Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers Part 17

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-five Comte married. The ceremony was performed civilly, on a sudden impulse of what Schopenhauer would call "the genius of the genus." The lady was young, agreeable; and having no opinions of her own, was quite willing to accept his. Comte congratulated himself that here was virgin soil, and he laid the flattering unction to his soul that he could mold the lady's mind to match his own. She would be his helpmeet. Comte had not read Ouida, who once wrote that when G.o.d said, "I will make a helpmeet for him," He was speaking ironically.

Comte had a.s.sociated but very little with women--he had theories about them. Small men, with midget minds, know femininity much better than do the great ones. Traveling salesmen, with checkered vests, gauge women as Herbert Spencer never could.

Comte's wife was pretty and she was astute--as most pretty women are.

John Fiske, in his lecture on "Communal Life," says that astute persons add nothing of value to the community in which they live--their mission being to be the admired gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on for the non-cogitabund. The value of astuteness is that it protects us from the astute.

Samuel Johnson and his wife had their first quarrel on the way from the church, and Auguste Comte and his wife tiffed going down the steps from the notary's. Comte had no use for ecclesiastical forms, and the lady agreed with him until after the notary had earned his fee. Then she suddenly had qualms, like those peculiar ladies told of by Robert Louis Stevenson, who turn the Madonna's face to the wall.

The couple went to Montpelier on their wedding-tour, to visit Comte's parents. The new wife agreed with the old folks on but one point--the marriage should be solemnized by a priest. Having won them on this point, they stood a solid phalanx against the husband; but the lady took exceptions to Montpelier on all other grounds--she hated it thoroughly and said so.

Instead of molding her to his liking, Comte was being kneaded into animal crackers for her amus.e.m.e.nt.

Then we find him writing to a friend, confessing that his hopes were ashes; but in his misery he grows philosophical and says, "It is all good, for now I am driven back to my work, and from now on my life is dedicated to science."

No doubt the lady was as much disappointed in the venture as was the husband, but he, being literary, eased his grief by working it up into art, while her side of the story lies buried deep in silence glum.

In choosing the names of philosophers for this series, no thought was given in the selection beyond the achievements of the men. But it now comes to me with a slight surprise that seven out of the twelve were unmarried, and probably it would have been as well--certainly for the wives--if the other five had remained bachelors, too. Xantippe would have been the gainer, even if Socrates did miss his discipline.

To center on science and devote one's thought to philosophy produces a being more or less deformed. There is great danger in specialization: Nature sacrifices the man in order to get the thing done. Abstract thought unfits one for domestic life; for, to a degree, it separates a man from his kind.

The proper advice to a woman about to marry a philosopher would be, "Don't!"

The advantage of a little actual hards.h.i.+p in one's life is that it makes existence real and not merely literary. Comte was inclined to thrive on martyrdom. His restless, eager mind invented troubles, if there were no real ones, but he was wise enough to know this, as he once said: "The trials of life are all of one size--imaginary pains are as bad as real ones, and men who have no actual troubles usually conjure forth a few.

Thus far, happily, I am not reduced to this strait."

We thus see that the true essence of philosophy was there. Comte got a gratification by dissecting, a.n.a.lyzing and cla.s.sifying his emotions. All was grist that came to his mill.

When he was twenty-eight the Positive Philosophy had a.s.sumed such proportions in his mind that he announced a course of twelve lectures on the subject.

He was jealous of his discoveries, and was intent on getting all the credit that was due him. Money he cared little for; power and reputation to him were the only G.o.ds worth appeasing. The thought of domestic joy was forever behind, but philosophy came as a solace. A prospectus was sent out and tickets were issued. The landlady where he boarded offered her parlor and her boarder, second floor back, for the benefit of science. Several zealous denizens of the Latin Quarter made a canva.s.s, and enough tickets were sold so that the philosopher felt that at last the world was really at his feet.

When the afternoon for the first lecture arrived, no carriages blocked the street, and as only about half of those who had purchased tickets appeared, the difficulties of the landlady and her nervous boarder were much lessened.

There was one man at this first lecture who was profoundly impressed, and if we had his testimony, and none other, we might well restrain our smiles. That man was Alexander von Humboldt. In various pa.s.sages Humboldt does Comte the honor of quoting from him, and in one instance says, "He has summed up certain phases of truth better than they have ever been expressed before."

Little did the landlady guess that her crusty, crabbed boarder was firing a shot that would be heard 'round the world, and surely the gendarme on that particular beat never heard it--so small and commonplace are the beginnings of great things!

Comte was so saturated with this theme--so immersed in it--that it consumed him like a fever. Three lectures were given, but at the third, without warning, the man's nerves snapped--he stopped, sat down, and the audience filed out perplexed, thinking they had merely seen an exhibition of one of the eccentricities of genius. The philosopher's mind was a blank, and kind friends sent him away to a hospital.

It was two years before he regained his reason. The enforced rest did him good. Nervous Prostration is heroic treatment on the part of Nature.

It is an intent to do for the man what he will never do for himself.

Unkind critics, hotly intent on refuting the Positive Philosophy, seized upon the fact of Comte's mental trouble and made much of it. "Look you!"

said they, "the man is insane!"

This is convenient, but not judicial. Comte's philosophy stands or falls on its own merits, and what the author did before, after, or during the writing of his theses matters not. Madmen are not mad all the time, and the fact that Sir Isaac Newton was for a time unbalanced does not lessen our regard for the "Principia," nor consign to limbo the law of gravitation. Ruskin's work is not the less thought of because the man had his pathetic spells of indecision. Martin Luther had visions of devils before he saw the truth, and Emerson's love for Longfellow need not be disparaged because he looked down on his still, white face and said, "A dear gentle soul, but I really can not remember his name."

Men write on physiology, and then die, but this does not disprove the truth they expressed, but failed, possibly, to fully live. The great man always thinks further than he can travel--even the rest of us can do that. We can think "Chicago" in a second, but to go there takes time, strength and money.

When Comte's mental trouble was at its height, and two men were required to care for him, Lamennais persuaded his wife to have their marriage solemnized by the Church, and this was done. This performance was such a violation of sanct.i.ty and decency that in after-years Comte could not believe it was true, until he consulted the church records. "They might as well have had me confirmed," said Comte, grimly. And we can well guess that the action did not increase his regard for either his wife or the Church. The trick seems quite on a par with that of the astute colored gentleman who anxiously asks for love-powders at the corner drugstore; or the good wives who purchase harmless potions from red-dyed rogues to place in the husband's coffee to cure him of the liquor habit.

However, the incident gives a clew to the mental processes of Madame Comte--she would accomplish by trickery what she had failed to do by moral suasion, and this in the name of religion!

Two years of enforced rest, and the glowing mind of the philosopher awoke with a start. He rubbed his eyes after his Rip-Van-Winkle sleep, and called for his ma.n.u.scripts--he must prepare for the fourth lecture!

The rest of the course was given, and in Eighteen Hundred Thirty the first volume of Positive Philosophy was issued.

The sixth and last volume appeared in Eighteen Hundred Forty-two--twelve years of intense application and ceaseless work. This was the happiest time of Comte's life; he had the whole scheme in his head from the start, but he now saw it gradually taking form, and it was meeting with appreciation from a few earnest thinkers, at least. His services were in demand for occasional lectures on scientific subjects. In astronomy, especially, he excelled, and on this theme he was able to please a popular a.s.sembly.

The Polytechnic School had now grown to large proportions, and the inst.i.tution that Comte had helped to slide into dissolution now called him back to serve as examiner and professor.

The constant misunderstandings with his wife had increased to such a point that both felt a separation desirable. Married people do not separate on slight excuse--they go because they must. That Comte thought much more of the lady when they were several hundred miles apart than when they were together, there is no doubt. He wrote to her at regular intervals, one-half of his income was religiously sent to her, and he practised the most painstaking economy in order that he might feel that she was provided for.

One letter, especially, to his wife reveals a side of Comte's nature that shows he had the instinct of a true teacher. He says, "I hardly dare disclose the sweet and softened feeling that comes over me when I find a scholar whose heart is thoroughly in his work."

The Positive Philosophy was taken up by John Stuart Mill, who wrote a fine essay on it. It was Mill who introduced the work to Harriet Martineau. Mr. and Mrs. Mill had intended to translate and condense the philosophy of Comte for English readers, but when Miss Martineau expressed her intention of attempting the task, they relinquished the idea, but backed her up in her efforts.

Miss Martineau condensed the six volumes into two, and what is most strange, Comte thought so well of the work that he wrote a glowing acknowledgment of it.

The Martineaus were of good old Huguenot stock, and the French language came easy to Harriet. For the plain people of France she had a profound regard, and being sort of a revolutionary by prenatal instincts, Comte's work from the start appealed to her. James Martineau had such a bristling personality--being very much like his sister Harriet--that when this sister wrote a review of a volume of his sermons, showing the fatuity and foolishness of the reasoning, and calling attention to much bad grammar, the good man cut her off with a s.h.i.+lling--"which he will have to borrow," said Harriet.

James hugged the idea to his death that his sister had insulted his genius--"But I forgive her," he said, which remark proves that he hadn't, for if he had, he would not have thought to mention the matter.

James Martineau was a great man, but if he had been just a little greater he would have taken a profound pride in a sister who was so sharp a shooter that she could puncture his balloon. James Martineau was a theologian; Harriet was a Positivist. But Positivity had a lure for him, and so there is a long review, penned largely with aqua fortis, on Miss Martineau's translation, done by her brother for the "Edinburgh Review," wherein Harriet is not once mentioned.

When Robert Ingersoll's wife would occasionally, under great stress of the servant-girl problem, break over a bit, as good women will, and say things, Robert would remark, "Gently, my dear, gently--I fear me you haven't yet gotten rid of all your Christian virtues."

The Reverend Doctor James Martineau never quite got rid of his Christian virtues, which perhaps proves that a little hate, like strychnin, is useful as a stimulant when properly reduced, for Doctor Martineau died only a few years ago, having nearly rounded out a century run.

Harriet Martineau was in much doubt about how Comte would regard her completed work, but was greatly relieved when he gave it his unqualified approval. On his earnest invitation she visited him in Paris.

Fortunately, she did not have to resort to the Herbert Spencer expedient of wearing ear-m.u.f.fs for protection against loquacious friends. She liked Comte first-rate, until he began to make love to her. Then his stock dropped below par.

Comte was always much impressed by intellectual women. His wife had given him a sample of the other kind, and caused him to swing out and idealize the woman of brains.

So that, when Harriet Martineau admired the Positive Philosophy, it was proof sufficient to Comte of her excellence in all things. She knew better, and started soon for Dover.

Mr. and Mrs. Mill had called on Comte a few months before, and given him a glimpse of the ideal--an intellectual man mated with an intellectual woman. But Comte didn't see that it was plain commonsense that made them great. Comte prided himself on his own commonsense, but the article was not in his equipment, else he would not have put the blame of all his troubles upon his wife. A man with commonsense, married to a woman who hasn't any, does not necessarily forfeit his own.

Mr. or Mrs. Mill would have been great anywhere--singly, separately, together, or apart. Each was a radiant center. Weakness multiplied by two does not give strength, and naught times naught equals naught.

Having finished the Positive Philosophy, Comte's restless mind began to look around for more worlds to conquer.

In the expenditure of money he was careful, and in his accounts exact; but the making of money and its acc.u.mulation were things that to him could safely be delegated to second-cla.s.s minds. A haughty pride of intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody kiss her big toe.