PART I 



COMTISM, WITH SOME SCATTERED PARALLELS 



CHAPTER II 



COMTE'S LIFE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF HIS TEACHING 



Comte as founder His life His books The term " Sociology" 

 " Statics " (cf. Spencer) " Dynamics " Divisions of the Polity 

 Comte's religion The term "Positive" Four authorities 

 superseded Comte on psychology And on ethics Law of 

 the three stages Criticism Transition to the study of Comte's 

 relation to science He repudiates dogmatic atheism and mate- 

 rialism His scale of values in the hierarchy of the sciences 

 Spencer's criticism 



ALONE perhaps of all sociologists, Comte may claim 

 to have his life studied, however briefly, as an inte- 

 gral part of the gospel he teaches. 



Auguste Comte was born at Montpellier in 1798. 

 He was early distinguished for his mathematical 

 ability ; also for a refractoriness to authority, which 

 led to his expulsion from the Polytechnic School of 

 Paris. In 1818 he met St. Simon the socialist, and 

 became for six years his close friend and disciple ; 

 but the alliance was broken off by a violent quarrel, 

 never to be healed. In 1825 he married. The union 

 proved conspicuously unhappy, and ended in a sepa- 

 ration in 1842. In 1826 he began lectures upon his 



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