How did Auguste Comte define social dynamics?

Auguste Comte, a French philosopher and the founder of sociology, divided the study of society into two primary branches: social statics and social dynamics.1

He defined social dynamics as the study of the causes of social change. While social statics focuses on the forces that hold society together—such as individual egoism, the division of labour, and the role of government in maintaining cohesion—social dynamics examines the laws and phenomena governing how societies evolve over time.12

Comte’s approach to social dynamics was deeply rooted in his belief that social phenomena could be reduced to scientific laws, similar to those found in the physical sciences. Central to his understanding of this evolution was his law of the three stages, which posited that human intellectual development—and by extension, the structure of society—progresses through three distinct historical phases: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive.13