John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

CORRESPONDENCE OF 1841. 63
article admitted into the Westminster for September ; an ex
position of the two scientific novelties the Electrotype and
Daguerreotype. In July, 1841, was published a second article
entitled
" The
Properties of Matter," to which I owed the first
notice taken of me by Mr. Grote. Both these articles did me
good with Mill. In the same autumn, 1841, Robertson, who
was now very much at sea himself, came down to Aberdeen,
and made a long stay ; during which I had abundant talk
with him my early friend David Masson being also of the party.
Robertson occasionally wrote to Mill, and at last incited me to
write to him. I scarcely remember anything of the terms of
the letter, but I have preserved his reply, dated 2ist Sept., 1841.
After my first meeting with Robertson, nearly three years
previous, I assiduously perused the back numbers of the London
as well as each new
and London and Westminster Reviews,
number as it appeared, whereby I became thoroughly familiar
ized with Mill s ideas: and was thus able to exchange thoughts
with him on his own subjects. I was engaged for the succeeding
winter to teach the Class of Moral Philosophy in Marischal
College, as substitute for the professor ; and his letter is chiefly
a comment upon this fact. Notwithstanding that he was then
intently occupied in finishing his Logic for the press, he wrote
me several other letters in the course of the winter. In the
one immediately following (Oct. 15) he made mention of
Comte, in these terms
" Have
you ever looked into Comte s--
Cours de Philosophic Positive ? He makes some mistakes, but
on the whole I think it very near the grandest work of this
age." From the remaining letters, I can gather that I had
written him a good deal upon Whewell s writings, as well as on
Herschel, and on his own coming book. Among other things,
he sketched out for me a course of reading on Political and
Historical Philosophy. He also criticized in detail the strong
and the weak points of an article published by me in the
Westminster in Jan. 1842, with the somewhat misleading title
"
".
Toys