Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier (Auguste) Comte (1798–1857)

French philosopher. Private secretary to Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, 1817–23. Founded the Association polytechnique, a group devoted to the education of the working classes, in 1830; the Société positiviste, devoted to the promulgation of the ‘Cult of Humanity’, in 1848. Adopted the term ‘positivism’ for his philosophy.