a_, Comte may
have suffered in the same way, and still not have forfeited our
respect for what is good in the systems of Positive Philosophy and
Positive Polity.

In 1828 the lectures were renewed, and in 1830 was published the first
volume of the _Course of Positive Philosophy_. The sketch and ground
plan of this great undertaking had appeared in 1826. The sixth and
last volume was published in 1842. The twelve years covering the
publication of the first of Comte's two elaborate works were years of
indefatigable toil, and they were the only portion of his life in
which he enjoyed a certain measure, and that a very modest measure, of
material prosperity. In 1833 he was appointed examiner of the boys in
the various provincial schools who aspired to enter the Ecole
Polytechnique at Paris. This and two other engagements as a teacher of
mathematics secured him an income of some L400 a year. He made M.
Guizot, then Louis Philippe's minister, the important proposal to
establish a chair of general history of the sciences. If there are
four chairs, he argued, devoted to the history of philosophy, that is
to say, the minute study of all sorts of dreams and aberrations
through the ages, surely there ought to be at least one to explain the
formation and progress of our real knowledge? This wise suggestion,
which still remains to be acted upon, was at first welcomed, according
to Comte's own account, by Guizot's philosophic instinct, and then
repulsed by his 'metaphysical rancour.'

Meanwhile Comte did his official work conscientiously, sorely as he
grudged the time which it took from the execution of the great object
of his thoughts. We cannot forbear to transcribe one delightful and
touching trait in connection with this part of Comte's life. 'I hardly
know if even to you,' he writes in the expansion of domestic
confidence to his wife, 'I dare disclose the sweet and softened
feeling that comes over me when I find a young man whose examination
is thoroughly satisfactory. Yes, though you may smile, the emotion
would easily stir me to tears if I were not carefully on my guard.'
Such sympathy with youthful hope; in union with the industry and
intelligence that are the only means of bringing the hope to
fulfilment, shows that Comte's dry and austere manner veiled the fires
of a generous social emotion. It was this which made the overworked
student take upon himself the burden of delivering every year from
1831 to 1848 a course of g