Lettres d'Auguste Comte a John Stuart Mill 1841-1846. Paris: Ernest Leroux. 1877.

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x, 462 pp; all edges gilt. Later good-quality dark green morocco gilt by P. Delacour, a little rubbed at extremities; overall a handsome copy. First edition. 'The correspondence …. which lasted from 1841 to 1846, is of considerable philosophical interest. In his first letter, Mill presents himself almost as a follower of Comte and recalls how, some ten years before, it had been the reading of Comte's 1822 work that had liberated him from the influence of Bentham. But the tone of the letters, while remaining friendly, soon changes. Mill does not hesitate to voice objections to the exclusion of psychology from the classification of the sciences and to Comte's conception of biology. In particular, Mill had strong reservations about Gall's phrenology, while Comte endorsed it, and proposed to replace it by ethology. Their disagreements crystallize around la question féminine ,that is the status of women in society, where it is possible to see how epistemological and political considerations are linked (Guillin 2007).'. Seller Inventory # 073522

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