A General View of Positivism, Auguste Comte [best sales books of all time .txt] 📗

above their present disastrous state of oscillation in feeling and opinion, to make a distinct choice between Positivism and Theology. For there are now but two camps: the camp of reaction and anarchy, which acknowledges more or less distinctly the direction of God: the camp of construction and progress, which is wholly devoted to Humanity.

The Being upon whom all our thoughts are concentrated is one whose existence is undoubted. We recognize that existence not in the Present only, but in the Past, and even in the Future: and we find it always subject to one fundamental Law, by which we are enabled to conceive of it as a whole. Placing our highest happiness in universal Love, we live, as far as it is possible, for others; and this in public life as well as in private; for the two are closely linked together in our religion; a religion clothed in all the beauty of Art, and yet never inconsistent with Science. After having thus exercised our powers to the full, and having given a charm and sacredness to our temporary life, we shall at last be forever incorporated into the Supreme Being, of whose life all noble natures are necessarily partakers. It is only through the workers of Humanity that we can feel the inward reality and inexpressible sweetness of this incorporation. It is unknown to those who being still involved in theological belief, have not been able to form a clear conception of the Future, and have never experienced the feeling of pure self-sacrifice.

Endnotes

The establishment of this great principle is the most important result of my System of Positive Philosophy. This work was published 1830⁠–⁠1842, with the title of Course of Positive Philosophy, because it was based upon a course of lectures delivered 1826⁠–⁠1829. But since that time I have always given it the more appropriate name of “System.” Should the work reach a second edition, the correction will be made formally: meanwhile, this will, I hope, remove all misconception on the subject. ↩

Comte afterwards added a seventh science, Ethics, (see Volume II of System of Positive Polity). —⁠J. H. B. ↩

See Cabanis, Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme, Ve memoire, where he speaks of “les restes de l’esprit de chevalerie, fruit ridicule de l’odieuse féodalité.” —⁠J. H. B. ↩

Philosophy⁠—the love of wisdom. ↩

Written in 1848. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

On reconsideration, Comte saw fit to withdraw this proposal. See Positive Polity, Volume IV, Chapter 5, p. 351. ↩

Clotilde de Vaux, see Testament d’Auguste Comte, p. 550. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

This law was introduced by Royer-Collard. It forbids discussion of the private affairs of public men. ↩

Testament d’Auguste Comte, p. 556. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

This story “Lucie” is republished in Volume I of System of Positive Polity. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

Impose the law of peace. ↩

Toute la suite des hommes, pendant le cours de tant de siècles, doit être considérée comme un même homme qui subsiste toujours et qui apprend continuellement. —⁠Pascal, Pensées, Part I, Article I. (The whole succession of men during the course of so many centuries should be considered as one Man ever living and constantly learning. —⁠J. H. B.) ↩

See The Positivist Calendar, edited by H. G. Jones (W. Reeves, 1905). —⁠J. H. B. ↩

Tableau Historique des progrès de l’Esprit Humain, Paris, 1900. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

The Republic of 1848. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

This report was republished in Revue Occidentale, July 1889; see also an article and a document published by M. Pierre Laffitte in the same review in January, 1890. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

This committee was formed in 1903. —⁠J. H. B. ↩

This report was republished in Revue Occidentale, September, 1885. ↩

The relative position here assigned to England and Germany is reversed in the fourth volume of the Politique Positive. ↩

Colophon

A General View of Positivism
was published in 1848 by
Auguste Comte.
It was translated from French in 1865 by
J. H. Bridges.

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