434 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XXII 



A little later he wrote to Charles Kingsley, who 

 had supported him in the controversy : 



JERMYN STREET, April 12, 1869. 



MY DEAR KINGSLEY Thanks for your hearty bottle- 

 holding. 



Congreve is no better than a donkey to take the line 

 he does. I studied Comte, Philosophie, Politique, and all 

 sixteen years ago, and having formed my judgment about 

 him, put it into one of the pigeon-holes of my brain 

 (about the H. 1 minor), and there let it rest till it was 

 wanted. 



You are perfectly right in saying that Comte knew 

 nothing about physical science it is one of the points I 

 am going to put in evidence. 



The law of the three states is mainly evolved from his 

 own consciousness, and is only a bad way of expressing 

 that tendency to personification which is inherent in 

 man. 



The Classification of Sciences is bosh as Spencer has 

 already shown. 



Nothing short of madness, however, can have dictated 

 Congreve's challenge of my admiration of Comte as a 

 man at the end of his article. Did you ever read Littr^'s 

 Life of Comte ? I bought it when it came out a year or 

 more ago, and I rose from its perusal with a feeling of 

 sheer disgust and contempt for the man who could treat 

 a noble-hearted woman who had saved his life and his 

 reason, as Comte treated his wife. 



As soon as I have time I will deal with Comte effectu- 

 ally, you may depend upon that. At the same time, I 

 shall endeavour to be just to what there is (as I hold) 

 really great and good in his clear conception of the 

 necessity of reconstructing society from the bottom to the 

 top " sans dieu ni roi," if I may interpret that somewhat 



The Hippocampus minor : compare p. 276. 



