JOHN STUART MILL. 385 



affords the most satisfactory evidence that the influence he has exerted 

 is spontaneous, and is therefore likely to be lasting in its effects. If 

 students had been driven to read his books by the necessity which ex- 

 aminations impose, it is quite possible that, after the examination, the 

 books might never be looked at again. A resident, however, at the 

 university can scarely fail to be struck with the fact that many who 

 perfectly well know that they will never in any examination be asked 

 to answer a question in logic or political economy, are among the most 

 diligent students of Mr. Mill's books. When I was an undergraduate 

 I well remember that most of my friends who were likely to take high 

 mathematical honors were already so intimately acquainted with Mr. 

 Mill's writings, and were so much imbued with their spirit, that they 

 might have been regarded as his disciples. Many looked up to him 

 as their teacher ; many have since felt that he then instilled into them 

 principles which, to a great extent, have guided their conduct in after- 

 life. Any one who is intimately acquainted with Mr. Mill's writings 

 will readily understand how it is that they possess such peculiar at- 

 tractiveness for the class of readers to whom I am now referring. 

 There is nothing more characteristic in his writings than generosity 

 and courage. He always states his opponent's case with the most 

 judicial impartiality ; he never shrinks from the expression of opinion 

 because he thinks it unpopular, and there is nothing so abhorrent to 

 him as that bigotry which prevents a man from appreciating what is 

 just and true in the views of those who differ from him. This tolera- 

 tion, which is so predominant a feature of his writings, is probably 

 one of the rarest of all qualities in a controversialist. Those who do not 

 possess it always produce an impression that they are unfair ; and 

 this impression, once produced, exercises a repelling influence upon the 

 young. 



To those who believe that the influence Mr. Mill has exercised at 

 the universities has been in the highest degree beneficial to those 

 who think that his books not only afford the most admirable intellect- 

 ual training, but also are calculated to produce a most healthy moral 

 influence it may be some consolation, now that we are deploring his 

 death, to know that, although he has passed away, he may still con- 

 tinue to be a teacher and a guide. I believe he never visited the Eng- 

 lish universities ; it was consequently entirely through his books that 

 he was known. Not one of those who were his greatest admirers at 

 Cambridge, when I was an undergraduate, ever saw him till many 

 years after they had left the university. Nothing, perhaps, was so 

 remarkable in his character as his tenderness to the feelings of others, 

 and the deference with which he listened to those in every respect in- 

 ferior to himself. There never was a man who was more entirely free 

 from that intellectual conceit which breeds disdain. Nothing is so 

 discouraging and heart-breaking to young people as the sneer of an 

 intellectual cynic. A sarcasm about an act of youthful mental en- 



TOL. III. 25 



