ill's
generosity in regard to the Indian appointment by declining to
republish the articles.[105] He confessed to have treated his opponent
with a want of proper respect, though he retracted none of his
criticisms. The offence had its excuses. Macaulay was a man under
thirty, in the full flush of early success; nor was Mill's own
treatment of antagonists conciliatory. The dogmatic arrogance of the
Utilitarians was not unnaturally met by an equally arrogant
countercheck. Macaulay ridicules the Utilitarians for their claim to
be the defenders of the true political faith. He is afraid not of them
but of the 'discredit of their alliance'; he wishes to draw a broad
line between judicious reformers and a 'sect which having derived all
its influence from the countenance which they imprudently bestowed
upon it, hates them with the deadly hatred of ingratitude.' No party,
he says, was ever so unpopular. It had already disgusted people with
political economy; and would disgust them with parliamentary reform,
if it could associate itself in public opinion with the cause[106].
This was indeed to turn the tables. The half-hearted disciple was
insulting the thoroughbred teacher who had borne the heat and burthen
of the day, and from whom he had learned his own doctrine. Upon this
and other impertinences--the assertion, for example, that Utilitarians
were as incapable of understanding an argument as any 'true blue
baronet after the third bottle at a Pitt Club'--it is needless to
dwell. They illustrate, however, the strong resentment with which the
Utilitarians were regarded by the classes from whom the Whigs drew
their most cultivated supporters. Macaulay's line of argument will
show what was the real conflict of theory.

His view is, in fact, a long amplification of the charge that Mill was
adopting a purely _a priori_ method. Mill's style is as dry as Euclid,
and his arguments are presented with an affectation of logical
precision. Mill has inherited the 'spirit and style of the Schoolmen.
He is an Aristotelian of the fifteenth century.' He writes about
government as though he was unaware that any actual governments had
ever existed. He deduces his science from a single assumption of
certain 'propensities of human nature.'[107] After dealing with Mill's
arguments, Macaulay winds up with one of his characteristic purple
patches about the method of induction. He invokes the authority of
Bacon--a great name with which in those days wr