"Political Economy, as it is studied at present, is entirely founded on facts: because the nature of things is a fact, as well as the result which flows from it. * * ** Political Economy is established on impregnable foundations as soon as its fundamental principles are rigorous deductions from general undoubted facts." 9. We have now, we think, offered ample evidence to shew that the great doctrine discovered and proclaimed by Bacon, that Physical Science is the true basis of all science, was admitted and acknowledged to be true by a long line of illustrious men, and among others by the cultivators of the new science which was rising into existence-Political Economy. How far they succeeded in realizing this conception is quite another matter. The great point was that the principle was admitted, and carried within itself the method of judging and correcting any special errors that might be made in any particular science. We have now to notice another writer who has had many ardent admirers in recent times. Auguste Comte proclaims the Doctrine of the Continuity of the Sciences, but fails to make Economics an Inductive Science. 10. AUGUSTE COMTE was born at Montpellier in 1795, of a high Catholic and Royalist family, and was placed at one of Napoleon's Lyceums, where great efforts were made to restore the old theologico-metaphysical system. Scarcely 14 years of age, he revolted against the system, and resolved to commence a universal regeneration, both political and physical. In 1814 he entered the Ecole Polytechnique, and the mathematical studies of the place strongly confirmed this tendency. He became convinced that the same spirit of philosophizing must be applied to vital and social questions, as had already been applied to inorganic substances, and that the education which stopped at the latter was imperfect. The whole system of this Philosophy he called the Encyclopædic Hierarchy. 11. Comte denominates his doctrine the "Positive Philosophy," because he says that every science has passed through three stages of opinion-First, The Theological-when men in 1 Traité d'économie politique. Discours Préliminaire p. 5. their ignorance and incapacity to account for phenomena, referred them on all occasions to the interposition of the Deity-Secondly, The Metaphysical-when they had abandoned the theological stage, they tried to speculate on the causes of phenomena, and attributed them to certain mysterious agencies. Comte maintains that this is beyond the reach of human faculties, and that all they can do is to discover the Laws of the Phenomena. As an instance of the metaphysical state of science he takes the two prevalent theories of light-the emission and the wave theory. Both these he condemns as unphilosophical, and considers the researches into the laws of heat as the true model of scientific investigation. This system of inquiring only into the Laws of Phenomena, he denominates the "Positive" system, to which all Philosophy will, he asserts, finally confine itself. 12. Now there is much truth in what he says regarding the theological phase of opinion. But Bacon had said the very same thing long before. He tells us that Providence acts only through secondary laws, and that these are the only ones which the philosopher has to investigate. So that there is no novelty in this part of Comte's doctrine. In the next place men of science, long before Comte, were perfectly agreed that the true method of procedure in every science is to begin by ascertaining the Laws of the Phenomena. Newton laid this down in his Optics, and the rule was perfectly well understood and acted upon by all physicists long before Comte. But with respect to Comte's next doctrine, that philosophers must stop there, and never seek to investigate the causes of these laws,-that is a limitation of the powers of the human mind no physicist will ever submit to. In fact, as soon as laws are proved to be true they become phenomena. A true theory is a fact which is proved by circumstantial evidence. A theory is nothing but a reason, or a principle, or a law, which explains some phenomenon; and of course, if the true reason be ascertained, it is a fact. By collecting a vast body of these laws together, the human mind naturally and irresistibly endeavours to discover, by the same method of philosophy, if these phenomena are not subject to general laws, like the first order of phenomena. They will certainly try to discover whether there are laws of laws. When we once seek for laws at all, it is not more metaphysical to seek for the law of a law, than for the law of a phenomenon. In fact, Comte's system would go to forbid us to inquire into the reason of anything-all reason being metaphysical-a restraint the human mind will never submit to. 13. Comte's great doctrine is, that there is a certain progressive order in science, and that the Social Science must be investigated by methods strictly analogous to those pursued in Physical Science, and that the study of the latter must precede the former. But this is nothing more, as we have shewn above, than a reproduction of the Baconian doctrine of the Continuity of the Sciences. Comte says that there is a certain due and proper order, in which only the sciences can be properly understood. First, as the basis of all human knowledge, Mathematics; then the inorganic sciences, Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry. Next, the organic science, Physiology, the study of the individual; and, lastly, Social Science, or individuals in society, which he calls Social Physics. Comte strongly urges the necessity of studying the anterior sciences in due and proper order, and that each one should be understood before proceeding to the next; and especially those who study Social Physics should be well acquainted with Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology before they attempt it. 14. It will be seen that the ideas of Comte are in reality identical with those of Bacon, and that his "Positive" Philosophy-except the untenable restriction he attempts to impose upon inquiring into causes-is simply the Baconian Philosophy which had been repeatedly assented to by a long line of illustrious men. And yet some of his admirers seem to think that this is a great discovery of Comte's :-"Let me now call attention to Comte's initial conceptions; and first to the luminous conception of all the sciences-physical and social — as branches of one science, to be investigated on one and the same method. - "To say that science is one, and that the method should be one, may to the hasty reader seem more like a truism than a discovery; but, on inquiring, he will find that before Comtealthough a general idea of the connection of the physical sciences was prevalent, yet to judge from Mrs. Somerville's work, or Herschell's Discourse, it was neither very precise nor very profound no one had thought of a Social Science, issuing from the physical sciences, and investigated on the same method. с In fact, to talk of moral questions being reduced to a positive science would even now be generally regarded as absurd!!" 1 It has already been seen how untenable is the claim set up on behalf of Comte as the originator of the idea that physical science is the basis of Social Science. Many illustrious men had said the same since Bacon's day, but unfortunately they had done little more than preach it. 15. Comte, however, was in a better position to realize this great conception than many others who had preached it. A highly accomplished mathematician, with the knowledge of the history of the Physical Sciences which had already been created, he devoted himself especially to Sociology, or Social Physics. He had before him the works of Economists of several countries, Italy, France, and England. What a splendid opportunity, therefore, of realizing his conception, and giving an example to the world of the creation of at least one Social Science on the model of a Physical Science! What a noble opportunity of examining the current doctrines in Economics by the acknowledged standards of reasoning in Physical Science! approving, confirming and developing what was good, and rejecting what was false, and pointing out the application of his doctrines. Accordingly, when we have passed through and admired his exposition of the principles of the Physical Sciences, we naturally expect a Physical Economics constructed in a similar manner, as the coping stone or the crown of the preceding work. What, then, is our astonishment to find that when he comes to Political Economy, he speaks of it with the greatest contempt, and does not admit it to be a science at all! Except Smith, whom he lauds for not making it a science, he treats the Economists with the most unbounded disdain! Now, the worse the condition of Economics was in the hands of its professed cultivators, the more glorious would have been the triumph of the "Positive' Philosophy, in shewing how it might be made a "Positive" Science. But, just when he had the grandest opportunity, he abandons the attempt. In the whole history of Science, there never was a more ludicrous collapse! So vanish the pretensions of Comte to create a Positive Physical Social Science. The huge mountain was in labour, and there was produced not even a ridiculous mouse. Mr. G. H. Lewes's Account of Comte's Philosophy, in Bohn's series, p. 10. Self-contradiction of Mr. J. S. Mill as to the Method of Investigation proper to Economics. I-Mr. Mill says that the Inductive is the only proper Method to investigate Economics. 16. The doctrine, then, that the same spirit of philosophizing is common to physical and moral science, had now become one of the recognised dogmas of Philosophy. We need not quote others, but we may observe that Mr. Mill follows exactly the same strain as the preceding writers. He says "The backward state of the Moral Sciences can only be remedied by applying to them the methods of Physical Science duly extended and generalized." And again-" In scientific investigation, as in all other works of human skill, the way of attaining the end is seen, at it were instinctively by superior minds, in some comparatively simple case, and is then by judicious generalization, adapted to the variety of complex cases. We learn to do a thing in difficult circumstances by attending to the manner in which we have spontaneously done the same thing in easy ones. "This truth is exemplified by the history of the various branches of knowledge which have successively, in the ascending order of their complication, assumed the character of sciences, and will doubtless receive fresh confirmation from those of which the scientific constitution is yet to come, and which are still abandoned to the uncertainties of vague and popular discussion. Although several other sciences have emerged from this state, at a comparatively recent date, none now remain in it, except those which relate to man himself, the most complex and most difficult subject of study, on which the human mind can be engaged. "Concerning the physical nature of man as an organized being-though there is still much uncertainty and much controversy, which can only terminate by the general acknowledgment and employment of stricter rules of Induction than are commonly recognized, there is, however, a considerable body of truths, which all who have attended to the subject, consider to be fully established: nor is there now any radical imperfection in the method observed in this department of science, by its most distinguished modern teachers. But the laws of Mind, and even in a greater degree those of Society, are so far from being 1 Logic. B. VI. Table of Contents. |