CONVERSATION VIII - The Human Order, first Social, then Moral

Summary

The Woman.—Before we enter on the highest province of science, I should, my father, submit to you a general difficulty, the outcome of the metaphysical objections I have often heard urged against this capital extension of the Positive doctrine. Any subjection of social and moral phenomena to invariable laws, similar to those of life and matter, is now represented, by certain reasoners, as incompatible with the liberty of man. Though these objections have always seemed to me purely sophistical, I never knew how to break their force with the minds, still too numerous, which let them thus act as a check on their instinctive tendency towards Positivism.

The Priest.—It is easy, my daughter, to overcome this preliminary difficulty, by a direct definition of true liberty.

Far from being in any way incompatible with the order of things, it consists throughout in obeying without hindrance the laws applicable to the case under consideration. When a body falls, it shows its liberty by moving, according to its nature, towards the centre of the earth, with a velocity proportionate to the time, unless the interference of a fluid modify its natural action. So, in the vital order, every vegetative or animal function is said to be free, if it is performed according to the laws applicable to it, without any hindrance from within or from without.