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Just as other men have a pain in hand or foot, heart-ache or head-ache, so he had God-ache. Unhappy man! And unhappy fellow-men! And man, this thing, is he a thing? How absurd soever the question may appear, there are some who have propounded it. Not long ago there went abroad a certain doctrine called Positivism, which did much good and much ill.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten.
"To think that a century of positivism and atheism has been able to overthrow everything but Satanism, and it cannot make Satanism yield an inch." "Easily explained!" cried Carhaix. "Satan is forgotten by the great majority. Now it was Father Ravignan, I believe, who proved that the wiliest thing the Devil can do is to get people to deny his existence."
Numerous sects based on Comte's doctrines were founded in all parts of the world, and his philosophy made a deep impression on the minds of thinking men, who assisted in spreading it through all branches of society. Even to-day believers in Positivism are found not only in France, but above all in North and South America.
Chief among the new, infallible prophets whose works were profoundly venerated was Auguste Comte, the inventor of Positivism. In his classification of the sciences the crowning of the edifice was sociology, which taught how to organise human society on scientific principles. Russia had merely to adopt the principles laid down and expounded at great length in the Cours de Philosophie Positive.
"The positivism which the Russian 'intellectuals' have adopted by way of imitation is rejected by their feelings, their conscience, and their will; it is an artificial monument that is set up in their minds only." Merezhkovsky, then, has reason for thinking that the social renovation of Christianity will be accomplished in Russia.
Is there any more substantial solace in it than in the "Oh, may I join the Choir Invisible" aspiration of mid-nineteenth-century positivism? Far be it from me to speak contemptuously of that aspiration.
The mixture of positivism and ghost-stories highly diverted me. Moved by the sagacity and pertinence of M. D'Assier's arguments for a limited and fortuitous immortality, I fell into such an uncontrollable fit of laughter as caused, I could see, first annoyance and then anxiety in those members of my club whom my explosion of mirth had awakened.
On the other hand, the founder of Positivism no less admirably illustrates the connexion of scientific incapacity with philosophical incompetence. In truth, the laboratory is the fore-court of the temple of philosophy; and whoso has not offered sacrifices and undergone purification there, has little chance of admission into the sanctuary.
What most he did insist on was the ethical side of Positivism, the idea of the essential unity of the individual with the immortal race of man, and his obvious duty to forget self in its service. What could be better adapted to affect generous and impassioned boys than an appeal like this?
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