From this extreme application of his principle M. Comte does not shrink.
A function of this sort, no doubt, may often be very usefully discharged
by individual members of the speculative class; but if entrusted to any
organized body, would involve nothing less than a spiritual despotism.
This however is what M. Comte really contemplated, though it would
practically nullify that peremptory separation of the spiritual from the
temporal power, which he justly deemed essential to a wholesome state of
society. Those whom an irresistible public opinion invested with the
right to dictate or control the acts of rulers, though without the means
of backing their advice by force, would have all the real power of the
temporal authorities, without their labours or their responsibilities.
M. Comte would probably have answered that the temporal rulers, having
the whole legal power in their hands, would certainly not pay to the
spiritual authority more than a very limited obedience: which amounts to
saying that the ideal form of society which he sets up, is only fit to
be an ideal because it cannot possibly be realized.
That education should be practically directed by the philosophic class,
when there is a philosophic class who have made good their claim to the
place in opinion hitherto filled by the clergy, would be natural and
indispensable.
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