spirit—to say nothing of other critics who arose within the ranks of the Economists themselves. There was nothing new in the simple fact of a revolt. Carlyle, however, to the ordinary Briton, passed for an eccentric old Diogenes—a railer at things in general, or perhaps a humorist whose misanthropy was half affectation. The Christian Socialists might be treated as amiable and excellent crotchet-mongers, whose philanthropy wanted common-sense. And undoubtedly there was a vulgar version of Political Economy, which used the orthodox phrases ignorantly and blatantly enough, preached an absolute and selfish 'individualism,' and discovered that every scheme of social reform was somehow condemned by inexorable scientific law. Ruskin, therefore, resolved, he tells us, to come to close quarters with pseudo-science; and to make it the 'central work of his life to write an exhaustive treatise upon Political Economy.' He began, apparently, by reading Ricardo and Mill and such other authorities with attention; though with a strong impression that they would turn out to be humbugs. One result was that he attributed to some of his opponents, to J. S. Mill in particular, a complicity with a vulgar version of their doctrines which they alto-
