Comte's Stumblings

Mary Pickering

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511605352.003

2 - Comte's Stumblings

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010

Mary Pickering

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Mary Pickering: Affiliation:
San José State University, California

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Although our religion is eminently feminine, it has remained up to now too unknown to the sex that will furnish its best support.

Comte to Richard Congreve, March 26, 1857

SECOND THOUGHTS

As Louis Napoleon became more avid for power and the number of defections from the positivist movement grew, Comte changed his opinion about the usurper. He had originally thought that Louis Napoleon's regime would be short-lived, giving way to a positivist dictatorship. But as Laffitte pointed out, Comte's political predictions, particularly regarding the speed of events, were often wrong. After Louis Napoleon took over, many liberties were curtailed. Laws restricting freedom of the press were enacted in February 1852, and laws prohibiting gatherings of more than twenty people were promulgated in March. According to Comte, Louis Napoleon erred in claiming spiritual power, that is, control over people's intellectual and moral life. Comte worried that without freedom of the press and discussion, positivism could not demonstrate its philosophical superiority and its ability to solve the intellectual anarchy of the day, which to him was more important than the political disorder in causing the current Western malaise.

Moreover, Comte now recognized the dictator's imperial aspirations, which echoed his uncle's, and there was no public figure that Comte hated more than the first Napoleon. Louis Napoleon indeed hoped to overturn the settlement of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which had undermined his uncle's achievements by curbing French expansionism. War was on the horizon.

Type: Chapter
Information: Auguste Comte
An Intellectual Biography
, pp. 53 - 95

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605352.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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