-my spiritual father!" There was fifty years' difference in
their ages, but they studied, read and rambled the realm of books
together, with mutual pleasure and profit.

The central idea of the "Positive Philosophy" is that of the three
stages through which man passes in his evolution. This was gotten from
Saint-Simon, and together they worked out much of the thought that Comte
afterward carried further and incorporated in his book.

But about this time, Saint-Simon, in one of his lectures, afterward
printed, made use of some of the thoughts that Comte had expressed, as
if they were his own--and possibly they were. There is no copyright on
an idea, no caveat can be filed on feeling, and at the last there is no
such thing as originality, except as a matter of form.

Young Comte now proved his humanity by accusing his teacher of stealing
his radium. A quarrel followed, in which Comte was so violent that
Saint-Simon had to put the youth out of his house.

The wrangles of Grub Street would fill volumes: both sides are always
right, or wrong--it matters little, and is simply a point of view. But
the rancor of it all, if seen from heaven, must serve finely to dispel
the monotony of the place--a panacea for paradisiacal ennui.

From lavish praise, Comte swung over to words of bitterness and
accusation. Having sat at the man's table and partaken of his
hospitality for several years, he was now guilty of the unpardonable
offense of ridiculing and berating him.

He speaks of the Saint as a "depraved quack," and says that the time he
spent with him was worse than wasted. If Saint-Simon was the rogue and
pretender that Comte avers, it is no certificate of Comte's insight that
it took him four years to find it out.

* * * * *

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-five Comte married. The ceremony was
performed civilly, on a sudden impulse of what Schopenhauer would call
"the genius of the genus." The lady was young, agreeable; and having no
opinions of her own, was quite willing to accept his. Comte
congratulated himself that here was virgin soil, and he laid the
flattering unction to his soul that he could mold the lady's mind to
match his own. She would be his helpmeet. Comte had not read Ouida, who
once wrote that when God said, "I will make a helpmeet for him," He was
speaking ironically.

Comte had associated but very little with women--he had theories about
them. Small men, with midget minds, know