Mill exhibited such genuine and profound
religion--so permeating his whole life, and so engrossing his every
action--as can hardly be looked for in any other man of this
generation. Great as were his intellectual qualities, they were
dwarfed by his moral excellences. He did not, it is true, aim at any
fanciful ideal, or adopt any fantastic shibboleths. He was only a
utilitarian. He believed in no inspiration but that of experience. He
had no other creed or dogma or gospel than Bentham's axiom,--"The
greatest happiness of the greatest number." But many will think that
herein was the chief of all his claims to the honor of all men, and
the best evidence of his worth. At any rate, he set a notable example
of the way in which a man, making the best use in his power of merely
his own reason and the accumulated reason of those who have gone
before him, wisely exercising the faculties of which he finds himself
possessed, and seeking no guidance or support from invisible beacons
and intangible props, may lead a blameless life, and be one of the
greatest benefactors of his race. No one who had any personal
knowledge of him could fail to discern the singular purity of his
character; and to those who knew him best that purity was most
apparent.
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