Herschel were the expositors and popularizers of Newton,
or that Faraday performed a like office for Sir Humphry Davy. In
truth, this is an incident of all progressive science. The cultivators
in each age may, in a sense, be said to be the interpreters and
popularizers of those who have preceded them; and it is in this sense,
and in this sense only, that this part can be attributed to Mill. In
this respect he is to be strongly contrasted with the great majority
of writers on political economy, who, on the strength perhaps of a
verbal correction or an unimportant qualification of a received
doctrine, if not on the score of a pure fallacy, would fain persuade
us that they have achieved a revolution in economic doctrine, and that
the entire science must be rebuilt from its foundation in conformity
with their scheme. This sort of thing has done infinite mischief to
the progress of economic science; and one of Mill's great merits is,
that both by example and by precept he steadily discountenanced it.
His anxiety to affiliate his own speculations to those of his
predecessors is a marked feature in all his philosophical works, and
illustrates at once the modesty and comprehensiveness of his mind.

It is quite true that Mill, as an economist, was largely indebted to
Ricardo; and he has so fully and frequently acknowledged the debt,
that there is some danger of rating the obligation too highly. As he
himself used to put it, Ricardo supplied the backbone of the science;
but it is not less certain that the limbs, the joints, the muscular
developments,--all that renders political economy a complete and
organized body of knowledge,--have been the work of Mill. In Ricardo's
great work, the fundamental doctrines of production, distribution, and
exchange have been laid down, but for the most part in mere outline;
so much so, that superficial students are in general wholly unable to
connect his statement of principles with the facts, as we find them,
of industrial life. Hence we have innumerable "refutations of
Ricardo,"--almost invariably refutations of the writers' own
misconceptions. In Mill's exposition, the connection between
principles and facts becomes clear and intelligible. The conditions
and modes of action are exhibited by which human wants and
desires--the motive powers of industry--come to issue in the actual
phenomena of wealth, and political economy becomes a system of
doctrines susceptible of direct application to human