The Systeme de politique positive, System of Positive Polity, is Auguste Comte's four volume systematic work, published between 1851 and 1854, in which he set out the Religion of Humanity in full: its veneration of humanity as a collective Great Being, its calendar of thirteen months named for historical figures, its catechism, sacraments and priesthood, and its motto of order and progress. It is the comprehensive companion to Comte's shorter 1852 Catechisme positiviste, which summarised the same system for a general readership in question and answer form. The work was received with widespread ridicule in its own time even among many who had admired Comte's earlier philosophical writing on positivism, and it nonetheless became the founding document organised societies in France, Britain and Brazil drew on directly, including the Brazilian positivists whose motto Ordem e Progresso, taken from Comte's own formula, was placed on Brazil's national flag in 1889.
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Structure
StructurePublished in four volumes between 1851 and 1854, moving from Comte's earlier strictly scientific positivist philosophy to the full institutional and devotional program of the Religion of Humanity, including its calendar, sacraments and worship of the abstracted Grand-Etre (Great Being) of collective humanity. 2 Status
Canonical StatusAuguste Comte's founding doctrinal and devotional work of the Religion of Humanity, matching the generic canonical value already used for other movements' founder-authored core texts. Origins
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This source names France directly: "document organised societies in France, Britain and Brazil drew on directly, including the Brazilian positivists whose motto Ordem e Progresso, taken from Comte's own formula, was placed on Brazil's..."
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The Religion of Humanity's founding systematic text.
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