Comte. The Founder of Sociologyby Francis Sydney Marvin;La vie d'Auguste Comteby Henri Gouhier;La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme. I. Sous le signe de la libertéby

Comte. The Founder of Sociology by Francis Sydney Marvin; La vie d'Auguste Comte by HenriGouhier; La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme. I. Sous le signe de laliberté by Henri GouhierReview by: George SartonIsis, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Mar., 1937), pp. 470-477Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/224937 .

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470 ISIS, XXVI, 2

L'ouvrage est fort bien ecrit et se lit avec beaucoup de plaisir. It est suivi d'une bonne bibliographie, mais le manque d'index est deplorable et scandaleux. L'auteur est ambassadeur de France aupres du Vatican; cela n'est pas une sinecure et il faut lui etre d'autant plus reconnais- sant de nous avoir donne ce livre bien etudie, bien fait, et aussi utile qu'interessent.

GEORGE SARTON

Francis Sydney Marvin.-Comte. The founder of sociology. 2i6 p., frontispiece. (Modern sociologists, under the general editorship Of MORRIS GINSBERG and ALEXANDER FARQUHARSON). Loindon,

CHAPMAN and HALL, 1936 (6 s.). Henri Gouhier.-La vie d'Auguste Comte. 3e ed., 300 P., port. (Vies

des hommes illustres, 63). Paris, GALLIMARD, 1931 (15 frs.). Henri Gouhier.-La jeunesse d'ASuguste Comte et la formation diu

positivisme. i. SoUs le signe de la liberte'. 315 P., Paris, VRIN,

I933. It is worthwhile to consider these three books on COMTE together.

GOUHIER'S second book (1933) is a very important contribution, based on carefully conducted and elaborate investigations. It is restricted to the first phase of COMTE'S life, its subject being to determine the contents of the latter's Weltanschanung before i8i8, i.e., before the age of 20 and his contact with SAINT-SIMON. This helps us to realize more clearly than before the extent of his borrowings from eighteenth century and revolutionary ideology. COMTE is truly a child of the Revolution; indeed one can find germs of many of his ideas and even of his aberrations in events and writings of his youth or anterior to it. To be sure that does not explain the miracle of his genius, but it replaces it in its proper setting.

While I have nothing but praise for this later volume, I do not feel in the same way with regard to the earlier one. Being commissioned to write it for a popular series, " Vies des hommes illustres," the author assumes a sardonic attitude and enlivens his account with flippant remarks which do not please me at all. He defends himself against the reproach of writing " une biographie romanc6e e" and observes (p. io) La biographie d'AUGUSTE COMTE, c'est la vie de COMTE

romancee par COMTE et ' deromancee' par l'histoire." Rather neat but misleading. COMTE was truly heroic in his aims and achievements, he was heroic also in his mistakes; we must see him in the light of his heroism because that was the true light of his being. I do not mean that we should heroify him, but it would be much worse still to unheroify him, or, to put it in American slang, to debunk him. I have



REVIEWS 471

no patience whatsoever with debunkers, and though GOUHIER is not one of them his dangerous wit brings him sometimes close to them. One reason for not being witty at the expense of a great man, is that it is far too easy. His complete absorption in his task and unrestricted devotion to his purpose leave him unprotected and defenceless. Any idiot can make fun of a great man, and thus increase his self-esteem, but what of it ? The great man remains as great and heroic as he was, and the other in spite of his complacency remains the self-same idiot. This is said in general not for GOUHIER, who is a far better man than his occasional sarcasm would suggest. Let those who have never sinned in that way, throw the first stone; I can't. I shall siInply say that his book would have been much better if he had treated COMTE with more generosity.

MARVIN'S book is the shortest and for most readers will prove to be the best. One cannot say that it is the best in an absolute way, for it is in a different class altogether. Biography is reduced to a minimum, the author's aim being rather to explain COMTE'S philosophy and to answer such questions as these: " What did he really accomplish? how far did he succeed? what is his influence on our own thoughts? is it worthwhile to continue his work? " These are the very questions which an intelligent reader would ask, and they are answered with great clearness and directness. It is an excellent book which will inspire many men and women and help them to contemplate the world as COMTE saw it and apply their new understanding of it to the present difficulties.

GOUHIER and MARVIN illustrate the renewed timeliness of Comtian philosophy. COMTE wrote at a time when the world had been terribly shaken by the French revolution and the Napoleonic dictatorship; we may well reread h-im now, we who have survived the immense catastrophe of the Great War, and are witnessing to-day various dictatorships less grandiose than the Napoleonic but comparable in cruelty and wickedness. Read the first paragraph of his " Plan des travaux scientifiques necessaires pour r6organiser la soci6te " written in i822 (Aet. 24) during his Sailnt- Simonian captivity (i).

(i) It was first printed in Paris, April 1822, in a pamphlet entitled Du contrat

social par H-IENRI SAINT-SIMON. It was reprinted in I8z4 with a few minor corrections ("retouches") in the third cahier of SAIN r-SIMON'S Catechismne des industriels (I89 p.). See figs. i and 2. CoMrE reprinted it once more thirty years later in the appendix to the last volume of his SystWine de politique positive (Paris i854, Appendice g6n6ral, p. 47-136). I have niot seen the first edition, but only the second and third. The- second edition from. which my quotation is derived, is said to be almost identical with the first. The first and second edi- tions are exceedingly rare.



472 ISIS, XXVI, 2

" Un systeme social qui s'eteint, un nouveau systeme parvenu 'a son entiere maturite et qui tend 'a se constituer, tel est le caractere fondamental assigne a l'epoque actuelle par la marche generale de la civilisation. Conformement 'a cet 6tat de choses, deux mouvements de nature diff6rente agitent aujourd'hui la soci6t6; l'un de desorganisation, I'autre de reorganisation. Par le premier,

SYST1DME

POLITIQUE POSITIVE.

PAR AUGUSTE COMVTE.

ANCIEN r LtVE DE L'-COLE POLYTECHNIOUE.

ELtVE DE HENRI SAINT'-SIMON.

TOME PREMI1ER. PREMIERE PARTIN

A PARIS, CREZ LES PRINCIPATJX LIBRAIRES.

1824.

FIG. I

This outline of COMTE'S work was first printed in i822, then again irl 1824,

when the proud title Systeme de Politique positive first appeared. The word Systeme is 53 mm. long.

(Courtesy of Harvard Library.)

consider6 isol6ment, elle est entrafn&e vers une profonde anarchie morale et politique qui semble la menacer d'une prochaine et in6vitable dissolution. Par le second, elle est conduite vers 1'etat social d6finitif de 1'espece humaine, le



REVIEWS 473

plus convenable 'a sa nature, celui oii tous ses moyens de prosperite doivent recevoir leur plus entier developpement et leur application la plus directe. C'est dans la co-existence de ces deux tenidances oppos6es que consiste la grande crise 6prouv6e par les nations les plus civilisees. C'est sous ce double aspect qu'elle doit etre envisag6e pouir etre comprise."

CATECHISME 0 DES

INDUSTRIELS.

PrA SAINT-SI1MON.

PARISX

.1UF1,1MMBJlI DE ItTTEi, Cour desFoxtaiuns, P 7

Fi(. 2 COMTE'S Systeme de Politique positive was included in this Cahier. The word

Catechisme is 66 mm. long. (Courtesy of Harvard Library.)

Could we not begin a political treatise with the same words or at least in the same vein to-day? According to COMTE the chief defect of the modern industrial system was the want of organization. If he



474 ISIS, XXVI, 2

came back to-day, he would be obliged to admit that the progress already accomplished since his time, and somewhat along the lines indicated by him, has been prodigious and yet he would still repeat his statement and we repeat it for him. It is astonishing by the way that our Russian

COURS

DE

PHILOSOPHIE POSITIVE, PAR Mf. AUGUSTE CONTE,,

?WCISX ILIZS 0S t:iCOLS POLThCKNtQVZ, .PK?iTTlBR D^ANALTIZ TAAESCFXDABTC *T OX

tKCA1IfQWS *ArIOWUULLS * LADM iCOLR.

TOME PREMIEIR,

COXTENANT

LES PR ELIMINAIRES GEN1RAUX ET LL PHIWSOPHIK

MATHEMATIQUE.

PARIS7 BACHELIER, LIBRAIRE POUR LES MATHEMATIQUES

QUAI DES AUGUSTINS. N- 55,

4 830 FIG. 3

Volume I of COMTE'S Cours, completed in six volumes (I830-42). The words Philosophie positive are 89 mm. long.


friends who have shown so much interest in the history of science have not yet ventured to reread the Comtian documents in the light of their own extraordinary experiences.



REVIEWS 475

MARVIN'S sympathetic study and GOUHIER'S second book made me realize more deeply than before the singular continuity and unity of COMTE'S thought. I have already alluded to the fact that he did not

flEPUJLIQTE OCCUIENTALE. Ordre et Progres. - Vivre pour aurlfui.

SYSTtME DE POLITIQUE POSITIVE, ou

TRAITt DE SOCIOLOGIE,

Instituant la Religion de I'UMANITE;

PAR Atalsr COIITR, Auteur du Syaleme de philosophie positie.

t imour pour pielpe; L OddrD poor itse,

Et IJ Pwgres pour bt

TOMNE PREMIER, Plnn A W11%1.!lAF,e II A.UDU)Cnolo t iXTALt

PRIX DE CC VOLUME IIcJIT FRANCS.

PARTS. A LA LIBRAIIIS SCIENTIFIQUE-IVDUSTRIELLE DE L. MATHI.4S

15, quai MNalaquais;

ET CHEZ CARILIAN-GLEURY ET V0' DALMONT. Uum1s DE, CORP$ DEs PoitS ET colatu ET oLs nI?ts,

49, quai des AugustinA.

4wliflet SCS3Il. SoixaMctetrogsiimre atinefle la grauI,Iui. z,

FIG. 4 Volume i of the COMTE'S Systeme, completed in four volumes (i85I-54). The

words R6publique occidentale are 59 mm. long. Compare with fig. i, same general title already used by COMTE in I 824.


hesitate to reprint at the. end of his Systeme de politique positive in I854 six prophetic essays of his youth (I8I9-28), one of which bore the very title of the general work which it preceded by thirty years. Furthermore,

I2



476 ISIS, xxvi, z

GOUHIER has shown that some of the main Comtian ideas were even anterior to the Saint-Simonian period. Indeed some of the vagaries which are generally ascribed to the influence of his senile love for CLOTHILDE

DE VAUX (2), were already adumbrated not only in pre-Clotildian writings, but even in pre-Saint-Simonian ones. The final stage of his life and thought was already foreshadowed in the dreams of his youth. Well might he inscribe at the beginning of his Systeme de politique positive, ALFRED DE VIGNY'S saying , Qu'est-ce qu'une grande vie? Une pensee de jeunesse, executee par l'age mfur," for these words applied to him with remarkable pertinence.

Such constancy, it is true, might be given another name: obstinacy, or an uglier one still, mulishness. These names have been applied to COMTE, and not unjustly. Like DESCARTES and BACON, and even more so, COMTE was a typical doctrinaire (3). The explanation applying to all of them, is that the effort needed to create their theories exhausted their minds and ended by making them impervious to other thoughts. In the case of COMTE the crisis of insanity which occurred at the beginning of his career (April I826) remained throughout his life a menace which could not be shaken off or even forgotten. COMTE saved himself from relapse only by his obstinate will and devotion, and by a mental hygiene implying increasing aloofness and insulation from the madding crowd. He soon lost the habit of reading, and from 1838 on (Aet. 40 !) that kind of abstinence became systematic (4). In addition, COMTE acquired early a scholastic way of classifying his thoughts and arranging them in the form of symmetrical tables ; such a habit favors the crystallization of thought rather than its healthy growth (5).

No wonder then that that scientific philosopher was far from up-to-date and exhibited time after time a shocking lack of receptivity to contem- porary discoveries. One might easily repeat with regard to him LIEBIG'S

savage onslaught on FRANCIS BACON (I863). COMTE's dogmatic negation

(2) It may interest historians of science to know that CLOTILDE DE VAUX

(I815-I846) was the sister of MAXIMILIEN MARIE (I8I9-9I), mathematician, author of the Histoire des sciences physiques et -niathe'matiques (I2 vols. Paris, 1883- 88). It was at MAXIMILIEN's house that COMTE met her. CHARLES DE ROUVRE (b. I87I), author of L'amoureuse Ihistoire d'Auguste Comte et de Clotilde de Vaux (Paris 1917), is MAXIMILIEN'S grandson.

(3) Good illustrations of the doctrinairism of great men, not only philosophers but also scientists, and their mutual ignorance of one another will be found in the study prepared at my request by JEAN PELSENEER: GILBERT, BACON,

GALILEE, KEPLER, HARVEY et DESCARTES: leur relations (Isis 17, 171-208, 1932).

(4) GOUHIER (1931, I85>.

(5) For illustrations of that tendency, see three unpublished autographs of COMTE (Isis 13, 103-05, I P1., 1929).



REVIEWS 477

of the possibility of astrochemistry has often been quoted, but there are worse examples of his blindness. He considered the calculus of probabilities as a " superannuated aberration " (6); he laughed at the " pretended " discovery of Neptune and scorned LE VERRIER; he could not accept LAMARCK'S theories of evolution, and objected to anatomical autopsies ! That damaging list might probably be lengthened, but what would it prove? It would prove that COMTE was not a scientist, but simply a philosopher, and an obstinate one at that. We may regret in his case, as in BACON'S, that he was not better informed or more receptive to the ideas of other people, but our judgment of him will depend in the last analysis on our appreciation of his general ideas and their applications.

I am thankful to GOUHIER and even more so to MARVIN for having obliged me to return to COMTE and to revalue him. I hope that GOUHIER will continue the conscientious investigations of which his volume of I933 offered us the first fruits, and that he may eventually complete a biography of COMTE in the grand style, together with a much needed index to the Comtian works and letters.

As to MIARVIN our gratitude to him is of another and deeper kind. He is one of the leading and most faithful defenders of the noblest Comtian ideals: unification of science and of society, peace, Humanity. May I indulge for a moment in reminiscence ? As I happened to be in London on December 31, I919, MARVIN took me to dinner at the National Liberal Club, and later in the evening to Dr. CONGREVE'S

church in Chapel street, the Church of the Positivist Society, the final refuge of the London Positivists (7). The last day of the year was dedicated by them to a service of thanksgiving to the Great Dead. MARVIN was the main speaker and made a very moving address; I spoke after him but did not rise up to the solemn occasion and have been consciencestricken about it ever since. To conclude, MARVIN'S

revaluation of COMTE'S thought is as good as it is timely. Read it ! GEORGE SARTON.

R. Campbell Thompson.-A dictionary of Assyrian chemistry and geology. xlviii + 266 p. Oxford, Clarendon Press, I936 (2I s.).

I suppose many scholars will rub their eyes when they read this title, and wonder whether they read it aright. A dictionary of Assyrian chemistry and geology If the author were less known than R. C. THOMPSON they might perhaps dispose of it, but a book bearing such

(6) Compare my remarks on the respective claims of QUETELET and COMTE

with regard to the foundation of sociology (Isis 23, I4, I935). (7) F. S. MARVIN: FREDERIC HARRISON (I83I-I923). Isis 6, 387-90, I924.



Documents

Comte. The Founder of Sociologyby Francis Sydney Marvin;La vie d'Auguste Comteby Henri Gouhier;La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme. I. Sous le signe de la libertéby