of what they call literary property. Such inconsistencies show the shallowness of the system; it proclaims its own failure in the very cases that are most favourable for the application. The extension of the principle here suggested would expose at once the inexpediency of political regulations on the subject, and the necessity of moral rules; for these and these only can ensure the right use of all our faculties without distinction. Intellectual effort, to be of any value, must be spontaneous; and it is doubtless an instinctive sense of this truth which prevents Communists from subjecting intellectual faculties to their utopian regulations. But Positivism can deal with these faculties which stand in the most urgent need of wise direction, without inconsistency and without disturbance. It leaves to them their fair measure of free action; and in the case of other faculties which, though less eminent, are hardly less dangerous to repress, it strengthens their freedom. When a pure morality arises capable of impressing a social tendency upon every phase of human activity, the freer our action becomes the more useful will it be to the public. The tendency of modern civilization, far from impeding private industry, is to entrust it more and more with functions, especially with those of a material kind, which were originally left to government. Unfortunately this tendency, which is very evident, leads economists into the mistake of supposing that industry may be left altogether without organization.
All that it really proves is that the influence of moral principles is gradually preponderating over that of governmental regulations.
[Action of organized public opinion upon Capitalists.
Strikes] The method which is peculiar to Positivism of solving our great social problems by moral agencies, will be found applicable also to the settlement of industrial disputes, so far as the popular claims involved are well founded. These claims will thus become clear from all tendency to disorder, and will consequently gain immensely in force; especially when they are seen to be consistent with principles which are freely accepted by all, and when they are supported by a philosophic body of known impartiality and enlightenment. This spiritual power, while impressing on the people the duty of respecting their temporal leaders, will impose duties upon these latter, which they will find impossible to evade. As all classes will have received a common education, they will all alike be penetrated with the general principles on which these special obligations will rest. And these weapons, derived from no source but that of Feeling and Reason, and aided solely by Public Opinion, will wield an influence over practical life, of which nothing in the present day can give any conception. We might compare it with the influence of Catholicism in the Middle Ages, only that men are too apt to attribute the results of Catholicism to the chimerical hopes and fears which it inspired, rather than to the energy with which praise and blame were distributed. With the new spiritual power praise and blame will form the only resource; but it will be developed and consolidated to a degree which, as I have before shown, was impossible for Catholicism.
This is the only real solution of the disputes that are so constantly arising between workmen and their employers. Both parties will look to this philosophic authority as a supreme court of arbitration. In estimating its importance, we must not forget that the antagonism of employer and employed has not yet been pushed to its full consequences.
The struggle between wealth and numbers would have been far more serious, but for the fact that combination, without which there can be no struggle worth speaking of, has hitherto only been permitted to the capitalist. It is true that in England combinations of workmen are not legally prohibited. But in that country they are not yet sufficiently emancipated either intellectually or morally, to make such use of the power as would be the case in France. When French workmen are allowed to concert their plans as freely as their employers, the antagonism of interests that will then arise will make both sides feel the need of a moral power to arbitrate between them. Not that the conciliating influence of such a power will ever be such as to do away entirely with extreme measures; but it will greatly restrict their application, and in cases where they are unavoidable, will mitigate their excesses. Such measures should be limited on both sides to refusal of co-operation; a power which every free agent ought to be allowed to exercise, on his own personal responsibility, with the object of impressing on those who are teaching him unjustly the importance of the services which he has been rendering. The workman is not to be compelled to work any more than the capitalist to direct. Any abuse of this extreme protest on either side will of course be disapproved by the moral power; but the option of making the protest is always to be reserved to each element in the collective organism, by virtue of his natural independence.
In the most settled times functionaries have always been allowed to suspend their services on special occasions. It was done frequently in the Middle Ages by priests, professors, judges, etc. All we have to do is to regulate this privilege, and embody it into the industrial system. This will be one of the secondary duties of the philosophic body, who will naturally be consulted on most of these occasions, as on all others of public or private moment. The formal sanction which it may give to a suspension or positive prohibition of work would render such a measure far more effective than it is at present. The operation of the measure is but partial at present, but it might in this way extend, first to all who belong to the same trade, then to other branches of industry, and even ultimately to every Western nation that accepts the same spiritual guides. Of course persons who think themselves aggrieved may always resort to this extreme course on their own responsibility, against the advice of the philosophic body. True spiritual power confines itself to giving counsel: it never commands.
But in such cases, unless the advice given by the philosophers has been wrong, the suspension of work is not likely to be sufficiently general to bring about any important result.
This theory of trade-unions is, in fact, in the industrial world, what the power of insurrection is with regard to the higher social functions; it is an ultimate resource which every collective organism must reserve. The principle is the same in the simpler and more ordinary cases as in the more unusual and important. In both the intervention of the philosophic body, whether solicited or not, whether its purpose be to organize popular effort or to repress it, will largely influence the result.
We are now in a position to state with more precision the main practical difference between the policy of Positivism, and that of Communism or of Socialism. All progressive political schools agree in concentrating their attention upon the problem, How to give the people their proper place as a component element of modern Society, which ever since the Middle Ages has been tending more and more distinctly to its normal mode of existence. They also agree that the two great requirements of the working classes are, the organization of Education, and the organization of Labour. But here their agreement ends. When the means of effecting these two objects have to be considered, Positivists find themselves at issue with all other Progressive schools. They maintain that the organization of Industry must be based upon the organization of Education. It is commonly supposed that both may be begun simultaneously: or indeed that Labour may be organized irrespectively of Education. It may seem as if we are making too much of a mere question of arrangement; yet the difference is one which affects the whole character and method of social reconstruction. The plan usually followed is simply a repetition of the old attempt to reconstruct politically without waiting for spiritual reconstruction; in other words, to raise the social edifice before its intellectual and moral foundations have been laid. Hence the attempts made to satisfy popular requirements by measures of a purely political kind, because they appear to meet the evil directly; a course which is as useless as it is destructive. Positivism, on the contrary, substitutes for such agencies, an influence which is sure and peaceful, although it be gradual and indirect; the influence of a more enlightened morality, supported by a purer state of Public Opinion; such opinion being organized by competent minds, and diffused freely amongst the people.
In fact, the whole question, whether the solution of the twofold problem before us is to be empirical, revolutionary, and therefore confined simply to France; or whether it is to be consistent, pacific, and applicable to the whole of Western Europe, depends upon the preference or the postponement of the organization of Labour to the organization of Education.
[Public Opinion must be based upon a sound system of Education] This conclusion involves a brief explanation of the general system of education which Positivism will introduce. This the new spiritual power regards as its principal function, and as its most efficient means of satisfying the working classes in all reasonable demands.
It was the great social virtue of Catholicism, that it introduced for the first time, as far as circumstances permitted, a system of education common to all classes without distinction, not excepting even those who were still slaves. It was a vast undertaking, yet essential to its purpose of founding a spiritual power which was to be independent of the temporal power. Apart from its temporary value, it has left us one imperishable principle, namely that in all education worthy of the name, moral training should be regarded as of greater importance than scientific teaching. Catholic education, however, was of course, extremely defective; owing partly to the circumstances of the time, and partly to the weakness of the doctrine on which it rested. Having reference almost exclusively to the oppressed masses, the principal lesson which it taught was the duty of almost passive resignation, with the exception of certain obligations imposed upon rulers. Intellectual culture in any true sense there was none. All this was natural in a faith which directed men’s highest efforts to an object unconnected with social life, and which taught that all the phenomena of nature were regulated by an impenetrable Will. Catholic Education was consequently quite unsuited to any period but the Middle Ages; a period during which the advanced portion of Humanity was gradually ridding itself of the ancient institution of slavery, by commuting it first into serfdom, as a preliminary step to entire personal freedom. In the ancient world Catholic education would have been too revolutionary; at the present time it would be servile and inadequate. Its function was that of directing the long and difficult transition from the social life of Antiquity to that of Modern times.
Personal emancipation once obtained, the working classes began to develop their powers and rise to their true position as a class; and they soon became conscious of intellectual and social wants which Catholicism was wholly incapable of satisfying.
And yet this is the only real system of universal education which the world has hitherto seen. For we cannot give that name to the so-called University system which metaphysicians began to introduce into Europe at the close of the Middle Ages; and which offered little more than the special instruction previously given to the priesthood; that is, the study of the Latin language, with the dialectical training required for the defence of their doctrines. Morals were untaught except as a part of the training of the professed theologian. All this metaphysical and literary instruction was of no great service to social evolution, except so far as it developed the critical power; it had, however, a certain indirect influence on the constructive movement, especially on the development of Art. But its defects, both practical and theoretical, have been made more evident by its application to new classes of society, whose occupations, whether practical or speculative, required a very different kind of training. And thus, while claiming the title of Universal, it never reached the working classes, even in Protestant countries, where each believer became to a certain extent his own priest.
The theological method being obsolete, and the metaphysical method inadequate, the task of founding an efficient system of popular education belongs to Positivism; the only doctrine capable of reconciling these two orders of conditions, the intellectual and the moral, which are equally necessary, but which since the Middle Ages have always proved incompatible. Positivist education, while securing the supremacy of the heart over the understanding more efficiently than Catholicism, will yet put no obstacle in the way of intellectual growth. The function of Intellect, in education as in practical life, will be to regulate Feeling; the culture of which, beginning at birth, will be maintained by constant exercise of the three classes of duties relative to Self, to the Family, and to Society.
I have already explained the mode in which the principles of universal morality will be finally co-ordinated; a task which, as I have shown, is connected with the principal function of the new spiritual power.
I have now only to point out the paramount influence of morality on every part of Positive Education. It will be seen to be connected at first spontaneously, and afterwards in a more systematic form, with the entire system of human knowledge.
Positive Education, adapting itself to the requirements of the Organism with which it has to deal, subordinates intellectual conditions to social. Social conditions are considered as the main object, intellectual as but the means of attaining it. Its principal aim is to induce the working classes to accept their high social function of supporting the spiritual power, while at the same time it will render them more efficient in their own special duties.
[Education has two stages: from birth to puberty, from puberty to adolescence.
The first, consisting of physical and esthetic training to be given at home] Presuming that Education extends from birth to manhood, we may divide it into two periods, the first ending with puberty, that is, at the beginning of industrial apprenticeship. Education here should be essentially spontaneous, and should be carried on as far as possible in the bosom of the family. The only studies required should be of an esthetic kind. In the second period, Education takes a systematic form, consisting chiefly of a public course of scientific lectures, explaining the essential laws of the various orders of phenomena.
These lectures will be the groundwork of Moral Science, which will co-ordinate the whole, and point out the relation of each part to the social purpose common to all. Thus, at about the time which long experience has fixed as that of legal majority, and when in most cases the term of apprenticeship closes, the workman will be prepared intellectually and morally for his public and private service.
The first years of life, from infancy to the end of the period of second dentition, should be devoted to education of the physical powers, carried on under the superintendence of the parents, especially of the mother. Physical education, as usually practised, is nothing but mere muscular exercise; but a more important object is that of training the senses, and giving manual skill, so as to develop from the very first our powers of observation and action. Study, in the ordinary acceptation, there should be none during this period, not even reading or writing. An acquaintance with facts of various kinds, such as may spontaneously attract the growing powers of attention, will be the only instruction received. The philosophic system of the infant individual, like that of the infant species, consists in pure Fetichism, and its natural development should not be disturbed by unwise interference. The only care of the parents will be to impress those feelings and habits for which a rational basis will be given at a later period. By taking every opportunity of calling the higher instincts into play, they will be laying down the best foundation for true morality.
During the period of about seven years comprised between the second dentition and puberty, Education will become somewhat more systematic; but it will be limited to the culture of the fine arts; and it will be still most important, especially on moral grounds, to avoid separation from the family. The study of Art should simply consist in practising it more or less systematically. No formal lectures are necessary, at least for the purposes of general education, though of course for professional purposes they may still be required. There is no reason why these studies should not be carried on at home by the second generation of Positivists, when the culture of the parents will be sufficiently advanced to allow them to superintend it. They will include Poetry, the art on which all the rest are based; and the two most important of the special arts, music and drawing. Meantime the pupil will become familiar with the principal Western languages, which are included in the study of Poetry, since modern poetry cannot be properly appreciated without them. Moreover, independently of esthetic considerations, a knowledge of them is most important morally, as a means of destroying national prejudices, and of forming the true Positivist standard of Occidental feeling. Each nation will be taught to consider it a duty to learn the language of contiguous countries; an obvious principle, which, in the case of Frenchmen, will involve their learning all the other four languages, as a consequence of that central position which gives them so many advantages. When this rule becomes general, and the natural affinities of the five advanced nations are brought fully into play, a common Occidental language will not be long in forming itself spontaneously, without the aid of any metaphysical scheme for producing a language that shall be absolutely universal.
During the latter portion of primary Education, which is devoted to the culture of the imaginative powers, the philosophic development of the individual, corresponding to that of the race, will carry him from the simple Fetichism with which he began to the state of Polytheism. This resemblance between the growth of the individual and that of society has always shown itself more or less, in spite of the irrational precautions of Christian teachers. They have never been able to give children a distaste for those simple tales of fairies and genii, which are natural to this phase. The Positivist teacher will let this tendency take its own course. It should not, however, involve any hypocrisy on the part of the parents, nor need it lead to any subsequent contradiction. The simple truth is enough. The child may be told that these spontaneous beliefs are but natural to his age, but that they will gradually lead him on to others, by the fundamental law of all human development. Language of this kind will not only have the advantage of familiarizing him with a great principle of Positivism, but will stimulate the nascent sense of sociability, by leading him to sympathize with the various nations who still remain at his own primitive stage of intellectual development.
[The second part consists of public lectures on the Sciences, from Mathematics to Sociology] The second part of Positivist Education cannot be conducted altogether at home, since it involves public lectures, in which of course the part taken by the parent can only be accessory. But this is no reason for depriving the pupil of the advantages of family life; it remains as indispensable as ever to his moral development, which is always to be the first consideration. It will be easy for him to follow the best masters without weakening his sense of personal and domestic morality, which is the almost inevitable result of the monastic seclusion of modern schools. The public-school system is commonly thought to compensate for these disadvantages, by the knowledge of the world which it gives; but this is better obtained by free intercourse with society, where sympathies are far more likely to be satisfied. Recognition of this truth would do much to facilitate and improve popular education; and it applies to all cases, except perhaps to some special professions, where seclusion of the pupils may still be necessary, though even in these cases probably it may be ultimately dispensed with.
The plan to be followed in this period of education, will obviously be that indicated by the encyclopædic law of Classification, which forms part of my Theory of Development. Scientific study, whether for the working man or the philosopher, should begin with the inorganic world around us, and then pass to the subject of Man and Society; since our ideas on these two subjects form the basis of our practical action. The first class of studies, as I have stated before, includes four sciences which we may arrange in pairs: Mathematics and Astronomy forming the first pair; Physics and Chemistry the second. To each of these pairs, two years may be given. But as the first ranges over a wide field, and is of greater logical importance, it will require two lectures weekly; whereas, for all the subsequent studies one lecture will be sufficient.
Besides, during these two years, the necessities of practical life will not press heavily, and more time may fairly be spent in mental occupation. From the study of inorganic science, the pupil will proceed to Biology: this subject may easily be condensed in the fifth year into a series of forty lectures, without really losing either its philosophic or its popular character. This concludes the introductory part of Education. The student will now co-ordinate all his previous knowledge by the direct study of Sociology, statically and dynamically viewed. On this subject also forty lectures will be given, in which the structure and growth of human societies, especially those of modern times, will be clearly explained. With this foundation we come to the last of the seven years of pupillage, in which the great social purpose of the scheme is at last reached. It will be devoted to a systematic exposition of Moral Science, the principles of which may be now fully understood by the light of the knowledge previously obtained of the World, of Life, and of Humanity.
During this course of study, part of the three unoccupied months of each year will be spent in public examinations, to test the degree to which the instruction has been assimilated. The pupils will of their own accord continue their esthetic pursuits, even supposing their natural tastes in this direction not to be encouraged as they ought to be. During the last two years the Latin and Greek languages might be acquired, as an accessory study, which would improve the poetic culture of the student, and be useful to him in the historical and moral questions with which he will then be occupied. For the purposes of Art, Greek is the more useful of the two; but in the second object, that of enabling us to realize our social Filiation, Latin is of even greater importance.
In the course of these seven years the philosophic development of the individual, preserving its correspondence with that of the race, will pass through its last phase. As the pupil passed before from Fetichism to Polytheism, so he will now pass, as spontaneously, into Monotheism, induced by the influence on his imaginative powers which hitherto have been supreme, of the spirit of discussion. No interference should be offered to this metaphysical transition, which is the homage that he pays to the necessary conditions under which mankind arrives at truth.
There is something in this provisional phase which evidently harmonizes well with the abstract and independent character of Mathematics, with which the two first years of the seven are occupied. As long as more attention is given to deduction than to induction, the mind cannot but retain a leaning to metaphysical theories. Under their influence the student will soon reduce his primitive theology to Deism of a more or less distinct kind; and this during his physico-chemical studies will most likely degenerate into a species of Atheism; which last phase, under the enlightening influence of biological and still more of sociological knowledge, will be finally replaced by Positivism. Thus at the time fixed for the ultimate study of moral science, each new member of Humanity will have been strongly impressed by personal experience, with a sense of historical Filiation, and will be enabled to sympathize with his ancestors and contemporaries, while devoting his practical energies to the good of his successors.
[Travels of Apprentices] There is an excellent custom prevalent among the working men of France and creditable to their good sense, with which our educational scheme seems at first sight incompatible. I refer to the custom of travelling from place to place during the last years of apprenticeship; which is as beneficial to their mind and character, as the purposeless excursions of our wealthy and idle classes are in most cases injurious.
But there is no necessity for its interfering with study, since it always involves long residence in the chief centres of production, where the workman is sure to find annual courses of lectures similar to those which he would otherwise have been attending at home.
As the structure and distribution of the philosophic body will be everywhere the same, there need be no great inconvenience in these changes. For every centre not more than seven teachers will be required; each of whom will take the whole Encyclopædic scale successively. Thus the total number of lectures will be so small as to admit of a high standard of merit being everywhere attained, and of finding everywhere a fair measure of material support. So far from discouraging the travelling system, Positivism will give it a new character, intellectually and socially, by extending the range of travel to the whole of Western Europe, since there is no part of it in which the workman will not be able to prosecute his education. The difference of language will then be no obstacle. Not only would the sense of fraternity among Western nations be strengthened by such a plan, but great improvement would result esthetically. The languages of Europe would be learnt more thoroughly, and there would be a keener appreciation of works of art, whether musical, pictorial, or architectural; for these can never be properly appreciated but in the country which gave them birth.
[Concentration of study] Judging by our present practice, it would seem impossible to include such a mass of important scientific studies, as are here proposed, in three hundred and sixty lectures. But the length to which courses of lectures on any subject extend at present, is owing partly to the special or professional object with which the course is given, and still more to the discursive and unphilosophical spirit of most of the teachers, consequent on the miserable manner in which our scientific system is organized. Such a regeneration of scientific studies as Positivism proposes, will animate them with a social spirit, and thus give them a larger and more comprehensive tendency. Teachers will become more practised in the art of condensing, and their lectures will be far more substantial. They will not indeed be a substitute for voluntary effort, on which all the real value of teaching depends.
Their aim will be rather to direct such effort. A striking example, which is not so well remembered as it should be, will help to explain my meaning. At the first opening of the Polytechnic School, courses of lectures were given, very appropriately named _Revolutionary Courses_, which concentrated the teaching of three years into three months.
What was in that case an extraordinary anomaly, due to republican enthusiasm, may become the normal state when a moral power arises not inferior in energy, and yet based upon a consistent intellectual synthesis, of which our great predecessors of the Revolution could have no conception.
Little attention has hitherto been given to the didactic value of Feeling. Since the close of the Middle Ages, the heart has been neglected in proportion as the mind has been cultivated. But it is the characteristic principle of Positivism, a principle as fertile in intellectual as in moral results, that the Intellect, whether we look at its natural or at its normal position, is subordinate to Social Feeling. Throughout this course of popular education, parents and masters will seize every suitable occasion for calling Social Feeling into play; and the most abstruse subjects will often be vivified by its influence. The office of the mind is to strengthen and to cultivate the heart; the heart again should animate and direct the mental powers.
This mutual influence of general views and generous feelings will have greater effect upon scientific study, from the esthetic culture previously given, in which such habits of mind will have been formed, as will give grace and beauty to the whole life.
[Governmental assistance not required, except for certain special institutions, and this only as a provisional measure] When I speak of this education as specially destined for the people, I am not merely using words to denote its comprehensiveness and philosophic character. It is, in my opinion, the only education, with the exception of certain special branches, for which public organization is needed. It should be looked on as a sacred debt which the republic owes to the working classes. But the claim does not extend to other classes, who can easily pay for any special instruction that they may require. Besides such instruction will be only a partial development of the more general teaching, or an application of it to some particular purpose. Therefore if the general training be sound, most people will be able to prosecute accessory studies by themselves.
Apprenticeship to any business involves very little, except the practice of it. Even in the highest arts, no course of systematic instruction is necessary. The false views now prevalent on the subject are due to the unfortunate absence of all general education, since the decay of Catholicism. The special institutions founded in Europe during the last three centuries, and carefully remodelled in France by the Convention, are only valuable as containing certain germs of truth, which will be found indispensable when general education is finally reorganized. But important as they may be from a scientific aspect, their practical utility, which seems to have been the motive for establishing them, is exceedingly doubtful. The arts which they were intended to promote could have done perfectly well without them. I include in these remarks such institutions as the Polytechnic School, the Museum of Natural History, etc. Their value, like that of all good institutions of modern times, is purely provisional. Viewed in this light, it may be worth our while to reorganize them. Positivist principles, discarding all attempts to make them permanent, will be all the better able to adapt them to their important temporary purpose.
Indeed there are some new institutions which it might be advisable to form; such, for instance, as a School of Comparative Philology, the object of which would be to range all human languages according to their true affinities. This would compensate the suppression of Greek and Latin professorships, which is certainly an indispensable measure.
But the whole of this provisional framework would no doubt disappear before the end of the nineteenth century, when a system of general education will have been thoroughly organized. The present necessity for a provisional system should lead to no misconception of its character and purpose. Working men are the only class who have a real claim upon the State for instruction; and this, if wisely organized, dispenses with the necessity of special institutions. The adoption of these views would at once facilitate and ennoble popular education.
Nations, provinces, and towns will vie with one another in inviting the best teachers that the spiritual authorities of Western Europe can supply. And every true philosopher will take pride in such teaching, when it becomes generally understood that the popular character of his lectures implies that they shall be at the same time systematic.
Members of the new spiritual power will in most cases regard teaching as their principal occupation, for at least a considerable portion of their public life.
[We are not ripe for this system at present; and Government must not attempt to hasten its introduction] What has been said makes it clear that any organization of such education as this at the present time would be impossible. However sincere the intentions of governments to effect this great result might be, any premature attempt to do it would but injure the work, especially if they put in a claim to superintend it. The truth is that a system of education, if it deserve the name, presupposes the acceptance of a definite philosophical and social creed to determine its character and purpose. Children cannot be brought up in convictions contrary to those of their parents; indeed, the influence of the parent is essential to the instructor. Opinions and habits that have been already formed may subsequently be strengthened by an educational system; but the carrying out of any such system is impossible, until the principles of combined action and belief have been well established. Till then the organization that we propose can only be effected in the case of individuals who are ripe for it. Each of these will endeavour to repair the faults and deficiencies of his own education in the best way he can, by the aid of the general doctrine which he accepts. Assuming that the doctrine is destined to triumph, the number of such minds gradually increases, and they superintend the social progress of the next generation. This is the natural process, and no artificial interference can dispense with it. So far, then, from inviting government to organize education, we ought rather to exhort it to abdicate the educational powers which it already holds, and which, I refer more especially to France, are either useless or a source of discord. There are only two exceptions to this remark, namely, primary