## 1. Introduction



It is difficult today to appreciate the interest Comte's thought
enjoyed a century ago, for it has received almost no notice during the
last five decades. Before the First World War, Comte's movement
was active nearly everywhere in the world (Ple 1996; Simon
1963). The best known case is that of Latin America: Brazil, which
owes the motto on its flag 'Ordem e Progresso' (Order and
Progress) to Comte (Trindade 2003), and Mexico (Hale 1989) are two
prominent examples. The positivists, i.e., the followers of Comte,
were equally active in England (Wright 1986), the United States
(Cashdollars 1989; Harp 1994) and India (Forbes 1975). And in the case
of Turkey, its modern secular character can be traced to Comte's
influence on the Young Turks.



None of this activity survived the First World War. The new balance of
power created by the Russian Revolution left no room for positive
polity, and Comtean positivism was taken over by neo-positivism in
philosophy of science. The term 'post-positivism', used in
the second half of the 20th century, demonstrates the complete
disappearance of what one might call, in retrospect,
"paleo-positivism". As a matter of fact, post-positivism
is a kind of "post-neo-positivism", since the well-known
criticisms launched by Kuhn and Feyerabend were directed at
Carnap's neopositivism, not Comte's positivism, about
which they seem to have known very little. This shows that their use
of "positivism" forgets totally Comte, who is nevertheless
the man who coined the term. Moreover, in a number of cases, the
post-positivists simply rediscovered points that were well established
in paleo-positivism (such as the need to take into account the context
of justification and the social dimension of science) but subsequently
forgotten.



This unexpected agreement between the paleo- and post-positivists
shows that there is some enduring substance to Comte's original
thinking and partially explains why Comtean studies have seen a strong
revival of late (Bourdeau 2018, Schmaus 2021). Philosophers and
sociologists have begun to draw attention to the interesting views
defended over a century and a half ago by the founder of positivism.
It thus seems that the eclipse of the original positivism is nearing
its end.



One quickly notices the gap between the meaning that
'positivism' had for Comte in the 19th century and the
meaning that it has come to have in our times. Thus, contrary to what
is usually thought, Comte's positivism is not a philosophy of
science but a political philosophy. Or, if one prefers, Comte's
positivism is a remarkable philosophy that doesn't separate
philosophy of science from political philosophy. The title of what
Comte always regarded as his seminal work (written in 1822 when he was
only 24 years old) leaves no doubt as to the bond between science and
politics: it is *Plan for the Scientific Work Necessary to
Reorganize Society*, also called *First System of Positive
Polity*. Its goal is the reorganization of society. Science gets
involved only after politics, when Comte suggests calling in
scientists to achieve that goal. So, while science plays a central
role in positive polity, positivism is anything but a blind admiration
for science. From 1847, positivism is placed under the
'continuous dominance of the heart' (*la
preponderance continue du coeur*), and the motto
'Order and Progress' becomes 'Love as principle,
order as basis, progress as end' (*L'amour pour
principe, l'ordre pour base et le progres pour but*).
This turn, unexpected for many of his contemporaries, was in fact well
motivated and is characteristic of the very dynamics of Comte's
thought.



The 'complete positivism' of what Comte himself called his
'second career' has on the whole been judged severely.
Very quickly, the most famous admirers of the early *Course of
Positive Philosophy* (1830-1842), such as Mill and
Littre, disavowed the author of the later *System of
Positive Polity* (1851-1854), thereby giving substance to
the idea that there is a good and a bad Comte. Nevertheless, if his
early writings call for a revision of the standard interpretation of
positivism, this is even more the case for the works of his
'second career'.



From these introductory remarks, some of the main threads of what
follows can already be seen. First, whatever the exact worth of the
two groups of writings that surround it may be, the *Course of
Positive Philosophy* (hereafter *Course*) remains
Comte's major contribution. Second, an interpretation of the
whole of Comte's work is confronted with two problems. The first
problem concerns the unity of Comte's thought: do the first and
the second career form a continuum, or is there a break? The second
problem concerns Comte's relationship to Saint-Simon (see below
3.2.): is the founder of positivism merely one Saint-Simonian among
others, as Durkheim maintained, or should one, as Gouhier (1933)
proposed, follow Comte himself, who on this matter spoke of a
'disastrous contact' that had, at best, merely hindered
his 'spontaneous development' (1830 (56), v. 2,
 466)?[1].



As an approach to Comte's philosophy, the chronological order
seems the most appropriate guide. After a quick review of some
biographical facts, we will deal first with the Saint-Simonian period
and the early writings, and then with the two great works that stand
out: the *Course of Positive Philosophy* (six volumes,
1830-1842), and the *System of Positive Polity* (four
volumes, 1851-1854).


## 2. Biography



Comte was born in Montpellier on January 20, 1798 ('le 1er
pluviose de l'an VI', according to the Revolutionary
calendar then in use in France). Having displayed his brilliance in
school, he was ranked fourth on the admissions list of the
Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 1814. Two years later, the
Bourbons closed that institution, and its students were dismissed. In
August 1817, Auguste Comte met Henri de Saint-Simon, who appointed him
as his secretary to replace Augustin Thierry. The young Comte was thus
initiated into politics and was able to publish a great number of
articles, which placed him very much in the public eye. (The most
important of these articles were republished by him in 1854 and remain
the best introduction to his oeuvre as a whole.) In April 1824, he
broke with Saint-Simon. Shortly afterward, in a civil wedding, he
married Caroline Massin, who had been living with him for several
months. In April 1826, Comte began teaching a *Course of Positive
Philosophy*, whose audience included some of the most famous
scientists of the time (Fourier, A. von Humboldt, Poinsot). It was
suddenly interrupted because of a 'cerebral crisis' due to
overwork and conjugal sorrows. Comte was then hospitalized in the
clinic of Dr. Esquirol. Upon leaving, he was classified as 'not
cured'. He recovered gradually, thanks to the devotion and
patience of his wife.



The resumption of the *Course of Positive Philosophy* in
January 1829, marks the beginning of a second period in Comte's
life that lasted 13 years and included the publication of the six
volumes of the *Course* (1830, 1835, 1838, 1839, 1841, 1842).
In addition, during this period, more and more of his ties with the
academic world were severed. After being named tutor in analysis and
mechanics at the Ecole Polytechnique in 1832, in 1833 he sought
to create a chair in general history of science at the College
de France, but to no avail. Two unsuccessful candidacies for the rank
of professor at the Ecole Polytechnique led him in 1842 to
publish a 'personal preface' to the last volume of the
*Course*, which put him at odds with the university world
forever. The two years that followed mark a period of transition. In
quick succession, Comte published an *Elementary Treatise on
Analytic Geometry* (1843), his only mathematical work, and the
*Philosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy* (1844), the fruit
of a yearly course, begun in 1830, for Parisian workers. The
*Discourse on the Positive Spirit*, also from 1844, which he
used as the preface to the treatise on astronomy, marked a sharp
change of direction by its emphasis on the moral dimension of the new
philosophy: now that the sciences had been systematized, Comte was
able to return to his initial interest, political philosophy. Public
recognition of the positivist Comte, as opposed to the saint-simonian,
twenty years earlier, came with Emile Littre's
articles in *Le National*.



The year 1844 also marked his first encounter with Clotilde de Vaux.
What followed was the 'year like none other' that launched
what Comte himself called his 'second career'. The main
theme of the second career was the 'continuous dominance of the
heart'. An abundant correspondence testifies to Comte's
passion, who, in spite of a heavy teaching load, found the time to
start working on the *System of Positive Polity*, which he had
announced at the end of the *Course*. After Clotilde's
death, in April 1846, Comte began to idolize her, to such an extent
that it became a true cult. A few months later, his correspondence
with Mill, begun in December 1841, came to an end. The next year,
Comte chose the evolution of Humanity as the new topic for his public
course; this was an occasion to lay down the premises of what would
become the new Religion of Humanity. He was an enthusiastic supporter
of the revolution of 1848: he founded the Positivist Society, modelled
after the Club of the Jacobins, and published the *General View of
Positivism*, conceived of as an introduction to the
*System* to come, as well as the *Positivist Calendar*.
In 1849, he founded the Religion of Humanity.



The years 1851-1854 were dominated by the publication of the
four-volume *System of Positive Polity*, which was interrupted
for a few months in order for him to write the *Catechism of
Positive Religion* (1852). Relieved of all his duties at the
Ecole Polytechnique, Comte now lived off of the
'voluntary subsidy' begun by the followers of his in
England and now also granted to him from various countries. In
December 1851, Comte applauded the coup d'etat by
Napoleon III, who put an end to the parliamentary
'anarchy'. Littre refused to follow Comte on this
point, as on the question of religion, and broke with him shortly
after. Soon disappointed by the Second Empire, Comte shifted his hopes
to Czar Nicholas I, to whom he wrote. In 1853, Harriet Martineau
published a condensed English translation of the *Course of
Positive Philosophy*.



Disappointed by the unenthusiastic response his work got from the
workers, Comte launched an *Appeal to Conservatives* in 1855.
The next year, he published the first volume of a work on the
philosophy of mathematics announced in 1842, under the new title of
*Subjective Synthesis, or Universal System of the Conceptions
Adapted to the Normal State of Humanity*. Increasingly occupied by
his function as High Priest of Humanity, he sent an emissary to the
Jesuits in Rome proposing an alliance with the
'Ignacians'.



Comte died on September 5, 1857, without having had time to draft the
texts announced up to 35 years before: a *Treatise of Universal
Education*, which he thought he could publish in 1858, a
*System of Positive Industry, or Treatise on the Total Action of
Humanity on the Planet*, planned for 1861, and, finally, for 1867,
a *Treatise of First Philosophy*. He is buried in the
Pere-Lachaise cemetery, where his Brazilian followers erected a
statue of Humanity in 1983.


## 3. The Formative Years: The Collaboration with Saint-Simon and the Early Writings



The early writings remain the required starting point for everyone who
wishes to understand the goal that Comte incessantly pursued. It is
not without reason that on the first page of the *System* Comte
applied to himself Alfred de Vigny's words: 'What is a
great life? A thought of youth, executed by mature age.' His
formative years were dominated by his relationship with Saint-Simon.
When meeting him in 1817, Comte, like his fellow students at the
Ecole Polytechnique, had just been dismissed by Louis XVIII and
was therefore looking for a job. He even thought of emigrating to the
United States to teach at a school that Jefferson was planning to open
and which was to be modeled on the Ecole Polytechnique. The
Ecole Polytechnique, whose faculty included the likes of Arago,
Laplace, Cauchy, and Poisson, had been for Comte what the
*Evangelisches Stift* in Tubingen had been for Hegel.
There, he got an education in science that was second to none in all
of Europe; it left a permanent imprint on him. But he was equally a
typical representative of the generation of Tocqueville and Guizot
that saw itself confronted with the question of how to stop the
Revolution after the collapse of the Empire. 'How,' as
Comte would put it in 1848, 'does one reorganize human life,
irrespectively of God and king'? (1851, v. 1, 127; E., v. 1,
100) It is from this perspective that his profound hostility towards
classical political philosophy --philosophy that we continue to
respect today-- has to be understood. With its insistence on
freedom of conscience and on the sovereignty of the people
(*souverainete populaire*), the revolutionary doctrine
had no other function than to destroy the *Ancien
Regime* (founded on papal authority and monarchy by divine
right). But in that task it had now succeeded. The moment had come for
reconstruction, and it was hard to see how these weapons could be of
use in such work.



Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the young Comte
turned to Saint-Simon. The latter, taking advantage of the relative
freedom of the press granted by Louis XVIII, published more and more
pamphlets and magazines, and therefore needed a collaborator. Comte
took over three ideas from the complex thought of Saint-Simon:


1. The contrast between organic and critical periods in history, of
which the Revolution had just provided an example.
2. The idea of industrial society. In 1817, under the influence,
notably, of B. Constant and J.-B. Say, Saint-Simon had turned himself
into an apostle of industry. As an attentive observer of the
industrial revolution that was going on before his eyes, he understood
that it would completely change all existing social relations.
Heretofore, we had lived in military societies: man acted on man, and
power belonged to the warrior class. Henceforth, trade would replace
war, and man would mainly concern himself with acting on nature. Comte
drew the quite mistaken conclusion that the era of wars was over (Aron
1957).
3. The idea of spiritual power. This is Comte's most obvious
debt to Saint-Simon. The theme was present from the first work by
Saint-Simon (*Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to his
Contemporaries*, 1803) to the last (*The New Christianity*,
1825). It resulted from an observation and a conviction. Saint-Simon
observed the role of science in modern society: he suggested, for
example, that public funds be made available to finance scientific
research. He was also convinced of the religious nature of social
cohesion and, therefore, of the need for a priestly class in charge of
maintaining it. This belief led him to the idea of a science of social
organization, linking these two components: religion would become an
application of science, permitting enlightened men to govern the
ignorant. So, instead of trying to destroy every form of religious
life, one should entrust to the learned the spiritual power left
weakened by the decline of traditional religions. It is also within
this framework that the text he wrote in 1814 on the reorganization of
European society has to be understood: handling international
relations are one of the main attributes of spiritual power, as shown
by the medieval papacy.



Comte quickly assimilated what Saint-Simon had to offer him. But Comte
aspired to free himself of a tutelage that weighed ever heavier on
him, as he found the unmethodical and fickle mind of the self-taught,
philanthropic aristocrat barely tolerable. The break occurred in 1824,
occasioned by a shorter work of Comte that would prove to be
fundamental. Aware of already possessing the main ideas of his own
philosophy, Comte accused his teacher of trying to appropriate his
work and furthermore, he pointed out that he had not contented himself
with giving a systematic form to borrowed concepts (Bourdeau 2019).
The *Philosophical Considerations on the Sciences and the
Scientists* (1825) contains the first and classical formulations
of the two cornerstones of positivism: the law of the three stages,
and the classification of the sciences. The *Considerations on
Spiritual Power* that followed some months later presents
dogmatism as the normal state of the human mind. It is not difficult
to find behind that statement, which may seem outrageous to us, the
anti-Cartesianism that Comte shares with Peirce and that brings their
philosophies closer to one another. As the mind spontaneously stays
with what seems true to it, the irritation of doubt ceases when belief
is fixed; what is in need of justification, one might say, is not the
belief but the doubt. Thus the concept of positive faith is brought
out, that is to say, the necessity of a social theory of belief and
its correlate, the logical theory of authority (Bourdeau 2011).



In the year 1826 two major events take place. First, Comte's
program was reshaped. The first *System* of 1822 was
unfinished, and writing the remaining part was one of Comte's
priorities. But in 1826 he postponed that project for an indeterminate
period. To provide a more solid base for the social science and its
resulting positive polity, he decided first to go through the whole of
positive knowledge again and to begin a course on positive philosophy.
It should be kept in mind that the *Course* does not belong to
Comte's initial program and that it originally was meant as a
parenthesis, or prelude, that was supposed to take a few years at
most. The second major event of 1826, the famous 'cerebral
crisis' which occurred immediately after the opening lecture of
the course forced Comte to stop his public lessons; but it also had
longstanding effects. Thus it is customary to say that Comte received
public acknowledgement only belatedly: in 1842, with the first letter
from Mill, and in 1844, with the articles of Littre in *Le
National*. But that amounts to forgetting that in 1826 Comte was a
well-known personality in the intellectual circles of Paris. Guizot
and Lamennais held him in high esteem. The *Course*'s
attendance list included prestigious names such as A. von Humboldt,
Arago, Broussais or Fourier. Mill, who had visited Saint-Simon in
1820-21, was deeply impressed by the first *System*,
which one of Comte's pupils had introduced him to in 1829 (Mill
1963, v. 12, 34). Finally, even though Comte had broken with
Saint-Simon, the general public saw him as one of the master's
most authoritative spokesmen. This earned him the somewhat peculiar
animosity of the Saint-Simonians: they, with few exceptions, had the
distinctive characteristic of never having personally known the one
they called 'the father', whereas Comte had been on
intimate terms with him. However, the cerebral crisis made Comte
unable to take advantage of the high regard he enjoyed: he disappeared
from the public scene until 1844.


## 4. The *Course on Positive Philosophy* and the Friendship with Mill



As said in its first lesson, the *Course* pursues two goals.
The first, a specific one, is a foundation for sociology, then called
'social physics'. The second, a general goal, is the
coordination of the whole of positive knowledge. The structure of the
work reflects this duality: the first three volumes examine the five
fundamental sciences then in existence (mathematics, astronomy,
physics, chemistry, biology), and the final three volumes deal with
the social sciences. Executing the two parts did not require the same
amount of work. In the first case, the sciences had already been
formed and it was just a matter of summarizing their main doctrinal
and methodological points. In the other case, however, all was still
to be done, and Comte was well aware that he was founding a new
science.


### 4.1 The law of the three stages



The structure of the *Course* explains why the law of the three
stages (which is often the only thing known about Comte) is stated
twice. Properly speaking, the law belongs to dynamic sociology or
theory of social progress, and this is why it serves as an
introduction to the long history lessons in the fifth and sixth
volumes. But it equally serves as an introduction to the work as a
whole, to the extent that its author considers this law the best way
to explain what positive philosophy is.



The law states that, in its development, humanity passes through three
successive stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and the
positive. The first is the necessary starting point for the human
mind; the last, its normal state; the second is but a transitory stage
that makes possible the passage from the first to the last. In the
theological stage, the human mind, in its search for the primary and
final causes of phenomena, explains the apparent anomalies in the
universe as interventions of supernatural agents. The second stage is
only a simple modification of the first: the questions remain the
same, but in the answers supernatural agents are replaced by abstract
entities. In the positive state, the mind stops looking for causes of
phenomena, and limits itself strictly to laws governing them;
likewise, absolute notions are replaced by relative ones. Moreover, if
one considers material development, the theological stage may also be
called military, and the positive stage industrial; the metaphysical
stage corresponds to a supremacy of the lawyers and
 jurists.[2].



This relativism of the third stage is the most characteristic property
of positivism. It is often mistakenly identified with scepticism, but
our earlier remark about dogmatism prevents us from doing so.



For Comte, science is a "connaissance approchee":
it comes closer and closer to truth, without reaching it. There is no
place for absolute truth, but neither are there higher standards for
the fixation of belief. Comte is here quite close to Peirce in his
famous 1877 paper.



The law of the three stages belongs to those grand philosophies of
history elaborated in the 19th century, which now seem quite alien to
us (for a different opinion, see Schmaus (1982)). The idea of progress
of Humanity appears to us as the expression of an optimism that the
events of the 20th century have done much to reduce (Bourdeau 2006).
More generally, the notion of a law of history is problematic (even
though it did not seem so to Mill (1842, bk. VI, chap. X)). Already
Durkheim felt forced to exclude social dynamics from sociology, in
order to give it a truly scientific status.



These difficulties, however, are far from fatal to this aspect of
Comte's thought. Putting aside the fact that the idea of moral
progress is slowly regaining some support, it is possible to interpret
the three stages as forms of the mind that co-exist whose relative
importance varies in time. This interpretation seems to be offered by
Comte himself, who gives several examples of it in his history
lessons. The germs of positivity were present from the beginning of
the theological stage; with Descartes, the whole of natural philosophy
reaches the positive stage, while moral philosophy remains in the
metaphysical stage (1830 (58), v. 2, 714-715).


### 4.2 The classification of the sciences and philosophy of science



The second pillar of positive philosophy, the law of the
classification of the sciences, has withstood the test of time much
better than the law of the three stages. Of the various
classifications that have been proposed, it is Comte's that is
still the most popular today. This classification, too, structures the
*Course*, which examines each of the six fundamental
sciences--mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology,
sociology--in turn. It provides a way to do justice to the
diversity of the sciences without thereby losing sight of their unity.
This classification also makes Comte the founder of the philosophy of
science in the modern sense. From Plato to Kant, reflection on science
had always occupied a central place in philosophy, but the sciences
had to be sufficiently developed for their diversity to manifest
itself. It was thanks to his education at the Ecole
Polytechnique that Comte, from 1818, began to develop the concept of a
philosophy of science. At about the same time Bolzano wrote his
*Wissenschaftslehre* (1834) and Mill his *System of
Logic* (1843), Comte's *Course* presented in sequence
a philosophy of mathematics, of astronomy, of physics, of chemistry,
of biology, and of sociology. Comte's classification is meant
not to restore a chimerical unity, but to avoid the fragmentation of
knowledge. Thanks to it, the sciences are related to one another in an
encyclopedic scale that goes from the general to the particular, and
from the simple to the complex: moving from mathematics to sociology,
generality decreases and complexity increases.



The law of classification of the sciences also has a historical
aspect: it gives us the order in which the sciences develop. For
example, astronomy requires mathematics, and chemistry requires
physics. Each science thus rests upon the one that precedes it. As
Comte puts it, the higher depends on the lower, but is not its result.
The recognition of an irreducible diversity already contains a
disavowal of reductionism (in Comte's wording:
'materialism'), which the classification allows one to
make explicit. The positivist clearly sees that the tendency towards
reductionism is fed by the development of scientific knowledge itself,
where each science participates in the evolution of the next; but
history also teaches us that each science, in order to secure its own
subject matter, has to fight invasions by the preceding one.
'Thus it appears that Materialism is a danger inherent in the
mode in which the scientific studies necessary as a preparation for
Positivism were pursued. Each science tended to absorb the one next to
it, on the grounds of having reached the positive stage earlier and
more thoroughly.' (1851, v. 1, 50; E., v. 1, 39)



While philosophers of science have always recognized the place of
Comte in the history of their discipline, the philosophy of science
presented in the *Course*, and *a fortiori* the one in
the *System*, have hardly been studied (Laudan 1981, Brenner
2021). Comte's philosophy of science is based on a systematic
difference between method and doctrine. These are, to use Comtean
terminology, opposed to one another, as the logical point of view and
the scientific point of view. Method is presented as superior to
doctrine: scientific doctrines change (that is what
"progress" means), but the value of science lies in its
methods. At the level of doctrine, mathematics has a status of its
own, well indicated in the second lesson, where it is presented last,
and as if to make up for something forgotten. As much as it is itself
a body of knowledge, it is an instrument of discovery in the other
sciences, an 'organon' in the Aristotelian sense. Among
the remaining sciences, leaving sociology aside for the moment, two
occupy a pre-eminent place:



> 
> Astronomy and biology are, by their nature, the two principal branches
> of natural philosophy. They, the complement of each other, include the
> general system of our fundamental conceptions in their rational
> harmony. The solar system and Man are the extremes within which our
> ideas will forever be included. The system first, and then Man,
> according to the course of our speculative reason: and the reverse in
> the active process: the laws of the system determining those of Man,
> and remaining unaffected by them. (1830 (40), v. 1, 717-718; E.,
> v. 1, 384)
> 



The positive method comes in different forms, according to the science
where it is applied: in astronomy it is observation, in physics
experimentation, in biology comparison. The same point of view is also
behind the general theory of hypotheses in the 28th lesson, a
centerpiece of the positive philosophy of science.



Finally, classification is the key to a theory of technology. The
reason is that there exists a systematic connection between complexity
and modifiability: the more complex a phenomenon is, the more
modifiable it is. The order of nature is a modifiable order. Human
action takes place within the limits fixed by nature and consists in
replacing the natural order by an artificial one. Comte's
education as an engineer had made him quite aware of the links between
science and its applications, which he summarized in an oft-quoted
slogan: 'From science comes prevision, from prevision comes
action'. Only death prevented him from writing the *System of
Positive Industry, or Treatise on the Total Action of Humanity on the
Planet*, announced as early as 1822.


### 4.3 Sociology and its double status



Sociology has a double status. It is not just one science among the
others, as though there is the science of society just as there is a
science of living beings. Rather, sociology is the science that comes
after all the others; and as the final science, it must assume the
task of coordinating the development of the whole of knowledge. With
sociology, positivity takes possession of the last domain that had
heretofore escaped it and had been considered forever inaccessible to
it. Many people thought that social phenomena are so complex that
there can be no science of them. Dilthey's idea of
*Geisteswissenschaft*, for instance, is explicitly directed
against positivism and maintains the difference between natural
philosophy and moral philosophy. On the contrary, according to Comte,
this distinction, introduced by the Greeks, is abolished by the
existence of sociology, and the unity that was lost with the birth of
metaphysics restored (1830 (58), v. 2, 713-715).



Founding social science therefore constitutes a turn in the history of
humanity. Until then, the positive spirit was characterized by the
objective method, which works its way from the world to man; but as
this goal has now been reached, it becomes possible to invert that
direction and go from man to world, to adopt, in other words, the
subjective method, which so far had been associated with the
anthropomorphism of theology. To legitimize that method, it suffices
to substitute sociology for theology, -- which is equivalent to
substituting the relative for the absolute: whereas God may say to the
soul, as in the *Imitatio*, "I am necessary to you and
you are useless to me",
 Humanity[3]
 is the most dependent of all beings. In the first case, to say that
God need us is blasphemy: it would be denying his perfection. The
second case is in some respects a mere consequence of the
classification of sciences, if we agree to consider humanity as the
proper object of sociology. Each science depends on the precedent; as
the final science, sociology is the most dependent one. Human life
depends for instance on astronomical conditions. Humanity depends also
on each of us, on what we do and not do; on another sense, of course,
each of us depends on humanity, as said by the law of human order:
*les vivants sont necessairement et de plus en plus
gouvernes par les morts*.



To bring out this eminent place of sociology is the principal aim of
the *General Conclusions* of the *Course*. The 58th
lesson raises the question of which science presides over the others
on the encyclopedic scale. To guarantee the harmonious development of
the various sciences taken together, the dominance of one among them
has to be assumed. Until recently, that role had been played by
mathematics, but 'it will not be forgotten that a cradle is not
a throne' (1830 (58), v. 2, 718; E., v. 2, 510) (Bourdeau 2004).
One should distinguish the first blossoming of the positive spirit
from its systematic development. The human point of view, that is to
say, the social point of view, is the only one that is truly
universal; now that sociology is born, it is up to it to be in charge
of the development of knowledge.



It goes without saying that Comte's idea of sociology was very
different from the current one. To ensure the positivity of their
discipline, sociologists have been quick to renounce its coordinating
function, also known as encyclopedic or architectonic function, which
characterizes philosophy. With its place at the top of the scale, the
sociology of the *Course* recapitulates the whole of knowledge,
while the sciences that precede it are but one immense introduction to
this final science. As a consequence, no one can become a sociologist
without having had a solid encyclopedic education, one that has no
place for economics or social mathematics, but, on the contrary,
emphasizes biology, the first science that deals with organized
beings. How far removed this is from today's sociology
curriculum!



If sociology merges at places with philosophy, it is also closely
related to history. Comte was thus led to take a stand on a question
that deeply divides us today: how should the relations among
philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science be
seen? In the *Course*, history is at once everywhere and
nowhere: it is not a discipline, but the method of sociology. Dynamic
sociology is 'a history without names of men, or even of
people' (1830 (52), v. 2, 239). It is easy to understand, then,
that positivism has always refused to separate the philosophy of
science from the history of science. According to positivism, one does
not really know a science until one knows its history; indeed, it was
a chair in the general history of science that Comte had asked Guizot
to create for him at the College de France. Mill's
position was not quite the same, for he took the author of the
*Course* to task for neglecting the production of proof, or, to
use modern vocabulary, for being more interested in the context of
discovery than in the context of justification (Mill 1865). The
criticism is only partly legitimate: from the second lesson in the
*Course*, Comte carefully distinguishes between the doctrinal
and the historical study of science, opting for the first while
leaving the second for the lessons in sociology. Just as for Comte the
philosophy of science is not a philosophy of nature but of the mind,
he likewise values the history of science less as a subject in its own
right than as the 'most important, yet so far most neglected
part' of the development of Humanity (1830 (2), v. 1, 53). Each
science is therefore examined twice in the *Course*: for its
own sake, in the first three volumes; in its relations to the general
development of society, in the final three. In this way, Comte
succeeds in reconciling the internalist and externalist points of
view, usually considered to be incompatible.


### 4.4 Comte and Mill



The *Course*'s first readers were in Great Britain; the
reform projects of the English Radicals had many points in common with
the positivist concerns. A reading of the first volumes made enough of
an impression on Mill to induce him to write to their author. The
correspondence that followed, which lasted from 1841 to 1846, is of
considerable philosophical interest. In his first letter, Mill
presents himself almost as a follower of Comte and recalls how, some
ten years before, it had been Comte's 1822 work that had
liberated him from Bentham's
 influence.[4]
 But the tone of the letters, while remaining friendly, changes
shortly thereafter. Mill does not hesitate to voice objections to
Comte's conception of biology and his excluding psychology from
the sciences. In particular, Mill had strong reservations about
Gall's phrenology, which Comte endorsed, and proposed to replace
it with ethology. Their disagreements crystallize around 'la
question feminine'--that is, the status of women in
society-- where it is possible to see how epistemological and
political considerations are linked (Guillin 2007).



After 1846, Mill quickly distanced himself from his correspondent. He
even went so far to describe the Systeme as "the
completest system of spiritual and temporal despotism which ever yet
emanated from a human brain, unless possibly that of Ignatius
Loyola" (*Autobiography*, 213). Such judgments--and
there are many-- represent an extreme in a much more balanced
global assessment. Comte's later philosophy deserves criticism,
but Mill was able to see its strong points and mention them. The last
sentences of Mill's 1865 book give a good example of the unique
way he manages to mix approval and harsh criticism:



> 
> We think M. Comte as great as either of these philosophers [Descartes
> and Leibniz], and hardly more extravagant. Were we to speak of our
> whole mind, we should call him superior to them: not intrinsically,
> but by the exertion of equal intellectual power in an age less
> tolerant of palpable absurdities, and to which those he has committed,
> if not in themselves greater, at least appear more ridiculous (Mill
> 1865, p. 182).
> 



And earlier, he said:



> 
> We, therefore, not only hold that M. Comte was justified in the
> attempt to develop his philosophy into a religion, and had realized
> the essential conditions of one, but that other religions are made
> better in proportion as, in their practical result, they are brought
> to coincide with that which he aimed at constructing. But, unhappily,
> the next thing we are obliged to do, is to charge him with making a
> complete mistake at the very outset of his operations. (Mill 1865, p.
> 124)
> 



Even though each new edition of Mill's *System of Logic*
saw fewer references to the *Course* than the previous one (in
the first edition there had been more than a hundred), Comte's
influence on Mill ran deep, the extent to which is greatly
underestimated today (Raeder 2002). Mill's
*Autobiography* is quite explicit on this point as Comte
figures much more prominently in it than Tocqueville with whom Mill
had been in contact for a longer time. Conversely, Mill contributed
much to the spreading of positivism. His book on Comte (Mill 1865)
enjoyed considerable success, and Mill himself was sometimes
considered a
 positivist.[5]


## 5. The *System of Positive Polity* and the Complete Positivism



Soon after finishing the *Course*, Comte returned to his
initial project and began outlining the *System of Positive
Polity*. The *Discourse on the Positive Spirit*, which had
served as the preface to the *Philosophical Treatise on Popular
Astronomy* (1844), had already emphasized the social purpose of
positivism and its aptitude to replace theology in politics and
morality. But his encounter with Clotilde de Vaux would turn his life
upside down and give Comte's second career an unexpected twist
(1845-1846).


### 5.1 The mind as a servant of the heart



After Clotilde's death in 1846, positivism was transformed into
"complete positivism", which is 'continuous
dominance of the heart' (*la preponderance
continue du Coeur)*. 'We tire of thinking and even of
acting; we never tire of loving', as the dedication to the
*System* put it. Positivism transformed science into
philosophy; *complete* positivism now transforms philosophy
into religion. The question whether such a move is consistent with
Comte's former ideas and more generally with positivism was
asked very early. Mill and Littre answered negatively and
complete positivism was never very popular.



The transformation of philosophy into religion does not yield a
religion of science because, having overcome modern prejudices, Comte
now unhesitatingly ranks art above science. Now that the break-up with
the academic world was complete, the positivists placed their hopes on
an alliance with women and proletarians. Comte (who after
Clotilde's death obsessively, even cultishly, devoted himself to
her) reserved a decisive role in the positive era for women (Labreure
2020). However, this aspect of his work is difficult to accept for a
contemporary reader, in particular because it involves the utopian
idea of the virgin mother, which means parthenogenesis for human
beings. As for the proletarians, he saw them as spontaneous
positivists, just as the positivists were systematic proletarians!



The mind, then, is not destined to rule but to serve, not, however, as
the slave of the heart, but as its servant (Bourdeau 2000). Science
thus retains an essential function. The dominance of the heart is
founded biologically in the 'positive classification of the
eighteen internal functions of the brain, or systematic view of the
soul' (1851, v. 1, 726; E., v. 1, 594-95). The cerebral
table distinguishes ten affective forces, five intellectual functions,
and three practical qualities; these correspond to the heart, mind,
and character, respectively. The functions being ordered according to
increasing energy and decreasing dignity, the dominance of the heart
can be considered a datum from positive biology. This classification
is indispensable for an understanding of the *System*. It
should be mentioned in passing that it shows that the exclusion of
psychology does not at all have the meaning usually given to it: Comte
had never refused to study man's higher functions, be they
intellectual or moral, but for him this belongs to biology (the
classification is sometimes also referred to as the 'cerebral
table'), and so does not require the creation of a new science
(1830 (45)). Historically, the conception of the *System* began
with this table, of which different versions were elaborated in
succession from 1846. Conceptually, it is the first application of the
subjective method, understood as feedback from sociology to the
sciences that precede it, starting with the nearest. In this way, the
sociologist helps the biologist define the cerebral functions, a task
in which, most often, the biologist simply takes up again the
divisions of folk psychology. Later, in what has become known as the
'letters on illness', Comte likewise proposes a
sociological definition of the brain, as the organ through which dead
people act on living ones.


### 5.2 Positive Politics



Today, we no longer associate positivism with politics. However, the
connection was present from the outset when Comte served as secretary
of Saint-Simon, and positive politics was quite influential at the end
of the nineteenth century. The two main tenets of positive politics
are: there is no society without government; the proper functioning of
society requires a spiritual power independent from the temporal
power.



The first principle has two sides. The negative side expresses
Comte's lack of interest in the concept of State. The positive
side argues we must consider how social life works in order to
understand why there must be a government. Surprisingly, Comte's
starting point is the same as Hayek's, namely the existence of a
spontaneous order. The title of the fiftieth lesson of the
*Course* reads: *Social statics, or theory of spontaneous
order of human society*. But, for positivism, spontaneous order
covers all natural phenomena and is neither perfect nor immutable. In
general, human action aims to substitute natural order with an
artificial one more in line with our desires. Government action is
only a special case, applied to the spontaneous order intrinsic to
human society, which is determined by division of labor. Increasing
specialization, which accompanies division of labor, threatens the
cohesion of society even if it is the sine qua non condition of
progress. That is why a government is needed: its function is
'to check the disorganizing and to foster the converging
tendencies' of the agents (1852, 205; E. 277).



Regarding the second principle: a spiritual power can only be
understood in its relation to temporal power. A spiritual power, by
nature, is a moderating power, and it presupposes the existence of a
temporal power, which in contrast does not presuppose the existence of
a spiritual power. Furthermore, Comte strongly disagrees with
historical materialism: it is ideas that rule the world, in the sense
that there is no sustainable social order without a minimal consensus
on the principles that govern life in society. Initially, Comte
planned to entrust this new spiritual power to scientists, because he
saw science not only as the rational basis for our action upon nature,
but also as the spiritual basis of social order.



For at least the last 50 years, positive politics has been unfavorably
viewed as reactionary and totalitarian. And it is true that, in many
respects, Comte was resolutely anti-modern but, especially in his
later writings, he also held ideas which are in keeping with
contemporary concerns. For instance, he had an acute feeling for the
way humanity is dependent on astronomical conditions: assume small
changes in the elliptical orbit of Earth, in the inclination of
Ecliptic, and life, at least life as we know it, would have been
impossible. Humanity, the proper study of sociology, is closely
connected to the Earth, the human planet, 'with its gaseous and
liquid envelopes' (Comte 1851 [1875], 429). In spite of the
Copernican revolution, Earth remains for each of us the firm,
unshakable ground upon which everything stands. See for instance what
Comte says about fatherland and the way 'the Tent, the Car or
the Ship are to the nomad family a sort of moveable Country,
connecting the Family or the Horde with its material basis, as with us
the [Roma] in his van' (1851, v. 2 285, E. 2 237). Politics is
grounded in geopolitics, where *geo* retains its etymological
meaning, *Gaia*, and where Earth is understood as a planet in
the solar system.



This cosmic character of positive politics helps to understand what
could appear as an inconsistency. After 1851, Comte proposed to divide
France into nineteen 'intendances'. Such a suggestion is
quite puzzling since it is incompatible with the received view that he
was a supporter of centralisation. However, the inconsistency
disappears as soon as we take into account the distinction between
temporal power and spiritual power. Centralisation applies only to
spiritual power (Comte had clearly in mind the Papacy) and temporal
power is by nature local. There are many passages where the
correlation is clearly stated. This follows from the fact that the
mind is not limited by boundaries; a spiritual power has no choice but
to be catholic, that is, universal. Its domain is the planet
Earth.



From this, we have at least two consequences. The first one is a
strong interest in European reconstruction, a political priority
between 1815 and 1820, but not anymore in 1850, after the triumph of
nationalism. The second one is the realization that State as a concept
is a historical product which did not exist before 1500, and there is
no reason to believe that States will exist for ever. Hence his
proposal to divide France into nineteen 'intendances': the
extension of temporal power is not allowed to go beyond territories
like Belgium or Corsica.



Comte was also one of the first anti-colonialists. As the place where
positive thinking appeared and developed, Comte considered Europe a
leader of humanity (1851 [1875], 313, Varouxakis 2017), but the way it
took possession of the planet in modern times contradicts the very
idea positivism had of Europe's place in history. Much before
socialists, English positivists objected to Victorian imperialism (see
Claeys 2008). In this context, Comte and his followers also discussed
extensively the respective merits of Christianity and Islam. Turks
were greatly appreciative of Comte and his followers'
secularism, which represented a solution to many of the problems of
the Ottoman Empire. Ahmed Reza, an influent politician, was overtly
positivist. Ataturk and the Young Turks were strongly influenced
by them (Kaynar 2021).


### 5.3 The religion of Humanity



The *System*'s subtitle is *Treatise on Sociology
Instituting the Religion of Humanity*. While the different forms
of deism preserve the idea of God and dissolve religion into a vague
religiosity, Comte proposes exactly the contrary: a religion with
neither God nor the supernatural. His project had little success; he
even accomplished a *tour de force* by uniting both believers
and non-believers against him. The many ridiculous details of
Comte's religion made the task of his opponents even easier. But
this aspect of Comte's thought deserves better than the
discredit into which it has fallen (Wernick 2000; de Lubac 1945).



Comte defines religion as 'the state of complete harmony
peculiar to human life [...] when all the parts of Life are
ordered in their natural relations to each other' (1851, v. 2,
8; E.,v. 2, 8). Comte also defines religion as a consensus, analogous
to what health is for the body. Religion has two functions, according
to the point of view from which one considers existence: in its moral
function, religion should govern each individual; in its political
function, it should unite all individuals. Religion also has three
components, corresponding to the threefold division of the cerebral
table: doctrine, worship, and moral rule (*discipline*).
Comte's discussion is mainly about the first two. If one
considers the first to be related to faith and the second to love,
their relation takes two forms: 'Love comes first and leads us
to the faith, so long as the growth is spontaneous; but when it
becomes systematic, then the belief is constructed in order to
regulate the action of love' (1852, v. 2, 152; E., v. 2, 83). At
first, Comte had followed the traditional order and presented doctrine
before worship, but he soon gave priority to worship, and saw this
change as a considerable step forward.



In the positivist religion, worship, doctrine and moral rule all have
the same object, namely Humanity, which must be loved, known, and
served. Already the *General Conclusions* of the
*Course* compared the concept of Humanity to that of God,
affirming the moral superiority of the former. But only in 1847 does
Comte make the substitution explicitly; sociological synthesis comes
to replace theological synthesis. Membership of Humanity is
sociological, not biological. In order to belong to what is defined as
the continuous whole of convergent beings -- Comte's term
for (mainly human) beings who tend to agree -- one has to be
worthy of it. All 'producers of dung' are excluded;
conversely, animals that have rendered important services can be
included. Strictly speaking, it is to sociology that one should turn
for knowledge of the laws of the human order but, as the final science
recapitulates all others, it is the whole encyclopedic scale
(*echelle* ; it is the result of the classification of
sciences), that constitutes the doctrine of the new religion, which
thereby becomes demonstrated and is no longer revealed or
inspired.



The principal novelty of Comte's religion therefore resides in
worship, which is both private (taking place within the family) and
public. The positivists set up a whole system of prayers, hymns, and
sacraments (Wright 1986). As these were all largely inspired by
Catholic worship, it was said that it was 'catholicism without
Christ', to which the positivists replied that it was
'catholicism plus science'. The best known and most
original aspects of Comte's religion are found in its public
worship, and in the positivist liturgical calendar. As Humanity
consists more of dead than living beings, positivism designed a whole
system of commemorations, which were to develop the sense of
Humanity's historical continuity. The most prominent form of the
worship of Humanity is the worship of great men. Unlike the French
revolutionary calendar, which followed the rhythm of the seasons, the
positivist calendar takes its inspiration from history and pays homage
to great men and women from all nations and all times.



Usually, when dealing with positivist religion, one focuses on the
features classically associated with religion, as we have just done.
It is then easy to miss one of its most original aspects, namely a
purely sociological approach (Bourdeau 2020). From this point of view,
three types of societies must be distinguished: the family, the State
(Greek *polis*, Latin *Civitas*), and the Church. The
State is made up of families, the Church is made up of States. Each is
based on different ties: affective for the first, active for the
second, and intellectual for the third. Each also has a different
relationship to space. Hence the necessity to separate the State and
the Church. The religious society is by its nature catholic, in the
sense of universal, and therefore has no boundaries other than those
of the planet; the surface of a State meets different demands, which
impose rather strict geographic limits. The contrast between French
political history and English political history, which was a common
place in Comte's time (see for instance Tocqueville or Guizot;
it is already present in Montesquieu and Voltaire) illustrates the
point: there is no separation of Church and State in Great Britain, in
that sense that the Queen is also the head of the Anglican Church.
Nevertheless, its main application is related to the issue:
centralization against local powers, which is another aspect of the
spatial dimension of politics. Of the two political models constantly
confronted in the *Course*, Comte clearly prefers the French
one. Its characteristic alliance of the monarchy with the people
against the aristocracy was accompanied by a centralization that the
Revolution contented itself with consolidating. One might therefore be
led to believe that Comte was a partisan of centralized political
(that is: temporal) power, whereas the contrary was in fact the case,
as he proposed to divide France into seventeen administrative regions,
more or less equivalent to the old provinces (1851, v. 4, 421; Vernon
1984). Centralization applies only to the spiritual power.


### 5.4 Ethics and sociology



Positivism asserted very early its wish to construct a moral doctrine
that owes nothing to the supernatural. If we need a spiritual power,
it is because social questions are quite often moral rather than
political. The reforms of society must be made in a determined order:
one has to change ideas, then morals (*les moeurs*; the word is
difficult to translate: it is something like ways of acting, habits,
*les us et coutumes*), and only then institutions. But with the
*System*, the moral doctrine (ethics) changes status and
becomes a science, whose task is to extend sociology in order to take
individual phenomena into account, in particular affective ones.



The terms of the problem as well as its solution are given by a saying
to be found in the margin of the cerebral table: "Act from
affection and think in order to act" (1851, v. 1, 726; E., v. 1,
594). The first part of this "systematic verse" is
guaranteed by the dominance of the heart; but, among the ten
"affective forces", the first seven correspond to egoism,
the final three to altruism. The whole question is knowing which ones
would prevail, those of "personality" or those of
"sociability". While it is important to acknowledge the
innateness of the sympathetic instincts, one is forced to admit their
native weakness: the supremacy of the egoistic tendencies is so clear
that it is itself one of the most striking traits in our nature. The
great human problem is to reverse the natural order and to teach
ourselves to live for others.



The solution consists in 'regulating the inside through the
outside' and depends, as a consequence, on a good use of the
mind. The only way in which altruism can win, is to ally itself with
the mind, to make it its servant and not its slave. The heart, without
the light of reason, is blind. Left to itself, affectivity is
characterized by its inconsistency and instability. That is why the
inside has to be regulated, that is, disciplined. And this task is
assigned to the outside, because exterior reality is the best of
regulators. Whatever its own defects may be, the order that science
discloses in nature is, by its indifference to our desires, a source
of discipline. The recognition of an unchanging external order thus
becomes 'the objective base of true human wisdom', and
'in the obligation to conform themselves to it' our
affections find 'a source of fixedness appropriate for
controlling their spontaneous capriciousness, and a direct stimulation
to the dominance of the sympathetic instincts' (1851, v. 1, 322;
E., v. 1, 257). Science now finds itself vested with a moral function;
but that also means that 'thoughts must be systematized before
feelings' (1851, v. 1, 21; E., v. 1, 17) and that, if moral
ascendancy is the primary attribute of the spiritual power, that power
would not be able to carry out its duties without the aid of a
superior intellect.



While developing a science of morals founded on moral doctrine,
Durkheim and Levy-Bruhl were heavily dependent upon this aspect
of the *System*. Like the word 'sociology', the
word 'altruism' was coined by Comte. Being deeply aware of
what man and animals have in common, Comte was close to what is known
today as 'evolutionary ethics': he saw cooperation between
men as continuous with phenomena of which biology gives us further
examples. The same interest in biology led him to link medicine to
moral doctrine and even to religion. In our modern societies, the
study of the human being 'is now irrationally parcelled out
amongst three classes of thinkers: the Physicians, who study only the
body; the Philosophers, who imagine to study the mind; and the
Priests, who specially study the heart' (1852, v. 2, 437; E., v.
2, 356). To remedy this and to respect the unity of our nature, he
proposed giving the new clergy a role in medicine, considering for
example that there is no better endorsement of a rule of hygiene than
a religious decree. Before dying, he still had the time to outline, in
his letters to Audiffrent, the rudiments of a sociological theory of
diseases.


## 6. Conclusion



On the whole, the *System* was not well received. Almost
immediately, Mill and Littre put forward the idea that there
were a good Comte, the author of the *Course*, and a bad Comte,
the author of the *System*. However, it is impossible to
confine oneself merely to the *Course*. The early works had
made a strong impression on some of the best minds of the time; they
remain required reading for everyone wishing to understand positive
philosophy, as they are still among the best introductions to the
subject. The *Course* was not part of the initial project,
which Comte never lost sight of; the work is best considered as a
parenthesis, admittedly open for twenty years, but which Comte had
meant to close very quickly. The reason why Comte had always presented
the *Plan* of 1822 as fundamental is that, beginning with the
very title, one finds the two themes that he planned to think through
in their relation to one another: science and society. The foremost
question is a political one: how should society be reorganized?
Science, although present from the beginning, plays a secondary role
as the means to achieve the chosen goal. All of Comte's work
aims at the foundation of a discipline in which the study of society
will finally become positive, scientific. His idea of sociology is not
quite the one we are used to today; but the current meaning of the
term 'positivism', according to which it is merely a
philosophy of science, is even more misleading as a clue to
Comte's thought. Even though the founder of positivism is
rightly considered to be one of the great philosophers of science,
along with Poincare and Carnap, his natural place is elsewhere,
along with sociologists such as his contemporaries Marx and
Tocqueville. Only when the question arises of what distinguishes Comte
from the latter does science enter into the picture.



The limits of Comte's philosophy of science are easily seen, but
this does not diminish its value, which remains considerable. Yet the
same cannot be said of the positive polity. Given that the separation
of spiritual power and temporal power rests on the separation between
theory and practice, Comte abstained from any direct political action,
and, for example, condemned Mill's decision to stand in
parliament. But his own project for the reorganization of society
presents a similar problem. In his writings, it is difficult to
distinguish that which concerns objective social science from a reform
program that reflects only a personal stand.



Apart from that difficulty, the weaknesses of the positive polity are
numerous. Among them, those that are the most conspicuous (criticism
of human rights, praise of dictatorship) are not necessarily the most
serious, for objections to the former are easily answered. For
example, while Comte criticizes freedom of conscience, he is always
highly supportive of freedom of expression. We should also find his
deep respect for spontaneity reassuring, considering that it is an
important part of our idea of freedom. More serious, perhaps, seem to
be the consequences of the rejection of psychology. The moral
question, 'What should I do?', is no longer asked in the
first person, and is transformed into an engineering problem:
'What should be done to make men more ethical?' Similarly,
the positivists were invited to live openly, whereby the distinction
between private and public lives disappears.



However, considering only the weaknesses of the positive polity would
not be fair. Even if Comte was often mistaken, his theory of
consensus, as well as the seriousness with which he considered the
question 'What religion after the death of God?' (to give
but two examples) are likely to help us resolve certain problems
confronting our society. Comte's thought is resolutely oriented
toward the future. The order of time, he said, is not
past-present-future, but rather past-future-present. The latter, being
only 'a vague and fleeting span which fills the interval between
two immensities of duration, and binds them together [...], can
only be properly conceived with the aid of the two extremes which it
unites and separates' (1851, v. 2, 364; E., v. 2, 296).



A sound assessment of Comte's philosophy must also take into
account the work of his followers, a topic that has recently received
renewed attention, especially for England (Wilson 2019, 2021).