Auguste Comte Coined the Word Altruism: The Cornerstone of Positivism

The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) developed the positivist philosophy that is well-known for its “law of the three stages” (theological, metaphysical, ideal), which describes the evolution of humanity. According to Comte, humanity moves from the theological, which corresponds to the reign of the imaginary and the supernatural, to the metaphysical, which is that of the reign of abstract rationalization. Finally, it moves to the ideal, which is the positive stage, based on altruism, where the empirical laws of positivist sociology organize society. In this paper, I shall present the definition of altruism and its function in the positivist philosophy. I will also explore how it gets opposed to sexuality and its acceptance in French politics.

Auguste Comte imagines an ideal positivist society whose essential value is altruism, which is averse to egoism. Comte is the creator of this word, from the Latin alter (the other, in opposition to the ego of egoism), which he defines in a lapidary formula: “living for others.” According to him, “sympathetic instincts” must prevail over selfish impulses and sociability over “personality.” Altruism is an observable positive “fact” and corresponds to maternal devotion, which is always selfless. Women are viewed as “naturally” more altruistic than men. Some of Comte’s disciples defined altru-

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ism by three “sympathetic instincts:” attachment, veneration, and goodness (Dr. Robinet, La philosophie positive, Auguste Comte et M. Pierre Laffitte [English translation: The positive philosophy, Auguste Comte and Mr. Pierre Laffitte], 1881, 73). Altruism is also associated with the awareness that human beings come to the world as debtors; they will never be able to repay what they have received from their mother and the humanity that preceded them. The human being, therefore, has duties first to those from whom he has received everything. This implies that the order of society is superior to the individual.

In the ideal positivist society, women are part of what Comte calls the “affective order,” which is at the top of the hierarchy of positivist norms and values, but at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Indeed, positivist society is organized according to three orders, and dominated by the “theoretical order,” which includes scholars whose task is to discover natural laws through science and history. After discovering these laws, it would be possible to predict the future and organize society to improve it. The second order is the practical or active order, which must implement these laws: the “heads of industrial works… will have to organize the administrative system and invent the institutions corresponding to the theory” (Comte, Plan des travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la société [English translation: Plan of the scientific work necessary to reorganize society], 1822, 35). The third and last category is the affective order of sociability and altruism, which connects men; it is superior to theoretical and practical groups, resulting in the love of humanity. Proletarians are part of the practical order/class but are also very close to the affective order/category. Like women, they are the “worthiest” representatives of the positivist society. In this ideal and ternary functional order, the function of the woman is to educate her husband, her children, and more generally the men of the family. She must remain confined to her home so as not to be defiled by the theoretical and practical orders.

Positivist education must essentially “teach to live for others, by the habit of making sociability prevail over personality” (Charles Robin, L’instruction et l’éducation [English translation: Instruction and education], 1877, 23). This is how “the preponderance of altruism” is said to be attained. Altruism is also associated with the feeling of attachment, which is the subject of a gradual elaboration that evolves in three parts: it goes from love and veneration for the individual mother (always good by defini-

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tion) to the love of the fatherland (which will have to become the love of the motherland) to the love and worship of humanity (Camille Monier, Exposé populaire du positivisme [English translation: Positive presentation of positivism], 1888, 67). The propagation of this model from year to year would thus contribute, according to positivist theory, to the resolution of social problems, of which it is accepted that their root is first and foremost moral. Comte chose to represent the motherland and humanity by women, specifically mothers, who are visible allegories and metaphors of the ideal social bond of altruism. The love of Humanity is modeled on maternal love. Comte sums up his political philosophy thus with the motto: “Love as principle, order as a base, and progress for purpose,” which is the subtitle of Comte’s books (Système de politique positive, ou traité de sociologie, Instituant la Religion de l’HUMANITE [English translation: System of positive politics, or treatise of sociology, Instituting the Religion of HUMANITY], 1854).

Auguste Comte goes so far as to imagine a world where human reproduction would be done by parthenogenesis or by spontaneous fertilization; the sexual act would no longer be necessary, and the woman would not need the man to procreate. Women are, according to Comte, “the normal intermediary between man and Humanity” (Système de politique positive, 204). He wants to free the “loving sex from any brutal dependence” on men; indeed, he calls sexuality “the domination of an instinct that our maturity must extinguish” (Comte, Système de politique positive). It is, therefore, a question for humanity to free itself from sexuality, described as “the most disruptive of all our instincts” (282). The altruistic ideal is therefore averse to egoism and is thwarted by sexual instinct.

From 1848 onward, Auguste Comte developed a religion and utopia of the “Virgin-Mother,” which constitutes for him the synthesis of his religion. It should be noted that this utopia was imagined just as the Catholic Church proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. This positivist Virgin-Mother must represent Humanity, which includes the living, the dead, and future human beings, but not all humans are part of it. Humanity incorporates only the “truly worthy dead,” those who have “cooperated in the common existence” (Comte, Catéchisme positiviste ou sommaire exposition de la religion universelle en 11 entretiens systématiques entre une femmes et un prêtre de l’Humanité [English translation: Positivist catechism or brief presentation of the univer-

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sal religion in 11 systematic interviews between a woman and a priest of Humanity], 1852, 30-31). Humanity is an elite Système de politique positive. Those who are not part of it are considered “parasites” who only came into the world to “make manure” (Comte, Catéchisme, 31; Système de politique positive). Humanity also includes animals, which he considers to be more estimable than certain humans, such as horses, dogs, oxen, etc. The individual subjective divide regarding impulses, and especially sexuality, thus corresponds to the divided representation of humanity.

This evolution of positivist thinking toward the religion of humanity and the utopia of the Virgin-Mother has not been accepted by all positivists—far from it. A secular positivist movement, led by Emile Littré, developed from 1852 onward. The scope of Comte’s work and the prominent place he took in the scholarly institutions in France gave positivism an ability to strongly influence the spirit of the time; and this from the early 1840s. Comte’s philosophy had helped restore hope to a generation of republican thinkers, like Littré, showing them that despite the revolutionary failure, progress was underway; science would find a solution where metaphysical ideas led only to a dead end. Quite successful positivist politicians such as Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry appeared at the forefront of French political life at the fall of Napoleon III’s Empire in 1870, and their influence was crucial to the establishment of the Third Republic (1870-1940). Like Comte, Jules Ferry believed that only moral and positivist education could answer social questions and that all the altruistic inclinations of human nature must be fostered while repressing “natural personality” and selfishness.

In 1875 Jules Ferry and Emile Littré were admitted to the Masonic Lodge of the Clémente-Amitié. This event had a “huge impact” and meant that French Freemasonry would then have become positivist. At the end of the 19^th century, some religious positivists forged links with the authoritarian, nationalist, as well as the Catholic and royalist extreme right, and played a leading role in the founding of the movement called Action Française. The futuristic vision of the “utopia of the Virgin-Mother” was then integrated into the political philosophy of some representatives of the Action Française, including Charles Maurras (1868-1952) (see Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras, Auguste Comte 15 janvier 1798-5 septembre 1857 [English translation: January 15, 1798-September 5, 1857], in Revue Minerva, N° 2, May 15, 1902, 174-204). Maurras trans-

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formed the positivist cult of humanity into a cult of the goddess France, which put an end to the universalist ideal of human rights. Maurras was a notorious anti-Semite. He was excommunicated by the pope in 1927 and, after collaborating with the Nazis during World War II, found guilty of high treason. Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment and “national degradation.” He is still one of the main references for the French far-right. Positivism, whether secular or religious, has spread widely abroad, in the United Kingdom but also in Latin America, especially in Brazil, and in the Ottoman Empire, and with the Young Turks. It should be remembered that Comte believed that a transitional dictatorship would probably be necessary to establish the positivist society he dreamed of.

It is difficult to understand the positivist philosophy, its religion, and its cult of the Virgin-Mother, without considering the history of Auguste Comte’s relations with women. The historical context should be remembered: French women saw their status deteriorate from the end of the 18^th century, culminating with the Civil Code, written in 1804 by Napoleon. According to Article 1124, persons deprived of legal rights are minors, married women, criminals, and mentally deficient persons. Women were idealized during the 19^th century in their maternal function, but seldom as individuals. French women acquired the right to vote only in 1944. Comte’s vision of women and idealization of chastity fit in this ideological context. There were three women whom Auguste Comte revered: his mother, Clotilde de Vaux, and Sophie Thomas. He met Clotilde in 1844 and he fell madly in love with her. She came from a noble but poor family and was married to a man who turned out to be a crook, whom she could not divorce. After their separation, she planned to write for a living. Her relationship with Comte remained platonic and lasted only one year since the young woman was swept away by tuberculosis in 1845.

This love and “unparalleled year” marked a break both in the personal life and the evolution of Comte’s thought. It was after her death that he decided to extend the positive philosophy in this new religion of humanity. In 1855 he made his servant Sophie Thomas his adopted daughter and asked his executors to pay her a life annuity in recognition of the “incomparable assistance” she had provided for years. To these ideal experiences, Comte opposed his relationship with his wife Caroline Massin, who worked as a washerwoman and sometimes practiced prostitution to make up for the

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financial difficulties of the household. Their common life evolved disastrously. He thus evoked in his testament “the fatal marriage contracted on 19 February 1825 with the unworthy woman from whom I was irrevocably separated on 5 August 1842, after 17 years of intimate suffering” (Testament d’Auguste Comte publié par ses exécuteurs testamentaires [English translation: Testament of Auguste Comte, published by its executors], 1881, 53). But Caroline Massin (1802-1877) was not only a washerwoman and a prostitute. She could read and write, she was interested in his work, which she commented on with intelligence, and the letters exchanged between the two spouses showed a true love. Littré, one of the greatest scholars of the time in France and a former disciple of Comte, gave Caroline Massin growing support, especially during her conflict with Comte’s testamentary executors since he had disinherited her. Thus Comte presented in his works the feminine ideal in the ternary form of mother, wife, and daughter; he was hence averse to the representation of his “unworthy” wife.

Positivist philosophy played a prominent role in French political life from 1850 onward and particularly from the beginning of the Third Republic in 1870. Altruism is at the heart of this system; it is its cornerstone. Women and their supposed altruism are key elements. As Angèle Kremer-Marietti reminds us in Le kaléidoscope épistémologique d’Auguste Comte, sentiments, images, signes [English translation: The Epistemological Kaleidoscope of August Comte, feelings, images, signs], 2007), positivism anticipates the theory of attachment, as developed by psychoanalyst John Bowlby or psychologist René Zazzo. However, it establishes an intrasubjective divide, the subject finding himself, according to the positivist altruistic ideal, cut off from his impulse life, as well as a societal divide between humans “worthy” to be part of Humanity and those who may be considered in this system as “parasites” (Kremer-Marietti, Le kaléidoscope).

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