Again, as a science, Political Economy considers wealth only as related to wealth, to itself, not to man. It assumes wealth, as absolute, and regards man as an instrument for its production and distribution. But this attitude must be reversed. Wealth cannot be treated of in a wholly healthful way until it is considered simply as instrumental toward the higher riches which are contained in man himself.
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 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, like the infancy of human beings, may require protection, even though their adult vigor could be safely left to take care of itself. Suppose it conceded that this protection is at first costly. So are the cradle and the nursery. Yet it may be that they "pay" in the end. Nay, as the cradle may enrich the household through the new incentives to labor and frugality which it supplies, so protections of industry may evoke new industrial powers, and thus at once begin to enrich the nation, though the capital which supports these fresh industries could not at first hold its own, as against other capital, without the motherly cares it receives.
But enough. Here is a book on a matter of large and immediate importance, put forth by one of the amplest and soundest minds of our time,—a man so long-headed and clear-hearted, so able and intrepid to think, to speak, and to hear correction, so intent upon high ends and so calmly patient upon the way, that the public can neglect his thought only by a criminal neglect of its own interests.
A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. With a Complete Bibliography of the Subject. By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs.
Few "signs of the times" are more significant than the disposition shown on all sides to scrutinize and interpret the spiritual history of mankind. Lessing, Schlegel, Herder, Hegel, Guizot, Buckle, and others, endeavor, with various degrees of ambition and success, to estimate history considered as a progress; Carlyle in his "Heroes" and Emerson in the "Representative Men" regard it rather as a permanence, and seek to present its value in typical forms; meanwhile the Bibles and mythologies of the old world are collected, translated, subjected to interpretative study; and the critical scholarship of our time is almost wholly engaged in an endeavor either to arrive at the exact text or at the precise value of all the ancient literatures.