Sociology of Comte. 473 



estimates that there can be a proportion of one priest to six thousand 

 people, though the priest is to undertake all the education, and this 

 will mean that each priest will have, among other duties, that of 

 carrying on the entire education of about 700 children ; and he draws 

 a precise sketch of the social structure, but makes practically no 

 provision for professional men. (cf. Pol. IV., 428.) Thirdly, Comte 

 mistook his own prejudices for historical inductions. He fancied 

 that the whole of the past had conspired to make France the centre 

 of the world. Because France is weak in poetry and realistic in 

 painting, he sees nothing admirable in the art of Europe. (Pol. I., 

 300.) It is right that France should be a great and united nation, 

 but in the case of other nations disruption is desirable. The High 

 Priest of Humanity is always to live at Paris, and all the temples of 

 Humanit)^ in the world shall face towards it. All these points may 

 be reduced to one. Comte was endeavouring to explain mental 

 phenomena without referring to the mind, which alone can explain 

 them. He was, therefore, unable to see the natural development of 

 the mind, Avhich fills up all the valleys between the hills of its own 

 leading phenomena, and was compelled to explain them in artificial 

 ways. He was thus unchecked by any really scientific method, and 

 he therefore developed to the full all his personal idiosyncracies 

 and predilections. 



These mechanical views lead to serious results in the field of 

 practical suggestion. There is to be absolute unformit)- of educa- 

 tion for all classes. The priests are to look with precisely equal in- 

 terest on all parts of the corpus of knowledge. If ministries are 

 constructive, oppositions all the world over must be purely destruc- 

 tive, and Comte owns to a secret contempt for them as such. (Cat. 

 6, Pol. IV., 472.) He glorifies the Czar, Napoleon III., and " the 

 admirable dictatorship of Cromwell." He dislikes the revolution, 

 and detests popular election. Rousseau is purely negative ; the 

 parliamentar}- system is a mere disguise for anarchy, and is the nurse 

 of hypocrisy. (Pol. IV., 496.) Americans are the most anarchical 

 of Occidentals, (ib., 495.) There ought, in fact, to be an absolute 

 separation between the classes of governors and governed. Besides 

 tliese, there must be a separate priesthood ; it is the worst fault of 

 the fetich period that it produced no priesthood. Priests are to 

 consider the future and the past, politicians the present. Priests are 

 to promote good instincts, politicians to check bad ones. The 

 priests are to have knowledge, but not power, and it is a serious 

 fault of monotheism that its priests, speaking in the name of Om- 

 nipotence, cannot limit themselves to their proper function as 

 advisers. The priests of Positivism can do this, presumablv because 

 they represent Humanity, which is not omnipotent: they are not 

 priests of an objective synthesis. With the same absoluteness of 

 distinction Comte condemns Protestantism as anarchical because it 

 appeals_ to private judgment; and the Christian religion, and even 

 theological religion in general, because, in demanding a direct 

 relation between the soul and God, it must destroy the relationship 

 between the soul and humanity.. All wealth is to be concentrated in 



