In this place it is impossible to forget, that, in introducing to the
English world the principles of Comte, Mr. Mill so clearly and
ardently professed the positive philosophy at that time restricted to
its earlier phase alone. In this place it is impossible, too, to
forget the generous assistance which he extended to Comte, whereby he
was enabled to continue his labors in philosophy, impossible also to
forget the active communion of mind between them, and the large space
which their intercourse occupied in the thoughts and labors of both.
Nor can I, and many present here, forget the many occasions on which
we have been guided by his counsel and supported by his help in many a
practical work in which we have depended on his example and
experience. It is needless to repeat, for it must be present to all
minds, how many and deep are the differences which separate him from
the later doctrines of Comte, and how completely he repudiated
connection with the religious reconstruction of Positivism. We here,
at any rate, shall claim Mr. Mill for Positivism in no other sense
than that in which he claimed it for himself in his own latest
writings. These differences we shall neither exaggerate nor veil. They
stand all written most clearly for all men to weigh and to use. But
naturally we shall point, as one of us has already publicly pointed,
to the cardinal features of agreement, and the vast importance of the
features for which we may claim the whole weight of his authority. Yet
I would not pretend that it is only on this side of his connection
with the founder and principles of Positivism, that we dwell on the
memory of Mr. Mill with admiration and sympathy. We reverence that
unfaltering fearlessness of spirit, that warmth of generous emotion,
that guileless simplicity of nature, which made his life heroic.
Neither insult, failure, nor abandonment could shake his sense of
duty, or touch his gentle and serene fortitude. For us his high
example, his noble philosophic calm, continue to live and to teach.