# Modern Science and Anarchism/Chapter 4

Originally published as "La Philosophie Positive de Comte," Les Temps Noveaux, 24 January 1903
IV.
COMTE’S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY.
It is evident that while natural sciences were attaining, in the nineteenth century, the results mentioned in the previous chapter, it was necessary to attempt the construction of a synthetic philosophy which would embody the main results of all these sciences. Without wasting any more time on "substances," or on an "idea of the Universe," or on a "destination of life" and other symbolic expressions, with which philosophers used to entertain our fathers and grandfathers, and abandoning anthropomorphism—that is, the habit of attributing human qualities and intentions to Nature and to physical forces—it was time to attempt the construction of a philosophy which would represent a reasoned, unified, systematic summary of the whole of our knowledge. Such a philosophy, gradually rising from the simple to the complex, would state in broad lines the fundamental principles of the life of the universe, and would thus give a key to the comprehension of the whole of Nature. By this means it would furnish us at the same time with a powerful instrument of further research, helping us to discover new connections between things (new so-called "natural laws"), and inspiring us with confidence in the correctness of our conclusions, however different they might be from the current notions.
The necessity of a synthetic philosophy was already understood in the eighteenth century by the Encyclopaedists; by Voltaire in his admirable "Dictionary of Philosophy," which still remains a monumental work; by Turgot; by Saint-Simon, the founder of one of the three Socialist schools. Then, in the "forties" and "fifties" of the nineteenth century, Auguste Comte undertook, in his "Positive Philosophy," the same work, in a more scientific way, better suited to the recent progress in natural sciences; and Herbert Spencer followed, working out his "Synthetic Philosophy" after the wonderful revival of natural sciences in the middle of the nineteenth century.
​As regards mathematics and exact sciences in general, Comte fulfilled his task in a most admirable way. It is also recognised now that he was perfectly right in introducing the science of life (biology) and the science of human societies (sociology) in the cycle of sciences included in his "Positive Philosophy"; and it is also known what a formidable influence his Positive philosophy exercised on most men of science and thinkers in the second half of the nineteenth century.
But why, it is asked by those who otherwise fully appreciate the work of the great philosopher—why was Comte so weak when he undertook, in his second great work—the "Positive Politics"—the study of human institutions, especially the modern ones, and the study of Ethics?
How could a man, with such a vast and positive mind as Comte’s, finally become the founder of a religion and of a certain worship, as was the case with Comte in his declining days?
Some of his followers have tried to reconcile this last step of Comte with his previous work, maintaining that the philosopher had followed the same method in both his works—the "Positive Philosophy" and the "Positive Politics." But this is not correct. And this is why two such authorised and philosophical followers of Comte as Littré and John Stuart Mill reject the "Politics" and do not consider it even as a part of Comte’s philosophy. They merely see in it the result of an already weakened intelligence.
And yet, the contradiction which exists between these two works of Comte—his "Positive Philosophy" and his "Positive Politics"—is most characteristic, and it throws light upon some of the most important questions of the present day.
When Comte had finished his "Cours de philosophic positive," he must certainly have noticed that he had not yet introduced into his philosophy the most essential question: the origin of moral sense in man and the influence of this sense on the life of man and of human societies. It was evidently necessary in a course of Positive philosophy to study the origin of this feeling, and to explain it by the same causes by which Comte had explained life in general. He had to show why man, without the interference of any supernatural forces, should feel the need of obeying this feeling, or at least of reckoning with it.
It is most striking that Comte was on the proper way, which was followed later on by Darwin when he tried to explain, in the "Descent of Man," the origin of moral sense in Man. Comte ​wrote, indeed, in his "Positive Polities," several admirable passages which show that the extension of Sociability and Mutual Aid among animals, and their ethical importance, had not escaped his attention.
But to draw out of these facts the necessary, positivist conclusions, biological knowledge was wanting at the time he wrote, and Comte himself was wanting already in the necessary boldness. So he took God, the divinity of all the positive religions, which man is requested to worship and to pray to in order to remain moral, and in his stead he put Humanity with a capital letter. He invited us to prostrate ourselves before this new divinity, and to address our prayers to it in order to develop our moral feelings.
Once this was done, once it was recognised as necessary that man should adore some being placed outside and above him, so as to keep the human animal in the paths of duty—the rest followed of itself. The ritual of Comte's religion was easily found in the rituals of ancient religions which came from the East.
In fact, Comte was bound to come to such a conclusion, once he had not recognised that the moral sense of man, like sociability and society itself, had a pre-human origin; once he did not see in it a further development of animal sociability, fortified in man by the observation of Nature and by accumulated experience of the life of human societies.
Comte had not recognised that the moral sense of man is as much dependent upon his real nature as all the physical features of his organisation are; that both are an inheritance derived from an extremely long process of evolution—a process which had lasted already many scores of thousands of years.
He had noticed the feelings of sociability and mutual sympathy among the animals; but, under the influence of the great zoologist Cuvier, who was then the greatest authority, he had not admitted what Buffon and Lamarck had foreseen—the variability of species. He did not recognise the uninterrupted process of evolution from animal to man. Consequently, he could not see that the moral sense of man is nothing else but a ​further evolution of the mutual aid instincts evolved in animal societies long before the first man like creatures had appeared on earth.
Therefore Comte could not realise—as we can and must realise now—that whatever the immoral acts of isolated men may be, the moral sense of mankind will perforce instinctively live in humanity so long as the human species does not enter a period of decay; that actions contrary to a moral sense derived from this natural source must of necessity produce reaction in all others, just as mechanical action produces a reaction in the physical world; that in this necessary reaction of men against the anti-sociable actions of some of them, lies the force which preserves the moral sense and the moral habits in human societies, as it preserves sociability and a certain habit of self-restraint in all sociable animals; that, finally, this force is infinitely more powerful than the orders of any religion, or any law makers. Not having admitted that much, Comte was compelled therefore to invent a new divinity, Humanity, and a new worship, in order that this worship should always retain man in the paths of moral life.
Like Saint-Simon, like Fourier, he thus paid a tribute to his Christian education. Without admitting a struggle between a Good and an Evil principle (both of equal strength), and without man turning to the representative of Good to strengthen himself against the representative of Evil—without this, Christianity cannot exist. And Comte, imbued with this Christian idea, returned to it as soon as he had to deal with the question of morality and the means of strengthening it in man's feelings. The cult of Humanity was to be the instrument with which to remove from man the nefarious power of the Evil One.