i869 HUXLEY'S JUDGMENT OF COMTE 323 



troversy to me upon one point or another, that I begin to wish 

 the article had never been written. The fighting in itself is not 

 ^particularly objectionable, but it's the waste of time. 



I begin to understand your sufferings over the Origin. A 

 good book is comparable to a piece of meat, and fools are as 

 flies who swarm to it, each for the purpose of depositing and 

 hatching his own particular maggot of an idea. — Ever yours, 



T. H. Huxley. 



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, Philosophic, 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.''' 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 Con- 

 greve's challenge of my admiration of Comte as a man at the 

 end of his article. Did you ever read Littre's Life of Comtef 

 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 effectually, 

 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 tall phrase as meaning " with our conceptions 

 of religion and politics on a scientific basis." 



* The Hippocampus minor; compare p. 206. 



