Doctors, vaccination, and utilitarianism / by H. Strickland Constable.

  • Constable, H. Strickland (Henry Strickland), 1821-1909
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Doctors, vaccination, and utilitarianism / by H. Strickland Constable. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tlie mass of maiikiiid are to l>e treated like school- boys. Every action of their lives is to be regulated, even to the most minute particulars, by his priest- hood, who are to be composed of positive philosophers; who are to be surrounded with reverence, and who are o// to a<jrce togetho' upon all subjects. Their government is a sort of parody upon the Roman Catholic system. Elaborate services are to be held ; but instead of the sign of the cross people are to touch with their fore-finger the phrenological organs on their heads. Comte was a thorough Erenchman in his worship of systematization and classification. If a fact came in the way of his artificial system, so much the worse for the fact. Go it must. After the studies of his earlier life were over, he abstained on principle from all reading. He did this for the sake of mental health ; by way he says of “ hygii^ne cerdbrale.” He was afraid of his own ideas being impaired by admixture with those of other people. The result of this system of living on himself was a degree of self-conceit which Mr. Mill calls colossal. M. Comte’s system is one of parodies. He paro- dies Bacon, he parodies Christianity. Instead of the healthy moderation of Christian ])reccpts, “ to do unto others as you would have others do to you,” and to be temperate in the gratification of natural ini])ulses, M. Comte enjoins people never to give way to any natural impulse, as for instance, never to eat merely because they are hungry, but to do every- thing according to starched rules to be drawn uj) by himself or his sacerdotal orders of positive philoso-