a. and sb. Also Comtean. [f. name of Auguste Comte (d. 1857), a French philosopher who founded the system known as POSITIVISM.]
A. adj. Of or originating with Comte. B. sb. A Comtist.
1855. Brimley, Ess., Tennyson, 279. No. 35 [of In Memoriam] is the answer to Comptian materialism … Had men been Comptians from the beginning there would have been no science.
1863. Athenæum, 16 July, 85/1. Distinctions between the Comtean synthesis and the synthetic philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer.
1875. N. Amer. Rev., CXX. 261. Details referring to the ritual of Comtian worship.
So Comtism, the philosophical system of Comte, positivism. Comtist, a follower or disciple of Comte, a positivist; also attrib. or as adj.
1872. Spectator, 7 Sept., 1142. From Locke has flowed the main stream of that philosophy … to which Comtism is only a tributary.
1875. N. Amer. Rev., CXX. 262. Without being a professed Comtist.
1876. Mozley, Univ. Serm., iii. 65. The Comtist argument against Christianity is simply a tacit ignoring of probable evidence.
