150 ^ag Stnnmts, (Essajjs, ait;) ^jUbietos. [vm. 



in my mind, no one will be surprised if I acknowledge 

 that, for these sixteen years, it has been a periodical 

 source of irritation to me to find M. Cornte put forward 

 as a representative of scientific thought ; and to. observe 

 that writers whose philosophy had its legitimate parent 

 in Hume, or in themselves, were labelled "Comtists" or 

 "Positivists" by public writers, even in spite of vehe- 

 ment protests to the contrary. It has cost Mr. Mill 

 hard rubbings to get that label off; and I watch Mr. 

 Spencer, as one regards a good man struggling with 

 adversity, still engaged in eluding its adhesiveness, and 

 ready to tear away skin and all, rather than let it stick. 

 My own turn might come next ; and therefore, when 

 an eminent prelate the other day gave currency and 

 authority to the popular confusion, I took an oppor- 

 tunity of incidentally revindicating Hume's property in 

 the so-called "New Philosophy," and, at the same time, 

 of repudiating Oomtism on my own behalf. 1 



1 1 am glad to observe that Mr. Congreve, in the criticism with which he 

 has favoured me in the number of the Fortnightly Review for April 1869, does 

 not venture to challenge the justice of the claim I made for Hume. He merely 

 suggests that I have been wanting in candour in not mentioning Comte's high 

 opinion of Hume. After mature reflection I am unable to discern my fault. 

 If I had suggested that Comte had borrowed from Hume without acknowledg- 

 ment ; or if, instead of trying to express my own sense of Hume's merits with 

 the modesty which becomes a writer who has no authority in matters of philo- 

 sophy, I had affirmed that no one had properly appreciated him, Mr. Congreve*s 

 remarks would apply : but as I did neither of these things, they appear to 

 me to be irrevelant, if not unjustifiable. And even had it occurred to me to 

 quote M. Comte's expressions about Hume, I do not know that I should have 

 cited them, inasmuch as, on his own showing, M. Comte occasionally speaks 

 very decidedly touching^ writers of whose works he has not read a line. Thus, 

 in Tome VI. of the "Philosophic Positive," p. 619, M. Comte writes: "Le 

 plus grand des m6taphysiciens modernes, 1'ulustre Kant, a noblement me"rite" 

 une ternelle admiration en tentant, le premier, d'e"chapper directement a 

 1'absolu philosophique par sa celebre conception de la double re"alite", a la 

 foia objective et subjective, qui indique un si juste sentiment de la saine 

 philosophic," 



But in the " Preface Personnelle" in the same volume, p. 35, M, Comte tells 

 us ; " Je n'ai jamaia lu, en aucune langue, ni Vico, ni Kant> ni Herder, DJ 



