T.H. Huxley.
[A little later he wrote to Charles Kingsley, who had supported him in the controversy:—]
Jermyn Street, April 12, 1869.
My dear Kingsley,
Thanks for your hearty bottle-holding.
Congreve is no better than a donkey to take the line he does. I studied Comte, "Philosophie," "Politique," and all sixteen years ago, and having formed my judgment about him, put it into one of the pigeon holes of my brain (about the H[ippocampus] minor [see above.]), and there let it rest till it was wanted.
You are perfectly right in saying that Comte knew nothing about physical science—it is one of the points I am going to put in evidence.
The law of the three states is mainly evolved from his own consciousness, and is only a bad way of expressing that tendency to personification which is inherent in man.
The Classification of Sciences is bosh—as Spencer has already shown.
Nothing short of madness, however, can have dictated Congreve's challenge of my admiration of Comte as a man at the end of his article. Did you ever read Littre's "Life of Comte?" I bought it when it came out a year or more ago, and I rose from its perusal with a feeling of sheer disgust and contempt for the man who could treat a noble-hearted woman who had saved his life and his reason, as Comte treated his wife.