第20章 Chapter I(20)

He has,as he says,definitively left the 'Benthamist section of the revolutionary school,'though he regards it as the best preparation for true positivist doctrine.He accepts Comte's main positions,though on some,secondary,questions he has doubts which may disappear.(51)He had even thought of postponing the publication of his Logic until he had seen the completion of Comte's treatise;and,had he been able to see the whole in time,would perhaps have translated it instead of writing a new book.(52)Two-thirds,however,of the Logic was substantially finished before he had read Comte,and it is adapted to the backward state of English opinion.Mill holds,as he held when writing to d'Eichthal,that a constructive should succeed to a critical philosophy,and sees the realisation of his hopes in the new doctrine.He holds with Comte that a 'spiritual power'should be constituted,which cannot be reached through simple liberty of discussion;(53)and believes in a religion of humanity,destined to replace theology.(54)It is not surprising that Comte took Mill for a thorough convert.A discord presently showed itself.

'You frighten me,'Mill said to Comte,'by the unity and completeness of your convictions,'which seem to need no confirmation from any other intelligence.Comte,in fact,had a rounded and definitive scheme.He had ceased to read other speculations as a mathematician might decline to read the vagaries of circle-squarers.His whole system was demonstrated,once for all.In 1843Mill began an argument as to the equality of the sexes,which lasted for some months,and ended characteristically.Comte said(55)that further argument would be useless,as Mill was not yet prepared to accept 'fundamental truths.'Mill agreed to drop the discussion,and added that his own opinions had only been confirmed.The supposed convert announced himself as an independent,though respectful,junior colleague,with a right to differ.Mill,according to Bain,became 'dissatisfied with the concessions which he had made.'In truth,the divergence was hopeless,and implied a difference of first principles.Meanwhile,the misunderstanding had further consequences.When Comte was expecting to be dismissed from his post,Mill generously declared (June 1843)that,so long as he lived,he would share his last sou with his friend.(56)Mill was at this time in anxiety caused by the repudiation of American bonds,in which he had invested some of his own money and some of his father's,for which he was responsible.Comte declined to take money from a fellow-thinker,but afterwards,when he actually lost his post in July 1844,accepted help from Mill's richer friends,Grote,Molesworth,and Raikes Currie.Comte took their gift to be a tribute from disciples,and was offended when,after the first year,they declined to continue the subsidy.

Instead of being disciples,they were simply persons interested in a philosopher,many of whose tenets they utterly repudiated,and thought that they had done quite enough to show their respect.Mill,as the mediator in an awkward position,acted with all possible frankness and delicacy,but the divergence was growing.When,in 1845,Comte proposed to start a review to propagate his doctrine,Mill had to point out that he and his friends were partial allies,not subjects,and that positivism was not yet sufficiently established to set up as a school.(57)Gradually the discord developed,and the correspondence dropped.

Comte's last letter is dated 3rd September 1846,and a letter from Mill of 17th May 1847,speaking of the Irish famine,produced no reply.Mill recognised the hopeless differences,and came to think that Comte's doctrine of the spiritual power implied a despotism of the worst kind.He expressed his disapproval in his final criticism of Comte,and in the later editions of the Logic considerably modified some of his early compliments.(58)On 3rd April 1844Mill informs Comte that he has put aside the Ethology,his ideas being not yet ripe,and has resolved to write a treatise upon Political Economy.He is aware of Comte's low opinion of this study,and ex plains that he only attaches a provisional value to its sociological bearing.The book,he explains,will only take a few months to write.The subject,indeed,had been never far from his thoughts since his father had in early days expounded to him the principles of Ricardo.He had discussed economic questions with the meetings at Grote's house;he had written his Essays upon Unsettled Questions;and had been taking a part by his reviews and articles in controversies upon such topics as the Corn-laws,the currency,and the Poor-law.He thus had only to expound opinions already formed,and the book was written far more rapidly than the Logic.Begun in the autumn of 1845,it was finished by the end of 1847.Six months out of this were spent in writing an elaborate series of articles in the Morning Chronicle during the disastrous winter of 1846-47,urging the formation of peasant properties on the waste lands of Ireland.(59)The articles,of which four or five often appeared in a week,were remarkable in the journalism of the day;but his proposals failed to attract attention from English stupidity and prejudice.He tells Comte in his last letter that the English wish to help Ireland;but,from their total ignorance of Continental systems,can only think of enabling the population to live as paupers,instead of introducing the one obvious remedy.