Comte’s two leading works are: the _Positive Philosophy_ and the _Positive Polity_. The first appeared in six volumes during the years from 1830 to 1842. The second work, in four volumes, was published in the years from 1851 to 1854. It is not the equal of the _Positive Philosophy_, which was translated into English in 1853 by Harriet Martineau. John Stuart Mill has referred to Comte as among the first of European thinkers; and, by his institution of a new social science, in some respects the first.[XIII-2] George Henry Lewes called Comte the greatest of modern thinkers. John Morley, the English statesman and author, says of Comte: “Neither Franklin, nor any man that has ever lived, could surpass him in the heroic tenacity with which, in the face of a thousand obstacles, he pursued his own ideal of a vocation.” Harriet Martineau summarizes his methods as follows: “There can be no question but that his whole career was one of the most intense concentration of mind, gigantic industry, rigid economy, and singular punctuality and exactness in all his habits.”[XIII-3] In laying the foundations for a new social science, Comte began with an analysis of types of thinking. (1) Primitive and untrained persons everywhere think in supernatural terms. They suppose that all physical phenomena are caused by the immediate action of capricious supernatural beings. The primitive man believes in all kinds of fetishes in which spirits or supernatural beings live. Fetishism admitted of no priesthood, because its gods are individual, each residing in fixed objects.[XIII-4] As the mind of primitive man became better organized, fetishism became cumbersome. Too many fetishes produced mental confusion. A coalescence of gods resulted and polytheism arose. The polytheistic gods represented different phases of life. This state in human thought is well illustrated by the Homeric gods. But a large number of capricious divinities are mentally unsatisfactory. They create mental contradictions. Consequently, the gods are arranged in a hierarchy. Finally, the idea of one God, or of monotheism, developed. The belief arose that every phenomenon is produced by the immediate action of the one God. As man’s vision widened and his observations increased in scope and depth, the concept of a monotheistic universe became clarified. Monotheism is the climax of the theological stage of thinking. But rationalism argues that God does not stand directly behind every phenomenon. Pure reason insists that God is a First Cause or an Abstract Being. Pure reason speaks in terms of inalienable rights: metaphysical explanations, however, are unsatisfactory to the mind.