A system of philosophy originated by M. Auguste Comte,
   which deals only with positives. It excludes from philosophy everything
   but the natural phenomena or properties of knowable things, together
   with their invariable relations of coexistence and succession, as
   occurring in time and space. Such relations are denominated laws, which
   are to be discovered by observation, experiment, and comparison. This
   philosophy holds all inquiry into causes, both efficient and final, to
   be useless and unprofitable.