{{Template:Sociology}}'''Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte''' (January 19th19, 1798 - September 5th5, 1857) is regarded as a philosopher, is best known as the father of [[positivism]], and was the first to utilize the [[scientific method]] in exploration of the social world. It was Comte who coined the term ''[[sociology]]''.
[[Friedrich Hayek]] was highly critical of Comte's totalitarian ideas.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=EyNHBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA70 The Road to Serfdom]</ref>
==Early Lifelife==
Auguste Comte was born at Montpellier [[France]] on the 19th of January, 1798, and entered college at the age of nine years. Before Auguste Comte attaining his fourteenth year he had already felt the need of fundamental reconstruction in politics and philosophy. This maturity is all the more remarkable that philosophical minds mature slowly. In 1814 he entered the Polytechnic School. When Louis XVIII. suppressed it, Comte, not having graduated, found himself without a career. At the age of twenty he came in contact with Saint-Simon, whose devoted disciple he became. The attraction mutually felt by them was due to their common conviction of the need of a complete social reform, based on a widespread mental renovation.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=spoCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3935 The Warner Library], Charles Dudley Warner</ref>
==Death and Legacy==
He died in Paris at the age of fifty-nine years, on September 5th5, 1857.
Throughout life, Comte's method of work was unprecedented. He thought out his subject in its entirety before writing down a word, proceeding from general facts to secondary matters, and thence to details. The general and detailed sketch outlined, he considered the work done. When he began to write, he took up his ideas in their respective order. His memory was wonderful; he did all his reading in his early youth, and the provision then amassed sufficed to elaborate a work for which he had to bear in mind an unusual number of scientific and historical facts. In consequence of his abstention from contemporary literature he became less and less in touch with the age, and missed the corrective force of friction with other minds.
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==External Linkslinks==
* [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/62727/sample/9780521662727ws.pdf Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity], [[University of Cambridge]]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=7SQaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA12 Comte's Positive Philosophy], A Prolegomenon to Sociology