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’ mistake the negative power of critique, which has a rightful place only temporarily in the context of demolishing an old system, with the positive power required for building a new one. They have turned critique into a doctrine, a kind of anarchism the main elements of which Comte identifies as hostility to government, exaggerated individualism and the notion of the sovereignty of the people. The critical doctrine divests government ‘of any principle of activity’ and reduces it ‘to a wholly negative role’ (54): Government is no longer conceived as the head of