AUGUSTE COMTE

AUGUSTE COMTE (1795-1857), a French philosopher, born at Montpellier, the founder of POSITIVISM; enough to say here, it consisted of a new arrangement of the sciences into Abstract and Concrete, and a new law of historical evolution in science from a theological through a metaphysical to a positive stage, which last is the ultimate and crowning and alone legitimate method, that is, observation of phenomena and their sequence; Comte was first a disciple of St. Simon, but he quarrelled with him; commenced a "Cours de Philosophie Positive" of his own, in six vols.; but finding it defective on the moral side, he instituted a worship of humanity, and gave himself out as the chief priest of a new religion, a very different thing from Carlyle's hero-worship.