CHAPTER I 



AUGUSTE COMTE (i 798-1857) 



Comte's Positive Philosophy a Prolegomenon to 

 Sociology ^ 



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. — Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 11. 



AuGUSTE CoMTE in his life and philosophy is a striking confirma- 

 tion of the doctrine of relativity expressed in the above quotation, 

 — a doctrine which forms such an important part of his teaching 

 and one which is closely related to the doctrine of adaptation. 

 His relation to his age, to his race, to his generation, to his local 

 environment may be discerned with a good deal of clearness, and 

 hereditary traits and the experiences of his personal life are re- 

 flected in his system of philosophy and in the theory of social 

 reconstruction elaborated in his Polity,^ 



1 Owing to the controversy among the students of Comte as to the imity of 

 his writings, our analysis will be confined almost entirely to the Cours with quota- 

 tions from the well-known English summary by Miss Martineau. The Cours 

 was the making of Comte's reputation and on it is based almost exclusively his 

 influence on sociology. His romantic love experience with Clotilda de Vaux had 

 a profoimd effect on his life and thought, and ever after that the " heart " was 

 given a place of pre-eminence over the intellect. The Polity adds little else essential 

 to social philosophy except the exposition of idealism and religion which we will 

 discuss in a later chapter. See Flint, Philosophy of History, pp. 259 f . 



For the influence of Clotilda de Vaux see Systime, Preface; also A General View 

 (Bridges), pp. 242 f. 



* " Comte was the son of a revolutionary epoch, — a time full of jarring opposi- 

 tions, full of imsolved problems. For this reason, he who attempts at any time to 

 penetrate deeper into the peculiarity of his doctrines and of his personality that 

 he may make real to himself the things which the great world taught Comte to know 

 in later life, should never forget under what conditions and imder the influence 

 of what teachers the youth grew to manhood. He must know the pictures that 

 met his gaze, the words that filled his ears, the problems that pressed ceaselessly 

 upon his mind." Waentig, A. Comte und seine Bedeutungfiir die Entmckelung der 

 Socialwissenschaft, p. 43; cf., however, ibid., p. 207, where Waentig claims that 

 Comte's philosophy was essentially " unfrench." 



