er of leading was a sore trial to him. The further
he got on his new road, the more he felt the want of
guidance--the guidance of some man; for that of books he soon
found to be bewildering. His college tutor, whom he consulted,
only deprecated the waste of tune; but on finding it impossible
to dissuade him, at last recommended the economic works of that
day as the proper well springs of truth on such matters. To them
Tom accordingly went, and read with the docility and faith of
youth, bent on learning and feeling itself in the presence of men
who had, or assumed, the right of speaking with authority.

And they spoke to him with authority, and he read on, believing
much and hoping more; but somehow they did not really satisfy
him, though they silenced him for the time. It was not the fault
of the books, most of which laid down clearly enough, that what
they professed to teach was the science of man's material
interests, and the laws of the making and employment of capital.
But this escaped him in his eagerness, and he wandered up and
down their pages in search of quite another science, and of laws
with which they did not meddle. Nevertheless, here and there they
seemed to touch upon what he was in search of. He was much
fascinated, for instance, by the doctrine of "the greatest
happiness of the greatest number," and for its sake swallowed for
a time, though not without wry faces, the dogmas, that
self-interest is the true pivot of all social action, that
population has a perpetual tendency to outstrip the means of
living, and that to establish a preventive check on population is
the duty of all good citizens. And so he lived on for some time
in a dreary uncomfortable state, fearing for the future of his
country, and with little hope about his own. But, when he came to
take stock of his newly acquired knowledge, to weigh it and
measure it, and found it to consist of a sort of hazy conviction
that society would be all right and ready for the millennium,
when every man could do what he liked, and nobody could interfere
with him, and there should be a law against marriage, the result
was more than he could stand. He roused himself and shook
himself, and began to think, "Well, these my present teachers are
very clever men, and well-meaning men, too. I see all that; but,
if their teaching is only to land me here, why it was scarcely
worth while going through so much to get so little."

Casting about still for guidance, Gr