Auguste Comte Quotes

Mathematical Analysis is ... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.

The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.

Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

But now, I, August Comte, have discovered the truth. Therefore, there is no longer any need for freedom of thought or freedom of the press. I want to rule and to organize the whole country.

Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education.

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them.

Woman is the most moral element in all humanity.

The dead govern the living.

In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.

The sacred formula of positivism: love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.

Foreknowledge is power.

Demography is destiny.

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.

Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.

Induction for deduction, with a view to construction.

Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

The only real life is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction.

To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of Humanity.

Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry ... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry
an aberration which is happily almost impossible
it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.

To understand a science, it is necessary to know its history.