Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The invisibility and informality of this dividing line also makes it pos-
sible for Comte to advance a form of evolutionary determinism even as he
inspires his readers to imagine a world governed by a kind of providential
pantheism. As the new social order emerged, it would again bring “feel-
ing” and “intellect” into harmony, just as medieval Catholicism had done,
because it was bringing to light the unifying materiality that undergirded
them. He could be confident in this because he was sure that this move-
ment of historical evolution “rests at every point upon the unchangeable
order of the world” that science was increasingly forcing upon the human
consciousness. But while these statements seem to stand him on the side of
scientific naturalism, he does not hesitate to personify this unchangeable
order. This same nature “
teaches
us that the object to be aimed at in the
economy devised by man is wise development of the irresistible economy
of nature which cannot be amended till it is first studied and
obeyed
.”
56
The
naturalistic determinism that he offers with one hand when he speaks of
the “irresistible economy of nature,” he takes back with the other by simul-
taneously imagining nature as a teacher who demands human obedience.
The same ambiguity abides in Comte's descriptions of the scientific role
in society. He makes no secret of his expectation that the goal of the scien-
tific enterprise was “to construct upon the firm basis this raised, the new
faith of Western Europe, and to institute the priesthood of the future.” Sci-
entists were these new priests, of course, because positivism was a “philoso-
phy capable of supplying the foundation of true religion.”
57
On the official
and reductive side of our imaginary line, this “priesthood” simply referenced
the capacity of social science to ground the emerging social order in natural
law, but Comte could not command this term to shed its more traditional
significance simply because it formally purported to have no such meaning.
Nor did he likely want to. To consistently pen up meaning on the met-
onymic side of this divide would have deprived Comte of the ability to
sustain his own prophetic identity. The picture we get as he recounts his
discovery of the scientific truths that were about to revitalize religion is that
of a man who regards himself as history's chosen instrument. His belief
that he had found the “sociological laws” that explained the entire course of
cultural history was itself an event of eschatological importance. Sociology
was destined to bring to an end the “vast revolution of the West,” because
his own “work on the spiritual power” would “superintend the entire recon-
struction of principle and practice, assuming in fact the function exercised
by monotheism before its decay.”
58
In this role Comte was the discoverer
of a new gospel that was about to replace Christianity. He was uniquely
