The order of mankind as seen by Auguste Comte

‘the assemblage of beings, past, future and present, who of their own free will work together towards the perfecting of universal order’.

With the almost mystical quality which entered his work after the death of Clotilde de Vaux, he reaches a stage, with his Religion of Humanity, which no one could have foreseen from the logical development of his thinking as set forth in the seventy-two lectures of his Course of Positive Philosophy (which, it may be remembered, were attended by some of the greatest mathematicians and biologists of the age). Yet it would be a mistake to separate this part of his work from what most people would regard as his social philosophy pure and simple, for his is not in fact a purely ‘scientific’ observation of data, in the modern sense of ‘scientific’, but a view of society which is concerned about society and about man’s destiny. It might therefore be defined as a ‘normative’ sociology—hence perhaps its unpopularity today.

To return, then, to Comte’s analysis: he sees Ae WILL function as represented by Industry, with its two sides of Workers and Chiefs working together; THINKING is represented by Intellectuals, led by those who according to the Religion of Humanity would be the Priests—men qualified in all seven of the sciences; while FEELING is represented by Woman. This fourfold view of society, which it is very interesting to compare with the ancient Indian view, is later developed by Geddes.

Comte, with his synoptic view of the sciences as a whole, was able to interweave them with unusual flexibility. Hence his striking use of the terms ‘Social Statics’ and ‘Social Dynamics’. The former deals with the conditions of existence common to all human societies: that is to say it is the Theory of Order. The latter deals with the laws of the evolution of societies: that is to say it is the Theory of Progress. Both are necessary for the constitution of a Positive Sociology. As Comte himself pointed out in surveying the state of such studies known to him, the theory has constantly outstripped the known facts and has acquired a metaphysical flavour. A modern writer on sociological method (John adge in ‘The Tools of Social Science’) maintains that this is still the case.

Comte laid an emphasis on the basic principles of human order which modern social scientists find unpalatable, and which, since

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