s of the
equality between men and women, and of the expediency and
constitution of a sacerdotal or spiritual order. When Comte found
himself straitened, he confided the entire circumstances to his
English friend. As might be supposed by those who know the
affectionate anxiety with which Mr. Mill regarded the welfare of any
one whom he believed to be doing good work in the world, he at once
took pains to have Comte's loss of income made up to him, until Comte
should have had time to repair that loss by his own endeavour. Mr.
Mill persuaded Grote, Molesworth, and Raikes Currie to advance the sum
of L240. At the end of the year (that is in 1845) Comte had taken no
steps to enable himself to dispense with the aid of the three
Englishmen. Mr. Mill applied to them again, but with the exception of
Grote, who sent a small sum, they gave Comte to understand that they
expected him to earn his own living. Mr. Mill had suggested to Comte
that he should write articles for the English periodicals, and
expressed his own willingness to translate any such articles from the
French. Comte at first fell in with the plan, but he speedily
surprised and disconcerted Mr. Mill by boldly taking up the position
of 'high moral magistrate,' and accusing the three defaulting
contributors of a scandalous falling away from righteousness and a
high mind. Mr. Mill was chilled by these pretensions; they struck him
as savouring of a totally unexpected charlatanry; and the
correspondence came to an end. For Comte's position in the argument
one feels that there is much to be said. If you have good reason for
believing that a given thinker is doing work that will destroy the
official system of science or philosophy, and if you desire its
destruction, then you may fairly be asked to help to provide for him
the same kind of material freedom that is secured to the professors
and propagators of the official system by the state or by the
universities. And if it is a fine thing for a man to leave money
behind him in the shape of an endowment for the support of a
scientific teacher of whom he has never heard, why should it not be
just as natural and as laudable to give money, while he is yet alive,
to a teacher whom he both knows and approves of? On the other hand,
Grote and Molesworth might say that, for anything they could tell,
they would find themselves to be helping the construction of a system
of which they utterly disapproved. And, as things turned out, they