d the reader, while admiring the artistic power and the
literary finish of the book, is depressed by the moral issue. In strength
of imagination, intellectual insight, keen power of analysis, this novel
surpasses anything else George Eliot has written.

_Felix Holt_ is a novel with an ethical purpose. It aims to show how social
and political reform can be brought about. Felix is George Eliot's ideal
working-man, a man who remains true to his own class, seeks his own moral
elevation, does not have much faith in the ballot, and who is zealous for
the education of his fellows. He is a radical who believes in heredity, who
is aware of our debt to the past, and who would use the laws of social
inheritance for the elevation of mankind. The account Felix gives of his
conversion contains George Eliot's conception of what is to be done by all
workingmen who rightly understand what social reform is and how it can be
most truly brought about. It is to be secured by each workingman living not
for self and pleasure, but to do what good he can in the world.

"I'm not speaking lightly," said Felix. "If I had not seen that I was
making a hog of myself very fast, and that pig-wash, even if I could
have got plenty of it, was a poor sort of thing, I should never have
looked life fairly in the face to see what was to be done with it. I
laughed out loud at last to think of a poor devil like me, in a Scotch
garret, with my stockings out at heel and a shilling or two to be
dissipated upon, with a smell of raw haggis mounting from below, and
old women breathing gin as they passed me on the stairs--wanting to
turn my life into easy pleasure. Then I began to see what else it could
be turned into. Not much, perhaps. This world is not a very fine place
for a good many of the people in it. But I've made up my mind it shan't
be the worse for me, if I can help it. They may tell me I can't alter
the world--that there must be a certain number of sneaks and robbers in
it, And if I don't lie and filch, somebody else will. Well, then,
somebody else shall, for I won't. That's the upshot of my conversion.
Mr. Lyon, if you want to know it."

When Felix gives Esther an account of his plans, and describes to her his
purpose to do what he can to elevate his class, we have George Eliot's own
views on the subject of social reform. Felix says,--

"I want to be a demagogue of a new sort: an honest