Auguste Comte (full name: Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte; January 17, 1798 – September 5, 1857) was a French thinker. He was one of the founders of sociology. He created the word from the Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [4]) He also started a way of thinking about and understanding human knowledge called positivism.[5]