s the origin
of the great superiority which he ascribes to his later as compared with
his earlier speculations, is the "moral regeneration" which he underwent
from "une angelique influence" and "une incomparable passion privee." He
formed a passionate attachment to a lady whom he describes as uniting
everything which is morally with much that is intellectually admirable,
and his relation to whom, besides the direct influence of her character
upon his own, gave him an insight into the true sources of human
happiness, which changed his whole conception of life. This attachment,
which always remained pure, gave him but one year of passionate
enjoyment, the lady having been cut off by death at the end of that
short period; but the adoration of her memory survived, and became, as
we shall see, the type of his conception of the sympathetic culture
proper for all human beings. The change thus effected in his personal
character and sentiments, manifested itself at once in his speculations;
which, from having been only a philosophy, now aspired to become a
religion; and from having been as purely, and almost rudely, scientific
and intellectual, as was compatible with a character always enthusiastic
in its admirations and in its ardour for improvement, became from this
time what, for want of a better name, may be called sentimental; but
sentimental in a way of its own, very curious to contemplate. In
considering the system of religion, politics, and morals, which in his
later writings M. Comte constructed, it is not unimportant to bear in
mind the nature of the personal experience and inspiration to which he
himself constantly attributed this phasis of his philosophy. But as we
shall have much more to say against, than in favour of, the conclusions
to which he was in this manner conducted, it is right to declare that,
from the evidence of his writings, we really believe the moral influence
of Madame Clotilde de Vaux upon his character to have been of the
ennobling as well as softening character which he ascribes to it. Making
allowance for the effects of his exuberant growth in self-conceit, we
perceive almost as much improvement in his feelings, as deterioration in
his speculations, compared with those of the Philosophie Positive. Even
the speculations are, in some secondary aspects, improved through the
beneficial effect of the improved feelings; and might have been more so,
if, by a rare good fortune, the object of his attachmen