Mill, indeed, calmly assumes that the vote goes in his own and Socrates' favour. He says (p. 15): "From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there need be the less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to, even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both?" Now, were we dealing with a writer of average logical accuracy there would be considerable presumption that when he adduces evidence and claims a result in his own favour in this confident way, there would be some ground for the claim. But my scrutiny of Mill's "System of Logic" has taught me caution in admitting such presumptions in respect of his writings, and here is a case in point. He claims that the suffrage of the majority is in favour of Socrates' life, although he has admitted that the vast majority of men somehow or other elect not to be Socrates. He assumes, indeed, that this is because their aspirations have been first killed off by unfavourable circumstances; his only residuum of fact is contained in this somewhat hesitating conclusion already quoted:-- "It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both." Although, then, millions and millions are continually deciding against Socrates' life, for one reason or another (and many in all ages who make the ineffectual attempt at a combination break down), Mill gratuitously assumes that they are none of them competent witnesses, because they must have lost their higher feelings before they could have descended to the lower level; then the comparatively few who do choose the higher life and succeed in attaining it are adduced as giving a large majority, or even a unanimous vote in favour of their own choice. I submit that this is a fallacy probably to be best classed as a _petitio principii_; Mill entirely begs the question when he assumes that every witness against him is an incapacitated witness, because he must have lost his capacity for the nobler feelings before he could have decided in favour of the lower.