Any one who knows Grecian history as it can
now be known, will be amazed at M. Comte's travestie of it, in which the
vulgarest historical prejudices are accepted and exaggerated, to
illustrate the mischiefs of intellectual culture left to its own
guidance.
There is no need to analyze further M. Comte's second view of universal
history. The best chapter is that on the Romans, to whom, because they
were greater in practice than in theory, and for centuries worked
together in obedience to a social sentiment (though only that of their
country's aggrandizement), M. Comte is as favourably affected, as he is
inimical to all but a small selection of eminent thinkers among the
Greeks. The greatest blemish in this chapter is the idolatry of Julius
Caesar, whom M. Comte regards as one of the most illustrious characters
in history, and of the greatest practical benefactors of mankind. Caesar
had many eminent qualities, but what he did to deserve such praise we
are at a loss to discover, except subverting a free government: that
merit, however, with M. Comte, goes a great way. It did not, in his
former days, suffice to rehabilitate Napoleon, whose name and memory he
regarded with a bitterness highly honourable to himself, and whose
career he deemed one of the greatest calamities in modern history.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233