editor of the New York _World_, and afterwards of the _Graphic_,
enabled her to call together the leaders, and many interested in the
then (and now?) two leading schools of scientific and constructive
thought; the Positivist school of Augusta Comte, represented by Henry
Edgar and partly also by Mr. Croly and others; and also in contrast
therewith, the Synthetic Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, represented by
Edward L. Youmans, John Fiske and others. Nor were there wanting those
who, like the present writer, would combine those two schools, and
more, into the scientific and republican growth of our newer world and
life in America.

The initiative of these meetings was a course of lectures procured by
Mr. Croly, to be delivered by Mr. Edgar at De Garmo Hall early in
1868. Out of the interest thus excited, Mr. and Mrs. Croly called
around them the elements above referred to, including, among
miscellaneous attendants, perhaps a hundred earnest students of
Positivism and of the higher religious and scientific philosophies.
The meetings were not always held at the homes mentioned, but at the
home of Mr. Courtlandt Palmer and of other participants. All the
parties named, and many others, took part in the discussions of this
unorganized circle, until its name and influence reached and
interested generally the thinkers of the city. This interest, as the
years rolled on, resulted in or influenced the forming of many
societies, among which were a Positivist Society, the Society of
Humanity, the New York and Manhattan Liberal Clubs, the Philosophic
Society of Brooklyn, the Nineteenth Century Club, the Goethe Society,
and indirectly a Dante Society and several others. All of the clubs
and societies of women with which Mrs. Croly and her work have been
associated may be thus included. Certain it is that this "positive
factor" in her life was the source from which the new, altruistic