(9> 8I 



a sociological aspect he is not without true glances into 

 the present disintegration of society and the conditions 

 of it, anything of importance cannot be claimed for 

 him. There is not a sentence in his book that, in the 

 hollow elaboration and windy pretentiousness of its 

 build, is not an exact type of its own constructor. On 

 the whole, indeed, when we consider the little to which 

 he attained, the empty inflation of his claims, the mon- 

 strous and maniacal self-conceit into which he was 

 exalted, it may appear, perhaps, that charity to M. 

 Comte himself, to say nothing of the world, should 

 induce us to wish that both his name and his works 

 were buried in oblivion. Now, truly, that Mr. Huxley 

 (the " call" being for the moment his) has so pronounced 

 himself, especially as the facts of the case are exactly 

 and absolutely what he indicates, perhaps we may 

 expect this consummation not to be so very long 

 delayed. More than those members of the revulsion 

 already mentioned, one is apt to suspect, will be anxious 

 now to beat a retreat. Not that this, however, is so 

 certain to be allowed them ; for their estimate of M. 

 Comte is a valuable element in the estimate of them- 

 selves. 



Frankness on the part of Mr. Huxley is not limited 

 to his opinion of M. Comte ; it accompanies us through- 

 out his whole essay. He seems even to take pride, 

 indeed, in naming always and everywhere his object at 

 the plainest. That object, in a general point of view, 

 relates, he tells us, solely to materialism, but with a 

 double issue. While it is his declared purpose, in the 

 first place, namely, to lead us into materialism, it is 

 equally his declared purpose, in the second place, to 

 lead us out of materialism. On the first issue, for 



