It would be impossible to find any justification in his other
works for the doctrine that women are inferior to men for the
same reason that male serfs are inferior to their masters. His
refusal to consider difference of sex as even one probable cause
of women's inferiority to men in mental and moral characteristics,
was something for which few of his disciples were prepared, or
which they ever got over; and indeed his whole treatment of the
question of sex showed, in the opinion of many, a constitutional
incapacity to deal with the gravest problems of social economy.
The standing of Mr. Mill as a mental philosopher appears to be
very differently estimated by late critics and opponents and by
himself, whether we consider the extent of his influence, or the
relations of his doctrines to his nation and time; and there is a
most singular inversion in these estimates of what we should
naturally expect from friend and foe--an estimate of Mill's
position and influence by his opponents, which, compared to his
own, seems greatly exaggerated.
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