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threefold stimulus derived from the three successive periods of partial and transitional organisation, and the result of the combination will be the carrying out of the true programme of the revolution, which it is its task to close. In this way all the stages of the preparatory life of man, all without exception, contribute to inaugurate the definitive form of his existence. This convergence of all the epochs of the past to the future is but a consequence of the fact that the problem. for the race has always been in substance one and the same: viz. to constitute as far as possible the general unity of our nature for the individual and the society. Not to mention that each fresh approximation to such an end necessarily rested on the succession of previous steps, the entire series is required when we come to the special question of the solution, the systematic solution, of the problem, for otherwise it were impossible to state it aright. We may add that the several programmes of the past all admit of combination, provided that we begin by disengaging them from the perishable forms which alone rendered them conflicting.

Such a fusion of the normal state with the whole of the existence which has prepared it, offers us at once the strongest guarantee for the stability of the future, and the best guide in determining its general character. As the philosophy of history rests beyond dispute upon social Statics, these are henceforth its most conclusive summary. For there can be no surer mode of gaining a right conception of the conditions of unity than by tracing it in the consecutive phases of its natural development. Hence the dependence of the future on the past, though not of our choice, is so far from an obstacle to our meditations on the process of reconstruction, that without it they could not be sound and fruitful. By its aid we may avoid, in regard to them, any Utopian speculation, or retrace our steps if we have fallen into one, and this even on the secondary points on which the series of our antecedents does not throw light enough to supersede the necessity of some additional deductions.

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Nor on any other method could we so present the future as that its conception, accepted by all the Western nations in the first place, then meeting, as it is bound to do, the wants of the less advanced portions of mankind, should gradually, by its free Utopias. adoption, inaugurate the religion of Humanity. One Utopia after another has, during the last three centuries, claimed the

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guidance of the movement towards definitive reorganisation, none has ever united in real conviction two human souls. Their common failure is simply due to their always having attempted to conceive the future independently, and not as deduced from the past as a whole, a conception beyond our grasp prior to the rise of Positivism. Thus isolated, prophecy was inevitably as barren as it was chimerical when dealing with phenomena, the complex nature of which involves the highest difficulty for the imagination, even with all the aid derived from observation. In Biology we can hardly imagine a completely new organism free from all incompatibilities. In Sociology the difficulty is naturally much greater; there the freest dreams have ever fallen short of actual changes, the most striking instance being that of slavery. Yet the persistent recurrence in recent times of Utopias, undeterred by their inevitable failure, was a sign that the time was approaching for satisfying the instinct of continuity which has been characteristic of the intellect of Western Europe ever since its abandonment of a heavenly for an earthly future.

We are thus led to recognise in the Positive Religion two religion: the properties, the one intellectual, the other moral, standing in of prevision; close relation to one another, and in their consequences forming a clue to the leading conceptions of the present volume. These properties are, on the one hand, the perfecting the constitution of our minds by extending prevision to all phenomena without exception; on the other hand, the basing the unity of our emotional nature on the innate existence of the sympathetic instincts. The two attributes are inherent in true Positivity, and follow on the simultaneous substitution of a demonstrable faith for belief in the supernatural, of pacific industry for existence founded upon war.

First attribute--pre

vision.

It were a waste of time here to prove, that to determine the future by the past is everywhere the note of a really rational method, as establishing the true connection between speculation and action. During the last three centuries science has satisfactorily exhibited this power, its conclusive test, while industry has, as a natural result, popularised the conception. But the most powerful minds dare not as yet apply it in its most important sphere, owing to their not substituting in that sphere laws for causes.

None the less is it to social and moral phenomena more

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than others, that rational prevision is applicable, seeing that Prevision continuity is the distinctive characteristic of sociological con- plicable to ceptions, and it is to them that, objectively, our thoughts on nomena. Morals must be subordinated.

It follows that the future of Humanity offers the best field for the intellect as for the activity of man. To determine that future, and to inaugurate it,—for both equally we need the same principle of historical filiation, the recognition of the necessary dependence of the future on the past in which it has its roots, and from which it derives its guidance. The inductions of dynamical require, it is true, in all cases to be verified by comparing them with the deductions of statical sociology, but they are our sole immediate means for the right construction of that synoptical survey of man's future on which alone we can henceforward consent to lean.

The achievement of this construction will at no distant period ensure the universal triumph of the Positive religion, putting an end at once to agitation and stagnation, both equally noxious-both equally empirical. Theology and Metaphysics, from a sense of their common incompetence as regards this highest domain of human thought, will doubtless unite with the distinct object of resisting the solution offered by Positivism. Their ineffectual protest will but serve to display more clearly its exclusive competence to satisfy the chief want of modern reason.

The determination of the future, adapted as it is to form a rallying point for man's instinctive aspirations and his philosophic tendencies, is the foundation for the direct inauguration of the religion of Humanity as the natural sequel of this work. The result must be the definitive establishment of the true Synthesis, since all sound speculations will converge to regulate the general action of the Western nations. Moral science, thus tested and found able to stand the test, will be supreme from the subjective, dependent from the objective, point of view, and the combination of the two constitutes it the immutable basis of our unity, both in theory and practice.

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Allowing its just importance to this intellectual attribute Innateness of Positivism, we must attach superior value even intellectually to the moral attribute which completes it, and this on the ground of its greater influence on the creation of the true Synthesis. For this very reason Theology and Metaphysics reject

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instinctive altruism more unreservedly than they reject sociological prevision. The innateness of the benevolent instincts and the earth's motion are the most important results of modern science, as laying the essential bases, the one the subjective, the other the objective, of true relativity. The two prepared the way for Positivism, but had to wait for its advent for their due influence on man's whole existence. Dimly seen, each in its own way, at the very beginning of our advance, they could not emerge into full light till Monotheism had lost its power.

Standing in direct connection with the fundamental principle of the Positive synthesis, the doctrine of innate altruism alone enables us to establish a systematic morality, which, by virtue of its subordination objectively to Sociology, may take the presidency, subjectively, of the encyclopædic hierarchy. Before the establishment of this doctrine, in fact, Morals were universally recognised as supreme, but that they were so was due to the wisdom of the priesthood; their supremacy was an empirical truth not able to stand discussion. Theoricians aimed at placing philosophy, practical men politics, above Morals, as a branch of study which seemed limited to the individual, the social point of view being as yet inaccessible. If the unselfish instincts are not part of man's nature the problem of man's life is insoluble, and is not even susceptible of any synthetical statement. Unity from within, subjective unity, thus unattainable by man in consequence of the antagonism between the individual and the species, philosophy would have perpetually oscillated between the various attempts at an objective systematisation. Over and above, then, its value as an affective, the innateness of our sympathies has great importance as an intellectual, conclusion, as indispensable to any abstract conception of social existence. But by virtue of this very connection, its triumphant demonstration, hampered as it was, moreover, by the obstacles offered by theological beliefs and metaphysical hypotheses, naturally coincided with the definitive advent of Sociology.

To give its full signification to this indispensable connection we must trace it even in social dynamics, though it may appear applicable solely in statics. It is easy to see that, were it not so traced, we could not form the practical scale of man's progress, which, originally material, becomes subsequently in

tellectual, and finally moral; for we should, in regard to it, be simply coordinating means without taking account of the end. Further, on the same hypothesis, any philosophical theory of the whole evolution of the race would also become impossible, from the want of any natural condensation. The preceding volume proves to our satisfaction that progress, in reference to the affections, whilst not amenable to any direct impulse, is the resultant, the necessary resultant, of the two simultaneous movements of the intellect and the activity. Had the advance of the two no effect in modifying feeling, it could never be more than a preparatory step, and as such could not be brought under any really comprehensive law. This necessary adaptation of the emotional changes, to be the condensed expression of the whole human evolution, cannot be a property of egoism; it resides exclusively in altruism, for it is altruism alone which enables us to represent the entire movement by the gradual advance towards ascendancy of the social feelings. Thus it is that in the social instincts we find the source of order and the aim of progress, and this as a consequence of their non-contact with the external world, their dependent position making it, however, more difficult to estimate them, veiled as they are by the dominion of egoism.

Prevision
Altruism

inseparable.

Adopting this conclusion, the two leading attributes, moral Sociological and intellectual, of complete positivity are henceforth to be and Innate held inseparable. So long as social phenomena are not brought henceforth within the scope of scientific prevision, the innateness of the benevolent instincts cannot be demonstrated so conclusively as to overcome the repugnance of theologians and the sophisms of metaphysicians. But conversely, the past as a whole remains unintelligible if in its study we have not the guidance afforded by a full conviction of the innateness of these instincts, they alone rendering collective existence a possibility. In their origin a protest against an oppressive system, the two doctrines will now preside at the inauguration of the second period of man's existence, nor could we hope for a better aid at its opening. But, allowing this, it is still for the peaceful developement of our maturity that is reserved the main growth of the two attributes, when all the struggles of preparation and installation finally over, the normal powers alone come into view.

Still, in reference to the two, we must not go too far in

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