The order of mankind as seen by Auguste Comte

THE ORDER OF MANKIND AS SEEN BY AUGUSTE COMTE

Six years ago, the New Atlantis Foundation Lecture, given in this place, was devoted to “The Christian Philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov’. Solovyov himself was considerably influenced by the man whom, in a friendly reference, he called ‘the godless infidel Comte’, and has written some admirable pages of critical appraisal of his work. Dimitrije Mitrinovic, the Founder of the New Atlantis, drew attention to the significance of Comte and often spoke of him in connection with Solovyov—and he kept this plaque of Comte’s impressive head among the portraits near his desk. There are.clearly excellent reasons why a New Atlantis Foundation Lecture should be dedicated to his memory and to considering Comte’s place in philosophy and sociology.

For the New Atlantis is concerned with Man’s taking responsibility for his life and for the world, in a way that would not have been possible in earlier times, when human consciousness was not individuated as it is today, and when the world was not yet the One World that we can hardly fail to be aware of now. A great effort of reconciliation is needed, on every plane. To enable Man’s responsibility to be effective we need to move towards new, as yet unrecognised, sciences: Anthropo-philosophy; then Anthropobiology, Anthropo-psychology, and Anthropo-sociology, representing the past and the present and the future of Man seen concretely. The first of these Foundation Lectures used the term

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