auguste comte and the saint-simonians

Auguste Comte and the Saint-SimoniansAuthor(s): Mary PickeringSource: French Historical Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 211-236Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/286964Accessed: 03/09/2010 23:28

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Auguste Comte and the Saint-Simonians

Mary Pickering

After the turmoil of the French Revolution, which had overturned tra- ditional institutions and beliefs, a consensus no longer existed as to what constituted a legitimate government or how society should be or- ganized. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, people of all political persuasions, from counterrevolutionaries like the early Lamennais to liberals like Benjamin Constant, participated in the search for certitudes, especially about the nature of society, in order to create a new cohesive community.' As Alan Spitzer has demonstrated, this sense of a moral and intellectual void was particularly pervasive in the generation of 1820, those persons born between approximately 1792 and 1803. Trying to find their bearings in a time of anarchy, they sought a general doctrine to serve as the basis of a new social and political order. Many talented members of this generation, convinced that they could help fulfill its dream of reconstructing society, sought guidance from brilliant intellects. The most famous was their contemporary, Vic- tor Cousin. But the role model whose influence on this generation was perhaps the greatest in the long run was ironically an older man, Henri Saint-Simon.2

Mary Pickering is assistant professor of history at Pace University in Manhattan. She is the author of An Intellectual Biography of Auguste Comte: The Making of a Positivist Philosopher (1789-1842), which will be published in November 1993 by Cambridge University Press. She has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write a second volume dealing with the last fifteen years of Comte's life.

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Society for French Historical Studies con- ference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 21-23 March 1991. I would like to thank the Scholarly Research Committee of Pace University for granting me the time to write this article, Donald Fleming for his insightful comments on an earlier draft, and Isabel Pratas-Frescata and Trajano Bruno de Berrtdo Carneiro, the treasurer and president, respectively, of the International Association of the Maison d'Auguste Comte.

I Paul Bknichou, Le Temps des prophetes: Doctrines de I'dge romantique (Paris, 1977), 8-9. 2 Alan B. Spitzer, The French Generation of 1820 (Princeton, 1987), 10, 26, 72, 145-46, 190,

204.

French Historical Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring 1993) Copyright ? 1993 by the Society for French Historical Studies

212 FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES

As Keith Baker has recently shown, Saint-Simon carried on the attempt by Sieyes and Condorcet to create a science of society, which would provide the rational principles necessary to bring the Revolu- tion to a peaceful close.3 And yet Saint-Simon's ideas on how to achieve social stability were in such disarray that they paradoxically spawned at least one pair of rival systems, that of Auguste Comte and that of the Saint-Simonians, which further fractured their generation's effort to achieve a coherent, unifying ideology. While various scholars have explored the relationship between Saint-Simon and Comte and between the former and the Saint-Simonians, scant attention has been paid to Comte's connection with the Saint-Simonians.4 The personal relations between Comte and the Saint-Simonians are generally assumed to have been always strained and irrelevant to their respective doctrines. Yet drawing upon Comte's papers and correspondence in the Maison d'Auguste Comte and the Saint-Simonian collections at the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, Bibliotheque nationale, and Bibliotheque Thiers, this article will shed light on the changes in their association, the complex intellectual and personal reasons for these transforma- tions, and the intellectual significance of their relationship. It is my con- tention that Comte's initial affiliation with the disciples of Saint-Simon and his subsequent rivalry helped to shape his development as well as theirs.

Comte's relationship with the Saint-Simonians was complicated by his bitter breakup with their common mentor, Saint-Simon. This rupture was extremely painful because Comte had originally been very close to him and had spent years absorbing his ideas. Seeking assistance in his journalistic enterprises, the aging philosopher had hired Comte in 1817, a year after his rebellious activities had led to his expulsion from the Ecole Polytechnique. Comte soon considered him "the most estimable and lovable man" he had ever known. He pledged him "eter-

3 Keith Michael Baker, "Closing the French Revolution: Saint-Simon and Comte," in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: vol. 3, The Transformation of Political Culture 1789-1848, ed. Fransois Furet and Mona Ozouf (Oxford, 1989), 323-39.

.4 The most detailed investigation of the relations between Comte and Saint-Simon is Henri Gouhier, La Jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, 3 vols. (Paris, 1933-41). Gouhier, however, minimizes Saint-Simon's influence on Comte. See my rebuttal in Mary Picker- ing, "Auguste Comte: His Life and Works (1798-1842)" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1988), 552-55, 973-83. Books on the Saint-Simonians that briefly mention Comte include Sebastien Charlety, Histoire du Saint-Simonisme, 1825-1864 (Paris, 1896); Georges Weill, L'Ecole Saint- Simonienne: Son histoire, son influence jusqu'a nos 'ours (Paris, 1896); Henri-Rene d'Alle- magne, Les Saint-Simoniens, 1827-1837 (Paris, 1930); and Robert B. Carlisle, The Proffered Crown: Saint-Simonianism and the Doctrine of Hope (Baltimore, 1987). For an overview of the ideas of Saint-Simon, the Saint-Simonians, and Comte, see Frank Manuel, The Prophets of Paris (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).

COMTE AND THE 'SAINT-SIMONIANS 213

nal friendship" and boasted that Saint-Simon loved him like a "son."5 Saint-Simon plied him with his varying plans for social reform and gave his thought a certain direction. During the Napoleonic Empire, Saint-Simon had shown that the creation of a new unified system of scientific knowledge centered on the study of society would lead to a new era, where industrialists would replace the military leaders as the temporal power and scientists would take over from the clergy as the spiritual power.6 When Comte started working for him, he had grown less interested in establishing the theoretical basis of social reconstruction and was turning toward the practical, industrial reorganization of society. While praising the benefits of industry, Comte, however, took up Saint-Simon's original mission of founding the scientific system, that is, the positive philosophy, together with its keystone, the science of society. Comte's ideas culminated in the Plan des travaux scientifiques necessaires pour reorganiser la soci't e.7 In this long essay, com- pleted in 1824, he proposed to resolve the crisis of postrevolutionary France by a new science of society based on a law demonstrating that humanity passed through three stages of history-the theological, metaphysical, and positive. The positive era would be established not by practical, institutional reforms, which were ineffective and premature, but by the extension of the scientific, or "positive," method to politics. When all ideas became scientific in this fashion, the positive philosophy, comprising the major sciences, would bring about the intellectual consensus necessary to build the stable industrial society of the future. Thus, whereas Saint-Simon increasingly celebrated the role of the industrialists in bringing about the new order, Comte concentrated on the work the scientists of society had to do to prepare the way.8 Faithful to Saint-Simon's original concept that theory had to precede practice, he tried to develop ideas that his capricious mentor had left by the wayside.9

5 Auguste Comte to Valat, 15 May 1818, Auguste Comte, Correspondance generale et confessions, ed. Paulo E. de Berredo Carneiro, Pierre Arnaud, Paul Arbousse-Bastide, and Angele Kremer-Marietti, 8 vols. (Paris, 1973-90), 1:36-37. Hereafter, this work will be cited as CG. The translations of all the passages in French are my own.

6 Pierre Ansart, Sociologie de Saint-Simon (Paris, 1970), 9. 7 The Plan des travaux scientifiques nicessaires pour riorganiser la societe is reproduced in

Auguste Comte, Systeme de politique positive ou Traite du sociologie instituant la religion de 1'humanitW, 4 vols. (Paris, 1851-54; 5th ed., identical to the first, Paris, 1929), vol. 4, Appendice gen&al, 47-136. Hereafter this work will be referred to as Systeme.

8 Saint-Simon's practical concerns are reflected in his essay "A Messieurs les Chefs des travaux de culture, de fabrication, et de commerce." This was a ten-page introduction to Comte's fundamental opuscule, both of which were originally published in Saint-Simon, Suite des travaux ay- ant pour objet de fonder le systeme industriel: Du contrat social (Paris, 1822).

9 [Claude-Henri de] Saint-Simon, Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIXe sicle, in Oeuvres de Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon, 6 vols. (Paris, 1966), 6:168-70.


Saint-Simon's preparations to publish this seminal essay as part of his journal, the Catechisme des industriels, brought out the tensions between him and Comte and was the immediate cause of their rupture. Worried about his originality, Comte accused him of wanting to take credit for the essay out of jealousy. In response, Saint-Simon condemned Comte's emphasis on the sciences and suddenly ended their partnership, leaving him adrift financially.'0 Comte was shocked. He expressed his rage in terms of a generational conflict, which smacked of the classic father-son confrontation: "M. de Saint-Simon had, like fa- thers vis-A-vis their children, . . . the small inconvenience . . . of believing that having been his student, I must continue to be so indefi- nitely, even after my beard grew."'"I Saint-Simon's age was one factor that explained his outdated "revolutionary disposition" to "change institutions before doctrines were redone."'2 Comte's bitterness led him later to claim that he had been "seduced" into a "catastrophic liaison" with "a superficial and depraved charlatan," who had never influenced him.'3

After their rupture, Comte feared that Saint-Simon might try to damage his reputation.'4 And indeed, Saint-Simon's next issue of the Catechisme des industriels, appearing in June 1824, directly opposed Comte's ideas and advanced concrete plans, instead of doctrines, to reor- ganize industrial, scientific society.'5 In December Saint-Simon repeated these proposals in yet another work, the Opinions litteraires, philosophiques et industrielles, written with the help of three of Comte's friends, including Olinde Rodrigues, who had been a tutor at the Ecole Polytechnique and replaced Comte as Saint-Simon's main disciple.'6 Comte condemned the articles as "very weak" and "pitiful" and blamed the "mess" on Saint-Simon.17

In the meantime, Comte's own reputation was rising, for many leading scientists and intellectuals, such as Louis Poinsot, Pierre Flourens, Francois Guizot, and J. B. Say, highly praised the Plan des

I0 Comte to Tabarie, 5 April 1824; Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 1 May 1824; Comte to Valat, 21 May 1824, CG, 1:76-78, 80-82, 88-89. According to Prosper Enfantin, the future leader of the Saint-Simonian sect, Saint-Simon's heart was "broken" by Comte's behavior. Enfantin to Four- nel, 9 March 1833, Fonds d'Eichthal, Manuscrits, Carton hIA, fol. 344, Bibliotheque Thiers.

11 Comte to Tabarie, 5 April 1824, CG, 1:76. 12 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 1 May 1824, CG, 1:82nl.

3 Systetme, 3:xv-xvi; Comte to George Frederick Holmes, 18 Sept. 1852, CG, 6:378. 4 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 6 June 1824, CG, 1:93-94.

15 Saint-Simon, Catehisme des industriels: Quatrieme Cahier, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon, vol. 5, part 1, 3-4, 13-14, 25-33.

16 The other two friends were J. B. Duvergier and E. M. Bailly. For information regarding the authorship of the articles in the Opinions, see Oeuvres de Saint-Simon, vol. 3, part 3, 11.

17 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 10 Dec. 1824, CG, 1:145.

COMTE AND THE SAINT-SIMONIANS 215

travaux scientifiques.'8 John Stuart Mill expressed the general opinion when he wrote to a friend: "Allowing to Saint-Simon the merit of having first conceived the outline of the work which Comte has executed, it must be admitted that the master has been surpassed by the pupil."'9 Saint-Simon's new young disciples tried to take advantage of Comte's developing prestige by asking him in late 1824 to contribute to their new publications. But finding their works shoddy, fearing Saint- Simon's influence, and desiring to dissociate himself more clearly from them, he refused.20

Several days after Saint-Simon's death in late May 1825, Olinde Rodrigues and Prosper Enfantin, the latter a former Ecole Polytech- nique student like Comte, founded a new weekly journal, Le Produc- teur. The editor, Antoine Cerclet, was a friend of Comte's wife and urged him to write for it. Desperate for employment and priding himself on being the new master of the industrial and scientific philosophy, Comte finally agreed "to make the journal's reputation."2' He secretly hoped his influence would grow if he used its pages to promote his own ideas. However, still worried about losing credibility by associating with the Saint-Simonians, he never went to any of their meetings and dealt directly with Cerclet, who he knew was not a devoted member of their "coterie.' '22

One other factor in Comte's decision was that the journal did not publicize its allegiance to Saint-Simon's ideas. Devoted to creating a new "industrial philosophy" and "science of politics," it discussed in general terms the laws of progress, the role of an elite of capable men, and the creation of a future industrial and scientific society marked by peaceful associations and a common goal of production.23 Moreover, no effort was made to build upon the ideas expressed by Saint-Simon in his last book, the Nouveau Christianisme, which had appeared in April 1825 and called for the renewal of the original, true spirit of Christianity.24

18 Comte to Valat, 21 May 1824, CG, 1:92; Flourens to Comte, n.d., archives of the Maison d'Auguste Comte (MAC). H. Say wrote a letter in his father's behalf to Comte on 19 April 1824, MAC. Flourens' and Say's letters are reproduced in Pierre Laffitte, "Materiaux pour servir a la biographie d'Auguste Comte: De la circulation des ouvrages d'Auguste Comte. De lopuscule fondamental, 1822-1824," Revue occidentale, 2d ser., 8 (1 Sept. 1893): 333-34.

19 Mill to Gustave d'Eichthal, 29 Oct. 1829, Fonds d'Eichthal 13756, fol. 6. This letter was copied by Adolphe d'Eichthal.

20 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 6 Nov. and 10 Dec. 1824, CG, 1:135, 145. 21 Comte to Valat, 18 Jan. 1826, CG, 1:182. 22 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 24 Nov. 1825, CG, 1:172. 23 Enfantin to Th&ese Nugues, 18 Aug. 1825, Fonds Enfantin 7643, folio 69, Bibliotheque de

l'Arsenal. 24 Saint-Simon, Nouveau Christianisme, in Oeuvres de Saint-Simon, vol. 3, part 3, 125, 188.

Although the Nouveau Christianisme has been often regarded as one of Saint-Simon's major


The book even puzzled Enfantin, who showed no enthusiasm about founding a new Christianity.25 He and his colleagues asked Comte to join Le Producteur in order to continue his work as the theorist of what Cerclet simply called "the new philosophy."26

Between November 1825 and February 1826, Comte wrote two important essays for the journal-"Considerations philosophiques sur les sciences et les savants" and "Considerations sur le pouvoir spirituel."27 Developing ideas that he had touched upon in his Plan des travaux scientifiques, he explained that the clergy were to be replaced by a new spiritual power composed of positive philosophers, that is, generalists who understood the applications of the positive method in the major sciences. Because these men possessed general knowledge and, consequently, had the widest views, they, not the narrow-minded industrialists, should be in charge of social reorganization.

The writers and editors for Le Producteur clearly considered Comte the journal's most important writer. Enfantin spoke openly of Comte's having assisted the journal by "his strong intelligence."28 The writers often referred in their own articles to Comte's essays as well as to his Plan des travaux scientifiques. For the purpose of clarification, they even frequently quoted whole sections from his works.29 In addition, Comte's ideas inspired many articles, especially those of Saint-Amand Bazard, who was to become one of the main propagators of Saint- Simonianism.30

Comte was essential primarily because he helped his colleagues

works, it was not viewed as such when it first appeared. See G. Hubbard, Saint-Simon: Sa vie et ses travaux (Paris, 1857), 102.

25 D'Allemagne, Les Saint-Simoniens, 34. On Enfantin's initial dislike of Saint-Simon's religious doctrines, see Papers of Ch. Lambert, Fonds Enfantin 7804, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

26 Antoine Cerclet, "Introduction," Le Producteur 1 (1825):5. 27 Comte's first essay, "Consid&ations philosophiques sur les sciences et les savants," con-

sisted of three articles, published 12 and 19 November and 3 December 1825. The essay is reproduced in Systeme, vol. 4, "Appendice," 137-75. His second essay was "Considerations sur le pouvoir spirituel." It too consisted of three articles, and these were published 24 December 1825 and 11 and 18 February 1826. This essay can be found in Systeme, vol. 4, "Appendice," 176-215. Comte was mistaken when he dated it March 1826.

28 Enfantin to Resseguier, 20 May 1827, Fonds Enfantin 7643, fol. 119v, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

29 "Physiologie du cerveau: Analyse du cours de M. Gall i l'Athenee, Le Producteur, 2 (1826): 464-66; Allier, "Predominance de la doctrine positive sur les doctrines theologiques et metaphy- siques," ibid., 2:588nl; P. Enfantin, "Le Temps, lopinion publique," ibid.,3 (1826): 12nl; Bazard, "Considrations sur l'histoire," ibid.,4 (1826): 414nl; M. Laurent, "Considerations sur le systeme theologique et feodal et sur sa desorganisation," ibid., 4:473-75; P. M. Laurent, "Coup d'oeil his- torique sur le pouvoir spirituel," ibid., 5 (1826): 64nl.

30 In one article, Bazard discussed Kant and Robertson in the same terms as Comte and in fact referred his readers to Comte's Plan de travaux neessaires for the best exposition of the positive character of history. See Bazard, "Considrations sur i'histoire," Le Prod ucteur 4 (1826): 390-416.


understand Saint-Simon's doctrine, which they found too dispersed and muddled.3' Even Enfantin complained that Saint-Simon's principles were often "confused" and that his presentation was so "bizarre" that it could only "disgust" his readers.32 According to him, Comte's articles contained the most intelligent discussion of the scientific method-a method that they used to discuss history and the future.33 When the son of Lazare Carnot came to Paris to meet the disciples of Saint- Simon, they thus advised him "to follow the course that Auguste Comte was just beginning at his house."34 Because they were concerned with the science of society and shared Comte's desire to create a new industrial age marked by association, they were eager to exploit his ideas.

Comte, too, was pleased with his contributions to Le Producteur, which he considered to be the heart of the journal.35 Although he later alleged that the Saint-Simonians' religious inclinations led him to break with Le Producteur, he was, in fact, very eager to continue writing for it and worried that without two or three concluding articles, his ideas would be unclear, misleading, and ultimately ineffective.36 The real reason he stopped contributing to it was that his wife (Caroline Mas- sin) revived an old romance with the editor, Cerclet. Comte's colleagues, including Rodrigues, who had been a witness at his marriage the previous year, staunchly defended him against Cerclet, whom they forced to resign on 31 March.37 Yet the shock of this betrayal was so great

31 For example, in a book review, Rouen wrote, "We cannot send the reader to the works of Saint-Simon because they are disseminated in several works, of which those published since 1807 have been printed in only a very small number of copies and the others have remained unedited. But one will find the exposition of this part of his doctrine [on social science and the problems of industry] in the works that M. Auguste Comte, his student, has published either in this journal or in the third cahier of the Catechisme des industriels." P. J. Rouen, "Examen d'un nouvel ouvrage de M. Dunoyer, ancien redacteur du Censeur europeen," Part 3, Le Producteur 3 (1826): 143nI.

32 Enfantin to Pichard, 23 Aug. 1825, Fonds Enfantin 7643, fol. I 0v, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal. 33 Enfantin to Pichard, 26 Nov. 1825, Fonds Enfantin 7643, 14v, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

See also Gustave d'Eichthal to Comte, 8 Dec. 1828, Revue occidentale 12 (1896): 371. 34 Senator [Hippolyte] Carnot to Pierre Laffitte, 3 Aug. 1882, MAC. 35 When Benjamin Constant publicly attacked Le Producteur for neglecting guarantees of

liberty and advocating a scientific theocracy, Comte claimed his charges were really directed at him. See Systeme, vol.4, "Appendice," iii; Comte to Armand Marrast, 7 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:232. Constant's letter is reproduced in Le Producteur, 1 (1825): 536-38. See also "Lettre de M. Benjamin Constant au Redacteur de L'Opinion," Le Producteur 1 (1825): 482-84.

36 At the end of his second essay, Comte begged his readers to suspend their criticisms until they had read his next two articles on the spiritual power. When he later republished this essay, he deleted this section to avoid giving the impression that his association with Le Producteur had been satisfactory. Comte, "Consid&rations sur le pouvoir spiritual," Le Producteur 2 (1826): 376. See also Comte to Valat, 18 Jan. 1826 CG, 1: 181; Comte to Blainville, 27 Feb. 1826, CG, 1:185-89; Comte to Chevalier, 5 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:228. Charley is wrong when he states that Comte quit Le Producteur because the editors had followed Saint-Simon's example and become too religious. Charlety, Histoire du Saint-Simonisme, 148.

37 Adolphe d'Eichthal to Gustave d'Eichthal, 18 April 1826, Fonds d'Eichthal 13746, item 136, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal; Enfantin's comment, 1832, inserted as a footnote in Cerclet to Enfantin,


that Comte became severely deranged two weeks later just as he was beginning to give his first course on positive philosophy, the doctrine to be promulgated by the spiritual power. Briefly institutionalized, he remained incapacitated for almost two years. During this time, Le Pro- ducteur went bankrupt.

When Comte finally reemerged in 1828 to continue along the same path that he had been following two years before, the Saint-Simonians were beginning to transform their doctrine radically. Up to this point, Saint-Simonianism had been primarily an industrial and scientific pos- ture; henceforth it became increasingly religious and dogmatic.38 Eu- gene Rodrigues, the younger brother of Olinde, persuaded Enfantin that religion was superior to philosophy and science in addressing basic questions about life and supplying the foundation of social unity.39 Enfantin then exaggerated different points in Saint-Simon's Nouveau Christianisme to make it the basis of a new religion of love that was to be served by industry and science. He and his closest colleagues, Bazard and Olinde Rodrigues, developed this new doctrine between 1828 and 1830.40

One of the Saint-Simonians' motivations in adopting a more religious orientation was precisely to differentiate themselves from Comte, who had now become a negative example in their eyes. They were aware that his articles had attracted important people to their cause, including Count Jules Resseguier, the future head of the Saint-Simonian church in the Midi.41 Yet Comte was a master whose aloofness threatened them. Not wanting to join them or to succumb to the charms of "le pare" En- fantin, he appeared to be a "difficult person" who had to be eliminated.42 To this end, they seized upon Saint-Simon's statement in his introduction to the Plan des travaux scientifiques that Comte was too scientific and indifferent to the religious and emotional aspects of social reorganization.43 Saint-Simon's assertion was not altogether fair,

[12 April 1826], Fonds Enfantin 7643, fol. 43; Cerclet, "Lettre du Redacteur Gen&al aux Propricl - taires du Journal," 31 March 1826, Le Producteur 2 (1826): 627.

38 Enfantin to Bailly, April 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 101v, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal; Doctrine de Saint-Simon. Exposition. Premiere annee, 1829, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1830), 5-28.

39 Comte knew Eugene Rodrigues, who translated several German essays for him. Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 6 June 1824, CG, 1:96.

40 Record of a conversation between Gustave d'Eichthal and Enfantin, 2 March 1832, Fonds Enfantin, 7646, fol. 16, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

41 Henri de Saint-Simon and Prosper Enfantin, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 47 vols. (Paris, 1865-78), 1:174 n. 1; Resseguier to Enfantin, 7 May 1827 in ibid., 24:117; Resseguier to Enfantin, 20 May 1827, Fonds Enfantin, 7643, fol. 19, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

42 Enfantin to Fournel, 13 March 1833, Fonds d'Eichthal, Manuscript, Carton II , Biblio- theque Thiers.

43 Saint-Simon, introduction to Catechisme des industriels: Troisieme Cahier, vol. 4, part 2: 4-5.


for he was trying to obscure the real causes of their break. Despite his atheism, Comte was concerned with moral regeneration and the estab- lishment of a spiritual power. Contrary to the opinion of the Saint- Simonians and many historians, he had actually found Saint-Simon's religious sentiments only "banal" and "vague" at this point, and their disagreement on this issue had not played a big role in their rupture.44 Although he seemed to consider science the panacea for social ills, he was not blind to its faults and already criticized scientists for their co- wardice, egoism, and coldness.45 He never lost sight of the fact that the emotions were of utmost importance in human existence.46 Realizing that reason could not satisfy all human needs, he emphasized that the imagination was crucial not only to the propagation of scientific theor- ies but to their actual creation; "absolute empiricism" was impossible.47 Nevertheless, one of Comte's friends who joined the Saint-Simonians circulated the story that Saint-Simon himself had warned against "dealing" with Comte, "a terrible man," who "wants everything for science." Saint-Simon added, "If we are not wary of him, these scientists will become as intractable as the Catholic theologians.' 48 This story offered the Saint-Simonians more ammunition against Comte.

This judgment especially suited the leader of the Saint-Simonians, Enfantin. He had met Saint-Simon only once briefly in December 1824, but he desired to oust Comte as the master's foremost disciple and become the leading authority on the new general doctrine that would res- urrect French society.49 Although a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Enfantin did not care for the "sublime indifference" and the lack of spontaneity exhibited by "positive" scientists; their coldness prevented them from inculcating beliefs, especially among the masses.50 He admitted that Comte was a "profound reasoner," but he found his intelli-

44 Auguste Comte, Physique sociale: Cours de philosophie positive, lefons 46 d 60, ed. jean- Paul Enthoven (Paris, 1975), 467 (hereafter cited as Cours, 2).

45 Auguste Comte, "Lettre a M. H. Saint-Simon par une personne qui se nommera plus tard," in Auguste Comte, Ecrits de jeunesse, 1816-1828: Suivis du MWmoire sur la cosmogonie de La- place, 1835, ed. Paulo E. de Berredo Carneiro and Pierre Arnaud (Paris, 1970), 440.

46 In 1818, Comte wrote to a friend, "The gentle and tender affections are the happiest, the source of the only true happiness that one can attain on this miserable planet, and one could never have enough of them." Comte to Valat, 17 Nov. 1818, CG, 1:46.

47 Systeme, vol. 4, "Appendice," 141. See also ibid., 105-6. 48 Gustave d'Eichthal to Resseguier, 26 Feb. 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 163, Bibliotheque

de l'Arsenal. See also Gustave d'Eichthal, "Notice sur ma vie," 1869, Fonds d'Eichthal 14408, item 9, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

49 On Enfantin's ignorance of Saint-Simon and his desire for grandeur, see Carlisle, Proffered Crown, 121-22, Uon Halkvy, "Souvenirs de Saint-Simon," 545. Halkvy declared that Enfantin never met Saint-Simon, but Enfantin said that he believed he met him in December 1824. See letter

A from Enfantin to Fournel, 13 March 1833, Fonds d'Eichthal, Carton II , Bibliotheque Thiers.

50 Enfantin, "Note d'Enfantin sur la science positive, 1829," Fonds Enfantin, 7655(2), Biblio- theque de l'Arsenal.


gence threatening and repeatedly accused him of pretentiousness.5' Alluding to Comte' s attempt to drown himself during his bout of mad- ness, Enfantin declared that he liked him "very little" because he "preached and practiced suicide, disgust, indifference, [and] doubt. "52

In August 1829, Enfantin circulated among his friends a long argument that he had written against Comte's Plan des travaux scientifiques, a work that he highly respected but felt the need to destroy in order to establish his own position.53 He deplored Comte's picture of man as "a mechanism without life, without passion, without love, and consequently without beliefs." To him, Comte was a hypocrite, for while asserting that the scientist should be a "calculating automaton" without feeling or imagination, Comte himself began with certain ''revelations of genius" -Saint-Simon's imaginative ideas-which he then developed in a rational fashion. Although he pretended to be in the "positive" stage, he could be doing theology: "In the place of these words, nature of things, invariable law (which he employs so often)," Enfantin argued that Comte should put "God and providential plan." Thus Comte was motivated by "beliefs" and "faith," not reason.54 In sum, partly because he felt intellectually inferior to Comte, Enfantin stressed increasingly the one area where he felt superior, that of the feelings. Comte represented the "glacial" scientism that Enfantin and the Saint-Simonians now rejected as inadequate.55 The ideological differ- ences between Comte and the Saint-Simonians masked an intense power struggle.

Astonished by the direction their thought was taking, Comte was "happily" surprised that he was not asked to join their new church. Keeping his distance was absolutely necessary, for he was sure that their efforts to create a new religion involving "a sort of incarnation of the divinity in Saint-Simon" would bring them "ridicule" and "public disrepute." Because of their lack of intellectual rigor, "general specula- tions" had wreaked "havoc" in their minds. Just as he appeared to the

51 Enfantin to Picard, 15 Aug., 1829 Fonds d'Enfantin 7643, fols. 361-64, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

52 Enfantin to Margerin, May 1831, in Saint-Simon and Enfantin, OeuvresdeSaint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 27:188.

53 Olinde Rodrigues to Enfantin, 4 Sept. 1829, Fonds Enfantin 7643, fol. 454, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal. Even four years later, the Plan continued to obsess Enfantin. In 1833 the Saint-Simonian Alexis Petit told Comte how much it was valued by "Le Pere" (underlined twice) and begged him for one or two copies. Alexis Petit to Comte, 29 May 1833, MAC.

54 Enfantin to Picard, 15 Aug. 1829, Fonds d'Enfantin, 7643, fol. 361-63, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

55 Enfantin to Bailly, April 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 105 bis verso, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

COMTE AND THE-SAINT-SIMONIANS 221

Saint-Simonians to be the archetype of a cold scientistic thinker, they struck him as the epitome of fuzzy thinking due to their "sentimental- ism," which led them to rely exclusively on the feelings.56 Whereas his approach spurred them to religiosity, they reinforced his belief that a firm grounding in the sciences was essential to proper reasoning.

The animosity between Comte and the Saint-Simonians grew more bitter in late 1828. While he was giving a course on positive philosophy at his apartment, the Saint-Simonians were developing their doctrine in a series of public lectures attended by fifty people.57 To keep track of what they were professing, Comte obtained a copy of the book containing these lectures.58 In them, the Saint-Simonians proclaimed sympathy, rather than reason, to be the root of progress; called woman "the model of this sympathetic power"; celebrated humanity, a "collec- tive being" equivalent to society at large; insisted that every person work and be rewarded according to his "capacity"; and praised the "GOD of love."59

These lectures reveal an ambivalent attitude toward Comte. While praising his Plan des travaux scientifiques for showing how the study of society could be based on the scientific method, the Saint-Simonians criticized Comte's scientific arguments for trying to undermine religion. Bazard ridiculed the term "positive," which he claimed was fash- ionable but unintelligible. Consisting primarily of an "inventory of facts," the positive method could be used only to verify scientific dis- coveries, which were essentially intuitive. Rodrigues also accused Comte of not wanting to recognize the elements of irrationalism contained in the so-called positive sciences themselves. Despite the preten- sions of scientists, their hypotheses resembled theological dogmas in that they too were ultimately based on "invented facts."60 Comte did not seem to realize that scientists in many fields were already going beyond immediate experience and that even if the facts themselves could be ob- served, their scientific laws could not be. As a result, Comte's positive method could never verify the movement of the earth or the laws of history. He could never even confirm his law of three stages, for it was

56 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 9 Dec. 1828, CG, 1:204-5. 57 Their course had opened on 13 Dec. 1828, just a few weeks before his own. Henri Fournel,

Bibliographie Saint-Simonienne: De 1802 au 31 d&embre 1832 (Paris, 1833), 63. 58 In Comte's "Bibliotheque superflue" at the Maison d'Auguste Comte there is a copy of the

second edition of Doctrine de Saint-Simon: Exposition. Premiere Annee, 1829, which was published in 1830.

59 Doctrine deSaint-Simon: Exposition. PremiereAnnee, 1829,28,38-40,408; Eugene Rod- rigues, "Avis du traducteur," L'Education du genre humain de Lessing, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, trans. Eugene Rodrigues (Paris, 1830), 2.

60 Doctrine de Saint-Simon: Exposition. Premiere Annee, 1829, 125, 377.


based on his own faith in progress. Thus imagination and sentiment were the key to the creative process even in the sciences. Moreover, Comte's science of society would be unable to make individuals act for the entire community, for unlike religion, which cultivated sentiments, his positive sciences stimulated only egoism.

Due to his enthusiasm for science, Comte was also accused of underestimating the role of "artists," that is, poets and priests, in the creation of a new society. He mistakenly limited their role to propagat- ing the social plans already "coldly" worked out by the scientists.6' Comte had inverted their roles. Because of their love for humanity, the artists were actually the masters of society, and the scientists merely jus- tified the artists' revelations about social destiny.

The Saint-Simonians concluded that Comte misunderstood Saint- Simon's intention when he pretended to use the master's method to portray a positive, scientific era unfettered by religion. He overlooked the "positive" fact that man is "an eminently religious being."62 Science was only now atheistic because mankind was in a critical, purely transitory period, but this era would give way to a new organic age characterized by a revival of religion. Comte did not understand that the sciences themselves would then fortify religion by giving people a greater idea of God. In a lecture given during the summer of 1829, Bazard specifically condemned the antireligious habits inculcated by "positivism." This seems to be the first time the word "positivism" appeared in print. Heretofore, Comte had referred to his system as "the positive philosophy." Thus perhaps it was Bazard who coined the term that Comte would adopt six years later.63

In celebrating irrationalism, love, and a deistic religion, these lectures of 1829 were, in effect, the Saint-Simonian manifesto of inde- pendence from the most famous of Saint-Simon's disciples, Auguste Comte. Just as he looked upon them as pure sentimentalists, they exaggerated his defining characteristic and helped spread the view that he was a frigid scientistic thinker. Their attacks on Comte culminated in a lecture of 15 July 1829, when in discussing the Plan des travaux scienti-

61 Ibid., 385. 62 Ibid., 363. 63 Ibid., 416. Comte appears to have used the term "positivism" for the first time in lesson

twenty-eight of the Cours, where he wrote, "In astronomy . . . positivism triumphed almost spontaneously, except on the subject of the earth's movement." Auguste Comte, Philosophie premiere: Cours dephilosophiepositive, le(ons 1 a 45, ed. Michel Serres, Francois Dagognet, Allal Sinaceur (Paris, 1975), 453 (hereafter cited as Cours, 1). The word "positivism" appears in a letter of 6 June 1824 to Gustave d'Eichthal that is published in the Correspondance genrale, but it seems to be a misprint. CG, 1:98. Until the later volumes of the Cours, Comte always wrote "positive" and referred to his doctrine as the "positive philosophy." The original letter is missing. The letter in CG is based upon one published in the Revue occidentale 12 (1896): 214.


fiques, Rodrigues summarized their opinion of him: "The man who is absorbed in his love for science and who, in outlining the history of humanity, almost forgets to speak about the progress of its sympathies, . . . we say: this man is an heresiarch, he has denied his master."64 Rodrigues's statement amounted to a formal excommunication of his former friend. Henceforth, Comte was not only the Saint- Simonians' rival but their enemy.

Undoubtedly rattled by such disparaging comments, Comte grew jealous of the immediate success of the Saint-Simonians. Eager to make the Ecole Polytechnique "the channel by which these [Saint-Simonian] ideas spread throughout society," Enfantin launched a very successful campaign to win adherents among its graduates, the very group Comte had targeted.65 They would constitute one of the main forces of this new sect, much to Comte's despair.66 The Saint-Simonians also attracted many disciples in the Midi, especially in Comte's native town of Mont- pellier, where Enfantin hoped to construct "a very beautiful cathedral in ten years."67 Overall, they seem to have caught the attention of as many as twenty-five thousand people throughout France.68

What particularly disconcerted Comte was that several of his friends joined the new sect or offered to support its enterprises.69 The most bitter setback occurred when his close friend and former disciple, Gustave d'Eichthal, decided to join the Saint-Simonians in July 1829, immediately after hearing Rodrigues's lecture on Comte's Plan des travaux scientifiques.70 The man most instrumental in d'Eichthal's con- version was Comte's chief rival Enfantin, the Saint-Simonian who also

64. Doctrine de Saint-Simon, 374. 65 Enfantin to Picard, 2 Feb. 1826, in Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et

d'Enfantin, 1:165. 66 In the Cours de philosophie positive, Comte lamented that "antisocial utopias" had suc-

ceeded in attracting many students of this school. Cours, 2:744. Almost seventy graduates of the Ecole Polytechnique took an interest in Saint-Simonianism. See James Bland Briscoe, "Saint- Simonism and the Origins of Socialism in France, 1816-1832" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1980), 348; Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 3:237; Weill, L'Ecole Saint-Simonienne, 33; F. A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason (Glencoe, Ill., 1952), 152-54.

67 Enfantin to Resseguier, July 1830, in Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 27:113. See also Weill, L'Ecole Saint-Simonienne, 57.

68 Briscoe, "Saint-Simonism," 344. 69 Gabriel Lamen, Francois Mellet, and Joseph Leon Talabot were three of Comte's friends who

were very interested in the Saint-Simonian movement. They all were graduates of the Ecole Poly- technique. Talabot would become one of Enfantin's strongest supporters. Registre de matricule des eleves, vol. 4, 1810-19, Archives of the Ecole Polytechnique; Talabot to Comte, 28 Dec. 1829, MAC;

A Talabot to Comte, n.d., MAC; Gustave d'Eichthal, note, in Manuscrits Carton II , fol. 320, Biblio- theque Thiers; Enfantin to Picard, 15 Aug. 1829, Fonds d'Enfantin 7643, fols. 361-364, Biblio- theque de l'Arsenal.

70 Gustave d'Eichthal to Adolphe d'Eichthal, 23 July 1829, Fonds d'Eichthal 14407, item 10, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.


seemed, significantly, to have remained the closest to Cerclet.7' With a "touching tenderness," Enfantin informed d'Eichthal that the valuable parts of Comte's doctrine derived from "the genius of Saint-Simon."72 Then Enfantin claimed that he was "the only man" who understood d'Eichthal and persuaded him to accept the Saint-Simonians' "joys of love," which better suited d'Eichthal's nature than "tiring" intellectual activities.73 Enfantin could not help gloating as he described his tri- umph to Bailly: "D'Eichthal . . . was for a long time a student of Comte, who, if this had been possible, would have reduced his heart to the frozen state in which his own is to be found. We have pulled him from the abyss.' 74 Playing an important part in the sect, d'Eichthal later humiliated Comte when he not only converted Comte's former student and boarder Lamoriciere to Saint-Simonianism but denounced Comte in the Saint-Simonian meetings for "atheism" and "materialism."75

Profoundly shaken by d'Eichthal's new allegiance, Comte condemned "the vulgar drivel" and "vague pantheism" he was displaying due to his "present masters." In Comte's opinion, their doctrine amounted only to a "reheated theophilanthropy," a deistic philosophy popular during the Revolution. When d'Eichthal tried to point out that Comte did not know the Saint-Simonians well enough to judge them, Comte thundered, "How could you write that, when you know very well that I saw them born, if I did not form them myself."76 He accused them of stealing and deforming his own doctrine and denigrat- ing him. D'Eichthal explained that they felt he had not carried his positive method "far enough" to see that the positive stage had to "reunite materialism and spiritualism into one whole."77 Comte angrily re- sponded that they could not have surpassed him, because he had had a ten-year head start and "the little Messieurs" were intellectually infe-

71 Cerclet to Enfantin [12 April 1826], Fonds Enfantin 7643, fols. 42-43; Enfantin's comment, 1832, inserted as a footnote in ibid., fol. 43; Enfantin to Bailly, April 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fols. 101-107, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

72 Gustave d'Eichthal to Resseguier, 26 Feb. 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 163, Bibliotheque de I'Arsenal.

73 Gustave d'Eichthal, remarks in "Les Enseignements," in Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeu- vres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 16:194; Gustave d'Eichthal to Resseguier, 26 Feb. 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 163v, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

74 Enfantin to Bailly, April 1830, Fonds Enfantin 7644, fol. 105 bis verso, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

75 Gustave d'Eichthal, remarks in "Les Enseignements," in Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeu- vres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 16:193. See also Gustave d'Eichthal to Duveyrier, 30 April 1830, Fonds Pereire, BN,n.a.fr. 24609; Weill, L'Ecole Saint-Simonienne, 59; Gustave d'Eichthal, Note, 12 Oct. 1868, Fonds d'Eichthal 14394, Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal.

76 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 11 Dec. 1829, CG, 1:211-12, 214. 77 Gustave d'Eichthal to Comte, 8 Dec. 1829, Revue occidentale 12 (1896): 372-73.


rior, especially his arch-rival Enfantin, who was "generally regarded at the Ecole Polytechnique by all his comrades as one of the most mediocre students."78 Hurt by "this torrent of insults," d'Eichthal secretly thought that Comte considered himself a "divinity" who was angry that the Saint-Simonians had committed the "crime of high treason" against him. The crime was that they "dared believe that there was something other than . . . [Comte] in the world."79

In the early 1830s, Comte and the Saint-Simonians closely sur- veyed each other's activities. More than ever convinced of the necessity of establishing the scientific foundations of social reorganization, Comte gave another course on positive philosophy at the Athenee from 1829 to 1830. Reflecting their lingering ambivalence toward his ideas, the Saint-Simonians encouraged d'Eichthal to follow the course because of its "scientific" value.80 In 1830, when Comte announced the publication of these lectures as the Cours de philosophie positive, approximately twenty Saint-Simonians and their sympathizers ordered it before it appeared.8' This attention worried Comte, who asserted in the foreword to the first volume that some people had stolen his ideas on social renovation.82

Paranoid that his concepts were being adopted by his enemies, Comte kept himself carefully informed about the Saint-Simonians' enterprises and procured many of their major works.83 In October 1831, he even attended one of the Saint-Simonian lectures at the Salle Taitbout, where he had a fierce altercation with a member of the audience.84 One of the disaffected Saint-Simonians sent Comte a book describing the scandal and schism that occurred among the Saint-Simonians in November 1831, after Enfantin called for the rehabilitation of the flesh

78 Comte to Gustave d'Eichthal, 11 Dec. 1829, CG, 1:213-14. 79 Gustave d'Eichthal to Comte, [8 Dec. 1829?], rough draft of a letter that was never sent,

Revue occidentale 12 (1896): 379. 80 Gustave d'Eichthal to Comte, 8 Dec. 1829, Revue occidentale 12 (1896): 371. 81 The Saint-Simonians and their sympathizers who bought various volumes of the Cours in-

clude Olinde Rodrigues, Buchez, Talabot, Ressegui&, Dugied, Dufresne, Lechevalier, Boulland, Lame, Mesnier, Jules Alisse, Adolphe Alisse, Simon, Mellet, Montgery, Zede, Bertrand, Lamori- ciere, and Veillard. See list of subscribers in packet on Rouen in MAC. See also Saint-Simon and Enfantin, Oeuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin, 2:11; 4:149; 8:127; 27:33, 48, 56.

82 Auguste Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols. (Paris, 1830-42), l:vi. The foreword is not in the Hermann edition.

83 Lellvyn to Comte, 3 Aug. 1830, MAC. Comte's library at the Maison d'Auguste Comte con- tains not only the 1830 edition of the Doctrines deSaint-Simon: Exposition. Premiere annie, 1829, but also several other key works published in 1832: Religion Saint-Simonienne. Morale. Reunion generale de la famille. Enseignements du PNre Supreme. Les Trois Familles (which includes the teachings of Enfantin); and the two volumes of Religion Saint-Simonienne and Receuil de predications.

84 Claudel to Comte, 19 July 1847, MAC.


and sexual equality.85 The government began proceedings against the Saint-Simonians for anarchy and swindling around this time.86

Already resentful about being connected with Saint-Simon, Comte now wanted to separate himself from the Saint-Simonians once and for all to save his credibility as a scientific thinker.87 This opportunity arose in January 1832. Armand Marrast, editor of one of the most out- spoken republican journals, La Tribune politique et litteraire, published an article criticizing Saint-Simonianism. He included Comte among Saint-Simon's enthusiastic and devoted "young collaborators," who worked together on the "materialistic" journal, Le Producteur, and he claimed that when "rival talents each claimed to have superiority" and schisms occurred, Comte was "the first to escape."88 The following day, Michel Chevalier, another graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and editor of the well-respected Le Globe, Journal de la Religion Saint- Simonienne, wrote an article ridiculing Marrast for failing to understand the Saint-Simonian conception of history. He repeated d'Eich- thal's argument that Comte had simply remained "behind" the group due to his "inability to follow the march of progress."89 In his response, which was published in Le Globe on 5 January, Marrast angrily explained that the concept of history developed by Enfantin, Bazard, and Comte was an incomprehensible "patchwork" because each man had a different way of formulating it.90

Comte then decided to join in the public debate, for he could no longer bear to be associated with a group whose intellectual capabilities he and others disdained and whose success he envied. They had stolen his disciples; attracted bigger, more devoted crowds to their courses; bought an important journal to disseminate their doctrine; and admitted seventy-eight members in the Saint-Simonian hierarchy in Paris alone.91 With great bitterness, he wrote letters to both Marrast and Che-

85 Jules Lechevalier, who had joined the Saint-Simonians and also subscribed to the Cours, sent Comte an autographed copy of his Lettres sur la division survenue dans I'Association Saint- Simonienne, which described the schism that occurred 19 Nov. 1831. See Comte's library at the Maison d'Auguste Comte.

86 Police reports sent to the President of the Conseil des ministres, 24 Aug., 26 Aug., 29 Aug., 2 Sept., 1831, AN,Fla 353-3613. On the schism and the government action against the Saint- Simonians, see Claire Goldberg Moses, French Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (Albany, 1984), 45-50.

87 An example of the enduring ill-effects of a Saint-Simonian reputation can be found in the defensive letter written by Michel Chevalier to Guizot, 17 Nov. 1850, Guizot Papers, AN, 42 AP 151, item 12. See also Comte to Valat, 21 May 1824, CG, 1:89.

88 Armand Marrast, "Le Saint-Simonisme," La Tribune politique et littraire, 2 Jan. 1832, 4. 89 Michel Chevalier, "France," Le Globe, Journal de la Religion Saint-Simonienne, 3 Jan.

1832, 3. 90 Marrast to Chevalier, Le Globe, 5 Jan. 1832, 18. 91 D'Allemagne, Les Saint-Simoniens, 106, 123; Vieillard to Comte, 1 Nov. 1832, MAC; Mellet

to Comte, 20 Nov. 1832, MAC; Gondinet to Comte, 14 Nov. 1832, MAC.

COMTE AND THE'SAINT-SIMONIANS 227

valier, which were published in their respective periodicals. He claimed that he had never belonged to the Saint-Simonian sect and that he had broken completely with Saint-Simon and his disciples because they had grown increasingly religious. This simplistic, not completely forth- right, explanation arose from his desire to stress that from the beginning of his career, he had considered religious ideas to be "the chief obstacles" to intellectual and social progress. He insisted, moreover, that although he had influenced their "philosophical and political education," the Saint-Simonians-the "supreme priests"-were the ones who had remained behind, especially because of their intellectual infer- iority and their refusal to devote themselves to the "long and difficult preliminary studies" of the sciences: "It is much simpler and quicker to give oneself over to vague utopias in which no scientific condition in- tervenes to halt the growth of an unchained imagination."92 Under their "pope-king" Enfantin, they had abdicated "their intellectual and moral individuality" and set up "the most complete despotism imagin- able."93 Sarcastically alluding to Enfantin, Comte added that writing "three or four sacramental epigraphs" and "some verbose homily" was certainly "a very attractive" way to become "a great man" and "a model of virtue" venerated by "a rather numerous circle." Comte jealously claimed to prefer the esteem "of a very small number of eminent minds" even if it meant that he had to live in "misery."94

Angered by Comte's "sarcasms," Chevalier published a caustic reply in Le Globe, reminding Comte that he was tied to the Saint- Simonians because they were all disciples of the same great thinker. Just as Comte had blamed the Saint-Simonians for stealing his positive ideas, Chevalier reproached Comte for appropriating the principles of Saint-Simon, the man who had "loved" him "like a son." In Chevalier's eyes, Comte's scientific capacities were twisted by "a dream of irreli- gion and pride." Comte could never appreciate the Saint-Simonian religion, for he loved no one but himself and was in turn loved by no one. As a consequence, he was unhappy, unjust, and paranoid: "Because he separates himself from everyone," Chevalier wrote, "he believes that everyone rejects him, that everyone is his enemy." Offending the people whom he had hoped to make his disciples, he thus remained ineffec- tual.95 Comte's reaction to Chevalier's strikingly accurate depiction of his psychological state is unknown.

92 Comte to Chevalier, 5 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:228-30. 93 Comte to Marrast, 7 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:232, 234. 94 Comte to Chevalier, 5 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:230. 95 Reponse de Chevalier, Le Globe, 13 Jan. 1832, 50. To shame Comte into glorifying Saint-

Simon, Chevalier appended a note from d'Eichthal, who declared that despite his new allegiance to


The Saint-Simonian society disintegrated several months after this debate. But I would argue that Comte's battle against the Saint- Simonians continued on another plane. In many parts of the six volumes of his Cours de philosophie positive (1830-42), which reviewed the principles of the natural sciences and sociology, he was actually en- gaged in a discourse with the Saint-Simonians, who remained un- named. In effect, he used them as a sounding board to show off the distinguishing features of his own scientific system, which he believed would provide the solid foundation for social reconstruction.

To differentiate himself, he repeatedly emphasized that before beginning the reconstruction of society, whose disorganization was due primarily to intellectual anarchy, one must have the proper scientific education, the prerequisite of intellectual rigor, logic, and discipline. He suggested that unlike the Saint-Simonians and others who had adopted discrete parts of his social philosophy, only he had the scientific background necessary to grasp the "fundamental principle and rational system of this new doctrine."96 Thus he alone held the solution to the philosophical dilemma of the day. Moreover, he claimed that if he had not systematized ideas before feelings, his own "philosophical growth . . . would have taken on a vague and mystical character, which would have been in the end dangerous, for it would have radically prolonged the present anarchy instead of resolving it."97 In a way, he wrote the Cours for two reasons, for his own edification and for that of others. He wanted others to have the same scientific education he had, for an intellectual consensus could not emerge unless everyone had the same indubitable ideas.98

Preoccupied with displaying his intellectual rigor, Comte condemned in the Cours the metaphysical school for its logical inconsis- tencies. His greatest scorn was aimed at the metaphysical sect that was illogically advocating progress at the same time that it sought to rees- tablish "the Egyptian or Hebraic theocracy founded on a true fetishism, vainly hidden under the name of pantheism."99 This was a veiled refer- ence to the Saint-Simonians, whose denial of the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers struck him as despotic. By condemning the Saint-Simonians on this point and emphasizing the importance of hav-

the Saint-Simonians, he still felt a strong "attachment" to his former master, Comte. Note from Gustave d'Eichthal, in ibid.

96 Cours, 2:9. 97 Comte to Clotilde de Vaux, 5 Aug. 1845, CG, 3:80. 98 Auguste Comte, Appel aux Conservateurs (Paris, 1855), 9-10. 99 Cours, 2:35.

COMTE AND THE' SAINT-SIMONIANS 229

ing the industrialists check the authority of the positive philosophers, Comte meant to deflect criticism of his own work for setting up an intellectual despotism.'00

Comte also criticized the Saint-Simonians' moral reforms, which he considered a threat to the social fabric. At one point, he said "de- mented sects," gifted with "their superb mediocrity," were trying to reor- ganize society by suppressing the two bases of family life-inheritance and marriage: "We have seen especially one ephemeral sect in its futile projects of regeneration, or rather universal domination, offer . . . the strange fundamental conciliation of the most licentious anarchy with the most degrading despotism." Again, Comte's disapproval of the Saint-Simonians and their leader could not have been clearer. More- over, he declared that he had "never" heard Saint-Simon "proclaim a single time" any of the "subversive" and "anti-social" maxims that were "brazenly attributed" to him "by tricksters he never knew." Their efforts to found a church certainly went beyond the "vague religiosity" exhibited by Saint-Simon in his declining years.'01 Thus Comte wreaked his vengeance on the Saint-Simonians by calling them traitors to Saint-Simon's thought.

Beginning in 1838, however, Comte began to absorb different aspects of the Saint-Simonians' philosophy. At this point, he had com- pleted his review of the natural sciences and was starting to write volume four of the Cours, which introduced sociology. For eight years he had devoted himself to the natural sciences, a subject he felt he knew well. Now he realized the time had come to create the new science of society, which would definitively establish his system and held the solution to the construction of the new order. The dimension of this task daunted him, particularly because he felt inadequate and unprepared. Since he had been a young man, he had considered the emotions the motor of existence; they had to be dominant to rouse the intellect from its natural lethargy and to give it direction. Now that he was about to write on human nature and society, he knew he would have to devote more attention to them. Yet he wondered whether his intense scientific studies had not prevented him from developing his own emotional life and an interest in the arts, which were responsible for stimulating the sympathies. When he had approached the subject of social physics in the course he was giving at home in 1829, he had suffered an attack of mental illness. Now in 1838, as he took up the same subject, he went through another "intense" and "prolonged" period of mental illness

100 Ibid., 657, 782. 101 Ibid., 51-52, 467, 744.


marked by alternating states of melancholy and excitation.'02 His para- noia led him to suspect that his wife was again having affairs. To get relief from his "unhappy domestic situation,''103 to improve his mental health, and to develop his feelings, which he believed were necessary to deepen his understanding of society, he experienced what he called an "aesthetic revolution."'104 He suddenly took an intense interest in the beaux-arts, especially poetry and music. He intended to use his new grasp of the arts to improve his description of the "aesthetic evolution of Humanity."'05 Although admittedly a "feeble equivalent" to familial affections, his aesthetic emotions, he hoped, would also further his intellectual development.'06

Just as the Saint-Simonians had criticized his disregard for aesthet- ics, Comte now accused scientists of not appreciating the arts. Al- though he did not yet go as far as the Saint-Simonians in making artists the supreme social guides, he did give them a crucial social role, that of developing the intellectual and moral life of the people. The artists provided a source of moral inspiration, encouraged social ties, and strengthened the reigning philosophical system. Comte now proudly proclaimed that positivism would regenerate the arts.'07

Exasperated by the attacks that the Saint-Simonians and journal- ists had made on his creativity, he also decided in 1838 to stop reading everything except great poetry in order to preserve his "originality."''08 He called this new intellectual regime "cerebral hygiene."'09 Here he seemed to be responding to the Saint-Simonians' accusation that he had neglected the importance of the inspired, creative genius.

In sum, perhaps the Saint-Simonians helped to stimulate not only his new appreciation of the arts but also his emphasis on an originality that came from within. These two themes were common in the age when the writer was assuming the role of the spiritual leader of society." 0 But Comte took no interest in the new literary movement, Romanti- cism. Never do the names Hugo, Balzac, or Stendhal appear in his books or letters. Comte isolated himself from society to such a degree that he became increasingly out of touch with contemporary develop-

102 Comte to Valat, 15 May 1838, CG, 1:291. 103 Comte to Clotilde de Vaux, 5 Aug. 1845, CG, 3:82. 104 Comte to Valat, 1 May 1842, CG, 2:9. See also Comte to Valat, 10 May 1840, CG, 1:336. 105 Comte to Clotilde de Vaux, 5 Aug. 1845, CG, 3:83. 106 Comte to Valat, 10 July 1840, CG, 1:344. 107 Cours, 2: 179-81, 279-82, 527, 536, 784; Comte to Valat, 10 July 1840, CG, 1:344. 108 Comte to Valat, 10 May 1840, CG, 1:336. 109 Cours, 2:479. 110 Paul Benichou, Le Sacre de l'crivain, 1750-1830: Essai sur l'avenement d'un pouvoir

spirituel laique dans la France moderne, 2d ed. (Paris, 1973; Paris, 1985), 17, 470.


ments. What he knew best were the doctrines of the Saint-Simonians. They acted as a conduit through which passed many of the leading trends of the times.

In the early 1840s, Comte became increasingly distrustful of the intellect as he grew more disillusioned with scientists, whom he felt to be unjustly neglectful of him. These misgivings were intensified when he was rejected by the Academy of Sciences and rebuffed by the professors at the Ecole Polytechnique, where he hoped to obtain a chair. He realized that he would never be accepted as a scientist by his colleagues. From these experiences, he saw more clearly than before that the study of the sciences led to specialization, narrowness, and egoism and that the intellect had to be guided by moral goals."' At one point, in one of the last volumes of the Cours, he wrote:

Universal love, such as Catholicism conceived it, is certainly far more important than the intellect itself in . . . our individual or social existence, because love spontaneously uses even the lowest mental faculties for the profit of everyone, whereas egoism distorts or para- lyzes the most eminent dispositions, which consequently are more often disturbing than efficacious in regard to true private or public happiness.'12

In proclaiming the supremacy of the Christian concept of love as the basic principle of social existence, Comte was reflecting his own Catho- lic upbringing in Montpellier, a bastion of the counterrevolution, as well as his admiration for Catholic conservative thinkers, such as Joseph de Maistre, who had condemned the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason. But he was also moving closer to the position of Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonians. They had criticized him for being overly concerned with rationality and sought to revive the original spirit of Chris- tianity as the most effective means of regenerating society.

Comte's interest in the emotions blossomed in the mid-1840s as he lost his position of admissions examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique, grew increasingly attached to John Stuart Mill, whom he considered his best friend, and fell in love for the first time with a woman seventeen years younger than he. The woman he loved, Clotilde de Vaux, is generally considered to have been responsible for his turn to religion. Yet in a way she was insignificant. Comte was searching for someone to love in order to experience the growth of his "affectionate sentiments," which he felt had hitherto been repressed."3 While trying unsuccessfully to

"I Systeme, 4:52. 112 Cours, 2:362. 113 Comte to Mill, 21 Oct. 1844, CG, 2:287.


win her love, he decided to devote his next work on sociology, the Sys- teme de olitique positive, to the "moral that is, emotional, aspect of "human regeneration." He explained to Mill that because he had already established "fundamental ideas," he now had to describe their 'social application," which would consist of "the systematization of human sentiments, the necessary consequence of [the systematization] of ideas, and the indispensable basis of [the systematization] of institutions.'""14 In a sense extrapolating from his own experience, he believed that the needs of society were not only intellectual but also emotional, and thus its spiritual reorganization had to involve the heart at least as much as the mind." 5 Even if a general doctrine were established, a solid social consensus could not exist without the growth of the sympathies.

Although Comte had claimed that he would "never" become in- volved in "the fabrication of a new religion, and especially a miserable parody of Catholicism," he followed the Saint-Simonians' example three years after Clotilde de Vaux suddenly died in 1846.116 Unable to recover from this blow, he declared himself, as Enfantin had done, the pope, or "Great Priest," of a new religion of love. He established this religion partly to honor Clotilde, for by making worship of her an in- tegral part of the ritual, he sought to give her a kind of secular immor- tality. But more important, this religion was a natural outgrowth of his interest in moral regeneration, an interest he had had since his earliest writings for Saint-Simon."17 In 1817, for example, he had proclaimed the need to organize "a system of terrestrial morality" that would replace Christianity."8 But as he grew older, he became frustrated with his own terminology; the word "system" struck him as too restrictive, too intellectual. The Revolution of 1848, which raised his hopes for an im- minent social transformation, made him particularly impatient to witness what he assumed would be the final, decisive clash between positivism and its main rival, Catholicism. In his opinion, a doctrinal contest would be more instrumental than political strife in ushering in a new society. Eager to encourage this last battle and driven by despair over Clotilde's death, which made him ponder more directly the spiritual side of human existence, he began to look upon his moral system as a religion, for like a religion, it celebrated the benefits of love. He called his system the "Religion of Humanity," a term he borrowed from the

114 Comte to Mill, 14 July 1845, CG, 3:61. 115 Comte to Clotilde de Vaux, 5 Aug. 1845, CG, 3:78-80. 116 Comte to Marrast, 7 Jan. 1832, CG, 1:233. 117 Systeme, 4:255. See also ibid., 4:43, 51, 256. 118 Comte, Prospectus annonfant le troisieme volume de "L'Industrie," in Ecrits de jeunesse,

40.


Saint-Simonians, who had invented it in the early 1830s."19 Defending his admittedly odd choice of words, he explained in 1849 that he had "dared to join . . . the name [religion] to the thing [positivism], in order to institute directly an open competition with all the other systems."'20

Comte outlined the characteristics of his new religion in the Systeme de politique positive, whose four volumes appeared between 1851 and 1854. Again, the direction that the Saint-Simonians had taken years before was clear in his mind. Like them, he invented not only rituals for baptism, marriage, and funerals but a special commemorative calendar of largely secular saints.'2' Echoing themes found in their writings, he declared that throughout the ages the human race had become increasingly religious, and he aspired to revive the concreteness, emotional spontaneity, and poetic aptitudes of the early stage of religious life, that of fetishism.'22 Yet in the end, his religion suffered from the same "vague and sterile philanthropy" he had accused the Saint-Simonian utopia of displaying.'23

Comte also resembled the Saint-Simonians in his new call for "the domestic emancipation of women and the personal liberation of workers," and he spoke in the same terms about the need to include these two groups in society.'24 As he became disillusioned with the workers, who remained resolutely revolutionary, he appealed more to women.'25 Like Enfantin, who had launched a campaign for a female Messiah to help the supreme priest, Comte referred to the "feminine genius" in terms of its function to aid the spiritual power.'26 He considered women the key to the regeneration of morality and society not only because of his experience with Clotilde but because of his campaign to make feeling the basis of social life.

The fatal antagonism . . . between the mind and the heart can be resolved only by the positive regime; no other is capable of subordi- nating in a dignified fashion, reason to sentiment. . . In its vain

119 Religion Saint-Simonienne. Receuil de predications, 2 vols. (Paris, 1832), 2:64. The former Saint-Simonian Pierre Leroux also used the term "religion of humanity" in De l'egalite in 1838. See D. G. Charlton, Secular Religions in France 1815-1870 (London, 1963), 83.

120 "Fourth Annual Confession;" 31 May 1849, CG, 5:22. 121 Auguste Comte, Calendrier Positiviste (Paris, 1849); Calendrier S.S. (Paris, 1833); Charl-

ton, Secular Religions, 72. 122 Comte, Appel aux conservateurs, 80; idem, Systeme, 4:43, 51. 123 Auguste Comte, Testament d'Auguste Comte avec les documents qui s'y rapportent: Pieces

justificatives, prieres quotidiennes, confessions annuelles, correspondance avec Mime de Vaux, 2d ed. (Paris, 1896), 106.

124 Systeme, 3:402. See also Moses, French Feminism, 45. 125 Systeme., 3:xii. 126 Cours, 2:300. See also ibid., 187.


present supremacy, the mind is ultimately our principal trouble mak- er. . . . Better judges than we in moral understanding, women will feel in several regards that the affective superiority of positivism . . . is even more pronounced than its speculative preeminence, which is henceforth incontestable. They will soon come to this con- clusion when they have stopped confusing the new philosophy with its scientific preamble.'27

Agents of morality and social unity, women were crucial for complet- ing the positive revolution and saving the increasingly fragmented West from complete dissolution.'28

Although Comte never supported their equality or their sexual liberation as Enfantin did, he celebrated the coming reign of women. Whereas he had previously declared that women were far from "the grand human type" -the male-he now declared the need to establish a "cult of Woman," making her into a kind of goddess.'29 As moral creatures endowed with the best trait of the human species, that of sociabil- ity, women should represent Humanity itself, that is, the Great Being. In the positivist temples, Humanity was to be always depicted as a woman accompanied by her son. This daring displacement of God the Father in the Positivist System is indicative of Comte's greater respect for the female sex and is perhaps yet another debt to the Saint-Simonians, who, despite their support for women's equality, also saw them as primarily sympathetic, emotional creatures.'30

In his effort to make feeling of paramount importance, Comte like- wise changed his ideas about art. Now he argued that because art's power of idealization encouraged the growth of feeling and social unity, it should have a higher place in society than science, whose work was primarily preparatory. He wrote, "Art corresponds better than science to our most intimate needs. It is both more sympathetic and more syn- thetic."'3' Hoping at the end of his life to become a poet, Comte even changed his view of the priest, who he said could be either a philoso-

127 Systeme, 1:224. 128 Auguste Comte, Catechisme positiviste, ou Sommaire exposition de la religion univer-

selle en treize entretiens systimatiques entre une femme et un pre.tre de l'humaniti (Paris, 1852; Paris, 1966), 43.

129 Comte to Mill, 5 Oct. 1843, CG, 2:199; Systeme, 1:304. 130 Systeme, 1:259; Catehisme positiviste, 173. Comte reinforced the Cult of Humanity by

urging people to set up private cults in honor of women they knew personally. Thus "woman" was to be worshipped first in private and then in public as the representative of Humanity. Moreover, he wanted women to become the main ministers, or priestesses, of the Religion of Humanity.

131 Systeme, 4:51.


pher or a poet.132 Once again, his ideas grew closer to those of the Saint- Simonians, who wanted their priests to be poets or artists.

As Gustave d'Eichthal later pointed out, Comte followed the Saint- Simonian movement because he realized that by themselves scholars under the influence of science were powerless to reconstruct society.133 It is evident that he became increasingly defensive about the "dryness" of his Cours de philosophie positive and eventually regretted having published it.13' Besides having alienated potential supporters, it was inadequate, according to Comte, because it had overemphasized "industrial and scientific growth" and its synthesis did not include the sentiments, the true source of unity.135 Toward the end of his life, he insisted that "the essential principle of modern anarchy" consisted of "raising reason against sentiment."l36 Relieved that religion had "freed" him from concerns about "scientific prestige," he concluded shortly before he died that "science . . . is as preliminary as theology and metaphys- ics and must be finally . . . eliminated by the universal religion."'137

In sum, Comte was disillusioned by his system's scientific foundation, which he had felt obliged to establish first to gain prestige and dis- tinction. He was especially eager after 1848 to gain greater popularity by bending to the "damned century" in which he lived.'38 His obsession with Clotilde de Vaux reinforced his concern for the moral side of social regeneration, a concern which appeared on the surface to have vanished in the stilted, primarily scientific prose of the Cours. In the process of clarifying his interests, Comte seemed to appropriate different aspects of the Saint-Simonians' discourse: their stress on the arts, innate creativity, the emotions, a religion of humanity, and women. Yet whereas the Saint-Simonians espoused a doctrine of sexual liberation and resur- rected deism, Comte sought to impose social unity through an austere moral system and a purely atheistic religion. His doctrine never sparked the imagination of his generation as that of the Saint-Simonians did.

In a way, the Saint-Simonians proved to be correct. Comte had remained "behind"; it would take him almost twenty years to realize the full importance of religion in the organization of society. He eventually

132 Ibid., 4:555; Testament d'Auguste Comte, 147. 133Gustave d'Eichthal, "Notes preparatoires," Carton IV , Fonds d'Eichthal, Bibliotheque

Thiers. 134 Comte toClotildedeVaux,290ct. 1845, CG, 3:168. SeealsoComte toAudiffrent, 29June

1857, CG, 8:507. 135 Comte, Systeme, 4:373. See also idem, Appel aux Conservateurs, 9. 136 Comte, Appel aux Conservateurs, 10. 137 Comte to Audiffrent, 12 Feb. 1857, CG, 8:400-401. 138 Comte to Valat, 30 March 1825, CG, 1:157.


followed the same trajectory as Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonians, first stressing industry and science and then religion. They all were reacting to the sense of anomie engendered by the French Revolution, which led to a widespread desire to create a social consensus by means of a general doctrine. But, in a way, Comte was out of step with the times. By the time he went through the exercise of writing the Cours and adopted a sentimental religion, the Revolution of 1848 was over and people were disillusioned by vague idealism and tired of romantic sen- timentalism, utopias, and moral pronouncements.'39 With the growth of realism, the scientific elements of Comte's system seemed more attractive than the religious ones. The irony was that just as he lost interest in the sciences and opened himself up to ridicule because of his outlandish religion, his famous disciple Emile Littre was making positivism the powerful scientific manifesto of a new generation of French republicans.'40 At the same time, former Saint-Simonians who had turned their back on their religion became important in the development of industrial capitalism in France. The story of the transmuta- tions of Saint-Simon's doctrine was not over.

139 Koenraad W. Swart, The Sense of Decadence in Nineteenth-Century France (The Hague, 1964), 102-4, 111-12, 117-18; Lewis Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context (New York, 1971), 39.

140 Curiously, the Religion of Humanity seemed to attract more attention abroad, notably in late nineteenth-century England and Brazil.

auguste comte and the saint-simonians

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