The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Volume 2 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract action activity admit æsthetic amidst analysis ancient arts ascendency basis become Catholic Catholic system Catholicism century character chief civilization clergy complete conception connection constitution decline deism Descartes destination direct doctrine dogma elements emancipation eminent established evolution existence extended faculties favourable fetichism feudal system function Greek historical human mind human progress ideas imperfect important indispensable individual industrial influence instinct institution intellectual and moral labours less logical mathematical ment mental metaphysical spirit method Middle Ages military modern society modify monotheism monotheistic movement nations natural laws natural philosophy necessary observation organization period phase phenomena political polytheism polytheistic popular positive philosophy positive spirit principle Protestantism provisional race regard régime relations religious reorganization retrograde revolutionary sacerdotal scholasticism scientific slavery social sociology speculative spiritual power spontaneous subordination superiority supposed systematic temporal power tendency theism theocracy theological philosophy theory tion true universal whole
Popular passages
Page 93 - The whole social evolution of the race must proceed in entire accordance with biological laws ; and social phenomena must always be founded on the necessary invariableness of the human organism, the characteristics of which, physical, intellectual, and moral, are always found to be essentially the same, and related in the same manner, at every degree of the social scale, — no development of them attendant upon the social condition ever altering their nature in the least, nor, of course, creating...
Page 74 - These two aspects of social evolution, then— the development which brings after it the improvement— we may consider to be admitted as facts. Adhering to our relative, in opposition to the absolute, view, we must conclude the social state, regarded as a whole, to have been as perfect, in each period, as the coexisting condition of humanity and of its environment would allow. Without this view, history would be incomprehensible; and the relative view is as indispensable in regard to progress as,...
Page 130 - It is only through the more and more marked influence of the reason over the general conduct of man and of society, that the gradual march of our race has attained that regularity and persevering continuity which distinguish it so radically from the desultory and barren expansion of even the highest animal orders, which share, and with enhanced strength the appetites, the passions, and even the primary sentiments of man.
Page 119 - ... heads, we may find something quite as lamentable in the intellectual class, in the exclusive employment of .a human brain in resolving some equations, or in classifying insects. The moral effect is, unhappily, analogous in the two cases. It occasions a miserable indifference about the general course of human affairs, as long as there are equations to resolve and pins to manufacture. This...
Page 69 - I were writing a methodical treatise on political philosophy, it would be necessary to offer a preliminary analysis of the individual impulsions which make up the progressive force of the human race, by referring them to that instinct which results from the concurrence of all our natural tendencies, and which urges man to develop the whole of his life, physical, moral, and intellectual, as far as his circumstances allow. But this view is admitted by all enlightened philosophers; so that I may proceed...
Page 68 - Now, in the organic sciences, the elements are much better known to us than the whole which they constitute: so that in that case we must proceed from tho simple to the compound. But the reverse method is necessary in the study of Man and of Society ; Man and Society as a whole being better known to us, and more accessible subjects of study, than the parts which constitute them. In...
Page 70 - ... testimony to this, apart from all systematic estimate of the fact. Now it is the slow, continuous accumulation of these successive changes which gradually constitutes the social movement, whose steps are ordinarily marked by generations, as the most appreciable elementary variations are wrought by the constant renewal of adults. At a time when the average rapidity of this progression seems to all eyes to be remarkably accelerated, the reality of the movement cannot be disputed, even by those...
Page 30 - From the opening of the revolutionary period in the sixteenth century this system of hypocrisy has been more and more elaborated in practice, permitting the emancipation of all minds of a certain bearing, on the tacit condition that they should aid in protracting the submission of the masses. This was eminently the policy of the Jesuits.
Page 58 - If we contemplate the positive spirit in Its relation to scientific conception rather than the mode of procedure, we shall find that this philosophy is distinguished from the theologico-metaphysical by its tendency to render relative the ideas which were at first absolute. This inevitable passage from the absolute to the relative is one of the most important philosophical results of each of the intellectual revolutions which has carried on every kind of speculation from the theological or metaphysical...
Page 98 - In short, all human progress, political, moral, or intellectual, is inseparable from material progression, in virtue of the close interconnection that, as we have seen, characterizes the natural course of social phenomena. Now, it is clear that the action of man upon nature depends chiefly on his knowledge of the laws of inorganic phenomena, though biological phenomena must also find a place in it.