384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



results thus brought about, and to decide whether or not it is worth 

 while to adopt the means necessary for their attainment. In the writ- 

 ings of the economists who preceded Mill it is very generally assumed 

 that to prove that a certain course of conduct tends to the most rapid 

 increase of wealth suffices to entail upon all who accept the argument 

 the obligation of adopting the course which leads to this result. Mill 

 absolutely repudiated this inference, and, while accepting the theoretic 

 conclusion, held himself perfectly free to adopt in practice whatever 

 course he preferred. It was not for political economy or for any 

 science to say what are the ends most worthy of being pursued by 

 human beings : the task of science is complete when it shows us the 

 means by which the ends may be attained; but it is for each indi- 

 vidual man to decide how far the end is desirable at the cost which 

 its attainment involves. In a word, the sciences should be our ser- 

 vants, and not our masters. This was a lesson which Mill was the 

 first to enforce, and by enforcing which he may be said to have 

 emancipated economists from the thraldom of their own teaching. 

 It is in no slight degree, through the constant recognition of its truth, 

 that he has been enabled to divest of repulsiveness even the most 

 abstract speculations, and to impart a glow of human interest to all 

 that he has touched. 



HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 



BY PEOF. FAWCETT. 



Some time ago, when there was no reason to suppose that we should 

 so soon have to mourn the loss of the great thinker and of the kind friend 

 who has just passed away, I had occasion to remark upon the influence 

 which Mr. Mill had exercised at the universities. I will quote my 

 words as they stand, because it is difficult to write with impartiality 

 about one whose recent death we are deploring ; and Mr. Mill would, I 

 am sure, have been the first to say that it is certainly not honoring the 

 memory of one who is dead to lavish upon him praise which would not 

 be bestowed upon him if he were living. I will, therefore, repeat my 

 words exactly as they were written two years since : " Any one who 

 has resided during the last twenty years at either of our universities 

 must have noticed that Mr. Mill is the author who has most powerfully 

 influenced nearly all the young men of the greatest promise." In thus 

 referring to the powerful influence exercised by Mr. Mill's works, I do 

 not wish it to be supposed that this influence is to be measured by the 

 extent to which his books form a part of the university curriculum. 

 His " Logic " has no doubt become a standard examination-book at 

 Oxford. At Cambridge, the Mathematical and Classical Triposes still 

 retain their former pres tige. The moral science tripos, though increas- 

 ing in importance, still attracts a comparatively small number of stu- 

 dents, and there is probably no other examination for which it is neces- 

 sary to read Mr. Mill's " Logic " and " Political Economy." This fact 



