the necessary studies. ”

“ The principle of the conditions of existence explains this permanence of order, at least as much as it needs to be explained from the positive point of view. For it states that everywhere, in fact, the dynamical laws are in harmony with the statical laws, and that “progress is a development of order.” The principle of the conditions of existence is no more a priori than the principle of laws. Like it it is founded upon an “immense induction.” Like it again, it only acquires its full power when social science is created, and positive philosophy established. ”

“ The main artifice in moral perfection, writes Comte, lies in diminishing the inconsistency, indecision and divergency in our purposes, by connecting our moral and practical intellectual habits with external motives. The mutual links between our various tendencies are incapable of securing their stability, until they have found an immovable fulcrum outside themselves. To endure, the harmony of the soul must be realised by itself as founded on reason, that is to say, upon the order of the world. ”

“ A new point of view, truly universal, although always relative, is needed. How could Comte have distinguished otherwise, in each science, what is lasting and in conformity with the positive spirit from what is decaying and still bears the mark of the theological and metaphysical spirit? Could he especially have fixed the relations which the sciences should maintain among themselves, and could he have imposed upon them a discipline whose principle was not to be found in any one of them? ”

“ How would the general problems of biology receive a solution without this method? If we consider an organism by itself, the complication of functions and organs is inextricable in it. But, if we compare this organism with those which come nearest to it, and then with others which are near to them and so on, disengaging what they have in common, a simplification is produced. The accessory characteristics disappear by degrees, as we descend in the biological series, and, if we have set ourselves to study a certain function, we can finally determine its relation to its organ. ”

“ To teach all children music and drawing, as Comte requires in his positivist plan of education, is not to make them participate in the luxury of “accomplishments.” It is placing within their reach works which appeal to the whole of humanity; it is giving them a stronger sense of the solidarity which is the essential characteristic of human society; finally it is teaching them the universal language of which they possess the instinctive rudiments, and whence have sprung the very languages which to-day appear as frigid systems of symbols and graphic representations. ”

“ Have we not seen that the idea of progress, without which sociology cannot be constituted, has only been definitely formulated since the French Revolution? Comte then thought himself authorised to “limit his historical study to the sole examination of a homogeneous and continuous series, which was nevertheless justly qualified as universal.” At every moment in history, the people whose evolution is most advanced represent the whole of humanity since the rest of humanity is destined, sooner or later to pass through the same phase. ”

“ The domain of biology is not so sharply separated from that of sociology. For the higher biological functions, the intellectual functions, cannot be analysed from the point of view of the individual, at least in man, but only from the point of view of the species. We must then, while preserving the distinction between the two sciences, admit a kind of inter-relation between them. Undoubtedly sociology could not be founded so long as biology had not made decisive progress. But, conversely, sociology once founded alone completes the positive study of the highest biological functions. ”

“ According to the English philosopher, in the knowledge of nature, the mind must make itself as receptive as possible. In introducing anything of itself it would falsify science, and its whole effort must be to hold itself up to phenomena as a perfectly plain and unspotted mirror, so as to reflect them as they are. ”

“ Unity is also accomplished in the whole soul, since the intellect, henceforth conscious of its laws and of its essential functions, subjects itself to the heart, to be directed by love. Finally, unity will be brought about in society, since a new spiritual power, possessed of universally admitted principles, will give to all men and women a common education, will teach them all the same morality, and will rally them all within a same religion of love and goodness. ”

“ If intellects are divided among themselves it is because each intellect is divided against itself. Let one of them succeed in establishing a perfect harmony within itself, and by the mere force of logic, this harmony, by gradual diffusion will be communicated to the others—once true philosophy is established, the rest will only be a matter of time. It will therefore suffice to examine the opinions and beliefs which actually exist in one mind, and to inquire into the conditions28 necessary to substitute in it harmony to anarchy, or in a word, to realise within it a perfect logical coherence. ”

“ My conception of politics as social physics, and the law which I have discovered upon the three successive states of the human mind are but one and the same thought, considered from the two distinct points of view of method and of science. ”

“ The sociological phenomena, independently of the more general laws which are common to them with the subjacent orders, have laws of their own which regulate them. If animal societies only existed as we see them to-day, it would perhaps not be impossible to consider sociology as an appendix of biology. But human society excludes any attempt of this kind. For it is social life which has made the extraordinary development of the intellectual and moral functions possible in man, and this development is the very definition of humanity. ”

“ Positive philosophy organises labour within each science, and puts an end to “anarchy.” It distinguishes between “idle” researches, and those which should be pursued. It avoids waste of efforts and prevents digressions. We have seen within what limits Comte wishes to enclose astronomy in the name of philosophy. He does not perceive the means by which he can unite the various branches of physics; but he claims to replace the fragmentary and scattered chemistry of his time by a single systematic science, which will forsake the researches of detail which are without interest for humanity. ”

“ Being founded upon positive science, Comte’s ethics will reproduce its essential characteristics. In the first place it will be “real,” that is to say it will rest upon observation and not upon imagination. It will consider man as he is and not as he fancies himself to be. It will then rest, not upon the abstract analysis which he may make of his own heart, but upon the proofs given by humanity of its inclinations and of the usual motives for its actions, during the centuries made known to us by history. ”

“ Now this is precisely the idea of science which Comte rejects under the name of empiricism. Without the hypotheses or the theories suggested by the very activity of the mind science would never be constituted, according to him. There would never even be an apprehension of fact, at least an apprehension such that it could be of service to science. In a word “absolute empiricism is impossible.” In the simple observation of a phenomenon by the human mind, the entire mind is interested, and in it the subjective conditions of science are already virtually given. ”

“ And so neither is political economy a science yet, nor, so far, are economists men of science. Originally being nearly all barristers or men of letters, they were strangers to the idea of scientific observation, to the precise notion of a natural law, and finally to the sense of what constitutes a demonstration. If we make an exception of Adam Smith and of a few others, how could they apply the positive method which they did not know to the most difficult cases of analysis? Destutt de Tracy placed political economy between logic and ethics. ”

“ Metaphysical problems can no longer be set and, in this sense, when they disappear, the philosophy of the sciences disappears with them.
But, on the other hand, as we have already seen, the positive sciences are not self-sufficient. They need to be crowned and ordered by a philosophy. If then a philosophy is indispensable, and if, at the same time, this philosophy must be positive, relative like the sciences themselves, and homogeneous with them, only one solution remains possible. The philosophy of the sciences will consist in substituting the point of view of the whole to that of the parts. ”

“ The supreme requirement of our intellect is unity. Shall we ever reach this unity by using the objective method in the sciences? Evidently not. Even in each order of phenomena separately considered we do not see how to reduce the laws which we know to a single law of a more general character. ”