than themselves. This is what can be said in favour of M. Comte. On the
contrary side it is to be said, that in order that this salutary
ascendancy over opinion should be exercised by the most eminent
thinkers, it is not necessary that they should be associated and
organized. The ascendancy will come of itself when the unanimity is
attained, without which it is neither desirable nor possible. It is
because astronomers agree in their teaching that astronomy is trusted,
and not because there is an Academy of Sciences or a Royal Society
issuing decrees or passing resolutions. A constituted moral authority
can only be required when the object is not merely to promulgate and
diffuse principles of conduct, but to direct the detail of their
application; to declare and inculcate, not duties, but each person's
duty, as was attempted by the spiritual authority of the middle ages.
From this extreme application of his principle M. Comte does not shrink.
A function of this sort, no doubt, may often be very usefully discharged
by individual members of the speculative class; but if entrusted to any
organized body, would involve nothing less than a spiritual despotism.
This however is what M. Comte really contemplated, though it would
practically nullify that peremptory separation of the spiritual from the
temporal power, which he justly deemed essential to a wholesome state of
society. Those whom an irresistible public opinion invested with the
right to dictate or control the acts of rulers, though without the means
of backing their advice by force, would have all the real power of the
temporal authorities, without their labours or their responsibilities.
M. Comte would probably have answered that the temporal rulers, having
the whole legal power in their hands, would certainly not pay to the
spiritual authority more than a very limited obedience: which amounts to
saying that the ideal form of society which he sets up, is only fit to
be an ideal because it cannot possibly be realized.