In the aftermath of the 1863 Uprising, many reflecting Poles argued that further attempts to regain independence from the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire by force of arms should be abandoned. In their polemics over the wisdom of resistance against the partitioning powers, published between 1868 and 1873 in Przegląd tygodniowy and Prawda, they – often reluctantly and only partly – discarded the stylistics of the earlier Polish Romantic period.
Polish "Positivism" drew its name from the philosophy of French philosopherAuguste Comte, while much of its ideology was inspired by the works of British scholars and scientists including Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill. The Polish Positivists advocated the exercise of reason before emotion. They believed that independence, if it was to be regained, must be won gradually, by "building from the foundations" and through organic work that would enable Polish society to function as a fully integrated "social organism".
A leading Polish philosopher of Positivism, the journalist, novelist, and short-story writerBolesław Prus, advised his compatriots that Poland's place in the world would be determined by Poland's contributions to the world's scientific, technological, economic, and cultural progress. Specific societal questions addressed by the Polish Positivists included the establishment of equal rights for all members of society, including peasants and women; the assimilation of Poland's Jewish minority; the elimination of illiteracy among ordinary citizens resulting from the closure of Polish schools by the occupying powers; and the defense of the Polish population in the German-ruled part of Poland against the German Kulturkampf and the German government's displacement of the Polish population. The Polish Positivists viewed work, rather than uprisings, as the true path to maintaining a Polish national identity and demonstrating a constructive patriotism. Aleksander Świętochowski held that "All the great problems in the of mankind can be solved by education alone, and this education must be compulsory."
