John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

74 CORRESPONDENCE WITH COMTE. 1841-1848.
attitude, and when his post was in danger, Mill came forward
with an offer of pecuniar} 7
assistance, in case of the worst ; the
generosity of this offer will be appreciated when I come to
state what his own circumstances were at that moment. Comte,
however, declined the proposal : he would accept assistance
from men of wealth among his followers ; indeed, he broadly
announced that it was their duty to minister to his wants ; but
he did not think that philosophers should have to devote their
own small means to helping one another. Mill sent the Logic
to him as soon as published ; he is overjoyed at the compli
ments to himself, and warmly appreciates Mill s moral courage
in owning his admiration. They discuss sociological questions
at large, at first with considerable cordiality and unanimity ;
but the harmony is short-lived. In summer, 1843, begins the
debate on Women, which occupied the remainder of that year,
the letters being very long on both sides. By November,
Comte declares the prolongation of the discussion needless,
"
but protests strongly against Mill s calling women slaves ".
Mill copied out the letters on both sides, and I remember
reading them. Some years later, when I asked him to show
them to a friend of mine, he consented, but said that, having
re-read them himself, he was dissatisfied with the concessions
he had made to Comte, and would never show them to anyone
again. What I remember thinking at the time I read them
was, that Mill needlessly prolonged the debate, hoping against
hope to produce an impression upon Comte. The correspon
dence was not arrested by this divergence, nor was Mill s sym
pathy for Comte s misfortunes in any way abated, but the chance
of their ever pulling together on social questions was reduced
to a very small amount. They still agreed as to the separation
of the Spiritual and the Temporal power, but only as a vague
generality. In July, 1844, came the crash at the Polytechnic :
by a dexterous manoeuvre, Comte was ousted without being
formally dismissed ; he lost 6000 francs a-year, and was
in dire distress. He appealed to Mill, but with the same