CHAPTER I 
AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857) 
ComTe’s PosITIVE PHILOSOPHY A PROLEGOMENON TO 
SocroLocy ! 
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. 
AvcusteE 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 unity 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 profound 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. 2509 f. 
For the influence of Clotilda de Vaux see Systéme, Preface; also A General View 
(Bridges), pp. 242 f. 
2 “ Comte was the son of a revolutionary epoch, — a time full of jarring opposi- 
tions, full of unsolved 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 under 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 Bedeutung fiir die Entwickelung der 
Socialwissenschaft, p. 43; cf., however, ibid., p. 207, where Waentig claims that 
Comte’s philosophy was essentially “ unfrench.” 
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