MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1866. COMTE AND POSITIVISM.1 BY W. WHEWELL, D.D. MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. "POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY" has been frequently spoken of and discussed of late years; and the manner in which it is treated and the publications in which the discussion is carried on imply that it is supposed to be a subject of popular interest. It may, therefore, I trust, Mr. Editor, be a subject not unsuited to the pages of your Magazine; and I am ready to offer my contribution to the discussion. With regard to M. Auguste Comte and his Philosophie Positive, I have many years ago expressed my opinion. I then spoke of him as a person whose want of knowledge and of temperate thought caused his opinions on the philosophy and history of science to be of no value. I have seen no reason to change this opinion: but eminent writers of our own country have given to him an amount of attention and admiration which makes it very fit for me to reconsider this judgment. We have especially the great authority of Mr. J. S. Mill calling upon us to give again our attention to M. Comte and his philosophy. No authority of our own time can be greater than this. Beside Mr. Mill's profound philosophical thought and wide sphere of knowledge, the dignity of his position naturally makes us look where he points. His love of truth and fearlessness of consequences have given him an emi 1 Auguste Comte and Positivism. By John Stuart Mill.-Fortnightly Review, January 1. Auguste Comte, by the Editor. No. 77.-VOL. XIII. nence which all must rejoice to see generally acknowledged. It is no small glory of our times, that one of our most popular constituencies has fully and practically adopted the great Platonic maxim, that it will never go well with the world till our rulers are philosophers, or our philosophers rulers. This popular recognition of Mr. Mill as the representative of the philosophical element in man may very fitly lead to a popular discussion of those whom he declares Worthies. To some of your readers, perhaps, it may be known that I have always regarded Mr. Mill's opinions with respect, and considered them interesting and important subjects of discussion, but that on many subjects I have held them to be erroneous, and have not scrupled to publish my reasons for thinking so. I must still keep the same attitude. I can in no degree share Mr. Mill's admiration for Auguste Comte, even though it is now limited in many points, and balanced by something very like contempt as to his more recent doctrines: and I am desirous of considering the matter a little farther than I have yet done. Perhaps I may be allowed to notice some of the features which seem to me to be those which especially recommend Auguste Comte's doctrines to Mr. Mill's approval. Among them are, I conceive, M. Comte's rejection of all abstract conceptions, causes, theories, and the like; and his assertions that phenomena A A alone are the proper subject of science. All beyond he stigmatizes as "metaphysical," a term which he endeavours to make an opprobrious one:-a tendency in which we must allow that he sympathizes with the English "general reader" and general talker. Mr. Mill shares in this dislike to abstract terms, and ascribes to such terms a mischievous tendency. For example, he thinks there is much harm in the old maxim that "Nature abhors a vacuum:"-that it makes of Nature an active agent. Now this, I must profess, appears to me a kind of philosophical prudery. Why not state actual facts in familiar words, even if they be a little figurative? For is it not true that Nature, in this our terrestrial region, does abhor a vacuum? What would be gained to philosophy, if, instead of this simple rule, we were to be told that, "in a system of matter held together by attractive forces, there is a tendency to fill up all spaces empty of matter?" Is the abstract term Nature so very bewildering that we cannot for a moment recollect what it means? Have we such a horror of Nature's "horror," that we can be satisfied with any feeling whatever which may expel it? As I have said, I conceive that one main feature in M. Comte's philosophy which recommends it to Mr. Mill is his horror of the word " metaphysical," and that the "Positive Philosophy" is positive mainly in denying all but factsall abstractions, causes, theories, and the like. M. Comte holds (and apparently it is held to be one of his great discoveries, as it certainly is a very prominent part of his system) that in every science there is a metaphysical stage, which precedes that positive stage which is the true form of science. Now this I conceive to be a radical mistake. There is no science in which this pretended succession of a metaphysical and a positive stage can be pointed out. There is no science in which the discovery of laws of phenomena, when once begun, has been carried on independently of discussions concerning ideas, which must be called metaphysical if anything be so called. There is no science in which the expression of the laws of phenomena can at this time dispense with ideas which have acquired their place in science in virtue of metaphysical considerations. There is no science in which the most active disquisitions concerning ideas did not come after, not before, the first discovery of laws of phenomena. This may be exemplified in all sciences which have made any progress. Kepler's discoveries would never have been made but for his metaphysical notions. And again: those discoveries of the laws of phenomena did not lead immediately to Newton's theory, because a century of metaphysical discussion was requisite as a preparation. And, at this moment, those sciences which are most progressive, and which have the fullest promise of progress, are in want of metaphysical clearness of ideas, no less than of additional facts. Who will help us to a true view, or even to a view tenable for a year, of the atomic constitution of bodies; explaining why it is that, with every scheme of atomic constitution, we are perpetually driven to the contradiction of half atoms, and how this is to be avoided? Who will guide us over the geometrical contradictions which beset us when we would imagine the structure of crystals? Who can give us a notion, metaphysically tenable, of chemical composition? Are all chemical compounds binary? M. Comte thinks they are: a metaphysical doctrine surely, for he gives no physical reason for it. Nor indeed is it reconcileable with the simplest facts of the newer chemistry. Who will define for us vital power and forces, avoiding metaphysical notions? And of what use could his definition be if he did so? But we might go on through the whole range of science asking the like questions, and every science in turn would reveal to us how baseless is the notion that there is a good positive stage of science which succeeds a bad metaphysical stage. M. Comte's theoretical view of the progress of science includes a further assertion, which I mention because it has been much noticed, though to me it Curiously It appears to be worthless, and, indeed, absolutely puerile. According to him, sciences go through three stages;-they are, first, theological; secondly, metaphysical; thirdly, positive. Now, that in early times men believed the sun and the moon to be gods, or to be governed and guided by gods, is true; but this is not science, not even the beginning of science it is a state of thought which precedes science. But be it so. astronomy be first theological. But Let what other science has gone through this stage? Physics has not. As Adam Smith says, there was never a god of weight. Has chemistry? enough chemistry has had a mythological stage, but it was not its first stage. It was the stage through which it went in the ages of alchemy. When chemists described the substances and operations with which they dealt by the most curious and lively personifications, gold was the king of metals, silver, the queen: an object much aimed at was to obtain the regulus, the metallic young one, of the more imperfect metals. pose, there were magisteries, preparations For this purwhich possessed power to change bodies, with many fancies of the same kind. In the same way, astronomy had its mythological period in the age of astrology. But then-alas for the Comtian order of development of sciences !-this was long after there existed a positive science of Astronomy among the Greeks, whose results are still part of our astronomical treasury. So that the history of science refuses altogether to lend itself to the attempt to find a profound and general meaning in the fact that men began to talk about the sun and moon by calling them Apollo and Diana. Another feature of the positive philosophy is, that it denies (all its characteristics are negative, as I have said) modern theories, such as the undulatory theory in optics, and thus reduces science to its facts. Now to this there is an unanswerable reply. The facts cannot be expressed without the theory. It is a challenge which has been repeatedly addressed to the opponents of the undulatory theory, and never accepted, to 355 express without the theory the facts of diffraction (the dark and bright lines. cast). There is in this case, and in which border shadows when exactly many others, no possibility of stating the facts without using the language of the theory; and therefore on this subject there can be no Positive Science in M. Comte's sense. But M. Comte was too ignorant of modern optics to know this. The language in which he speaks of modern optics (and of all modern sciences except astronomy) general phrases in the attempt to make is that of a shallow pretender, using Thus he says that Fresnel applied the his expressions seem to be knowledge. principle of interferences to the phenomena of coloured rings, "on which the " ingenious labours of Newton left much to desire;" as if Fresnel's labours on this subject had been the supplement of those of Newton! 66 But I regard Comte as a notable example of the character generated in France by the prominence given to the study of mathematics in the last generation. He was in some degree a distinguished scholar of the Polytechnic School, though much exaggerated; and his pretensions his attainments in this way have been to discoveries are, as Sir John Herschel the mathematicians of that generation has shown, absurdly fallacious. having, with great ingenuity and subtlety, gravitation, seemed to think it intolerable completed the Newtonian theory of presumption in any one to put forth a should rival that of gravitation in its theory upon another subject, which generality and the subtle mathematical artifices which it involved. As evidence of the prevalence of this temper amongst the greatest French mathematicians of that time, I may mention an self. He and Fresnel pursued together anecdote which I had from Arago himthose experiments which established the undulatory theory. At a certain period they came to the experiment in which the same plane interfere with each other: it appeared that two rays polarized in two rays polarized in planes perpendicular to each other do not interfere. Fresnel said to Arago, "Do you not see that this "is simply the fact, that light consists "of transverse undulations?" Arago, in relating this, said to me, "You will "wonder how I could refuse to assent to "this; for certainly the fact was so. "But, in good truth, I dared not assent. "I was in close relations with Laplace "and the other leaders in mathematics, "and they would not hear of undula"tions. So I held my tongue at that "time." This "influence" of the opponents of the undulatory theory, I conceive, operated upon M. Comte also, and prevented him from learning the plainest facts in its history. I am not going to trace M. Comte's views of the other sciences. He is, I conceive, very superficial in all, and in some grossly erroneous. But, as an example, I may quote what Mr. Mill himself says of M. Comte's way of dealing with one of the most conspicuous of modern sciences: one, too, of which he was especially bound to acquaint himself with the history, inasmuch as to it, under the name of Sociology, he professes to have made great and improbable additions: I mean Political Economy. "Any one," says Mr. Mill (p. 80), "any new to the original aperçus of Adam "Smith; when every one who has used "them know that they have added so "much as to have changed the whole "aspect of the science." I should rather say, instead of reading a few pages of M. Comte to learn how extremely superficial he can be, the reader may read any page of his speculations to see how extremely superficial he is. But I will say a few words on another aspect of the Positive Philosophy, which may have won it some favour from speculators who, like Mr. Mill, are very suspicious of ideas; it confines itself to the inquiry into phenomena, and rejects the inquiry into causes. Now that men need to be warned against making the inquiry into cause the first or the principal aim of scientific research is true. But this is a truth which M. Comte was neither the first to propound, nor has propounded in a useful and intelligent manner. Those who have taught the opposite doctrine bear names so eminent, that men may well be warned against being swayed by them-names no less than Aristotle and Bacon: Aristotle, who says that to know truly is to know through the causes; Bacon, who seeks to discover the "natures" of things. In opposition to this, the study of really progressive science teaches us that the first step in a science is to discover the laws of phenomena; and that from these laws alone, ascending from one step of generality to another, we can hope to discover those very general laws which we call causes. But, when such general laws offer themselves, why should we not call them causes, when all the world calls them so? Take one of the most striking and progressive sciences of modern timesgeology. It begins with observing and classifying the strata of the earth; but it aspires to discover the causes by which they came to be what they are, and where they are; whether in each case, water or fire was the chief agent; whether the causes acted continuously or in paroxysms. These are inquiries which to this day engage the attention and animate the labours of the eminent men all over the world who cultivate geology. Are they to desist from these labours because M. Comte assures them that the inquiry into causes is hopeless and unphilosophical? Or is M. Comte to legislate for the sciences, according to whom there can be no such science as geology? As I have said, the main character of the Positive Philosophy consists in its negations; and there appears to prevail in some quarters a disposition to regard those as the most "advanced" philosophers who deny the largest portion of the truths which have been commonly accepted and established. As an example of this: besides the denial of causes, in the more general sense, as a fit object of scientific inquiry, there has been of late extensively prevalent a disposition to deny final causes, or the evidence of the adaptation of means to an end in the structure of animals. This evidence, which the sagacity of Socrates first distinctly fastened upon, and which has had a charm ever since, alike for the most popular and for the most philosophical thinkers, has of late been spoken disparagingly of, because structures which had been regarded as evidences of design have been by recent physiologists referred to a principle of morphology, according to which all animal structures are merely modifications of a general plan. And Bacon's maxim has been often quoted, that final causes are like Vestal Virgins, dedicated to God, and necessarily barren. That in Bacon's time the reasoning from final causes had been pushed too far may easily be shown. But it is certain that, with regard to the structure of animals, the most eminent physiologists in all ages have declared that at every step they did discover evidences of design, and that, by holding to that principle, they made their discoveries. To take eminent instances: we know that this was the case with Harvey's discovery of the circulation. of the blood. We know that this was the case with Cuvier's restoration of extinct animals from the evidence of their osseous remains. These authors tell us that it was so. taken? Were they misWas it a false, an unreal principle that thus led them to some of the most important scientific truths which we possess? Are the vestal virgins barren by nature, or only to place their divine authority above suspicion? They have had offspring; great and glorious offspring. Still, it is in the highest degree important that no one should rashly ascribe to them children. No one should claim their parentage for the children of his own brain. Let the wise man's voice be obeyed. Let them not lightly venture from their temple; but while they continue their praises in the language which they have learnt through all ages, from Socrates to Owen, let it not be supposed that their words are unmeaning because a few nonsensical phrases 357 have been interpolated by men more pious than wise.1 merly ascribed to design, have been reI have said that the structures formorphology. I confess I have been cently supposed to be accounted for by astonished at the extent to which this elevation of morphology above teleology has been carried. The wing of a sparrow and the arm of a man consist of like bones, corresponding bone by bone: that flying, the arm for holding and striking: is morphology, The wing is made for that is teleology. How does the one principle exclude the other? It is said that the structure most usechanges in countless generations: and so, ful to the animal is elaborated by minute all organs were not made for a purpose, but grew and made themselves. The eye was not made for seeing, the ear for hearing. Such an announcement, it is no exaggeration to say, takes away the breath of Philosophy; at least for a moment. But let it be for a moment only. Let Philosophy try to recover her self-possession. She then asks, What is the alternative supposition? The eye was not made for seeing. So be it, if it must be so. But how did it grow then? 66 Our teacher replies: "Several facts "make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to "light. Numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one "very imperfect and simple, each grade useful to its possessor, can be shown "to exist: further, the eye does vary, "if only slightly, and its variations are unlimited; and if any variation or " modification in the organ be ever "useful to an animal under changing "conditions of life, then the difficulty of "believing that a perfect and complex 1 I refer the reader with much pleasure to argue with those who deny that the eye was |