28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of him. Mill was of course extremely gratified on his own ac- 

 count, but considered that Comte was very unfairly handled. Her- 

 schel brought up the nebular hypothesis, as advocated by Comte, but 

 treated Comte's mathematics with contempt, and spoke of his book as 

 "a philosophical work of much mathematical pretension, which has 

 lately come into a good deal of notice in this country." To dismiss 

 Comte in this summary fashion, even supposing he had laid himself 

 open by his supposed mathematical proofs of the hypothesis, was a 

 little too strong. Mill naturally thought it an evidence of some weak- 

 ness in Herschel's mind that he should be so blind to the abundant 

 manifestations of intellectual force in the " Philosophic Positive. " * 

 He wrote to Herschel, thanking him for the mention of himself, and 

 remonstrating on his treatment of Comte ; but went a little out of his 

 depth in attempting to uphold Comte's calculation. Herschel, in reply- 

 ing, reiterated his approval of the "Logic," stating that it was his 

 intention to have reviewed it in the " Quarterly," as he had done 

 Whewell ; but as regarded Comte, he was obdurate, and demolished 

 at a stroke the proof that Mill had relied upon. I think Mill wrote a 

 rejoinder. It is to be hoped that these letters are preserved. Mill 

 copied them and sent them to Comte. It was not the first time that 

 Herschel's name had come up between them ; he must have previously 

 written to Mill in acknowledgment of the " Logic." In Comte's letter 

 of date 21st October, 1844 (p. 276), he refers to the information given 

 him by Mill, that Herschel meant to read " mon grand ouvrage," but 

 does not count upon its making a favorable impression, " du moins 

 intense." He then gives the reasons : one being Herschel's preposses- 

 sions in favor of sidereal astronomy ; the other his analogy to Arago, 

 although "without the charlatanism and immorality of that disastrous 

 personage." Such was the previous reference. The result of his see- 

 ing the present correspondence appears on page 362. Comte is very 

 much touched with the zeal displayed by Mill on his behalf ; but 

 declines Mill's suggestion that he should himself take up the cudgels 

 in his own defense. Mill, he says, had sufficiently proved, although 

 in a polished way, the malevolent spirit and even the bad faith of 

 Herschel, He is, however, quite satisfied with his former explanation 

 of Herschel's motives, namely, the soreness caused by his discarding 

 sidereal astronomy, on which Herschel's father and himself rested 

 their chief fame. 



In the summer of 184.5 1 became personally acquainted with Grote. 

 For several years previously, Mill appears to have seen little of him, 



* The following sentence in Mill's review of " Comte and Positivism " does not apply 

 to the scientific magnates of England, at the date of Herschel's address : " He " (Comte) 

 "has displayed a quantity and quality of mental power, and achieved an amount of suc- 

 cess, which have not only won but retained the high admiration of thinkers as radically 

 and strenuously opposed as it is possible to be to nearly the whole of his later tenden- 

 cies, and to many of his earlier opinions." 



