THE LAW OF THREE

STAGES
 This idea was given by August Comte( who is the
father of Sociology) in his book ‘ Positive
Philosophy’ published in the year 1822.
 Comte was inspired from Charles Darwin's
‘ Theory of Evolution’. He came up with his
theory.
 The law of three stages is basically the three stages
of evolution of human mind.
The Three Stages
 First stage: The Theological or fictitious stage

 Second stage: The Metaphysical or abstract

 Third stage: The Scientific or positive stage

The Theological Stage
 The primitive persons believed that all phenomena
was done by ‘supernatural beings’
 Fetishism was born as people started believing in
more than one God. This created the class of priests
to get the blessings of all Gods.
 But too many Gods created confusion. Hence, they
arranged the gods, in the form of hierarchy. Later,
they developed the concept of one God i.e
Monotheism.
The Metaphysical Stage
 Rationalism started growing instead of imagination.
Rationalism states that God does not stand directly behind
every phenomenon. Pure reasoning insists that God is an
Abstract Being. Reasoning helped man to find out some order
in the natural world.
 This is the stage where ‘theories and principles’ were born.
Many scientific and political theories were given in this stage.
 This type of thinking corresponded the legal society.
The Positive Stage
 The Positive Stage, also known as the scientific
stage, refers to scientific explanation based on
observation, experiment and comparison
 Here explanation of any phenomena would be
given only though scientific method.
 There was huge scientific progress which led to the
birth of various industries.
 This type of thinking corresponded the industrial
society.