Yet the younger Mill’s account of his father’s reaction to Macaulay’s “famous attack” (as the son later described it) is misleading in at least two respects. In the first place, James Mill did not, and given his own premises could not, distinguish between a “scientific treatise on politics” and a coherent and compelling argument for “parliamentary reform.” For he believed that any reforms that were workable and worth having could be based only on an adequately scientific theory of politics. The Essay on Government was intended to be both, if only in brief outline. Moreover, the younger Mill leaves the impression that his father, although angered by the attack, never replied to Macaulay. But this is untrue.