This was all very nice; there was only one error, namely, that the whole edifice was built on the sand-on the arbitrary assertion that humanity is an organism.
That assertion was arbitrary because we have no more right to acknowledge the existence of an organism of humanity not subject to observation than we have to acknowledge the existence of a triune God and similar theological propositions.
That assertion was fallacious because to the conception of humanity, that is, of men, the definition of an organism was incorrectly affixed despite the fact that humanity lacks the essential sign of an organism, namely a centre of sensation and consciousness. We only call an elephant or a bacterium an ‘organism’ because, by analogy we attribute to those beings a similar unification of sensation and of consciousness to that we are conscious of in ourselves; but in human societies and in humanity this essential indication is lacking, and therefore, however many other indications we may detect that are common to humanity and to an organism, in the absence of that essential indication, the acknowledgement of humanity as an organism is incorrect.
But despite the arbitrariness and incorrectness of its fundamental basis the positive philosophy was accepted most cordially by the so-called educated world, so important for that world was the justification this philosophy afforded to the existing order of things by regarding the present rule of violence among men as Just. What is remarkable in this connexion is that of Comte’s works which consist of two parts-the positive philosophy and the positive politics-the learned world only accepted the first: the part which. on the new experimental basis, offered a justification for the existing evil of human societies; but the second part, dealing with the moral obligations of altruism resulting from acknowledging humanity as an organism, was considered not merely unimportant but even insignificant and unscientific.
What had occurred with the two parts of Kant’s philosophy was repeated. The criticism of pure reason was accepted by the learned crowd, but the criticism of practical reason-the part which contained the essence of his moral teaching-was rejected.
In Comte’s teaching I they accepted as scientific what pandered to the prevailing evil. But the positive philosophy accepted by the crowd, being based on an arbitrary and unsound proposition, was itself so unfounded and therefore so unstable that it could not be maintained by itself. And then among the many idle speculations of so-called science there appears an assertion-lacking equally in novelty and in truth-to the effect that living creatures, that is organisms, have been derived from one another-not only one organism from another but one organism from many: that is, that in a very long period of time, in a million years, a fish and a duck, for instance, may not merely have come from one and the same ancestor but that one organism may have come from many separate organisms, so that, for instance, a single animal might be produced from a swarm of bees.
And this arbitrary and incorrect assertion was accepted by the learned world with yet greater sympathy. This assertion was arbitrary because no one has ever seen how some organisms are produced from others, and so the assumption about the origin of species always remains an assumption and not a fact of experience. And the assumption was incorrect because the solution of the question of the origin of species by the assertion that they were produced in accordance with a law of heredity and adaptation during an infinitely long period of time is not at all a solution, but only the repetition of the question in a new form.
According to the solution of the question by Moses (in a polemic with whom lies the whole importance of the theory) it appears that the diversity of the species of living beings is due to God’s will and infinite power, but according to the theory of evolution it turns out that the diversity of living beings came about of itself in consequence of endlessly varied conditions of heredity and environment during an infinite period of time. The theory of evolution, put into plain words, only asserts that in infinite time anything you please may originate from anything you please.
There is no reply to the question but the same statement is differently put: instead of a will, accident is predicated, and the coefficient of infinity is transferred from power to time. But this new assertion (made still more arbitrary and incorrect by Darwin’s followers) supported the former assertion of Comte, and so became the revelation of our age and the basis of all the sciences, even of history, philology, and religion, and more than that, according to the naive confession of the founder of the theory-Darwin his idea was suggested by Malthus’s law and therefore put forward the theory of the struggle of living beings and of men for existence as a fundamental law of all life. And one sees that that was just what the crowd of idle people needed for their justification.
Two unstable theories which did not stand I firmly on their own feet, supported one another and obtained a semblance of stability. Both theories contained within them the meaning so precious to the crowd-that men are not to blame for the existing evil in human societies but that the existing order is just the one that ought to exist; and the new theory was accepted by the crowd, in the sense in which it was needed, with full faith and unheard-of enthusiasm. And on these two arbitrary and incorrect propositions, accepted as articles of faith, the new scientific creed was consolidated.
Both in subject and in form this new creed is extraordinarily like the Church-Christian creed.
As to the subject, the resemblance consists in the fact that in both of them an unreal fantastic meaning is ascribed to something real and this unreal meaning is made the subject of investigation.
In the Church-Christian creed to Christ who really existed is attached the fantastic meaning of God Himself, while in the positivist creed, to mankind which really exists is attached the fantastic meaning of an organism.
In form, the resemblance of the two creeds is striking, for both in the one and in the other a certain conception held by some people is accepted as the one infallibly true conception.
In Church-Christianity the conception of a divine revelation to men who call themselves the Church is accepted as being sacred and exclusively true; according to the Positivist creed the comprehension of science by the men who call themselves scientific is accepted as indubitable and true. Just as the Church-Christians acknowledged a beginning of true knowledge of God only from the institution of their Church, and merely as it were out of civility said that earlier believers were also a Church; so also positivist science, according to its assertion, began only with Comte, and these scientists, again merely out of civility, admit a previous existence of science, and that only in certain representatives such as Aristotle. Just like the Church, positivist science excludes the knowledge possessed by all the rest of humanity, treating all knowledge outside its own as an error.
The resemblance goes farther: just as to aid the fundamental dogma of theology-the divinity of Christ and the Trinity-there came the old dogma, which received a new meaning, of the fall of man and his redemption by Christ’s death, and out of these two dogmas the popular Church doctrine was composed-so in our time, to the aid of Comte’s fundamental dogma about the organism of humanity, came the old dogma of evolution but with a new meaning, and out of them both the popular scientific creed was composed.
In both creeds the new dogma was necessary for the support of the old one and is intelligible only in connexion with the fundamental dogma. If to a believer in the divinity of Christ it is not clear or intelligible why God came down to earth, the dogma of the redemption supplies an explanation.
If to a believer in the organism of humanity it is not clear why an aggregate of individuals should be considered an organism, the dogma of evolution furnishes this explanation.
The dogma of the redemption is needed to reconcile the contradiction between the first dogma and reality.
God came to earth to save men but men have not been saved-how reconcile this contradiction? The dogma of the redemption says: ‘He has saved those who believe in the redemption: if you believe in it you are saved.’
Similarly the dogma of evolution is needed to solve the contradiction between reality and the previous dogma: humanity is an organism yet we see that it does not respond to the chief sign of an organism-how is this to be harmonized? Then the dogma of evolution says: ‘Humanity is an organism in process of formation. If you believe this you can regard humanity as an organism.’
And as it is impossible for a man free from superstitious belief in a Trinity and the divinity of Christ even to understand wherein the interest and meaning of the doctrine of the redemption lies, and that meaning is explained only by recognizing the fundamental dogma about Christ being God Himself-so also to humanity free from the positivist superstition it is impossible even to understand wherein lies the interest of the teaching about the origin of species, and this interest is explained only when one knows the fundamental dogma that humanity is an organism.
And just as all the refinements of theology are intelligible only to him who believes in the basic dogmas, so also all the refinements of sociology, which now occupy the minds of
