Concerned as we are here with Mr Mill only as a logician and philosopher, we feel precluded from adverting to his works on other topics—­even to his ‘Elements of Political Economy,’ by which he is probably more widely known than by anything else.  Of the many obligations which Political Economy owes to him, one only can be noticed consistent with the scope of the present article:  the care which he has taken—­he alone, or at least, he more explicitly and formally than any other expositor—­to set forth the general position of that science in the aggregate field of scientific research; its relation to sociology as a whole, or to other fractions thereof, how far derivative or co-ordinate; what are its fundamental postulates or hypotheses, with what limits the logical methods of induction and deduction are applicable to it, and how far its conclusions may be relied on as approximations to truth.  All these points will be found instructively handled in the Sixth Book of Mr Mill’s ‘System of Logic,’ as well as in his smaller and less known work, ’Essays on Some Unsettled Questions in Political Economy.’  We find him, while methodizing and illustrating the data of the special science, uniformly keeping in view its relation to philosophy as a whole.

But there is yet another work in which the interests of philosophy, as a whole, come into the foreground and become the special object of vindication in their largest compass and most vital requirements.  We mean Mr Mill’s ‘Essay on Liberty,’ one half of which takes for its thesis the libertus philosophandi.  He maintains, emphatically, in this book, the full dignity of reasoned truth against all the jealous exigencies of traditional dogma and self-justifying sentiment.  He claims the most unreserved liberty of utterance for negative and affirmative on all questions—­not merely for the purpose of discriminating truth from falsehood, but also to keep up in individual minds the full sense and understanding of the matters controverted, in place of a mere partial and one-sided adhesion.  At first sight, indeed, it might seem as if Mr Mill was fighting with a shadow; for liberty of philosophizing is a postulate which, in general terms, every one concedes.  But when you come to fathom the real feelings which underlie this concession, you discover that almost every man makes it under reserves which, though acting in silence, are not the less efficacious.  Every one has some dogmas which he cannot bear to hear advocated, and others which he will not allow to be controverted in his presence.  A writer has to consider not merely by what reasons any novelty of belief or disbelief may be justified, but also how much it will be safe for him to publish, having regard to the irritable sore places of the public judgment.  In July, 1864, we were present at the annual meeting of the French Academy at Paris, where the prizes for essays sent in, pursuant to subjects announced for study beforehand, are awarded.  We heard the titles of various compositions