Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/581

 COMTE. 559 for social life. Comte praises the family, the connecting link between the individual and the species, as a school of unselfishness, and approves the strictness of the Catholic Church in regard to the indissolubility of the marriage relation. He remarks the evil consequences of the con- stantly increasing division of labor, which makes man egois- tic and narrow-minded, since it hides rather than reveals the social significance of the employment of the individual and its connection with the welfare of the community, and seeks for a means of checking them. Besides the universal education of youth, he demands the establishment of a spiritual power to bring the general interest continually to the minds of the members of all classes and avocations, to direct education, and to enjoy the same authority in moral and intellectual matters as is conceded to the astronomer in the affairs of his department. The function of this power would be to occupy the position heretofore held by the clergy. Comte conceives it as composed of positive philosophers, entirely independent of the secular authori- ties, but in return cut off from political influence and from wealth. Secular authority, on the other hand, he wishes put into the hands of an aristocracy of capitalists, with the bankers at the head of these governing leaders of industry. The Dynamics, the science of the temporal succession of social phenomena, makes use of the principle of develop- ment. The progress of society, which is to be regarded as a great individual, consists in the growing predomi- nance of the higher, human activities over the lower and animal. The humanity in us, it is true, will never attain com- plete ascendency over tiie animality, but we can approach nearer and nearer to the ideal, and it is our duty to aid in this march of civilization. Although the law of progress holds good for all sides of mental life, for art, politics, and morals, as well as for science, nevertheless the most im- portant factor in the evolution of the human race is the development of the intellect as the guiding power in us (though not in itself the strongest). Awakened first by the lower wants, the intellect assumes in increasing measure the guidance of human operations, and gives a determinate direction to the feelings. The passions divide men, and,