The abuse of
intellectual power is only to be dreaded, when society is divided
between a few highly cultivated intellects and an ignorant and stupid
multitude. But mental power is a thing which M. Comte does not want--or
wants infinitely less than he wants submission and obedience. Of all the
ingredients of human nature, he continually says, the intellect most
needs to be disciplined and reined-in. It is the most turbulent "le plus
perturbateur," of all the mental elements; more so than even the selfish
instincts. Throughout the whole modern transition, beginning with
ancient Greece (for M. Comte tells us that we have always been in a
state of revolutionary transition since then), the intellect has been in
a state of systematic insurrection against "le coeur." The
metaphysicians and literati (lettres), after helping to pull down the
old religion and social order, are rootedly hostile to the construction
of the new, and desiring only to prolong the existing scepticism and
intellectual anarchy, which secure to them a cheap social ascendancy,
without the labour of earning it by solid scientific preparation. The
scientific class, from whom better might have been expected, are, if
possible, worse.
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