WORKS REFERRED TO IN THE LECTURES. LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF POSITIVISM. AUGUSTE COMTE's "Catechism of the Positive Religion." Translated by Dr. CONGREVE. AUGUSTE COMTE'S "Positive Polity." Vol. I. Translated by Dr. GEORGE H. LEWES's "History of Philosophy." (3rd Edition.) HERBERT SPENCER'S "Study of Sociology." (4th Edition.) JOHN S. MILL'S "Auguste Comte and Positivism." JOHN MORLEY'S "Diderot." E. S. BEESLY'S "England and the Sea." (Essays on International Policy.) FREDERIC HARRISON'S " Subjective Synthesis." n "The Positivist Problem." Fortnightly J. H. BRIDGES's "Evolution and Positivism." Review. The lecturer is under great obligations to the above-named distinguished thinkers and writers. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, WHAT is the problem of Positivism? What is its raison d'être? Why in these latter days is it proclaimed to the world as a cure for the many ailments society suffers from, and challenges therein the attention of thoughtful and serious persons? Why is it so much disliked by some persons? What is the cause of the dislike? How is it that it has fixed the attention, and daily absorbs the reverential admiration, of many sober and devout minds? These are questions which must have arisen in the minds of many men, and while it forms no part of my task to discuss the .objections, both good and bad-and mostly bad-which the ill-informed and the totally uninformed, always the larger number, have made to Positivism, the reasons of the likes and dislikes to which Positivism has given birth will be made manifest in the course of the lectures now commenced. The lectures will be so merely elementary that they will convey no new knowledge whatever to Positivists; but they may be none the less acceptable to that larger class who know little or nothing of Positivism, but are ready to give a respectful hearing to its exposition. What is Positivism? The reply is a simple and comprehensive one. It is a philosophy and a polity, and the aim of both is to discipline the mind, and to regulate the lifenothing less than this. It sets the highest value upon that knowledge which enables a man to discharge fittingly his duties as a citizen. Education in Ancient Greece was devised for a like purpose; but, owing to causes which we B cannot now detail-causes arising out of the Greek antipathy to theocratic rule-it did not wholly succeed. But, whatever the defects of Greek education, it tended to make a man a citizen first and foremost. This important fact, notorious to all, has a special interest for us whose education or instruction has but little bearing upon our functions as citizens. We are taught how to be much both good and bad; how to be citizens we are not taught. When we become good citizens, which is not often, we do so in spite of our training, the object of which is to make us tradesmen, merchants, savans, literati, or what not. We put literati and savans with tradesmen and merchants, as their functions are almost entirely industrial, and they compete with them for the same rewards, and are satisfied with the same kinds of success. Perhaps, before going further, we had better state what It means in Comte's writings the word Positive means. Relative, Organic, Precise, Certain, Useful, Real. A brief consideration of each of these terms will enable us to understand what Positivism is, and what it is not. It is Relative. It has, therefore, nothing Ontological in it. It does not discuss theories of Knowing and Being. It disregards all theological and metaphysical speculations as to first and final causes. It does not pretend to say what things are in themselves. It excludes the word "causes" from its Philosophy, and "rights" from its Polity, discussions about them being both idle and barren. Positivism is Relative. It endeavours to ascertain what man is, and what his environment is, by the light of individual and collective experience, past and present. It formulates the uniformities and resemblances observed in the one case, and calls them the Human Order. It also formulates the uniformities and resemblances observed in the other case, and calls them the External Order. Whether there be other "orders" it does not care to inquire. The knowledge of the External Order itself is of use only in so far as it enables man to modify it for the good of himself and his fellows. This is what Positivism concerns itself with mainly, if not wholly. It insists upon the importance of all scientific knowledge which can be organized for the theoretical and practical necessities of man. It has nothing to do with scientific speculations, which are as often fruitless of all rational results as the questions of the schoolmen about the origin of evil, the donkey between the two bundles of hay, how many angels can exist in vacuo, or dance upon the point of a needle. Many of the questions which agitate-they can hardly be said to exercise-mcn's minds now-a-days are as idle as these, albeit they possess a quasi-scientific character. Such questions, for instance, as the "Origin of Species," the genesis of the Heterogeneous from the Homogeneous, may be put by the ingenious or the learned. They can never be answered, and it is a pity to waste time over them, when that time can be so much better spent. Positivism ignores them as out of relation to man, in no wise disciplining his mental powers, or fitting him for the duties of life as a social being. This charge we prefer against Scientists, and against the Specialism they have brought into vogue. Specialism, once Spenecessary, now increases the intellectual anarchy. cialism could plead excuse before Comte came; but now that the relations of all the Sciences have been made clear by him, and the Philosophy deducible from the knowledge of such relations has been organised into a systematic whole, it has no longer any raison d'étre. "The brains being out, the man should die." Our quarrel with Specialism is that Specialists, by means of it, seek, or appear to be seeking, for the Absolute-for that which is out of all relation to man. They, in too many cases, still appear to cherish the notion that, if they search only long enough, an Objective Absolute may be found which will take the place of God, in whom belief has broken down. Now, Monotheism was not possible without a Revelation, as Roman Catholicism and Mahommedanism bear witness, and the Absolute will not be made known except in the same way. Do Scientists really believe that one day the Absolute will so reveal himself, herself, or itself (whatever it be)? and how, and in what fashion, will the Revelation be made? Do they not see that they are making an abstraction of a mere negation, and treating it as if it were the abstraction of concretes. Generalisations of the knowable we can, by dint of study, comprehend; why should we waste time and talents which may be precious to others upon that which is idle, not to say vicious? When instruction is widely diffused, and a true education has made itself known, the time will come for the Proletariat to say publicly what they think of studies pursued in other than a purely relative spirit. Their judgment will not be favourable to such, nor to the "discoveries" (as they are called) about which so much fuss is made now. They will think lightly-possibly even contemptuously-of the mere fact-collectors, called " men of science," with the din of whose achievements in fact-collecting some of us are very weary. They will insist that a social purpose shall dominate all studies, so as to render them human and relative-not, as many of them now are, non-human and unrelated. They will approve only of the organisation of knowledge for the public weal, and discountenance its mere accumulation for the public woe. They will ask the large-brained and large-hearted thinkers to devote their energies to urgent social problems, in the solution of which their noble activities will have full play, for their own benefit, and for the still greater benefit of Humanity. Further, Positivism is Organic. Its aim is to construct and build up. The uselessness of the old theologies to do this becomes daily increasingly apparent. They are no longer capable of making a man one with himself. How much less are they capable of making him one with his fellows? The feeling of solidarity, which Theologism once promoted, it no longer promotes; on the contrary, it is everywhere the cause of disunion. Theologism does not "bring peace, but a sword." It divides families, sunders states into opposing factions, and engenders distrust and uncertainty everywhere. In the intellectual domain it has lost what little value it may have had; while in the moral it is relaxing its hold, and its sanctions are being more and more regarded as questionable, if not immoral. Theologism having ceased to organise, what is to take its place? Metaphysics? They are powerless to construct, as has been proved over and over again. That is not their office. They have nothing organic in them; they only form a transition from the inorganic to the organic-from a moribund Theologism to a living Positivism. Positivism is Organic. It builds up a new order on the old, which is not so much a new order as a prolongation of the old upon a sounder basis-one scientifically founded. The intellectual basis of Positivism is one which becomes stronger, not weaker, by time; while its religious satisfactions are so numerous and perennial as to adequately meet the wants of all devout minds. Positivism is organic, for it satisfies the requirements of philosophers and fulfils the aspirations of mystics. Need it be added that, being so capacious, it can satisfy also the needs of all those persons who come between these two extremes? Of what other synthesis can this much be said? Is there another to compete with it? Where is it? No modification of the old Theologism, whether in a Theistic or Pantheistic direction, can compare with it, for it starts with unfounded assumptions and exploded fictions. Theism and Pantheism are smitten with both intellectual and moral barrenness, and no temporary union either of them may form with metaphysics, or with science, will be fruitful, save in hybrids; and hybrids are, as experiments prove, sterile, and not viable. Positivism is not only relative and organic, it is Precise; that is, it is definite, exact; not vague, but adhering to rule. It deals with things which can be defined, or are susceptible of definition. With the aimless and the undefined it has nothing to do. Positivism states not only the problem, but the means of solving it. It puts the case, and in what way it should be met. It has no theological or metaphysical conundrums to propound. It regards man as a definite physical compound in a milieu-social, moral, or material-which may be defined: with definite wants, and with definite means of meeting them. Positivism is not able, any more than previous religions, to satisfy all the foolish or indefinite yearnings man may be troubled with. Unlike them, it encourages the growth of those unselfish feelings and actions which stifle in their birth all childish and egoistic longings. It furnishes a great human ideal for his heart and mind. It leads a man to desire that which furthers the happiness of his fellows, and to long for that only which bears Humanity onward to a better futurity, when nobler types of living and loving will become commoner than they are now. Positivism is also Certain; and whoso knows what ununcertainty is, and has suffered from it-and who has not? -in questions moral, mental, social, political, and international, will rejoice to find a synthesis based on certainty. Those of us who have been students of Positivism for some years are able to appreciate the value of the remedies which it offers for existing ills; remedies which exist as certainly as the ills, and which need applying only to utterly eradicate them. The various nostrums (moral, political, and mental) all warranted by individuals as infallible cures for the evils which afflict the social organism, we see to be nothing more than temporary palliatives. Positivism, and |