Abstract

This chapter offers an account of the aspect of nineteenth‐century naturalism, by focusing on the work of J. S. Mill and Auguste Comte. Both philosophers have high ambitions for naturalism, aiming to offer a sweeping account of all of human knowledge in naturalistic terms. Mill argued that the metaphysical thinking must already have started to exert an influence in order for monotheistic approaches to take hold, and that Comte's account of the theological stage overstated the extent to which fetishistic or polytheistic understanding of phenomena could exist independently of one another. But these are minor disagreements, framed in terms of a narrative that Mill basically accepts. Mill thought Comte's three stage theory important for understanding the rise our way of conceptualizing the world, and consistent with his own account of the rise of scientific induction.