Although Positivism has been pretty widely discussed of late, not only by those interested in philosophy and religion, but by the general reader and the public press, perhaps but few of them, whether readers or critics, have exactly grasped the full meaning of it as a system at once of thought and of life. The vast range of the ground it covers and the technical, allusive, and close style of Comte’s writings in the original have made it difficult to master the subject as a whole. It has accordingly been thought that the time has come to add to the “New Universal Library” a translation of The General View of Positivism, i.e., the careful summary of the Positive Polity which Auguste Comte prefixed to the four volumes of his principal work. The translation which was published by Dr. J. H. Bridges in 1865 is at the same time a most accurate version by one of Comte’s earliest followers, and also it is turned in an easy and simpler style, with the references and allusions explained, marginal headings to the paragraphs, and a complete analysis of the contents.
Positivism is not simply a system of Philosophy; nor is it simply a new form of Religion; nor is it simply a scheme of social regeneration. It partakes of all of these, and professes to harmonize them under one dominant conception that is equally philosophic and social. “Its primary object,” writes Comte, “is twofold: to generalize our scientific conceptions and to systematize the art of social life.” Accordingly Comte’s ideal embraces the three main elements of which human life consists—Thoughts, Feelings and Actions.
Now it is clear that no such comprehensive system was ever before offered to the world. Neither the Gospel nor any known type of religion undertook to give a synthetic grouping of the Sciences. No synthetic scheme of philosophy ever attempted to correlate religion, politics, art, and industry. No system of Socialism, ancient or modern, started with mathematics and led up to an ideal of a human devotion to duty, with a ritual of worship, both public and private.
Now Comte’s famous Positive Polity did attempt this gigantic task. And the novelty and extent of such a work explains and accounts for the extreme difficulty met with by readers of the original French, and also for the fascination which it has maintained more than fifty years after the author’s death. It has been talked about, criticized, and even ridiculed, with an ignorance of its true character which can only be excused by the abstract and severe form in which Comte thought right to condense his thoughts. Comte was primarily a mathematician, and neither Descartes nor Newton troubled themselves about “the general reader.” Kepler, they say, declared himself satisfied if he had one convert in a century; and philosophers have seldom had justice done them until some generations have passed. The difficulties presented by the scientific form of Comte’s works have been obviated for English readers by the versions of his English followers, which are at once literal translations, analyses, and elucidations. For the “general reader” nothing could be more serviceable than Bridges’ clear presentation of Comte’s own “general view,” or summary of his system.