AUGUSTE COMTE 15 
unity of thought and conviction. His philosophical training 
made acceptable the suggestion of a scientific interpretation of 
social phenomena such as had already been attempted by 
Montesquieu, Condorcet and Saint-Simon. It remained for him 
to work out a complete system in outline which he felt sure would 
be so convincing as to win speedy and wide-spread acceptance 
and make social regeneration possible.!. The fact that the scien- 
tific method had reached the domain of social phenomena was 
proof to him that it offered the only possible workable basis for 
practical politics. He could not but admire the organization of 
the Roman Catholic church and the power it possessed * but he 
could not agree with de Maistre that it had potency for social 
reform because it stood for a theological interpretation of life, 
i. e., a belief in personality as the mainspring of action rather 
than natural laws. He could not agree any better, however, 
with the social philosophers of his day who following Rousseau 
believed in a “return to nature” which seemed to him a denial 
of social evolution. The metaphysicians had performed their 
task by destroying the faith of the people in the teachings of 
theology, but with this had come a destruction of moral authority 
and a decay in personal and social life which Comte would bring 
back. ‘“‘ The object of all my labor,” he wrote in 1825, ‘‘ has 
been to re-establish in society something spiritual that is 
capable of counterbalancing the influence of the ignoble ma- 
terialism in which we are at present submerged.” * Catholicism 
stood for order but was incapable of inspiring progress. The 
destruction of Catholicism seemed necessary for progress but 
such a movement had led to anarchy. Comte’s task was to 
synthesize order and progress and thus destroy the condition of 
anarchy in morals and politics which reigned in his day, and his 
method was by an appeal to science. 
Comte’s belief that the intellect always and of necessity led in 
social progress was further reason for his emphasis on the need of 
a thorough-going social philosophy as the basis for social recon- 
1 By the time he wrote the Polity he had experienced disappointment. 
2 Positive Philosophy, ii, p. 14. 
3 Ibid., ii, pp. 261 ff.; Lévy-Briihl, op. cit., p. 363. 
4 Lévy-Briihl, of. cit., p. 361. 
