James McLaverty

Comtean Fetishism in Silas Marner

THE CONTRAST AT THE HEART of Silas Marner, between Silas, who spontaneously adopts a child, and Godfrey Cass, who, though she is his own, rejects her, draws its fullest significance from Comtes theory of fetishism, the first stage in mans religious and social development. Silas, for all the deprivations of his life at the Stonepits, retains in perverted form the life of feeling which typifies fetishism, while Godfrey, a product of the corrupt life of the Red House, lacks it. In placing her characters in the small isolated village of Raveloe, George Eliot sets them firmly in a rural community which combines the different stages of human development so as to illustrate Comtes theory of human progress and confirm the special value he gives to fetishism. Fetishism was for Comte the very first stage in mans progress, and it fulfilled mans needs and contributed to his dignity in special ways: the period saw the settlement of land, the discovery of fire, the establishment of the family, and the institution of adoption; it was the stage of human history at which men were most dependent on their feelings, even relying on them for simple explanations when they were otherwise unable to understand the world around them. The achievements of fetishism were so important that Comte thought it vital to incorporate them into his own Religion of Humanity, which was to be the final stage of human development. David R. Carroll, in his important