John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

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DISTINCTION OF ORDER AND PROGRESS. 1841-1848.
Biology, where it made his contrast between Anatomy and
Physiology Structure and Function. The next step was to
Sociology, and led to the distinction of Order and Progress.
I confess that I never thought the three cases exactly parallel :
still, however the distinction came, it was invaluable in Sociology;
and Comte s separation of the two interests Social Order and
Social Progress was a grand simplification of the subject, and
a mighty advance upon the Historical and Political Philosophy
of his predecessors and contemporaries. The Social Statics he
discussed briefly, as compared with the magnitude of the topics,
but indicated well enough what these topics were ; the Social
Dynamics enabled him to give free scope to his doctrine of the
Three Stages, and to carry this out in a grand survey of the
historical development of mankind. Here, of course, he
exposed a wide front to criticism ; but, while numerous
exceptions might be taken to his interpretations of history, it
was truly wonderful to see how many facts seemed to fall in
happily under his formulas. Mill, it will be seen from the
Logic (Book VI., chap, x.), accepted the Three Stages as anessential
part of Comte s Historical Method, which method he
also adopts and expounds as the completion of the Logic of
Sociology. In our very first conversations, I remember how
much he regretted Comte s misappreciation of Protestantism ;
and he strove in the early part of their correspondence to make
him see this. He also endeavoured to put him right on the
speciality of England in the political evolution.
It is curious to observe that his altered estimate of Comte
never extended to the views appropriated from him on the
method of Social Science. The modifications in the later
editions consisted mainly in leaving out the high-pitched com
pliments to Comte in the first; none of the quotations are
interfered with. I give a few examples
of these omissions.
Referring to the latest edition, the eighth, on p. 490, he writes,
"
The only thinker who, with a competent knowledge of
scientific methods in general
"
; in the first edition
" The