John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

82 HERSCHEL ON COMTE. 1841-1848.
them and sent them to Comte. It was not the first time that
HerschePs name had come up between them ; he must have
previously written to Mill in acknowledgment of the Logic. In
Comte s letter of date 2ist October, 1844 (p. 276), he refers to
the information given him by Mill, that Herschel meant to read
" mon
grand ouvrage," but does not count upon its making a
favourable impression,
"
du moins intense ".
He
then gives
the reasons : one being Herschel s prepossessions in favour
of sidereal astronomy ;
"
the other his analogy to Arago, although
without the charlatanism and immorality of that disastrous
". personage Such
was the previous reference. The result of
his seeing the present correspondence appears in p. 362.
Comte is very much touched with the zeal displayed by Mill
on his behalf; but declines Mill s suggestion that he should
himself take up the cudgels in his own defence. Mill, he says,
had sufficiently proved, although in a polite way, the malevo
lent spirit and even the bad faith of Herschel. He is, however,
quite satisfied with his former explanation of Herschel s motives,
namely, the soreness caused by his discarding
nomy,
fame.
sidereal astro
on which Herschel s father and himself rested their chief
In the summer of 1845, I became personally acquainted
with Grote. For several years previously, Mill appears to have
seen little of him, but they had now resumed their footing of
intimacy. Grote was living chiefly in the country, but when he
came into town, he made a point of arranging walks and talks
with Mill. From the time of my
introduction to Grote, I was
usually asked to join them. I remember well our first meeting
at the London Library, and subsequent walk in Hyde Park.
Their conversation took an exceptional turn ; how it came I
cannot exactly remember, but they went over all the leaders of
the Reformation, discussing their several characteristics. The
subject was not one that either was specially informed upon.
As Grote was then on the eve of bringing out the first two
volumes of his History, this was a natural topic ; much more