Auguste Comte’s Law of the Three Stages: A Review

The Evolution of Human Thinking and Social Organization According to Auguste Comte

Abstract

Comte considered his law of Three stages based upon belief in social evolution to be the most important. There has been an evolution in the human thinking, so that each succeeding stage is superior to and more evolved than the preceding stage. It can hardly be questioned that Comte’s law of three stages has a strong mentalist or idealistic bias. He co-related each mental age of mankind with its characteristic accompanying social organisation and type of political dominance. This law appeared in, the year 1822 in his book Positive Philosophy.