f the universal elements in human society is family life;
which M. Comte regards as originally the sole, and always the principal,
source of the social feelings, and the only school open to mankind in
general, in which unselfishness can be learnt, and the feelings and
conduct demanded by social relations be made habitual. M. Comte takes
this opportunity of declaring his opinions on the proper constitution of
the family, and in particular of the marriage institution. They are of
the most orthodox and conservative sort. M. Comte adheres not only to
the popular Christian, but to the Catholic view of marriage in its
utmost strictness, and rebukes Protestant nations for having tampered
with the indissolubility of the engagement, by permitting divorce. He
admits that the marriage institution has been, in various respects,
beneficially modified with the advance of society, and that we may not
yet have reached the last of these modifications; but strenuously
maintains that such changes cannot possibly affect what he regards as
the essential principles of the institution--the irrevocability of the
engagement, and the complete subordination of the wife to the husband,
and of women generally to men; which are precisely the great vulnerable
points of the existing constitution of society on this important
subject. It is unpleasant to have to say it of a philosopher, but the
incidents of his life which have been made public by his biographers
afford an explanation of one of these two opinions: he had quarrelled
with his wife.[16] At a later period, under the influence of
circumstances equally personal, his opinions and feelings respecting
women were very much modified, without becoming more rational: in his
final scheme of society, instead of being treated as grown children,
they were exalted into goddesses: honours, privileges, and immunities,
were lavished on them, only not simple justice. On the other question,
the irrevocability of marriage, M. Comte must receive credit for
impartiality, since the opposite doctrine would have better suited his
personal convenience: but we can give him no other credit, for his
argument is not only futile but refutes itself. He says that with
liberty of divorce, life would be spent in a constant succession of
experiments and failures; and in the same breath congratulates himself
on the fact, that modern manners and sentiments have in the main
prevented the baneful effects which the toleration of divo