Why did Comte consider questions about ultimate reality unanswerable?

Auguste Comte, the originator of positivism, considered questions regarding ultimate reality, first causes, or absolute beginnings to be unanswerable because they fall outside the realm of observable, empirical facts.12

Within his law of three stages, Comte categorized such inquiries as belonging to the "metaphysical" stage of human intellectual development. He argued that this stage relies on abstract notions—such as occult qualities, vital forces, or internal perfecting principles—that lack genuine explanatory power. Comte viewed these metaphysical attempts as a form of deception, where verbal devices are used to render concepts as if they were real things, ultimately leading to a fruitless quest for knowledge that cannot be verified.12

In contrast, Comte maintained that true knowledge is restricted to the "positive" or scientific stage, which focuses exclusively on studying observable facts and formulating them into descriptive laws. For Comte, any inquiry that cannot be grounded in empirical observation is essentially idle and lacks significance.12