Project Gutenberg's Auguste Comte and Positivism, by John-Stuart Mill

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Title: Auguste Comte and Positivism

Author: John-Stuart Mill

Release Date: October 9, 2005 [EBook #16833]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUGUSTE COMTE AND POSITIVISM ***

Produced by Marc D'Hooghe

AUGUSTE COMTE AND POSITIVISM

BY

JOHN STUART MILL

1865.

* * * * *

PART I.

THE COURS DE PHILOSOPHIE POSITIVE.

For some time much has been said, in England and on the Continent,
concerning "Positivism" and "the Positive Philosophy." Those phrases,
which during the life of the eminent thinker who introduced them had
made their way into no writings or discussions but those of his very few
direct disciples, have emerged from the depths and manifested themselves
on the surface of the philosophy of the age. It is not very widely known
what they represent, but it is understood that they represent something.
They are symbols of a recognised mode of thought, and one of sufficient
importance to induce almost all who now discuss the great problems of
philosophy, or survey from any elevated point of view the opinions of
the age, to take what is termed the Positivist view of things into
serious consideration, and define their own position, more or less
friendly or hostile, in regard to it. Indeed, though the mode of thought
expressed by the terms Positive and Positivism is widely spread, the
words themselves are, as usual, better known through the enemies of that
mode of thinking than through its friends; and more than one thinker who
never called himself or his opinions by those appellations, and
carefully guarded himself against being confounded with those who did,
finds himself, sometimes to his displeasure, though generally by a
tolerably correct instinct, classed with Positivists, and assailed as a
Positivist. This change in the bearings of philosophic opinion commenced
in England earlier than in France, where a philosophy of a contrary kind
had been more widely cultivated, and had taken a firmer hold on the
speculative minds of a generation formed by Royer-Collard, Cousin,