Though one of
the most inconvenient of all small numbers, he insists on introducing it
everywhere.
These strange conceits are connected with a highly characteristic
example of M. Comte's frenzy for regulation. He cannot bear that
anything should be left unregulated: there ought to be no such thing as
hesitation; nothing should remain arbitrary, for _l'arbitraire_ is
always favourable to egoism. Submission to artificial prescriptions is
as indispensable as to natural laws, and he boasts that under the reign
of sentiment, human life may be made equally, and even more, regular
than the courses of the stars. But the great instrument of exact
regulation for the details of life is numbers: fixed numbers, therefore,
should be introduced into all our conduct. M. Comte's first application
of this system was to the correction of his own literary style.
Complaint had been made, not undeservedly, that in his first great work,
especially in the latter part of it, the sentences and paragraphs were
long, clumsy, and involved. To correct this fault, of which he was
aware, he imposed on himself the following rules. No sentence was to
exceed two lines of his manuscript, equivalent to five of print.
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