remarkable example known only to myself and a few friends. I have
hesitated whether to give this example, seeing that it has personal
implications. But it affords so clear an insight into Mr. Mill's
character, and shows so much more vividly than any description could
do how fine were the motives swaying his conduct, that I think the
occasion justifies disclosure of it.

Some seven years ago, after bearing as long as was possible the
continued losses entailed on me by the publication of the "System of
Philosophy," I notified to the subscribers that I should be obliged to
cease at the close of the volume then in progress. Shortly after the
issue of this announcement I received from Mr. Mill a letter, in
which, after expressions of regret, and after naming a plan which he
wished to prosecute for re-imbursing me, he went on to say, "In the
next place ... what I propose is, that you should write the next of
your treatises, and that I should guarantee the publisher against
loss; i.e., should engage, after such length of time as may be agreed
on, to make good any deficiency that may occur, not exceeding a given
sum,--that sum being such as the publisher may think sufficient to
secure him." Now, though these arrangements were of kinds that I could
not bring myself to yield to, they none the less profoundly impressed
me with Mr. Mill's nobility of feeling, and his anxiety to further
what he regarded as a beneficial end. Such proposals would have been
remarkable even had there been entire agreement of opinion, but they
were the more remarkable as being made by him under the consciousness
that there existed between us certain fundamental differences, openly
avowed. I had, both directly and by implication, combated that form
of the experiential theory of human knowledge which characterizes Mr.
Mill's philosophy: in upholding Realism, I had opposed in decided ways
those metaphysical systems to which his own Idealism was closely