COMTE, Vint, Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier, generally known as AUGUSTE COMTE, a famous French philosopher: b, Montpellier, 19 Jan. 1798, of a strict Catholic family ; d. 'Paris, 5 Sept. 1857. He was very precocious in his intellectual development; in his own words, at the age of 14 he went through all the necessary stages of the revolutionary tendency, and felt the necessity of a general political and religious rebirth. In 1814 he entered the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris. Though the school was broken up by the gov ernment in 1816 for political reasons, Comte remained in Paris and developed a close ac quaintance with Saint Simon (q.v.), from whom he learned the need of substituting a new spiritual power for the mediaeval hierarchy in Church and State. However, a breach developed between these two men, dating from the pub lication of Comte's 'Plan des travaux scienti fiques necessaires pour reorganizer la societe,l) which found the greatest hindrance to the de velopment of society in the continued ascend ancy of the revolutionary tendency. In 1825' he married Caroline Massin, but the marriage was unfortunate from the start. The following year he began to lecture on philosophy at his own house, but after his first •few lectures' he was struck down by an attack of insanity, which resulted in an attempt at suicide. This proved to be temporary, however, and in 1828 he was again able to carry on his intellectual labors and his lectures. In 1832 he became Tutor in mathe matics at the Ecole Polytechnique, and in 1837 examiner at the same institution. He also engaged in secondary-school teaching. He held the post of examiner for some 10 years, but incurred the displeasure of his colleagues by some reflections on mathematics and lost the position. His British disciples, including Anongothers Grote and J. S. Mill (q.v.) then supported him, sending him $1,200 in 1845. For the rest of his life he lived on the proceeds of a public subscription initiated by Lime in 1848 He was separated from his wife since 1842, and in 1845 he met Clotilde de Vaux, whose husband was serving a life sentence. He became ex cessively fond of her,'and after her death the following year had another, though a less serious, attack of mental aberration.
Besides the book already named Comte wrote Tours de philosophic positive); cours sur l'esprit positiP ; (Calendrier positi vist& ; 'Systeme de politique positive) ; 'Biblio thenue Positivist& ; 'Catechisms positivist& ; 'Appel aux conservateurs, par le foundateur du positivisme> ; (Synthese subjective) ; 'Systeme de logique positive.> Comte believed that knowl
edge passed through three stages of development, the theological stage, in which the imagination plays the greatest part in giving accounts of things. The metaphysical stage, in which ab stract principles replace the imaginary deities of the theology, and in which the tendency to unification takes the lead; and the positive stage, where both imagination and argumentation are subordinated to observation, and agreement with the facts becomes the ultimate scientific criterion. The fads arrange. themselves in certain irreducible groupings, which are at least as many as there are distinct sciences, so that the unity of knowledge is subjective, not objective. These sciences . Comte classifies ac... cording to the order in which they have reached their positive stage, as follows: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociol ogy. This order is also the decreasing order of broadness of scope in the sciences concerned and the order of the importance therein of in duction as compared with deduction. Comte devotes special attention to sociology and ethics; he finds the division of the forms of civilization into militaristic, juristic and industrial quite parallel to the.threefold division of science. He desires to unite the treatment of the emotional and intellectual needs of man. For this pur pose a new religion becomes necessary, thd 'Religion of Humanity,x'and a new political Utopia. See Posrrivisst.
Bibliography.-- Caird, 'The Social Philos-; ophy and Religion of Comte' (Glasgow 1885) ; Fezensoc, L. De, systeme politique d'Au guste Comte> (1907) ;• Flake, 'Outlines of Cos mic Philosophy) (Vol. 1, Boston 1874) ; Gruber, 'August Comte, sean.Leben and seine Lehr& (Freiburg 1889) ; LeVy-Brtdil, 'La philosophic d'Auguste Comte' (1900; tr. 1903); Lewes, G. H., Philosophy of the Sciences) (London 1875) ; Littre 'Auguste Comte et la Philosophic positive' ()Faris 1877) ; Mill, J. S., 'Comte and Positivism' (London 1865) ; Robinet, 'Notice sur l'ceuvre et sur lavie de Comte' (1860) ; Spencer, H., 'The Classification of the Sciences' (New York 1864).