facts are.  And undoubtedly it is true that all considerate men in England have been compelled to contemplate the possibility of over-population, of an insupportable pauperism, of a burden of helpless numbers which shall sink the whole nation into abysses of starvation with all its horrible accompaniments.  It is but a few years since Ireland escaped unexampled death by famine only by an unexampled exodus.  The New World opened its arms to the misery of the Old, and fed its famine to fatness,—­and has got few thanks.  But this rescue cannot be repeated without limit.  And therefore forelooking men in England find the problem of their future one not too easy to solve.  Mr. Carlyle, among others, has grappled with it.  His brow has long been beaded with the sweat of this great wrestling; and if he seem to some of us a little abrupt and peculiar in his movements, we must at least do him the justice to remember that he, after the manner of ancient Jacob, is struggling with the angel of England’s destiny.  Mr. Mill, too, with an earnestness less passionate indeed, but perhaps not less real, is toiling at the same work.

And, by the way, an instructive comparison might be drawn between these two writers.  Mr. Mill, not highly vitalized by belief, not nourished by any grand spiritual imaginations, hampered by a hard and poor philosophy, and with limited access to absolute truth, nevertheless, not only belongs fully to the opening modern epoch, but through a certain entireness of moral health and sanity is leading the time steadily forward into its great believing and builded future; though it may follow from his limitations that into this future he cannot accompany it very far.  Mr. Carlyle, with a poetic profundity of nature and a force of insight which entitle him not merely to a high place among the men of our time, but to a name among the men of all time, standing face to face with the divine reality and wonder of existence, conversing with the heights and depths of being, and appreciating the significance of personality, as Mr. Mill never can, will accompany our epoch into its future farther than one can foresee, but to its present must render a mixed and imperfect service; for a sickness runs in his veins, and he is trying to force the age into a half-way house, which is built equally by his hope and his despair.

Were this not merely a general characterization, but a review, of Mr. Mill’s powerful work, we should venture to take issue on some matters both general and special,—­as an example of the latter, on the possible utility of protective duties.  The reasoning by which he, in common with his class, proves these to be necessarily futile for good, is indeed faultless so far as it goes, but, in our clear judgment, fails to cover the whole case; so that the question, whether as one of general polity or of industrial economy, is still open to consideration.  Especially it may be urged, that the infancy of human industries,