 The character of the mind of an individual, Mill holds, is a function entirely of the experiences that individual has undergone. In this sense, Mill holds firm to the eighteenth-century empiricists’ doctrine of the tabula rasa. In Mill’s hands, however, it becomes transformed into a characteristically nineteenth-century claim that human nature itself is malleable (Mandelbaum 1971: 141ff.). Specific experiences, to be sure, write their lessons on our minds—but background conditions, which differ from culture to culture, play an equally important role. Such acculturation affects the characters, desires, and dispositions of human beings, which vary radically depending on the setting of human beings—a point noted by many of Mill’s romantic contemporaries, and one which influenced the direction of his utilitarianism. Human nature exhibits “astonishingly pliability” (Civilization, XVIII: 145). 