What is positivism? What is a Christian view of positivism?

Mr. A. thus illustrates the superficial absurdity of Comtism, which allows only phenomena and laws to be studied. "You see a mail coach, you are to note its appearance, length, breadth, height, colour, and so forth. Farther, you are to search for its law — eight miles an hour, or nine, or ten. Having learned these, you have learned all that a thing like you was made to learn. Dare not to assume that the appearance, though a perfectly trustworthy index of a coach, is not the coach, and never professed to be. The coach itself, remember, is a phenomenon, an appearance. Dare not to say that the very use of the appearance is to make you aware of the presence of much that does not appear, and to remind you of the existence of many things not here present. Dare not to say that the phenomenon tells you of a post-office, a correspondence, a commerce, a community, a legislation, and an Executive Head. Perhaps you may reply: Not to tell me of anything but its shapes, colours, sections, and the law of velocity, would be to put myself in the place of the dog who stares at the show. Even he, after he has heard it several times, knows more, knows better, than that the law of the coach lies in any rule of proportion between the rate of velocity and the horse-power. Of such rule he may know nothing; but he does know that the law of the coach is in the coachman, who no sooner sets foot on the step than off bounds the dog, anticipating velocity as the result of command. The village boy knows that if the law of the coach lies in the coachman, the law of the coachman lies in the Postmaster-General, and the law of the Postmaster-General in the Sovereign. But neither dog nor boy could know what they do know, were the rules of Comtism the law of even animal mind. It is perfectly true that in practice the rule laid down is not observed by Comte or anyone else; but that does not recall the laying of it down, nor prevent the attempt to work according to it from bridling the movement of mind and warping its direction" (pp. 43, 44).

The truth is that Positivism, far from real progress, is a retrograde movement, so extreme in principle that the human mind can be made to sink no lower, with a bombastic veil of words to hide its sores and rags. What is Comte's "Law of the Three States"? That by invariable necessity the human mind in every one of our principal conceptions, in every branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different theoretic states: first, the theological or fictitious state; secondly, the metaphysical or abstract state; thirdly, the scientific or positive state. In the first stage the mind studies the nature of things with their causes, originating or final; in the second, or transition stage, the mind replaces supernatural agents by abstract forces, real entities inherent in different things; in the positive stage, all is renounced save the pursuit of their invariable relations of succession and similitude, i.e., phenomena and laws. Comtism will have you to ask, not Why, but How only. You are simply to rank each particular under its class, the height of knowledge! and alone true!! Classing a thing is all you are to know or seek; though it really supposes knowledge of the thing and of classification before you can class it with certainty. It is a mere cheat of infidelity, child of the revolution which was the monstrous reaction from popery.

Mr. A. shows clearly that the assumption of the three is folly. For, first, it is untrue that the Three States are universal, many branches of knowledge not passing successively through these stages. Next, they are not necessary, being not universal. Thirdly, they are therefore not necessarily successive. All, as far as true, may concur simultaneously, or they may never all three succeed or coexist. They are not axioms, but unfounded. And Positivism, the desired result, is just limitation to the lowest degree of knowledge, an absolute interdict on all below the surface or above us in time or for eternity, the exclusion of all truth beyond the senses or the mind's inferences, save on the laws of phenomena. It supposes a race without a Why, without a responsible soul yet more, and most of all without God. It is the materialism of Lucretius, of Epicurus, of the most audacious evil-workers among men. The sophistry of its living English representative, Mr. Harrison, is well laid bare in this book. He, too, is not open, replying to Sir Fitzjames Stephen that "There is no godhead now in humanity." Did he not know that his master laid down (and no Pope ever had or claimed such infallibility) that humanity is a goddess to be worshipped only through her best organs, which to a man are mother, wife, and daughter, to a woman father, husband, and son? No doubt it is the language of Bedlam; but Mr. H. as a Comtist is not free to repudiate it.

We must take note of another fact also. Why is it that light is introduced here? It is no use to say that it is all according to phenomena. It is not natural to have spoken of it here, unless the allegation were the simple truth. Moses surely had done otherwise had he been writing according to observation. And you know that this is the boasted but really base philosophy of the hour; you are aware that men are now making experience everything, and that what Hume put forth in his scepticism of a former day is now the fashionable empiricism of this day. They call it positivism. No more degrading system ever dragged down men's minds since the world began; nothing will more thoroughly corrupt the hearts. Such was the fate of the early positivists in heathen times. It will be more deadly now.

Theories indeed, one after another, were propounded by the so-called philosophers, but the entire history of human philosophy will be found to be little else than a repetition of the same process, viz., construction, destruction, and eclecticism; nor was there any power in their philosophy to raise them morally. True, in these days men think they have at last reached terra firma in the positive philosophy. And perhaps finality it is, for infidelity can scarcely go farther. But they will accept and confide in it to their ruin, for what could be more ruinous than a "religion of humanity," in which Divine revelation is unceremoniously cast to the winds, and almost mathematical demonstration insisted on even with regard to spiritual things? We say "even in regard to spiritual things," almost forgetting that these are virtually denied, and that the supernatural is too often derided. But a fallen creation is in an abnormal state, and it might justly be thought is a sphere in which a God of grace would act at times, exceptionally, to demonstrate to His fallen and alienated creatures, that He is acting either for their good, or to reveal Himself in some way. Why should the reasonableness, or the possibility of this, be denied? Truly the days are evil, as well as sad. What is the true and deep cause? what will be its issue? are solemn questions for each one of us. And Divine revelation alone adequately answers them, whilst at the same time it vindicates Divine grace and Divine righteousness.

159 Hence, let me add in passing, the form infidelity has largely taken in these days - what is called positivism or realism, saying, I know what I see and experience, with perhaps some small conclusions from it, and pretending to stop there. It does not, for it pretends to deny all beyond it. This is false upon the face of it, for if it only knows what is knowable to man from himself, it can deny nothing beyond it, any more than it can affirm. It is a low thought. But it is false on another ground. The mind has no certainty; but it has a multitude of thoughts beyond the sphere of the natural human powers which can decide on what is within these powers. There are a multitude of thoughts within us. We are incompetent to come to a conclusion, but there are thoughts and something or other to suggest them, but the heart has no answer. Where there is no infidelity, but merely the natural working of the human heart, this is the case. There is no further answer till judgment comes, till judgment returns to righteousness.

In a certain sense the church, or at least true Christians, in this respect take the place of Christ, for "Ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord." "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid." As to the divine nature, true Christians, as partakers of it, necessarily possess its properties, viz., light and love, "Among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." But how sad and how solemn is it to see now, as when Jesus was in the world, that "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not." It is in contact with spiritual death. In nature light banishes darkness, not so necessarily in moral things, and in the spiritual world; men love darkness rather than light. Their heart is darkened, their mind reprobate (Rom. 1:21-28). Even Christ, who is the Truth and the Light, has been in the world, and when in it was rejected. Equally is the divine record of this, and the light of testimony in His members, rejected. The acme of intellectual conceit is now to boast in knowing nothing — Agnosticism. If that does not please, you have Positivism; science is everything — everything is to be a matter of mathematical demonstration — what cannot thus be proved is to be rejected. Alas for Divine revelation! Man's reason sits in judgment on God's word, declares it no revelation at all, and denies the possibility of revelation altogether. "This then is the positive philosophy; the extension to all investigations of those methods which have been found successful in the physical sciences, the transformation of all knowledge into a homogeneous body of doctrine capable of supplying a Faith, and consequently a polity" (Lewes's History of Philosophy).

Well may the Christian say with Scripture, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." There are many who call themselves truth-seekers, and who profess to be lovers of the truth, yet scarcely seem in earnest in their appreciation of it, or in the pursuit of it. Some there are who are "ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Even in the ease of those to whose hearts the Spirit has disclosed hidden treasures under the letter of the inspired Word, how limited is their knowledge! Such would be the first to say, "We know in part, and we prophesy in part." As compared with Truth in its entirety, with Christ as its personal embodiment, how partial and how limited is the knowledge to which we have attained! And how happy would it have been for the church if Christians had acted according to the apostolic injunction, "Nevertheless whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing," — "if in anything ye be differently minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." Like-mindedness would thus have been produced, not in consequence of the so-called teaching of the church (which indeed needs to be taught itself), nor by the infallible dictum of the Pope, but because "they shall all be taught of God," because in each one born of God there is the spiritual faculty (the anointing), in virtue of which they "know all things." A divinely qualified teacher — a teacher of the truth — knows very well that he can but hold up the truth as an object: the light, the eye, the understanding are no less the gift of God to the one taught of God. In spiritual things so it ever has been, so it ever will be. The carnal mind ignorant of this may deny and oppose it, but "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant."

It is not true that "law, order, uniformity, slowness, partiality characterize those changes; not suddenness or universality. Universal destruction and reconstruction — anarchy followed by order — are things unknown to science, and opposed to all its fundamental conclusions." A little learning is a dangerous thing. Had it been said that, once established, such is the way of the Creator as long as a given state of things is permitted to endure, Dr D. would have been right; but to put matters thus absolutely is only the science of infidel progressionists or unwary souls, like the late Hugh Miller, beguiled in a measure by them. Laws of phenomena are quite distinct from causes; and the reason why moderns merge the last in the first is the instinctive desire to escape from the thought of creation, and hence of the true God. Positivism is the lowest form of all, and hence is essentially atheistic.

*It is not true that "law, order, uniformity, slowness, partiality characterize those changes; not suddenness or universality. Universal destruction and reconstruction — anarchy followed by order — are things unknown to science, and opposed to all its fundamental conclusions." A little learning is a dangerous thing. Had it been said that, once established, such is the way of the Creator as long as a given state of things is permitted to endure, Dr. D. would have been right; but to put matters thus absolutely is only the science of infidel progressionists or unwary souls, like the late Hugh Miller, beguiled in a measure by them. Laws of phenomena are quite distinct from causes; and the reason why moderns merge the last in the first is the instinctive desire to escape from the thought of creation, and hence of the true God. Positivism is the lowest form of all, and hence is essentially atheistic.

The opposition arises from the progress of truth, and from the consciousness they have that all their affair is hollow and crumbling. In England, the judgment of the Privy Council, deciding that the clergy is not bound to hold the scriptures to be inspired, has thrown dismay into their ranks, the rather as it overthrows the episcopal judgment. There is a commission to change the terms of subscription. In France, the result of a question in the Bible Society is the public proposal to make two churches of the national body. Those who would [have] a confession left before: one who is infidel and excluded is founding another on his own basis. Popery, of course, profits by this, yet those same men pretend they alone can meet it. Positivism, that is, that we can believe nothing but what comes under sensible experience of man's powers, is rampant; the most absurd and lowest of all forms of infidelity. I asked one the other day if he could tell me if I had a soul? No. That I had not one? No. That there was an eternity? No. That there was not? No: he might probably perish like a leaf. I asked the pupil if it was not leading to absolute ignorance: it was admitted. Another told me he did not know what conscience was; perhaps intelligence and habits mixed, heart and affection, warmer blood. You may conceive the degradation of all this.

See again volume 2, page 94, the confession "The question, what is truth, has certainly no prospect of obtaining a speedy answer." Surely it has not from reason - it never will. Reason is not conversant with Truth, but with consequences which are never facts but mere consequences. Truth has to do with facts - hence the positivist is right if there be no revelation (though the cravings of a soul and the workings of conscience are facts) - facts seen or facts revealed.

269 Truth is the statement of a thing as it is, on human testimony if the subject of it, on divine if beyond it. It cannot be denied that there may be facts beyond human knowledge; nor can it be denied that there may be a competency to make them known to us - nor that a superior power may act, or facts may act on our hearts and consciences. Conclusions from facts may be true and inoperative. Reason may set aside reasons, error, and so far be useful as to be being open to truth; but this man and his set know only setting aside all conceptions, and reducing the mind to abstract power - an absurdity on the face of it, for there must be education - "Universal scepticism" being the right state. And when he is there, what is he to do? Truth is not to be gained - Reason cannot go beyond mere humanly known facts. Leave God out - Utilitarianism, or selfish baseness is the only motive; passion and force are there, who is to control them? Craving after an unseen world irresistible - Scepticism practically in the mass, and venal degradation have always gone together.

Volume 1, chapter 34, etc. The whole ground of rationalism is false - here it takes the subjective state of men, not evidence, as the test of truth; see also page 101. But page 102 is mere positivism - "We believe what we have experienced"; but nothing can be more degrading, nor can anything be more illogical, or at any rate unreasonable than this, because it assumes our material experience to be the measure of everything, whereas even our mental experience - our own bodies prove the contrary, i.e., the action of what is not material on matter. A woman faints when she hears her son is crushed - what does that? My heart beats - what keeps it going? Nor is it true that because I believe in devils, that I am "nervously excited" if I adequately believe in other things - he admits it was not so when the Church's power was believed. When all was doubted, then this dread of devils came in; this is to be noted.