COMTE, Auguste.
CONGREVE, Richard, editor and S. LOBB, translator. The eight circulars of Auguste Comte. Translated from the French. London, Trübner & Co., 1882.
Small 8vo, pp. [4], 81, [1 blank]; a very good copy in the original cloth, blindstamped borders, upper board lettered direct, gilt; front pastedowns with ex-library bookplates and stickers, one partially removed; a few marginal notations and underlinings in pencil.
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CONGREVE, Richard, editor and S. LOBB, translator. The eight circulars of Auguste Comte. Translated from the French.
First edition, the first appearance in English. Comte’s ‘circulars’ are fundraising essays, addressed to the patrons who subscribed to positivist funds. Congreve was a founder of the London Positivist Society in 1867, and promoted a specifically religious interpretation of the positivist philosophy, which was not necessarily at odds with Comte, but leaned away from Comte’s basis, which is an original progression from theology to science. He states in the preface (which is dated ‘28 Caesar, 94’ according to positivist conventions of dating): ‘At my request Mr. Lobb undertook the translation of these Circulars. At his death two only were found complete; the third and fourth wanted finishing. The last four have been translated by others’.