Chauncey Wright. 109 



first and only journey to Europe, I observed that 

 he recalled sundry historic streets of London and 

 Paris only as spots where some happy generaliza- 

 tion had occurred to him. 



But romantic sentiment, aesthetic sensitiveness, 

 and passionate emotion, these are among the 

 things which hinder most of us from resting con- 

 tent with a philosophy which applies the law of 

 parsimony so rigorously as to cut away every- 

 thing except the actuality of observed phenomena. 

 In his freedom from all such kinds of extra-ra- 

 tional solicitation Mr. Wright most completely 

 realized the ideal of the positive philosopher. His 

 positivism was an affair of temperament as much 

 as of conviction ; and he illustrates afresh the 

 profound truth of Goethe's remark that a man's 

 philosophy is but the expression of his person- 

 ality. In his simplicity of life, serenity of mood, 

 and freedom from mental or material wants, he 

 well exemplified the principles and practice of 

 Epikuros ; and he died as peacefully as he had 

 lived, on a summer's night, sitting at his desk 

 with his papers before him. 



It is a bitter thing to lose a thinker of this 

 mould, just in the prime vigour of life, and at a 

 time when the growing habit of writing seemed 

 to be making authorship easier and pleasanter, so 



