And here we reach the peculiar virtue of Mr. Mill’s book.

In the first place, he accepts the science as such, accepts it cordially and almost with enthusiasm,—­in fact, has a degree of faith in its completeness and of confidence in its uses, greater, perhaps, than our own final thought will justify; for the reader will already have perceived that we incline in some measure to the opposition, with Carlyle, Ruskin, and others.  Proceeding upon this basis, Mr. Mill expounds the orthodox theories with that definiteness of thought, with that precision of statement, and that calmness and breadth of survey, which never fail to characterize his literary labor.  Any one who assumes, and wishes to study the science, will find in this writer a guide through its intricacies, whom it were hardly an exaggeration to name as perfect.  Always sound-hearted, always clear, candid, and logical, always maintaining a certain judicial superiority, he is a thinker in whose company one likes to go on his mental travels, and whose thought one will be inclined to trust rather too much than too little.  In the second place, Mr. Mill discerns the limitations of the science more clearly, and acknowledges them more frankly, than, to the extent of our somewhat narrow conversance with such writers, has ever been done before by any one who regarded it with equal affection and reposed in its theories a like faith.  This, too, is thoroughly characteristic of him.  He is one of the sanest and sincerest of men.

Thirdly, his inspiring and generative purpose is to lift the science into serviceable relation to the broad interests of man.  Here we come to the real soul of the book.  He accepts its customary limits chiefly that he may transcend them.  He treats of wealth with a philosophical and cordial perception of its uses; but beyond and above this he is thinking of man, always of man,—­and of man not merely as an eater and drinker, but as an intelligence and a candidate for moral or personal upbuilding.  A reader would regard the work with a dull eye, who should miss this commanding feature.  Sometimes by special discussions, as in his defence of peasant-properties in land,—­sometimes only by an aroma pervading his pages, or bypassing expressions,—­and always by the general ordering and culminating tendency of his thought,—­one reads this perpetual question, the true and final question of all politics and economies:—­How shall we secure the greatest number of intelligent and worthy men and women?

But while Mr. Mill’s sympathy is with the people, the many, the whole of humanity, and while his desire for men is that they may attain the mental elevation which shall make them really human beings, yet a marked feature of his book is the mild Malthusian element which pervades it.  Let no stigma be therefore fixed upon him.  Let honor be rendered to the courage which steadily inquires, not what representation of the facts will win applause, but simply what the