The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte

"Let us have a new class of students... to take the respective sciences... determine the spirit of each, ascertain their relations and mutual connection, and reduce their respective principles to the smallest number of general principles..."

"[L]et other students be prepared for their special pursuit... so as to profit by the labours of the students of generalities, and so as to correct reciprocally, under that guidance, the results obtained by each."

"[R]efer to a saying of M. de Blainille, in his work on Comparative Anatomy, that every active... being, may be regarded under two relations—the Statical and the Dynamical... apply this classification to the intellectual functions."

"After two thousand years of psychological pursuit, no one proposition is established to the satisfaction of its followers. ...This interior observation gives birth to almost as many theories as there are observers."

"The Positive Method can be judged of only in action. ...the work on which it is employed."

"[[Psychology|[P]sychologists]], by dint of reading the precepts of Bacon and the discourses of Descartes, have mistaken their own dreams for science."

"This... is the first great result of the Positive Philosophy—the manifestation by experiment of the laws which rule the Intellect in the investigation of truth; and, as a consequence the knowledge of the general rules suitable for that object."

"The second effect of the Positive Philosophy... regenerate Education. [O]ur... education, still essentially theological, metaphysical, and literary, must be superseded by a Positive training... [E]verything yet done is inadequate to the object."

"The present exclusive speciality of our pursuits, and the consequent isolation of the sciences, spoil our teaching."

"If any student desires to form an idea of natural philosophy as a whole, he is compelled to go through each department as it is now taught, as if he were to be only an astronomer, or only a chemist... his training must remain very imperfect. And yet... he should obtain general positive conceptions of all the classes of natural phenomena."

"In order to [attain] this regeneration of our intellectual system, it is necessary that the sciences, considered as branches from one trunk, should yield us, as a whole, their chief methods and their most important results."

"The subject of our researches is one: we divide it for our convenience... to deal... more easily with its difficulties. But... sometimes... especially with the most important doctrines of each science... we need what we cannot obtain under the present isolation... a combination of several special points of view; and for want of this, very important problems wait for their solution much longer..."

"Descartes' grand conception with regard to analytical geometry... changed the whole aspect of mathematical science, and... it issued from the union of two sciences which had always before been separately regarded and pursued."

"The case of pending questions is yet more impressive; as... in Chemistry, the doctrine of Definite Proportions. ...[I]n order to determine whether it is a law of nature that atoms should necessarily combine in fixed numbers... the chemical point of view should be united with the physiological. ...[P]hysiology must unite with chemistry to inform us whether azote is simple or compound, and to institute a new series of researches upon the relation between the composition of living bodies and their mode of alimentation."

"The Positive Philosophy offers the only solid basis for that Social Reorganization which must succeed the critical condition in which the most civilized nations are now living."

"Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos... [i.e.,] all social mechanism rests upon Opinions. The great political and moral crisis that societies are now undergoing... arise out of intellectual anarchy. ...[W]e are suffering under an utter disagreement which may be called universal."

"Till a certain number of general ideas can be acknowledged as a rallying-point of social doctrine, the nations will remain in a revolutionary state..."

"[W]henever the necessary agreement on first principles can be obtained, appropriate institutions will issue from them, without shock or resistance; for the causes of disorder will have been arrested by the mere fact of the agreement."

"[T]he existing disorder is... accounted for by the existence... of three incompatible philosophies,—the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. Any one of these might alone secure... social order; but while the three co-exist, it is impossible... to understand one another..."

"[W]e have only to ascertain which of the philosophies must, in the nature of things, prevail..."

"[A]ll considerations... point to the Positive Philosophy as the one destined to prevail. It alone has been advancing during a course of centuries, throughout which the others have been declining. The fact is incontestable."

"This general revolution of the human mind is nearly accomplished. We have only to complete the Positive Philosophy by bringing Social phenomena within its comprehension..."

"The marked preference which almost all minds, from the highest to the commonest, accord to positive knowledge over vague and mystical conceptions, is a pledge of what the reception of this philosophy will be..."

"When it has become complete, its supremacy will take place spontaneously, and will re-establish order throughout society."

"It is time to complete the vast intellectual operation begun by Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, by constructing the system of general ideas which must henceforth prevail among the human race. This is the way to put an end to the revolutionary crisis which is tormenting the civilized nations of the world."

"[I]t must not be supposed that we are going to study this vast variety as proceeding from a single principle, and as subjected to a single law. There is something... chimerical in attempts at universal explanation by a single law..."

"Our intellectual resources are too narrow, and the universe is too complex, to leave any hope that it will ever be within our power to carry scientific perfection to its last degree of simplicity."

"The only necessary unity is that of Method, which is already in great part established."

"As for the doctrine, it need not be one; it is enough that it should be homogeneous."

"While pursuing the philosophical aim of all science, the lessening of the number of general laws requisite for the explanation of natural phenomena, we shall regard as presumptuous every attempt, in all future time, to reduce them rigorously to one."

"Classification of the Sciences... have failed, through one fault or another, to command assent: so that there are almost as many schemes as there are individuals to propose them."

"[T]he distribution of the sciences, having become a somewhat discredited task, has of late been undertaken chiefly by persons who have no sound knowledge of any science at all."

"A... reason... is, the want of homogeneousness in the different parts of the intellectual system,—some having successively become positive, while others remain theological or metaphysical."

"Every attempt at a distribution has failed from this cause... the enterprise was premature; and... it was useless to undertake it till our principal scientific conceptions should all have become positive."

"[T]he time has arrived for laying down a sound and durable system of scientific order."

"We may derive encouragement from the example set by... botanists and zoologists... viz. that the classification must proceed from the study of the things to be classified, and must by no means be determined by à priori considerations."

"[T]he mutual dependence of the sciences... resulting from that of the corresponding phenomena,—must determine the arrangement of the system of human knowledge."

"Before proceeding to investigate this mutual dependence, we have only to determine the real bounds of the classification... [i.e.,] to settle what we mean by human knowledge..."

"The field of human knowledge is either speculation or action: and thus, we are accustomed to divide our knowledge into the theoretical and the practical. ...[I]n this inquiry, we have to do only with the theoretical."

"[S]peculation is our material, and not the application of it,—except... to throw back light on its speculative origin."

"This is probably what Bacon meant by that First Philosophy which he declared to be an extract from the whole of Science... so differently and... strangely interpreted by his metaphysical commentators."

"Man's study of nature must furnish the only basis of his action upon nature; for it is only by knowing the laws of phenomena, and thus being able to foresee them, that we can, in active life, set them to modify one another for our advantage."

"Our direct natural power over everything about us is extremely weak, and altogether disproportioned to our needs."

"Whenever we effect anything great it is through a knowledge of natural laws..."

"The relation of science to art may be summed up in a brief expression: From Science comes Prevision: from Prevision comes Action."

"We must not... fall into the error of our time, of regarding Science chiefly as a basis of Art."

"However great may be the services rendered to Industry by science, however true may be the saying that Knowledge is Power, we must never forget that the sciences have a higher destination... [and] more direct;—that of satisfying the craving of our understanding to know the laws of phenomena."

"This need of disposing facts in a comprehensible order (...the proper object of all scientific theories) is so inherent in our organization, that if we could not satisfy it by positive conceptions, we must inevitably return to those theological and metaphysical explanations which had their origin in this very fact of human nature.—It is this original tendency which acts as a preservative, in the minds of men of science, against the narrowness and incompleteness which the practical habits of our age are apt to produce. It is through this that we are able to maintain just and noble ideas of the importance and destination of the sciences; and if it were not thus, the human understanding would soon, as Condorcet has observed, come to a stand, even as to the practical applications for the sake of which higher things had been sacrificed; for..."

"[I]f the arts flow from science, the neglect of science must destroy the consequent arts."

"Some of the most important arts are derived from speculations pursued during long ages with a purely scientific intention."