Mr. Mill estimated the worth of contemporary thinkers in accordance with this almost instinctive distrust of rational "illumination;" setting Archbishop Whately, for example, as a thinker, above Sir W. Hamilton, for his services to philosophy, on account of "the number of true and valuable thoughts" which he originated and put into circulation, not as parts of a system, but as independent truths of sagacious or painstaking observation and reflection. It is by such a standard that Mr. Mill would doubtless wish to be judged, and by it he would be justly placed above all, or nearly all, of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, as a conscientious student of metaphysics he held in far higher esteem than is shown in general by English thinkers the powers peculiar to the metaphysician--the ability and disposition to follow out into their consequences, and to concatenate in a system the assumption of _a priori_ principles. Descartes, Leibnitz, Comte, and, as an exceptional English thinker, even Mr. Spencer, receive commendation from him on this account. It is clear, however, that his respect for this talent was of the sort which does not aspire to imitate what is admired. PANICS It is impossible to see, much less experience, a financial panic without an almost appalling consciousness that a new and terrible form of danger and distress has been added in comparatively recent times to the list of those by which human life is menaced or perplexed. Any one who stood on Wall Street, or in the gallery of the Stock Exchange last Thursday and Friday and Saturday (1873), and saw the mad terror, we might almost say the brute terror like that by which a horse is devoured who has a pair of broken shafts hanging to his heels, or a dog flying from a tin saucepan attached to his tail, with which great crowds of men rushed to and fro, trying to get rid of their property, almost begging people to take it from them at any price, could hardly avoid feeling that a new plague had been sent among men; that there was an impalpable, invisible force in the air, robbing them of their wits, of which philosophy had not as yet dreamt. No dog was ever so much alarmed by the clatter of the saucepan as hundreds seemed to be by the possession of really valuable and dividend-paying securities; and no horse was ever more reckless in extricating himself from the _débris_ of a broken carriage than these swarms of acute and shrewd traders in divesting themselves of their possessions. Hundreds must really, to judge by their conduct, have been so confused by terror and anxiety as to be unable to decide whether they desired to have or not to have, to be poor or rich. If a Roman or a man of the Middle Ages had been suddenly brought into view of the scene, he would have concluded without hesitation that a ruthless invader was coming down the island; that his advanced guard was momentarily expected; and that anybody found by his forces in possession of Western Union, or