CHAPTER IANTECEDENTSThis work deals with the great French thinkers since the time of Auguste Comte, and treats, under various aspects, the development of thought in relation to the main problems which confronted these men. In the commencement of such an undertaking we are obliged to acknowledge the continuity of human thought, to recognise that it tends to approximate to an organic whole, and that, consequently, methods resembling those of surgical amputation are to be avoided. We cannot absolutely isolate one period of thought. For this reason a brief survey of the earlier years is necessary in order to orient the approach to the period specially placed in the limelight, namely 1851-1921.In the world of speculative thought and in the realm of practical politics we find reflected, at the opening of the century, the work of the French Revolutionaries on the one hand, and that of Immanuel Kant on the other. Coupled with these great factors was the pervading influence of the Encyclopædists and of the thinkers of the Enlightenment. These two groups of influences, the one sudden and in the nature of a shock to political and metaphysical thought, the other quieter but no less effective, combined to produce a feeling of instability and of dissatisfaction at the close of the eighteenth century. A sense of change, indeed of resurrection, filled the minds and hearts of those who saw the opening of the nineteenth century. The old aristocracy and the monarchy in France had gone, and in philosophy the old metaphysic had received a blow at the hands of the author of the Three Critiques.No better expression was given to the psychological state of France at this time than that of Alfred de Musset in hisConfession d’un Enfant du Siècle.Toute la maladie du siècle présent(he wrote)vient de deux causes; le peuple qui a passé par ’93 et par 1814 porte au cœur deux blessures. Tout ce qui était n’est plus; tout ce qui sera n’est pas encore. Ne cherchez ailleurs le secret de nos maux.[1]De Musset was right, the whole course of the century was marked by conflict between two forces—on the one hand a tendency to reaction and conservatism, on the other an impulse to radicalism and revolution.[1]The extract is taken fromPremière partie, ch. 2. The book was published in 1836. Somewhat similar sentiments are uttered with reference to this time by Michelet. (See hisHistoire du XIXeSiècle, vol. i., p. 9).It is true that one group of thinkers endeavoured, by a perfectly natural reaction, to recall their fellow-countrymen, at this time of unrest, back to the doctrines and traditions of the past, and tried to find in the faith of the Christian Church and the practice of the Catholic religion a rallying-point. The monarchy and the Church were eulogised by Chateaubriand, while on the more philosophical side efforts on behalf of traditionalism were made very nobly by De Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. While they represented the old aristocracy and recalled the theocracy and ecclesiasticism of the past by advocating reaction and Ultramontanism, Lamennais attempted to adapt Catholicism to the new conditions, only to find, as did Renan later, that “one cannot argue with a bar of iron.” Not the brilliant appeals of a Lacordaire, who thundered from Notre Dame, nor the modernism of a Lamennais, nor the efforts in religious philosophy made by De Maistre, were, however, sufficient to meet the needs of the time.The old traditions and the old dogmas did not offer the salvation they professed to do. Consequently various groups of thinkers worked out solutions satisfactory to themselves and which they offered to others. We can distinguish clearly four main currents, the method of introspection and investigation of the inner life of the soul, the adoption of a spiritualist philosophy upon an eclectic basis, the search for a new society after the manner of the socialists and, lastly, a positive philosophy and religion of humanity. These four currents form the historical antecedents of our period and to a brief survey of them we now turn.* * * * * * * * *ITo find the origin of many of the tendencies which appear prominently in the thought of the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly those displayed by the new spiritualistic philosophy (which marked the last thirty years of the century), we must go back to the period of the Revolution, to Maine de Biran (1766-1824)—a unique and original thinker who laid the foundations of modern French psychology and who was, we may note in passing, a contemporary of Chateaubriand. A certain tone of romanticism marks the work of both the literary man and the philosopher. Maine de Biran was not a thinker who reflected upon his own experiences in retreat from the world. Born a Count, a Lifeguardsman to Louis XVI. at the Revolution, and faithful to the old aristocracy, he was appointed, at the Restoration, to an important administrative position, and later became a deputy and a member of the State Council. His writings were much greater in extent than is generally thought, but only one important work appeared in publication during his lifetime. This was his treatise, ormémoire, entitledHabitude, which appeared in 1803. This work well illustrates Maine de Biran’s historical position in the development of French philosophy. It came at a tome when attention and interest, so far as philosophical problems were concerned, centred round two “foci.” These respective centres are indicated by Destutt de Tracy,[2]the disciple of Condillac on the one hand, and by Cabanis[3]on the other. Both were “ideologues” and were ridiculed by Napoleon who endeavoured to lay much blame upon the philosophers. We must notice, however, this difference. While the school of Condillac,[4]influenced by Locke, endeavoured to work out a psychology in terms of abstractions, Cabanis, anxious to be more concrete, attempted to interpret the life of the mind by reference to physical and physiological phenomena.[2]Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836. HisElements of Ideologyappeared in 1801. He succeeded Cabanis in the Académie in 1808, and in a complimentaryDiscourspronounced upon his predecessor claimed that Cabanis had introduced medicine into philosophy and philosophy into medicine. This remark might well have been applied later to Claude Bernard.[3]Cabanis, 1757-1808,Rapports du Physique et du Morale de l’Homme, 1802. He was a friend of De Biran, as also was Ampère, the celebrated physicist and a man of considerable philosophical power. A group used to meetchez Cabanisat Auteuil, comprising De Biran, Cabanis, Ampère, Royard-Collard, Guizot, and Cousin.[4]Condillac belongs to the eighteenth century. He died in 1780. HisTraité des Sensationsis dated 1754.It is the special merit of De Biran that he endeavoured, and that successfully, to establish both the concreteness and the essential spirituality of the inner life. The attitude and method which he adopted became a force in freeing psychology, and indeed philosophy in general, from mere play with abstractions. His doctrines proved valuable, too, in establishing the reality and irreducibility of the mental or spiritual nature of man.Maine de Biran took as his starting-point a psychological fact, the reality of conscious effort. The self is active rather than speculative; the self is action or effort—that is to say, the self is, fundamentally and primarily, will. For the Cartesian formulaCogito, ergo sum,De Biran proposed to substitute that ofVolo, ergo sum. He went on to maintain that we have an internal and immediate perception of this effort of will through which we realise, at one and the same time, our self in its fullest activity and the resistance to its operations. In such effort we realise ourselves as free causes and, in spite of the doctrine of physical determinism, we realise in ourselves the self as a cause of its own volitions. The greater the resistance or the greater the effort, the more do we realise ourselves as being free and not the absolute victims of habit. Of this freedom we have an immediate consciousness, it isune donnée immédiate de la conscience.This freedom is not always realised, for over against the tendency to action we must set the counter-tendency to passivity. Between these two exists, in varying degrees of approach to the two extremes,habitude. Our inner life is seen by the psychologist as a field of conflict between the sensitive and the reflective side of our nature. It is this which gives to the life of thishomo duplexall the elements of struggle and tragedy. In the desires and the passions, says Maine de Biran, the true self is not seen. The true self appears in memory, reasoning and, above all, in will.Such, in brief, is the outline of De Biran’s psychology. To his two stages,vie sensitiveandvie active(ou réflexive), he added a third,la vie divine. In his religious psychology he upheld the great Christian doctrines of divine love and grace as against the less human attitude of the Stoics. He still insists upon the power of will and action and is an enemy of the religious vice of quietism. In his closing years De Biran penned his ideas upon our realisation of the divine love by intuition. His intense interest in the inner life of the spirit gives De Biran’sJournal Intimea rank among the illuminating writings upon religious psychology.Maine de Biran was nothing if not a psychologist. The most absurd statement ever made about him was that he was “the French Kant.” This is very misleading, for De Biran’s genius showed itself in his psychological power and not in critical metaphysics. The importance of his work and his tremendous influence upon our period, especially upon the new spiritualism, will be apparent. Indeed he himself foresaw the great possibilities which lay open to philosophy along the lines he laid down. “Qui sait,” he remarked,[5]“tout ce que peut la réflection concentrée et s’il n’y a pas un nouveau monde intérieur qui pourra être découvert un jour par quelque ‘Colomb métaphysicien.’” With Maine de Biran began the movement in French philosophy which worked through the writings of Ravaisson, Lachelier, Guyau, Boutroux and particularly Bergson. A careful examination of the philosophy of this last thinker shows how great is his debt to Maine de Biran, whose inspiration he warmly acknowledges.[5]Pensées, p. 213.But it is only comparatively recently that Maine de Biran has come to his own and that his real power and influence have been recognised. There are two reasons for this, firstly the lack of publication of his writings, and secondly his being known for long only through the work of Cousin and the Eclectics, who were imperfectly acquainted with his work. Upon this school of thought he had some little influence which was immediate and personal, but Cousin, although he edited some of his unpublished work, failed to appreciate its originality and value.So for a time De Biran’s influence waned when that of Cousin himself faded. Maine de Biran stands quite in a different category from the Eclectics, as a unique figure at a transition period, the herald of the best that was to be in the thought of the century. Cousin and the Eclectic school, however, gained the official favour, and eclecticism was for many years the “official philosophy.”IIThis Eclectic School was due to the work of various thinkers, of whom we may cite Laromiguière (1756-1837), who marks the transition from Condillac, Royer-Collard (1763-1845), who, abandoning Condillac, turned for inspiration to the Scottish School (particularly to Reid), Victor Cousin (1792-1867), Jouffroy (1796-1842) and Paul Janet (1823-1899), the last of the notable eclectics. Of these “the chief” was Cousin. His personality dominated this whole school of thought, hisipse dixitwas the criterion of orthodoxy, an orthodoxy which we must note was supported by the powers of officialdom.He rose from the Ecole Normale Supérieure to a professorship at the Sorbonne, which he held from the Restoration (1815 to 1830), with a break of a few years during which his course was suspended. These years he spent in Germany, to which country attention had been attracted by the work of Madame de Staël,De l’Allemagne(1813). From 1830 to the beginning of our period (1851) Cousin, as director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as apair de Franceand a minister of state, organised and controlled the education of his country. He thus exercised a very great influence over an entire generation of Frenchmen, to whom he propounded the doctrines of his spiritualism.His teaching was marked by a strong reaction against the doctrines of the previous century, which had given such value to the data of sense. Cousin abhorred the materialism involved in these doctrines, which he styledune doctrine désolante, and he endeavoured to raise the dignity and conception of man as a spiritual being. In the Preface to his Lectures of 1818,Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien(Edition of 1853), published first in 1846, he lays stress upon the elements of his philosophy, which he presents as a true spiritualism, for it subordinates the sensory and sensual to the spiritual. He upholds the essentially spiritual nature of man, his liberty, moral responsibility and obligation, the dignity of human virtue, disinterestedness, charity, justice and beauty. These fruits of the spirit reveal, Cousin claimed, a God who is both the author and the ideal type of humanity, a Being who is not indifferent to the welfare and happiness of his creatures. There is a vein of romanticism about Cousin, and in him may be seen the same spirit which, on the literary side, was at work in Hugo, Lamartine and De Vigny.Cousin’s philosophy attached itself rather to the Scottish school of “common sense” than to the analytic type of doctrine which had prevailed in his own country in the previous century. To this he added much from various sources, such as Schelling and Hegel among the moderns, Plato and the Alexandrians among the ancients. In viewing the history of philosophy, Cousin advocated a division of systems into four classes—sensualism, idealism, scepticism and mysticism. Owing to the insufficiency of hisvérités de sens communhe was prone to confuse the history of philosophy with philosophy itself. There is perhaps no branch of science or art so intimately bound up with its own history as is philosophy, but we must beware of substituting an historical survey of problems for an actual handling of those problems themselves. Cousin, however, did much to establish in his native land the teaching of the history of philosophy.His own aim was to found a metaphysic spiritual in character, based upon psychology. While he did not agree with the system of Kant, he rejected the doctrines of the empiricists and set his influence against the materialistic and sceptical tendencies of his time. Yet he cannot be excused from “opportunism” not only in politics but in thought. In order to retain his personal influence he endeavoured to present his philosophy as a sum of doctrines perfectly consistent with the Catholic faith. This was partly, no doubt, to counteract the work and influence of that group of thinkers already referred to as Traditionalists, De Bonald, De Maistre and Lamennais. Cousin’s efforts in this direction, however, dissatisfied both churchmen and philosophers and gave rise to the remark that his teaching was butune philosophie de convenance. We must add too that the vagueness of his spiritual teaching was largely responsible for the welcome accorded by many minds to the positivist teaching of Auguste Comte.While Maine de Biran had a real influence upon the thought of our period 1851-1921, Cousin stands in a different relation to subsequent thought, for that thought is largely characterised by its being a reaction against eclecticism. Positivism rose as a direct revolt against it, the neo-critical philosophy dealt blows at both, while Ravaisson, the initiator of the neo-spiritualism, upon whom Cousin did not look very favourably, endeavoured to reorganise upon a different footing, and on sounder principles, free from the deficiencies which must always accompany eclectic thought, those ideas and ideals to which Cousin in his spiritualism had vaguely indicated his loyalty. It is interesting to note that Cousin’s death coincides in date with the foundation of the neo-spiritual philosophy by Ravaisson’s celebrated manifesto to idealists, for such, as we shall see, was hisRapport sur la Philosophie au Dix-neuvième Siècle(1867). Cousin’s spiritualism had a notable influence upon several important men—e.g., Michelet and his friend Edgar Quinet, and more indirectly upon Renan. The latter spoke of him in warm terms as unexcitateur de ma pensée.[6][6]It is worth noting that two of the big currents of opposition, those of Comte and Renouvier, arose outside the professional and official teaching, free from the University which was entirely dominated by Cousin. This explains much of the slowness with which Comte and Renouvier were appreciated.Among Cousin’s disciples one of the most prominent was Jouffroy of the Collège de France. The psychological interest was keen in his work, but hisMélanges philosophiques(1883) showed him to be occupied with the problem of human destiny. Paul Janet was a noble upholder of the eclectic doctrine or older spiritualism, while among associates and tardy followers must be mentioned Gamier, Damiron, Franke, Caro and Jules Simon.IIIWe have seen how, as a consequence of the Revolution and of the cold, destructive, criticism of the eighteenth century, there was a demand for constructive thought. This was a desire common not only to the Traditionalists but to De Biran and Cousin. They aimed at intellectual reconstruction. While, however, there were some who combated the principles of the Revolution, as did the Traditionalists, while some tried to correct and to steady those principles (as De Biran and Cousin), there were others who endeavoured to complete them and to carry out a more rigorous application of the Revolutionary watchwords,Liberté,Egalité,Fraternité. The Socialists (and later Comte) aimed at not merely intellectual, but social reconstruction.The Revolution and the War had shown men that many changes could be produced in society in a comparatively short time. This encouraged bold and imaginative spirits. Endeavours after better things, after new systems and a new order of society, showed themselves. The work of political philosophers attempted to give expression to the socialist idea of society. For long there had been maintained the ecclesiastical conception of a perfect social order in another world. It was now thought that humanity would be better employed, not in imagining the glories of a “hereafter,” but in “tilling its garden,” in striving to realise here on earth something of that blessed fellowship and happy social order treasured up in heaven. This is the dominant note of socialism, which is closely bound up at its origin, not only with political thought, but with humanitarianism and a feeling essentially religious. Its progress is a feature of the whole century.The most notable expression of the new socialistic idea was that of Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a relative of the celebrated Duke. He had great confidence in the power of science as an instrument for social reconstruction, and he took over from a medical man, Dr. Burdin, the notions which, later on, Auguste Comte was to formulate into the doctrines of Positivism. Saint-Simon’s influence showed itself while the century was young, his first workLettres d’un Habitant de Genèveappearing in 1803. In this he outlined a scheme for placing the authoritative power of the community, not in the hands of Church and State, but in a freely elected body of thinkers andartistes. He then endeavoured to urge the importance of order in society, as a counterpart to the order erected by science in the world of knowledge. To this end was directed hisIntroduction aux Travaux scientifiques du Dix-neuvième Siècle(1807-8). He also indicated the importance for social welfare of abandoning the preoccupation with an imaginary heaven, and pointed out that the more social and political theory could be emancipated from the influence of theological dogmas the better. At the same time he quite recognised the importance of religious beliefs to a community, and his sociological view of religion foreshadowed Guyau’s study, an important work which will claim our attention in due course.In 1813, Saint-Simon published hisMémoire sur la Science de l’Homme, in which he laid down notions which were the germ of Auguste Comte’sLaw of the Three Stages. With the peace which followed the Battle of Waterloo, a tremendous stimulus was given in France to industrial activity, and Saint-Simon formulated his motto “All by industry and all for industry.” Real power, he showed, lay not in the hands of governments or government agents, but with the industrial class. Society therefore should be organised in the manner most favourable to the working class. Ultimate economic and political power rests with them. These ideas he set forth inL’Industrie, 1817-18,La Politique, 1819,L’Organisateur, 1819-30,Le Système industriel, 1821-22,Le Catéchisme des Industriels, 1822-24. Since 1817 among his fellow- workers were now Augustin Thierry and young Auguste Comte, his secretary, the most important figure in the history of the first half of the century.Finding that exposition and reasoned demonstration of his ideas were not sufficient, Saint-Simon made appeal to sentiment by hisAppel aux Philanthropes, a treatise on human brotherhood and solidarity. This he followed up in 1825 by his last book, published the year of his death,Le Nouveau Christianisme. This book endeavoured to outline a religion which should prove itself capable of reorganising society by inculcating the brotherhood of man in a more effective manner than that of the Christian Church.Fraternitéwas the watchword he stressed, and he placed women on an equal political and social footing with men. He set forth the grave deficiencies of the Christian doctrines as proclaimed by Catholic and Protestant alike. Both are cursed by the sin of individualism, the virtue of saving one’s own soul, while no attempt at social salvation is made. Both Catholics and Protestants he labelled vile heretics, inasmuch as they have turned aside from the social teaching of Christianity. If we are to love our neighbour as ourselves we must as a whole community work for the betterment of our fellows socially, by erecting a form of society more in accord with Christian principles. We must strive to do it here and now, and not sit piously getting ready for the next world. We must not think it religious to despise the body or material welfare. God manifests Himself as matter and spirit, so Religion must not despise economics but rather unite industry and science as Love unites spirit and matter. Eternal Life, of which Christianity makes so much, is not to be sought, argued Saint-Simon, in another world, but here and now in the love and service of our brothers, in the uplift of humanity as a whole.Saint-Simon believed in a fated progress and an inevitable betterment of the condition of the working classes. The influence of Hegel’s view of history and Condorcet’s social theories is apparent in some of his writings. His insistence upon organisation, social authority and the depreciative view of liberty which he held show well how he was the real father of many later doctrines and of applications of these doctrines, as for example by Lenin in the Soviet system of Bolshevik Russia. Saint-Simon foreshadowed the dictatorship of the proletariat, although his scheme of social organisation involved a triple division of humanity into intellectuals, artists and industrials. Many of his doctrines had a definite communistic tendency. Among them we find indicated the abolition of all hereditary rights of inheritance and the distribution of property is placed, as in the communist programme, in the hands of the organising authority. Saint-Simon had a keen insight into modern social conditions and problems. He stressed the economic inter-relationships and insisted that the world must be regarded as “one workshop.” A statement of the principles of the Saint- Simonist School, among whom was the curious character Enfantin, was presented to theChambre des Députésin the critical year 1830. The disciples seem to have shown a more definite communism than their master. The influence of Saint-Simon, precursor of both socialism and positivism, had considerable influence upon the social philosophy of the whole century. It only diminished when the newer type of socialist doctrine appeared, the so-called “scientific” socialism of Marx and Engels. Saint-Simon’s impulse, however, acted powerfully upon the minds of most of the thinkers of the century, especially in their youth. Renouvier and Renan were fired with some of his ideas. The spirit of Saint-Simon expressed itself in our period by promoting an intense interest in philosophy as applied to social problems.Saint-Simon was not, however, the only thinker at this time with a social programme to offer. In contrast to his scheme we have that of Fourier (1772-1837) who endeavoured to avoid the suppression of liberty involved in the organisation proposed by Saint-Simon.The psychology of Fourier was peculiar and it coloured his ethical and social doctrine. He believed that the evils of the world were due to the repression of human passions. These in themselves, if given liberty of expression, would prove harmonious. As Newton had propounded the law of the universal attraction of matter, Fourier endeavoured to propound the law of attraction between human beings. Passion and desire lead to mutual attraction; the basis of society is free association.Fourier’sTraité de l’Association domestique et agricole(1822), which followed hisThéorie des Quatre Mouvements(1808), proposed the formation of associations or groups,phalanges, in which workers unite with capital for the self-government of industry. He, like Saint- Simon, attacks idlers, but the two thinkers look upon the capitalist manager as a worker. The intense class- antagonism of capitalist and labourer had not yet formulated itself and was not felt strongly until voiced on behalf of the proletariat by Proudhon and Marx. Fourier’s proposals were those of abourgeoisbusiness man who knew the commercial world intimately, who criticised it and condemned the existing system of civilisation. Various experiments were made to organise communities based upon hisphalanges.Cabet, the author ofIcaria(1840) andLe nouveau Christianisme, was a further power in the promotion of socialism and owed not a little of his inspiration to Robert Owen.The most interesting and powerful of the early socialist philosophers is undoubtedly Proudhon (1809- 1865), a striking personality, much misunderstood.While Saint-Simon, a count, came from the aristocracy, Fourier from thebourgeoisie, Proudhon was a real son of the people, a mouthpiece of the proletariat. He was a man of admirable mental energy and learning, which he had obtained solely by his own efforts and by a struggle with poverty and misery. Earnest and passionate by nature, he yet formulated his doctrines with more sanity and moderation than is usually supposed. Labels of “atheist” and “anarchist” have served well to misrepresent him. Certainly two of his watchwords were likely enough to raise hostility in many quarters. “God,” he said, “is evil,” “Property is theft.” This last maxim was the subject of his book, published in 1840,Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (ou, Recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement) to which his answer was “C’est le vol!” Proudhon took up the great watchword ofEgalité, and had a passion for social justice which he based on “the right to the whole product of labour.” This could only come by mutual exchange, fairly and freely. He distinguished between private “property” and individual “possession.” The latter is an admitted fact and is not to be abolished; what he is anxious to overthrow is private “property,” which is a toll upon the labour of others and is therefore ultimately and morally theft. He hated the State for its support of the “thieves,” and his doctrines are a philosophy of anarchy. He further enunciated them inSystème des Contradictions économiques(1846) andDe la Justice(1858). In 1848 he was elected adéputéand, together with Louis Blanc and Pierre Leroux, figured in the Revolution of 1848. Blanc was a man of action, who had a concrete scheme for transition from the capitalist régime to the socialist state. He believed in the organisation of labour, universal suffrage and a new distribution of wealth, but he disapproved strongly of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of violent revolution. Proudhon expressed his great admiration for Blanc.The work of both of these men is a contradiction to the assertion put forward by the Marxian school that socialist doctrine was merely sentimental, utopian and “unscientific” prior to Marx. Many of the views of Proudhon and Blanc were far more “scientific” than those of Marx, because they were closer to facts. Proudhon differed profoundly from Marx in his view of history in which he saw the influence of ideas and ideals, as well as the operation of purely economic factors. To the doctrine of a materialistic determination of history Proudhon rightly opposes that of a spiritual determination, by the thoughts and ideals of men.[7]The true revolution Proudhon and Blanc maintained can come only through the power of ideas.[7]Indeed, it is highly probable that with the growing dissatisfaction with Marxian theories the work of Proudhon will come into greater prominence, replacing largely that of Marx.On the personal relations of Proudhon with Marx (1818-1883), who was nine years younger than the Frenchman, see the interesting volume by Marx’s descendant, M. Jean Longuet (Député de la Seine),La Politique internationale du Marxisme(Karl Marx et la France) (Alcan).On the debt of Marx to the French social thinkers see the account given by Professor Charles Andler in his special edition of the Communist Manifesto,Le Manifeste Communiste(avec introduction historique et commentaire), (Rieder), also the last section of Renouvier’s Philosophie analytique de l’Histoire, vol. iv.All these early socialist thinkers had this in common: they agreed that purely economic solutions would not soothe the ills of society, but that moral, religious and philosophic teaching must accompany, or rather precede, all efforts towards social reform. The earliest of them, Saint-Simon, had asserted that no society, no system of civilisation, can endure if its spiritual principles and its economic organisation are in direct contradiction. When brotherly love on the one hand and merciless competition on the other are equally extolled, then hypocrisy, unrest and conflict are inevitable.IVThe rise of positivism ranks with the rise of socialism as a movement of primary importance. Both were in origin nearer to one another than they now appear to be. We have seen how Saint-Simon was imbued with a spirit of social reform, a desire to reorganise human society. This desire Auguste Comte (1798-1857) shared; he felt himself called to it as a sacred work, and he extolled his “incomparable mission.” He lamented the anarchical state of the world and contrasted it with the world of the ancients and that of the Middle Ages. The harmony and stability of mediaeval society were due, Comte urged, to the spiritual power and unity of the Catholic Church and faith. The liberty of the Reformation offers no real basis for society, it is the spirit of criticism and of revolution. The modern world needs a new spiritual power. Such was Comte’s judgment upon the world of his time. Where in the modern world could such a new organising power be found? To this question Comte gave an answer similar to that of Saint-Simon: he turned to science. The influence of Saint-Simon is here apparent, and we must note the personal relations between the two men. In 1817 Comte became secretary to Saint-Simon, and became intimately associated with his ideas and his work. Comte recognised, with his master, the supreme importance of establishing, at the outset, the relations actually obtaining and the relations possible between science and political organisation. This led to the publication, in 1822, of a treatise,Plan des Travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la Société, which unfortunately led to a quarrel between the two friends, and finally, in 1824, to a definite rupture by which Comte seems to have been embittered and made rather hostile to his old master and to have assumed an ungenerous attitude.[8]Comte, however, being a proud and ambitious spirit, was perhaps better left alone to hew out his own path. In him we have one of the greatest minds of modern France, and his doctrine of positivism is one of the dominating features of the first half of the century.[8]In considering the relations between Saint-Simon and Comte we may usefully compare those between Schelling and Hegel in Germany.His break with Saint-Simon showed his own resources; he had undoubtedly a finer sense of the difficulties of his reforming task than had Saint-Simon; moreover, he possessed a scientific knowledge which his master lacked. Such equipment he needed in his ambitious task, and it is one of the chief merits of Comte that heattemptedso large a project as the Positive Philosophy endeavoured to be.This philosophy was contained in hisCours de Philosophie positive(1830-1842), which he regarded as the theoretic basis of a reforming political philosophy. One of the most interesting aspects of this work, however, is its claim to be a positivephilosophy. Had not Comte accepted the Saint-Simonist doctrine of a belief in science as the great future power in society? How then comes it that he gives us a “philosophiepositive” in the first place and not, as we might expect, a “sciencepositive”? Comte’s answer to this is that science, no less than society itself, is disordered and stands in need of organisation. The sciences have proceeded to work in a piecemeal fashion and are unable to present us withune vue d’ensemble. It is the rôle of philosophy to work upon the data presented by the various sciences and, without going beyond these data, to arrange them and give us an organic unity of thought, a synthesis, which shall produce order in the mind of man and subsequently in human society.The precise part to be played by philosophy is determined by the existing state of scientific knowledge in the various departments and so depends upon the general stage of intelligence which humanity has reached. The intellectual development of humanity was formulated generally by Comte in what is known as “The Law of the Three Stages,” probably that part of his doctrine which is best known and which is most obvious. “The Law of the Three Stages” merely sets down the fact that in the race and in the individual we find three successive stages, under which conceptions are formed differently. The first is the theological or fictitious stage, in which the explanation of things is referred to the operations of divine agency. The second is the metaphysical or abstract stage when, for divinities, abstract principles are substituted. In the third, the scientific or positive stage, the human mind has passed beyond a belief in divine agencies or metaphysical abstractions to a rational study of the effective laws of phenomena. The human spirit here encounters the real, but it abstains from pretensions to absolute knowledge; it does not theorise about the beginning or the end of the universe or, indeed, its absolute nature; it takes only into consideration facts within human knowledge. Comte laid great emphasis upon the necessity of recognising the relativity of all things. All is relative; this is the one absolute principle. Our knowledge, he insisted (especially in hisDiscours sur l’Esprit positif, 1844, which forms a valuable introduction to his thought as expressed in his larger works), is entirely relative to our organisation and our situation. Relativity, however, does not imply uncertainty. Our knowledge is indeed relative and never absolute, but it grows to a greater accord with reality. It is this passion for “accord with reality” which is characteristic of the scientific or positivist spirit.The sciences are themselves relative and much attention is given by Comte to the proper classification of the sciences. He determines his hierarchy by arranging them in the order in which they have themselves completed the three stages and arrived at positivity. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology are his arrangement. This last named has not yet arrived at the final stage; it is but a science in the making. Comte, indeed, himself gives it its name and founds it as the science of society, science applied to politics, as was first indicated in his scheme of work and early ideas of reform.Comte strongly insists upon the social aspect of all knowledge and all action. He even goes to the extent of regarding the individual man as an abstraction; for him the real being is the social being, Humanity. The study of human society has a double aspect, which is also a feature of the other sciences. As in biology there is the study of anatomy on the one hand and of physiology on the other, so in sociology we must investigate both the laws which govern the existence of a society and those which control its movements. The distinction is, in short, that of the static and the dynamic, and it embraces in sociological study the important conceptions of order and of progress. Comte very rightly stressed the idea of progress as characteristic of modern times, but he lamented its being divorced from that of order. He blamed the conservative view of order as responsible for promoting among “progressives” the spirit of anarchy and revolution. A positive sociology would, Comte maintained, reconcile a true order, which does not exclude change, with real progress, a movement which is neither destructive nor capricious. Comte here owes a debt in part to Montesquieu and largely to Condorcet, whoseEsquisse d’un Tableau historique des Progrès de l’Esprit humain(1795) did much to promote serious reflection upon the question of progress.We have already noted Comte’s intense valuation of Humanity as a whole as a Supreme Being. In his later years, notably after 1845, when he met his “Beatrice” in the person of Clotilde de Vaux, he gave to his doctrines a sentimental expression of which the Religion of Humanity with its ritualism was the outcome. This positivist religion endeavoured to substitute for the traditional God the Supreme Being of Humanity—a Being capable, according to Comte, of sustaining our courage, becoming the end of our actions and the object of our love. To this he attached a morality calculated to combat the egoism which tends to dominate and to destroy mankind and intended to strengthen the altruistic motives in man and to raise them to the service of Humanity.We find Comte, at the opening of our period, restating his doctrines in hisSystème de Politique positive(1851-54), to which his first work was meant to serve as an Introduction. In 1856 he began hisSynthèse subjective, but he died in 1857. Comte is a singularly desolate figure; the powers of officialdom were against him, and he existed mainly by what he could gain from teaching mathematics and by a pension raised by his admirers in England and his own land.The influence of his philosophy has been great and far- reaching, but it is thespiritof positivism which has survived, not its content. Subsequent developments in science have rendered much of his work obsolete, while his Religion has never made a great appeal. Comte’s most noted disciple, Littré (1801-1881), regarded this latter as a retrograde step and confined himself to the early part of his master’s work. Most important for us in the present work is Comte’s influence upon subsequent thinkers in France, notably Taine, and we may add, Renan, Cournot, and even Renouvier, although these last two promoted a vigorous reaction against his philosophy in general. He influenced his adversaries, a notable testimony. Actually, however, the positivist philosophy found a greater welcome on the English side of the Channel from John Stuart Mill, Spencer and Lewes. The empiricism of the English school proved a more fruitful soil for positivism than the vague spiritualism of Cousin to which it offered strong opposition. Positivism, or rather the positivist standpoint in philosophy, turned at a later date to reseek its fatherland and after a sojourn in England reappears as an influence in the work of French thinkers near the end of the century—e.g., Fouillée, Guyau, Lachelier, Boutroux and Bergson express elements of positivism.We have now passed in review the four main currents of the first half of the century, in a manner intended to orient the approach to our period, 1851-1921. Without such an orientation much of the subsequent thought would lose its correct colouring and perspective. There is a continuity, even if it be partly a continuity marked by reactions, and this will be seen when we now examine the three general currents into which the thought of the subsequent period is divided.
This work deals with the great French thinkers since the time of Auguste Comte, and treats, under various aspects, the development of thought in relation to the main problems which confronted these men. In the commencement of such an undertaking we are obliged to acknowledge the continuity of human thought, to recognise that it tends to approximate to an organic whole, and that, consequently, methods resembling those of surgical amputation are to be avoided. We cannot absolutely isolate one period of thought. For this reason a brief survey of the earlier years is necessary in order to orient the approach to the period specially placed in the limelight, namely 1851-1921.
In the world of speculative thought and in the realm of practical politics we find reflected, at the opening of the century, the work of the French Revolutionaries on the one hand, and that of Immanuel Kant on the other. Coupled with these great factors was the pervading influence of the Encyclopædists and of the thinkers of the Enlightenment. These two groups of influences, the one sudden and in the nature of a shock to political and metaphysical thought, the other quieter but no less effective, combined to produce a feeling of instability and of dissatisfaction at the close of the eighteenth century. A sense of change, indeed of resurrection, filled the minds and hearts of those who saw the opening of the nineteenth century. The old aristocracy and the monarchy in France had gone, and in philosophy the old metaphysic had received a blow at the hands of the author of the Three Critiques.
No better expression was given to the psychological state of France at this time than that of Alfred de Musset in hisConfession d’un Enfant du Siècle.Toute la maladie du siècle présent(he wrote)vient de deux causes; le peuple qui a passé par ’93 et par 1814 porte au cœur deux blessures. Tout ce qui était n’est plus; tout ce qui sera n’est pas encore. Ne cherchez ailleurs le secret de nos maux.[1]De Musset was right, the whole course of the century was marked by conflict between two forces—on the one hand a tendency to reaction and conservatism, on the other an impulse to radicalism and revolution.
[1]The extract is taken fromPremière partie, ch. 2. The book was published in 1836. Somewhat similar sentiments are uttered with reference to this time by Michelet. (See hisHistoire du XIXeSiècle, vol. i., p. 9).
It is true that one group of thinkers endeavoured, by a perfectly natural reaction, to recall their fellow-countrymen, at this time of unrest, back to the doctrines and traditions of the past, and tried to find in the faith of the Christian Church and the practice of the Catholic religion a rallying-point. The monarchy and the Church were eulogised by Chateaubriand, while on the more philosophical side efforts on behalf of traditionalism were made very nobly by De Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. While they represented the old aristocracy and recalled the theocracy and ecclesiasticism of the past by advocating reaction and Ultramontanism, Lamennais attempted to adapt Catholicism to the new conditions, only to find, as did Renan later, that “one cannot argue with a bar of iron.” Not the brilliant appeals of a Lacordaire, who thundered from Notre Dame, nor the modernism of a Lamennais, nor the efforts in religious philosophy made by De Maistre, were, however, sufficient to meet the needs of the time.
The old traditions and the old dogmas did not offer the salvation they professed to do. Consequently various groups of thinkers worked out solutions satisfactory to themselves and which they offered to others. We can distinguish clearly four main currents, the method of introspection and investigation of the inner life of the soul, the adoption of a spiritualist philosophy upon an eclectic basis, the search for a new society after the manner of the socialists and, lastly, a positive philosophy and religion of humanity. These four currents form the historical antecedents of our period and to a brief survey of them we now turn.
* * * * * * * * *
To find the origin of many of the tendencies which appear prominently in the thought of the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly those displayed by the new spiritualistic philosophy (which marked the last thirty years of the century), we must go back to the period of the Revolution, to Maine de Biran (1766-1824)—a unique and original thinker who laid the foundations of modern French psychology and who was, we may note in passing, a contemporary of Chateaubriand. A certain tone of romanticism marks the work of both the literary man and the philosopher. Maine de Biran was not a thinker who reflected upon his own experiences in retreat from the world. Born a Count, a Lifeguardsman to Louis XVI. at the Revolution, and faithful to the old aristocracy, he was appointed, at the Restoration, to an important administrative position, and later became a deputy and a member of the State Council. His writings were much greater in extent than is generally thought, but only one important work appeared in publication during his lifetime. This was his treatise, ormémoire, entitledHabitude, which appeared in 1803. This work well illustrates Maine de Biran’s historical position in the development of French philosophy. It came at a tome when attention and interest, so far as philosophical problems were concerned, centred round two “foci.” These respective centres are indicated by Destutt de Tracy,[2]the disciple of Condillac on the one hand, and by Cabanis[3]on the other. Both were “ideologues” and were ridiculed by Napoleon who endeavoured to lay much blame upon the philosophers. We must notice, however, this difference. While the school of Condillac,[4]influenced by Locke, endeavoured to work out a psychology in terms of abstractions, Cabanis, anxious to be more concrete, attempted to interpret the life of the mind by reference to physical and physiological phenomena.
[2]Destutt de Tracy, 1754-1836. HisElements of Ideologyappeared in 1801. He succeeded Cabanis in the Académie in 1808, and in a complimentaryDiscourspronounced upon his predecessor claimed that Cabanis had introduced medicine into philosophy and philosophy into medicine. This remark might well have been applied later to Claude Bernard.
[3]Cabanis, 1757-1808,Rapports du Physique et du Morale de l’Homme, 1802. He was a friend of De Biran, as also was Ampère, the celebrated physicist and a man of considerable philosophical power. A group used to meetchez Cabanisat Auteuil, comprising De Biran, Cabanis, Ampère, Royard-Collard, Guizot, and Cousin.
[4]Condillac belongs to the eighteenth century. He died in 1780. HisTraité des Sensationsis dated 1754.
It is the special merit of De Biran that he endeavoured, and that successfully, to establish both the concreteness and the essential spirituality of the inner life. The attitude and method which he adopted became a force in freeing psychology, and indeed philosophy in general, from mere play with abstractions. His doctrines proved valuable, too, in establishing the reality and irreducibility of the mental or spiritual nature of man.
Maine de Biran took as his starting-point a psychological fact, the reality of conscious effort. The self is active rather than speculative; the self is action or effort—that is to say, the self is, fundamentally and primarily, will. For the Cartesian formulaCogito, ergo sum,De Biran proposed to substitute that ofVolo, ergo sum. He went on to maintain that we have an internal and immediate perception of this effort of will through which we realise, at one and the same time, our self in its fullest activity and the resistance to its operations. In such effort we realise ourselves as free causes and, in spite of the doctrine of physical determinism, we realise in ourselves the self as a cause of its own volitions. The greater the resistance or the greater the effort, the more do we realise ourselves as being free and not the absolute victims of habit. Of this freedom we have an immediate consciousness, it isune donnée immédiate de la conscience.
This freedom is not always realised, for over against the tendency to action we must set the counter-tendency to passivity. Between these two exists, in varying degrees of approach to the two extremes,habitude. Our inner life is seen by the psychologist as a field of conflict between the sensitive and the reflective side of our nature. It is this which gives to the life of thishomo duplexall the elements of struggle and tragedy. In the desires and the passions, says Maine de Biran, the true self is not seen. The true self appears in memory, reasoning and, above all, in will.
Such, in brief, is the outline of De Biran’s psychology. To his two stages,vie sensitiveandvie active(ou réflexive), he added a third,la vie divine. In his religious psychology he upheld the great Christian doctrines of divine love and grace as against the less human attitude of the Stoics. He still insists upon the power of will and action and is an enemy of the religious vice of quietism. In his closing years De Biran penned his ideas upon our realisation of the divine love by intuition. His intense interest in the inner life of the spirit gives De Biran’sJournal Intimea rank among the illuminating writings upon religious psychology.
Maine de Biran was nothing if not a psychologist. The most absurd statement ever made about him was that he was “the French Kant.” This is very misleading, for De Biran’s genius showed itself in his psychological power and not in critical metaphysics. The importance of his work and his tremendous influence upon our period, especially upon the new spiritualism, will be apparent. Indeed he himself foresaw the great possibilities which lay open to philosophy along the lines he laid down. “Qui sait,” he remarked,[5]“tout ce que peut la réflection concentrée et s’il n’y a pas un nouveau monde intérieur qui pourra être découvert un jour par quelque ‘Colomb métaphysicien.’” With Maine de Biran began the movement in French philosophy which worked through the writings of Ravaisson, Lachelier, Guyau, Boutroux and particularly Bergson. A careful examination of the philosophy of this last thinker shows how great is his debt to Maine de Biran, whose inspiration he warmly acknowledges.
[5]Pensées, p. 213.
But it is only comparatively recently that Maine de Biran has come to his own and that his real power and influence have been recognised. There are two reasons for this, firstly the lack of publication of his writings, and secondly his being known for long only through the work of Cousin and the Eclectics, who were imperfectly acquainted with his work. Upon this school of thought he had some little influence which was immediate and personal, but Cousin, although he edited some of his unpublished work, failed to appreciate its originality and value.
So for a time De Biran’s influence waned when that of Cousin himself faded. Maine de Biran stands quite in a different category from the Eclectics, as a unique figure at a transition period, the herald of the best that was to be in the thought of the century. Cousin and the Eclectic school, however, gained the official favour, and eclecticism was for many years the “official philosophy.”
This Eclectic School was due to the work of various thinkers, of whom we may cite Laromiguière (1756-1837), who marks the transition from Condillac, Royer-Collard (1763-1845), who, abandoning Condillac, turned for inspiration to the Scottish School (particularly to Reid), Victor Cousin (1792-1867), Jouffroy (1796-1842) and Paul Janet (1823-1899), the last of the notable eclectics. Of these “the chief” was Cousin. His personality dominated this whole school of thought, hisipse dixitwas the criterion of orthodoxy, an orthodoxy which we must note was supported by the powers of officialdom.
He rose from the Ecole Normale Supérieure to a professorship at the Sorbonne, which he held from the Restoration (1815 to 1830), with a break of a few years during which his course was suspended. These years he spent in Germany, to which country attention had been attracted by the work of Madame de Staël,De l’Allemagne(1813). From 1830 to the beginning of our period (1851) Cousin, as director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as apair de Franceand a minister of state, organised and controlled the education of his country. He thus exercised a very great influence over an entire generation of Frenchmen, to whom he propounded the doctrines of his spiritualism.
His teaching was marked by a strong reaction against the doctrines of the previous century, which had given such value to the data of sense. Cousin abhorred the materialism involved in these doctrines, which he styledune doctrine désolante, and he endeavoured to raise the dignity and conception of man as a spiritual being. In the Preface to his Lectures of 1818,Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien(Edition of 1853), published first in 1846, he lays stress upon the elements of his philosophy, which he presents as a true spiritualism, for it subordinates the sensory and sensual to the spiritual. He upholds the essentially spiritual nature of man, his liberty, moral responsibility and obligation, the dignity of human virtue, disinterestedness, charity, justice and beauty. These fruits of the spirit reveal, Cousin claimed, a God who is both the author and the ideal type of humanity, a Being who is not indifferent to the welfare and happiness of his creatures. There is a vein of romanticism about Cousin, and in him may be seen the same spirit which, on the literary side, was at work in Hugo, Lamartine and De Vigny.
Cousin’s philosophy attached itself rather to the Scottish school of “common sense” than to the analytic type of doctrine which had prevailed in his own country in the previous century. To this he added much from various sources, such as Schelling and Hegel among the moderns, Plato and the Alexandrians among the ancients. In viewing the history of philosophy, Cousin advocated a division of systems into four classes—sensualism, idealism, scepticism and mysticism. Owing to the insufficiency of hisvérités de sens communhe was prone to confuse the history of philosophy with philosophy itself. There is perhaps no branch of science or art so intimately bound up with its own history as is philosophy, but we must beware of substituting an historical survey of problems for an actual handling of those problems themselves. Cousin, however, did much to establish in his native land the teaching of the history of philosophy.
His own aim was to found a metaphysic spiritual in character, based upon psychology. While he did not agree with the system of Kant, he rejected the doctrines of the empiricists and set his influence against the materialistic and sceptical tendencies of his time. Yet he cannot be excused from “opportunism” not only in politics but in thought. In order to retain his personal influence he endeavoured to present his philosophy as a sum of doctrines perfectly consistent with the Catholic faith. This was partly, no doubt, to counteract the work and influence of that group of thinkers already referred to as Traditionalists, De Bonald, De Maistre and Lamennais. Cousin’s efforts in this direction, however, dissatisfied both churchmen and philosophers and gave rise to the remark that his teaching was butune philosophie de convenance. We must add too that the vagueness of his spiritual teaching was largely responsible for the welcome accorded by many minds to the positivist teaching of Auguste Comte.
While Maine de Biran had a real influence upon the thought of our period 1851-1921, Cousin stands in a different relation to subsequent thought, for that thought is largely characterised by its being a reaction against eclecticism. Positivism rose as a direct revolt against it, the neo-critical philosophy dealt blows at both, while Ravaisson, the initiator of the neo-spiritualism, upon whom Cousin did not look very favourably, endeavoured to reorganise upon a different footing, and on sounder principles, free from the deficiencies which must always accompany eclectic thought, those ideas and ideals to which Cousin in his spiritualism had vaguely indicated his loyalty. It is interesting to note that Cousin’s death coincides in date with the foundation of the neo-spiritual philosophy by Ravaisson’s celebrated manifesto to idealists, for such, as we shall see, was hisRapport sur la Philosophie au Dix-neuvième Siècle(1867). Cousin’s spiritualism had a notable influence upon several important men—e.g., Michelet and his friend Edgar Quinet, and more indirectly upon Renan. The latter spoke of him in warm terms as unexcitateur de ma pensée.[6]
[6]It is worth noting that two of the big currents of opposition, those of Comte and Renouvier, arose outside the professional and official teaching, free from the University which was entirely dominated by Cousin. This explains much of the slowness with which Comte and Renouvier were appreciated.
Among Cousin’s disciples one of the most prominent was Jouffroy of the Collège de France. The psychological interest was keen in his work, but hisMélanges philosophiques(1883) showed him to be occupied with the problem of human destiny. Paul Janet was a noble upholder of the eclectic doctrine or older spiritualism, while among associates and tardy followers must be mentioned Gamier, Damiron, Franke, Caro and Jules Simon.
We have seen how, as a consequence of the Revolution and of the cold, destructive, criticism of the eighteenth century, there was a demand for constructive thought. This was a desire common not only to the Traditionalists but to De Biran and Cousin. They aimed at intellectual reconstruction. While, however, there were some who combated the principles of the Revolution, as did the Traditionalists, while some tried to correct and to steady those principles (as De Biran and Cousin), there were others who endeavoured to complete them and to carry out a more rigorous application of the Revolutionary watchwords,Liberté,Egalité,Fraternité. The Socialists (and later Comte) aimed at not merely intellectual, but social reconstruction.
The Revolution and the War had shown men that many changes could be produced in society in a comparatively short time. This encouraged bold and imaginative spirits. Endeavours after better things, after new systems and a new order of society, showed themselves. The work of political philosophers attempted to give expression to the socialist idea of society. For long there had been maintained the ecclesiastical conception of a perfect social order in another world. It was now thought that humanity would be better employed, not in imagining the glories of a “hereafter,” but in “tilling its garden,” in striving to realise here on earth something of that blessed fellowship and happy social order treasured up in heaven. This is the dominant note of socialism, which is closely bound up at its origin, not only with political thought, but with humanitarianism and a feeling essentially religious. Its progress is a feature of the whole century.
The most notable expression of the new socialistic idea was that of Count Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), a relative of the celebrated Duke. He had great confidence in the power of science as an instrument for social reconstruction, and he took over from a medical man, Dr. Burdin, the notions which, later on, Auguste Comte was to formulate into the doctrines of Positivism. Saint-Simon’s influence showed itself while the century was young, his first workLettres d’un Habitant de Genèveappearing in 1803. In this he outlined a scheme for placing the authoritative power of the community, not in the hands of Church and State, but in a freely elected body of thinkers andartistes. He then endeavoured to urge the importance of order in society, as a counterpart to the order erected by science in the world of knowledge. To this end was directed hisIntroduction aux Travaux scientifiques du Dix-neuvième Siècle(1807-8). He also indicated the importance for social welfare of abandoning the preoccupation with an imaginary heaven, and pointed out that the more social and political theory could be emancipated from the influence of theological dogmas the better. At the same time he quite recognised the importance of religious beliefs to a community, and his sociological view of religion foreshadowed Guyau’s study, an important work which will claim our attention in due course.
In 1813, Saint-Simon published hisMémoire sur la Science de l’Homme, in which he laid down notions which were the germ of Auguste Comte’sLaw of the Three Stages. With the peace which followed the Battle of Waterloo, a tremendous stimulus was given in France to industrial activity, and Saint-Simon formulated his motto “All by industry and all for industry.” Real power, he showed, lay not in the hands of governments or government agents, but with the industrial class. Society therefore should be organised in the manner most favourable to the working class. Ultimate economic and political power rests with them. These ideas he set forth inL’Industrie, 1817-18,La Politique, 1819,L’Organisateur, 1819-30,Le Système industriel, 1821-22,Le Catéchisme des Industriels, 1822-24. Since 1817 among his fellow- workers were now Augustin Thierry and young Auguste Comte, his secretary, the most important figure in the history of the first half of the century.
Finding that exposition and reasoned demonstration of his ideas were not sufficient, Saint-Simon made appeal to sentiment by hisAppel aux Philanthropes, a treatise on human brotherhood and solidarity. This he followed up in 1825 by his last book, published the year of his death,Le Nouveau Christianisme. This book endeavoured to outline a religion which should prove itself capable of reorganising society by inculcating the brotherhood of man in a more effective manner than that of the Christian Church.Fraternitéwas the watchword he stressed, and he placed women on an equal political and social footing with men. He set forth the grave deficiencies of the Christian doctrines as proclaimed by Catholic and Protestant alike. Both are cursed by the sin of individualism, the virtue of saving one’s own soul, while no attempt at social salvation is made. Both Catholics and Protestants he labelled vile heretics, inasmuch as they have turned aside from the social teaching of Christianity. If we are to love our neighbour as ourselves we must as a whole community work for the betterment of our fellows socially, by erecting a form of society more in accord with Christian principles. We must strive to do it here and now, and not sit piously getting ready for the next world. We must not think it religious to despise the body or material welfare. God manifests Himself as matter and spirit, so Religion must not despise economics but rather unite industry and science as Love unites spirit and matter. Eternal Life, of which Christianity makes so much, is not to be sought, argued Saint-Simon, in another world, but here and now in the love and service of our brothers, in the uplift of humanity as a whole.
Saint-Simon believed in a fated progress and an inevitable betterment of the condition of the working classes. The influence of Hegel’s view of history and Condorcet’s social theories is apparent in some of his writings. His insistence upon organisation, social authority and the depreciative view of liberty which he held show well how he was the real father of many later doctrines and of applications of these doctrines, as for example by Lenin in the Soviet system of Bolshevik Russia. Saint-Simon foreshadowed the dictatorship of the proletariat, although his scheme of social organisation involved a triple division of humanity into intellectuals, artists and industrials. Many of his doctrines had a definite communistic tendency. Among them we find indicated the abolition of all hereditary rights of inheritance and the distribution of property is placed, as in the communist programme, in the hands of the organising authority. Saint-Simon had a keen insight into modern social conditions and problems. He stressed the economic inter-relationships and insisted that the world must be regarded as “one workshop.” A statement of the principles of the Saint- Simonist School, among whom was the curious character Enfantin, was presented to theChambre des Députésin the critical year 1830. The disciples seem to have shown a more definite communism than their master. The influence of Saint-Simon, precursor of both socialism and positivism, had considerable influence upon the social philosophy of the whole century. It only diminished when the newer type of socialist doctrine appeared, the so-called “scientific” socialism of Marx and Engels. Saint-Simon’s impulse, however, acted powerfully upon the minds of most of the thinkers of the century, especially in their youth. Renouvier and Renan were fired with some of his ideas. The spirit of Saint-Simon expressed itself in our period by promoting an intense interest in philosophy as applied to social problems.
Saint-Simon was not, however, the only thinker at this time with a social programme to offer. In contrast to his scheme we have that of Fourier (1772-1837) who endeavoured to avoid the suppression of liberty involved in the organisation proposed by Saint-Simon.
The psychology of Fourier was peculiar and it coloured his ethical and social doctrine. He believed that the evils of the world were due to the repression of human passions. These in themselves, if given liberty of expression, would prove harmonious. As Newton had propounded the law of the universal attraction of matter, Fourier endeavoured to propound the law of attraction between human beings. Passion and desire lead to mutual attraction; the basis of society is free association.
Fourier’sTraité de l’Association domestique et agricole(1822), which followed hisThéorie des Quatre Mouvements(1808), proposed the formation of associations or groups,phalanges, in which workers unite with capital for the self-government of industry. He, like Saint- Simon, attacks idlers, but the two thinkers look upon the capitalist manager as a worker. The intense class- antagonism of capitalist and labourer had not yet formulated itself and was not felt strongly until voiced on behalf of the proletariat by Proudhon and Marx. Fourier’s proposals were those of abourgeoisbusiness man who knew the commercial world intimately, who criticised it and condemned the existing system of civilisation. Various experiments were made to organise communities based upon hisphalanges.
Cabet, the author ofIcaria(1840) andLe nouveau Christianisme, was a further power in the promotion of socialism and owed not a little of his inspiration to Robert Owen.
The most interesting and powerful of the early socialist philosophers is undoubtedly Proudhon (1809- 1865), a striking personality, much misunderstood.
While Saint-Simon, a count, came from the aristocracy, Fourier from thebourgeoisie, Proudhon was a real son of the people, a mouthpiece of the proletariat. He was a man of admirable mental energy and learning, which he had obtained solely by his own efforts and by a struggle with poverty and misery. Earnest and passionate by nature, he yet formulated his doctrines with more sanity and moderation than is usually supposed. Labels of “atheist” and “anarchist” have served well to misrepresent him. Certainly two of his watchwords were likely enough to raise hostility in many quarters. “God,” he said, “is evil,” “Property is theft.” This last maxim was the subject of his book, published in 1840,Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (ou, Recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement) to which his answer was “C’est le vol!” Proudhon took up the great watchword ofEgalité, and had a passion for social justice which he based on “the right to the whole product of labour.” This could only come by mutual exchange, fairly and freely. He distinguished between private “property” and individual “possession.” The latter is an admitted fact and is not to be abolished; what he is anxious to overthrow is private “property,” which is a toll upon the labour of others and is therefore ultimately and morally theft. He hated the State for its support of the “thieves,” and his doctrines are a philosophy of anarchy. He further enunciated them inSystème des Contradictions économiques(1846) andDe la Justice(1858). In 1848 he was elected adéputéand, together with Louis Blanc and Pierre Leroux, figured in the Revolution of 1848. Blanc was a man of action, who had a concrete scheme for transition from the capitalist régime to the socialist state. He believed in the organisation of labour, universal suffrage and a new distribution of wealth, but he disapproved strongly of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of violent revolution. Proudhon expressed his great admiration for Blanc.
The work of both of these men is a contradiction to the assertion put forward by the Marxian school that socialist doctrine was merely sentimental, utopian and “unscientific” prior to Marx. Many of the views of Proudhon and Blanc were far more “scientific” than those of Marx, because they were closer to facts. Proudhon differed profoundly from Marx in his view of history in which he saw the influence of ideas and ideals, as well as the operation of purely economic factors. To the doctrine of a materialistic determination of history Proudhon rightly opposes that of a spiritual determination, by the thoughts and ideals of men.[7]The true revolution Proudhon and Blanc maintained can come only through the power of ideas.
[7]Indeed, it is highly probable that with the growing dissatisfaction with Marxian theories the work of Proudhon will come into greater prominence, replacing largely that of Marx.On the personal relations of Proudhon with Marx (1818-1883), who was nine years younger than the Frenchman, see the interesting volume by Marx’s descendant, M. Jean Longuet (Député de la Seine),La Politique internationale du Marxisme(Karl Marx et la France) (Alcan).On the debt of Marx to the French social thinkers see the account given by Professor Charles Andler in his special edition of the Communist Manifesto,Le Manifeste Communiste(avec introduction historique et commentaire), (Rieder), also the last section of Renouvier’s Philosophie analytique de l’Histoire, vol. iv.
All these early socialist thinkers had this in common: they agreed that purely economic solutions would not soothe the ills of society, but that moral, religious and philosophic teaching must accompany, or rather precede, all efforts towards social reform. The earliest of them, Saint-Simon, had asserted that no society, no system of civilisation, can endure if its spiritual principles and its economic organisation are in direct contradiction. When brotherly love on the one hand and merciless competition on the other are equally extolled, then hypocrisy, unrest and conflict are inevitable.
The rise of positivism ranks with the rise of socialism as a movement of primary importance. Both were in origin nearer to one another than they now appear to be. We have seen how Saint-Simon was imbued with a spirit of social reform, a desire to reorganise human society. This desire Auguste Comte (1798-1857) shared; he felt himself called to it as a sacred work, and he extolled his “incomparable mission.” He lamented the anarchical state of the world and contrasted it with the world of the ancients and that of the Middle Ages. The harmony and stability of mediaeval society were due, Comte urged, to the spiritual power and unity of the Catholic Church and faith. The liberty of the Reformation offers no real basis for society, it is the spirit of criticism and of revolution. The modern world needs a new spiritual power. Such was Comte’s judgment upon the world of his time. Where in the modern world could such a new organising power be found? To this question Comte gave an answer similar to that of Saint-Simon: he turned to science. The influence of Saint-Simon is here apparent, and we must note the personal relations between the two men. In 1817 Comte became secretary to Saint-Simon, and became intimately associated with his ideas and his work. Comte recognised, with his master, the supreme importance of establishing, at the outset, the relations actually obtaining and the relations possible between science and political organisation. This led to the publication, in 1822, of a treatise,Plan des Travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la Société, which unfortunately led to a quarrel between the two friends, and finally, in 1824, to a definite rupture by which Comte seems to have been embittered and made rather hostile to his old master and to have assumed an ungenerous attitude.[8]Comte, however, being a proud and ambitious spirit, was perhaps better left alone to hew out his own path. In him we have one of the greatest minds of modern France, and his doctrine of positivism is one of the dominating features of the first half of the century.
[8]In considering the relations between Saint-Simon and Comte we may usefully compare those between Schelling and Hegel in Germany.
His break with Saint-Simon showed his own resources; he had undoubtedly a finer sense of the difficulties of his reforming task than had Saint-Simon; moreover, he possessed a scientific knowledge which his master lacked. Such equipment he needed in his ambitious task, and it is one of the chief merits of Comte that heattemptedso large a project as the Positive Philosophy endeavoured to be.
This philosophy was contained in hisCours de Philosophie positive(1830-1842), which he regarded as the theoretic basis of a reforming political philosophy. One of the most interesting aspects of this work, however, is its claim to be a positivephilosophy. Had not Comte accepted the Saint-Simonist doctrine of a belief in science as the great future power in society? How then comes it that he gives us a “philosophiepositive” in the first place and not, as we might expect, a “sciencepositive”? Comte’s answer to this is that science, no less than society itself, is disordered and stands in need of organisation. The sciences have proceeded to work in a piecemeal fashion and are unable to present us withune vue d’ensemble. It is the rôle of philosophy to work upon the data presented by the various sciences and, without going beyond these data, to arrange them and give us an organic unity of thought, a synthesis, which shall produce order in the mind of man and subsequently in human society.
The precise part to be played by philosophy is determined by the existing state of scientific knowledge in the various departments and so depends upon the general stage of intelligence which humanity has reached. The intellectual development of humanity was formulated generally by Comte in what is known as “The Law of the Three Stages,” probably that part of his doctrine which is best known and which is most obvious. “The Law of the Three Stages” merely sets down the fact that in the race and in the individual we find three successive stages, under which conceptions are formed differently. The first is the theological or fictitious stage, in which the explanation of things is referred to the operations of divine agency. The second is the metaphysical or abstract stage when, for divinities, abstract principles are substituted. In the third, the scientific or positive stage, the human mind has passed beyond a belief in divine agencies or metaphysical abstractions to a rational study of the effective laws of phenomena. The human spirit here encounters the real, but it abstains from pretensions to absolute knowledge; it does not theorise about the beginning or the end of the universe or, indeed, its absolute nature; it takes only into consideration facts within human knowledge. Comte laid great emphasis upon the necessity of recognising the relativity of all things. All is relative; this is the one absolute principle. Our knowledge, he insisted (especially in hisDiscours sur l’Esprit positif, 1844, which forms a valuable introduction to his thought as expressed in his larger works), is entirely relative to our organisation and our situation. Relativity, however, does not imply uncertainty. Our knowledge is indeed relative and never absolute, but it grows to a greater accord with reality. It is this passion for “accord with reality” which is characteristic of the scientific or positivist spirit.
The sciences are themselves relative and much attention is given by Comte to the proper classification of the sciences. He determines his hierarchy by arranging them in the order in which they have themselves completed the three stages and arrived at positivity. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology are his arrangement. This last named has not yet arrived at the final stage; it is but a science in the making. Comte, indeed, himself gives it its name and founds it as the science of society, science applied to politics, as was first indicated in his scheme of work and early ideas of reform.
Comte strongly insists upon the social aspect of all knowledge and all action. He even goes to the extent of regarding the individual man as an abstraction; for him the real being is the social being, Humanity. The study of human society has a double aspect, which is also a feature of the other sciences. As in biology there is the study of anatomy on the one hand and of physiology on the other, so in sociology we must investigate both the laws which govern the existence of a society and those which control its movements. The distinction is, in short, that of the static and the dynamic, and it embraces in sociological study the important conceptions of order and of progress. Comte very rightly stressed the idea of progress as characteristic of modern times, but he lamented its being divorced from that of order. He blamed the conservative view of order as responsible for promoting among “progressives” the spirit of anarchy and revolution. A positive sociology would, Comte maintained, reconcile a true order, which does not exclude change, with real progress, a movement which is neither destructive nor capricious. Comte here owes a debt in part to Montesquieu and largely to Condorcet, whoseEsquisse d’un Tableau historique des Progrès de l’Esprit humain(1795) did much to promote serious reflection upon the question of progress.
We have already noted Comte’s intense valuation of Humanity as a whole as a Supreme Being. In his later years, notably after 1845, when he met his “Beatrice” in the person of Clotilde de Vaux, he gave to his doctrines a sentimental expression of which the Religion of Humanity with its ritualism was the outcome. This positivist religion endeavoured to substitute for the traditional God the Supreme Being of Humanity—a Being capable, according to Comte, of sustaining our courage, becoming the end of our actions and the object of our love. To this he attached a morality calculated to combat the egoism which tends to dominate and to destroy mankind and intended to strengthen the altruistic motives in man and to raise them to the service of Humanity.
We find Comte, at the opening of our period, restating his doctrines in hisSystème de Politique positive(1851-54), to which his first work was meant to serve as an Introduction. In 1856 he began hisSynthèse subjective, but he died in 1857. Comte is a singularly desolate figure; the powers of officialdom were against him, and he existed mainly by what he could gain from teaching mathematics and by a pension raised by his admirers in England and his own land.
The influence of his philosophy has been great and far- reaching, but it is thespiritof positivism which has survived, not its content. Subsequent developments in science have rendered much of his work obsolete, while his Religion has never made a great appeal. Comte’s most noted disciple, Littré (1801-1881), regarded this latter as a retrograde step and confined himself to the early part of his master’s work. Most important for us in the present work is Comte’s influence upon subsequent thinkers in France, notably Taine, and we may add, Renan, Cournot, and even Renouvier, although these last two promoted a vigorous reaction against his philosophy in general. He influenced his adversaries, a notable testimony. Actually, however, the positivist philosophy found a greater welcome on the English side of the Channel from John Stuart Mill, Spencer and Lewes. The empiricism of the English school proved a more fruitful soil for positivism than the vague spiritualism of Cousin to which it offered strong opposition. Positivism, or rather the positivist standpoint in philosophy, turned at a later date to reseek its fatherland and after a sojourn in England reappears as an influence in the work of French thinkers near the end of the century—e.g., Fouillée, Guyau, Lachelier, Boutroux and Bergson express elements of positivism.
We have now passed in review the four main currents of the first half of the century, in a manner intended to orient the approach to our period, 1851-1921. Without such an orientation much of the subsequent thought would lose its correct colouring and perspective. There is a continuity, even if it be partly a continuity marked by reactions, and this will be seen when we now examine the three general currents into which the thought of the subsequent period is divided.