 One such writer was Teófilo [Teophilo] Braga (1843–1924), a philologist and essayist, who was the second elected president of the first Portuguese Republic (1911–1914). Not surprisingly, then, in his 1881 essay “O portuguez Sanches, precursor do positivismo” (The Portuguese Sanches, precursor of positivism) Braga presented Sanches as precursor of  Francis Bacon (1551–1626)  and the nineteenth century positivism of  Auguste Comte (1798–1856).  And because Braga viewed Comte as a representative of the values of science and republicanism, the “Portuguese Sanches” (supposedly “born in Braga”) Sanches served as the perfect precursor of the positivist ideas Braga himself embraced.