Fifty years have now elapsed since Auguste Comte’s monumental work, the Cours de Philosophie Positive, was first introduced to English readers by Miss Harriet Martineau. But her work was much more than a translation. It was a condensed exposition of Comte’s doctrines, done with such mastery that it obtained the emphatic approval of Comte himself who, in such matters, was not very easily satisfied.

In Harriet Martineau’s case, both the substance of the book and the English form in which it was offered to the public, were her work. In the case of the present volume, while a woman is once more responsible for the translation, the substance of the book, that is the comprehensive exposition of Comte’s system in the light of all his published works, is from the pen of Professor LÉvy-Bruhl, and readers who are acquainted with Harriet Martineau’s book will be all the more in a position to appreciate the importance of this fresh contribution to the elucidation of the thought of Auguste Comte.

We fear that the clearness of style, the richness of expression, the power of condensed thought which characterise our author will be found to have been often weakened, if not sometimes altogether obliterated, in this translation. The striking simplicity of the text at first deceived me into the belief that I could do justice to it. I was often tempted to sacrifice the literal sense in order to preserve some of the graces of the original. Yet I hope to be forgiven for having uniformly preferred to err through too much faithfulness to the letter. My sole object has been to enable the English reader to get at the meaning of the text.

But, while I have only too much reason to solicit the indulgence of my readers, conscious as I am of the many defects of this translation, I feel that no apology is needed for bringing that of which it is a translation within the reach of the English-speaking public.

We live in times when the intimate relation between the natural sciences and social questions is increasingly felt. Old landmarks are disappearing, new foundations are being laid, new problems are constantly arising, generating doubts and perplexities for which the solutions of other days supply no adequate answer.

Meanwhile, as the facts of science reveal to us more of the conditions of human life, we give, more or less consciously, a larger place to sociology in our mental preoccupations. Thus renewed interest is being felt in the writings of the Founder of the Science of Sociology. The most conflicting schools of thought study the works of Auguste Comte and many ask: who is that man whose ideas appear to contain a clearer message to our generation than they did to his own? For such inquirers Professor LÉvy-Bruhl’s book should prove singularly useful and timely. It is a plain, independent account of what Comte really taught, written by one possessed of the fullest qualifications for such a task, and no work of recent date will enable students to understand so clearly the solution given by the French philosopher to the perplexing moral, social, and religious problems of our time.

Here, as elsewhere, “il s’agit de tout comprendre, non de tout admirer,” and Professor LÉvy-Bruhl is himself too much of a philosopher to forget that golden rule; but, nevertheless, by his free, independent judgment of Comte’s teaching, he helps us to realise to what an extent, in these days, Comte is inspiring many who are not perhaps conscious of following him.

Kathleen de Beaumont-Klein.