that if the object of his attachment, and
of this feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our fellow-creatures,
this religion of the infidel cannot in honesty and conscience be
called an intrinsically bad one. Many indeed may be unable to believe
that this object is capable of gathering round it feelings
sufficiently strong; but this is exactly the point on which a doubt
can hardly remain in an intelligent reader of M. Comte: and we join
with him in contemning, as equally irrational and mean, the conception
of human nature as incapable of giving its love, and devoting its
existence, to any object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity
of personal enjoyment." Never has the libel of humanity involved in
the current theology been more forcibly pointed out, with its constant
appeal to low motives of personal gain, or still lower motives of
personal fear. Never has the religious sentiment which must take the
place of the present awe of the unknown been more clearly indicated.
It is this noble sentiment which shines out from every page of Mr.
Mill's writings and all his relations to his fellow-creatures: the
very birds about his dwelling seemed to recognize it. It is this noble
sentiment which infuses a soul of life into his teachings, and the
enunciation and acting-out of which constitute him, not only the great
philosopher, but also the great prophet of our time.

J. H. LEVY.

VII

HIS STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE

The two chief characteristics of Mr. Mill's mind are conspicuous in
the field of morals and jurisprudence. He united in an extraordinary
degree an intense delight in thinking for its own sake, with an almost
passionate desire to make his intellectual excursions contribute to
the amelioration of the lot of mankind, especially of the poorer and
suffering part of mankind. And yet he never allowed those high aims to
clash with one another: he did not degrade his intellect to the
sophistical office of finding reasons for a policy arising from mere
emotion, nor did he permit it to run waste in barren speculations,
which might have excited admiration, but never could have done any
good. This is the reason why so many persons have been unable to
understand him as the prophet of utilitarianism. A man of such
exquisite feeling, of such pure conscientiousness, of such
self-denying life, must surely be an advocate of what is called
absolute morality. Utilitarianism is the proper creed of hard
unemotio