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the extraordinary confusion in which Mill involves Bookii 

 what he means by his perverse manner of ex- 

 pressing it. In the first sentence of this last 

 passage he tells us as clearly as possible that with 

 regard to the pursuit of truth, and the power of as Mm admits, 

 discovering and understanding it, mankind are curiously* con- 

 divided broadly into two classes the great majority fu 

 with whom the ''pursuit of truth" and "intellectual 

 activity " are " slight propensities" and " the 

 decidedly exceptional individuals " with whom these 

 propensities are overmastering. But he has no 

 sooner drawn this clear and all-important distinction 

 between the two classes than he proceeds to undo 

 his own work and mixes them together again in 

 one unmeaning blur. He converts his statement 

 that only " the decidedly exceptional individuals " 

 desire truth with any great intensity, and have the 

 faculties requisite for discovering it, into the state- 

 ment that if we take "the decidedly exceptional 

 individuals " and the majority together, and regard 

 them as one body, which he calls "mankind" we 

 shall find that the average desire for truth is luke- 

 warm, and the faculties for discovering it insufficient. 

 He might just as well group Shakespeare with a 

 hundred ordinary men ; tell us that Shakespeare 

 could write the greatest poetry the world has ever 

 known, and that the hundred other men could write 

 no poetry at all, and then convert these statements 

 into the following that the one hundred and one 

 men, Shakespeare included, could only write poetry 

 of a very moderate quality. 



