people venture to question processes which seem
to be so plainly set forth, and to advance by such a careful
development.

When, indeed, De Quincey has a safe guide, he can put an argument with
admirable clearness. The expositions of political economy, for example,
are clear and ingenious, though even here I may quote Mr. Mill's remark,
that he should have imagined a certain principle--obvious enough when
once stated--to have been familiar to all economists, 'if the instance
of Mr. De Quincey did not prove that the complete non-recognition and
implied denial of it are compatible with great intellectual ingenuity
and close intimacy with the subject-matter.'[4] Upon this question, Mr.
Shadworth Hodgson has maintained that De Quincey was in the right as
against Mill, and I cannot here argue the point. I think, however, that
all economists would admit that De Quincey's merits were confined to an
admirable exposition of another man's reasoning, and included no
substantial addition to the inquiry. Certainly he does not count as one
of those whose writings marked any epoch in the development of the
science--if it be a science. Admirable skill of expression is, indeed,
no real safeguard against logical blunders; and I will venture to say
that De Quincey rarely indulges in this ostentatious logical precision
without plunging into downright fallacies. I will take two instances.
The first is trifling, but characteristic. Poor Dr. Johnson used to
reproach himself, as De Quincey puts it, 'with lying too long in bed.'
How absurd! is the comment. The doctor got up at eleven because he went
to bed at three. If he had gone to bed at twelve, could he not easily
have got up at eight? The remark would have been sound in form, though a
quibble in substance, if Johnson had complained of lying in bed 'too
late;' but as De Quincey himself speaks of 'too long' instead of 'too
late,' it is an obvious reply that eight hours are of the same length at
every period of the day. The great logician falls into another
characteristic error in the same paragraph. Dr. Johnson, he says, was
not 'indolent;' but he adds that Johnson 'had a morbid predisposition to
decline labour from his scrofulous habit of body,' which was increased
by over-eating and want of exercise. It is a cruel mode of vindication
to say that you are not indolent, but only predisposed by a bad
constitution and bad habits to decline labour; but the advantage of
accurate definition is, t