The Positivist Problem, within The Fortnightly Review, vol. 12, issue 35

The Positivist Problem, within The Fortnightly Review, vol. 12, issue 35

Harrison, Frederic

London: Virtue & Co., 1869. The Fortnightly Review, vol. 12, issue 35, 1869-11-01, pp. 469-93

Internet Archive

1869

George Eliot to Frederic Harrison, 15 January 1870. “I am moved to write to you rather by the inclination to remind you of me, than by the sense of having anything to say. On reading "The Positivist Problem" a second time, I gained a stronger impression of its general value, and I also felt less jarred by the more personal part at the close. Mr. Lewes would tell you that I have an unreasonable aversion to personal statements, and when I come to like them it is usually by a hard process of conversion. But -- to tell you all just for the sake of telling, and not because the matter can have any weight -- my second reading gave me a new and very strong sense that the last two or three pages have the air of an appendix added at some distance of time from the original writing of the article. Some more thoroughly explanatory account of your non-adhesion seems requisite as a nexus -- since the statement of your non-adhesion had to be mentioned after an argument for the system against the outer Gentile world. However, it is more important for me to say that I felt the thorough justice of your words, when in conversation with me, you said, "I don't see why there should be any mystification: having come to a resolution after much inward debate, it is better to state the resolution." Something like that you said and I give a hearty "Amen," praying that I may not be too apt myself to prefer the haze to the clearness. But the fact is, I shrink from decided "deliverances" on momentous subjects, from the dread of coming to swear by my own "deliverances" and sinking into an insistent echo of myself. That is a horrible destiny -- and one cannot help seeing that many of the most powerful men fall into it.” GEL 5: 75-6

Harrison, Frederic, The Positivist Problem, within The Fortnightly Review, vol. 12, issue 35, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57178

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