In existographies, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) (IQ:185|#71) (Cattell 1000:95) [RGM:397|1,500+] (Scott 50:5) (FA:64) (CR:102) was a French sociologist and philosopher notable for coining the term sociology, for having introduced the subject of "social physics", and for champion the idea of positivism. [1] “Now that the human mind has grasped celestial and terrestrial physics, mechanical and chemical, organic physics, both vegetable and animal, there remains one science, to fill up the series of sciences or observation—social physics. This is what men have now most need of; and this it is the principal aim of the present work to establish.”(add)
Hierarchy of science
“The conception of the hierarchy of the sciences from this point of view implies, at the outset, the admission, that the systematic study of man is logically and scientifically subordinate to that of Humanity, the latter alone unveiling to us the real laws of the intelligence and activity. Paramount as the theory of our emotional nature, studied in itself, must ultimately be, without this preliminary step it would have no consistence. Morals thus objectively made dependent on Sociology, the next step is easy and similar; objectively Sociology becomes dependent on Biology, as our cerebral existence evidently rests on our purely bodily life. These two steps carry us on to the conception of Chemistry as the normal basis of Biology, since we allow that vitality depends on the general laws of the combination of matter. Chemistry again in its turn is objectively subordinate to Physics, by virtue of the influence which the universal properties of matter must always exercise on the specific qualities of the different substances. Similarly Physics become subordinate to Astronomy when we recognise the fact that the existence of our terrestrial environment is carried on in perpetual subjection to the conditions of our planet as one of the heavenly bodies. Lastly, Astronomy is subordinated to Mathematics by virtue of the evident dependence of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena of the heavens on the universal laws of number, extension, and motion.”
“Comte is a living writer who has done more than any other to raise the standard of history. There is much in the method and in the conclusions of his great work Positive Philosophy with which I cannot agree; but it would be unjust to deny its extraordinary merits.”
— Henry Buckle (1857), History of Civilization in England, Volume One [2nd London Edition] (pg. 4)
“The ‘order of nature’ is doubtless very imperfect in every respect; but its production is far more compatible with the hypothesis of an intelligent will, than with that of a blind mechanism. Persistent atheists therefore would seem to be the most illogical of theologists: because they occupy themselves with theological problems, and yet reject the only appropriate method of handling them. But the fact is that pure atheism even in the present day is very rare. What is called ‘atheism’ is usually a phase of pantheism, which is really nothing but a relapse disguised under learned terms, into a vague and abstract form of Fetichism.”— Auguste Comte (1848), General View of Positivism [5]