modern Socialism has ceased to mix its conceptions with certain innocent reforms of a sentimental order mentioned by a few Christian reformers. But this last — we must point out — had liad already been done by Godwin, Fourier, and Robert Owen. As to centralisation and the cult of authority and discipline, which hvimanity owes to theocracy and to Imperial Roman law ^ — all survivals of an obscure past — these survivals are still [retained by many modern Socialists, who consequently have not yet reached the level of their two predecessors, Godwin and Proud hon.
It would be difficult to give here an adequate idea of the influence which reaction, having become supreme after the Gieat French Revolution, exercised upon the development of science.* Suffice it to remark that what modern science is so proud of to-day was already indicated, and often more than indicated — it was sometimes put forth in a definite scientific form — towards the end of the eighteenth century. The mechanical theory of heat; the indestructibility of movement (preservation of energy); the variability of species by the direct influence of surroundings; physiological psychology; the anthropologic comprehension of liistory, of religions, and of legislation; the laws of developmert oi thought — in a word, the whole mechanical conception and synthetic philosophy (a philosophy that discusses the foundations of all physical, chemical, vital, and social phenomena as a whole) were already sketched and partly elaborated in the eighteenth centui'y.
But when the reactionaries had got the upper hand, after the defeat of the Great French Revolution, for fully half a century, they stifled all these discoveries. Reactionary scientists repre- sented them as " unscientific." On the pretext of " first studying facts " and accumulating " materials " for science in scientific societies, they even went so far as to repudiate any research which was not merely mensuration. Such remarkable discoveries aa the elder S^guin's and, later on, Joule's determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat (the quantity of mechanical friction necessary in order to obtain a certain quantity of heat) were repudiated by these keepers of tradition. Even the Royal Society of Great Britain, which is the English Academy of Science, refused to print Joule's work, finding it " unscientific." As to • I have discussed this question to some extent in a lecture delivered in England: "The Development of Science during the Nineteenth Century."
M'xfern Science and Anarchism. 15 Grove's remarkable work on the unity of all physical forces, written in 1843 — no attention was paid to it till 1856. One must read the history of science in the first half of the nineteenth century to realise how dense was the obscurity which enveloped Europe at that time.
The veil was suddenly rent when, towards the end of the " fifties," under the impulse of the revolutionary year of 1848, there began in Western Europe the movement which brought about Garibaldi's rising, the liberation of Italy, the abolition of slavery in America, liberal reforms in England, and a few years later the abolition of serfdom and the knout in Russia. The same movement overthrew in Europe the philosophical authority of Schelling and Hegel, and in Russia it gave rise to an open rebpllion against intellectual serfdom and cringing to all sorts of authority, which rebellion was known by the name of Nihilism.
Now that we can look backwards upon the history of those times, it is evident for us that it was the propaganda of Republican and Socialist ideas in the " thirties " and " forties " of the nineteenth century, and the Revolution in 1848, which helped science to rend the bonds that had stifled it since the anti- revolution reaction had begun after the crushing, by the united Kings, of the revolutionary French Republic of 1789-1793.
Without entering into details, it will be sufficient to remember a few facts. Seguiu, whose name has just been mentioned as the promoter of the mechanical theory of heat; Augustin Thierry, the historian who first laid the basis of the study of the rule of the people in the small Republics of the early Middle Ages, and of the Federalist ideas of those times; Sismondi, the historian of the free mediaeval Republics in Italy, were followers of Saint- Simon — one of the three great founders of Socialism in the first half of the nineteenth century; and Alfred R. Wallace, who discovered at the same time as Darwin the theory of origin of species through natural selection, was in his youth a convinced partisan of Robert Owen; Auguste Comie was a follower of Saint-Simon; Ricardo, as well as Bentham, followed Owen; and the materialists Carl Vogt and George Lewes, as well as Grove, Mill, Herbert Spencer, and so many others, were under the influence of the Radical- Socialist movement in the " thirties" and "forties." From this movement they drew their scientific courage.
The appearance, in the short space of five or six years, 1856- 1862, of the works of Grove, Joule, Berthelot, Helmholtz, Meudel^eflf; of Darwin, Claude Bernard, Spencer, Moleschott, B 16 Modern Science and Anarchism.
and Vogt; of Lyell on the ovigin of man; of Bain, Mill, Burnouf, — the sudden appearance of tliis wonderful constellation of works jiroduced a complete revolution in the fundamental conception of science. Science immediately ventured into new paths. Whole branches of learning wei^e cioated with prodigious rapidity. The science of life (biology), that of human institutions (anthro- pology and ethnology), that of understanding, will and passions (physical psychology), the history of law and of religions on a scientific, anthropological basis, soon grew up under our very eyes, striking the mind by the boldness of their generalisations and the revolutionary spirit of their conclusions. What were mere general guesses in the eighteenth century now became facts, proved by the scales and the microscope, and verified by thousands of observations and experiments. Even the manner of writing completely changed. The men of science just mentioned, one and all, returned to the simplicity, the exactitude, and, I must say, the beauty of style which was characteristic of the followers of the inductive method, and of which the writers of the eighteenth century, since they had given up metaphysics, were such great masters.
It is impossible to predict in which direction science will henceforth go. As long as men of science depend on the rich and on Governments, as they do now, their science will inevitably bear the stamp of these influences, and a stagnant period, like the one in the first half of the nineteenth century, can certainly be produced once more. But one thing is certain. In science, such as it appears to-day, there is no necessity for the hypothesis which Laplace knew how" to dispense with, nor the metaphysical "little words" which Goethe mocked at. We can already read the book of Nature, which comprises that of the development of both inorganic and organic life and of mankind, without resorting to a Creator, or to a mystical vital force, or to an immortal soul; and without consulting the trilogy of Hegel, or hiding our ignorance behind any metaphysical symbols whatever, endowed with a real existence by the writer. Mechanical phenomena, becoming more and more complicated as we pass from physics to the facts of life, are sufl&cient to explain Nature and all the intellectual and social organic life on our planet.
No doubt much that is unknown, obscure and not understood remains in the Universe, and we know that in proportion as we bridge over gaps in our knowledge, new chasms will open up. But we know no region in which it would be impossible for us to find an explanation nf the phfinomena if we turn to simple Modem Science and Anarchitm. 17 physical facts which we see produced when two billiard balls meet, or when a stone falls; or to the chemical facts which we see going on around us. These mechanical facts have been sufficient till now to explain all the phenomena we have studied. They have never yet played us false, and we do not see the possibility of ever discovering a sphere in which mechanical facts would not meet our want. Nothing up till now justifies us in surmising the existence of such a domain.
IV. COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY.
It is evident that while natural sciences were attaining, in the nineteenth century, the results mentioned in the previous chapter, it was necessary to attempt the construction of a synthetic philo- sophy which would embody the main results of all these sciences. Without wasting any more time on " substances," or on an *' idea of the Universe," or on a " destination of life " and other symbolic expressions, with which philosophers used to entertain our fathers and grandfathers, and abandoning anthropomorphism — that is, the habit of attributing human qualities and inten- tions to Nature and to physical forces — it was time to attempt tlie construction of a philosophy which would represent a reasoned, unified, systematic summary of the whole of our knowledge. Such a philosophy, gradually rising from the simple to the complex, would state in broad lines the fundamental principles of the life of the universe, and would thus give a key to the comprehension of the whole of Nature. By this means it would furnish us at the same time with a powerful instrument of further research, helping us to discover new connections between things (new so-called "natural laws"), and inspiring us with confidence in the correctness of our conclusions, however different they might be from the current notions.
The necessity of a sjmthetic philosophy was already under- stood in the eighteenth century by the Encyclopaedists; by Voltaire in his admirable " Dictionary of Philosophy," which still remains a monumental work; by Turgot; by Saint-Simon, the founder of one of the three Socialist schools. Then, in the " forties " and " fifties " of the nineteenth century, Auguste Comte undertook, in his " Positive Philosophy," the same work, in a more scientific way, better suited to the recent progress in natural sciences j and Herbert Spencer followed, working out his " Synthetic Philosophy " after the wonderful revival of natural sciences in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Modern Science and Anarchism. 19 As regards mathematics and exact sciences in general, Comte fulfilled his task in a most admirable way. It is also recognised now that he was perfectly right in introducing the science of life (biology) and the science of human societies (sociology) in the cycle of sciences included in his "Positive Philosophy"; and it is also known what a formidable influence his Positive philosophy exercised on most men of science and thinkers in the second half of the nineteenth century.
But why, it is asked by those who otherwise fully appreciate the work of the great philosopher — why was Comte so weak when he undertook, in his second great work — the "Positive Politics " — the study of human institutions, especially the modern ones, and the study of Ethics ] How could a man, with such a vast and positive mind as Comte's, finally become the founder of a religion and of a certain worship, as was the case with Comte in his declining days 1 Some of his followers have tried to reconcile this last step of Comte with his previous work, maintaining that the philosopher had followed the same method in both his works — the " Positive Philosophy" and the " Positive Politics." But this is not correct. And this is why two such authorised and philosophical followers of Comte as Littre and John Stuart Mill reject the "Politics" and do not consider it even as a part of Comte's philosophy. They merely see in it the result of an already weakened intelligence.
And yet, the contradiction which exists between these two works of Comte — his " Positive Philosophy " and his " Positive Politics " — is most characteristic, and it throws light upon some of the most important questions of the present day.
When Comte had finished his "Cours de philosophic positive," he must certainly have noticed that he had not yet introduced into his philosophy the most essential question: the origin of moral sense in man and the influence of this sense on the life of man and of human societies. It was evidently necessary in a course of Positive philosophy to study the origin of this feeling, and to explain it by the same causes by which Comte had explained life in general. He had to show why man, without the interference of any supernatural forces, should feel the need of obeying this feeling, or at least of reckoning with it.
It is most striking that Comte was on the proper way, which was followed later on by Darwin when he tried to explain, in the " Descent of Man," the origin of moral sense in Man. Comte so Modem Science and Anarchism.
wrote, indeed, in liis " Positive Politics," several admirable passages ■which show that the extension of Sociability and Mutual Aid among animals, and their ethical importance, had not escaped his attention.* But to draw out of these facts the necessary, positivist conclusions, biological knowledge was wanting at the time he wrote, and Comte himself was wanting already in the necessary boldness. So he took God, the divinity of all the positive religions, which man is requested to worship and to pray to in order to remain moral, and in his stead he put Humanity with a capital letter. He invited us to prostrate ourselves before this new divinity, and to address our prayers to it in order to develop our moral feelings.
Once this was done, once it was recognised as necessary that man should adore some being placed outside and above him, so as to keep the human animal in the paths of duty — the rest followed of itself. The ritual of Corate's religion was easily found in the rituals of ancient religions which came from the East.
In fact, Comte was bound to come to such a conclusion, once he had not recognised that the moral sense of man, like sociability and society itself, had a pre-human origin; once he did not see in it a further development of animal sociability, fortified in man by the observation of Nature and by accumulated experience of the life of human societies.
Comte had not recognised that the moral sense of man is as much dependent upon his real nature as all the physical features of his organisation are; that both are an inheritance derived from an extremely long process of evolution — a process which had lasted already many scores of thousands of years.
He had noticed the feelings of sociability and mutual sympathy among the animals; but, under the influence of the great zoologist Cuvier, who was then the greatest authority, he had not admitted what Buifon and Lamarck had foreseen — the variability of species. He did not recognise the uninterrupted process of evolution from animal to man. Consequently, he could not see that the moral sense of man is nothing else but a * I had not noticed these passages at the time I published the earlier editions of this essay. It was a Positivist friend in Brazil who drew my attention to them, sending me at the same time the second great work of Comte; and I take this opportunity to express to him my warmest thanks. There are pages and pages, full of genius, in this work of Comte as well; and to reread them now, with all the knowledge accumulated during one's life — at the invitation of a friend — was a profound pleasure.
Modem Science avd Anarchism. 21 further evolution of the mutual aid instincts evolved in animal societies long before the first man-like creatures bad appeared on earth.
Therefore Comte could not realise — as we can and must realise now — that whatever the immoral acts of isolated men may be, the moral sense of mankind will perforce instinctively live in humanity so long as the human species does not enter a period of decay; that actions contrary to a moral sense derived from this natural source must of necessity produce reaction in all others, just as mechanical action produces a reaction in the physical world; that in this necessary reaction of men against the anti- sociable actions of some of them, lies the force which preserves the moral sense and the moral habits in human societies, as it preserves sociability and a certain habit of self-restraint in all sociable animals; that, finally, this force is infinitely more powerful than the orders of any religion, or any law-makers. Not having admitted that much, Comte was compelled therefore to invent a new divinity, Humanity, and a new worship, in order that this worship stould always retain man in the paths of moral life.
Like Saint-Simon, like Fourier, he thus paid a tribute to his Christian education. Without admitting a struggle between a Good and an Evil principle (both of equal strength), and without man turning to the representative of Good to strengthen himself against the representative of Evil — without this, Christianity cannot exist. And Comte, imbued Vith this Christian idea, returned to it as soon as he had to deal with the question of morality and the means of strengthening it in man's feelings. The cult of Humanity was to be the instrument with which to remove from man the nefarious power of the Evil One.
V.
THE AWAKENING IN THE YEARS 1856-1862.
Auguste Comte had failed in his study of human institutions, and above all in his study of the origin of morality. But we must not forget that he wrote his "Positive Philosophy" and "Positive Politics" long before the years 1 856-1862, which, as was already remarked, suddenly broadened the horizon of science and rapidly raised the level of the general conceptions of educated men.
The series of epoch-making, fundamental works which appeared in the course of those five or six years, dealing in quite a new way with all the principal branches of knowledge, accomplished so complete a revolution in all our ways of looking at Nature, at life in general, and at the life of human societies, that no similar revolution has ever taken place in the whole history of science in the last twenty centuries.
What the Encyclopaedists had dimly perceived or only fore- boded, what a few only of the greatest minds of the first part of the nineteenth century had succeeded in disentangling with so much difficulty, became all of a sudden a matter of general knowledge — a certitude, rich in results. And this new knowledge was won, by the application of the inductive scientific method, with such a fullness and in so comprehensive a form that hence- forth every other method of research appeared incomplete, false, and purposeless.
Let us ponder for a moment over these results, the better to be able to appreciate the next attempt at a synthetic philosophy which was made by Herbert Spencer.
In the course of those six years, Grove, Clausius, Helmholtz, Joule, and a whole phalanx of phj'^sicists and astronomers — including Kirchhoff, who, by his wonderful discovery of the spectral anal3-sis, enabled us to find out the chemical composition of the stars — broke the spell that forbade till then to men of Modern Science and Anarchism. 23 science the domain of wide generalisations. And in a few yeiirs they proved to evidence the unity of the whole inorganic world, including the most distant stars — that is, the most distant suns surrounded by their planets.
Henceforth it became impossible to speak any longer of those mysterious "fluids" — caloric, electric, magnetic — to which physi- cists had previously resorted for explaining the different physical forces. Now, it was proved to evidence that all the physical phenomena, including light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, are the results of those same mechanical vibrations of the molecules which produce the waves of the sea and the vibrations of a bell or a tuning-fork.
At the same time we learned the means of measuring these invisible vibratory movements of the molecules — to weigh, so to say, their energy — just as we measure the energy of movement of a stone that falls from a certain height, or of a railway train in motion.
It was demonstrated, moreover, always during those memor- able years, that the celestial bodies furthest removed from us — even the myriads of suns which we see in the Milky "Way — are composed of those same simple bodies, or elements, of which all other bodies on the Earth are composed, and that absolutely the same vibrations of molecules are going on there, with the same physical and chemical results, as on our planet. The movements themselves of the massive celestial bodies which travel through space according to the laws of universal gravitation, are in all probability but the resultant of all these vibrations that are transmitted in all directions for billions and trillions of miles, through the interstellar space of the Universe.
These same caloric and electric vibrations suffice to explain all chemical phenomena. Chemistry is but another chapter of molecular mechanics. And even plant and animal life in its countless manifestations is but an exchange of molecules (or rather atoms in the molecules) in that vast series of unstable, easily decomposed chemical bodies of which the living tissues of all animated beings are built up. Life is but a series of chemical decompositions and recompositions in very complex molecules: a series of fermentations due to chemical, inorganic ferments.
Moreover, during those same years it was discovered (to be proved more fully later on, in 1890-1900) that the life-processes in the living cells of the nervous system also consist of chemical 24 Modern Science and Aiairchism.
permutations in the molecules of the cells, and that the trans- mission from one nerve-cell to another of molecular vilirations and of chemical permutations gives us a mechanical explanation of the nervous life in animals and of the transmission of irritations in plants.
The result of all these researches is immense. Owing to them, we can now, without leaving the domain of purely phj'siological facts, understand how images and impressions are produced in our brain, and engraved on it; how they act upon one another, and how they give rise to conceptions and ideas. We can also understand the so-called " association of ideas " — that is, how new impressions revive the old ones.
An insight is thus gained into the very mechanism of thought.
We are certainly very far yet from knowing all that is to be known in this direction. Science only just now frees itself from the metaphysics which strangled it, and only scouts the borderland of this great domain. But a beginning has been made. A solid foundation has already been laid for further research. The ancient division into two separate domains, which the German philosopher Kant endeavoured to establish — the domain of phenomena which we examine " in time and space " (the domain of physics), and the other, which we are able to examine only " in time " (the mental phenomena) — this division has now to disappear, And to the question that was put one day by the materialist Russian physiologist, Professor Syetchenoff: "To which department does psychology belong, and who has to study it ] " the answer has already been given: " It belongs to physiology, and it is the phj^siologist who has to study it, by the physiological method! " In fact, the lecent researches of physiologists have already thrown infinitely more light on the mechanism of thought, on the origin of impressions, on their fixation in the memory and their transmission, than all the subtle discussions with which metaphysicians have entertained us for centuries.
Metaphysics is thus beaten now, in the stronghold itself which formerly belonged to it without contest. The domain of psychology, in which it formerly considered itself invincible, has also been invaded by natural sciences and by materialist philosophy, which has caused our knowledge in this branch to increase with a rapidity entirely unknown in former times.
However, among the works that appeared during these five or Modern Science and Anarchism. 25 six years, there was none •which exercised so deep au influence as the " Origin of Species," by Charles Darwin.
Akeady Buffon in the eighteenth century, and Lamarck in the very first years of the nineteenth, had ventured to maintain that the different species of plants and animals peopling the Earth do not represent immutable forms. They are variable, and vary continually under the influence of their surroundings. The family likeness "which we recognise in different species belonging to a particular group ^ a proof, they said, that these species descended from a common ancestor. Thus, the different kinds of buttercup -which we find in our prairies and in our marshes must be the descendants of one and the same ancestral kind — descendants that have grown dissimilar in consequence of a series of changes and adaptations they have been subjected to in the varied circumstances of their existence. Likewise, the present species of wolf, dog, jackal, fox, did not formerly exist; but in their stead there was once a species of animals which in the course of ages gave birth to the several branches representing now the wolves, the dogs, the jackals, and the foxes.
But in the eighteenth century it was dangerous to profess such " heresies." For far less than that the Church had already threatened to prosecute Buffon, and he had been compelled to recant his statements about the geological evolution of the Earth. The Church at that time was still very powerful, and the naturalist who dared to uphold heresies offensive to her was threatened with prison, torture, or the madhouse. That is w-hy the " heretics " spoke with so much prudence all through the first half of the nineteenth century. But now, in the second half of the century, after the revolutions of 1848, Darwan and Wallace could bravely aflBxm the same heretic teaching, and Darwin had also the courage to add that man, too, was the product of a slow physiological evolution; that he drew his origin from a species of animals which gave birth both to man and the now-living apes and monkeys; that the " immortal mind " and the " moral sense " of man had developed in the same way as the intelligence and the social instincts of a chimpanzee or an ant.
We know what thunderbolts were hurled by the Elders of the Churches at Darwin, and especially at his courageous, learned and intelligent apostle, Huxley, who made most of those Darwinian conclusions which chiefly alarmed the priests of all religions.
The struggle was hot, but the Darwinians emerged %-ictorious, and since then a new science — biolog}', the science of life in all its manifestations — has grown up under our very eyes. The 26 Modern Science and Anarchism.
origin of all species by descent is now an established fact. Some of the clergy themselves accept it, and try to reconcile Evolution with Revelation.
Darwin's work gave at the same time a new key and a new method of investigation for the better understanding of many other groups of phenomena: the life of physical matter, the life of organisms, and the life and evolution of societies. The idea of a continuous development — of a progressive Evolution and a gradual adaptation of beings and societies to new con- ditions, in proportion as these conditions become modified — this idea found a far wider field to work in than that of merely explaining the origin of new species. When it was applied to the study of Nature in general, as well as to the study of man and his social institutions, it opened up quite new horizons and made it possible to explain some of the most difficult problems in the domain of all branches of knowledge. Taking this principle, so rich in consequences, as a basis, it was possible to reconstruct, not only the history of organisms, but also the history of human institutions.