Auguste Comte and Positivism by John Stuart Mill
page 91 of 161 (56%)
page 91 of 161 (56%)
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to speak of the singular system into which he afterwards enlarged them)
are such as perhaps no other person of equal knowledge and capacity would agree in. Were those views as true as they are questionable, they could not take effect until the unanimity among positive thinkers, to which he looked forward, shall have been attained; since the mainspring of his system is a Spiritual Power composed of positive philosophers, which only the previous attainment of the unanimity in question could call into existence. A few words will sufficiently express the outline of his scheme. A corporation of philosophers, receiving a modest support from the state, surrounded by reverence, but peremptorily excluded not only from all political power or employment, but from all riches, and all occupations except their own, are to have the entire direction of education: together with, not only the right and duty of advising and reproving all persons respecting both their public and their private life, but also a control (whether authoritative or only moral is not defined) over the speculative class itself, to prevent them from wasting time and ingenuity on inquiries and speculations of no value to mankind (among which he includes many now in high estimation), and compel them to employ all their powers on the investigations which may be judged, at the time, to be the most urgently important to the general welfare. The temporal government which is to coexist with this spiritual authority, consists of an aristocracy of capitalists, whose dignity and authority are to be in the ratio of the degree of generality of their conceptions and operations--bankers at the summit, merchants next, then manufacturers, and agriculturists at the bottom of the scale. No representative system, or other popular organization, by way of counterpoise to this governing power, is ever contemplated. The checks relied upon for preventing its abuse, are the counsels and remonstrances of the Spiritual Power, and unlimited liberty of discussion and comment by all classes of inferiors. Of the mode in which either set of |
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