among the members of the Comtian body.

Mr. Congreve, in a peroration which seems especially intended to catch
the attention of his readers, indignantly challenges me to admire M.
Comte's life, "to deny that it has a marked character of grandeur about
it;" and he uses some very strong language because I show no sign of
veneration for his idol. I confess I do not care to occupy myself with
the denigration of a man who, on the whole, deserves to be spoken of
with respect. Therefore, I shall enter into no statement of the reasons
which lead me unhesitatingly to accept Mr. Congreve's challenge, and to
refuse to recognise anything which deserves the name of grandeur of
character in M. Comte, unless it be his arrogance, which is undoubtedly
sublime. All I have to observe is, that if Mr. Congreve is justified in
saying that I speak with a tinge of contempt for his spiritual father,
the reason for such colouring of my language is to be found in the fact,
that, when I wrote, I had but just arisen from the perusal of a work
with which he is doubtless well acquainted, M. Littre's "Auguste Comte
et la Philosophic Positive."

Though there are tolerably fixed standards of right and wrong, and even
of generosity and meanness, it may be said that the beauty, or grandeur,
of a life is more or less a matter of taste; and Mr. Congreve's notions
of literary excellence are so different from mine that, it may be, we
should diverge as widely in our judgment of moral beauty or ugliness.
Therefore, while retaining my own notions, I do not presume to quarrel
with his. But when Mr. Congreve devotes a great deal of laboriously
guarded insinuation to the endeavour to lead the public to believe that
I have been guilty of the dishonesty of having criticised Comte without
having read him, I must be permitted to remind him that he has neglected
the well-known maxim of a diplomatic sage, "If you want to damage a man,
you should say what is probable, as well as what is true."

And when Mr. Congreve speaks of my having an advantage over him in my
introduction of "Christianity" into the phrase that "M. Comte's
philosophy, in practice, might be described as Catholicism _minus_
Christianity;" intending thereby to suggest that I have, by so doing,
desired to profit by an appeal to the _odium theologicum_,--he lays
himself open to a very unpleasant retort.

What if I were to suggest that Mr. Congreve had not read Comte's works;
and that the phrase "the co