BOOK IV 303 CHAPTER I THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS

 In Comte’s system Ethics occupies an intermediate place between theoretical philosophy and politics. Ethics rests upon the philosophy as Politics rests on the principles of Ethics.   Ethics is not an abstract speculative science; it does not therefore belong to the hierarchy of the fundamental sciences. It is true that, at the end of his life, Comte added a seventh to the six sciences of the early list,322 which precisely was ethics, that is to say the science of the laws which govern the emotions, passions, desires, etc., of man considered as an individual. But here it is more a question of ethical psychology than of ethics understood in the sense usual with philosophers. The latter, in Comte’s eyes, never constituted the object of a special science. As a matter of fact, either the laws of moral phenomena are studied, and this research, founded upon the positive knowledge of individual and collective human nature, forms a part of sociology. Or, starting from the knowledge of these laws, we ask ourselves what would be the best use for the power possessed by man of modifying phenomena; in this case it is an art whose rules must be determined. But for these rules to be rationally established, social science itself must be rationally founded. Thus, from the practical as from the speculative point of view, positive ethics depends upon sociology.   304 I.   In the XVIII. cent. Comte distinguishes three schools of Ethics: the utilitarian school, especially represented in his view by Helvetius; the Kantian School, which he knows through Cousin; and finally the philosophy of the moral sentiment; that is to say, the Scottish school; by none of the three is he fully satisfied. The Utilitarianism of Helvetius rests upon an inadequate psychology, which distorts human nature by denying against all evidence the existence of altruistic inclinations. He involuntarily tends to “reduce all the social relations to low coalitions of private interests.” The ethics of duty, as presented by Cousin, at any rate, organises “a kind of mystification, in which the so-called permanent disposition of each one to direct his conduct according to the abstract idea of duty would end in a small number of clever schemers taking advantage of the human race.” These remarks, in Comte’s mind address themselves less to the doctrine than to the person of Cousin. Finally the Scottish school was nearer to the truth than the others, since it admitted the existence of the altruistic tendencies beside the selfish ones. But it lacked precision and strength.   These various schools of ethics had a common failing by which they stood condemned as erroneous: they were constituted before the science of human nature had become positive. Thus utilitarian morality is quite deducible from a psychology such as that of Condillac: but this “metaphysical” psychology treated man chiefly as a reasoning and calculating being, and misunderstood the preponderance of the affective faculties. In the same way, the “german,” that is to say Cousin’s philosophy, represents the ego as being free, of an absolute freedom, and as being subjected to no law whatever: hence a strange and metaphysical system of ethics of duty.   Theological doctrines of ethics hitherto have been very305 superior to those which have been produced by philosophical speculation. The reason for this is simple. Without any scientific apparatus, religion implies a far more exact psychology than that of philosophers up to the present time. It deals with man “concrete” and real. It was bound not to misunderstand the relative importance of his faculties, and the respective power of his inclinations and his passions. The priest very often has a better knowledge of men than the metaphysician.   Comte especially admires Christian morality or, more precisely, the teaching of this morality as it was given by the Catholic church in the Middle Ages. “All the different branches of this morality have received most important improvements from Catholicism.” In saying “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” in making charity the supreme virtue, in fighting against selfishness as the source of all vices, Christian morality has taught what above all other things must be engraved upon men’s hearts. Positive philosophy will use the same language. “For anyone who has gone deeply into the study of humanity, universal love as Catholicism conceived it is still more important than the intellect itself in the economy of our individual or social existence, because to the gain of each one and of all, love makes use even of the least of our mental faculties, while selfishness disfigures or paralyses even the best dispositions.”323   But the greatest merit of Catholicism has been that it considered ethics as “the first of social necessities.” Everything is subordinated to it: it is subordinated to nothing. It dominates the entire life of man so as ceaselessly to direct and control all his actions. In ancient society, morals depended upon politics. In Christian society even politics borrows its principles from morals. That was the finest triumph of “Catholic wisdom,” which instituted a spiritual power independent of the temporal power.   306   Unfortunately this pure and lofty morality has linked its destinies with those of Catholicism. Now, Catholicism has been unable to keep pace with the progress of the intellect and of the positive method. At first it gave proof of “admirable liberality.” Later it became indifferent, and then hostile, to scientific progress. Finally it showed itself to be “retrograde,” when it had to struggle for its own existence. Catholic dogmas underwent a decomposition the necessary stages of which have been already described324 as it was bound to happen, and as a matter of fact did happen, the morality itself came to be affected by the attacks which were loosening the foundations of dogma. The work of criticism, after having successively ruined all the foundations of the old intellectual system, was subsequently to attack those of ethics. So we see the family, marriage, heredity, “assailed by senseless sects.”325 To be sure, private morality depends upon other conditions than those of unanimous opinions immovably established. Natural feeling speaks in it. Nevertheless it is not beyond the reach of “corrosive discussion,” when opinions of this kind are lacking, but public morality is all the more threatened. Here, without naming them, but clearly pointing them out, Comte attacks the schools of Saint-Simon and Fourier. “While dreaming about reorganisation of society they only developed the most dangerous anarchy.” Saint-Simonism endeavoured to ruin the family which the revolutionary storm, “with a few exceptions,” had respected. Fourierism denies the most general and the commonest principle of individual morality: the subordination of the passion to reason.   Must we then go back, as the retrograde school would have us do, and in order to save morality base it once again upon revealed religion? But the remedy, if it be not worse than the disease, is at least powerless to cure it. How could the religious dogmas be used as a support for morality when they307 cannot sustain themselves? What, in the future, can we expect from beliefs which have not withstood the progress of reason? Far from being able to furnish a solid basis for morality to-day, religious beliefs tend more and more to become doubly detrimental to it. On the one hand they are opposed to the human mind placing it on a more solid foundation; and, on the other hand, they are not active enough, even among those who believe in them, to exert a marked influence upon conduct. The clearest result of these dogmas is to inspire the greater number of men who are still imbued with them, with an instinctive and insurmountable hatred of those who have shaken them off. II.   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. In a word, through the use of an objective and truly scientific method, it will avoid serious causes for mistakes.   Being positive, this morality will be relative. For the immediate and necessary consequence of the relativity of knowledge is the relativity of morality. Kant, whom Comte himself called “the last of his great precursors,” attempted to preserve an absolute character for ethics: it is because, at bottom, he also preserved metaphysics. The moral law, says Kant, is universally valid for every free and reasonable being. But the only species of beings of this kind which we know, the308 human species, is developed in time according to the laws of a necessary progress. At every stage in this development it was not possessed of an equal aptitude for understanding a moral law. The most we can say is that, with time, the aptitude becomes greater and greater. Then, the existence of our species depends upon a great number of natural conditions—astronomical, physical, biological, sociological. If these conditions were different, which is not an absurd hypothesis, our morality would be different also. It is then relative at once to our situation and to our organisation.”   The idea of a relative morality is still a source of anxiety to many minds, who take it to be a preliminary step towards the negation of all morality. They think that, either good is absolute or the distinction between good and evil vanishes; there is no middle course. However, history shows that there is a way out of such deadlocks. Was not a similar dilemma put on the subject of knowledge? Was it not even said: either truth is absolute, or there is not truth at all? The dilemma was a false one. The human mind has become accustomed to relative truths; and an analogous solution will end by being also accepted for ethics. The acknowledgment of its relativity will not be any more fatal for it than it has been for science.   As the distinction between the true and the false subsists, although good is no longer conceived as absolute and immutable, so the distinction between good and evil subsists, although good is no longer conceived as a supreme theological or metaphysical reality, but as a “progress” towards an end indefinitely approached but never reached. The evolution of morality corresponds to that of knowledge. Both go through successive phases, of which each one implies the preceding ones, and preserves while modifying them. There are then “goods” as there are “truths,” provisional and temporary. Positive philosophy can thus give a reason for moral ideas,309 sometimes so poor and even so horrible, upon which humanity formerly lived. It does not judge the ethics of the past as compared with the ideals of to-day. It gives full justice to the theological and philosophical ethics which it replaces, and of which it proclaims itself the legitimate heir.   Finally it claims neither to be moral nor original in morality. Already positive science is “a prolongation of public reason.” In its nature it does not differ from simple commonsense, to which it owes its essential ideas: only in science these ideas assume a more systematic definition, and an abstract character which allows us to make the most thorough use of them. In the same way systematic morality is a prolongation of spontaneous morality.326 It simply disengages the principles which, as a matter of fact, have directed the moral development of humanity. Does it follow from this that it only has, so to speak, an interest for curiosity, and that moral progress takes place of itself as rapidly and as completely as possible, even if philosophical reflection is not applied to it? But Comte has already replied to this form of inept sophism. What is true of the evolution of humanity in general is true of the moral evolution included in it. This evolution allows of crises, of diseases, of stoppages in development, etc. It is then not at all a matter of indifference that systematic morality should bring out strongly the end towards which man’s efforts must tend, according to his nature and to the whole of the conditions in which he is placed. By throwing light upon its advance it helps progress as effectually as it is in man’s power to help it. III.   In its positive form the enunciation of the moral problem is as much as possible to make the sympathetic instincts310 predominate over the selfish impulses, “sociability over personality.”327   That human nature admits of sympathetic instincts, or, according to the name given them by Comte, altruistic instincts, is not a postulate but a fact. Positive psychology proves it. It is one of the solid portions of Gall’s doctrine. To be convinced of this it is enough to observe men, children, and even animals. Without these instincts, moreover, society would not subsist. Metaphysicians who considered man as a being acting chiefly through reasoning, may have imagined a society founded upon the expressed or tacit consent of the contracting parties. In reality, before all things men obey their inclinations. If they live in society, it is assuredly because their affective faculties lead them to it. Without inborn altruistic tendencies there can be no society and no morality.   But biology has proved that, since organic life preponderates over animal life, the selfish instincts are naturally stronger than the sympathetic ones. How could the latter succeed first in counter-balancing and then in dominating the former? This problem would have no solution if the progressive ascendency of the altruistic instincts, very weak originally, were not favoured by two orders of conditions, the one subjective, the other objective, whose action is unceasingly felt.   The following development of domestic and social affection is, in the first place, the result of the fact that man lives in society, and, consequently, in continual relation with his neighbours and his fellows. For, as we know, habitual exercise favours the development of organs and of functions. Further, the natural inferiority of the altruistic inclinations is compensated for by their aptitude for “indefinite extension.” They can grow in all the members of a group at the same311 time. Far from their being obstacles in each other’s way, the stronger altruism in one awakens and encourages nascent altruism in others. On the contrary, forms of selfishness tend to exclude each other. Save in the case of a more or less durable coalition, their rival claims clash with each other, to the peril of social peace. They are bound to make mutual concessions. They are never altogether repressed; however, social life obliges them to dissimulate and to restrain their most violent outbursts.   Add to this that the benevolent affections find in themselves their own satisfaction, and that this satisfaction is inexhaustible. We tire of acting, said Comte, we even tire of thinking; we never tire of loving. The affections which it is sweetest to experience have also a tendency to occupy a larger and larger place in the heart of man. Moreover the question for them is not to take the place of egoism but to hold it more and more in check. If human nature evolves it is, as we know, without any essential transformation. The preponderance of selfishness in us is connected with organic reasons which are beyond our power and which will never change. To wish to uproot egoism is folly; qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête. Whatever efforts we make, we cannot permanently change the relations between our altruistic and egoistic instincts. The latter will always be the strongest. But we can regard this change as an ideal which we shall approach always without ever actually reaching it.328   Finally, it is rare that our selfish instincts do not awaken some altruistic feeling as a counter-result. For example, the sexual instinct determines the development of maternal love. The desire to impose one’s will generates devotion to the common weal. Once the benevolent affection has arisen it persists and grows, and, after the selfish instinct has ceased to operate, it is sometimes sought after for its own sake. This312 fact, says Comte, greatly facilitates the “solution of the great human problem.”329   This solution would however remain exceedingly uncertain and very precarious if its only guarantee were the whole of the subjective conditions which have just been analysed. For, in order that it may become established and last, this group of conditions itself requires what Comte calls an “objective basis.” The moral order within us must be united to the order of the world outside ourselves.   It is true that, including the altruistic ones, our inclinations tend to become spontaneously developed. But it is also true that the external world tends constantly to modify them, through the medium of the impressions which it makes upon us. For the development of these inclinations is necessarily affected by the direction of our conceptions and by the success of our undertakings. Now both are ever becoming more subordinated to external order, since the end of science is to know this order, and that of the useful arts is to modify it. In this way, independently of ourselves, order tends in a twofold manner to regulate our instincts, “either by the excitement resulting from the notions which it procures, or by exercise corresponding to the efforts which it demands.”330 In a word, the laws of the “milieu” in which we live act like a regulation upon our inclinations. Although an indirect one, the influence of these laws upon them becomes in the long run irresistible.   And further, in order to be felt, this action does not require that we should have a more or less clear knowledge of it. Even at the time when man knew almost nothing of the laws of nature, his activity was more or less controlled by them. The ends sought after by man have always depended upon his moral and physical nature: the reason of the failure or the success of his efforts have always been found in the313 natural laws. Gradually positive knowledge was developed. Man became conscious of the order by which he is himself surrounded, of which he feels himself to be a portion, and in which his intellect collaborates in a measure difficult to determine but yet certain. The external regulator which, whatever our will may be, imposes itself upon our activity is thus revealed to our mind. The last degree to be reached is that it should finally be accepted by our feeling. This is precisely the result obtained by positive philosophy. For it makes us know our individual and social nature. It has shown us that humanity must not be explained by man, but man by humanity. It has explained the growing development of social life and that of altruism, which is at once its condition and its consequence. We now understand that our benevolent affections find themselves “spontaneously in conformity with the natural laws which govern the development of society.”331   Thus it is the continual pressure of external order which makes our egotistic instincts capable of being trained. They would undoubtedly get the mastery, if our sympathetic inclinations did not find without, in the laws of nature, a constant support which reason ends by understanding.   Moral perfection would be harmony realised among all men, by their mutual goodwill, according to the principle: Live for others, and, at the same time, harmony realised in each individual soul, by the subjection of egoism to the altruistic sentiments. But this harmony is not what is produced in the first place. On the contrary, war rages between the social groups, discord between the members of the same groups, the passions in each individual soul. Sometimes one, sometimes another of our tendencies influences us, according to circumstances whose details vary to infinity. No stable order of subordination is established among our tendencies: human nature, considered by itself, does not contain any principle314 which could maintain such an order. Left to itself, the human soul would remain in the state called by Spinoza “fluctuation.” The moral problem would have no durable solution. Hence the necessity of a “universal brake,” to make sure of the development of the altruistic tendencies. This brake is no other than the inevitable and continual pressure of the order of the world upon our conduct, and in the long run, upon our motives.   When the human mind wishes to direct its own phenomena, it instinctively seeks, in the general system of intelligible facts which constitutes the world, a group of well combined data, in order to refer its own less stable phenomena to it. We have already seen an example of this kind in the formation of language. Man “consolidates” his thought by coordinating it with a combination of signs which themselves are movements, and, as such, are subject to the general laws of the universe. In ethics we find something analogous. 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. IV.   What place must we assign to this positive ethics, in the usual classification of ethical doctrines? It is often considered as a theory of the moral sentiment. And, as a matter of fact, Comte himself characterises his ethics by “the direct preponderance of the social feeling.” In its origin also it belongs to this group. Comte makes use of Adam Smith and of315 Hume, when he affirms the existence of inborn altruistic tendencies within the soul. He indicates these tendencies, in his Cerebral Table, under the general name of “sympathy,” which comes from the Scottish school. Establish these altruistic feelings, he says, and morality is given, take them away, and morality disappears.   But these philosophers did not push analysis any further. They neglected to inquire how morality is developed in fact, although the altruistic tendencies are less powerful than the others. Comte reproaches the ethics of the Scottish school with its superficial character and its lack of systematic strictness. He praises their psychology which is less incomplete than that of their contemporaries; he is not satisfied with their theory of human activity. If the existence of sympathetic inclinations is a fact, their evolution must none the less be explained. The latter only becomes intelligible through the continued action of the objective order upon the soul of man, an action which becomes all the more decisive as man becomes more conscious of it, by the discovery of the laws of nature.   Thus, in order to give an account of human morality, Comte adds a rational element to the feeling-elements. Undoubtedly it is not an a priori element. But it is that which for Comte is the substitute of the a priori in metaphysical doctrines: that is the invariableness of the laws of phenomena, which makes the world intelligible. From the speculative point of view this intelligibility, under the name of “the principle of laws,” is the basis of our science. From the practical point of view, the order of the world alone can guarantee the lasting harmony of our inclinations. In this way it becomes the foundation of morality.   In spite of the more than evident differences of all kinds which separate Comte from Malebranche and from Leibnitz, it then appears that in his philosophy as in theirs, the idea of316 order is made use of to pass from the domain of knowledge to that of action. Undoubtedly, with Comte, from theological or metaphysical this idea has become positive. He does not intend to go beyond experience, and affirms nothing which cannot be verified as a fact. But, like the philosophers his predecessors, he is none the less anxious to find the unity of the soul beneath the diversity of its modes of activity, and to show that theoretical reason and practical reason are one and the same. Malebranche solved the problem by appealing to the idea of divine perfection, expressed everywhere by order. Comte explains that the pressure exercised by external order generates order in our mind (which moreover collaborates in it), then, as a consequence, in our feelings and finally in our actions. The stoics had already said something similar on this subject. Briefly, Comte’s ethics may be presented as the positive form of the ethics of universal order.   Shall we then say that, being sentimental and rational at once, this morality is not definite in character? Is it merely an eclectic attempt at conciliation?—Eclecticism in a certain sense would not frighten Comte. Positive philosophy flatters itself on being just in regard to its predecessors. It takes pleasure in praising each of them for the portion of truth which it contains. But, in the present case there is no occasion for it to be eclectic. It suffices for it to be relative, and, since it is a question of moral and social things, to appeal to history. Thus we see that the sentimental and the rational principles in no way exclude each other. From the historical point of view, that is to say, if we consider the genesis of morality, the latter finds birth in the sympathetic feelings which man, like many other animals, experiences, and which are spontaneously developed in domestic affection and in social life. How is it that subsequently this morality evolves, that friendly relations grow indefinitely in relative importance, in spite of the inborn strength of selfishness, that humanity, in a word, should317 gradually rise above animality? Without any doubt, that is due to the development of intelligence, itself bound up with the efforts which man is obliged to make to adapt himself to the “milieu” in which he lives.   Instinctive in its animal origin, morality becomes rational in its human evolution. We can say as much of language, of art, of science, and even of religion. All this was in embryo in the primitive nature of man, since nothing absolutely new ever appears in it. All this only manifested itself under pressure from external order, which, consciously or unconsciously, is always being exercised. Only when we know this order, we can make use of our science to turn the natural forces to our own ends, which in themselves are rational. It is in this way that systematic morality is substituted to spontaneous morality.   If we were more intelligent, says Comte, it would be equivalent to our being more moral. Understanding better the intimate connection which in a thousand ways, at every moment, binds each one of us to the whole of our fellows, we should more surely observe the precept: “Live for others.” And, if we were more moral, it would be equivalent to our being more intelligent. We would then act precisely as a more open and a deeper intelligence than our own would lead us to act. Now, we cannot become more moral by an immediate modification of our inclinations. Positive psychology has established that we exercise no direct action upon the affective part of our nature. But we can endeavour to become more intelligent: every successful effort that we make to understand the order of nature affords us the means of making fresh attempts.332 In this indirect manner morality can grow. Finally, it grows still more surely, when the intellect has understood that it does not contain its end within itself, that it must be subordinated to the heart, and that the318 only happiness compatible with the nature of man is found in devotion and in love.