COMTE, koNt, 'ISIDORE AUGUSTE MARIE FRAN cOIS RACIER (1798-1857). A celebrated French philosopher, the founder of the positive phi losophy, or Positivism (q.v.). lie was born at :Montpellier, and educated at the Ecole Poly technique in Paris, from which he was expelled for his part in a protest of students against one of the instructors. From 1816 he supported himself by tutorial work. In Paris he met Saint Simon, with whose theories he was at first great ly charmed. but from whose influence he broke away in 1824. In the following year he married Caroline Massin, but the union was unhappy. In 1826 he began a course of lectures at his own house on his system of philosophy, and had among his hearers such men Humboldt and Plainville. Excessive work, however, ruined his health, and after the third lecture he became insane, (vas taken to an asylum, and tried to commit suicide. Thanks to the care of his mother and wife, he soon recovered the use of his faculties, and took up his studies and lec tures again. In 1835 he got a position as ex aminer for entrance to the Ecole Polytechnispie, which he held for some ten years, after which he was largely supported by Isis pupils and ad mirers. John Stuart Mill, with whom Comte had been in correspondence for some time, in duced some wealthy English friends, Grote among them, to advance about $1200 to Comte in 1845, and Grote sent a small sum to him afterwards. In 1848 Littr6 headed an appeal for a public subscription for the benefit of Comte, on the proceeds of which he subsisted for the remainder of his life. In 1845 he met Clotilde de Vaux, whose husband was serving a life sentence, and conceived an extravagant affection and admiration for her. The relation, which seems to hare been platonic, was broken by her death a year later, after which Comte had a second attack of mental alienation. His death took place on September 5, 1857.
Comte published a number of important philosophic works, the most famous, being his Cocrs de philosophic positire (6 vols.. 1830 42), of which a condensed English trans lation by Harriet .Martineau, approved by the author, appeared in 1853. Other works were: 7'ruite cue fp'omOrir analytigne (1843); Traite (ra,f miloniie populaire (18-151; Systeme de politique positive (4 vols., 1851-54;
English translation, London, 1875-77) : Cate chisme positiriste. on sommaire exposition de la religion unirerselle (1852). Comte's central and governing doctrine is that the human race. like the individual, necessarily passes through three intellectual stages: (1) The theological, in which a supernatural origin is sought for all phenom ena, and the dens ex maehina is the only ex planation of events. (2) The metaphysical. in which the sensuously supernatural is set aside as incredible, and an effort is made to demon strate thee existence of "abstract forces or enti ties supposed to inhere in various substances, and capable of engendering phenomena." (3) positive, in which the mind affirms the fu tility of both theological and metaphysical in quiries, abandons all vain search after the causes and essences of things, and "restricts itself to the observation and classification of phenomena, and to the discovery of the invariable relations of succession and shnilitude which things bear to each other—in a word, to the (11,4141V(.ty of the laws of phenomena." This last, is the stage at which Comte conceived Europe to have ar rived. Theology and metaphysics are alleged to he in their dotage. and all the anarchy of mod ern life to arise from the presence of these dis turbing elements. To deliver its from their hurtful influence, Comte employs the principles of Positivism to organize a new social doctrine, which shall embrace the entire wants of man as an intellectual and emotional being. lie thus aims at being the founder, not only of a. new philosophy, hut also of a new religion, and even assumed the title of Fondatcur de la religion de l'humanitj. See POSIT I VISM and consult: Litt re, Auguste Comte et la. philosophic positive (Paris. ISM ; Comte and Positivism (London, 1S65); Caird, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte (Glasgow, 18851 : Gruber, August Comte, scum Lrbenund seine Lehre (Frei burg, 1889) ; Robinet, Votive sur rrcurre et sur la vie de Comte (Paris, 1860). 'Clue first volume of Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (Bos ton, 1874), contains a thorough and noteworthy examination of Comte's system.