The Morality of Human Acts
INTRODUCTION.
The object of the following pages is to give to English readers a brief, but it is hoped not
altogether inadequate account of Auguste Comte s theory of the moral and intellectual constitution of Man, and the practical consequences deducible there from. The widespread and growing reputation of its illustrious author naturally attracts attention to his treatment of so important a theme and his doctrine on the subject appears to be by far the most satisfactory that has ever been proposed. It would indeed be desirable that the student should undertake the examination of the theory as a part of the entire philosophic system expounded in the Politique Positive, and in connexion with the investigations by which it is there preceded and followed. But copies of the English translation of the Politique are rarely to be procured, and, even if this were not so, many persons who may be.
INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL POWERS OF MAN.
We now proceed to the actual analysis of the mental and moral nature of Man. We shall
reduce our treatment of the subject to a series of comments founded throughout on the text of Comte, and relating to his final Table, which is reproduced at the end of this volume the Tableau Systematique detame,otherwise entitled Positive Classification of the Eighteen internal functions of the Brain. With this Table the student should make he thoroughly familiar and should test it by frequent applications. It is in the first place evident that these functions are divisible into the two primary classes of the Affective and the Intellectual. It is further obvious from observation as well of man as of the animal kingdom in general that the heart understanding that word metaphorically in accordance with popular usage to denote the affective tendencies collectively preponderates over the intellect in determining the nature and life of the individual. These tendencies are instinctive appetencies towards particular external ends pendent of any intellectual determination, and not implying a conscious and deliberate pursuit of the corresponding outward object, or even necessarily a distinct apprehension of such object. They are in fact, blind propensions stimulating to action in particular directions but unable apart from the intervention of the intellectual faculties to judge of the eligibility of the desired ends or to indicate the means of attaining those ends. Each of them may exist in various degrees of strength or activity from passions of great intensity to mere sentiments or modes of feeling. There are normal limits to their respective energies and some of them may enhance or counteract others. All impulses to action must come from the affective elements of our constitution. The intellect can only appreciate facts, not supply motives. It may by its representations give occasion for the action of the emotions, may judge of the fitness of indulging them or point out the means of gratifying them but the practical stimulus lies wholly in the affective principles. The intellectual powers them selves require to be awakened or stimulated by those principles, which present to them more or less definite and permanent aims and so disperse the torpor or concentrate the vague activity which would otherwise in ordinary cases, benumb or distract theirs There is, it is true, inherent in all our powers bodily or mental, a demand for their appropriate exercise, leading, when unsatisfied, to ennui and sometimes even to life-weariness ; but this, though a real force, is indeterminate in its character, and is, in general, insufficient to produce, and still more, to maintain, either practical or theoretic effort, in the absence of a special emotive impulse. The Affective motors are evidently divisible into the personal and the social. The latter appear, more
or less, in all the grades of animalistic above that at which the sexes are completely separated. The entire moral life of man consists as we shall see in a permanent struggle between these two groups of motors ; and this struggle must not be regarded as foreign to the other animal species; it exists in the higher forms, though with less intensity and especially with less continuity, than in the human type. The personal motors naturally tend to pre dominate, being inherently stronger than the social. It is necessary that it should be so for the animal life in general has for its destination in the individual the maintenance and accommodation of his vegetative existence, and the needs of this existence which are always felt and cannot be evaded, dominate the being, when his principles of conduct are found altogether within himself. This spontaneous prevalence of the egoistic instincts is true of Man, as well as of the other animals, when he is considered apart from Society. In the social state, whilst the demands of personal conservation are still indispensable to give a fixed direction to our activity and a determinate collective aim, there is a tendency to an inversion of the comparative energies of the self-regarding and the altruistic motors; the "great problem," how personality can be systematically subordinated to social feeling- self to the species is thus proposed. But this problem is peculiar to our race, and must be dealt with, not by Biology, but by Morals.
CEREBRAL ORGANS OF THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
Having completed the theory of the moral and intellectual functions of human and animal
nature we turn to that of the corresponding organs. Whilst recognizing the valuable practical results to be attained by the physiological study considered separately, and without entertaining an exaggerated notion of the importance of the anatomical comple ment, we must yet regard it as requisite for a com pleat cerebral theory that a sufficient correlation should be established between the functions and the organs. Comte anatomical theory of the brain is he admits less precise and less convincing than his physiological theory. He did not judge it possible to do more at present than to assign the situation of each organ, leaving indeterminate their respective forms and magnitudes. Even the situation is more or less hypothetical and it must be the work of anatomists in the future to ascertain the shape and size of the eighteen organs whose existence is inferred from the physiological investigation. One day there must be brought to light such differences physical chemical, or of minute structure between different portions of the brain as will indicate the limits and the dimensions of the several organs; and then, the various applications of the Comparative Method will gradually supply a well- supported scheme of localization. But even previous to this verifying process, the hypothetic arrangement proposed by Comte will be found highly useful. It is the best concrete representation ever suggested of the entire nature of man and the higher animals, enabling us to recall readily, and to place in their proper relations to each other, the several faculties and tendencies which compose that nature. This operation of assigning situations to the several organs is, indeed, in Comte s view, founded altogether on the general principle, that their relative situations must be conformable to the true relations of the corresponding functions already enumerated. The first application of this principle is in termining the respective positions of the two groups of the intellectual and the moral organs the latter comprehending the character as well as the heart. Now, the former must be so placed as to be in con nexion with each sensory apparatus through which they appreciate the outer world, and must therefore have their seat in the frontal region a conclusion. This agrees with the inspirations of ordinary good sense. The rest of the brain much its larger part will thus belong to the affective qualities and the practical aptitudes.
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