When I started life Hegelianism was the basis of everything: it was in the air, found expression in magazine and newspaper articles, in novels and essays, in art, in histories, in sermons, and in conversation. A man unacquainted with Hegel had no right to speak: he who wished to know the truth studied Hegel. Everything rested on him; and suddenly forty years have gone by and there is nothing left of him, he is not even mentioned-as though he had never existed. And what is most remarkable is that, like pseudo-Christianity, Hegelianism fell not because anyone refuted it, but because it suddenly became evident that neither the one nor the other was needed by our learned, educated world.
If we now speak to a modern educated man about the fall of the angel and of Adam, or about redemption, he will not attempt to argue or to prove the falsity of it, but will ask with perplexity:
What angel? Why Adam? What redemption? What use is it to me? Similarly with Hegelianism, a man of our time will not argue about it but will only be surprised. What spirit? Where does it come from? Why does it manifest itself? What use is it to me?
‘Yes, that came about’-say the present-day scientists-’because of the ravings of the theological and the metaphysical periods; now we have critical, positive science which does not deceive because it is based on induction and experiment. Now our knowledge is not shaky, as that was, and only along our path lie the answers to all the questions of mankind.’
But then that is just what the theologians said, and they were certainly not fools, for we know that among them were men of immense intellect; and within my own recollection the Hegelians spoke with no less confidence, and were not less accepted by the crowd of so-called educated people. And they-our Herzens, Stankeviches, and Belinskis, for instance-were not fools either. Why then did this surprising phenomenon occur that clever people should preach with the greatest confidence, and the crowd should reverently accept, such unfounded and empty doctrines? The reason is the same, namely-that the doctrines justify people in their bad lives.
Is not the reason of the confidence of the positive, critical, experimental scientists, and of the reverent attitude of the crowd towards their doctrines, still the same? At first it seems strange how the theory of evolution (which, like the redemption in theology, serves the majority as a popular expression of the whole new creed) can justify people in their injustice, and it seems as if the scientific theory dealt only with facts and did nothing but observe facts.
But that only seems so. It seemed just the same in the case of theological doctrine: theology, it seemed, was only occupied with dogmas and had no relation to people’s lives, and it seemed the same with regard to philosophy, which appeared to be occupied solely with transcendental reasonings.
But that only seemed so. It was just the same with the Hegelian doctrine on a large scale and with the particular case of the Malthusian teaching.
Hegelianism seemed to be concerned only with its logical constructions and to have no relation to people’s lives; and this seemed to be the case with the Malthusian theory also-it seemed solely occupied with statistical facts. But that only seemed to be so.
Contemporary science investigates facts.
But what facts? Why those particular facts and not others?
Scientists of to-day are very fond of saying solemnly and confidently: ‘We only investigate facts,’ imagining these words to have some meaning.
One cannot possibly only investigate facts for the number of facts available for investigation is innumerable (in the exact sense of that word). Before investigating the facts one must have a theory on the basis of which such or such facts are selected from among the innumerable quantity. And such a theory exists and is even very definitely expressed, though many of those engaged on contemporary science either ignore it, that is, do not wish to know it, or actually do not know it, or pretend not to. So it has always been with all reigning, guiding creeds-both theological and philosophic.
The foundations of every creed are always contained in the theory, and the so-called learned people only devise further deductions from the given data, sometimes without knowing them. But there always is a fundamental theory. So now, contemporary science chooses its facts on the basis of a very definite theory which it sometimes knows, sometimes does not wish to know, and sometimes really does not know, though that theory exists.
The theory is this: all mankind is an undying organism, men are the particles of this organism and each of them has his special vocation in the service of the whole.
Just as the cells composing an organism divide among themselves the labour needed for the struggle for the existence of the whole organism strengthen one quality and weaken another, and coalesce with one organ the better to satisfy the needs of the whole organism: and just as among social animals-ants and bees-separate individuals divide the work among themselves: the queen lays eggs, the drone fertilizes her, and the workers labour for the life of the whole-so in humanity and human societies the same differentiation and integration of parts occurs.
And therefore to discover the law of man’s life it is necessary to study the laws of the life and development of organisms; in the life and development of organisms we find the following laws: a law that every phenomenon is accompanied by other consequences besides its immediate one, another law of the frailty of the undifferentiated, and a third law of heterogeneity and homogeneity, and so forth.
All this seems very innocent, but it is only necessary to draw deductions from all these observed facts in order to see at once whither they tend. They all tend to one thing, namely, to the recognition of humanity or human society as an organism, and so to a recognition of the division of activities that exists in human societies as organic, that is to say, as necessary; and as in human societies very many cruelties and abominations are perceptible, these phenomena must not be regarded as cruel or abominable but must be regarded as indubitable facts confirming a general law-namely, the law of the division of labour.
The philosophy of the spirit also justified every cruelty and abomination, but there it was philosophic and is therefore considered questionable; but in science it all turns out to be scientific and therefore indubitable.
How can one help accepting so admirable a theory! One has only to regard human society as an object of observation and one can calmly devour the labour of others who are perishing, comforting oneself with the reflection that one’s activity as a dancer, lawyer, doctor, philosopher, actor, investigator of mediumism, or of the form); of atoms, is a functional activity of the human organism, so that there can be no question of whether it is just that I should make use of the labour of others (I only do what pleases me) as there can be no question of the justice of the activity of a brain-cell which avails itself of the work of the cells in the muscles.
How can we help accepting such a practical theory enabling us to pocket our conscience for ever and quietly live an unrestrained animal life, feeling under our feet the unshakable support of modern science? And it is on this new creed that the justification of the idleness and cruelty of men is now built.
CHAPTER XXX
THIS creed began but recently-some fifty years ago. Its chief founder was the French savant, A. Comte. Under the influence of Bichat’s physiological researches, which were then new, he, a systematizer and a religious man, was struck by the old idea expressed long ago by Menenius Agrippa, that human societies and even all humanity may be regarded as one whole, as an organism, and men may be regarded as the living cells of separate organs each having its definite function in the service of the whole organism.
This thought so pleased Comte that he began to construct a philosophic theory on it, and he was so carried away by this theory that he quite forgot that his starting-point was merely a nice little analogy, suitable in a fable but quite unsuitable for the foundation of a science. As often happens, he regarded his favourite supposition as an axiom and imagined that his whole theory was based on the firmest experimental foundations. According to his theory it appeared that as humanity is an organism, the knowledge of what man is and what his relations to the universe should be can be attained only by studying the properties of this organism. In order to learn these properties man can make observations on other-lower-organisms and draw inferences from the facts of their life.
In the first place, the only true and scientific method according to Comte is therefore the inductive method and science is only such as is based on experiment. Secondly, the aim and apex of science is the new science of the imaginary organism of humanity or of the super-organic being-humanity: this new imaginary science being sociology. From this view of science in general it appeared that all former knowledge was false, and the whole history of humanity’s knowledge of itself fell into three, or really two, periods:
(1) The theological and metaphysical periods, lasting from the commencement of the world until Comte, and (2) the present period of true
