The Catechism of Positive Religion.: Translated from the French of Auguste Comte.

London: John Chapman,, 1858. First edition in English of the author's populist rendition of his positivist philosophy, originally published in Paris in 1852. Comte wrote the Catéchisme in response to concerns that his nascent "religion of humanity" was too severe, and too secular, to win widespread support among his contemporaries. The work focusses on the moral and religious aspects of Comte's philosophy and emphasizes the role of women within that philosophy. Mary Pickering has noted Comte's arguments that "Women, who were the 'moral providence of our species,' should get the support of the common people to change the status quo" (Pickering, p. 61). This translation, published the year after Comte's death, was undertaken by Richard Congreve (1818-1899), a leading British positivist. Octavo. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, spine and covers with decorative panelling in blind. Folding table at rear. Infrequent pencil annotations and sidelining to contents. Spine and joints restored, extremities worn with slight loss to lettering on spine, minor browning and foxing to endpapers and contents, several small ink splashes to pp. 286-7: a good copy. Mary Pickering, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, Volume III, 2009.