Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/60

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John Stuart Mill who—though some have thought him inferior in mental power to his father, James Mill—certainly on some, indeed, on many, subjects saw farther than his father, showed his superiority in mental vision in this matter. The pamphlet of Colonel Thompson, above-mentioned, in the first edition was described as " An Exposition of Fallacies on Rent, Tithes, &c., in the form of a Review of Mr. Mill's Elements of Political Economy." Of course it will be understood that this is James Mill's "Elements of Political Economy," a very different book from John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy." I have seen James Mill come forward and shake hands with Colonel Thompson very heartily when they met in the house of a common friend. But James Mill, though his mind was both powerful and original, and conscientiously sought after truth, was impatient of contradiction, and might consider it a piece of presumption in Colonel Thompson to put forth a "true theory" in opposition to him and Ricardo, which title implicitly calls their theories false, and he differed from his son in some points very much. For James Mill might see where Thompson was wrong, but either did not see, or did not admit that he saw,