B

INTRODUCTORY

17

was  needed,  capable  of  viewing  things  in  the
mass,  and  at  the  same  time  of  grasping  details
and  bringing  them  into  harmonious  relations
with  one  another.
In  the  works  of  John  Stuart  Mill  the  old
political  economy  draws  very  near  its  end,
and  much  of  the  new  political  economy  is
foreshadowed  and  inspired  if  not  actually
begun.  For  the  crystallisations  of  the  old
school  Bentham  was  in  no  small  degree
responsible  ;  a  man  of  whom  Hazlitt  wrote  :
—“  Mr.  Bentham  turns  wooden  utensils  in  a
lathe  for  exercise,  and  fancies  he  can  turn  men
in  the  same  manner.  He  has  no  great  fondness ­
  for  poetry  and  can  hardly  extract  a
moral  out  of  Shakespeare.  His  house  is
warmed  and  lighted  by  steam.  He  is  one  of
those  who  prefer  the  artificial  to  the  natural
in  most  things,  and  think  the  mind  of  man
omnipotent.  He  has  a  great  contempt  for
out-of-door  prospects,  for  green  fields  and
trees,  and  is  for  referring  everything  to
utility.  .  .  .  It  is  indeed  the  great  fault
of  this  able  and  extraordinary  man,  that  he
has  concentrated  his  faculties  and  feelings
too  entirely  on  one  subject  and  pursuit,
and  has  not  ‘  looked  enough  abroad  into
universality.’  ”  Making  “  the  mind  of  man
omnipotent,”  while  conceiving  of  the  reason-