Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte: A New Science for Order and Progress

Frenchman Auguste Comte paved the way for a new science of society. He was a philosopher, mathematician and much more. Comte lived during the aftermath of the French revolution, which marked a tumultuous turning point in the history of Europe. He  preferred order over revolutions and was deeply concerned about some negative consequences of modernization, brought about by science and industrialization. Therefore, he assigned himself the monumental task of investigating the nature and causes of the demise of antiquated social structures and craved to find ways that could lead to a peaceful reconstruction and revitalization of society.[1] He wanted to realize both objectives in one stroke: marrying order and progress. In his day and age very few thought that this might be doable.   

In Comte’s view, modernizing societies urgently need a new science that could produce valid theories about social change, its causes and foreseeable consequences; a social science that could help politicians to channel social progress in such a way that order could be maintained or, if necessary, be restored. For this new science he coined the word sociology. Comte had an optimistic view on social engineering, planning and progress and a strong belief in the methods of natural science, its assumptions, methods, and functions. Late in his career Auguste Comte presented a short outline of his plan to establish a secular religion that would fill the moral gap that emerged after many people had left the Catholic Church.

1.1  Forebodes of a new science

We can find prototypical forms of sociology in the classical texts of great historical cultures. The writings of Plato and Aristotle acknowledge that every society, however loosely organized, depends on a system of norms to bind its members and regulate their behavior. Obedience to these norms must be achieved by a variety of means, by customs, religion or law. Long ago Plato and Aristotle implicitly used the following equation:

        NORMS + ORGANIZATION = SOCIETY[2]

These two great Greek philosophers argued that this equation only is valid if culture and organizational structure are adjusted to each other. Only then would a fully organized city-state be viable. Only then it could serve its allotted ends. In their view, the goal of any society was to be a good society, a society that offered the good life to its citizens. Social philosophy deals with questions about the chief characteristics of a good society, how it functions and to which degree it approximates the ideal of the good society, or, if society deviates too much from the ideal state, what could be done to remedy this situation? This mix of empirical and normative questions still plays a prominent role in modern sociology. Plato’s theory of society contains an empirical description and a theoretical explanation of the structure of society, but first and fore all he engaged in demonstrating the imperfection of existing forms of government and setting up an ideal and just society. He wanted to design a simple blue print for utopia. Constantly Plato showed that there was much need for improvement. He was always in search for a lost Paradise. His devastating criticism sprang from a passionate zeal for the welfare of man, and his conviction that it was possible to bring about a far better state of affairs. In Plato’s view, society was not static but a conscious and continuous endeavor to achieve the good life, a process in which all members should participate for the common good and their mutual well-being. This ideal could be approached with the help of reason. Reason, human’s most highly rated faculty, was continually at war with two other important faculties: spirit and appetite. In the good life reason harmoniously coexists with feelings and desire.[3]

For Aristotle, humans are social beings, and society is a natural development of humans’ social impulses. Nature produces nothing in vain: and man alone is furnished with the faculty of language. Nowadays this claim is being disputed. The mere making of specific sounds to indicate pleasure, fear and pain is a faculty that belongs to many species. But so far no animal, not even a primate, has written a poem, a novel or an academic text.

For Aristotle, the social whole is prior to the part, that is, the individual. Isolated individuals cannot survive. Without society man is less than an animal: “Man, when perfected, is the best of animals; but if he be isolated from law and justice he is the worst of all.” [4] His whole progress in life is only possible within, and is determined by, his participation in a society of like-minded people. The modern idea of socialization – the process by which humans learn their roles in society, learn how to live with others and how to conform to the norms of society – are implicit in Aristotle’s theory.

Besides a set of norms societies also need a structure. For Aristotle it was quite in keeping with what he viewed as the natural order of things that society should be organized hierarchically, for the simple reason that not all human beings are gifted with the same intellect. Hence, societies have to be led by enlightened people at the top. They must be followed by others who are less favored with a capacity for sound reasoning and decision making. Aristotle and Plato living in a society in which slavery was wide spread. In their view by nature slaves are inferior to all others. Therefore, it makes sense that they are subordinated. Though we can observe stratified societies everywhere, no modern sociologist will support these opinions on the ‘natural’ and unchangeable position of slaves or any other class or caste in society. However critical Plato and Aristotle might have been of their society, they manifested a strong bias towards slavery that only can be explained by their intensive socialization in a particular society and an era that fully accepted these naturalistic views about slavery.

Aristotle was fascinated by the ideas of natural growth and development. He took a great interest in the growing process of anything – plants, animals, children. He pictured growth in terms of a latent potentiality that can be realized. Such realization can be viewed as the fulfillment of one’s nature. We must do what we can to achieve this state of fulfillment. That is the natural way of life. The good society is a society that offers the required conditions for everyone to reach this state of self-realization.

Aristotle gave one of the first sketches of a three-tiered society. He distinguished between the very rich, the middle class, and the very poor. Similar rough divisions between high, middle and lower class still are used in sociological theory and research. In contrast to sociologists with a strong Marxist inclination, Aristotle had a high esteem for the social role of the middle classes. He asserted that their members are the most ready to listen to reason and the less inclined to violence and serious crime. For Aristotle, it is a further merit of middle class people that they suffer least from ambition. In contrast, most people nurtured in luxury never acquire a habit of discipline. On the other extreme, most people who are born and raised in poverty will grow mean and poor-spirited. At best they can be taught or trained to obey leaders. Aristotle did not think well of states that only consisted of slaves and masters. In his view it is impossible to build a sustainable society on envy, hate, and contempt. To build a good society one needs friendship and co-operation. A stable and good society aims at being a society of equals and peers, who can be friends and associates; and the middle class, more than other classes, has this sort of composition. In general, the middle classes enjoy greater safety. They do not plot against others, or against themselves. Hence, they live in freedom from danger. Where the middle class outnumbers the rich and the poor there is the least likelihood of conflict among the citizens.[5]

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE led to an almost complete rupture with previous thought. Intellectual life in Europe became disorganized and fragmented. Then, Christendom took over. In Europe, during one and a half millennium, Christian dogma prevailed over critical philosophy and independent scientific thinking. Dogma decreed that the existing state of affairs, with its huge differences in power and wealth, was created by the almighty God. It took much time, courage and effort to amend this dogmatic view. However, once this process gathered momentum it could not be reversed.

It does not sound politically correct, but it is historically correct to speak of forefathers, because only men have played a prominent role in the birth and early stages of sociology. Besides this historical gender bias, there is another bias and that is the near absence of a non-western influence. Exception should be made for Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 CE). In the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun formulated an original and brilliant theory of change, in which he connected a broad series of causal factors. He witnessed the fall of North African society. In the past the Maghreb had known great power and influence but had lost it all. Ibn Khaldun undertook to explain the reasons for this decline. In his view, the Arabs had defeated the settled populations of North Africa thanks to their great solidarity. Kinship and tribal ties, reinforced by a rigid and fanatical religious faith. This had formed a vigorous power that could conquer military forces that greatly outnumbered them. The victory was eased by the fact that the Maghreb dynasties had degenerated as a consequence of their sudden economic advance and their great appetite for refinement and luxury. Ibn Khaldun was convinced that history follows a cyclical process, in which nations grow stronger and stronger until they reach a peak. Then they will fall back and be taken over by other nations. In ancient times great centers of learning such as Baghdad, Basra and Kufa had been ruined, and Khorasan in Persia and Cairo in Egypt had emerged.

Many westerners had travelled to the East, in search for new insights, believing that the minds of the people from Egypt, Iraq, and Persia were innately quicker and sharper. They showed higher skills in science, art, and crafts. Ibn Khaldun rejected the idea of an essential difference in the nature of people, except for people living in extremely remote zones. He argued that cultural differences are not innate but products of society. He attributed higher levels of thought and skills to a difference in education, training and experience. Ibn Khaldun noticed that townsmen held similar prejudices. Since they had perfected certain skills, observed certain civilized codes and customs that were unknown to rural nomads, they thought that urban people were born brighter than them. But the observed difference only is a thin veneer brought about by a difference in culture and lifestyle.[6] 

1.2  The embryonic stage of French sociology

Johan Heilbron discerns three phases in the preparatory stage of sociology in France.[7] The first phase runs from 1730 until 1775. Then philosophers like Montesquieu and Rousseau developed brand new secular social theories. In medieval times, societies were seen as homogeneous religious or political units. Montesquieu and Rousseau shifted the focus from unitary concepts such as church and community, to terms and issues that underlined differentiation and multiplicity like cooperation and co-existence.

The Spirit of the Law, is the most famous work of Baron La Brède, widely known as Charles de Montesquieu. He presented the brilliant idea that each state should be governed by three independent forms of power: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial authority. In democracies elected deputies or parliamentarians are making laws. The government or council of ministers has to implement and execute these new laws. Thirdly, to make sure that these laws are being followed and respected, the judicial authority, consisting of the police, independent judges, controls and punishes people that break these laws.

Montesquieu’s path breaking view on political theory had an indelible impact on political practice in many parts of the world, in particular in all states that opted for a democratic approach. Anywhere where politicians, in particular political leaders, interfere with the judicial system, the fabric of the democracy is put at risk. Regression to authoritarianism and despotism might occur overnight. In the first quarter of the 21^st century a growing number of scholars and politicians argue that precisely this demolition process is at work in some European and American democracies. President Trump, premier Orbán and premier Erdogan do not shy away from disrespecting the nation’s constitution or treating High Court judges with contempt. A growing number of renowned scholars have highlighted this process and underlined their fears in books and articles. In 2019, Harvard professors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky published a New York Times Bestseller with the alarming title: “How Democracies Die.” Fortunately this books also tells us what we can and have to do to save them.[8] Many other analysts have expressed their fears about similar patterns that might break down democracies.

Clearly, The Spirit of the Laws contains insights that still are highly relevant for anthropology, sociology and political science. Montesquieu taught that each society must follow its own ‘natural laws of development.’ The knowledge of such laws could and should help lawmakers and statesmen. Only if they know the nature and pace of institutional changes, can they wisely issue new policies. Therefore, he argued that new political laws should match the ‘spirit of the nation,’ otherwise they will fall on barren ground or encounter fierce resistance. If new laws do not fit the prevailing culture, do not fit the prevailing norms and values, it will be very difficult to implement and control them. Policymakers that ignore this insight will soon experience the validity of this basic insight from this great precursor of sociology. Precisely those antidemocratic, but  democratically chosen political leaders and a host of wannabe leaders and their advisers claim that their attack on the constitution, or on High Court judges is legitimate because these actions are in sync with the will of “the people” and the spirit of the times.

Montesquieu’s main theory was a theory about the development of states and nations. This involved a broad historical, psychological, and institutional analysis of their nature. Clearly, Montesquieu was a courageous precursor of sociology, for he frankly discussed the nature of religion, and its social and psychological functions.[9]

Presumably Jean-Jacques Rousseau, another great precursor of sociology, introduced the word social. He spoke of a social contract and a civil society. No longer was the term society restricted to elite groups or ‘high society.’ Rousseau recognized the great importance of the social environment for all human beings. However, he had a negative opinion of society. In his view, neither God nor human nature was to blame for the evil forces that seemed to prevail, in particular the evil of social inequality.[10] He thought that the social forces that sprang from human needs had become so powerful that they now fully determined the lives of individuals. Established societies left hardly any room for personal choices that deviated too much from socially prescribed laws and regulations. Rousseau was born and raised in Switzerland. He always remained an outsider in French society. Somehow he sublimated his feelings of being and outsider into a convincing image of autonomous social forces; forces that put a lot of constraints on individual behavior. Rousseau had severe doubts about the tenets of The Enlightenment. He did not share the idea that expansion of education, cultural refinement, etiquette, and the love of art would lead to moral progress. In his view, there was no close link between good taste, literacy, or intelligence. He also rejected the idea of a natural or god-given hierarchical relationship between kings and commoners, between bishops and simple churchgoing people. He did not accept the idea that the people willfully had handed over their power to the prince in exchange for security and protection. In his view, the social contract should be an agreement between all members of society for the common wealth of society. Society should be a union of equals.[11]  

Following Heilbron, the second preparatory stage started in 1775. In this period, social relations were no longer viewed as objects for purely rational ideas but as objects for empirical study. From then on, scientists attempted to support their social theories with the help of objective research. This important intellectual shift emerged after Louis XVI seized power. Mathematician Jean-Antoine de Condorcet positioned the idea of progress in the center of all thought about man and society. This idea signified a far-reaching breakthrough in thinking. With his idea of progress, he killed the assumption that the world and mankind were created for an orderly and unchangeable worldly existence and a divine and eternal afterlife. Condorcet had sketched his ideas about the progress of humankind from the first simple hordes to the more advanced stage that led to the French Revolution. In the years following the French Revolution, he became responsible for public education and used this position to put some of his ideas into practice. He viewed education as the most important vehicle for the advancement of civilizations. Modern education should prepare new generations for the next stage in history. The expansion modern education should help to eliminate or at least mitigate inequalities between social classes and nations, and also help to perfect human nature: physically, intellectually and morally.

The demise of Napoleon, in 1814, marked the start of the third embryonic phase of sociology. There was a further expansion of social theories and theoretical approaches. And the first specialists appeared and the idea emerged that history could be regarded as an on-going process in which change was a normal phenomenon. It simply was a matter of social transformation. Now scholars began to see history as a creative process in which civilization was a cumulative and advancing phenomenon.

In the third preparatory phase, the number of social theories expanded further. Sociology became established as an independent science, thanks to the impressive work of Auguste Comte.[12] It is a matter of opinion whether we see Comte as the last great scholar of the pre-sociological era, or as the first great master and founder of sociology. He created the word sociology by combining societas (Latin) with logos (Greek), but that creative deed is not the main reason for starting a book about the icons of sociology with Auguste Comte. There are far better reasons. For Ronald Fletcher the true reason is that:

“No one has more succinctly laid bare the many-sided nature of the dilemmas that are still alive in our experience, and still form the substance of our problems. No one has given a clearer historical account of the changing nature of European institutions …; no one has given a clearer intellectual appraisal of the many earlier strands and tendencies of European thought; all of which were culminating in the shaking of the foundation of the old order of society, and the coming into being of the new; and all of which remain highly relevant to our situation today. No one has given, within this context, a clearer picture of the nature and scope of the new science of sociology, and the significance of its place in the attempt to create a new polity appropriate to the conditions and tendencies of science and industrialization. And no one has formulated all this in so clear a plan of thought, feeling and action.”[13]

Ronald Fletcher, a great admirer of the work of Comte, has set it as his task to restore the caricature that many sociologists tend to make of the latter and his positivism. Admittedly, Comte has proposed extremes, held positions, and possessed idiosyncrasies, which were and remain open to serious criticism. Undeniably, he has written thick treatises that have put off many potential readers. But large and complex themes tend to require large and intricate exercises of the mind. However, in Comte’s case everything is plain. There is no obscurity in them. To look at his first major essay – the Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganizing Society, published in 1822 – is to see as clear a statement as can be found of his central vision that has been basic in the foundation and development of sociology. In the majority of the books we can watch and behold the birth of a new science, the actual start of sociology.[14]

Comte studied and elaborated the magisterial work of earlier thinkers in an ingenious and original way. His awesome knowledge of history, philosophy and physics surprised everyone. The extent and clarity of his grasp and critical appraisal of the work of Aristotle, Kant, Montesquieu, Condorcet, Hume, Adam Smith was astounding. His analytical and creative talents enabled Comte to produce the first systematic approach to the study of society. In his Course of Positive Philosophy he meticulously rendered a dazzling perspective on society’s shift from belief to proof, from intuition to reason, in other words, its gradual accommodation to science – as the dominant basis of our knowledge, – and to industrialization – as the new organization of techniques by which modern men attempt to increase human welfare; a perspective in which old social systems were falling apart and new systems were gradually emerging.

Comte’s work is pathbreaking, basic and seminal. His sketches contain a great many of those seeds of insights, which later thinkers were to develop as the central ideas of their work. For example, the emphasis upon the change from the strong social bonds of traditional community to a modern ‘contractual’ society, was already there. Comte emphasized the ‘dialectical’ nature of social change, the significance of ‘private property’ and ‘class relations’ and the importance of the practical, productive activities of men ‘working for the explication of historical change. Later, these insights became basic elements of Karl Marx’ historical materialism. Similarly, the emphasis of Protestantism for the understanding of the growth of industrial capitalism – later developed by Max Weber – was present in his work. The same is true for the strong emphasis upon the distinctive level of ‘social facts’ and its implications for sociological theory and method. Emile Durkheim would develop these insights further.

1.3  A biographical impression

Isodore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte was born on the 20^th of January 1798. He died 5 September 1857. Auguste Come was raised in a pious Catholic family. His father was a conscientious civil servant with a modest income. A few decades earlier, such an income was not enough to pay the costs for secondary and higher education. Fortunately for Auguste, who showed a great aptitude for learning, the revolutionary and Napoleonic régimes had increased educational opportunities for large swathes of people.

It was less fortunate that Auguste had a very difficult character. He did not get on well with his siblings, kept a distance from his mother, was on bad terms with his father, turned most friends into foes, divorced his first wife, and lost his second and last love two years after he first met her. His life was troubled by periods of grave mental illness and ended in a mess. He attempted to kill himself twice, but did this in such a halfhearted way that he could be saved. Yet, despite his great emotional difficulties he was able to accomplish great things. At the Lyceum of Montpellier Auguste proved to be an outstanding pupil. He finished secondary education at the age of fifteen, but stayed one extra year to replace his math teacher. He was admitted to the École Polytechnique in Paris, then the Mecca of the Natural Sciences. This prestigious school radiated a strong belief in the unlimited possibilities of science and technology. Alas, Comte could not stand the military style of the school. He had great trouble in showing respect for authorities that tended to rely on power instead of their knowledge and leadership. He was expelled and returned to Montpellier to do some serious study at the medical faculty for a while.[15]

From 1817 till 1824, Comte was assistant and secretary of Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, better known as Count of Saint-Simon, a remarkable nobleman, revolutionary philosopher and man of action. Saint-Simon was a social theorist, a social reformer and a founder of French socialism.[16] After six cooperative years Comte concluded that he could not learn more from Saint-Simon. He began to suspect that the latter attempted to steal his ideas. Close reading of their publications shows that indeed Comte’s work was much more substantial than Saint-Simon’s.[17] Yet, there is no doubt that Comte has been greatly influenced by Saint-Simon. In the beginning he was fascinated by the extreme energy of this aristocrat and eagerly absorbed all his shrewd ideas. He admired his huge ambitions, his staggering plans and projects, and his indestructible belief in himself. On the other hand, he thought that Saint-Simon was too hasty in putting ideas into practice. Saint-Simon found that Comte was taking far too much time looking for secure foundations.[18]

Alone again, Comte started to give private lessons in mathematics. For years this was his main source of income. For a while he functioned as a coach and admissions examiner of the École Polytechnique, but never got appointed as lecturer or professor. Often he was broke and friends had to help him financially.      

In 1825, Comte married Caroline Massin, a poor prostitute without any family. He was convinced that other women were out of his league, as he lacked a stable social position. Besides, he was rather short, squinted and suffered from an inferiority complex. Once he wrote: “I was alone, and wasn’t endowed with anything that could please women.”[19] The couple did not solemnize their marriage in church. This displeased his pious parents. Later, when he was in a deep mental crisis, his mother forced him to have his marriage confirmed for the Catholic Church. Only by giving in to this wish was he allowed to leave the psychiatric institute.[20]

His wife, Caroline Massin, was an intelligent woman. She showed a great interest in his academic work and often attended his lectures. His inability to earn a decent income repeatedly forced her to return to her trade. The marriage went through some difficult periods. Caroline left him in 1842, just after he finished his Cours de la Philosophie Positive, a series of six books, to which he had devoted 12 years of his life.

In April 1845, he met Clotilde de Vaux and quickly fell in love with her. This impoverished gentlewoman of thirty did not live with her husband. Was he imprisoned or had he deserted her? Clotilde demanded that their affective relationship should remain strictly platonic. Comte sublimated his erotic desires into a quasi-religious worship of women, placing them on a high pedestal, though he denied women equality and freedom.[21] Very often Clotilde was ill. She died in April 1846. Comte only enjoyed her company and love for one year. He would visit her grave every Sunday for the rest of his life. For him, this one year with Clotilde de Vaux was the ‘year without a parallel’. In this one year, Madame de Vaux managed to shift his focus from the rational to the emotional aspects of human existence. In his System of Positive Politics, he sketched how a positive religion of humanity could function as the binding force or moral cement of society. [22] To distance himself from his former rationalistic period, he crowned himself as ‘High Priest of Humanity’ and ‘Founder of the Universal Religion’. In his view, the era of Enlightenment had come to an end. No longer, was there a need for modern prophets of rationality and individual liberty. Now was the time for a secular religion of mankind. Comte even believed that it would not take long before he would replace the pope and preach his self-made religion from the pulpit of the Notre Dame.[23]

The academic career of Comte was an outright drama. It never came off the ground, despite the high quality of his books, essays, and lectures. In the beginning, his treatises were studied by members of the Académie Française. These renowned scholars admired his Cours de Philosophie Positive. As a private lecturer he organized courses to present his ideas to a learned audience. Famous physical scientists such as Ampère, Gay-Lussac, Fourier, and Laplace attended his lectures. Unfortunately, a nervous breakdown forced him to abort these activities. It took a long time before he was cured. By then his chances of an academic career had evaporated. Besides, a few influential professors disliked him and obstructed his plans. Partly, Comte himself was to blame for this course of events. Often he managed to spite his admirers, colleagues, and friends. For a while, Comte also enjoyed a close intellectual relationship with John Stuart Mill. They exchanged letters, discussing each other’s work, almost on a monthly basis for five years.[24] A close friendship grew between the two. Alas, opposing views led to the termination of their correspondence. Near the end of his life Comte lost the last morsels of academic esteem. Colleagues started to doubt his mental health after he declared that he had stopped reading the work of other scientists for reasons of ‘cerebral hygiene’. His audience dwindled and deteriorated. His remaining students were admiring followers who did not dare to probe him with intelligent questions. Depraved from stimulating encounters with intellectual peers, he lost his grip on reality. He scolded all intellectuals who failed to acknowledge his wisdom. Instead he praised the natural aptitude of simple workers who frequented his lectures.[25] This might sound rather negative, but we should credit Comte for his great ability to explain complex matters to a lay audience and for all the years he taught common people for free on Sunday afternoons. He transformed his concern about the plight of the poor in practical actions, strongly believing that education would be of great help to these people.

Comte loved debates about academic issues, but was relentless in his attacks when someone did not share his view on social reality and the task of sociology. In his view, industrial society was facing such a tremendous crisis that finding a valid sociological explanation of its causes ought to have the highest priority with all social scientists. To him, the constitution of a new positive science of society had become a matter of life and death. Nothing could be more urgent. His character and motivation left him no other option than to fight all opponents. Thus he lost most of his friends and destroyed his chances of an academic career.

During the last years of his life, Auguste Comte retreated to his study, devoting all his energy to his writings. His health was deteriorating. He had weakened his body by periods of fasting to show solidarity with the hungry poor. He died 5 September 1857 and was buried in the famous Paris churchyard Père Lachaise. An impressive statue of Auguste Comte can be admired at the Place de la Sorbonne. The statue does show him with Clotilde de Vaux on one side and a manual laborer on the other.

1.4  Under the wings of Saint-Simon

Bruce Mazlish connects the creation of sociology with the breakdown of the connection between Man and God, Man and Nature, and Man and Society. These crucial ruptures had been observed in the 17^th and 18^th century, but only dimly. These divorces became much clearer in the 19^th century. Then, everyone could witness the problematic passage from tradition to modernity. While conservatives lamented loudly about the loss of romanticized rural communities, modern liberals and socialists put their hope on social progress, wishing to mitigate the most vicious features of industrialization and capitalism. Revolutionaries wanted to go even further and planned to reconstruct society anew. Conservatives and innovators viewed developments with different eyes. Where conservatives saw functional social bonds, innovators saw chains. Breaking these constraints would open the sluices for individual freedom and independence. Progressive social theorists believed that they had opened our eyes for new forms of connections and revealed webs of new affinities and social attractions between people.[26]

Count Saint-Simon clearly was a modernist and innovator. He had revealed himself as an ardent admirer of the French Revolution and even renounced his title. Saint-Simon was well aware of the state of anarchy that was caused by the French revolution, but was convinced that philosophers and scientists would solve the problems of a rapidly modernizing society.[27] Saint-Simon has published some of his revolutionary ideas in a famous parable about French society. Herein he boldly asserted that if France would lose three thousand of its best scholars and artisans overnight, it would turn into a body without a soul. But, should thirty thousand members of the existing social elite, such as generals, cardinals and bishops, noblemen and landlords suddenly disappear, then this would not cause the country any harm. On the contrary, then the elite could no longer steal from the burghers and no longer enrich themselves through levies and taxes. No longer could the big scale thieves punish the petty thieves. No longer these immoral and non-productive elite could treat hardworking citizens as inferior people, and urge them to behave morally.[28]

To Citizen Saint-Simon all was very clear. As a consequence of the inventions and discoveries of the natural sciences the whole system of production was changing fundamentally. The structure of the old social system had become obsolete. Modernization had up-ended everything. It had revealed that the unskilled and good-for nothing elite scandalously profited from the skilled and hardworking people. It was even worse: the useless class ruled over the useful. A new revolution was inevitable, a revolution that would erase all the privileges of the feudalistic elite. In the new society all people would be equal.

Saint-Simon believed that a social system merely is a system of ideas put into practice. Hence, new ideas will lead to a new type of society. New scientific theories will change religions and political systems. Saint-Simon and Comte both acknowledged that the development of science and technology were the prime movers of social transformation. They acknowledged that natural scientists had generated a systematic growth of knowledge and had solved many technical problems, but noticed that these eminent researchers did nothing to prevent society from running into great trouble. Therefore, society needed a new type of science, a kind of ‘social physics’, to guard it against new crises and to lead it into a better organized and just society.

For Saint-Simon, progress is the most compelling fact of life. He was convinced that the mechanism of progressive development rules our lives. Industrialization had increased the interdependency of all people. This was a result of the division of labour into segmented tasks. Therefore, he hoped that people, though occupying different social positions, would see that they had similar interests. He remained a hierarchical thinker, who transposed the aristocratic hierarchy into a meritocracy. In his view, people who worked harder and achieved more deserved more prestige and income. Like Montesquieu, he also viewed compulsory education as an important condition for a fair meritocratic society.

1.5  Belief in planning, progress and the unity of mankind

Raymond Aron discerned three phases in the theoretical thinking of Auguste Comte. The first stage, from 1820 to 1826, is that of his early Opuscules. These “little works” contained a short treatise on modern history and a plan for a drastic reorganization of society. During the second stage, Comte wrote the many lectures for his Course on Positive Philosophy. The third stage concerns his workon the System of Positive Policy.[29]

At first, Comte’s was inspired by the great issues of a rapidly modernizing, diversifying and destabilized society. Medieval society was united by the Christian faith as preached by the Catholic Church until the Protestants created a major schism by rejecting some of each other’s interpretations of the words of Christ. Modernization went even further. Now scientific theories confronted all theological dogma. And industrialists, in the all-inclusive sense of businessmen, managers and bankers, were gaining prominence over idle noblemen and professional warriors. In no way the old and dying world could be reconciled with the new-born world. The world was in crisis as a result of the demise of the old social structures and the rise of entirely new ones. The only solution would be a victory of positive scientists and innovative industrialists. For Comte, the main function of sociology is to understand these inevitable historical evolutions, to support and to accelerate them. History has to follow its course, but it could do so in a less cumbersome way, if only historical processes would be better understood and its progress better planned. So, the most urgent thing was to sketch a clear plan. There was no time to waste.

Comte realized that this involved an awesome amount of intellectual work. The best way to begin this huge project was to start with a systematic, critical reappraisal of earlier social theories and to rework this in a new synthesis. Second, social science must develop a theory of the nature and historical development of the human mind. For starters, Comte presented as his Law of Three Stages. Then, on this basis, he attempted to formulate an entire system of knowledge embracing all the sciences. Eventually, this third step culminated in the exposition of his model of the Hierarchy of Sciences. Fourth, he had to formulate and analyze the nature, scope, and essential elements of sociology. Fifth, on this basis, he had to venture on a detailed comparative and historical study of the development of major social institutions. All this formed the groundwork for a detailed outline of a new social system that would match the demands of the new era, an epoch in which science and industry would prevail over religion and military power. For Comte, this challenging project had to include a theory of a secular religion; a theory that could function as an important body of beliefs and rituals establishing the necessary social bonds to maintain this new society. This newly designed social system should offer a new institutional order for linking the feeling, thought and action of citizens within the new social conditions.[30] Even in his day and age hardly any ambitious and talented young man would think about such an audacious scheme, let alone seriously start it and produce the outcomes in a series of impressive books.

Like Saint Simon, Comte asserted that the basic condition of social reform is intellectual reform. It is not by the accidents of a revolution or by violence that a society in crisis will be reorganized, but through a synthesis of the sciences and by the creation of positive politics. In the Cours de Philosophie Positive he presented a first overview of the social laws that could explain the diversity of social phenomena as well as the route of the evolution of societies. He embraced Condorcet’s suggestion of progress governed by the advancement of the human mind and Bossuet’s theological idea that mankind is a unity on the road to a single goal. Though Comte did not allow theological explanations within the realm of social science, he admired Bossuet’s idea. It was eminently suited to indicate

“… a general goal which our intelligence must never cease to set itself, a final result of all our historical analysis, I mean the rational co-ordination of the fundamental sequence of the various events of human history according to a single design …”[31]

This quotation shows that Comte was concerned with the sequence of historical events according to a single design. He sought to reduce the infinite variety of human societies and was eager to find proof for the unity of mankind. So, according to Raymond Aron, Comte, the man who is regarded as the founder of positive science, can also be described as the last disciple of theological thinking.[32]

In the third and last phase of his intellectual odyssey, he worked on his Système de Politique Positive. In this period, he lost his academic audience, stopped writing in an academic style, and became less precise in his formulations.[33] Nonetheless, he stayed loyal to his way of thinking. He presented a philosophical foundation for his idea that mankind is a unity. Through the whole history of mankind all people share a vast number of invariable characteristics. This seems to imply that all societies are constructed on the same basis. Therefore, we should not delude ourselves by the superficial appearance of a huge variety of social forms between traditional and modern societies. It must be possible to deduct how historical evolution develops and to use this law of social evolution to support its course. In Comte’s view, it is one of the main tasks of sociology to discover the route of historical development. However, sociology can only have a limited impact, because history will unfold itself along the lines that were predetermined from the beginning. Hence he speaks of a fatalisme modifié, a modified fatalism. Since each successive stage in the evolution of mankind necessarily grows out of the preceding one, the construction of the new system cannot take place before the destruction of the old; not before the potentialities of the old order have been exhausted. The passage from one social system to another can never be continuous, smooth and direct.

“There is always a transitional state of anarchy, which lasts for some generations at least, … The best political progress that can be made during such a period is in gradually demolishing the former system, the foundation of which had been sapped before. While this inevitable process is going on, the elements of the new system are taking form as political institutions, and the reorganization is stimulated by the experience of the evils of anarchy. There is another reason why the constitution of the new system cannot take place before the destruction of the old: without that destruction no adequate conception could be formed of what must be done. Short as is our life, and feeble as is our reason, we cannot emancipate ourselves from the influence of our environment. Even the wildest dreamers reflect in their dreams the contemporary social state: and much more impossible is it to form a conception of a true political system, radically different from that amidst we live. The highest order of minds cannot discern the characteristics of the coming period till they are close upon it, and before that the incrustations of the old system will have been pretty much broken away, and the popular mind will have been used to the spectacle of its demolition.”[34]

This lengthy quotation reveals that Comte was the first of the great sociologists who acknowledged the strong influence of one’s culture, in particular the prevailing ideas, norms and values on individual minds. These collective ideas dominated the perception of problems as well as the discovery of possible solutions. Later sociologists like Emile Durkheim, Ludwig Fleck, Thomas Kuhn and Mary Douglas would further this idea or function of a ‘collective spirit’, a collective conscience or a collective thought style. This quotation also reveals a dialectical mode in Comte’s thinking. An outmoded social system has to degenerate first in order to trigger the necessary ideas, energy and motivation required for striving toward an antithetical new system. 

1.6  Social dynamics

In contrast to the eternal repetition of events in the animal kingdom, the succession of human generations offers a fascinating spectacle of changes. An endless chain of causes and effects ties our contemporary situation with all the worlds that have preceded ours. All elements of human knowledge form a communal treasure that each generation hands over to the next. Moreover, in the course of time new knowledge has been added which replaced knowledge that had turned out to be flawed or completely false. Henceforth, the evolution of mankind could only go forward.

1.6.1 The progress of humanity

Until the 19^th century, the process of social evolution went on in slow motion, but the growth of science and the expansion of education helped to speed it up. Thus, Comte believed that in the foreseeable future the last remains of superstition and clerical domination would be erased; all men would become free citizens, thinking and acting more rationally than ever before. He ardently promoted his idea of the historical connection between all generations and the idea of social progress based on an accumulation of knowledge and new insights. His point of departure was the law of social evolution that determined the actions of individuals as well as that of mankind as a whole. He discerned three important and invariants aspects or universals of human nature that determine our lives:

• Feelings – impulses and emotions which prompt us to activity;
• Thought – which is undertaken in the service of our feelings, but also helps to govern them;
• Actions – which are undertaken in the service of our feelings and in the light of our reflections

Our first impulse is always based on a feeling, motive or emotion. In the next phase, a phase that is often skipped, we start to think about these feelings, the events that gave rise to them and the directions in which they tend to push them. This moment of reflection can result in a redirection of the first reaction. In the third stage, people carry out their actions. According to Comte, thoughts and actions must harmonize with our feelings. For the existence and continuity of society (broadly defined as a system of shared and regulated behavior amongst a group of individuals) there must be some system of institutions, knowledge, values, and beliefs which connects the feelings, thoughts, and activities of its members. Comte rejected the view that progress could only sprout from an ever-growing subordination of emotions by reason.[35]

1.6.2      The Law of the three stages   

In 1725, Italian philosopher and historian Giambattista Vico presented the view that intellectual evolution takes place in three stages. At first, only the power and creativity of God or plurality of Gods are accepted as effective causes; feelings dominate the mind and the model of society is theocratic. Next, explanations are based on heroic actions of people; special people who hold on to highly respected values, such as courage, loyalty, and perseverance. In the third phase, social phenomena are being explained by actions of normal people and common sense. In this phase, theocracies are transformed into monarchies and republics. Political freedom is enlarged. For Vico, each subsequent step implies a higher level of thinking, a fuller consciousness of reality and one’s role and place in that reality. Human intelligence matured, showing a better understanding of nature and the supernatural. Supposedly, Vico was the first to present a model of historical progress in which later periods could profit from the achievements of earlier periods and elaborate them further.[36]

Comte’s model of historical stages closely resembles Vico’s model. Comte discerns the theological or fictive stage, the metaphysical or abstract stage, and, thirdly, the positive or scientific stage.

Scheme 1.1 Stages of explanatory thought

= = = = =

For Comte, intellectual evolution lies in the primary tendency of all human beings to transfer the sense of their own nature into an explanation of all phenomena whatsoever. In the childhood years of mankind, the only way that people could explain phenomena is by comparing them to human or animalistic acts – the only ones whose production they could partly understand. They believed they could explain the intimate nature of phenomena in likening them, as much as possible, to the acts of human will, through a primary tendency to regard all beings as living a life analogous to their own. This is also true for the multitude of all the divine spirits or gods invented all over the world: analogous to humans, but thought to be far more creative and powerful than humans. For many millennia, this anthropomorphic way of theorizing has been extremely influential. All the time, people believed that God or the Gods held extreme powers over them. Mankind had to fight a long, hard and uphill-battle to emancipate itself from this kind of reasoning.[38]

Fortunately, the roots for developing alternative ideas lay within theological thinking itself. In the past, religious groups had instituted a special class of people that had to devote a significant part of their time, if not all, for interpreting tragic aspects of reality such as human suffering, death and natural disasters; by adducing the acts or feelings of supernatural beings as possible causes. Here we find the start of a caste of Priests and High Priests that could free itself from practical daily chores to engage in theoretical issues. The establishment of this new caste of intellectual professionals was a major step in the development of human societies. It may have formed the principal model for the establishment of other new classes, castes or guilds. For Comte, who, like Saint-Simon, was convinced that all progress is directed by intellectual development, the constitution of this new class of sacred people was as important for mankind as the invention of the wheel. Also he thought that there could not be another way for establishing this division of labour except through the divide between theory and practice. There had to be very good reasons for discharging people from hours of tiresome physical labour. The only acceptable reason was involvement in sacred activities, activities that were esteemed to be of far greater value than the mere gathering of food. This elite could enjoy the leisure time indispensable to intellectual activity. They felt compelled to develop rituals and highly speculative activities supposed to keep people healthy and to bless hunting expeditions and harvests.[39] The emergence of a class of shamans and priests led to a steady refinement of thinking. Though many of these religious leaders used their great intellect to find ingenuous rationalizations for all kind of dogmas that were hard to defend, a small group developed a highly rational and more convincing approach to problem solving, because from the beginning of mankind they had to convince all sensible people that used their common sense to question some of their doctrines and explanations. As a consequence, it was unavoidable that some of these shamans, priests and monks eventually became truly scientific thinkers.

In the beginning of the theological stage the forces or actions of an anthropomorphic God or other supernatural beings are used to explain all phenomena. This was the only kind of reasoning that made sense at this stage, in which people knew about themselves, their own feelings and drives; this was the only kind of reasoning that made sense. People believed in absolute knowledge, presented by ‘animated’ objects. Everyone thought that all objects in nature are endowed with a form of life that is very similar with their own existence. To the ‘savage’ the world in general is animate. Trees are no exception to the rule. For instance, the Wanika in Eastern Africa fancy that every cocoanut tree has a soul, houses a spirit. To them, the destruction of a cocoanut tree is the equivalent of matricide, because these trees give life and nourishment, such as a mother does her child. When the clove-trees are in blossom on the Moluccan isles they are treated like pregnant women. No noise must be made near them; no fire must be carried past them at night. These precautions are observed lest the tree should drop its fruit too soon, like a woman that loses her child prematurely. Sometimes, it is believed that the souls of their ancestors animate the trees.[40] I have dwelled a bit at this example of tree worship, to remind us that all these phases are still not entirely dead. Even in modern societies, some people talk to trees and believe that they are communicating with them. Undoubtedly, we live in an age dominated by economy, science, and technology; yet many people still indulge in unscientific views, reject scientifically tested vaccines, are convinced in outrageous complot theories, et cetera. For some, it is a kind of revolt against the domination of the hard sciences; for others, it offers refuge from the hectic pace of modern society, a refuge in which they can indulge in pseudo explanations for phenomena that cannot be explained yet or never will.

Let us return to Comte’s model. In the second sub-phase (polytheism) people start to believe in various kinds of supernatural forces. People imagine numerous gods and spirits that are specialized to act in specific domains: sea gods, forest gods, river gods, rain gods, fertility gods, et cetera. This led to an infinite proliferation of specialized gods and spirits that might come to represent conflicting interests. The accumulated experience of thousands of generations not only stimulates our imagination but also the further development of our common sense. Reason then starts to bridle our fantasies, including our wildest ideas about the power of specific gods or the possible conflicts between different gods. So, a few thousand years ago, in the Middle East, the huge number of specialized gods and spirits started to shrink until a point was reached in which only one almighty God was accepted and viewed as the one and only God that created the whole universe out of nothing. From then on, every remarkable event was attributed to the will of that one and only God.[41] Comte thought that once the reflective tendencies leading to monotheism have taken place, they cannot be held in check. They lead to the second stage of thought: the Metaphysical Stage. To him, this was only a transitional period.

In the metaphysical stage supernatural forces are still used to explain events, but they are criticized too. More and more, explanatory forces like gods and spirits are replaced by personified abstractions. Men now pursue meaning for and explanations of the world in terms of ‘essences’, ‘the force of life’, ‘the nature of things’, ‘ideals’, and ‘forms’: in short, in conceptions of some ‘ultimate reality’. Neither the theological nor the abstract, metaphysical ways of explanation, their ways of relating feeling, thought, and action, are adequate. Intellectually, they are found to be wanting. They never resolve problems. They fail when brought to the test of practical experience. As human society becomes more complicated because of industrialization and urbanization, theological and metaphysical systems of thought become increasingly inadequate. Comte mentioned as an example of metaphysical thinking that opium supposedly causes sleep because of its ‘sleepy virtue or essence.’ Metaphysical concepts cannot provide reliable knowledge about physical, medical, technical, economic or political problems. Hence, they are overcome or will eventually be superseded by positive science.[42] Whereas imagination strongly prevailed during the theological and the metaphysical state, the real strength of the Positive stage lay in methodical observation. This powerful tool was going to kill all imaginative explanations that did not stand the test.

At the end of this section it is appropriate to say a little bit more about Comte’s dynamic model of intellectual, historical or social change. Crucial is his tenet that major changes in our thinking and in the social and political structure of society cannot happen overnight. For most individuals the shock would be too big or even impossible to cope with. The same is true for societies as a whole, or for social groups who have been accustomed to traditional ways that have existed for decades or even hundreds or thousands of years. To ensure a gradual and peaceful shift from one mode to a completely different one we always need a transitory period or intermediate model to pave the way for necessary new ideas or practices. Common sense or more systematic critical analysis must have revealed some weak spots in the old system and produced new ideas that could constitute a valuable alternative. In the first stage of corrosion even the new ideas still resemble much of the old ideas, but they create a basis for further comments, critiques and the invention of alternatives. It takes time for new ideas to gain support and to become a counterforce that would be strong enough to overcome the weakened forces of the past. Here, we see his model for analyzing historical change, be it great shifts in worldviews or great transformations in social structures. A convincing theory has to find evidence of processes that lead the process of corroding and weakening the old philosophy, regime, or practice and also provide evidence as to how new emerging ideas and joint efforts by groups of people have produced a significant change.

1.7  Comte: Staunch advocate of positive science

The creation of Social Science demands that Observation should preponderate over Imagination.

Within social science Comte was the first great champion of positive science or positivism. All truly scientific explanations are based upon facts that can be observed by our senses. Phenomena that cannot be observed objectively fall outside the realm of science. This view on science was not original. It was introduced and put into practice by famous scholars such as Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo. Comte regarded them as the founders of the positive method of science.[1] Positivists shun theological and metaphysical problems. Not because they are meaningless, but because they cannot be tested. As empirical scientists, positivists are not at all interested in a search for first or final causes, or in metaphysical questions about the meaning of life, or the essence of things. If one wishes to ponder on these types of questions, then by all means one should do so, but according to positive scientists these kinds of questions do not belong to science and will not be very helpful in solving practical problems or lead us to a new and better world.

        The basic assumption of positivists is that all observable facts are submitted to fixed laws. It is the goal of science to discover those laws and to reduce them to a minimal number of basic laws. These laws are nothing more than statements about the way in which facts, that is data of observed phenomena, are related to each other. Comte was convinced that there must be laws concerning the static and dynamic aspects of social existence. The first type concerns the coexistence of phenomena, things that exist simultaneously. The second type concerns the phenomena that constantly appear after each other. Comte searched for the first type of laws when he starts to study static social phenomena and the second type for dynamic social phenomena.

Comte’s fundamental doctrine of positive science consists of the following principles:

• We have no knowledge of anything but observable phenomena.
• Our knowledge of phenomena is relative, not absolute.
• We do not know the essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact but only its relations to other facts in the way of succession or similitude.
• These relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same circumstances.
• The constant resemblances which link phenomena, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are termed their laws.

These laws are all we can discover. Their supposedly essential nature and ultimate causes is inscrutable to us.[43]

1.7.1 The methods of positive science

Positive science aims at the discovery of general laws that fit our observations. In particular, it intends to create a prevision with which we can make concrete predictions, as already is the case in the natural sciences. Comte expected that, in the long run, also sociology would reach this level of positive science. He deemed the following four procedures necessary to arrive at valid and reliable social knowledge:

• observation
• experimentation
• comparison
• historical analysis.

Firstly, the scientific attitude is radically distinguished from the theological and metaphysical approach. Positive science restricts itself to discovering observable facts and perfecting the theoretical connection between observed facts. Despite this restriction it offers the most secure advancement of and human knowledge. Comte underlines that observations are only useful if they are done within the framework of a specific theory. Social facts become meaningful if they are related to other facts, at least within a provisional theory or hypothesis. Without the guidance of a preparatory theory, the observer would not know what facts to look for. No social fact can have any scientific meaning until it is connected with some other social fact by a preliminary theory.

Secondly, theories should always be tested with the help of experiments, in the sense of controlled observations, that is, observations under controlled circumstances. Although a direct, unadulterated and carefully premeditated laboratorial experiment often is impossible or unethical in social sciences, we can still study pseudo-experiments. These kinds of experiments occur when the normal course of affairs is disturbed by unexpected events such as accidents, natural catastrophes such as floods, outbursts of volcanoes, or periods of extreme cold that cut off people from the rest of society. Hence, pathological social situations offer great opportunities for scientists to test their theories. Like diseases in plants offer great research opportunities for biologists.

Thirdly, the comparative method has the advantage of offering a powerful antidote against absolutism and unwarranted generalizations. Scrutinizing many social phenomena in different contexts can open our eyes to distinctions, but also to general laws of human civilization. Comparisons of human groups or societies with collectivities of animals can give us precious clues for understanding the first beginnings of social relations. Naturally, comparisons within the human species are more central to sociology. Though Comte was convinced that the human race as a whole has progressed in a single and uniform manner, various populations have attained extremely unequal degrees of development and we still don’t why. Comparative research of “modern” and “primitive” societies might produce some answers.

The historical method is a special case of the comparative method. The only difference is that it compares existing societies with their past. The historical comparison is an essential device of sociology. Observation, experimentation and comparison are methods that are used in all positive sciences, but the historical comparison of societies is a new tool that is dearly needed in sociology. According to Comte, sociology is nothing if it is not informed by a sense of historical evolution.[44] Whether Comte himself was a meticulous applicant of historical comparisons is a matter of opinion. Fletcher admires him for his clear historical account of the changing nature of European institutions, whereas others have accused him of merely giving illustrative facts randomly picked from history.[45]

1.7.2 Why positive science is positive

According to Auguste Comte, there are many good reasons for using the epithet positive. In the first place the word indicates that positive science occupies itself with facts and not with fantasy. It occupies itself with everything that can be observed, with everything that can be understood with the help of sound reasoning or common sense. Positive science also refers to scientific work or problem solving that aims at being useful to mankind, and not wastes time with meaningless issues. In the third place Comte contends that positive sciences aim at improvement of our living conditions, an improvement that leads to positive developments for social groups or social wholes as well as for individuals. And fourth, the term positive points to the goal of science to produce precision in its statements and predictions in contrast to the vague statements of people in other fields such as in politics or in the theological or metaphysical stage of philosophy. Comte adds even a fifth reason by simply presenting positive science as the opposite of negative science. If positive scientists have been criticizing, falsifying and destructing old insights and convictions they only did so for the sake of clearing the way for more valid and more useful theories. Moreover, positive science aspires to approach and solve scientific problems without prejudice and to rid itself from the cultural biases as much as it can. And as far as positive science needs to be critical because it must criticize views and theories that no longer are tenable, it will do this with the help of sound arguments and respect and not by ridiculing, making caustic remarks and showing contempt.

1.7.3 Critique and counter critique

Comte has been criticized for his sweeping claims on behalf of positive science. Careful examination of his work shows that his claims were rather modest. His positivistic approach does not exclude the role of intuition, feelings and imagination. All scientists have to use their creativity and imagination to produce new concepts, models, hypotheses and theories. They play an important role in the progress of science, but will be set aside as soon as they do not stand rigorous testing. All theories are subordinated to the positive methods of observation and testing. For Comte, science is a type of ‘industry’ that needs intuition, imagination and other forms of creativity to form or improve hypotheses about the way phenomena are connected. He was perfectly clear about the role played by hypotheses:

If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them; for the most part we could not even perceive them.

So, all that Popper has said about ‘conjectures and refutations’ and the ‘hypothetical-deductive method’; all that Parsons has said about ‘theory before empirical investigation’, was stated with perfect clarity by Comte, a hundred years earlier.[46] 

Another point of critique regards his view on predictions. Did Comte conceive ‘prediction’ as a matter of predicting future states of society? Did he wish sociology to possess a kind of historical clairvoyance? No, he clearly acknowledged that such a thing is impossible. Societies are far too complex and sociological knowledge is light years away from completion. His notion of ‘prevision’ or ‘prediction’ was in every way the same as that of contemporary science.

Prevision is a necessary consequence of the discovery of constant relations between phenomena … Thus the true positive spirit consists above all in seeing for the sake of foreseeing; in studying what is, in order to ‘infer what will be, in accordance with the general dogma that natural laws are invariable.[47]

He only meant to say that if you would have a valid theory about the relation between two social phenomena then you could predict what will happen to the second phenomenon if the first one changes, and other phenomena don’t interfere. Such knowledge would offer you an instrument to change the course of affairs of these particular phenomena. But Comte has never intended to predict inevitable historical trends for whole societies.[48] Such a tall order would require knowledge of hundreds of variables, most of them interfering with each other. Although he was a staunch advocate of positivism, Comte also was very keen in emphasizing its limits, restrictions, and pitfalls. It is simply impossible to know the future of mankind. The future will be shaped by knowledge we have not yet discovered and by innovations that this new knowledge will engender, or by other spontaneous changes that might take place. Therefore, we can never be sure that certain insights we now believe to be true might be based on false observations or based on invalid conclusions. On the other hand, we can prepare ourselves somewhat better against all kinds of risks and dangers, thanks to the growth and accumulation of positive knowledge, including the improvement of methods of research.[49]

Frequently positivism is associated with a form of research that is completely focused on statistical analysis. Therefore, it is good to mention that Comte and Saint Simon both had an aversion of statistics and statisticians. The latter often spoke of sad counters and calculators.[50] According to Comte, who always had excelled in mathematics, unduly applied statistics might even endanger social science. Its scientific aura could prevent wrong conclusions from being exposed. Precisely his aversion for statistics urged him to invent an alternative name for this new social science. He renounced the name ‘social physics’ proposed by the Belgian statistician Quetelet. Therefore, in 1838, Comte proposed to call the new science sociology.

Comte was the first to warn us against the danger of the degeneration of positive science into a frenzied collection of facts with no other merit than being more precise. Like all positive sciences sociology faces two great dangers. It zigzags between empiricism and mysticism, between an unstoppable, but unimaginative hotchpotch of exact and concrete facts and an intangible mist of vague concepts and highly abstract theories. But true science does not solely rest on pure observations, how important they might be in themselves.

        Facts in themselves, how exact and how numerous, merely form the basic material for the creation of science.[51]

Within some strands of present-day sociology ‘positivism’ is viewed as a superficial and outmoded approach, as a naive and uncritical application of the methods of the so-called hard sciences like physics, a science that studies material objects. Since sociology has to deal with subjective meanings of humans, it appears to need a more profound, more penetrating and more ‘interpretative’ understanding of social action. With this type of critique whole generations have constructed a superfluous dichotomy between the positivistic approach and their own. But Comte never entertained any simple notion of ‘natural science’ that could be applied without qualification to the study of man and society. His positivistic sociology never rested upon any such conception. It was never deterministic and never postulated causal necessity. It was never confined to ‘phenomena’ in any narrow sense; never excluded ‘action’ or the ‘interpretation of action’ from the distinctive level of social facts. In Comte’s own words: positive science

“… is exclusively occupied in discovering laws, that is to say, the constant relations of similitude and succession which subsist between facts.”[52]

These scientific ‘laws’ are only statements of constant concomitance or regularities of connection among physical or social facts. No metaphysic of causality or determinism underlies them.

Positivistic prediction is no more than the clear statement of a law, and what could be expected to follow from it by way of deductions and inferred connections in particular cases under specified conditions. Prediction is the crucial test of knowing. Knowing the regular connections between particular facts means knowing what will happen in specified cases. But arrangements of social facts are modifiable by our actions as soon as we know the ‘law like’ connections between them. To see is to be able to foresee. To see is to be able to prevent or to modify in the light of this foresight, but, even so, in all cases the extent to which we could modify people’s actions depends upon the reliability of our knowledge of their inter-connections.[53]  

The claims of positivism are very modest. They stem from a clear recognition of the limitations of science. But, curiously, it was just this which gave them reliability and usefulness. It proved science to become the most useful source of knowledge just because it discarded insupportable pretensions and deliberately limited its scope. It claimed no certainty; offered no final solutions of ‘ultimate’ questions. Yet, the revealed connections constituted the primary basis for effective actions and social improvement. The laws discovered and tested by positive science provide a clear and effective basis for foresight and deliberate action: a basis for practical and social use.[54]

Comte did not reduce all the qualitative detail and distinctions of human experience to the kinds of phenomena studied by the natural sciences. There are distinctive differences of ‘level’ between the facts studied by biology and sociology. Biology can explain much about the nature of man as a species, and as a living organism, and even about some basic, elementary characteristics of human grouping. But, from a certain point, it becomes clear that language, institutions, cultural traditions, etc. are facts of a different quality: the outcome of the associational activities of men within shared collective conditions, and involving the different processes of historical continuity, accumulation, change, cultural transmission, social development and evolution. Therefore, Comte concludes that:

“… considerations of primary importance demonstrate the absolute necessity of separating the study of collective phenomena of the human race from that of individual phenomena; while establishing, nonetheless, the natural relations that exist between these great sections of physiology.[55]

Social facts are different. Their nature is cumulative, cultural and historical. Therefore, their investigation requires an autonomous science that uses distinctive methods to reveal the interconnections between these facts. Yet, sociology must remain in close touch with biologically given starting points. 

1.8  Industrial society

Comte studied the emergence and early development of industrial societies. He noticed the great impact of two crucial forces: science and industrialization. He saw the paradox between their promise and their threat: the promise that they can liberate all men from  age-old tyrannies of poverty and power, but also the threat that they may dehumanize them. Other early masters of sociology, such as Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and others have explored and highlighted different aspects of modernization. They all witnessed a remarkable transformation of social structures and social institutions. They all sought to understand these changes, their causes and the conflicts that emerged in their wake. They sought to understand them in order to be able to remedy the problems that these changes brought about. And all have been concerned with issues and principles of social justice.

Raymond Aron distinguishes the following six characteristics of industrial society:

• Industry constitutes a scientific organization of labour. Instead of proceeding according to custom, modern production is organized to create the largest output at the lowest costs.
• The application of science to the organization of labour results in a tremendous growth of production and wealth.
• Industrial production requires a concentration of many workers in factories. It pulls masses of workers to industrial areas, thinning out of the countryside.
• These concentrations bring about an antagonism between workers and employers, between proletariat and capitalists.
• In general, the growth of production creates more wealth for industrialists. However, there is also an increased risk of overproduction, which can create shocking poverty in the midst of abundance.
• The economy of industrial societies is characterized by free enterprise and continuous profit seeking by the management. Some theorists conclude that the increase of wealth is larger the lesser the state interferes with economic affairs.[56]

The first three points are characteristic for Comte’s approach. After people discovered effective techniques for the preservation of food during longer periods they could accumulate more material goods and capital than they needed. Surpluses increase

“… with each generation both of the family and the state, especially when the fundamental institution of Money allows us to exchange at will the less durable productions for such as descend to our posterity.”[57]

Collective material wealth tends to grow, when each generation hands over more wealth than it has received from its predecessors. For Comte, the formation of a material surplus, an absolute precondition for the accumulation of property and capital, forms the material basis of social development. Equally or even more important was its social transmission. This forms the basis for real civilization. This enhances our capacity to live with a greater number of people in concentrated areas. The production, preservation, and sensible distribution of material goods and capital require and enable some kind of collective concentration and social organization. Without a good organization of exchange, transport and distribution surpluses of food will lose their value and rot before they are consumed. Hence, Comte concluded that techniques of transmission have a greater influence on the progress of any civilization than direct production.[58]

For socialists, the most striking features of industrialization are mentioned under point 4 and 5: the antagonism between workers or proletarians and entrepreneurs, and the manifold crises that lead to the scandal of poverty in the midst of extravagant richness. They are a living proof of the anarchy of the capitalist system. Marx has based his major theories on these two points. The liberals have put their entire hope on point six. For them, the free market is the most important condition for the wealth of nations.

Comte reproached the economists for dissecting the economy from the rest of society. Furthermore, he was convinced that they attached too much value to the positive influence of the free market on the growth of wealth. He was not opposed to the concentration of the means of production. This process is intertwined with industrialization. He did not agree with those who think that such a concentration demands nationalization. He did not think the choice between private property and state ownership that important. At the end of the day, it always is a small number of persons that determine economic and social policy. Since each society needs economic and financial leadership, he thought it far better if experienced people with special knowledge of financial and economic affairs take the lead. In Comte’s view, capitalists and captains of industry should put their entrepreneurial talents, capital and means of production at the service of society as a whole, and not use it all for their own whims. They should conceive their function as a social function. Opinions like these came very close to the views that dominate the ideology of Social Catholicism.

To Comte, economic crises are not inherent of industrial capitalism, as Marx would have it, but are pathologies that can be healed. If industrial relations run off the rails, it is because society is not well organized yet. Contrary to Marx, Comte did not believe that there is an essential contradiction between the workers and the entrepreneurs. He acknowledged that there have been fierce conflicts between both classes about the redistribution of wealth, but economic growth would be in everybody’s interest. Industrial society obeys only one law, the law to create economic growth and material wealth. Whereas the liberals thought that this law was based on the principles of the free market, Comte thought that organizational engineers (polytechniciens organisateurs), created wealth by inventing evermore efficient ways of production that save costs of raw material and labour. He was very optimistic and thought that the scientific organization of society, eventually but inevitably, would put everyone in the right place and the right profession. This would also create social justice.[59] The interests of workers and businessmen would converge when industrialization develops further. Then workers would develop into politically active citizens. The inhumane conditions of labour would drive them to political demands for the betterment of their situation. They would be the first to realize that their plight could not be explained by the will of God, by their limited talents or by their immoral character. Such explanations could find support from employers, because they were focused only on making profits and not on the well being of their employees. Comte contended that, eventually, the workers would arrive at positive insights, for their minds were not clogged by the petty worries and preoccupations of the bourgeoisie, nor were their minds being spoiled by the stupidities of traditional formal education.[60]

1.9  Organic society

Comte saw a strong affinity between sociology and biology.. He was convinced of the applicability of the organic model for sociological theory:

        “If we take the best ascertained points in Biology, we may decompose structure anatomically into elements, tissues, and organs. We have the same things in the Social Organism, and may even use the same names.”[61]

In Comte’s view, not individuals but families are the basic elements or cells of the Social Organism. Classes or Castes are its proper tissue, and Cities and Communes are its real organs.[62] In that way he developed a model of society that reflected the morphology of biological organisms. The affinity between biology and sociology led Comte to divide sociology into static sociology, or morphology, and dynamical sociology that studies social growth and development. A full-grown sociology should engage itself with the static morphology as well as the dynamic phenomena. Static structures and dynamic processes supplement each other. Social dynamics studies social development. Social developments can move slowly, or lead to superficial changes only, whereas other social dynamics produce big changes in social structures.  

In the theological and metaphysical phases of social philosophy order and change were depicted as fierce opponents that could never sing in harmony. Theologians defended order as a creation of God and social change and upheavals as the work of the devil. Comte argued, based on his observations of growth in biological organisms, that change and progress can be combined with order and stability.

The first doctrine of static sociology is that society is an organic whole, a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. This is an intriguing statement. How can anything be more than the sum total of its parts? Let us take some common examples such as a rifle, a car or a washing machine. Soldiers have to learn how to decompose a rifle as quickly as possible, to clean it, and then to put it together again. When all the parts, including one or more bullets, are spread out on a table, this full set of parts is useless when an enemy suddenly enters the room, aiming his gun at you. Only when all the parts had been put together again, you might have been able to defend yourself. So what does make the rifle more than the sum of the parts? It is the right connection between all the parts. The same is true for a car or a washing machine. Only then can they fulfill their function. In similar vein we can observe social groups or societies. They are more than the sum total of all its individual members if the members have formed all kinds of social connections. Societies need a social structure of stable connections, and also a culture, that is a rather stable set of norms and values, customs and traditions. The culture induces people to support the social structure, to maintain patterns of relatively stable connections, to legitimize each position in the structure. Societies need a functional structure and culture. The one cannot exist without the other. But they can be analyzed separately.

Comte stressed the central significance of the division of labour. His analysis of the nature of society, its units, its structural elements and their mutual relations within the social system as a ‘whole’, rests entirely on the phenomenon of the division of functions and the combination of efforts that arise as soon as a community emerges and succeeds to survive. Thus he presented the first structural functional analysis of the nature social order and social change in relation to the social and ecological environment.   

For Comte, the binding material is the consensus universalis. That universal consensus produces and maintains the required cohesion and integration of society. It creates organic solidarity, a term that we will meet again in the chapter on Durkheim. Consensus, as the binding force of a harmonious society also plays an important role in the theories of Talcott Parsons and Jürgen Habermas.

The second important theme of Comte’s theory of social forms is the spontaneity of social order. He agreed with Aristotle that man is a social being, whereas the individual is a theoretical construct. Individual means non-dividable. Individuals cannot exist in total isolation. To survive humans need support of and cooperation with other humans. They need a social context, preferably membership of a stable social group, like fish need oxygen and water. In social groups, coherence and order emerge spontaneously.

The third theme of social statics is the family. Comte viewed the family as the most fundamental social unit. Not individuals, but families are the building blocks of society. The family possesses a certain unity and coherence, and a moral climate. As the smallest unit of the social structure it already possesses a subculture of its own. Family life lays the foundation for the formation of social beings. Here, children are being socialized. Here they learn basic norms and standards of social behaviour and core forms of social relations. Three types of social relations characterize the nuclear family: the conjugal, the filial or parental, and the fraternal relation. For Comte, the conjugal relationship was most important of all. It constitutes the basis of all social relations. Hence, he strongly opposed divorce and adultery. In his view, divorce is a manifestation of the anarchical spirit of the times that pervades modern society. The filial relation functions as a major playground for acquiring proper respect for authorities, whereas the fraternal relationship offers good opportunities for the development of feelings of solidarity. From the political or moral point of view, Comte emphasized the necessity of maintaining monogamous relationships. He also emphasized that inequality is inherent in familial relations. Parents, in particular fathers, have or should have a natural authority over their children.[63]

Whereas the family functions on the basis of love and affinity, the bigger social units need other sources for realizing cooperation and a division of labour. Bigger social organizations need specialized sections. Cooperation is a necessary precondition for any society. But there is a danger that too much cooperation will lead to too much watching of each other’s acts while losing sight of the prerequisites of the whole. Therefore, it is the task of the government to guard the interests of the whole. The further specialization proceeds, the more we need the state to supervise and control affairs. With this view Comte situated himself at a great distance of the liberals. In fact, he was convinced that modernizing societies needed an authoritarian political system, to safeguard the unity of society. A strong state incorporated the reaction of the whole against the divisive and individualistic actions of the parts.

1.10 A new religion and a new moral

In the last phase of his life Comte wrote a second magnum opus. This one treats the political system and the religion of humanity. For Comte, social science should address itself to matters that could lead to a better society. His device was ‘Savoir pour prévoir et prévoir pour pouvoir’. (To know enables foreseeing, and foresight renders power.) In his view, a better society is first and for all an orderly society. After the chaotic periods of the revolution and its aftermath Comte longed for the return of order, peace and quiet. In his view, to safeguard social order societies need two independent powers: a moral or spiritual power and a secular power. No longer the secular power should be in the hands of church leaders, princes and noblemen, but should rest on the shoulders of eminent merchants, bankers, and industrialists. The three best representatives of these categories should become minister of trade, foreign affairs and state finance. They should be endowed with almost dictatorial power.

It is rather striking that Comte showed much contempt for politicians. As a man of science and creator of a new, positive secular religion he rejected most of their ideas and actions.[64] Anyhow, he was convinced that each nation gets the government it deserves. As long as the masses do not show other ideas and desires, it is useless to change politicians and politics. At the end of the day, people have to solve their own social problems. Also he did not attach much value on economic change. In his view, it did not take much effort and creativity to organize the economy in an efficient way. It only is a matter of applying some scientifically proofed insights. For him, the main problem was changing the mind of the people. Like Karl Marx he had his vested his hope on the workers. He was convinced that their poor labour conditions would engender a viable movement for economic and political reform.

He wanted to annihilate the remnants of the feudal and traditional religious mentality. He aspired to convince his contemporaries of the anachronisms of war. He had set himself the task to put the whole of mankind on the positivistic, scientific track, to make them see that a rational organisation of society is what modern times need. But also, that social order needs a high-principled moral. Comte strongly believed that a ‘Religion of Humanity’, which he designed himself, could provide the feeling that would inspire and sustain co-operation in industrial society. He aimed to construct this new and positive religion as a ‘demonstrable faith’. The full establishment of the humanitarian religion required a set of solid dogmas, a set of moral rules and a system or cult of worship, and last but not least an organizational structure modeled after the Catholic Church. Now that the inadequate foundations of the dubious doctrines of traditional religions had been exposed – the true core of religious feeling and duty remained. And this core was no more and no less than a compassionate concern for mankind; an aspiration towards the achievement of the highest human ideals; and a direction of one’s efforts to the improvement of both the conditions of man and his nature. In this context, Comte formulated the following slogan: “Love is the principle, order is the basis, and progress is the goal.” In his view, the true core of religion is moral commitment, in feeling, thought, and activity, a moral commitment to the service of mankind. In his view, it was the only true and complete ‘religion’. It is the replacement of the love of God by the love for mankind. It is man’s duty to love humanity.’ It is on this score that Comte has been most critically attacked. Fletcher thinks that it is a great pity that his teachings on this subject were obscured by the detailed prescriptions of numerous rituals and ceremonies, copied from the Catholic Church. In this last exercise of zeal, Comte was carried away by the power of his feelings for Clotilde de Vaux. Nonetheless, the core of what he had to say is the ground of morality of the majority of modern people in our day and age.[65]

In Comte’s view, it is the task of sociologists and social philosophers to provide and to maintain a social morale. They must contribute to a positive ethic based on altruism, a word also coined by Comte. Three groups – women, workers and philosophers – must support this social ethic. In the perspective of Comte and most of his contemporaries, women should stay at home and take care of the upbringing of their children. Thus, they play a crucial role for society. They have to see to it that nobody forgets that matters of the heart prevail over reason. John Stuart Mill, his erstwhile friend, fellow advocate of positive science and comrade in the fight for the improvement of the human condition, strongly disagreed with this conservative view on the role of women. Mill very much propagated equal political rights for men and women. This was one of the differences of opinion that drove them apart.

The workers have to provide the material products we need, and philosophers must give us wisdom. To Comte, sociologists only have a modest role, but their problem solving capacity could speed up our voyage to a perfect world, in which all individuals are free and have ample space for personal development.[66]

1.12 Epilogue

Comte was deeply troubled by the dislocation of post-revolutionary society. No wonder that his main objective was to discover and understand social processes that can make or break societies. His first priority was producing knowledge that could be applied for the reorganization of France and other dislocated societies into peaceful and ordered wholes. Presently, we have become very skeptic about the possibility to construct or reconstruct society according to a well-designed plan or blueprint. When Comte was alive the whole idea of a manmade construction of human societies was considered to be unthinkable. All the more amazing were the huge ambitions of Comte’s project. He belonged to a very small but happy few that believed in the potential of highly skilled and intelligent people to improve society. Auguste Comte was no reactionary, nor a revolutionary. He was an incurable reformist, an assertive propagandist of ‘Order and Progress’. In his view, there was a great need for a positive science of society that would generate theories and tested general laws that could support peaceful social evolutions.

Comte mainly focussed on the broad coherence of the social world. All his life he occupied himself passionately with problematic issues of disorganized societies. He did not see the French Revolution as a national, historical incident, but as the turning point in the history of mankind. In France Ancien Régime had failed to adjust to pertinent changes in society, science and industrialization. Government had fallen into disarray. Cleavages between knowledge and belief had become unbridgeable. And a growing number of people lacked worthwhile objectives. They had lost confidence in society, in its political and religious leaders. Morally, man was adrift. Therefore, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Comte assigned himself with the huge task to investigate the nature and causes of the demise of the Christian religion, and to search the various ways that could lead to a reconstruction and revitalization of society.[67] He strove to bring about the right synthesis of order and progress. Alas, his theoretical ‘solutions’ did not convince his countrymen, but they made a great impression on a group of French intellectuals that had sought asylum in Brazil. This explains way the Brazilian flag contains the device: ‘Order and Progress’.[68]

Comte still is a controversial figure. His first works had all the hallmarks of a genius. His final works were a different matter. However, not all the critique he got is justified. Partly, this is due to the fact that his work is not studied very well nor presented in an unbiased way. Whole generations of students have been misinformed about the contents of his oeuvre. In particular his positivist approach to science has been misinterpreted and distorted. It was and still is depicted as a caricature, for instance, as a form of research that leads to a random gathering of miscellaneous and uninteresting facts. Those critics forget that it was Comte who already warned social scientists for such a trivial way of doing research. He always emphasized that empirical research should be connected with theoretical frameworks.

In some political respects, but not in all, Comte was an archconservative. He denied the poor a say in politics, yet he strongly argued for free public education, free medical care and houses with seven rooms. He did not like capitalists. In his view, small businessmen were parasites. He wanted to concentrate capital in the hands of small number of excellent economists that should use this capital and their skills to make nations richer in stead of them selves. Also his proposal to assign moral power to eminent sociologists and social philosophers surely was far from conservative. Being raised in a pious Catholic family, Comte could not rid himself from the conviction that each society needed a kind of religion. Therefore, Comte invented a new secular religion that offered a synthesis between matters of the heart and the matters of reason. As a passionate system builder he elaborated his ideas to a very high degree, designing temples, services of worship, prayers and religious holidays, entirely modelled according to the example offered by the Catholic Church. Modern ‘priests of the religion of humanity’ should guard the standards of the new morality.

Fletcher treats the weaknesses, extravagances and intellectual shortcomings of Comte less harsh than most of his critics. It is rather easy to find elements that deserve to be criticized, but it is more satisfactory to study his best ideas and insights.[69] So it seems in order to finish this chapter on a positive note. At least we should thank this talented man for coining terms like sociology, biology, altruism, and positivism. We should thank him for his great effort to found sociology as the scientific study of modern or modernizing societies, to present it as a valid and autonomous science that cannot be deduced from biology or psychology. He was the first philosopher who made clear that social phenomena could and should be studied in an objective way to free them from a purely philosophical study of ideas. Admittedly Comte, the great advocate of scientific observation, was not very talented in this respect. But, we should praise him for enriching sociology with interesting focusing points for further theoretical development. We should also praise him for sketching a clear methodological approach that turned sociology into a ‘real’ positive science, though his positivistic view on social science still will ignite critical storms of critique. Comte already warned that positive science had its limits. Maybe, close reading of Comte’s work could open critical eyes for its positive potential.

[1]  Ronald Fletcher, The making of sociology I: Beginnings and foundations. London: Nelson University Paperbacks, 1971/1972. p. 165

[2] J.H. Abrahams (1973) Origins and Growth of Sociology (p. 31) Hammondsworth Penguin. Modern sociologists would go for: structure and culture = society

[3] Idem, pp 22-25

[4] Aristotle: The Politics: Quoted by J.H. Abraham, o. c., p. 37

[5] Idem: pp 38-39

[6] Ibn Khaldun: Al Muqadimmah. Quoted by J.H. Abrahams o. c., pp 40-41

[7] J. Heilbron (1991) Het ontstaan van de sociologie. Amsterdam: Prometheus.

[8] Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky (2019): How Democracies Die. Penguin books. London, New York.

[9] Ronald Fletcher: o. c., pp 118-119

[10] E. Cassirer (1987/1932)  Le Problème Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Paris : Hachette

[11] J. Heilbron: o. c.eilbron, o.c.H

[12] Ronald Fletcher: o. c., p 122

[13] Ronald Fletcher (1974). The Crisis of Industrial Civilization: The Early Essays of Auguste Comte (p, 4). London: Heinemann Educational Books.

[14] Idem

[15] M. Bock (1999). Auguste Comte (1798-1857). In D. Kaesler (Hersg), Klassiker der Soziologie. Von Auguste Comte bis Norbert Elias. Műnchen: Beck.

[16] New World Encyclopedia: Henri de Saint Simon, newworldencyclopedia.org. Retrieved: 30-10-2025

[17] G. Simpson. What we still owe to Auguste Comte. Slightly revised text of a speech delivered before the Dutch Sociological Association. 23 April 1966.

[18] Proof that Comte preferred slow and thorough scientific thinking over immediate actions can be found in his second letter to John Stuart Mill in which he praised the latter for not taking a seat in parliament.

[19] J. M. M. de Valk (1979) Inleiding bij Auguste Comte. Het positieve denken. Meppel/Amsterdam: Boom p. 10.

[20] Fletcher, o. c., p 189

[21] S. Andreski (1974). The Essential Comte. Selected from Cours de Philosophie Positive by Auguste Comte. London: Croom Helm, p 8

[22] A. Comte, Systeme de politique positive ou Traité ant la religion de l’humanité.

[23] H. P. M. Goddijn, P. Thoenes, J. M. M. de Valk & J. P. Verhoogt (1971) Geschiedenis van de Sociologie, Meppel: Boom, pp. 67-69

[24] The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte; Translated from French and edited by Oscar A. Haack (1995). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, p. 37

[25] Coser, o. c., p. 39

[26] Bruce Mazlish (1989) A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology. New York. Oxford University Press, pp. 12-13

[27] B. C. van Houten (1974) Saint-Simon en Comte. In L. Rademaker & E. Petersma (Red) Hoofdfiguren uit de sociologie. Utrecht: Het Spectrum/Intermediair. p. 23

[28] H. de Saint-Simon (1980). Who contributes to society? In: L. A. Coser (Ed.). The Pleasures of Sociology; New York: A Mentor Book.

[29] R. Aron o .c.; p. 80

[30] R. Fletcher (1974) The Crisis of Industrial Civilization: The Early Essays of Auguste Comte. London: Heinemann Educational books, pp 13-14

[31] Comte, quoted by Aron, (English translation) p. 82

[32] Aron, o. c.; p 83

[33] Coser, o. c.

[34] G. Lenzer (1975) Auguste Cote and Positivism. The Essential Writings. New York, Harper Torch Books, p. 210

[35] Fletcher o. c., pp. 168-169; Michael Bock, o. c. p 47

[36] Fletcher o. c., pp. 125-126

[37] Comte further divided the theological stage in three sub-stages:

• Fetishism – Everything in nature is thought to be imbued with spiritual life and feelings
• Polytheism – Unrestrained imagination fills the world with innumerable gods and spirits
• Monotheism – Many gods are unified into one almighty god, largely in the service of awakening reason, which qualifies and exercises constraint upon imagination.

[38] A. Comte (1896) The Positive Philosophy (Freely translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau) (Vol. II, bk. IV, chap. VI.) London: George Bell & Sons. Pp 522-540

[39] Idem

[40] J.G. Frazier (1981`) The Golden Bough. New York: Gramercy Books, p. 59

[41] Fletcher: o. c., p 169

[42] Fletcher: o. c., p 168-170

[43] John Stuart Mill (1866). Auguste Comte and Positivism; London: Trubner & Co. p. 6.

[44] Coser, o.c., p 6.

[45] Fletcher: o. c.

[46] Idem

[47] Idem

[48] Fletcher: o. c., 174

[49] Fletcher: o. c., 171-172

[50] Tristes calculateurs, algebristes et aritméticiens

[51] Fletcher: o. c., 171-172

[52] Idem, p. 18

[53] Savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour pourvoir,

[54] Idem, p 20

[55] A. Comte (1974). Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganizing Society in R. Fletcher: The Crisis of Industrial Society; o. c., p. 176.

[56] Aron: o. c., pp. 72-73.

[57] A. Comte quoted by Ronald Fletcher in Te Crisis of Industrial Civilization; o. c., p 246.

[58] Idem: p. 247.

[59] Aron: o. c., p. 95.

[60] Fletcher: o. c., p. 181.

[61] Jonathan Turner: The Structure of Sociological Theory (Homewood. The Dorsey Press (1978). p. 21

[62] Turner refers to A. Comte (1875): System of Positive Polity or Treatise on Sociology, pp 239-240

[63] R.A. Nisbet (1966). The Sociological Tradition: London, Heinemann Educational Books,  (p. 60)

[64] Aron, o. c., p. 116

[65] Fletcher, o. c., pp. 182-183

[66] Aron, o. c., p. 117

[67] Fletcher, o. c., p. 265

[68] On Comte’s burial memorial there is a plaque of Brazilian admirers.

[69] Fletcher, o..c.

[1] Idem