Transcriber’s Note: Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
The New Universal Library
A GENERAL VIEW OF
POSITIVISM
A GENERAL VIEW
OF POSITIVISM
Translated from the French of
AUGUSTE COMTE
By J. H. BRIDGES, M.B.
Late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford
A New Edition, with an Introduction (1908), by
FREDERIC HARRISON
And the Additional Notes in the last French
Edition (Paris, 1907)
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED
New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
Published by the kind consent of Mrs. Bridges andthe Positivist Committee, to whom the copyright of thistranslation belongs.
Republic of the West
Order and Progress
A GENERAL VIEW OF
POSITIVISM
Or,
SUMMARY EXPOSITION OF THE
SYSTEM OF THOUGHT
AND LIFE
Adapted to the Great Western Republic,formed of the Five Advanced Nations, theFrench, Italian, Spanish, British and German,which, since the time of Charlemagne,have always constituted a Political Whole
Réorganiser, sans dieu ni roi, par le culte systématique de l’Humanité.
Nul n’a droit qu’à faire son devoir.
L’esprit doit toujours être le ministre du coeur, et jamais son esclave.
Reorganisation, irrespectively of God or king, by the worship ofHumanity, systematically adopted.
Man’s only right is to do his duty.
The Intellect should always be the servant of the Heart, and shouldnever be its slave.
By
AUGUSTE COMTE
Author of ‘System of Positive Philosophy’
Paris, 1848
Although Positivism has been prettywidely discussed of late, not only bythose interested in philosophy andreligion, but by the general readerand the public press, perhaps butfew of them, whether readers or critics,have exactly grasped the full meaningof it as a system at once of thoughtand of life. The vast range of theground it covers and the technical,allusive, and close style of Comte’swritings in the original have made itdifficult to master the subject as awhole. It has accordingly been thoughtthat the time has come to add to the‘New Universal Library’ a translationof The General View of Positivism,i.e., the careful summary of the PositiveviiiPolity which Auguste Comte prefixedto the four volumes of his principalwork. The translation which was publishedby Dr. J. H. Bridges in 1865is at the same time a most accurateversion by one of Comte’s earliestfollowers, and also it is turne