A General View of Positivism

A programmatic book published in Paris in 1848 and later used as the opening discourse of Comte's System of Positive Polity; J. H. Bridges translated it into English in 1865. It summarises the whole of Comte's positivism for a general audience. Chapter 1 restates his law of three stages, by which every branch of knowledge passes from theological to metaphysical to positive, or scientific, explanation, and his hierarchy of the sciences from mathematics up to sociology, a word he coined. Chapter 2 argues that positive philosophy must be put to social use to end the disorder left by the French Revolution. Chapters 3 to 5 address the working classes, women and art, giving each a role in a reorganised society guided by a spiritual power of positive thinkers. The final chapter presents the Religion of Humanity, a worship of humanity itself. Admirers such as Mill accepted his account of science but criticised this later system as authoritarian.

It is the most compact statement of positivism, the faith that science can guide society, and it explains the origins of sociology and of a hope that still appears in technocratic politics.