Comte first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in "The Course in Positive Philosophy", a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. These texts were followed by the 1848 work, "A General View of Positivism" (published in English in 1865). The first three volumes of the "Course" dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasised the inevitable coming of social science. Observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science, and classifying the sciences in this way, Comte may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. For him, the physical sciences had necessarily to arrive first, before humanity could adequately channel its efforts into the most challenging and complex "Queen science" of human society itself. His "View of Positivism" would therefore set-out to define, in more detail, the empirical goals of sociological method.