teaching, made me desirous, so early as 1845, of establishing it. But its utility was not felt widely enough for me to obtain the funds requisite for the five years' unfettered trial I then judged indispensable. The republican situation permitting me, in 1848, to reduce this trial period to three years, the same difficulty beset me. But the dictatorial phase calling up more serious dispositions and making the urgent need of a sound direction of the judgment of the West more evident, I feel it my duty to make one more attempt, limiting myself to quarterly issues. This last change, with my own renunciation of all payment, reduces as much as possible the cost of such an undertaking. If then it is still unseconded I shall think no more of it, though I shall continue to hold myself ready to direct it when its conditions shall be fulfilled, and even myself to furnish a fifth or a fourth of each number.

Though I have sufficiently explained the distinction and character of the three parts of my appendix, I must not close this preface without a pleasing personal detail, the importance of which will soon be telt by all complete, that is to say, religious Positivists.

6

The General View' and the whole of the present treatise manifest equally the profoundly artistic tendency of Positivism and the great assistance its establishment must even now receive from those brilliant functions which best represent human nature in its unity. Still I have never concealed the fact that this inevitable sympathy must develope itself later than the valuable aid coming first from the instinct of the people and afterwards from the feeling of women. Nevertheless, the

systematic reason which is to guide the West has obtained earlier than I had hoped this complementary sanction, by the decisive adherence of an eminent artist, M. A. Etex, predisposed to Positivism by a nature of remarkably synthetic power.

Paris, 11 Cæsar, 64:

(Sunday, May 2, 1852.)

AUGUSTE COMTE.

(10 Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.)

I have just read in the number of your 'Methodist Review' for January 1852, received last Thursday, an appreciation of my fundamental work by an eminent adversary, a conscientious appreciation, notwithstanding some involuntary mistakes, numerous but fortunately secondary and therefore such as may be duly corrected later. This noble treatment, to which the French press has but too little accustomed me, induces me now to extend to such opponents the recent personal appeal to the public of the West, which, I may mention, is the complement of that of 1848, honourably mentioned in this remarkable article. Were I acquainted with the anonymous author, I should be glad to send it direct to him, with the expression of my sincere gratitude. But I hope, Sir, that you will be so good as to act as the medium between us, and to accept also for yourself one of the two accompanying copies of my circular. I congratulate myself, then, on this rare and passing infringement of the successful cerebral regime which, for several years, makes me systematically abstain from all papers and reviews whatever, in order to concentrate my habitual reading on the true and always fresh masterpieces of Western poetry, ancient and modern.

Public morality now requires that this despairing cry of unmerited distress should clearly resound across the Atlantic, the better to characterise both the persistent lukewarmness of my friends or partizans, and the ignoble bitterness of my persecutors of the Academy. And irrespective of our common Occidentality, I cannot consider myself personally as a stranger in a republic to which, in 1816, I was on the point of emigrating at the opening of my philosophical career, under the honourable patronage of the kind General Bernard, and, indirectly, of the noble President Monroe. Putting that aside, this communication will make clearly known the deplorable extremity to which he who, after founding Positive philosophy, is now constructing on this solid basis, and that beyond the promises quoted by my loyal adversary, the Religion of Humanity, is reduced, in the very scene of his long life of social devotion.

Of all the clergies sprung from the decomposition, first spontaneous and then systematic, of Western Monotheism, that of the United States appears to me, upon the whole, the only one which now possesses a true spiritual power, that is to say, an authority at once intellectual and moral, always resting on the free assent of a public emancipated from all outward constraint. If it is socially not more efficacious in the work of modern reorganisation, I impute this failure neither to the ministers themselves nor to the population, but chiefly to the irrevocable weakness of a religion incapable by its very nature of really embracing the great whole of the existence it ought to systematize, even though limiting its sphere to the individual life, essentially inseparable from collective life. Endowed with equal advantages, I dare affirm that Positivism would ere this have secured the whole of the West against anarchy and retrogression, judging from the results which I have obtained, in the centre of the agitation, by means, of the smallness of which the present communication may give you a precise idea.

No American would have imagined that, at the present period of my life, it would be impossible, after three years' efforts, to place at my disposal the moderate sum of 7,000 francs a year, 2,000 francs of which, as every one here knows, I scrupulously set apart for the payment of an annuity which I regard as incumbent on me. I do not then hesitate loyally to invoke the aid of generous adversaries, who will perhaps make up for the culpable torpor into which, with some admirable exceptions, French, Scotch and Dutch, my so-called disciples, almost throughout the European West, continue sunk, especially those of France and England. If the members of the American West should shame, by a striking contrast, the anarchical conduct of those of Europe, I should doubly rejoice, first, for the good use of the ten years of full vigour of brain I can still devote to Humanity, and further for the practical consecration of universal Morals, which I have always aspired to place on a solid basis by the foundation of a new spiritual power, the worthy heir of the admirable Catholicity peculiar to the Middle Ages.

In order, Sir, to reassure you as to the unbroken continuity of peaceful activity which such a situation would seem to threaten, I should be glad to send you, as well as my noble anonymous adversary, the first volume, published in July 1851, of my second great work, specially promised when I concluded the first, ten years ago. This system of Positive Politics will consist, according to that first and accurate announcement, of four volumes. Of these I am now writing the second, which will probably appear next July, and the two others at the same season of the next two years. If you will be so good as to enlighten me on material arrangements, of which I am strangely ignorant, by informing me how I may best send you all these volumes, you shall shortly receive the two copies above mentioned, of the first

volume, already known to some Americans. And you may accept this little philosophic present, as a small mark of my esteem, without scruple, for I am myself the publisher of my book, and may therefore distribute all the copies of it at my pleasure. Meanwhile, I add to my circular the Cerebral Table, which sums up my positive theory of human nature, the most available result of this new volume. I send also the philosophical programme of the systematic course of lectures I have been delivering for three years past, to a voluntary audience of both sexes, with the honourable authorisation of the only government which has hitherto fully respected my just spiritual independence, the laborious and tardy conquest of my indefatigable devotion. You may thus, as a philosopher, obtain a consoling verification of the power of modern civilisation entirely to transform the persecuting instinct itself: henceforth it is reduced to attacks on property, life and even liberty having escaped its range.

In consequence of this long and scrupulous career, more homogeneous perhaps than any other known to us, I have acquired a fixed habit of living entirely as in the eye of the world, according to the true republican principle. Therefore, Sir, if you think it would be of use to make this circular and even the present letter known, I leave to your friendly judgment the degree of publicity to be given them, provided the text be strictly reproduced without curtailment. Nevertheless, I desire that you will be so good as to consult first, on this point, the eminent citizen of Philadelphia, who has now become my chief temporal patron, without ceasing to be my noble spiritual client, Mr. Horace Binney-Wallace, too well-known to need any further address.

Health and fraternity.

AUGUSTE COMTE.

(10 Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.)