announced by the President (M.  Villemain), with a brief critical estimate of each.  Their comparative merits were appreciated, and the prize awarded to one of the competitors.  Among the compositions sent to compete for the prize, one was a work by M. Taine, upon which the President bestowed the most remarkable encomiums, in every different point of view:  extent of knowledge, force of thought, style, arrangement, all were praised in a manner which we have rarely heard exceeded.  Nevertheless, the prize was not awarded to this work, but to another which the President praised in a manner decidedly less marked and emphatic.  What was here the ratio decidendi?  The reason was, and the President declared it in the most explicit language, that the work of M. Taine was deeply tainted with materialism.  ‘Sans doute,’ said the esteemed veteran of French literature in pronouncing his award, ’sans doute les opinions sont libres, mais’—­It is precisely against this mais—­ushering in the special anathematized or consecrated conclusion which it is intended to except from the general liberty of enforcing or impugning—­in matters of philosophical discussion, that Mr Mill, in the ‘Essay on Liberty,’ declares war as champion of Reasoned Truth.

He handles this grand theme—­eleythheroys eleythheros philosophein—­involving as it does the best interests of philosophy, as an instructress to men’s judgments, and a stimulus to their intelligence—­with great depth of psychological analysis sustained by abundant historical illustration.  And he in the same volume discusses most profitably another question akin to it—­To what extent, and by what principles, the interference of others is justifiable, in restraining the liberty of taste and action for each individual?  A question at once grave and neglected, but the discussion of which does not belong to our present article.

A new work from one who has already manifested such mastery of philosophy, both in principle and in detail, and a work exhibiting the analysis and appreciation of the philosophical views of an eminent contemporary, must raise the highest expectation.  We think no reader will be disappointed who peruses Mr Mill’s ‘Examination,’ and we shall now endeavour to give some account of the manner in which he performs it.  Upon topics so abstract and subtle as the contents of this volume, the antithesis between two rival theories is the best way, and often the only way, for bringing truth into clear view; and the ‘Examination’ here before us is professedly controversy.  But of controversy in its objectionable sense—­of captious or acrimonious personality—­not a trace will here be found.  A dignified, judicial equanimity of tone is preserved from first to last.  Moreover, though the title and direct purpose of the volume is negative and critical, yet the destructive criticism is pervaded by many copious veins of constructive exposition, embodying Mr Mill’s own views upon some of the most intricate problems of metaphysics.