The suggestion that in these matters we have to deal with a common influence of Hegel and Comte has still so much the air of a paradox that I had better say at once that I am by no means the first to notice similarities between them. I could give you a long list, and shall presently mention a few outstanding examples, of students of the history of ideas who have pointed out such resemblances. The curious fact is that these observations have again and again been made with the air of surprise and discovery, and that their authors always seem a little uneasy about their own temerity and afraid of going beyond pointing out a few isolated points of agreement. If I am not mistaken, these coincidences go much further, however, and, in their effects on the social sciences, were much more important than has yet been realized.
Before I mention some instances of such earlier notice I must, however, correct a common mistake which is largely responsible for the neglect of the whole issue. It is the belief that the similarities are due to an influence which Hegel exercised on Comte.17.2 This belief is due mainly to the fact that the publication of Comte's ideas is commonly dated from the appearance of the six volumes of his Cours de philosophie positive from 1830 to 1842, while Hegel died in 1831. All the essential ideas of Comte were, however, expounded by him as early as 1822 in his youthful System of Positive Policy,17.3 and this opuscule fondamentale, as he later called it, appeared also as one of the works of the Saint-Simonian group and as such probably reached a wider audience and exercised a greater influence than the Cours immediately did. It seems to me to be one of the most pregnant tracts of the nineteenth century, infinitely more brilliant than the now better known ponderous volumes of the Cours. But even the Cours, which is little more than an elaboration of the ideas sketched in that small tract, was planned as early as 1826 and delivered as a series of lectures before a distinguished audience in 1828. 17.4 Comte's main ideas were thus published within a year of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, within a couple of years of the Encyklopaedie, and of course before the posthumous appearance of the Philosophy of History, to mention only Hegel's main works which are relevant here. In other words, although Comte was Hegel's junior by twenty-eight years, we must regard them. to all intents and purposes as contemporaries, and there would be about as much justification for thinking that Hegel might have been influenced by Comte, as that Comte was influenced by Hegel.
You will now appreciate the significance of the first, and in many ways the most remarkable, instance in which the similarity between the two thinkers was noticed. In 1824 Comte's young pupil Gustave d'Eichthal went to study in Germany. In his letters to Comte he soon reported excitedly from Berlin about his discovery of Hegel.17.5 ``There is,'' he wrote with regard to Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history, ``a marvelous agreement between your results, even though the principles are different, at least in appearance.'' He went on to say that ``the identity of results exists even in the practical principles, as Hegel is a defender of the governments, that is to say, an enemy of the liberals.'' A few weeks later d'Eichthal was able to report that he had presented a copy of Comte's tract to Hegel, who had expressed satisfaction and greatly praised the first part, although he had doubts about the meaning of the method of observation recommended in the second part. And Comte not much later even expressed the naive hope that ``Hegel seemed to him in Germany the man most capable to push the positive philosophy.''17.6
The later instances in which the similarity has been noticed are numerous, as I have already said. But although such widely used books as R. Flint's Philosophy of History17.7 and J. T. Merz's History of European Thought17.8comment upon it, and such distinguished and diverse scholars as Alfred Fouillée,17.9Smile Meyerson,17.10Thomas Wittaker,17.11 Ernest Troeltsch,17.12 and Eduard Spranger17.13 have discussed it--I will keep for a note a score of other names I could mention17.14--little attempt has yet been made at a systematic examination of these similarities, though I must not omit mention of Friedrich Dittmann's comparative study of the philosophies of history of Comte and Hegel,17.15 on which I shall draw in some measure.