POSITIVISM AND EVOLUTIONISM Comte (1798-1857) was the founder of "Positivism," that is, the view that knowledge is limited to the objects of direct observation or experience. This view is very like the empiricism of Locke and his successors. Comte's positivism, however, was the outcome rather of the influence of Kant's philosophy, ac cording to which human knowledge (as distinguished from faith) is limited to phenomena, and cannot penetrate to noumena or things-in-themselves. What is beyond experience, Comte insisted, is unknowable. It is consequently best to concentrate on tasks that are within human competence. Such are the pursuits of the sciences and the work of social amelioration. Philosophers, in stead of their search for an unknown and unknowable Absolute, should devote themselves to the task of co-ordinating and sys tematizing the methods and results of the positive sciences. Re ligion, instead of being the worship of an unknown God and a source of division, sectarian conflict and hatred, should be identi fied with the service of the cause of mankind—a religion of Humanity. And humanity should be so improved by collective endeavour that it shall become worthy of being viewed as "the great Being," the object of religious service. What Comte had in mind was a grandiose Catholicism without religion, as religion is commonly conceived. Positivism, Comte realized, is a position not readily taken up. First in the history of intellectual growth, comes the theological point of view, and everything is explained by reference to one or more gods who are created in the likeness of men. Next comes the metaphysical stage in which the anthro pomorphic Gods are more or less dehumanized and replaced by abstract entities or principles. Then only comes the positivist stage. But even Comte was not a strict positivist. For he severely criticized the actual state of mankind, and pleaded for various reforms according to standards derived, not from observation, but from ideals. (See COMTE; POSITIVISM.) Mill (1806-73) also may be called a positivist. But in his
case the connection with British empiricists is more marked than in the case of Comte. His logic, his utilitarian ethics, and his polit ical economy are all worked out on empirical or positivist lines. (See MILL; LOGIC, HISTORY OF.) Spencer (1820-19o3) admitted an ultimate reality as the ground of the phenomenal world, but regarded it as otherwise "unknown." Inasmuch as he confined knowledge to phenomena, he was a positivist. But his fame rests mainly on his compre hensive attempt at an evolutionary philosophy which brought or forced "all the choir of heaven and furniture of earth" into the evolutionary scheme. The conception of evolution was not new to philosophy. Hegel's philosophy Was evolutionary in a sense; but not quite in Spencer's or Darwin's or generally in a scientific sense. According to Spencer the universe commenced as an homogeneous something, which may be called force, or matter and motion, but the inner nature of which is unknown to us. Then by increasing differentiation and specialization there evolved the heavenly bodies (more or less in accordance with the nebular hypothesis of Laplace) ; the inorganic evolved into the organic (more or less on the lines of Lamarckian and Darwinian biology) ; differentiation of structure and function in living bodies, and division of labour in industry, ecc., followed in due course. And always the amount of energy remains the same in accordance with the principle of Conservation of Energy; it is only redistributed in various ways. The evolutionary process as conceived by Spen cer and others was mechanistic in character. This conception subsequently met with increasing opposition. In contemporary philosophy Bergson's theory of "creative evolution" and Lloyd Morgan's theory of "emergence" or "emergent evolution" are intended as a corrective of mechanistic determinism in favour of spontaneity and originality in cosmic processes of many kinds. (See SPENCER; ETHICS, HISTORY OF; EMERGENCE; EVOLUTION AND MIND.)