IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION 299 



IDEALIZATION AND RELIGION ACCORDING TO COMTE 



The process of idealization issuing in religion was recognized 

 and valued in the Positive Philosophy but not analyzed and 

 developed as it was later in the Polity when Comte had come to 

 rate the feelings more highly than the intellect, the beautifying 

 of life above material achievement, and had come to worship 

 woman because she was the highest expression of this phase of 

 life. 1 



The idealizing activity of man finds expression, according to 

 Comte in art in its various forms of poetry, oratory, music, paint- 

 ing and sculpture, and in religion. Art is defined as " an ideal 

 representation of facts " and its object held to be " to cultivate 

 our sense of perfection." In art, he holds, the unity of human 

 nature finds its most complete and most natural representation, 

 for it is in direct relation with the three orders of phenomena by 

 which human nature is characterized. It originates in feeling, 

 has its basis in thought, and its end in action, hence its power 

 of exerting an influence for good alike on every phase of our exist- 

 ence, whether personal or social. Thus art, standing midway 

 between philosophy and polity, should be controlled by the 

 former, as the emotions, unguided, express themselves in extrav- 

 agant and sometimes harmful ways. Art in turn should influence 

 polity, since " in every operation that man undertakes, he must 

 imagine before he executes." 



Philosophy and art must work together in the formation of 

 social Utopias, art to form the ideal and philosophy to see that 

 this ideal is related to the real. " As humanity is subject to the 

 order of the external world," he says, " the ideal must always be 

 subordinated to the real. 2 ... In our artificial improvements we 

 should never aim at anything more than a wise modification of the 

 natural order; we should never attempt to subvert it." 3 



Art of various kinds is a factor in progress, he holds, because it 



1 A General View, chs. V and VI. 



2 Ibid., p. 316. He shows how this truth is illustrated in the developing mind 

 of the child: " As his notions of fact change, his fictions are modified in conformity 

 with these changes." 



3 Ibid., p. 319. 



