Why did Comte believe humanity had entered the positive stage?

Auguste Comte believed humanity had entered the positive stage because he viewed it as the culmination of intellectual maturity, achieved by abandoning the "pseudoexplanations" of the theological and metaphysical phases.1

In his law of three stages, Comte argued that human thought evolved from explaining the world through supernatural powers (theological) and abstract essences or causes (metaphysical) to a scientific, or "positive," approach. He believed this final stage was distinguished by:12

• Adherence to Scientific Method: Knowledge is confined to observable facts and the regularities of nature and society, rather than unanswerable questions about ultimate reality.12
• Relative Knowledge: An awareness that human knowledge is relative to our nature and social situation, leading to the discovery of descriptive laws rather than absolute truths.12
• Scientific Synthesis: The emergence of sociology as the final science, capable of reducing social phenomena to laws to guide social planning and reconstruction.12

Comte viewed this transition as a necessary response to the social instability of his time, seeking to replace outdated supernaturalism with a secular, scientific order.2