But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting
a new life into Radical politics by means of the _Review_, I am glad to
look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do
mediate service to things and persons that deserved it. After the last
hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared, it was time
for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money which the
_Review_ cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as
a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of
my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner
from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the
general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles,
but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the _Dissertations_)
which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In
the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I
pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his
philosophy. The substance of this criticism _I_ still think perfectly
just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at
that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument
of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its
work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing
more harm than service to improvement.
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