Editing Auguste Comte (section)

==Life==
Auguste Comte was born in [[Montpellier]],<ref name=EB1911/> [[Hérault]] on 19 January 1798, at the time under the rule of the newly founded [[French First Republic]]. After attending the [[Citadel of Montpellier|Lycée Joffre]]<ref>{{cite web |url= http://mediatheque.montpellier-agglo.com/22887393/0/fiche___document/&RH=1219250799417 |publisher= Montpellier Agglomeration |title= Rencontre avec Annie Petit "Auguste Comte" |date= 19 October 2007 |access-date= 15 October 2008 |quote= "''Né à Montpellier, brillant élève du Lycée Joffre''..." Translation: "Born in Montpellier, shining student of the Lycée Joffre{{nbsp}}..." |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090215021044/http://mediatheque.montpellier-agglo.com/22887393/0/fiche___document/%26RH%3D1219250799417 |archive-date= 15 February 2009 |df= dmy-all }}</ref> and then the [[University of Montpellier]], Comte was admitted to [[École Polytechnique]] in Paris. The École Polytechnique was notable for its adherence to the French ideals of [[republicanism]] and [[Progress (history)|progress]]. The École closed in 1816 for reorganization, and Comte continued his studies at the medical school at Montpellier. When the École Polytechnique reopened, he did not request readmission.

Following his return to Montpellier, Comte soon came to see unbridgeable differences with his [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] and [[Monarchism|monarchist]] family and set off again for Paris, earning money by small jobs. Comte had abandoned Catholicism under the influence of his first teacher and Protestant pastor Daniel Encontre.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LncoDwAAQBAJ&dq=auguste+comte+protestantism+encontre&pg=PT11 | title=Contra Calvitius (English): A critical view of Calvinism | isbn=9782902425334 | last1=Climont | first1=Jean de | publisher=Editions d Assailly }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8sAIAAAAQAAJ&dq=daniel+encontre+comte+pastor&pg=PA4 | title=Comte: The successor of Aristotle and st. Paul, a discourse | last1=Bridges | first1=John Henry | year=1883 }}</ref>

In August 1817 he found an apartment at 36 [[Rue Bonaparte]] in Paris's [[6th arrondissement of Paris|6th arrondissement]] (where he lived until 1822). Later that year he became a student and secretary to [[Henri de Saint-Simon]], who brought Comte into contact with intellectual society and greatly influenced his thought therefrom. During that time, Comte published his first essays in the various publications headed by Saint-Simon, ''L'Industrie'', ''Le Politique'', and ''[[L'Organisateur]]'' ([[Charles Dunoyer]] and [[Charles Comte]]'s ''[[Le Censeur Européen]]''), although he would not publish under his own name until 1819's "La séparation générale entre les opinions et les désirs" ("The general separation of opinions and desires").

In 1824, Comte left Saint-Simon, again because of unbridgeable differences. Comte published a ''Plan de travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la société'' (1822) (''Plan of scientific studies necessary for the reorganization of society'').<ref name=":3" /> But he failed to get an academic post. His day-to-day life depended on sponsors and financial help from friends. Debates rage as to how much Comte appropriated the work of Saint-Simon.<ref name="Pickering 192ff.">Pickering (2006), p. 192ff.</ref>

Comte married [[Caroline Massin]] in 1825. In 1826, he was taken to a mental health hospital, but left without being cured – only stabilized by French [[Psychiatrist|alienist]] [[Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol]] – so that he could work again on his plan (he would later attempt suicide in 1827 by jumping off the [[Pont des Arts]]). In the time between this and their divorce in 1842, he published the six volumes of his ''Cours.''

Comte developed a close friendship with [[John Stuart Mill]]. In 1844, he fell deeply in love with the Catholic [[Clotilde de Vaux]], although because she was not divorced from her first husband, their love was never consummated. After her death in 1846, this love became quasi-religious, and Comte, working closely with Mill (who was refining his own such system) developed a new "[[Religion of Humanity]]". [[John Kells Ingram]], an adherent of Comte, visited him in Paris in 1855.

[[File:Grab von Auguste Comte.jpg|thumb|Tomb of Auguste Comte]]
He published four volumes of ''Système de politique positive'' (1851–1854). His final work, the first volume of ''La Synthèse Subjective'' ("The Subjective Synthesis"), was published in 1856. Comte died in Paris on 5 September 1857 from stomach cancer and was buried in the famous [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], surrounded by cenotaphs in memory of his mother, Rosalie Boyer, and of Clotilde de Vaux.
His apartment from 1841 to 1857 is now conserved as the [[Maison d'Auguste Comte]] and is located at 10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in Paris' [[6th arrondissement of Paris|6th arrondissement]].