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