290 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



acter in men. and between the sexes. So far as he did recognize these 

 meutul diversities, he prized them for the sake of truth, as he would have 

 prized the addition of a new sense to the means of extending and test- 

 ing knowledge. But he did not clearly discriminate what was really a 

 reflection, as in a mirror, or a quick anticipation of his own thoughts in 

 other minds, from true and original observations by them. This may 

 be accounted for in part by his philosophical habit, as has been observed, 

 " of always keeping in view mind in the abstract, or men in the aggre- 

 gate." Though he mingled in the affairs of life with other men, taking 

 part in debates and discussions, private and public, by speech and by 

 writing, all his life, his disposition was still essentially that of a recluse. 

 He remained remote in his intellectual life from the minds and char- 

 acters of those with whom he contended, though always loyal to those 

 from whom his main doctrines, his education, and inspiration were 

 derived. 



A natural consequence of his private education by a philosopher (his 

 father), and by intercourse witli superior adult minds, like Bentham 

 and the political economist Say, was that he soon arrived at maturity, and 

 was in full possession of his remarkable powers in early youth, able 

 and eager to exercise them upon the most abtruse and ditficult subjects. 

 Annotations to Bentham's " Rationale of Judicial Evidence " was his 

 first publicly acknowledged literary work, performed before he was 

 yet of age ; though conti'ibutions to the science of botany and other 

 writings were labors of his youth. While still in his youth, before the 

 age of thirty, he advocated reforms in an article in the " Jurist " on 

 " Corporation and Church Property," features of which became acknowl- 

 edged principles of legislation in Parliament many years later. He 

 lived to see many of the reforms proposed by Bentham enacted as 

 public law, and to take part in Parliament in the furtherance of some 

 of his own political ideas. His courage and hopefulness were not 

 quixotic, but were sustained by real successes. These qualities in Iris 

 character, though perhaps properly described as romantic, or as spring- 

 ing from an ardent, emotional temperament, were always tempered by 

 his cooler reason and by facts. In more than one division of special 

 study in science and philosophy he mastered facts and details at first 

 hand, or by his own observation ; thus training his judgment and 

 powers of imagination to those habits of accuracy so essential in a true 

 education, by which knowledge more extensive, more or less super- 

 ficial, and necessarily at second hand, can alone be adequately compre- 

 hended. He was prepared for wi'iting an important part of his great 

 work on Logic by the study of the principles, requisites, and purposes of 



