Book: Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX.

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX.




After some very just, and indeed admirable, observations on the
necessity, or extreme utility, of a theologic hypothesis at an early
period of mental development, in order to promote any systematic thought
whatever, he proceeds thus:--

"It is easily conceivable that our understanding, compelled to
proceed by degrees almost imperceptible, could not pass
abruptly, and without an intermediate stage, from the
_theologic_ to the _positive_ philosophy. Theology and physics
are so profoundly incompatible, their conceptions have a
character so radically opposed, that before renouncing the one
to employ exclusively the other, the mind must make use of
intermediate conceptions of a bastard character, fit, for that
very reason, gradually to operate the transition. Such is the
natural destination of metaphysical conceptions; they have no
other real utility. By substituting, in the study of phenomena,
for supernatural directive agency an inseparable entity
residing in things, (although this be conceived at first merely
as an emanation from the former,) man habituates himself, by
degrees, to consider only the facts themselves, the notion of
these metaphysical agents being gradually subtilized, till they
are no longer in the eyes of men of intelligence any thing but
the names of abstractions. It is impossible to conceive by what
other process our understanding could pass from considerations
purely supernatural, to considerations purely natural, from the
theologic to the positive _regime_."--P. 13.

We need hardly say that we enter our protest against the supposition
that theology is not the _last_, as well as the _first_, of our forms of
thought--against the assertion that is here, and throughout the work,
made or implied, that the scientific method, rigidly applied in its
appropriate field of enquiry, would be found incompatible with the great
argument of an intelligent Cause, and would throw the whole subject of
theology out of the range of human knowledge. It would be superfluous
for us to re-state that argument; and our readers would probably be more
displeased to have presented before them a hostile view of this subject,
though for the purpose only of controversy, than they would be edified
by a repetition of those reasonings which have long since brought
conviction to their minds. We will content ourselves, therefore, with
this protest, and with adding--as a fact of experience, which, in
estimating a law of development, may with peculiar propriety be insisted
on--that hitherto no such incompatibility has made itself evident.
Hitherto science, or the method of thinking, which its cultivation
requires and induces, has not shown itself hostile to the first great
article of religion--that on which revelation proceeds to erect all the
remaining articles of our faith. If it is a fact that, in rude times,
men began their speculative career by assigning individual phenomena to
the immediate causation of supernatural powers, it is equally a fact
that they have hitherto, in the most enlightened times, terminated their
inductive labours by assigning that _unity_ and _correlation_ which
science points out in the universe of things to an ordaining
intelligence. We repeat, as a matter of experience, it is as rare in
this age to find a reflective man who does not read _thought_ in this
unity and correlation of material phenomena, as it would have been, in
some rube superstitious period, to discover an individual who refused to
see, in any one of the specialities around him, the direct interference
of a spirit or demon. In our own country, men of science are rather to
blame for a too detailed, a puerile and injudicious, manner of treating
this great argument, than for any disposition to desert it.

Contenting ourselves with this protest, we proceed to the consideration
of the _new law_. That there is, in the statement here made of the
course pursued in the development of speculative thought, a measure of
truth; and that, in several subjects, the course here indicated may be
traced, will probably, by every one who reads the foregoing extracts, be
at once admitted. But assuredly very few will read it without a feeling
of surprise at finding what (under certain limitations) they would have
welcomed in the form of a general observation, proclaimed to them as a
_law_--a scientific law--which from its nature admits of no exception;
at finding it stated that every branch of human knowledge must of
necessity pass through these three theoretic stages. In the case of some
branches of knowledge, it is impossible to point out what can be
understood as its several theologic and metaphysic stages; and even in
cases where M. Comte has himself applied these terms, it is extremely
difficult to assign to them a meaning in accordance with that which they
bear in this statement of his law; as, for instance, in his application
of them to his own science of social physics. But we need not pause on
this. What a palpable fallacy it is to suppose, because M. Comte find
the positive and theologic methods incompatible, that, historically
speaking, and in the minds of men, which certainly admit of stranger
commixtures than this, they should "mutually exclude each other"--that,
in short, men have not been all along, in various degrees and
proportions, both _theologic_ and _positive_.

What is it, we ask, that M. Comte means by the _succession_ of these
several stages or modes of thinking? Does he mean that what is here
called the positive method of thought is not equally _spontaneous_ to
the human mind as the theological, but depends on it for its
development? Hardly so. The predominance of the positive method, or its
complete formation, may be postponed; but it clearly has an origin and
an existence independent of the theological. No barbarian ever deified,
or supernaturalized, every process around him; there must always have
been a portion of his experience entertained merely _as experience_. The
very necessity man has to labour for his subsistence, brings him into a
practical acquaintance with the material world, which induces
observation, and conducts towards a natural philosophy. If he is a
theologian the first moment he gives himself up to meditation, he is on
the road to the Baconian method the very day he begins to labour. The
rudest workman uses the lever; the mathematician follows and calculates
the law which determines the power it bestows; here we have industry and
then science, but what room for the intervention of theology?

Or does M. Comte mean this only--which we presume to be the case--that
these methods of thought are, in succession, predominant and brought to
maturity? If so, what necessity for this _metaphysic_ apparatus for the
sole purpose of _transition_? If each of these great modes, the positive
and theological, has its independent source, and is equally
spontaneous--if they have, in fact, been all along contemporary, though
in different stages of development, the function attributed to the
metaphysic mode is utterly superfluous; there can be no place for it;
there is no transition for it to operate. And what can be said of _a law
of succession_ in which there is no relation of cause and effect, or of
invariable sequence, between the phenomena?

Either way the position of M. Comte is untenable. If he intends that his
two great modes of thought, the theologic and the positive, (between
which the metaphysic performs the function of transition,) are _not_
equally spontaneous, but that the one must in the order of nature
precede the other; then, besides that this is an unfounded supposition,
it would follow--since the mind, or _organization_, of man remains from
age to age the same in its fundamental powers--that, at this very time,
no man could be inducted into the positive state of any branch of
knowledge, without first going through its theologic and metaphysic.
Truth must be expounded through a course of errors. Science must be
eternally postponed, in every system of education, to theology, and a
theology of the rudest description--a result certainly not contemplated
by M. Comte. If, on the other hand, he intends that they _are_ equally
spontaneous in their character, equally native to the mind, then, we
repeat, what becomes of the elaborate and "indispensable" part ascribed
to the _metaphysic_ of effectuating a transition between them? And how
can we describe that as a scientific _law_ in which there is confessedly
no immediate relation of cause and effect, or sequency, established? The
statement, if true, manifestly requires to be resolved into the law, or
laws, capable of explaining it.

Perhaps our readers have all this while suspected that we are acting in
a somewhat captious manner towards M. Comte; they have, perhaps,
concluded that this author could not have here required their assent,
strictly speaking, to a _law_, but that he used the term vaguely, as
many writers have done--meaning nothing more by it than a course of
events which has frequently been observed to take place; and under this
impression they may be more disposed to receive the measure of truth
contained in it than to cavil at the form of the statement. But indeed
M. Comte uses the language of science in no such vague manner; he
requires the same assent to this law that we give to any one of the
recognized laws of science--to that of gravitation for instance, to
which he himself likens it, pronouncing it, in a subsequent part of his
work, to have been as incontrovertibly established. Upon this law, think
what we may of it, M. Comte leans throughout all his progress; he could
not possibly dispense with it; on its stability depends his whole social
science; by it, as we have already intimated, he becomes master of the
past and of the future; and an appreciation of its necessity to him, at
once places us at that point of view from which M. Comte contemplates
our mundane affairs.

It is his object to put the scientific method in complete possession of
the whole range of human thought, especially of the department, hitherto
unreduced to subjection, of social phenomena. Now there is a great rival
in the field--theology--which, besides imparting its own supernatural
tenets, influences our modes of thinking on almost all social questions.
Theology cannot itself be converted into a branch of science; all those
tenets by which it sways the hopes and fears of men are confessedly
above the sphere of science: if science, therefore, is to rule
absolutely, it must remove theology. But it can only remove by
explaining; by showing how it came there, and how, in good time, it is
destined to depart. If the scientific method is entirely to predominate,
it must explain religion, as it must explain every thing that exists, or
has existed; and it must also reveal the law of its departure--otherwise
it cannot remain sole mistress of the speculative mind. Such is the
office which the law of development we have just considered is intended
to fulfil; how far it is capable of accomplishing its purpose we must
now leave our readers to decide.

Having thus, as he presumes, cleared the ground for the absolute and
exclusive dominion of the positive method, M. Comte proceeds to erect
the _hierarchy_, as he very descriptively calls it, of the several
sciences. His classification of these is based on the simplest and most
intelligible principle. We think that we rather add to, than diminish
from, the merits of this classification, when we say, that it is such as
seems spontaneously to arise to any reflective mind engaged in a review
of human knowledge. Commencing with the most simple, general, and
independent laws, it proceeds to those which are more complicated, which
presume the existence of other laws; in such manner that at every stage
of our scientific progress we are supporting ourselves on the knowledge
acquired in the one preceding.

"The positive philosophy," he tells us, "falls naturally into
five divisions, or five fundamental sciences, whose order of
succession is determined by the necessary or invariable
subordination (estimated according to no hypothetical opinions)
of their several phenomena; these are, astronomy, mechanics,
(_la physique_,) chemistry, physiology, and lastly, social
physics. The first regards the phenomena the most general, the
most abstract, the most remote from humanity; they influence
all others, without being influenced by them. The phenomena
considered by the last are, on the contrary, the most
complicated, the most concrete, the most directly interesting
to man; they depend more or less on all the preceding
phenomena, without exercising on them any influence. Between
these two extremes, the degrees of speciality, of complication
and personality, of phenomena, gradually increase, as well as
their successive dependence."--Vol. I. p. 96.

The principle of classification is excellent, but is there no rank dropt
out of this _hierarchy_? The metaphysicians, or psychologists, who are
wont to consider themselves as standing at the very summit--where are
they? They are dismissed from their labours--their place is occupied by
others--and what was considered as having substance and reality in their
proceedings, is transferred to the head of physiology. The phrenologist
is admitted into the hierarchy of science as an honest, though hitherto
an unpractised, and not very successful labourer; the metaphysician,
with his class of internal observations, is entirely scouted. M. Comte
considers the _mind_ as one of those abstract entities which it is the
first business of the positive philosophy to discard. He speaks of man,
of his organization, of his thought, but not, scientifically, of his
_mind_. This entity, this occult cause, belongs to the _metaphysic_
stage of theorizing. "There is no place," he cries, "for this illusory
psychology, the last transformation of theology!"--though, by the way,
so far as a belief in this abstract entity of mind is concerned, the
_metaphysic_ condition of our knowledge appears to be quite as old,
quite as primitive, as any conception whatever of theology. Now, whether
M. Comte be right in this preference of the phrenologist, we will not
stay to discuss--it were too wide a question; but thus much we can
briefly and indisputably show, that he utterly misconceives, as well as
underrates, the _kind of research_ to which psychologists are addicted.
As M. Comte's style is here unusually vivacious, we will quote the whole
passage. Are we uncharitable in supposing that the prospect of
demolishing, at one fell swoop, the brilliant reputations of a whole
class of Parisian _savans_, added something to the piquancy of the
style?

"Such has gradually become, since the time of Bacon, the
preponderance of the positive philosophy; it has at present
assumed indirectly so great an ascendant over those minds even
which have been most estranged from it, that metaphysicians
devoted to the study of our intelligence, can no longer hope to
delay the fall of their pretended science, but by presenting
their doctrines as founded also upon the observation of facts.
For this purpose they have, in these later times, attempted to
distinguish, by a very singular subtilty, two sorts of
observations of equal importance, the one external, the other
internal; the last of which is exclusively destined for the
study of intellectual phenomena. This is not the place to enter
into the special discussion of this sophism. I will limit
myself to indicate the principal consideration, which clearly
proves that this pretended direct contemplation of the mind by
itself, is a pure illusion.

"Not a long while ago men imagined they had explained vision by
saying that the luminous action of bodies produces on the
retina pictures representative of external forms and colours.
To this the physiologists [query, the _physiologists_] have
objected, with reason, that if it was _as images_ that the
luminous impressions acted, there needed another eye within the
eye to behold them. Does not a similar objection hold good
still more strikingly in the present case?

"It is clear, in fact, from an invincible necessity, that the
human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own.
For by whom can the observation be made? It is conceivable
that, relatively to moral phenomena, man can observe himself in
regard to the passions which animate him, from this anatomical
reason, that the organs which are the seat of them are distinct
from those destined to the function of observation. Though each
man has had occasion to make on himself such observations, yet
they can never have any great scientific importance; and the
best means of knowing the passions will be always to observe
them without; [_indeed_!] for every state of passion very
energetic--that is to say, precisely those which it would be
most essential to examine, are necessarily incompatible with
the state of observation. But as to observing in the same
manner intellectual phenomena, while they are proceeding, it is
manifestly impossible. The thinking individual cannot separate
himself in two parts, of which the one shall reason, and the
other observe it reasoning. The organ observed and the organ
observing being in this case identical, how can observation be
carried on?

"This pretended psychological method is thus radically absurd.
And only consider to what procedures profoundly contradictory
it immediately conducts! On the other hand, they recommend you
to isolate yourself as much as possible from all external
sensation; and, above all, they interdict you every
intellectual exercise; for if you were merely occupied in
making the most simple calculation, what would become of your
_internal_ observation? On the other hand, after having thus,
by dint of many precautions, attained to a perfect state of
intellectual slumber, you are to occupy yourself in
contemplating the operations passing in your mind--while there
is no longer any thing passing there. Our descendants will one
day see these ludicrous pretensions transferred to the
stage."--P. 34.

They seem transferred to the stage already--so completely burlesqued is
the whole process on which the psychologist bases his results. He does
not pretend to observe the mind itself; but he says, you can remember
previous states of consciousness, whether of passion or of intellectual
effort, and pay renewed attention to them. And assuredly there is no
difficulty in understanding this. When, indeed, M. Cousin, after being
much perplexed with the problem which Kant had thrown out to him, of
objective and subjective truth, comes back to the public and tells them,
in a second edition of his work, that he has succeeded in discovering,
in the inmost recesses of the mind, and at a depth of the consciousness
to which neither he nor any other had before been able to penetrate,
this very sense of the absolute in truth of which he was in
search--something very like the account which M. Conte gives, may be
applicable. But when M. Cousin, or other psychologists, in the ordinary
course of their investigations, observe mental phenomena, they simply
pay attention to what memory brings them of past experiences;
observations which are not only a legitimate source of knowledge, but
which are continually made, with more or less accuracy, by every human
being. If they are impossible according to the doctrines of phrenology,
let phrenology look to this, and rectify her blunder in the best way, as
speedily as she can. M. Comte may think fit to depreciate the labours of
the metaphysician; but it is not to the experimental philosopher alone
that he is indebted for that positive method which he expounds with so
exclusive an enthusiasm. M. Comte is a phrenologist; he adopts the
fundamental principles of Gall's system, but repudiates, as consummately
absurd, the list of organs, and the minute divisions of the skull, which
at present obtain amongst phrenologists. How came he, a phrenologist, so
far and no further, but from certain information gathered from his
consciousness, or his memory, which convicted phrenology of error? And
how can he, or any other, rectify this erroneous division of the
cranium, and establish a more reasonable one, unless by a course of
craniological observations directed and confirmed by those internal
observations which he is pleased here to deride?

His hierarchy being erected, he next enters on a review of the several
received sciences, marking throughout the successful, or erroneous,
application of the positive method. This occupies three volumes. It is a
portion of the work which we are restricted from entering on; nor shall
we deviate from the line we have prescribed to ourselves. But before
opening the fourth volume, in which he treats of social physics, it will
not be beside our object to take a glance at the _method_ itself, as
applied in the usual field of scientific investigation, to nature, as it
is called--to inorganic matter, to vegetable and animal life.

We are not here determining the merits of M. Comte in his exposition of
the scientific method; we take it as we find it; and, in unsophisticated
mood, we glance at the nature of this mental discipline--to make room
for which, it will be remembered, so wide a territory is to be laid
waste.

Facts, or phenomena, classed according to their similitude or the law of
their succession--such is the material of science. All enquiry into
causes, into substance, into being, pronounced impertinent and nugatory;
the very language in which such enquiries are couched not allowed,
perhaps, to have a meaning--such is the supreme dictate of the method,
and all men yield to it at least a nominal submission. Very different is
the aspect which science presents to us in these severe generalities,
than when she lectures fluently before gorgeous orreries; or is heard
from behind a glittering apparatus, electrical or chemical; or is seen,
gay and sportive as a child, at her endless game of unwearying
experiment. Here she is the harsh and strict disciplinarian. The
museful, meditative spirit passes from one object of its wonder to
another, and finds, at every pause it makes, that science is as
strenuous in forbidding as in satisfying enquiry. The planet rolls
through space--ask not how!--the mathematician will tell you at what
rate it flies--let his figures suffice. A thousand subtle combinations
are taking place around you, producing the most marvellous
transformations--the chemist has a table of substances, and a table of
proportions--names and figures both--_why_ these transmutations take
place, is a question you should be ashamed to ask. Plants spring up from
the earth, and _grow_, and blossom at your feet, and you look on with
delight, and an unsubduable wonder, and in a heedless moment you ask
what is _life?_ Science will generalize the fact to you--give you its
formula for the expression of _growth, decomposition, and
recomposition_, under circumstances not as yet very accurately
collected. Still you stand gazing at the plant which a short while since
stole through a crevice of the earth, and taking to itself, with such
subtle power of choice, from the soil or the air, the matter that it
needed, fashioned it to the green leaf and the hanging blossom. In vain!
Your scientific monitor calls you from futile reveries, and repeats his
formula of decomposition and recomposition. As _attraction_ in the
planet is known only as a movement admitting of a stated numerical
expression, so _life_ in the plant is to be known only as decomposition
and recomposition taking place under certain circumstances. Think of it
as such--no more. But, O learned philosopher! you exclaim, you shall
tell me that you know not what manner of thing life is, and I will
believe you; and if you add that I shall never discover it, I will
believe you; but you cannot prevent me from knowing that it is something
I do not know. Permit me, for I cannot help it, still to wonder what
life is. Upon the dial of a watch the hands are moving, and a child asks
why? Child! I respond, that the hands _do_ move is an ultimate fact--so,
represent it to yourself--and here, moreover, is the law of their
movement--the longer index revolves twelve times while the shorter
revolves once. This is knowledge, and will be of use to you--more you
cannot understand. And the child is silent, but still it keeps its eye
upon the dial, and knows there is something that it does not know.

But while you are looking, in spite of your scientific monitor, at this
beautiful creature that grows fixed and rooted in the earth--what is
this that glides forth from beneath its leaves, with self-determined
motion, not to be expressed by a numerical law, pausing, progressing,
seeking, this way and that, its pasture?--what have we here?
_Irritability and a tissue._ Lo! it shrinks back as the heel of the
philosopher has touched it, coiling and writhing itself--what is this?
_Sensation and a nerve._ Does the nerve _feel_? you inconsiderately ask,
or is there some sentient being, other than the nerve, in which
sensation resides? A smile of derision plays on the lip of the
philosopher. _There is sensation_--you cannot express the fact in
simpler or more general terms. Turn your enquiries, or your microscope,
on the organization with which it is, in order of time, connected. Ask
not me, in phrases without meaning, of the unintelligible mysteries of
ontology. And you, O philosopher! who think and reason thus, is not the
thought within thee, in every way, a most perplexing matter? Not more
perplexing, he replies, than the pain of yonder worm, which seems now to
have subsided, since it glides on with apparent pleasure over the
surface of the earth. Does the organization of the man, or something
else within him, _think_?--does the organization of that worm, or
something else within it, _feel_?--they are virtually the same
questions, and equally idle. Phenomena are the sole subjects of science.
Like attraction in the planet, like life in the vegetable, like
sensation in the animal, so thought in man is an ultimate fact, which we
can merely recognize, and place in its order in the universe. Come with
me to the dissecting-room, and examine that cerebral apparatus with
which it is, or _was_, connected.

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