Course of Positive Philosophy

Thus, theology and metaphysics are the feeble intellectual efforts of humanity's child mind, and positivism is the mental expression of the adult intellect.

In his Course de Philosophie Positive, Comte writes, "In the final, the positive state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws, that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance.

Reasoning and observation duly combined are the means of this knowledge." Comte's theory is described as an enormous system of materialism.

According to Comte, it was formerly said that the heavens declare the glory of God, but now they only recount the glory of Newton and Laplace.