After she began her career as a novelist George Eliot wrote about twenty essays, nearly all of which are included in her last book, Impressions of Theophrastus Such.  Previous to this, however, she had published in the first number of the Fortnightly Review, issued May 15, 1865, and edited by Lewes, an article on “The Influence of Rationalism,” in review of Mr. W.H.  Lecky’s book on that subject.  A year after the appearance of Felix Holt she wrote out her views on the subject of political reform, in the shape of an “Address to Workingmen by Felix Holt,” which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for January, 1868.  These essays are significant, because of the light they afford concerning the author’s views on religious and political subjects.  The first is a piece of thorough reviewing, and shows what George Eliot might have done in that direction.  She is a merciless critic, and yet one inclined to appreciate all that is best in an author.  Her sympathies with positivism and with the “scientific method” in philosophy find expression in the pages of this essay.  In it she gives a most expressive utterance to her ideas about the universality of law and the influence of tradition.  Her point of view is so antagonistic to Mr, Lecky’s that she does not do full justice to his work.  His idealism is repugnant to her, and he does not give prominence enough to please her to those positivist influences in which she so strongly believed.  Her dissatisfaction with his idealism appears in her very first words.

There is a valuable class of books on great subjects which have something of the character and functions of good popular lecturing.  They are not original, not subtle, not of close logical texture, not exquisite either in thought or style; but by virtue of these negatives they are all the more fit to act on the average intelligence.  They have enough of organizing purpose in them to make their facts illustrative, and to leave a distinct result in the mind even when most of the facts are forgotten; and they have enough of vagueness and vacillation in their theory to win them ready acceptance from a mixed audience.  The vagueness and vacillation are not devices of timidity; they are the honest result of the writer’s own mental character, which adapts him to be the instructor and the favorite of “the general reader.”  For the most part, the general reader of the present day does not exactly know what distance he goes; he only knows that he does not go “too far.”  Of any remarkable thinker, whose writings have excited controversy, he likes to have it said “that his errors are to be deplored.” leaving it not too certain what those errors are; he is fond of what may be called disembodied opinions, that float in vapory phrases above all systems of thought or action; he likes an undefined Christianity which opposes itself to nothing in particular, an undefined education of the people, an undefined amelioration of all things:  in fact, he likes