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paration for entering upon his work. He, as well as some of the others, had already got possession of Mill's Logic, and had pretty well mastered its contents. With a view to individual study, we obtained among us Comte's complete work. It was read by the entire knot composing the club; both Duguid Milne and George Walker having gone into it with the utmost thoroughness. Walker, like myself, prepared an abstract-which sometime afterwards he contributed to the paper started by Thornton Hunt and G. H. Lewes, called The Leaderforming a considerable series of articles. These Lewes made full use of, with Walker's permission, in his volume on Comte.

Such studies had, no doubt, the effect of marring the orthodoxy of all concerned, and had to be kept in a great measure secret, although it was impossible to avoid giving indications that in those days were calculated to bring the individual students into trouble. Nevertheless, the society allowed itself to be mentioned by Mill to Comte as one of the centres of Positivism. Duguid Milne had some correspondence with Comte himself, and was the recipient of his official circulars. To every one of us, at that stage, the philosophy of history possessed an engrossing interest, and was studied through all its autho

rities known at the time. Comte, as a matter of course, gave his own peculiar turn to speculation in the department, with the advantage of his systematic handling, in which he stood alone.

One fruit of my reading of Comte was a paper to the Philosophical Society, in December, on the Classification of the Sciences. It was so far based upon Comte-taking up his hierarchy, but with the insertion of psychology as an integral department. It also adopted his very important distinction, original to himself, between abstract and concrete sciences. This, in fact, was the keynote of his system, setting it far above previous classifications, with the exception perhaps of Dr. Arnott's. After adducing the abstract sciences in their order, I prepared a table of the concrete or natural history sciences. I filled up what seemed a deficiency in a perfect scheme of classification-namely, to draw a distinction at the outset between the theoretical and the practical sciences,

giving

It was

a series of examples of these latter. substantially the plan that I published afterwards in the introduction to my Logic. The society was by no means captivated with the attempt. remained for Blackie, however, to give full vent to antagonism and disapproval. His words were,

It

"my whole soul revolts at this classification ";

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sentiment being always the overruling power in his mental constitution.

In a letter from Mill in November, further allusions are made to Ward's article in The British Critic, and the view taken of his Logic by the Puseyite party. He announced that his next book would be Ethology--a subject which had taken a hold of him in connexion with the logic of politics. His correspondence with Comte was now very warm on the women question; but here the diversity between the two was incurable.

In a letter of the 8th January, Mill speaks of Benecke's book on Logic, which had been recommended to him by John Austin and by Herschel. He thought well of Benecke, but considered his psychology defective from his not grasping the principle of association. It had good materials, nevertheless.

On January 18th, Mill criticized some MS. I had sent to him on the Sensations.

On 11th March, he wrote in answer to my account of the scheme of the Emotions, and was pleased at the amount of reference made to physiology. He referred to Comte as bringing out his course of astronomy, together with an introduction to the Méthode Positive, of which he promised me a copy.

The first event of special interest of the year

was Masson's leaving Aberdeen for London in the middle of January. Under the charge of Robertson, he was at once introduced to Mill and to Craik, to Dilke of The Athenæum, to Carlyle, to Hickson, and to Doyle, the editor of The Morning Chronicle. He was thus very much befriended at his first start, and soon found admission for his writings in various places. I had occasional letters from him describing his movements, but also greatly occupied with Robertson's candidature for Kilmarnock, which was uppermost in his own mind.

In the beginning of February, I renewed the proposal to give a course of lectures in summer to the London Mechanics' Institution. The sub

jects offered were, "Genius"; "Civilisation"

"The Accidents that Influence Character". The proposal was accepted, and Genius was the topic chosen.

The close of the session was marked by an incident that terminated my relations with Dr. Glennie. The rupture was precipitated by very injudicious advice on the part of my friend Dr. Cruickshank. It appeared that Robertson, the minister of Ellon, a protégé of Cruickshank's, had long had his eye upon Glennie's Chair, and had Dr. Cruickshank's pledge of support. The disruption gave Robertson the Church History Chair of Edinburgh, with a very lucrative addition as

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Secretary to the Bible Board. Dr. Cruickshank, thus released from his pledge, was anxious that I should become Glennie's successor. In his zeal

in my behalf, however, he made the very false move of suggesting to me to ask Glennie's consent to my making an application to be his assistant and successor. On my dropping the hint to Glennie, just as the session of 1843-44 was concluded, he became deeply offended; and we parted company for good.

Summer Recess, 1844.

In the third week of April, I left for London; going by coach to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Newcastle, and thence by train to London. Such were the possibilities under the then state of advancement of railway construction. In London, I obtained a lodging in the house of my unfortunate friend Christie, which proved convenient enough. The opening lecture that I gave to the London Mechanics' Institution was on 26th April, and the others in the two following weeks. My first visit was to Mill at the India House. He was then full of the excitement caused by the recall of Ellenborough by the Court of Directors.

I had an introduction from Mill to Dr. Forbes Royle, who was settled in London as a retired