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systematically uncivil to her-and partly from the irritation of

circumstances.

Among English thinkers, some of the earliest who were brought under the influence of M. Comte were John Austin, author of "Lectures on Jurisprudence," and Mrs. Austin, translatress of the "Educational Works of Victor Cousin," who became personally intimate with him in Paris; George Grote, the historian of Greece and the expositor of Plato; Sir William Molesworth, the editor of Hobbes," and the reformer of colonial government; Alexander Bain, the psychological investigator; G. H. Lewes, the historian of philosophy; and Raikes Currie, Esq. When, by the intrigues and hatreds of those who opposed his philosophy, M. Comte was deprived of the moderate means of subsistence which his official connection with the Polytechnic School secured to him, by the intervention of J. S. Mill, Sir W. Molesworth, George Grote, and Mr. Raikes Currie, provided him with a subsidy for his material support during 1841-5; and when his misfortunes continued, and Mr. Mill suggested that M. Comte should become a contributor to some of the British reviews, Messrs. Bain and Lewes voluntarily proffered their aid in translating any papers he might write, and in seeing them through the press.

The earliest British recognition M. Comte received as an original thinker, who had added to the wealth of the world's loftier wisdom, was from (now Sir) David Brewster, in the Edinburgh Review, July, 1838, in a notice of his two earliest volumes-those on mathematics, astronomy, and physics. In 1843 a higher place was assigned to him by John Stuart Mill, in his "System of Logic," when he spoke of him as greater than Sir John Herschel and Dr. Whewell, and of the "Course of Positive Philosophy " as the greatest work which has been produced upon the philosophy of the sciences, a work which only required to be better known to place its author in the first rank of European thinkers. In the same year a brilliant paper, by Professor Ferrier, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine on Comte's system. In August, 1843, the British and Foreign Review contained an appreciative article on him who was at once the Bacon and the Newton of social science. In 1846 G. H. Lewes issued his Biographical History of Philosophy," in which he gives a brief epitome of the opinions of M. Comte, "the Bacon of the 19th century." In 1848 we first, at the suggestion of the notable and noble thinker who assisted Miss Martineau in her condensed translation of Comte's book, John Pringle Nichol, read the " Philosophie Positive," of which he had a high opinion; and with our desire to see the book of which we had heard so much, he immediately complied by placing it in our hands on loan; it was read with avidity and was afterwards made the theme of not a few conversations. We had previously read, as recommended by G. H. Lewes, M. Littré's pamphlet "De la Philosophie Positive," not only in the original, but also in an (unacknowledged) translation in the Democratic Review; we had also heard the lecture "On the Philosophical

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Tendencies of the Age," in which J. D. Morell epitomized and reviewed the principles of positivism as a supplement to the abstract which he had supplied in his History of Modern Philosophy," with which we were familiar. We need cite only Miss Martineau's condensed edition of "The Positive Philosophy;" G. H. Lewes's "Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences," and Mill's specific treatise on Auguste Comte," to show that this great thinker has not left the English mind uninfluenced, without at all mentioning the School of Comtists which has arisen in Oxford, of which Richard Congreve, translator of Comte's "Catechism of Positive Religion," is perhaps the chief, and of which J. H. Bridges, J. M. Green, &c., are adherents. It may also be noticed here, that both P. E. Dove and Herbert Spenser have produced a classifications of the sciences which, while substantially independent, they hold to be more philosophical than that of Comte, and that the era of criticism now seems to be succeeding to the age of acceptance.

As we have named a few of the more prominent of those who in England have been affected by and have given in their adhesion to M. Comte's system, it is quite right that we should make mention also of the fact that he "now counts among his French disciples Dr. Littré-the physiologist, and his first eminent coadjutor,-Dr. Charles Robin, perhaps the most distinguished living French anatomist, and the worthy successor to Bichat; Dr. Verdeil, the organic chemist; Dr. Segond, the physiologist, and Dr. J. B. Béraud," author of the Manual of Physiology," Celestin de Bliquières, author of an abridged exposition of the "Positive Philosophy and Religion," "Constant Rebecque," &c.

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In May, 1843, a very serious opposition was organized against M. Comte, on account of his singular preface, by certain coteries of the Academy, in whom the management of the Polytechnic School was vested, which, though unsuccessful then, proved disastrous to him at the next election-although in the meantime he had published his "Elementary Treatise on Analytic Geometry in two and three dimensions,"-an able and lucid work, which has been translated into English. He also issued a "Discourse on the Positive Spirit," which he had delivered Feb. 1844, at the opening of his annual gratuitous course of lectures on popular astronomy. But the 'indefatigable hatred" and the " pedantocratic oppression of the coteries scientific, political, and religious were unappeasable; and even Marshal Soult, the minister of the time, though disapproving of the shabbiness of the treatment to which M. Comte had been exposed, was unable, in the circumstances of the country, to defend or reprieve him. In this moment of difficulty it was that his English admirers furnished him with an immediate aid, which they intended to tide him over till he had set himself to rights again, but which he expected would be continued to him as a pension bestowed on one who was the Bacon and Newton of science and society; and when he learned that the sum put at his disposal was only intended to be tempo

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rary, he felt not only chagrin, but a sense of injury which induced him to cool towards his friends, and to close his correspondence with his best hope-J. S. Mill,-after a lively friendship extending over five years during the interval of which M. Comte and Mr. Mill discussed with philosophy and warmth the question of the rights of women, in which the former was conservative and the latter liberal-a liberality from which he has never resiled.

It was one of the unfortunate influences of his St. Simonian connection that M. Comte had learned to believe that it was right and proper that the disciples of a system recognising the priesthood of thought should frankly and fully subsidise the chief of their school; and this short enjoyment of the freedom from anxiety and harassment such a form of loyalty brought with it, excited in his mind a hunger for some settled stipend by which his apostolate would be recognised, and his material wants provided for. In the meantime he issued his "Philosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy," 1845, as an evidence at once of his talents and of his endeavours to be a self-supporting thinker. In 1845 the post of Director of Studies in the Polytechnic School became vacant, and in an application for this, too, he failed. M. Littré, his eminent disciple, in his straits, projected the publication of a "Positivist Review," of which M. Comte should be the editor, and for the support of which the pecuniary appliances should be provided in England. But his protectors in England did not see that this was a scheme of practical efficacy, and the author of the "System of Positive Philosophy" regarded them as involuntary accomplices in his unjust persecution. Hitherto M. Comte had been the solitary thinker, leading a purely intellectual life and almost without sympathy, elaborating a philosophy of the sciences as the life-work of a man whose days were filled with the tasks of tuition and the travail of meditation. All his previous efforts had been made from the intellectual side, because his emotional nature had never been deeply stirred; but now a change came over the spirit of his life's tenor. Science was subdued by sentiment, and intellectualism by inamoratism. About this time he made the acquaintance of Madame Clotilde de Vaux, and to the influence which she exercised over him he attributed the reorganization of his existence, by demonstrating to him the lordship of the heart over the head, of love over logic,-and he has burned the incense of his soul on the altar of her perfections. Through her life and thought opened before him and showed a diviner beauty than they had previously possessed, for the universe of generous feelings, high imaginations, glorious fancies, and sympathetic inspirations came like a distillation from paradise into his being; but the story has been told by himself in the roseate hue of love in the introduction to "The System of Positive Politics," and has been very sympathetically recorded by a distinguished British disciple, from whom we quote :

"About the age of forty-five Comte fell in love with an unhappy and remarkable woman, separated from her husband. One whole year of chaste

and exquisite affection changed his life. He had completed his work on 'Positive Philosophy.' His scientific elaboration was over. He was now to enter upon the great problems of social life; and by a fortunate coincidence it was at this moment he fell in love. It was then this philosopher was to feel in all its intensity the truth which he before had perceived, viz., that in the mass, as in the individual, predominance is due to the affections, because the intellect is really no more than the servant of the affections. A new influence, penetrating like sunshine into the very depths of his being, awakened there the feelings dormant since childhood, and by their light he saw the world under new aspects. He grew religious. He learned to appreciate the abiding and universal influence of the affections. He gained a new glimpse into man's destiny. He aspired to become the founder of a new religion-the religion of humanity.

"For one long blissful year Auguste Comte knew the inexpressible happiness of a profound attachment; and then the consolation of his life was withdrawn from him,-the angel who had appeared to him in his solitude, opening the gates of heaven to his eager gaze, vanished again, and left him once more to his loneliness; but although her presence was no longer there, a trace of luminous glory left behind in the heart of the bereaved man sufficed to make him bear his burden, and dedicate his days to that great mission which her love had sanctified."+

"It is a gentle and affectionate thought,

That in immeasurable heights above us,

Even at our birth, the wreath of love was woven,
With sparkling stars for flowers."

But wherefore-can philosophy tell us? is so much of the glamourie of poetry shed over unholy love, while so little is bestowed upon those true loves which comfort and do not burn? Is it not that too often we desire to hide from our own selves the sin or the folly of our conduct by the fine rhetoric in which we deck the vulgar story?

"The Materialistic Mathematician" sees the need of something more for the satisfaction of man's nature than the aridities of biological science, and he now extends his aim to the "regeneration of the affections" by the deification of the immense and eternal being -Humanity. This passage from the objective method upon which he had based and built the positive philosophy to the subjective method which obtains in the positive politics and the subjective synthesis astonished many of his disciples, and led to a division among them,-M. Littré and his party holding to the philosophical tendencies of the primitive system, and ignoring the claim M. Comte made to be regarded as the founder of the Religion of Humanity; while but a faithful few remained with the great thinker in the latter part of his course, in the "extension of his theories to the fundamental evolutions of humanity."

Amid political difficulties which he foresaw, and under personal privations sharply felt, M. Comte devoted himself to the evolution of positive politics. Events outstripped him. The revolution of February, 1848, brightened for him the horizon of hope. He

* Madame de Vaux's husband had been condemned to the galleys for life. + G. H. Lewes's "Philosophy of the Sciences," p. 7.

was charmed at the chance it yielded of seeing his thought enhistoried even while he lived. Amid the boom of strife of that terrible time he formed the idea of a Positivist Society in favour of "order and progress: a free association for the positive instruction of the people in the whole of Western Europe," with France as the initial centre and himself as its chief. He offered his submission to M. Arago as a member of the provisional Government proudly as a civic duty, and on 8th March issued on a fly-slip "The Appeal of the Founder of the Positivist Society to those who desire to join it." It was formed, and drew towards it many of the active-minded in revolutionary Paris. From it reports emanated: -1. "On Labour," by MM. Magnin, Jacquemin, and Belpaume. 2. "On a Positive School," by MM. Segond, Montégre, and Robin. 3. "On a New Revolutionary Government," by MM. Littré, Magnin, and Lafitte. And at its meetings and discussions, M. Comte presented to the members many splendid glimpses of great thought, much bold philosophizing, and several brilliant panoramic expositions of great events in history.

The pecuniary necessities of M. Comte had been met by gifts or loans from friends. Just at the time when these resources were exhausted three functionaries demitted their charges in the Polytechnic School. M. Comte made application for either. The commission placed his name first for each, but the Council put him second to a pupil of his own whom the Minister chose; while for the other two, they completely excluded his name from the lists. He applied to the Ministry to institute the chair which he had formerly suggested to M. Guizot-that of "The General History of the Positive Sciences," but of his application no notice was taken. He issued, in July, 1848, an abstract of his ideas, entitled "A Discourse on the Totality of Positivism," and to this he attached "An Appeal to the Western Public" against the persecutions to which he was exposed; but this appeal was vain, so far as aid in his material embarrassments was concerned, though it ultimately led to the foundation of a subscription by which the means of existence were secured to him. This was initiated, under an impulse from M. Comte, by M. Littré, and it formed, till the period of his death, the only source of revenue available to the author of the "Positive Philosophy."

But M. Comte did not wish to lead an idle life. With the perfervid enthusiasm of a mind profoundly impressed with the importance of the truths he had elicited from nature and history, he felt the zeal of an apostle within him, and he proposed, if permitted by the President of the Republic, to open a free course of lectures on "The General History of Humanity." A hall in the Palais Royal was granted to him, and here, in 1849, his lectures, which became very popular, took place each Sunday at noon, from March to September. They were delivered extemporaneously; they lasted from three to four hours, and often longer, and were listened to not only with patience but delight. Strong thought, 1868.

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