The _fons errorum_ in M. Comte's later speculations is this inordinate
demand for "unity" and "systematization." This is the reason why it does
not suffice to him that all should be ready, in case of need, to
postpone their personal interests and inclinations to the requirements
of the general good: he demands that each should regard as vicious any
care at all for his personal interests, except as a means to the good of
others--should be ashamed of it, should strive to cure himself of it,
because his existence is not "systematized," is not in "complete unity,"
as long as he cares for more than one thing. The strangest part of the
matter is, that this doctrine seems to M. Comte to be axiomatic. That
all perfection consists in unity, he apparently considers to be a maxim
which no sane man thinks of questioning. It never seems to enter into
his conceptions that any one could object _ab initio_, and ask, why this
universal systematizing, systematizing, systematizing? Why is it
necessary that all human life should point but to one object, and be
cultivated into a system of means to a single end? May it not be the
fact that mankind, who after all are made up of single human beings,
obtain a greater sum of happiness when each pursues his own, under the
rules and conditions required by the good of the rest, than when each
makes the good of the rest his only subject, and allows himself no
personal pleasures not indispensable to the preservation of his
faculties? The regimen of a blockaded town should be cheerfully
submitted to when high purposes require it, but is it the ideal
perfection of human existence? M.
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