ABSTRACT
The early sociological studies of religion had three distinctive methodological characteristics; they were evolutionist, positivist and psychologistic. These features may be illustrated from the work of Comte, Tylor and Spencer. In Comte’s sociology one of the fundamental conceptions is the so-called ‘law of three stages’ according to which human thought has passed, historically and necessarily, from the theological stage (primitive and early society), through the metaphysical stage (medieval society), to the positive stage (modern society, beginning in the nineteenth century). Comte treats theological thinking as intellectual error which is dispersed by the rise of modern science; he traces, within the theological stage, a development from animism to monotheism; and he explains religious belief in psychological terms by reference to the perceptions and thought processes of early man. It is true that Comte later propounded his own ‘religion of humanity’ and thus recognised, in some sense, a universal need for religion, but he did not succeed in bringing these later ideas into harmony with his fundamental conceptions.
