Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

CLAIMS OF CAPACITY.

391

the separation of powers was necessarily as imperfect as it was arbitrary, the tendency of the modern social spirit is to render human government more and more moral and less and less political. The moral reorganization is the most urgent; and it is at the same time the best prepared. The governments decline it more and more, and thus leave it for the hands that ought to assume it: and the peoples have had experience enough to convince them that existing principles of government have done all that is to be expected of them, and that social progress must depend upon a wholly new philosophy.

We have seen how the Greek philosophers dreamed of a political reign of Mind, and how dangerous and futile such a notion was. During the Middle Ages the Catholic system provided satisfaction for intellectual ambition: but when, by the demolition of that system, the two orders of power were again confounded, the old Utopia was revived. Except the few whom their philosophy raised above such desires, almost all active minds have been actuated, often unconsciously, by an insurrectionary tendency against a state of affairs which offered them no legal position. As the negative movement proceeded, such men grew more eager for temporal greatness, which was then the only social eminence; and during the revolutionary convulsion, such aspirations exceeded all bounds. Such attempts, unsupported by any religious organization, must necessarily succumb to the power of wealth, which had established a material preponderance too strong to be shaken; but the efforts themselves were very disturbing to the state of things which they could not essentially change. This principle of disorder is the more dangerous from its appearance of reasonableness. It is all that the most eminent rationality and morality combined can do to preserve a mind of the present day from the illusion that, as modern civilization tends to strengthen the social influence of intelligence, the government of society, speculative and active, ought to be confided to the highest intellectual capacity. Most minds that are occupied with social questions are secretly swayed by this notion,— without excepting those who repel the error which no one attempts rationally to vindicate. The separation of the two powers will extinguish this cause of disorder by providing for the gratification of whatever is legitimate in this ambition. The sound theory of the case, as imperfectly presented in the Middle Age system, is, that it is the social function of Mind to struggle perpetually, in its own way, to modify the necessary rule of material power, by subjecting it more and more to respect for the moral laws of universal harmony, from which all practical activity, public and private, is apt to revolt, for want of loftiness of view and generosity of sentiment. Regarded in this way, legitimate social supremacy belongs neither to force nor to reason, but to morality, governing alike the actions of the one and the counsels of the other. Such, at least, is

the type which is to be proposed, though it may never be fully realized and in view of it, Mind may sincerely relinquish its idle pretension to govern the world by the supposed right of capacity; for it will be regularly installed in a noble permanent office, alike adapted to occupy its activity and recompense its services. This spiritual authority will be naturally kept within bounds by the very nature of its functions, which will be those of education, and the consultative influence which results from it in active life; and again, by the conditions imposed on their exercise, and the continuous resistance which must be encountered,-the authority itself being founded on free assent, within the limits necessary to guard against abuse. Such an organization is the only issue for the disturbing political action of intelligence, which can escape from unjust exclusion only by aspiring to a vicious domination: and statesmen at present protract the embarrassment caused by the political claims of capacity by their blind antipathy to the regular separation of the two powers.-The system needed would be no less beneficial to the multitude than to the active few. The disposition to seek in political institutions the solution of all difficulties. whatever is a disastrous tendency of our time. Naturally arising from the concentration of powers, it has been aggravated by the constitution-making of the last half-century. The hallucination will be dissolved by the same philosophical instigation which will destroy that of a reign of Mind. While a social issue is provided for a large mental capacity, just popular claims, which are oftener moral than political, will receive the guidance fittest for their object. There can be no doubt that the legitimate complaints lodged by the masses against a system under which their general needs are too little considered, relate to a renovation of opinions and manners, and could not be satisfied by express institutions. This is especially true in regard to the evils inherent in the inequality of wealth, which afford the most dangerous theme to both agitators and dreamers; for these evils derive their force much more from our intellectual and moral disorder than from the imperfections of political measures. The philosophical expansion which is to work out the new system must, in this and in many other respects, exert a very important rational influence on modern populations,directly facilitating the restoration of general and durable harmony; always supposing that it is linked with conditions of progress, no less than of order, and that, while showing that our social embarrassments are independent of institutions, the new instruction shall teach us the true solution,-the submission of all classes to the moral requirements of their position, under the instigation of a spiritual authority strong enough to enforce discipline. Thus might disturbing popular dispositions, now the constant source of political illusion and quackery, be reformed; and the vague and stormy discussion of rights would be replaced by the calm and

EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION.

393

precise determinations of duties. The one, a critical and metaphysical notion, necessarily prevailed till the negative progression was completed the other, essentially an organic and positive idea, must rule the final regeneration: for the one is purely individual, and the other directly social.. Instead of making individual duty consist politically in respect for universal rights, the rights of each individual will be regarded as resulting from the duties of others towards him in the one case the morality will be nearly passive, and will be ruled by selfishness: whereas in the other the morality will be thoroughly active, and directed by benevolence. Here, again, the opposition of statesmen is wholly inconsistent with their own complaints of the eagerness of the popular mind for political solutions of their difficulties:-the difficulties exist; the popular tendency exists; and no complaints of either can avail while politicians themselves discountenance the only means of correcting the thoughtless popular habit and desire.

Such are the services to be rendered by the new spiritual authority. In order to dispel the natural uneasiness excited by the mention of such an agency in our day, connected as it is in most minds with theocratic notions, I will briefly indicate its offices and prerogatives, and the consequent nature of its normal authority.

If we resort to the Catholic organization as to a sort of pattern of spiritual government, we must remember that we have now nothing to do with the religious element; and we must consider the clergy in their social relations alone. Being careful to do this, we may refer to my statement of their function, Its Educationas being that of every spiritual authority;-that of al function. directing Education, while remaining merely consultative in all that relates to Action, having, in fact, no other concern with action than that of recalling in each case the appropriate rules of conduct. The temporal authority, on the other hand, is supreme in regard to Action, and only consultative in regard to Education. Thus the great characteristic office and privilege of the modern spiritual power will be the organization and working of a universal system of positive Education, not only intellectual, but also, and more emphatically, moral. In order to maintain the positive nature and social purpose of this education, it must be ever remembered that it is intended for the direct and continuous use of no exclusive class, however vast, but for the whole mass of the population of Western Europe. Catholicism established a universal education, imperfect and variable, but essentially homogeneous, and common to the loftiest and the humblest Christians: and it would be strange to propose a less general institution for a more advanced civilization. The revolutionary demand for equality in education manifested a sense of what was needed, and a forecast of what was coming. In our own time no feature of the existing anarchy is more disgraceful than the indifference of the upper classes about that absence of

popular education which threatens them with a fearful retribution. The positive philosophy teaches us the invariable homogeneousness of the human mind, not only among various social ranks, but as regards individuals and it therefore shows us that no differences are possible but those of degree. The system must be necessarily identical, but applied according to diversities of aptitude and of leisure. This was the principle and mode of the Catholic religious education and it is now found to be the only sound one in the one kind of education that is regulated among us,-special instruction. Round this fundamental system will ramify spontaneously the various collateral pursuits which relate to direct preparation for different social conditions. The scientific spirit must then lose its present tendency to speciality, and be impelled towards a logical generality; for all the branches of natural philosophy must furnish their contingent to the common doctrine; in order to which they must first be completely condensed and co-ordinated. When the savans have learned that active life requires the habitual and simultaneous use of the various positive ideas that each of them isolates from all the rest, they will perceive that their social ascendency supposes the prior generalization of their common conceptions, and consequently the entire philosophical reformation of their present practice. Even in the most advanced sciences, as we have seen, the scientific character at present fluctuates between the abstract expansion and the partial application, so as to be usually neither thoroughly speculative nor completely active; a consequence of the same defect of generality which rests the ultimate utility of the positive spirit on minor services, which are as special as the corresponding theoretical habits. But this view, which ought to have been long outgrown, is a mere hindrance in the way of the true conception, that positive philosophy contemplates no other immediate application than the intellectual and moral direction of civilized society; a necessary application, presenting nothing that is incidental or desultory, and imparting the utmost generality, elevation, unity, and consistency, to the speculative character. Under such a homogeneousness of view and identity of aim, the various positive philosophers will naturally and gradually constitute a European body, in which the dissensions that now break up the scientific world into coteries will merge; and with the rivalries of struggling interests will cease the quarrels and coalitions which are the opprobrium of science in our day.

Under this system of general education, Morality will be Regeneration immovably based upon positive philosophy as

a

of morality. whole. Human nature being one of the branches of positive knowledge, it will be understood how childhood is to be trained in good habits, by means of the best prepossessions; and how those habits and views are afterwards to be rationalized, so as solidly to establish the universal obligations of civilized Man,

INTERNATIONAL DUTY.

395

duties personal, domestic, and social, with the modifications that will be required by changes in civilization. We have seen how all connection between theological faith and morality has long been recognized as arbitrary; and any such degree of theological unity as is necessary for affording a basis to morality, would now suppose a vast system of hypocrisy, which, if it were possible, would be fatal to the very morality it proposed to sustain. In the present state of the most advanced portion of the human race, the positive spirit is certainly the only one which, duly systematized, can at once generate universal moral convictions and permit the rise of a spiritual authority independent enough to regulate its social application. At the same time, the social sentiment, as a part of morals, can be fully developed only by the positive philosophy, because it alone contemplates and understands the whole of human nature. The social sentiment has hitherto been cultivated only in an indirect and even contradictory manner, under the theological philosophy first, which gave a character of exorbitant selfishness to all moral acts; and then under the metaphysical, which bases morality on self-interest. Human faculties, affective as well as intellectual, can be developed only by habitual exercise; and positive morality, which teaches the habitual practice of goodness without any other certain recompense than internal satisfaction, must be much more. favourable to the growth of the benevolent affections than any doctrine which attaches devotedness itself to personal considerations, -the admission of which allows no fair play to the claims of our generous instincts. It will be long before habit, sustained by powerful interests, will permit the systematizing of morality without religious intervention; and when it is done, it will be by the fulfilment itself silencing all controversy: and this is why no other part of the great philosophical task can be nearly so important in determining the regeneration of modern society. Humanity must be regarded as still in a state of infancy while its laws of conduct are derived from extraordinary fictions, and not from a wise estimate of its own nature and condition.

I must point out another respect in which this great task will satisfy a serious present exigency. We have seen

International

how the revolutionary influence extended, as the duty. Roman sway once did, and the Catholic and feudal system afterwards, over the whole of Western Europe; whereas, the metaphysical polity does not look beyond national action, in which the community of nations is wholly lost sight of. It cannot be otherwise while the temporal government is supposed to include the spiritual; for the temporal union of nations is impossible but through mere oppression by the strongest. The five great nations concerned cannot be for a moment supposed to be fused, or subjected to the same political government; and yet the perpetual extension of their

« AnteriorContinuar »