Auguste Comte and Positivism | Page 4

in the
objective aspect by Phaenomenal, in the subjective by Experiential. But
M. Comte's opinions are best stated in his own phraseology; several of
them, indeed, can scarcely be presented in some of their bearings
without it.
The Theological, which is the original and spontaneous form of thought,
regards the facts of the universe as governed not by invariable laws of
sequence, but by single and direct volitions of beings, real or imaginary,
possessed of life and intelligence. In the infantile state of reason and
experience, individual objects are looked upon as animated. The next
step is the conception of invisible beings, each of whom superintends
and governs an entire class of objects or events. The last merges this
multitude of divinities in a single God, who made the whole universe in
the beginning, and guides and carries on its phaenomena by his
continued action, or, as others think, only modifies them from time to
time by special interferences.
The mode of thought which M. Comte terms Metaphysical, accounts
for phaenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions either sublunary or
celestial, but to realized abstractions. In this stage it is no longer a god
that causes and directs each of the various agencies of nature: it is a
power, or a force, or an occult quality, considered as real existences,
inherent in but distinct from the concrete bodies in which they reside,
and which they in a manner animate. Instead of Dryads presiding over
trees, producing and regulating their phaenomena, every plant or
animal has now a Vegetative Soul, the [Greek: Threptikè phygè] of
Aristotle. At a later period the Vegetative Soul has become a Plastic
Force, and still later, a Vital Principle. Objects now do all that they do
because it is their Essence to do so, or by reason of an inherent Virtue.
Phaenomena are accounted for by supposed tendencies and propensities
of the abstraction Nature; which, though regarded as impersonal, is
figured as acting on a sort of motives, and in a manner more or less
analogous to that of conscious beings. Aristotle affirms a tendency of

nature towards the best, which helps him to a theory of many natural
phaenomena. The rise of water in a pump is attributed to Nature's
horror of a vacuum. The fall of heavy bodies, and the ascent of flame
and smoke, are construed as attempts of each to get to its natural place.
Many important consequences are deduced from the doctrine that
Nature has no breaks (non habet saltum). In medicine the curative force
(vis medicatrix) of Nature furnishes the explanation of the reparative
processes which modern physiologists refer each to its own particular
agencies and laws.
Examples are not necessary to prove to those who are acquainted with
the past phases of human thought, how great a place both the
theological and the metaphysical interpretations of phaenomena have
historically occupied, as well in the speculations of thinkers as in the
familiar conceptions of the multitude. Many had perceived before M.
Comte that neither of these modes of explanation was final: the warfare
against both of them could scarcely be carried on more vigorously than
it already was, early in the seventeenth century, by Hobbes. Nor is it
unknown to any one who has followed the history of the various
physical sciences, that the positive explanation of facts has substituted
itself, step by step, for the theological and metaphysical, as the progress
of inquiry brought to light an increasing number of the invariable laws
of phaenomena. In these respects M. Comte has not originated anything,
but has taken his place in a fight long since engaged, and on the side
already in the main victorious. The generalization which belongs to
himself, and in which he had not, to the best of our knowledge, been at
all anticipated, is, that every distinct class of human conceptions passes
through all these stages, beginning with the theological, and proceeding
through the metaphysical to the positive: the metaphysical being a mere
state of transition, but an indispensable one, from the theological mode
of thought to the positive, which is destined finally to prevail, by the
universal recognition that all phaemomena without exception are
governed by invariable laws, with which no volitions, either natural or
supernatural, interfere. This general theorem is completed by the
addition, that the theological mode of thought has three stages,
Fetichism, Polytheism, and Monotheism: the successive transitions
being prepared, and indeed caused, by the gradual uprising of the two

rival modes of thought, the metaphysical and the positive, and in their
turn preparing the way for the ascendancy of these; first and
temporarily of the metaphysical, finally of the positive.
This generalization is the most fundamental of the doctrines which
originated with M. Comte; and the survey of history, which occupies
the two