JOHN STUAKRT MILL:
HIS LIFE AND WORKS.
TWELVE SKETCHES BY
Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison,
AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS.
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.)
I873.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,
At the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Boston:
Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, A very, & Co.




CONTENTS.
JOHN STUART MILL:                                 PAGE.
I. A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. H. R. Fox Bourne..   5
II. HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE. W. T. Thornton   30
III. His MORAL CHARACTER. Herbert Spencer...  38
IV. HIS BOTANICAL STUDIES. Henry Trinen....    43
V. HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC. W. Minto..      49
VI. HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY. 7. H. Levy.....     55
VII. His STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE.
WI. A. tlunter............    62
VIII. HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 7. E. Cairnes  65
IX. HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES. Henry
awcett...............  74
X. His INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN. Millicent Garrett fawcett..........  8
XI. HIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM. Frederic Harrison   88
XII. HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER. W. A. Hunter   91
(3)








JOHN STUART MILL.
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.
JOHN STUART MILL was born on the 20oth of May,
i8o6. "I am glad," wrote George Grote to him in
i865, with reference to a forthcoming article on his
" Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,"
"to get an opportunity of saying what I think about
your'System of Logic' and'Essay on Liberty;' but I
am still more glad to get (or perhaps to make) an
opportunity of saying something about your father.
It has always rankled in my thoughts that so grand
and powerful a mind as his left behind it such insufficient traces in the estimation of successors."  That
regret was natural. The grand and powerful mind of
James Mill left very notable traces, however, in the
philosophical literature of his country, and in the
training of the son who was to carry on his work, and
to be the most influential teacher in a new school of
thought and action, by which society is likely to be
revolutionized far more than it has been by any other
1*                        5




6             JOHN STUART MILL.
agency since the period of Erasmus and Martin
Luther. James Mill was something more than the
disciple of Bentham and Ricardo. He was a profound
and original philosopher, whose depth and breadth of
study were all the more remarkable because his
thoughts were developed and his knowledge was
acquired mainly by his own exertions. He had been
helped out of the humble life into which he had been
born by Sir John Stuart, who assisted him to attend
the lectures of Dugald Stewart and others at Edinburgh with a view to his becoming a minister in the
Church of Scotland. Soon finding that calling distasteful to him, he had, in or near the year I8oo, settled
in London as a journalist, resolved by ephemeral work
to earn enough money to maintain him and his family
in humble ways while he spent his best energies in
the more serious pursuits to which he was devoted.
His talents soon made him friends.; and the greatest
of these was Jeremy Bentham.
As erroneous opinions have been current as to the
relations between Bentham and James Mill, and have
lately been repeated in more than one newspaper, it
may be well here to call attention to the contradiction
of them that was published by the son of the latter in
"The Edinburgh Review" for I844. "Mr. Mill and
his family," we there read, "lived with Mr. Bentham
for half of four years at Ford Abbey," - that is, between I8I4 and I817, - "and they passed small portions of previous summers with him at Barrow Green.
His last visit to Barrow Green was of not more than a
month's duration; and the previous ones all together
did not extend to more than six months, or seven at




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              7
most. The pecuniary benefit which Mr. Mill derived
from his intimacy with Bentham consisted in this,that he and his family lived with him as his guests,
while he was in the country, periods amounting in all
to about two years and a half. I have no reason to
think that his hospitality was either given or accepted
as pecuniary assistance; and I will add that the obligation was not exclusively on one side. Bentham was
not then, as he was afterwards, surrounded by persons
who courted his society, and were ever ready to volunteer their services; and, to a man of his secluded
habits, it was no little advantage to have near him such
a man as Mr. Mill, to whose advice and aid he habitually had recourse in all business transactions with the
outward world of a troublesome or irksome nature.
Such as the connection was, it was not of Mr. Mill's
seeking." On the same unquestionable authority we
learn, that " Mr. Mill never in his life was in debt; and
his income, whatever it might be, always covered his
expenses." It is clear, that, from near the commencement of the present century, James Mill and Bentham
lived for many years on terms of great intimacy, in
which the poorer man was thoroughly independent,
although it suited the other to make a fair return for
the services rendered to him. A very characteristic
letter is extant, dated I8I4, in which James Mill proposes that the relations between him and. his " dear
friend and master " shall be to some extent altered, but
only in order that their common objects may be the
more fully served. "In reflecting," he says, "upon
the duty which we owe to our principles, - to that system of important truths of which you have the immor



8             JOHN STUART MILL.
tal honor to be the author, but of which I am a most
faithful and fervent disciple, and hitherto, I have
fancied, my master's favorite disciple, -I have considered that there was nobody at all so likely to be
your real successor as myself. Of talents it would be
easy to find many superior. But, in the first place, I
hardly know of anybody who has so completely taken
up the principles, and is so thoroughly of the same
way of thinking with yourself.  In the next place,
there are very few who have so much of the necessary previous discipline; my antecedent years having
been wholly occupied in acquiring it. And, in the last
place, I am pretty sure you cannot think of any other
person whose whole life will be devoted to the propagation of the system." "There was during the last
few years of Bentham's life," said James Mill's son,
"less frequency and cordiality of intercourse than in
former years, chiefly because Bentham had acquired
newer, and to him more agreeable intimacies; but Mr.
Mill's feeling never altered towards him, nor did he
ever fail, publicly or privately, in giving due honor to
Bentham's name and acknowledgment of the intellectual debt he owed to him."
Those extracts are made, not only in justice to the
memory of James Mill, but as a help towards understanding the influences by which his son was surrounded from  his earliest years.  James Mill was
living in a house at Pentonville when this son was
born; and partly because of the peculiar abilities that
the boy displayed from the first, partly because he
could not afford to procure for him elsewhere such
teaching as he was able himself to give him, he took




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.             9
his education entirely into his own hands. With what
interest —even jealous interest, it would  seemBentham watched that education, appears from a
pleasant little letter addressed to him by the elder
Mill in 1812.  "I am not going to die," he wrote,
"notwithstanding your zeal to come in for a legacy.
However, if I were to die any time before this poor
boy is a man, one of the things that would pinch me
most sorely would be the being obliged to leave his
mind unmade to the degree of excellence of which I
hope to make it. But another thing is, that the only
prospect which would lessen that pain would be the
leaving him in your hands. I therefore take your offer
quite seriously, and stipulate merely that it shall be
made as soon as possible; and then we may perhaps
leave him a successor worthy of both of us." It was
a bold hope, but one destined to be fully realized. At
the time of its utterance, the "poor boy" was barely
more than six years old. The intellectual powers of
which he gave such early proof were carefully, but
apparently not excessively, cultivated. Mrs. Grote, in
her lately-published " Personal Life of George Grote,"
has described him as he appeared in i817, the year
in which her husband made the acquaintance of his
father: "John Stuart Mill, then a boy of about twelve
years old," - he was really only eleven, - " was studying, with his father as sole preceptor, under the paternal roof. Unquestionably forward for his years, and
already possessed of a competent knowledge of Greek
and Latin, as well as of some subordinate though solid
attainments, John was, as a boy, somewhat repressed
by the elder Mill, and seldom took any share in the




10            JOHN STUART MILL.
conversation carried on by the society frequenting the
house."  It is perhaps not strange that a boy of
eleven, at any rate a boy who was to become so modest a man, should not take much part in general conversation; and Mr. Mill himself never, in referring to
his father, led his hearers to suppose that he had, as a
child, been in any way unduly repressed by him. The
tender affection with which he always cherished his
father's memory in no way sanctions the belief that he
was at any time subjected to unreasonable discipline.
By him his father was only revered as the best and
kindest of teachers.
There was a break in the home-teaching in I820.
James Mill, after bearing bravely with his early difficulties, had acquired so much renown by his famous
" History of India," that, in spite of its adverse criticisms of the East-India Company, the directors of the
Company in I8I7 honorably bestowed upon him a post
in the India House, where he steadily and rapidly rose
to a position which enabled him to pass the later years
of his life in more comfort than had hitherto been
within his reach. The new employment, however,
interfered with his other occupation as instructor to
his boy; and for this reason, as well probably as for
others tending to his advancement, the lad was, in the
summer of I820, sent to France for a year and a half.
For several months he lived in Paris, in the house of
Jean Baptiste Say, the political economist. The rest
of his time was passed in the company of Sir Samuel
Bentham, Jeremy Bentham's brother. Early in I822,
before he was eighteen, he returned to London, soon
to enter the India Office as a clerk in the department




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              II
of which his father was chief. In that office he remained for five and thirty years, acquitting himself
with great ability, and gradually rising to the most
responsible position that could be there held by a
subordinate.
But, though he was thus early started in life as a city
clerk, his self-training and his education by his father
were by no means abandoned. The ancient and modern languages, as well as the various branches of
philosophy and philosophical thought in which he was
afterwards to attain such eminence, were studied by
him in the early mornings, under the guidance of his
father, before going down to pass his days in the India
Office.  During the summer evenings, and on such
holidays as he could get, he began those pedestrian
exploits for which he afterwards became famous, and
in which his main pleasure appears to have consisted
in collecting plants and flowers in aid of the botanical
studies that were his favorite pastime, and something
more than a pastime, all through his life. His first
printed writings are said to have been on botany, in
~the shape of some articles contributed to a scientific
journal while he was still in his teens; and it is
probable, that, could they now be detected, we should
find in other periodicals traces of his work, at nearly
if not quite as early a period, in other lines of study.
That he worked early and with wonderful ability in at
least one very deep line, appears from the fact, that,
while he was still only a lad, Jeremy Bentham intrusted
to him the preparation for the press, and the supplementary annotation, of his "Rationale of Judicial
Evidence." That work, for which he was highly com



12            JOHN STUART MILL.
mended by its author, published in 1827, contains the
first publicly-acknowledged literary work of John
Stuart Mill.
While he was producing that result of laborious
study in a special and intricate subject, his education
in all sorts of other ways was continued. In evidence
of the versatility of his pursuits, the veteran author of
a short and ungenerous memoir that was published in
"The Times " of May the Ioth contributes one interesting note. "It is within our personal knowledge,"
he says, " that he was an extraordinary youth when, in
I824, he took the lead at the London Debating Club
in one of the most remarkable collections of'spirits
of the age' that ever congregated for intellectual
gladiatorship, he being by two or three years the junior of the clique. The rivalry was rather in knowledge
and reasoning than in eloquence; mere declamation
was discouraged; and subjects of paramount importance were conscientiously thought out." In evidence
of his more general studies, we may here repeat a few
sentences from an account, by an intimate friend of
both these great men, of the life of Mr. Grote, which
was published in our columns two years ago. " About
this time a small society was formed for readings in
philosophical subjects.  The meetings took place at
Mr. GroteAs house in Threadneedle Street, on certain
days from half-past eight till ten in the morning, at
which hour the members (all in official employment)
had to repair to their respective avocations.  The
members were Grote, John Mill, Roebuck, William
Ellice, William Henry Prescott, two brothers Whitmore, and George John Graham. The mentor of




A SKETCH OF HItS LIFE.            13
their studies was the elder Mr. Mill. The meetings
were continued for two or three years. The readings
embraced a small manual of logic, by Du Trieu, recommended by Mr. Mill, and reprinted for the purpose,
Whately's Logic, Hobbes's Logic, and Hartley on Man,
in Priestley's edition. The manner of proceeding was
thorough. Each paragraph, on being read, was commented on by every one in turn, discussed and rediscussed, to the point of total exhaustion. In I828 the
meetings ceased; but they were resumed in i830, upon
Mill's'Analysis of the Mind,' which was gone over
in the same manner." These philosophical studies
were not only of extreme advantage in strengthening
and developing the merits of Mr. Mill and his friends,
nearly all of whom were considerably older than he
was: they also served to unite the friends in close and
lasting intimacy of the most refined and elevating sort.
Mr. Grote, his senior by twelve years,.was perhaps the
most intimate, as he was certainly the ablest, of all the
friends whom Mr. Mill thus acquired.
Many of these friends were contributors to the
original "Westminster Review," which was started by
Bentham in I824. Bentham himself and the elder
Mill were its chief writers at first; and in I828, if not
sooner, the younger Mill joined the number.  In
that year he reviewed Whately's Logic; and it is
probable that in the ensuing year he contributed
numerous other articles. His first literary exploit,
however, which he cared to reproduce in his " Dissertations and Discussions " was an article that appeared
in " The Jurist," in i833, entitled "Corporation and
Church Property."  That essay, in some respects,
2




14            JOHN STUART MILL.
curiously anticipated the Irish Church legislation of
nearly forty years later. In the same year he published, in "The Monthly Repository," a remarkably
able and quite a different production, -" Poetry and
its Varieties " showing that in the department of bellesZet/res he could write with nearly as much vigor and
originality as in the philosophical and political departments of thought to which, ostensibly, he was especially devoted. Shortly after that he embarked in a
bolder literary venture.  Differences having arisen
concerning "The Westminster Review," a new quarterly journal -" The London Review" - was begun by
Sir William Molesworth, with Mr. Mill for editor, in
I835. "The London" was next year amalgamated
with "The Westminster;" and then the nominal if not
the actual editorship passed into the hands of Mr.
John Robertson. Mr. Mill continued, however, to be
one of its -most constant and able contributors until
the Review passed into other hands in 1840.  He
aided much to make and maintain its reputation as the
leading organ of bold thought on religious and social
as well as political matters. Besides such remarkable
essays as those on Civilization, on Armand Carrel,
on Alfred de Vigny, on Bentham, and on Coleridge,
which, with others, have been republished in his
collection of minor writings, he contributed many of
great importance. One on Mr. Tennyson, which was
published in I835, is especially noteworthy. Others
referred more especially to the politics of the day.
Irom one, which appeared in 1837, reviewing Albany
Fonblanque's " England  under Seven Administrations," and speaking generally in high terms of the




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.             15
politics of "The Examiner," we may extract a few
sentences which define very clearly the political
ground taken by Mr. Mill, Mr. Fonblanque, and those
who had then come to be called Philosophical Radicals. "There are divers schools of Radicals," said
Mr. Mill. "There are the historical Radicals, who
demand popular institutions as the inheritance of
Englishmen, transmitted to us from the Saxons or the
barons of Runnymede. There are the metaphysical
Radicals, who hold the principles of democracy, not
as means to good government, but as corollaries from
some unreal abstraction, — from' ntural liberty' or'natural rights.' There are the radicals of occasion
and circumstance, who are radicals because they disapprove the measures of the government for the time
being.  There are, lastly, the Radicals of position,
who are Radicals, as somebody said, because they are
not lords. Those whom, in contradistinction to all
these, we call Philosophical Radicals, are those who in
politics observe the common manner of philosophers;
that is, who, when they are discussing means, begin
by considering the end, and, when they desire to produce effects, think of causes.- These persons became
Radicals because they saw immense practical evils
existing in the government and social condition of
this country, and because the same examination which
showed them the evils showed also that the cause of
those evils was the aristocratic principle in our government, -the subjection of the many to the control
of a comparatively few, who had an interest, or fancied
they had an interest, in perpetuating those evils.
These inquirers looked still farther, and saw, that, in




i6            JOHN STUART MILL.
the present imperfect condition of human nature,
nothing better than this self-preference was to be expected from a dominant few; that the interests of the
many were sure to be in their eyes a secondary consideration to their own ease or emolument. Perceiving, therefore, that we are ill-governed, and perceiving
that, so long as the aristocratic principle continued
predominant in our government, we could not expect
to be otherwise, these persons became Radicals; and
the motto of their Radicalism was, Enmity to the aristocratical principle."
The period of Mr. Mill's most intimate connection
with " The London and Westminster Review" forms a
brilliant episode in the history of journalism; and his
relations, then and afterwards, with other men of
letters and political writers, -some of them as famous
as Mr. Carlyle and Coleridge, Charles Buller and Sir
Henry Taylor, Sir William Molesworth, Sir John Bowring, and Mr. Roebuck, —yield tempting materials for
even the most superficial biography; but we must pass
them by for the present. And here we shall content
ourselves with enumerating, in the order of their publication, those lengthier writings with which he chiefly
occupied his leisure during the next quarter of a century; though that work was frequently diversified by
important contributions to " The Edinburgh" and
" The Westminster Review," "Fraser's Magazine,"
and other periodicals. His first great work was "A
System of Logic," the result of many years' previous
study, which appeared in I843. That completed, he
seems immediately to have paid chief attention to
politico-economical questions.  In  I844 appeared




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.             17
"Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political
Economy," which were followed, in i848, by the "Principles of Political Economy." After that there was a
pause of ten years; though the works that were issued
during the next six years show that he had not been
idle during the interval. In i857 were published two
volumes of the " Dissertations and Discussions," consisting solely of printed articles, the famous essay " On
Liberty," and the "Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform."  "Considerations on Representative Government " appeared in i86i; " Utilitarianism," in i863;
"Auguste Comte and Positivism " and the " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," in I865.
After that, besides the very welcome "Inaugural
Address " at St. Andrew's in I867, his only work of
importance was "The Subjection of Women," published in I869.  A fitting conclusion to his more
serious literary labors appeared also in I869 in his
annotated edition of his father's "Analysis of the
Phenomena of the Human Mind."
When we remember how much and what varied
knowledge is in those learned books, it is almost difficult to believe, that, during most of the years in which
he was preparing them, Mr. Mill was also a hard
worker in the India House, passing rapidly, and as the
reward only of his assiduity and talent, from the
drudgery of a junior clerk to a position involving all
the responsibility, if not quite all the dignity, of a
secretary of state. One of his most intimate friends,
and the one who knew far more of him in this respect
than any other, has in another column penned some
reminiscences of his official life; but if all the state
2*




Is8           JOHN STUART MILL.
papers that he wrote, and all the correspondence that
he carried on with Indian officials and the native
potentates of the East, could be explored, more than
one volume would have to be written in supplement to
his father's great " History of British India."
Having retired from the India House in i858, Mr.
Mill went to spend the winter in Avignon, in the hope
of improving the broken health of the wife to whom
he was devotedly attached. He had not been married
many years; but Mrs. Mill, who was the widow of Mr.
John Taylor, a London merchant, had been his friend
since I835, or even earlier. During more than twenty
years he had been aided by her talents, and encouraged
by her-sympathy, in all the work he had undertaken;
and to her rare merits he afterwards paid more than
one tribute in terms that have no equal for the intensity
of their language, and the depth of affection contained
in them. Mrs. Mill's weak state of health seems to
have hardly repressed her powers of intellect. By her
was written the celebrated essay on "The Enfranchisement of Women " contributed to "The Westminster
Review," and afterwards reprinted in the "Dissertations and Discussions," with a preface avowing, that by
her Mr. Mill had been greatly assisted in all that he
had written for some time previous. But the assistance
was to end now. Mrs. Mill died at Avignon on the
3d of November, i858; and over her grave was placed
one of the most pathetic and eloquent epitaphs that
have been ever penned. " Her great and loving heart,
her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect," it was there written, " made her
the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              19
the example in goodness, as she was the sole earthly
delight, of those who had the happiness to belong to
her. As earnest for all public good as she was generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her
influence has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in those still to
come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects
like hers, this earth would already become the hopedfor heaven." Henceforth, during the fourteen years
and a half that were to elapse before he should be laid
in the same grave, Avignon was the chosen haunt of
Mr. Mill.
Passing much of his time in the modest house that
he had bought, that he might be within sight of his
wife's tomb, Mr. Mill was also frequently in London,
whither he came especially to facilitate the new course
of philosophical and political writing on which he
entered. He found relief also in excursions, one of
which was taken nearly every year, in company with
his step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, into various
parts of Europe. Italy, Switzerland, and many other
districts, were explored, partly on foot, with a keen eye
both to the natural features of the localities, especially
in furtherance of those botanical studies to which Mr.
Mill now returned with the ardor of his youth, and
also to their social and political institutions. Perhaps
the longest and most eventful of these excursions was
taken in I862 to Greece. On this occasion it had
been proposed that his old friend, Mr. Grote, should
accompany him. "To go through those scenes, and
especially to go through them in your company," wrote
Mr. Grote in January, " would be to me pre-eminently




20            JOHN STUART MILL.
delightful; but, alas! my physical condition altogether
forbids it. I could not possibly stay away from London, without the greatest discomfort, for so long a
period as two months. Still less could I endure the
fatigue of horse and foot exercise which an excursion
in Greece must inevitably entail." The journey occupied more than two months; but in the autumn Mr.
Mill was at Avignon; and, returning to London in December, he spent Christmas week with Mr. Grote at
his residence, Barrow Green, - Bentham's old house,
and the one in which Mr. Mill had played himself when
he was a child. " He is in good health and spirits,"
wrote Mr. Grote to Sir G. C. Lewis after that visit;
"violent against the South in this American struggle;
embracing heartily the extreme Abolitionist views, and
thinking about little else in regard to the general
question."
It was only to be expected that Mr. Mill would take
much interest in the American civil war, and sympathize strongly with the Abolitionist party. His interest
in politics had been keen, and his judgment on them
had been remarkably sound all through life, as his
early articles in " The Morning Chronicle " and " The
London and Westminster Review," and his later contributions to various periodicals, helped to testify; but
towards the close of his life the interest was perhaps
keener, as the judgment was certainly more mellowed.
It was not strange, therefore, that his admirers among
the working classes, and the advanced radicals of all
grades, should have urged him, and that, after some
hesitation, he should have consented, to become a candidate for Westminster at the general election of i865.




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              21
That candidature will be long remembered as a notable
example of the dignified way in which an honest man,
and one who was as much a philosopher in practice as
in theory, can do all that is needful, and avoid all that is
unworthy, in an excited electioneering contest, and submit without injury to the insults of political opponents
and of political time-servers professing to be of his
own way of thinking. The result of the election was
a far greater honor to the electors who chose him than
to the representative whom they chose; though that
honor was greatly tarnished by Mr. Mill's rejection
when he offered himself for re-election three years
later.
This is hardly the place in which to review at much
length Mr. Mill's parliamentary career, though it may be
briefly referred to in evidence of the great and almostunlooked-for ability with which he adapted himself to
the requirements of a philosophical politician as distinct
from a political philosopher. His first speech in the
House of Commons, delivered very soon after its assembling, was on the occasion of the second reading of the
Cattle Diseases Bill, on the I4th of February, I866,
when he supported Mr. Bright in his opposition to the
proposals of Mr. Lowe for compensation to their owners
for, the slaughter of such animals as were diseased or
likely to spread infection. His complaint against the
bill was succinctly stated in two sentences, which fairly
illustrated the method and basis of all his arguments upon
current politics. "It compensates," he said, "a class
for the results of a calamity which is borne by the whole
community.  In justice, the farmers who have not
suffered ought to compensate those who have; but the




22             JOHN STUART MILL.
bill does what it ought not to have done, and leaves
undone what it ought to have done, by not equalizing
the incidence of the burden upon that class, inasmuch
as, from the operation of the local principle adopted,
that portion of an agricultural community who have not
suffered at all will not have to pay at all, and those who
have suffered little will have to pay little; while those
who have suffered most will have to pay a great deal."
"An aristocracy," he added, in words that as truly indicate the way in which he subjected all matters of detail
to the test of general principles of truth and expediency," an aristocracy should have the feelings of an aristocracy;
and, inasmuch as they enjoy the highest honors and advantages, they ought to be willing to bear the first brunt
of the inconveniences and evils which fall on the country
generally. This is the ideal character of an aristocracy:
it is the character with which all privileged classes are
accustomed to credit themselves; though I am not aware
of any aristocracy in history that has fulfilled those requirements."
That, and the later speeches that Mr. Mill delivered
on the Cattle Diseases Bill, at once announced to the
House of Commons and the public, if they needed any
such announcement, the temper and spirit in which he
was resolved to execute his legislative functions. The
same spirit and temper appeared in the speech on the
Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Bill, which he
delivered on the I7th of February; but his full strength
as a debater was first manifested during the discussion
on Mr. Gladstone's Reform  Bill of I866, which was
brought on for second reading on the I2th of April.
His famous speech on that occasion, containing the most




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              23
powerful arguments offered by any speaker in favor of
the measure, and his shorter speech during its discussion
on the 31st of May, need not here be recapitulated.
They were only admirable developments in practical
debate of those principles of political science which he
had already enforced in his published works. The other
leading topics handled by Mr. Mill during the session
of I866 were the expediency of reducing the National
Debt, which he urged on the occasion of Mr. Neate's
proposal on the I7th of April; the Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland) Bill, on which he spoke at length
and with force on the I7th of May, then practically initiating the movement in favor of land-reform, which he
partly helped to enforce in part with regard to Ireland,
and for the more complete adoption of which in England
he labored to the last; the Jamaica outbreak, and the
conduct of Governor Eyre, on which he spoke on the
3Ist of July; and the electoral disabilities of women,
which he first brought within the range of practical politics by moving, on the 2oth of July, for a return of the
numbers of householders, and others who, " fulfilling
the conditions of property or rental prescribed by law
as the qualification for the electoral franchise, are excluded from the franchise by reason of their sex."
In the session of I867 Mr. Mill took a prominent part
in the discussions on the Metropolitan Poor Bill; and he
spoke on various other topics, - his introduction of the
Women's Electoral Disabilities Removal Bill being in
some respects the most notable: but his chief action was
with reference to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, several
clauses of which he criticised and helped to alter in committee. Though he was as zealous as ever, however, in




24            JOHN STUART MILL.
his attendance to public business, he made fewer great
speeches, being content to set a wise example to other
and less able men in only speaking when he felt it absolutely necessary to do so, and in generally performing
merely the functions of a "silent member."
In i868 he was, if not more active, somewhat more
prominent. On March the 6th, on the occasion of Mr.
Shaw-Lefevre's motion respecting the " Alabama Claims,"
he forcibly expressed his opinions as to the wrong done
by England to the United States during the civil war,
and the need of making adequate reparation; and on the
12th of the same month he spoke with equal boldness
on Mr. Maguire's motion for a committee to inquire into
the state of Ireland, repeating anew and enforcing the
views he had lately put forward in his pamphlet on Ireland, and considerably aiding by anticipation the passage
of Mr. Gladstone's two great measures of Irish Reform.
He took an important part in the discussion of the Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices Bill; and among a
great number of other measures on which he spoke was
the Married Women's Property Bill of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre.
Soon after that the House of Commons was dissolved, and Mr. Mill's too brief parliamentary career
came to an end. The episode, however, had to some
extent helped to quicken his always keen interest in political affairs. This was proved, among other ways, by
the publication of his pamphlet on " England and Ireland "
in i868, and of his treatise " On the Subjection of Women" in I869, as well as by the especial interest which
he continued to exhibit in two of the most important political movements of the day, - all the more important
because they are yet almost in their infancy, - the one




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              25
for the political enfranchisement of women, the other for
a thorough reform of our system of land tenure.  The
latest proof of his zeal on the second of these important
points appeared in the address which he delivered at
Exeter Hall on the i8th of last March, and in two articles which he contributed to " The Examiner" at the commencement of the present year. We may be permitted
to add that it was his intention to use some of the greater quiet that he expected to enjoy during his stay at
Avignon in writing frequent articles on political affairs
for publication in these columns.  He died while his
intellectual powers were as fresh as they had ever been,
and when his political wisdom was only ripened by experience.
In this paper we purposely limit ourselves to a concise
narrative of the leading events of Mr. Mill's life, and
abstain as far as possible from any estimate of either the
value or the extent of his work in philosophy, in economics, in politics, or in any other of the departments of
thought and study to which, with such depth and breadth
of mind, he applied himself; but it is impossible for us
to lay down the pen without some slight reference, however inadequate it may be, to the nobility of his character, and the peculiar grace with which he exhibited it in
all his dealings with his friends and with the whole community among whom he lived, and for whom he worked
with the self-sacrificing zeal of an apostle. If to labor
fearlessly and ceaselessly for the good of society, and
with the completest self-abnegation that is consistent
with healthy individuality, be the true form of religion,
Mr. Mill exhibited such genuine and profound religionso permeating his whole life, and so engrossing his every
3




26             JOHIN STUART MILL.
action -as can hardly be looked for in any other man
of this generation. Great as were his intellectual qualities, they were dwarfed by his moral excellences.  He
did not, it is true, aim at any fanciful ideal, or adopt any
fantastic shibboleths. He was only a utilitarian. He believed in no inspiration but that of experience.  He
had no other creed or dogma or gospel than Bentham's
axiom, — " The greatest happiness of the greatest number." But many will think that herein was the chief of all
his claims to the honor of all men, and the best evidence
of his worth. At any rate, he set a notable example of the
way in which a man, making the best use in his power
of merely his own reason and the accumulated reason of
those who have gone before him, wisely exercising the
faculties of which he finds himself possessed, and seeking
no guidance or support from invisible beacons and intangible props, may lead a blameless life, and be one of the
greatest benefactors of his race. No one who had any
personal knowledge of him could fail to discern the singular purity of his character; and to those who knew
him best that purity was most apparent. He may have
blundered and stumbled in his pursuit of truth; but it
was part of his belief that stumbling and blundering are
necessary means towards the finding of truth, and that
honesty of purpose is the only indispensable requisite for
the nearest approach towards truth of which each individual is capable. That belief rendered him as charitable towards others as he was modest concerning his own
attainments. He never boasted; and he despised no
one. The only things really hateful to him were arrogance and injustice; and for these he was, to say the
least, as willing and eager to find excuse as could be the




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.              27
most devout utterer of the prayer, " Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do."  We had noted many
instances, coming within our own very limited observation, of his remarkable, almost unparalleled magnanimity and generosity; but such details would here be almost
out of place, and they who need such will doubtless
before long receive much more convincing proof of his
moral excellence.
We shall not here dilate on those minor qualities of
mind and heart that made Mr. Mill's society so charming to all who were fortunate enough to have any share
in it; and these, especially in recent years, were many.
When the first burden of his grief at the loss of his wife
had passed, — perhaps partly as a relief from the solitude, save for one devoted companion, that would otherwise have been now forced upon him, -he mixed more
freely than he had done before in the society of all whose
company could yield him any satisfaction,. or by whom
his friendship was really valued. His genial and graceful bearing towards every one who came near him must
be within the knowledge of very many who will read
this column; and they will remember, besides his transparent nobility of character, and the genial ways in which
it exhibited itself, certain intellectual qualities for which
he was remarkable. We here refer, not to his higher
abilities as a thinker, but to such powers of mind as displayed themselves in conversation.  Without any pedantry, - without any sort of intentional notification to those
with whom he conversed that he was the greatest logiciari, metaphysician, moralist, and economist of the day,
- his speech was always, even on the most trivial subjects, so clear and incisive, that it at once betrayed the




28             JOHN STUART MILL.
intellectual vigor of the speaker. Not less remarkable
also than his uniform refinement of thought, and the
deftness with which he at all times expressed it, were
the grasp and keenness of his observation, and the
strength of memory with which he stored up every thing
he had ever seen, heard, or read. Nothing escaped his
notice at the time of its occurrence: nothing was forgotten by him afterwards. His friends often found, to their
astonishment, that he knew far more about any passages
in their lives that he had been made aware of than they
could themselves remember; and, whenever that disclosure was made to them, they must have been rejoiced to
think, that this memory of his, instead of being, as it
might well have been, a dangerous garner of severe
judgments and fairly-grounded prejudices, was a magic
mirror, in which their follies and foibles were hardly at
all reflected, and only kindly reminiscences and generous
sympathies found full expression.
But he is dead now. Although the great fruits of
his life —a life in which mind and heart, in which
senses and emotions, were singularly well balancedare fruits that cannot die, all the tender ties of friendship, all the strictly personal qualities that so much
aided his work as a teacher of the world, as the foremost leader of his generation in the search after truth
and righteousness, are now snapped forever.  Only
four weeks ago he left London for a three-months' stay
in Avignon. Two weeks ago he was in his customary
health. On the 5th of May he was attacked by a
virulent form of erysipelas. On the 8th lie died. On
the Ioth he was buried in the grave to which he had,
through fourteen years, looked forward as a pleasant




A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.           29
resting-place, because during fourteen years there had
been in it a vacant place beside the remains of the
wife whom he so fondly loved.
H. R. Fox BOURNE.
3*




II.
HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.
I HAVE undertaken to prepare a sketch of Mr.
Mill's official career, but find, on inquiry, scarcely any
thing to add to the few particulars on the subject
which have already found their way into print. Of his
early official associates, all have, with scarcely an exception, already passed away; and there is no one
within reach to whom  I can apply for assistance in
verifying or correcting my own impressions.  These
are in substance the following.
In the few last decades of its existence, the EastIndia Company's establishment, in Leadenhall Street,
consisted of three divisions, - the secretary's, military
secretary's, and examiners' offices,-in the last of which
most of the despatches and letters were composed
which were afterwards signed by the directors or the
secretary.  Into this division, in the year 1821, the
directors, perceiving an infusion of new blood to be
very urgently required, introduced, as assistant examiners, four outsiders, — Mr. Strachey (father of the
present Sir John and Major-Gen. Richard Strachey),
Thomas Love Peacock (author of "Headlong Hall "),
30




HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.          31
Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. James Mill; the selection of the
last-named being all the more creditable to them,
because, in his "History of British India," he had
animadverted with much severity on some parts of the
Company's administration. Two years afterwards, in
I823, the historian's son, the illustrious subject of
these brief memoirs, then a lad of seventeen, obtained
a clerkship under his father. According to the ordinary course of things in those days, the newly-appointed
junior would have had nothing to do, except a little
abstracting, indexing, and searching, or pretending to
search, into records; but young Mill was almost immediately set to indite despatches to the governments of
the three Indian Presidencies, on what, in IndiaHouse phraseoiogy, were distinguished as "political"
subjects, - subjects, that is, for the most part growing out of the relations of the said governments with' native " states or foreign potentates. This continued
to be his business almost to the last. In I828 he was
promoted to be assistant examiner, and in I856 he
succeeded to the post of chief examiner; after which
his duty consisted rather in supervising what his
assistants had written than in writing himself: but for
the three and twenty years preceding he had had immediate charge of the political department, and had
written almost every "political" despatch of any importance that conveyed the instructions of the merchant princes of Leadenhall Street to their pro-consuls
in Asia. Of the quality of these documents, it is sufficient to say, that they were John Mill's; but, in respect
to their quantity, it may be worth mentioning that a
descriptive catalogue of them completely fills a small




32             JOHN STUART MILL.
quarto volume of between three hundred and four
hundred pages, in their author's handwriting, which
now lies before me; also that the share of the Court
of Directors in the correspondence between themselves
and the Indian governments used to average annually
about ten huge vellum-bound volumes, foolscap size,
and five or six inches thick, and that of these volumes
two a year, for more than twenty years running, were
exclusively of Mill's composition; this, too, at times,
when he was engaged upon such voluntary work in
addition as his " Logic " and " Political Economy."
In i857 broke out the Sepoy war, and in the following
year the East-India Company was extinguished in all
but the name, its governmental functions being transferred to the Crown. That most illustrious of corporations died hard; and with what affectionate loyalty Mill
struggled to avert its fate is evidenced by the famous
Petition to Parliament which he drew up for his old
masters, and which opens with the following effective
antithesis: "Your petitioners, at their own expense, and
by the agency of their own civil and military servants,
originally acquired for this country its magnificent empire in the East. The foundations of this empire were
laid by your petitioners, at that time neither aided nor
controlled by Parliament, at the same period at which
a succession of administrations under the control of Parliament were losing, by their incapacity and rashness, another great empire on the opposite side of the Atlantic."
I am fortunate enough to be the possessor of the original MS. of this admirable state paper, which I mention,
because I once heard its real authorship denied in that
quarter of all others in which it might have been sup



HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.          33
posed to be least likely to be questioned. On one of
the last occasions of the gathering together of the Proprietors of East-India Stock, I could scarcely believe my
ears, when one of the directors, alluding to the petition,
spoke of it as having been written by a certain other
official who was sitting by his side, adding, after a moment's pause, "with the assistance, as he understood, of
Mr. Mill," likewise present. As soon as the Court broke
up, I burst into Mill's room, boiling over with indignation, and exclaiming, "What an infamous shame! " and
no doubt adding a good deal more that followed in natural sequence on such an exordium. " What's the matter? "
replied Mill as soon as he could get a word in. " M —
[the director] was quite right.  The petition was the
joint woik of  -  and myself." -" How can you be so
perverse? " I retorted. " You know that I know you
wrote every word of it." -" No," rejoined Mill, " you are
mistaken: one whole line on the second page was put in
by."
In August, i858, the East-India Company's doom was
pronounced by Parliament. The East-India House was
completely re-organized, its very name being changed into
that of the India Office, and a Secretary of State in
Council taking the place of the Court of Directors.  But
a change of scarcely secondary importance to many of
those immediately concerned was Mill's retirement on a
pension. A few months after he had left us an attempt
was made to bring him back. At that time only onehalf of the Council were nominated by the Crown, the
other half having been elected, and the law prescribing
that any vacancy among these latter should be filled by
election on the part of the remaining elected members.




34             JOHN STUART MILL.
On the first occasion of the kind that occurred, Miill was
immediately proposed; and I had the honor of being
commissioned to sound him on the subject of the intended offer, and to endeavor to overcome the objections
to acceptance which it was feared he might entertain.  I
went accordingly to his house at Blackheath, but had no
sooner broached the subject than I saw that my mission
was hopeless. The anguish of his recent bereavement
was as yet too fresh. He sought eagerly for some slight
alleviation of despair in hard literary labor; but to face
the outside world was for the present impossible.
Here my scanty record must end, unless I may be
permitted to supplement its meagreness by one or two
personal - not to say egotistical - reminiscences. The
death of Mr. Mill senior, in I836, had occasioned a vacancy at the bottom of the examiner's office, to which I
was appointed through the kindness of Sir James Carnac, then chairman of the Company, in whose gift it was.
Within a few months, however, I was transferred to a
newly-created branch of the secretary's office; owing to
which cause, and perhaps also to a little (or not a little)
mutual shyness, I for some years came so seldom into
contact with Mr. Mill, that, though he of course knew
me by sight, we scarcely ever spoke, and generally passed
each other without any mark of recognition when we
happened to meet in or out of doors. Early in I846,
however, I sent him a copy of a book I had just brought
out, on " Over-population." A day or two afterwards he
came into my room to thank me for it; and during the
half-hour's conversation that thereupon ensued, sprang
up, full grown at its birth, an intimate friendship, of
which I feel that I am not unduly boasting in declaring




HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.          35
it to have been equally sincere and fervent on both sides.
From that time for the next ten or twelve years, a day
seldom passed without, if I did not go into his room, his
coming into mine, often telling me as he entered, that he
had nothing particular to say; but that, having a few minutes to spare, he thought we might as well have a little
talk. And what talks we have had on such occasions,
and on what various subjects! and not unfrequently, too,
when the room was Mill's, Grote, the historian, would
join us, first announcing his advent by a peculiar and
ever-welcome rat-tat with his walking-stick on the door.
I must not dwell longer over these recollections; but
there are two special obligations of my own to Mill
which I cannot permit myself to pass over. When, in
i856, he became examiner, he had made it, as I have
been since assured by the then chairman of the EastIndia Company, a condition of his acceptance of the
post, that I, whose name very likely the Chairman had
never before heard, should be associated with him as one
of his assistant examiners; and I was placed, in consequence, in charge of the Public-Works Department.
Not long afterwards, having lapsed into a state of nervous weakness, which for nearly a year absolutely incapacitated me for mental labor, I should, but for Mill,
have been compelled to retire from the service. From
this, however, he saved me by quietly taking upon himself, and for the space of twelve months discharging, the
whole of my official duties, in addition to his own. Is
it wonderful that such a man, supposed by those who did
not know him to be cold, stern, and dry, should have
been enthusiastically beloved by those who did?
It is little to say, that my own friendship with him was,




36                 JOHN  STUART  MILL.
from first to last, never once ruffled by difference or misunderstanding of any kind. Differences of opinion we
had in abundance; but my open  avowal of them  was
always recognized by him as one of the strongest proofs
of respect, and served to cement instead of weakening
our attachment.'  The nearest approach made throughout our intercourse to any thing of an unpleasant character was about the time of his retirement from  the India
House.  Talking over that one day with two or three of
my colleagues, I said  it would  not do  to let Mill go
without receiving some permanently-visible token of our
regard. The motion was no sooner made than it was
carried by acclamation. Every member of the examiners'
office — for we jealously insisted on confining the affair
to ourselves - came tendering his subscription, scarcely
waiting to be asked; in half an hour's time some fifty or
sixty pounds -I forget the exact sum -was collected,
which in due course was invested in a superb silver inkstand, designed by our friend, Digby Wyatt, and manufactured by Messrs. Elkington. Before it was ready, however,
an unexpected trouble arose. In some way or other,
Mill had got wind of our proceeding, and, coming to me
in consequence, began almost to upbraid me as its originator. I had never before seen him so angry. He hated
all such demonstrations, he said, and was quite resolved
not to be made the subject of them. He was sure they
1 I may be permitted here, without Mr. Thornton's knowledge, to recall a
remark made by Mr. Mill only a few weeks ago. We were speaking of Mr.'IThorton's recently-publisled " Old- Fashioned Ethics agnd Common-Sense Metaphysics," when I remarked on Mr. Mii's wide divergence fronm most of the views
contained in it. " Yes," lie replied, " it is pleasant to find sonzet/IzzT on which
to differ from Thornton." Mr. Mill's prompt recognition of the importance of
Mr. Thornton's refutation of the wage-fund theory is only one out of numberless
instances of his peculiar magnanimity. - B.




HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.           37
were never altogether genuine or spontaneous; there
were always several persons who took part in them
merely because they did not like to refuse; and, in short,
whatever we might do, he would have none of it. In
vain I represented how eagerly everybody, without exception, had come forward; that we had now gone too
far to recede; that, if he would not take the inkstand, we
should be utterly at a loss what to do with it; and that I
myself should be in a specially embarrassing position.
Mill was not to be moved. This was a question of principle; and on principle he could not give way. There
was nothing left, therefore, but resort to a species of
force. I arranged with Messrs. Elkington that our little
testimonial should be taken down to Mr. Mill's house at
Blackheath by one of their men, who, after leaving it
with the servant, should hurry away without waiting for
an answer. This plan succeeded; but I have always
suspected, though she never told me so, that its success
was mainly due to Miss Helen Taylor's good offices.
But for her, the inkstand would almost certainly have
been returned, instead of being promoted, as it eventually
was, to a place of honor in her own and her father's
drawing-room.
Mine is scarcely just now the mood in which I should
have been naturally disposed to relate anecdotes like
this; but, in the execution of my present task, I have felt
bound chiefly to consider what would be likely to interest
the reader.
W. T. THORNTON.
4




III.
HIS MORAL CHARACTER.
To dilate upon Mr. Mill's achievements, and to insist
upon the wideness of his influence over the thought of
his time, and consequently over the actions of his time,
seems to me scarcely needful. The facts are sufficiently
obvious, and are recognized by all who know any thing
about the progress of opinion during the last half-century. My own estimate of him, intellectually considered,
has been emphatically though briefly given on an occasion of controversy between us, by expressing my regret
at " having to contend against the doctrine of one whose
agreement I should value more than that of any other
thinker."
While, however, it is almost superfluous to assert of
him that intellectual height so generally admitted, there
is more occasion for drawing attention to a moral elevation that is less recognized, partly because his activities
in many directions afforded no occasion for exhibiting it,
and partly because some of its most remarkable manifestations in conduct are known only to those whose
personal relations with him have called them forth. I
feel especially prompted to say something on this point,
38




HIS MORAL CHARACTER.              39
because, where better things might have been expected,
there has been, not only a grudging recognition of intellectual rank, but a marked blindness to those fine traits
of character, which, in the valuation of men, must go for
more than superiority of intelligence.
It might indeed have been supposed, that even those
who never enjoyed the pleasure of personal acquaintance
with Mr. Mill would have been impressed with the
nobility of his nature as indicated in his opinions and
deeds. How entirely his public career has been determined by a pure and strong sympathy for his fellow-men;
how entirely this sympathy has subordinated all desires
for personal advantage; how little even the fear of
being injured in reputation or position has deterred him
from taking the course which he thought equitable or
generous, - ought to be manifest to every antagonist, however bitter. A generosity that might almost be called
romantic was obviously the feeling prompting sundry of
those courses of action which have been commented
upon as errors. And nothing like a true conception of
him can be formed, unless, along with dissent from them,
there goes recognition of the fact that they resulted from
the eagerness of a noble nature impatient to rectify injustice and to further human welfare.
It may perhaps be that my own perception of this
pervading warmth of feeling has been sharpened by seeing it exemplified, not in the form of expressed opinions
only, but in the form of private actions; for Mr. Mill
was not one of those, who, to sympathy with their fellowmen in the abstract, join indifference to them in the
concrete. There came from him  generous acts that
corresponded with his generous sentiments. I say this,




40             JOHN STUART MILL.
not from second-hand knowledge, but having in mind a
remarkable example known only to myself and a few
friends.  I have hesitated whether to give this example,
seeing that it has personal implications.  But it affords
so clear an insight into Mr. MAill's character, and shows
so much more vividly than any description could do how
fine were the motives swaying his conduct, that I think
the occasion justifies disclosure of it.
Some seven years ago, after bearing as long as was
possible the continued losses entailed on me by the publication of the " System of Philosophy," I notified to the
subscribers that I should be obliged to cease at the close
of the volume then in progress.  Shortly after the issue
of this announcement I received from Mr. Mill a letter,
in which, after expressions of regret, and after naming a
plan which he wished to prosecute for re-imbursing me,
he went on to say, "In the next place... what I
propose is, that you should write the next of your treatises, and that I should guarantee the publisher against
loss; i.e., should engage, after such length of time as
may be agreed on, to make good any deficiency that may
occur, not exceeding a given sum, -that sum being such
as the publisher may think sufficient to secure him."
Now, though these arrangements were of kinds that I
could not bring myself to yield to, they none the less
profoundly impressed me with Mr. Mill's nobility of
feeling, and his anxiety to further what he regarded as a
beneficial end.  Such proposals would have been remarkable even had there been entire agreement of opinion; but they were the more remarkable as being made
by him under the consciousness that there existed between us certain fundamental differences, openly avowed.




HIS MORAL CHARACTER.              41
I had, both directly and by implication, combated that
form of the experiential theory of human knowledge
lwhich characterizes Mr. Mill's philosophy: in upholding
Realism, I had opposed in decided ways those metaph:ysical systems to which his own Idealism was closely
allied; and we had long carried on a controversy respecting the test of truth, in which I had similarly attacked
Mr. Mill's positions in an outspoken manner. That,
under such circumstances, he should have volunteered
his aid, and urged it upon me, as he did, on the ground
that it would not imply any personal obligation, proved
in him a very exceptional generosity.
Quite recently I have seen afresh illustrated this fine
trait, - this ability to bear with unruffled temper, and
without any diminution of kindly feeling, the publiclyexpressed antagonism of a friend. The last evening I
spent at his house was in the company of another invited
guest, who, originally agreeing with him entirely on certain disputed questions, had some fortnight previously
displayed his change of view, - nay, had publicly criticised some of Mr. Mill's positions in a very undisguised
manner.  Evidently, along with his own unswerving
allegiance to truth, there was in Mr. Mill an unusual
power of appreciating in others a like conscientiousness,
and so of suppressing any feeling of irritation produced
by difference, - suppressing it, not in appearance only,
but in reality, and that, too, under the most trying circumstances.
I should say indeed, that Mr. Mill's general characteristic, emotionally considered, was an unusual predominance of the higher sentiments, - a predominance
which tended, perhaps, both in theory and practice, to




42             JOHN STUART MILL.
subordinate the lower nature unduly. That rapid advance of age which has been conspicuous for some years
past, and which doubtless prepared the way for his
somewhat premature death, may, I think, be regarded as
the outcome of a theory of life which made learning and
working the occupations too exclusively considered.
But when we ask to what ends he acted out this theory,
and in so doing too little regarded his bodily welfare,
we see that even here the excess, if such we call it, was
a noble one. Extreme desire to further human welfare
was that to which he sacrificed himself.
HERBERT SPENCER.




IV.
HIS  BOTANICAL  STUDIES.
IF we would have a just idea of any man's character,
we should view it from as many points, and under as
many aspects, as we can. The side-lights thrown by the
lesser occupations of a life are often very strong, and
bring out its less obvious parts into startling prominence.
Much especially is to be learned of character by taking
into consideration the employment of times of leisure or
relaxation; the occupation of such hours being due almost
solely to the natural bent of the individual, without the
interfering action of necessity or expediency. Most men,
perhaps especially eminent men, have a " hobby," - some
absorbing object, the pursuit of which forms the most
natural avocation of their mind, and to which they turn
with the certainty of at least satisfaction, if not of exquisite pleasure.  The man who follows any branch of natural science in this way is almost always especially happy
in its prosecution; and his mental powers are refreshed
and invigorated for the more serious and engrossing if
less congenial occupation of his life. Mr. Mill's hobby
was practical field botany; surely in all ways one very
well suited to him.
43




44             JOHN STUART MILL.
Of the tens of thousands who are acquainted with the
philosophical writings of Mr. Mill, there are probably few
beyond the circle of his personal friends who are aware
that he was also an author in a modest way on botanical
subjects, and a keen searcher after wild plants. His
short communications on botany were chiefly if not entirely published in a monthly magazine called "The Phytologist," edited, from its commencement in'I84I, by the
late George Luxford, till his death, in I854, and afterwards
conducted by Mr. A. Irvine of Chelsea, an intimate
friend of Mr. Mill's, till its discontinuance in I863. In
the early numbers of this periodical especially will be
found frequent notes and short papers on the facts of
plant-distribution brought to light by Mr. Mill during his
botanical rambles. His excursions were chiefly in the
county of Surrey, and especially in the neighborhood of
Guildford and the beautiful vale of the Sittingbourne,
where he had the satisfaction of being the first to notice
several plants of interest, as Polygonuvm dumnetorum, Isatis
tinaloria, and aInjalicns fulva, an American species of
balsam, affording a very remarkable example of complete
naturalization in the Wey and other streams connected
with the lower course of the Thames. Mr. Mill says he
first observed this interloper in i822 at Albury, a date
which probably marks about the commencement of his
botanical investigations, if not that of the first notice of
the plant in this country.  Mr. Mill's copious MS. lists of
observations in Surrey were subsequently forwarded to
the late Mr. Salmon of Godalming, and have been since
published with the large collection of facts made by that
botanist in the " Flora of Surrey," printed under the
auspices of the Holmesdale (Reigate) Natural History




HIS BOTANICAL STUDIES.                45
Club. Mr. Mill also contributed to the same scientific
magazine some short notes on Hampshire botany, and is
believed to have helped in the compilation of Mr. G. G.
Mill's " Catalogue. of the Plants of Great Marlow, Barcks."
The mere recording of isolated facts of this kind of
course affords no scope for any style in composition. It
may, however, be thought worth while to reproduce here
the concluding paragraph of a short article on " Spring
Flowers in the South of Europe," as a sample of Mr.
Mill's popular manner, as well as for its own sake as a
fine description of a matchless scene.  He is describing
the little mountain range of Albano, beloved of painters,
and, after comparing its vernal flora with that in England, goes on:"If we would ascend the hirghest member of the mountain
group, the Monte Cavo, we must make the circuit of the
north flank of the mountains of Marino, on the edge of the
Albano Lake, and Rocca di Tassa, a picturesque village in
the hollow mountain side, from which we climb through
woods, abounding in CGalatllizs nzivalus and Corytdalis caaon,
to that summit which was the arx of Jupiter Latialis, and to
which the thirty Latian cities ascended in solemn procession
to offer their annual sacrifice. The place is now occupied
by a convent, under the wall of which I gathered Orzitilhoaluriz nzutans; and from its neighborhood I enjoyed a panoramic view, surely the most glorious, in its combination of
natural beauty and grandeur of historical recollections, to be
found anywhere on earth. The eye ranged from Terracina on
one side to Veii on the other, and beyond Veii to the hills of
Sutrium and Nepete, once covered by the Ciminian forests,
then deemed an impenetrable barrier between the interior of
Etruria and Rome. Below my feet the Alban mountain, with
all its forest-covered folds, and in one of them the dark-blue




46              JOHN STUART MILL.
Lake of Nemi; that of Albano, I think, was invisible. To the
north, in the dim distance, the Eternal City; to the west the
eternal sea; for eastern boundary, the long line of Sabine
mountains fromn Soracte past Tibur and away towards Prceneste. The range then passed behind the Alban group, but
re-appeared to the south-east as the mountain crescent of
Cora and Pometia, enclosing between its horns the Pontine
marshes, which lay spread out below as far as the sea-line,
extending east and west from Terracina in the bay of Fon di,
the Volscian Anxur, to the angle of the coast where rises
suddenly, between thle marshes and the sea, the mountain
promontory of Circeii, celebrated alike in history and in
fable. Within the space visible from this one point, the destinies of the human race were decided. It took the Romans
nearly five hundred years to vanquish and incorporate the
warlike tribes who inhabited that narrow tract; but, this being
accomplished, two hundred more sufficed them to complete
the conquest of the world."
During his frequent and latterly-prolonged residence
at Avignon, Mr. 1ill1, carrying on his botanical propensities, had become very well acquainted with the veg-etation of the district, and at the time of his dexath had collected a niass of notes and observations on the subiecf.
It is believedl to have been his intention to have printed
these as the foundation of a flora of Avignon.
In the slight contributions to the literature of botany
made by Mr. Mill, there is nothing which gives any
inkling of the great intellectual powers of their writer.
Though always clear and accurate, they are merely
such notes as any working, botanical collector is able
to supply in abundance.  Mainly content with the.
pursuit as an outdoor occupation, with such an amount
of home-work as was necessary to determine the names




HIS BOTANICAL STUDIES.             47
and affinities of the species, Mr. Mill never penetrated
deeply into the philosophy of botany, so as to take
rank among those who have, like Herbert Spencer,
advanced that science by original work either of experiment or generalization, or have entered into the
battle-field where the great biological questions of the
day are being fought over. The writer of this notice
well remembers meeting, a few years since, the (at
that time) parliamentary logician, with his trofisers
turned up out of the mud, and armed with the tin
insignia of -his craft, busily occupied in the search after
a marsh-loving rarity in a typical spongy wood on the
clay to the north of London.
But however followed, the investigation of nature
cannot fail to influence the mind in the direction of a
more just appreciation of the necessity of system in
arrangement, and of the principles which must regulate all attempts to express notions of system in a
classification.  Traces of this are not difficult to find
in Mr. Mill's writings.  It may be safely stated, that
the chapters on classification in the "Logic" would
not have taken the form they have, had not the writer
been a naturalist as well as a logician.  The views
expressed so clearly in these chapters are chiefly
founded on the actual needs experienced by the systematic botanist; and the argument is largely sustained
by references to botanical systems and arrangements.
Most botanists agree with Mr. Mill in his objections
to Dr. Whewell's views of a natural classification by
resemblance to " types," instead of in accordance with
well-selected characters; and indeed the whole of
these chapters are well deserving the careful study of




48               JOIIN  STUART MILL.
naturalists, notwithstanding that the wonderfully-rapid
progress in recent Tears of new ideas, lying at the very
root of all the natural sciences, may be thought by
some to give the whole argument, in spite of its logical
excellence, a somewhat antiquated flavor. How fully
Mr. Mill recognized the great importance of the study
of biological classifications, and the influence such a
study must have had on himself, may be judged from
the following quotation:"Although the scientific arrangements of organic nature
afford as yet the only complete example of the true principles
of rational classification, whether as to the formation of
groups or of series, those principles are applicable to all
cases in which mankind are called upon to bring the various
parts of any extensive subject into mental co-ordination.
They are as much to the point when objects are to be classed
for purposes of art or business as for those of science. The
proper arrangement, for example, of a code of laws, depends
on the same scientific conditions as the classifications in
natural history; nor could there be a better preparatory discipline for that important function than the study of the
principles of a natural arranriement,   not only in the abstract,
but in their actual application to the class of phenomena for
which they were first elaborated, and which are still the best
school for learning their use. Of this, the great authority on
codification, Bentham, was perfectly aware; and his early'Fragment on Government,' the admirable introduction to a
series of writings unequalled in their department, contains
clear and just views (as far as they go) on the meaning of a
natural arrangement, such as could scarcely have occurred
to any one who lived anterior to the age of Linnaus s and
Bernard de Jussieu " (SyJstcm of Logic, ed. 6, ii., p. 2SS).
HENRY TRIMLEN.




V.
HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC.
MR. MILL'S achievements as an economist, logician,
psychologist, and politician are known more or less
vaguely to all educated men; but his capacity and his
actual work as a critic are comparatively little regarded.
In the three volumes of his collected miscellaneous'
writings, very few of the papers are general reviews
either of books or of men; and even these volumes
derive their character from the essays they contain on
the severer subjects with which Mr. Mill's name has
been more peculiarly associated.  Nobody buys his
" Dissertations and Discussions " for the sake of his
theory of poetry, or his essays on Armand Carrel and
Alfred de Vigny, noble though these are in many ways.
His essay on Coleridge is very celebrated; but it deals,
not with Coleridge's place as a poet, but with his place
as a thinker, - with Coleridge as the antagonistic
power to Bentham in forming the opinions of the generation now passing away.  Still at such a time as
this it is interesting to make some endeavor to estimate the value of what Mr. Mill has done in the way
of criticism. It is at least worth while to examine
4                            49




50            JOHN STUART MILL.
whether one who has shown himself capable of grappling effectively with the driest and most abstruse
problems that vex the human intellect was versatile
enough to study poetry with an understanding heart,
and to be alive to the distinctive powers of individual
poets.
It was in his earlier life, when his enthusiasm for
knowledge was fresh, and his active mind, "all as
hungry as the sea," was reaching out eagerly and
strenuously to all sorts of food for thought, - literary,
philosophical, and political, - that Mr. Mill set himself,
among other things, to study and theorize upon poetry
and the arts generally. He could hardly have failed
to know the most recent efflorescence of English poetry, living as he did in circles where the varied merits
of the new poets were largely and keenly discussed.
He had lived also for some time in France, and was
widely read in French poetry. He had never passed
through the ordinary course of Greek and Latin at
school and college; but he had been taught by his
father to read these languages, and had been accustomed from the first to regard their literature as literature, and to read their poetry as poetry. These were
probably the main elements of his knowledge of poetry. But it was not his way to dream or otherwise luxuriate over his favorite poets for pure enjoyment. Mr.
Mill was not a cultivator of art for art's sake. His
was too fervid and militant a soul to lose itself in
serene love and culture of the calmly beautiful. He
read poetry for the most part with earnest, critical eye,
striving to account for it, to connect it with the tendencies of the age; or he read to find sympathy wvith




HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC.             51
his own aspirations after heroic energy. He read De
Vigny and other French poets of his generation, with
an eye to their relations to the convulsed and strugling state of France, and because they were compelled
by their surroundings to take life au serieux, and to
pursue, with all the resources of their art, something
different from beauty in the abstract. Luxurious passive enjoyment or torpid half-enjoyment must have
been a comparatively rare condition of his finelystrung, excitable, and fervid system. I believe that
his moral earnestness was too imperious to permit
much of this.  He was capable indeed of the most
passionate admiration of beauty, but even that feeling
seems to have been interpenetrated by a certain militant apostolic fervor; his love was as the love of a
religious soldier for a patron saint who extends her
aid and countenance to him in his wars.  I do not
mean to say that his mind was in a perpetual glow: I
mean only that this surrender to impassioned transports was more characteristic of the man than serene
openness to influx of enjoyment.  His "Thoughts on
Poetry and its Varieties," while clear and strenuous
as most of his thoughts were, are neither scientifically
precise, nor do they contain any notable new idea not
previously expressed by Coleridge, except perhaps the
idea, that emotions are the main links of association
in the poetic mind: still his working out of the definition of poetry, his distinction between novels and
poems, and between poetry and eloquence, is interesting as throwing light upon his own poetic susceptibilities. He holds that poetry is the " delineation of the
deeper and more secret workings of human emotion."




52            JOHN STUART MILL.
It is curious to find one who is sometimes assailed as
the advocate of a grovelling philosophy complaining
that the chivalrous spirit has almost disappeared from
books of education, that the youth of both sexes of
the educated classes are growving up unromantic.
" Catechisms," he says, "will be found a poor substitute for the old romances, whether of chivalry or faery,
which, if they did not give a true picture of actual life,
did not give a false one, since they did not profess to
give any, but (what was much better) filled the youthful imagination with pictures of heroic men, and of
what are at least as much wanted, - heroic women."
If Mr. Mill did not love poetry with a purely disinterested love, but with an eye to its moral causes and
effects, neither did he study character from mere
delight in observing the varieties of mankind. Armand Carrel the Republican journalist, Alfred de
Vigny the Royalist poet, Coleridge the Conservative,
and Bentham the Reformer, are taken up and expounded, not as striking individuals, but as types of
influences and tendencies. This habit of keeping in
view mind in the abstract, or men in the aggregate,
may have been in a large measure a result of his education by his father; but I am inclined to think that
he was of too ardent and pre-occupied a disposition,
perhaps too much disposed to take favorable views
of individuals, to be very sensitive to differences of
character. It should not, however, be forgotten that
in one memorable case he showed remarkable discrimination. Soon after Mr. Tennyson published his second
issue of poems, Mr. Mill reviewed them  in "The
Westminster Review" for July, 1835, and, with his




HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC.               53
usual earnestness and generosity, applied all his powers to making a just estimate of the new aspirant.
To have reprinted this among his miscellaneous writings might have seemed rather boastful, as claiming
credit for the first full recognition of a great poet:
still it is a very remarkable review; and one would
hope it will not be omitted if there is to be any further
collection of his casual productions. I shall quote two
passages which seem obvious enough now, but which
required true insight, as well as courageous generosity,
to write them in I835:" Of all the capacities of a poet, that which seems to have
arisen earliest in Mr. Tennyson, and in which he most excels,
is that of scene-painting in the higher sense of the term;
not the mere power of producing that rather vapid species
of composition usually termed descriptive poetry, - for there
is not in these volumes one passage of pure description,
but the power of creating scenery in keeping with some state
of human feeling, so fitted to it as to be the embodied symbol of it, and to summon up the state of feeling itself with a
force not to be surpassed by any thing but reality.
"The poems which we have quoted from Mr. Tennyson
prove incontestably that he possesses in an eminent degree
the natural endowment of a poet, - the poetic temperament.
And it appears clearly, not only from a comparison of the
two volumes, but of different poems in the same volume,
that with him the other element of poetic excellence, intellectual culture, is advancing both steadily and rapidly; that
he is not destined, like so many others, to be remembered for
what he might have done rather than for what he did; that




54              JOHTN STUART MILL.
he will not remain a poet of mere temperament, but is
ripening into a true artist.... We predict, that, as Mr.
Tennyson advances in general spiritual culture, these higher
aims will become more and more predominant in his writings; that he will strive more and more diligently, and, even
without striving, will be more and more impelled by the
natural tendencies of an expanding character, towards what
has been described as the highest object of poetry, -I'to
incorporate the everlasting reason of man in forms visible
to his sense, and suitable to it.' "
This last sentence might easily be construed into a prediction of "In Memoriam" and "The Idyls of the
King."
If it is asked why Mr. Mill, with all his width of knowledge and sympathy, has achieved so little of a reputation
as a miscellaneous writer, part of the reason no doubt is,
that he sternly repressed his desultory tendencies, and
devoted his powers to special branches of knowledge,
attaining in them a distinction that obscured his other
writings. Another reason is, that, although his style is
extremely clear, he was for popular purposes dangerously familiar with terms belonging more or less to the
schools. He employed these in literary generalizations,
without remembering that they were not equally familiar to his readers; and thus general readers, like Tom
Moore, or the author of the recent notice in "The
Times," who read more for amusement than instruction,
were disposed to consider Mr. Mill's style "vastly unreadable."
W. MINTro.




VI.
HIS WORK  IN  PHILOSOPHY.
To a savage contemplating a railway train in motion,
the engine would present itself as the master of the situation, - the determining cause of the motion and direction
of the train. It visibly takes the lead, it looks big and
important, and it makes a great noise. Even people a
long way up in the scale of civilization are in the habit
of taking these attributes, perhaps not as the essential
ones of leadership, but at all events as those by which
a leader may be recognized. Still that blustering machine, which puffs and snorts, and drags a vast multitude
in its wake, is moving along a track determined by a
man hidden away from the public gaze. A line of rail
lies separated from an adjacent one, the pointsman
moves a handle, and the foaming giant, that would, it
may be, have sped on to his destruction and that of the
passive crew who follow in his rear, is shunted to another
line running in a different direction and to a more desirable goal.
The great intellectual pointsman of our age - the man
who has done more than any other of this generation to
give direction to the thought of his contemporaries -
55




56             JOHN STUART MILL.
has passed away; and we are left to measure the loss to
humanity by the result of his labors. Mr. Mill's achievements in both branches of philosophy are such as to
give him the foremost place in either. Whether we regard him as an expounder of the philosophy of mind or
the philosophy of society, he is facile princeps. Still it
is his work in mental science which will, in our opinion,
be in future looked upon as his great contribution to the
progress of thought. His work on political economy not
only put into thorough repair the structure raised by Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo, but raised it at least
one story higher. fHis inestimable " System of Logic"
was a revolution.  It hardly needs, of course, to be
said that he owed much to his predecessors, —that he
borrowed from Whewell much of his classification, from
Brown the chief lines of his theory of causation, from Sir
John Herschel the main principles of the inductive methods. Those who think this a disparagement of his work
must have very little conception of the mass of original
thought that still remains to Mr. Mill's credit, the great
critical power that could gather valuable truths from so
many discordant sources, and the wonderful synthetic
ability required to weld these and his own contributions
into one organic whole.?When Mr. Mill commenced his labors, the only logic
recognized was the syllogistic.  Reasoning consisted
solely, according to the then dominant school, in deducing from general propositions other propositions less general. It was even asserted confidently, that nothing more
was to be expected,- that an inductive logic was impossible. This conception of logical science necessitated
some general propositions to start with; and these gen



HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY.               57
eral propositions being ex hypothesi incapable of being
proved from other propositions, it followed, that, if they
were known to us at all, they must be original data of
consciousness. Here was a perfect paradise of questionbegging. The ultimate major premise in every argument
being assumed, it could of course be fashioned according to the particular conclusion it was called in to prove.
Thus an " artificial ignorance," as Locke calls it, was
produced, which had the effect of sanctifying prejudice
by recognizing so-called necessities of thought as the
only bases of reasoning.J It is true, that outside of the
logic of the schools great advances had been made in
the rules of scientific investigation; but these rules were
not only imperfect in themselves, but their connection
with the law of causation was but imperfectly realized,
and their true relation to syllogism hardly dreamt of.
Mr. Mill altered all this.  He demonstrated that the
general type of reasoning is neither from generals to particulars, nor from particulars to generals, but from particulars to particulars.  "If from our experience of John,
Thomas, &c., who once were living, but are now dead, we
are entitled to conclude that all human beings are mortal, we might surely, without any logical inconsequence,
have concluded at once from those instances, that the
Duke of Wellington is mortal.  The mortality of John,
Thomas, and others is, after all, the whole evidence we
have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington.  Not
one iota is added to the proof by interpolating a general
proposition.'L"jVe not only may, according to Mr. Mill,
reason from some particular instances to others, but we
frequently do so. As, however, the instances which are
sufficient to prove one fresh instance must be sufficient




58             JOHN STUART MILL.
to prove a general proposition, it is most convenient to
at once infer that general proposition, which then becomes
a formula according to which (but not from which) any
number of particular inferences may be made.  The
work of deduction is the interpretation of these formulae,
and therefore, strictly speaking, is not inferential at all.
The real inference was accomplished when the universal
proposition was arrived at.-~
It will easily be seen that this explanation of the deductive process completely turns the tables on the transcendental school. All reasoning is shown to be at
bottom  inductive.  Inductions and their interpretation
make up the whole of logic; and to induction accordingly
Mr. Mill devoted his chief attention. For the first time
induction was treated as the opus magnum of logic, and
the fundamental principles of science traced to their inductive origin.  It was this, taken with his theory of the
syllogism, which worked the great change. Both his
" System of Logic " and his " Examination of Sir William
Hamilton's Philosophy " are for the most part devoted to
fortifying this position, and demolishing beliefs inconsistent with it. As a systematic psychologist Mr. Mill has
not done so much as either Professor Bain or.Mr. Herbert Spencer. The perfection of his method, its applicati6n, and the uprooting of prejudices which stood in its
way, -this was the task to which Mr. Mill applied himself with an ability and success rarely matched and never
surpassed.
The biggest lion in the path was the doctrine of socalled "necessary truth." This doctrine was especially
obnoxious to him, as it set up a purely subjective standard
of truth, and a standard - as he was easily able to show




HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY.             59
— varying according to the psychological history of the
individual. Such thinkers as Dr. Whewell and Mr. Herbert Spencer had to be met in intellectual combat. Dr.
Whewell held, not that the inconceiuability of the contradictory of a proposition is a proof of its truth co-equal
with experience, but that its value transcends experience.
Experience may tell us what is; but it is by the impossibility of conceiving it otherwise that we know it must be.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, too, holds that propositions whose
negation is inconceivable have "a higher warrant than
any other whatever." It is through this door that ontological belief was supposed to enter. " Things in themselves" were to be believed in because we could not
help it. Modern Noumenalists agree that we can know
nothing more of " things in themselves " than their existence; but this they continue to assert with a vehemence
only equalled by its want of meaning.
In his " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," Mr. Mill gives battle to this mode of thought.
After reviewing, in an opening chapter, the various views
which have been held respecting the relativity of human
knowledge, and stating his own doctrine, he proceeds to
judge by this standard the philosophy of the absolute and
Sir William Hamilton's relation to it. The argument is
really on the question whether we have or have not an
intuition of God; though, as Mr. Mill says, " the name of
God is veiled under two extremely abstract phrases, -' The Infinite' and'The Absolute."' So profound and
friendly a thinker as the late Mr. Grote held this raising
of the veil inexpedient; but he proved, by a mistake he
fell into, the necessity of looking at the matter in the concrete. He acknowledged the force of Mr. Mill's argu



6o             JOHN STUART MILL.
ment, that "The Infinite" must include "a farrago of
contradictions;" but so also, he said, does the Finite.
Now undoubtedly finite things, taken distributively, have
contradictory attributes, but not as a class.  Still less is
there any one individual thing, " The Finite," in which
these contradictory attributes inhere.  But it was against
a corresponding being, " The Infinite," that Mr. Mill was
arguing. It is this that he calls a " fasciculus of contradictions," and regarded as the redctiaco ad absurdissirmum
of the transcendental philosophy.
Mr. Mill's religious tendencies may very well be gathered from a passage in his review of Auguste Comte, a
philosopher with whom he agreed on all points save those
which are specially M. Comte's. " Candid persons of all
creeds may be willing to admit, that if a person has an
ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards
which are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of
life, that person has a religion; and though every one
naturally prefers his own religion to any other, all must
admit, that if the object of his attachment, and of this
feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our fellow-creatures,
this religion of the infidel cannot in honesty and conscience be called an intrinsically bad one. Many indeed
may be unable to believe that this object is capable of
gathering round it feelings sufficiently strong; but this
is exactly the point on which a doubt can hardly remain
in an intelligent reader of M. Comte: and we join with
him in contemning, as equally irrational and mean, the
conception of human nature as incapable of giving its
love, and devoting its existence, to any object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity of personal enjoy



HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY.             6i
ment." Never has the libel of humanity involved in the
current theology been more forcibly pointed out, with its
constant appeal to low motives of personal gain, or still
lower motives of personal fear. Never has the religious
sentiment which must take the place of the present awe
of the unknown been more clearly indicated. It is this
noble sentiment which shines out from every page of Mr.
Mill's writings and all his relations to his fellow-creatures:
the very birds about his dwelling seemed to recognize
it. It is this noble sentiment which infuses a soul of life
into his teachings, and the enunciation and acting-out of
which constitute him, not only the great philosopher, but
also the great prophet of our time.
J. H. LEVY.
6




VII.
HIS STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE.
THE two chief characteristics of Mr. Mill's mind are
conspicuous in the field of morals and jurisprudence.
He united in an extraordinary degree an intense delight
in thinking for its own sake, with an almost passionate
desire to make his intellectual excursions contribute to
the amelioration of the lot of mankind, especially of the
poorer and suffering part of mankind. And yet he never
allowed those high aims to clash with one another: he
did not degrade his intellect to the sophistical office of
finding reasons for a policy arising from mere emotion,
nor did he permit it to run waste in barren speculations,
which might have excited admiration, but never could
have done any good. This is the reason why so many
persons have been unable to understand him as the
prophet of utilitarianism.  A man of such exquisite feeling, of such pure conscientiousness, of such self-denying
life, must surely be an advocate of what is called absolute morality. Utilitarianism is the proper creed of hard
unemotional natures, who do not respond to the more
subtle moral influences.   Such is the view natural to
those who cannot dissociate the word " utilitarianism "
from the narrow meaning of utility, as contrasted with the
62




STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE.'63
pleasures of art. The infirmity of human language excuses such errors; for the language in which controversy
is conducted is so colored by sentiment that it may well
happen that two shall agree on the thing, and fight to the
death about the word. We need the support of such reflections when we'recall the history of such a word as
" pleasure."   To pursue pleasure, say the anti-utilitarians, is a swinish doctrine. "Yes," replied Mr. Mill,
"if men were swine, and capable only of the pleasures
appropriate to that species of animals."  Those who
could not answer this argument, and at the same time
cannot divest themselves of the association of pleasure
with the ignoble, took refuge in the charge of inconsistency, and, finding there was not less but more nobility
in Mr. Mill's writing than their own theory, accused him
of abandoning the tradition of his school.  Mahomet
would not go to the mountain, and they pleased themselves with the thought that the mountain had gone to
Mahomet.  Such a charge is really tantamount to a confession that popular antipathy was more easily excited by
the word than by the real doctrine.  Nevertheless Mr.
Mill did an incalculable service in showing not less by
his whole life, than by his writings, that utilitarianism
takes account of all that is good in man's nature, and
includes the highest emotions, as well as those that are
more commonplace. He took away a certain reproach
of narrowness, which was never in the doctrine, and which
was loudly, though perhaps with little reason, urged
against some of its most conspicuous supporters.  An
important addition to the theory of morals is also contained in the book on " Utilitarianism." His analysis of
"justice " is one of the happiest efforts of inductive defi



64             JOtIN STUART MILL.
nition to be found in any book on ethics. From any
point of view, it must be regarded as a valuable addition
to the literature of ethical philosophy.
The somewhat technical subject of jurisprudence was
not too much for Mr. Mill's immense power of assimilation.  One of his earliest efforts was as editor of
Bentham's "Rationale of Judicial Evidence."  He must,
therefore, at an early period, have been master of the
most original and enlightened theory of judicial evidence
that the world has seen.  He lived to see nearly all the
important innovations proposed by Bentham become part
and parcel of the law of the land; one of the last relics of
bigotry -the exclusion of honest atheists (and only of
such) from the witness-box - having been removed two or
three years ago. Mr. Mill, in after years, attended Austin's
famous lectures on jurisprudence, taking extensive notes;
so that he was able to supply the matter wanting to complete two important lectures, as they were printed in the
first edition of Austin's works. Among the "Dissertations
and Discussions," is a criticism of Austin's work, which
shows that he was far more than a scholar, - a most competent judge of his master.  He pointed out in Austin's
definition of "right " a real defect. One of the points
that Austin elaborated most was a classification such as
might serve for a scientific code of law. Mr. Mill fully
acknowledged the merits of the scheme, but laid his finger unerringly on its weakest part. His remarks show,
that, if he had followed up the subject with an adequate
knowledge of any good system of law, he would have
rivalled or surpassed his achievements in other departments of knowledge.
WV. A. HUNTER.




VIII.
HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
THE task of fairly estimating the value of Mr. Mill's
achievements in political economy —and indeed the
same remark applies to what he has done in every
department of philosophy — is rendered particularly
difficult by a circumstance which constitutes their principal merit. The character of his intellectual, no less
than of his moral nature, led him to strive to connect
his thoughts, whatever was the branch of knowledge
at which he labored, with the previously-existing body
of speculation, to fit them into the same framework,
and exhibit them as parts of.the same scheme; so that
it might be truly said of him, that he was at more pains
to conceal the originality and independent value of his
contributions to the stock of knowledge than' most
writers are to set forth those qualities in their compositions. As a consequence of this, hasty readers of
his works, while recognizing the comprehensiveness of
his mind, have sometimes denied its originality; and
in political economy in particular he has been frequently represented as little more than an expositor
and popularizer of Ricardo. It cannot be denied that
6*                         65




66             JOHN STUART MILL.
there is a show of truth in this representation; about
as much as there would be in asserting that Laplace
and Herschel were the expositors and popularizers of
Newton, or that Faraday performed a like office for
Sir Humphry Davy. In truth, this is an incident of
all progressive science. The cultivators in each age
may, in a sense, be said to be the interpreters and
popularizers of those who have preceded them; and
it is in this sense, and in this sense only, that this part
can be attributed to Mill. In this respect he is to be
strongly contrasted with the great majority of writers
on political economy, who, on the strength perhaps
of a verbal correction or an unimportant qualification
of a received doctrine, if not on the score of a pure
fallacy, would fain persuade us that they have achieved
a revolution in economic doctrine, and that the entire
science must be rebuilt from its foundation in conformity with their scheme.  This sort of thing has
done infinite mischief to the progress of economic
science; and one of Mill's great merits is, that both by
example and by precept he steadily discountenanced
it. His anxiety to affiliate his own speculations to
those of his predecessors is a marked feature in all
his philosophical works, and illustrates at once the
modesty and comprehensiveness of his mind.
It is quite true that Mill, as an economist, was
largely indebted to Ricardo; and he has so fully and
frequently acknowledged the debt, that there is some
danger of rating the obligation too highly.  As he
himself used to put it, Ricardo supplied the backbone
of the science; but it is not less certain that the
limbs, the joints, the muscular developments, - all that




HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.          67
renders political economy a complete and organized
body of knowledge, - have been the work of Mill. In
Ricardo's great work, the fundamental doctrines of
production, distribution, and exchange have been laid
down, but for the most part in mere outline; so much
so, that superficial students are in general wholly
unable to connect his statement of principles with the
facts, as we find them, of industrial life. Hence we
have innumerable " refutations of Ricardo," - almost
invariably refutations of the writers' own misconceptions.  In Mill's exposition, the connection between
principles and facts becomes clear and intelligible.,
The conditions and modes of action are exhibited by
which human wants and desires- the motive powers
of industry —come to issue in the actual phenomena
of wealth, and political economy becomes a system of
doctrines susceptible of direct application to human
affairs. As an example, I may refer to Mill's development of Ricardo's doctrine of foreign trade.  In
Ricardo's pages, the fundamental principles of that
department of exchange are indeed laid down with a
master's hand; but for the majority of readers they
have little relation to the actual commerce of the
world. Turn to 1{ill, and all becomes clear. Principles of the most abstract kind are translated into
concrete language, and brought to explain familiar
facts; and this result is achieved, not simply or chiefly
by virtue of mere lucidity of exposition, but through
the discovery and exhibition of modifying conditions
and links in the chain of causes overlooked by
Ricardo. It was in his " Essays on Unsettled Questions in Political Economy " that his views upon this




68            JOHN STUART MILL.
subject were first given to the world, - a work of which
M. Cherbuliez of Geneva speaks as "un travail le plus
important ct le plus original dont la science economique se soit enrichie depuis une vingtaine d'ann'es."
On some points, however, and these points of
supreme importance, the contributions of Mill to economic science are very much more than developments
- even though we understand that term in its largest
sense - of any previous writer.  No one can have
studied political economy in the works of its earlier
cultivators without being struck with the dreariness
of the outlook which, in the main, it discloses for the
human race. It seems to have been Ricardo's deliberate opinion, that a substantial improvement in the
condition of the mass of mankind was impossible. He
considered it as the normal state of things that wages
should be at the minimnum requisite to support the laborer in physical health and strength, and to enable him
to bring up a family large enough to supply the wants of
the labor-market. A temporary improvement indeed, as
the consequence of expanding commerce and growing
capital, he saw that there might be; but he held that
the force of the principle of population was always
powerful enough so to augment the supply of labor as
to bring wages ever again down to the minimum point.
So completely had this belief become a fixed idea in
Ricardo's mind, that he confidently drew from it the
consequence, that in no case could taxation fall on the
laborer, since - living, as a normal state of things, on
the lowest possible stipend adequate to maintain him
and his family-he would inevitably, he argued, transfer the burden to his employer; and a tax nominally




HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.          69
on wages would in the result become invariably a tax
upon profits. On this point Mill's doctrine-lead-4o
conclusions directly opposed to Ricardo's, and to those
of most preceding economists. And it will illustrate
his position as a thinker, in relation to them, if we
note how this result was obtained. Mill neither denied the premises nor disputed the logic of Ricardo's
argument: he accepted both; and in particular he
recognized fully the force of the principle of population; but he took account of a further premise which
Ricardo had overlooked, and which, duly weighed, led
to a reversal of Ricardo's conclusion. The minimum
of wages, even such as it exists in the case of the
worst-paid laborer, is not the very least sum that human nature can subsist upon: it is something more
than this; in the case of all above the worst-paid
class it is decidedly more. The minimum is, in truth,
not a physical butLa.Lmaral..iziimum, and as such, is
capable of being altered with the changes in the moral
character of those whom it affects. In a word, each
class has a certain standard of comfort below which it
will not consent to live, or at least to multiply, - a
standard, however, n~ot fixed, but liable to modification
with the changing circumstances of society, and which,
in the case of a progressive community, is, in point of
fact, constantly rising, as moral and intellectual influences are brought more and more effectually to bear
on the masses of the people. This was the new premise brought by Mill to the elucidation of the wages
question; and it sufficed to change the entire aspect of
human life regarded from the point of view of political economy. The practical deductions made from it




70             JOHIN STUART MILL.
were set forth in the celebrated chapter on " The Future of the Industrial Classes," - a chapter which it
is no exaggeration to say places a gulf between Mill
and all who preceded him, and opens an entirely new
vista to economic speculation.
The doctrine of the science with which Mill's name
has been most prominently associated within the last
few years is that which relates to the economic nature
of land, and the consequences to which this should
lead in practical legislation. /t is very commonly
believed, that on this point Mill has started aside from
the beaten highway of economic thought, and propounded views wholly at variance with those generally
entertained by orthodox economists.  No economist
need be told that this is an entire mistake.  In truth,
there is no portion of the economic field in which
Mill's originality is less conspicuous than in that
which deals with the land.  His assertion of the
peculiar nature of landed property, and again his doctrine as to the " unearned increment " of value arising
from land with the growth of society, are simply direct
deductions from Ricardo's theory of rent, and cannot
be consistently denied by any one who accepts that
theory. All that Mill has done here has been to point
the application of principles all but universally accepted to the practical affairs of life. This is not the
place to consider how far the plan proposed by him
for this purpose is susceptible of practical realization;
but it may at least be confidently stated, that the scientific basis on which his proposal rests is no strange
novelty invented by him, but simply a principle as
fundamental and widely recognized as any within the
range of the science of which it forms a part.




HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.          71
I have just remarked that Mill's originality is less
conspicuous in relation to the economic theory of land
than in other problems of political economy; but the
reader must not understand me from this to say, that
he has not very largely contributed to the elucidation
of this topic. He has indeed done so, thou:gh not, as
is commonly supposed, by setting  aside principles
established by his predecessors, but, as his manner
was, while accepting those principles, by introducing a
new premise into the argument. The new premise
introduced in this-case was the influence of custom as
modifying the action of competition. The existence
of an active competition, on the one hand between
farmers seeking farms, on the other between farming
and other modes of industry as offering inducements
to the investment of capital, is a constant assumption
in the reasoning by which Ricardo arrived at his theory
of rent. Granting this assumption; it followed that
farmers as a rule would pay neither higher nor lower
rents than would leave them in possession of the average profits on their capital current in the country.
Mill fully acknowledged the force of this reasoning,
and accepted the conclusion as true wherever the conditions assumed were realized; but he proceeded to
point out, that, in point of fact, the conditions are not
realized over the greater portion of the world, and, as
a consequence, that the rent actually paid by the cultivators to the owners of the soil by no means, as a
general rule, corresponds with that portion of the
produce which Ricardo considered as properly "rent."
The real regulator of actual rent over the greater part
of the habitable globe was, he showed, not competition,




72             JOHN STUART MILL.
but custom; and he further pointed out that there are
countries in which the actual rent paid by the cultivators is governed neither by the causes set forth by Ricardo, nor yet by custom,     third   cause 
from either, - the absolute will of the owners of the
soil, controlled only by the physical exigencies of the
cultivator, or by the fear of his vengeance if disturbed
in his holding. The recognition of this state of things
threw an entirely new light over the whole problem of
land-tenure, and plainly furnished grounds for legislative interference in the contracts between landlords
and tenants. Its application to Ireland was obvious;
and Mill himself, as the world knows, did not hesitate
to urge the application with all the energy and enthusiasm which he invariably threw into every cause that
he espoused.
In the above remarks, I have attempted to indicate
briefly some few of the salient features in Mill's contributions to the science of political economy. There
is still one more which ought not to be omitted from
even the most meagre summary.  Mill was not the
first to treat political economy as a science; but he was
the first, if not to perceive, at least to enforce the
lesson, that, just because it is a science, its conclusions
carried with them  no obligatory force with reference
to human conduct. As a science, it tells us that certain modes of action lead to certain results; but it
remains for each man to judge of the value of the
results thus brought about, and to decide whether or
not it is worth while to adopt the means necessary for
their attainment. In the writings of the economists
who preceded Mill, it is very generally assumed, that to




HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.    73
prove that a certain course of conduct tends to the
most rapid increase of wealth suffices to entail upon
all who accept the argument the obligation of adopting the course which leads to this result. Mill absolutely repudiated this inference, and, while accepting
the theoretic conclusion, held himself perfectly free to
adopt in practice whatever course he preferred. It
was not for political economy or for any science to say
what are the ends most worthy of being pursued by7
human beings; the task of science is complete when"
it shows us the means by which the ends may be
attained; but it is for each individual man to decide
how far the end is desirable at the cost which its
attainment involves. In a word, tlr,he JincelQ!ld
be our servants, and not our masters. This was a
lesson which Mill Iwas th'effk: t to enforce, and by
enforcing which he may be said to have emancipated
economists from the thraldom of their own teaching.
It is in no slight degree through the constant recognition of its truth, that he has been enabled to divest of
repulsiveness even the most abstract speculations, and
to impart a glow of human interest to all that he has
touched.
J. E. CAIRNES.




IX.
HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
SOME time ago, when there was no reason to suppose
that we should so soon have to mourn the loss of the
great thinker and of the kind friend who has just
passed away, I had occasion to remark upon the influence which Mr. Mill had exercised at the universities.
I will quote my words as they stand, because it is difficult to write with impartiality about one whose recent
death we are deploring; and Mr. Mill would, I am
sure, have been the first to say, that it is certainly not
honoring the memory of one who is dead to lavish
upon him praise which would not be bestowed upon
him if he were living.  I will therefore repeat my
words exactly as they were written two years since:
"Any one who has resided during the last twenty years
at either of our universities must have noticed that
Mr. Mill is the author who has most powerfully influenced nearly all the young men of the greatest promise."  In thus referring to the powerful influence
exercised by Mr. Mill's works, I do not wish it to be
supposed that this influence is to be measured by the
extent to which his books form a part of the university
74




HIS INFLUENCE AT TIIE UNIVERSITIES.   75
curriculum.  His "Logic" has no doubt become a
standard examination-book at Oxford. At Cambridge
the mathematical and classical triposes still retain
their former presti,,e.  The moral science tripos,
though increasing in importance, still attracts a comparatively small' number of students, and there is
probably no other examination for which it is necessary to read Mr. Mill's " Logic" and "Political Economy." This fact affords the most satisfactory evidence
that the influence he has exerted is spontaneous, and
is therefore likely to be lasting in its effects. If students had been driven to read his books by the necessity which examinations impose, it is quite possible,
that, after the examination, the books might never be
looked at again. A resident, however, at the university can scarcely fail to be struck with the fact, that
many who perfectly well know that they will never in
any examination be asked' to answer a question in logic
or political economy are among the most diligent students of Mr. Mill's books. When I was an undergraduate, I well remember that most of my friends who
were likely to take high mathematical honors were
already so intimately acquainted with Mr. Mill's writings, and were so much imbued with their spirit, that
they might have been regarded as his disciples.  Many
looked up to him as their teacher; many have since
felt that he then instilled into them principles, which, to
a great extent, have guided their conduct in after life.
Any one who is intimately acquainted with Mr. Mill's
writings will readily understand how it is that they
possess such peculiar attractiveness for the class of
readers to whom I am now referring. There is nothing




76             JOHIN STUART MILL.
more characteristic in his writings than generosity and
courage. He always states his opponent's case with the
most judicial impartiality. He never shrinks from the
expression of opinion because he thinks it unpopular; and
there is nothing so abhorrent to him as that bigotry
which prevents a man from appreciating what is just and
true in the views of those who differ from him. This
toleration, which is so predominant a feature of his writings, is probably one of the rarest of all qualities in a
controversialist.  Those who do not possess it always
produce an impression that they are unfair; and this impression, once produced, exercises a repelling influence
upon the young. Another cause of the attractiveness of
Mr. Mill's writings is the precision with which his views
are expressed, and the systematic form which is given to
his opinions.  Confidence is reposed in him as a guide,
because it is found that there is some definite goal to
which he is leading his readers: he does not conduct
them they know not whither, as a traveller who has lost
his way in a mist, or a navigator who is steering his ship
without a compass. The influence exercised by Mr.
Mill does not chiefly depend upon the originality of his
writings. He did not make any great discovery which
will form an epoch in the history of human thought; he
did not create a new science, or become the founder of
a new system of philosophy. There is perhaps not so
much originality in his " Political Economy " as in Ricardo's; but there are thousands who never thought of reading Ricardo who were so much attracted by Mr. Mill's
book, that its influence might be traced throughout the
rest of their lives. No doubt one reason of his attractiveness as a writer, in addition to other circumstances to which




HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   77
allusion has already been made, is the unusual power he
possessed in applying  philosophical principles to the
facts of ordinary life. To those who believe that the influence Mr. Mill has exercised at the universities has
been in the highest degree beneficial, -to those who
think that his books not only afford the most admirable
intellectual training, but also are calculated to produce a
most healthy moral influence, - it may be some consolation, now that we are deploring his death, to know, that,
although he has passed away, he may still continue to
be a teacher and a guide. I believe he never visited
the English universities: it was consequently entirely
through his books that he was known. Not one of those
who were his greatest admirers at Cambridge, when I
was an undergraduate, ever saw him till many years after
they had left the University. I remember that we often
used to say, that there was nothing we should esteem  so
great a privilege as to spend an hour in Mr. Mill's society. There is probably no bond of attachment stronger
than that which unites a pupil to one who has attracted
him to new intellectual pursuits, and has awakened in
him new interests in life.  Some four or five years after
taking my degree, I met Mr. Mill for the first time; and
from that hour an intimate friendship commenced, which
I shall always regard as a peculiarly high privilege to
have enjoyed. Intimacy with Mr. Mill convinced me,
that, if lie had happened to live at either of the universities, his personal influence would have been no less striking than his intellectual influence.  Nothing, perhaps,
was so remarkable in his character as his tenderness to
the feelings of others, and the deference with which he
listened to those in every respect inferior to himself.




78             JOHN STUART MILL.
There never was a man who was more entirely free from
that intellectual conceit which breeds disdain. Nothing
is so discouraging and heart-breaking to young people
as the sneer of an intellectual cynic. A sarcasm about
an act of youthful mental enthusiasm not only often casts
a fatal chill over the character, but is resented as an injury never to be forgiven. The most humble youth
would have found in Mr. Mill the warmest and most
kindly sympathy.
It may be said, if Mr. Mill* has not become the
founider of a new philosophical school at the universities, where must we seek the result of his influence? I
cannot give any thing like a complete reply to this question now; but any one who has observed the marked
change which has come over the mode of thought in the
universities in the last few years will be able to form
some idea of the kind of influence which has been exercised by Mr. Mill.  Speaking generally, he has obtained
a very wide acceptance of the utilitarian doctrines: they
were presented by Bentham in a form so harsh and unattractive as to produce an almost repelling effect. Mr.
Mill, on the contrary, showed that the utilitarian philosophy might inspire the most active benevolence and the
most generous enthusiasm. This acceptance of utilitarianism has produced a very striking effect in modifying
the political opinions prevalent in the universities. For
many years what has been known as the liberalism of
young Oxford and Cambridge is in many respects fundamentally different from what is known as liberalism outside the universities. The liberalism of the universities,
as well as that of the Manchester school, are both popularly described as "advanced;" but between the two




HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   79
there is in many essentials the widest possible divergence. What is known as Philosophical Radicalism will
long bear the impression of Mr. Mill's teaching.
It should be particularly remembered, that, avowing
himself a liberal, he never forgot that it is the essence of
true liberalism to be tolerant of opinions from which one
differs, and to appreciate the advantages of branches of
learning to which one has not devoted special attention.
It is somewhat rare to find that those who profess themselves undoubted liberals are prepared to accept a consistent application of their principles. There is almost
sure to be some region of inquiry which they regard as
so dangerous that they regret that any one should enter
upon it. Sometimes it is said that freedom of thought,
though admirable in politics, is mischievous in theology:
some, advancing what they believe to be one step further,
express a general approbation of freedom of thought,
but stigmatize free-thinkers. Again, it may be not infrequently observed that devotion to some particular study
makes men illiberal to other branches of knowledge.
Metaphysicians and physiologists who have never taken
the trouble to master mathematical principles dogmatically denounce the influence of mathematics. Eminent
classics and mathematicians have too frequently sneered
at each other's studies. No one was ever more free
from this kind of bigotry than Mr. Mill, and it probably
constitutes one of the main causes of his influence.
Some years ago I happened to be conversing at Cambridge with three men who were respectively of great
eminence in mathematics, classics, and physiology. We
were discussing the inaugural address which Mr. Mill
had just delivered as rector of the St. Andrew's Uni



80             JOHN STUART MILL.
versity. The mathematician said, that he had never seen
the advantages to be derived from the study of mathematics so justly and so forcibly described; the same remark was made by the classic about classics, and by
the physiologist about natural science. No more fitting
homage can probably be offered to the memory of one
to whom so many of us are bound by the strongest ties
of gratitude and affection, than if, profiting by his example, we endeavor to remember, that above all things he
was just to his opponents, that he appreciated opinions
from which he differed, and that one of his highest
claims to our admiration was his general sympathy with
all branches of knowledge.
HENRY FAWCETT.




x.
HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL
POLITICIAN.
EVERY one must be familiar with the often-expressed
opinion, that, as a practical politician, Mr. Mill's career
was essentially a failure.  It has been said a thousand
times that the principal result of his brief representation
of Westminster was to furnish an additional proof, if
one were wanted, that a philosopher is totally incapable
of exercising any useful influence in the direction of
practical politics. It is proposed briefly to examine this
opinion; though it may, indeed, with truth be urged that
the present time is not calculated to make the examination an impartial one. The inquiry involves an almost
constant reference, either expressed or implied, to Mr.
Mill's personal character and influence, and it is hardly
possible for those who are mourning him as a friend to
speak of these dispassionately. It is perhaps hardly
necessary at such a time as this to ask the indulgence
of the reader if this unworthy tribute to the memory of
a great man is colored by personal reverence and gratitude.
When it is said that Mr. Mill failed as a practical poli8I




82             JOHN STUART MILL.
tician, there are two questions to be asked: " Who says
he has failed?"  And "What is it said that he failed
in? " Now, it seems that the persons who are loudest in
the assertion of his failure are precisely those to whom
the reforms advocated by Mr. Mill in his writings are distasteful. They are those who pronounce all schemes of
electoral reform embodying the principle of proportional
representation to be the result of a conspiracy of fools
and rogues; they are those who sneer at the "fanciful
rights of women;" they are those who think our present land tenure eminently calculated to make the rich
contented, and keep the poor in their proper places;
they are those who believe that republicans and atheists
ought to be treated like vermin, and exterminated accordingly; they are those who think that all must be well
with England if her imports and exports are increasing,
and that we are justified in repudiating our foreign engagements, if to maintain them would have an injurious
effect upon trade. The asseergJlxQf failure coming from
such persons does not mean that M:r. Millfailed topromote the practical success of those objects the advocacy
of which forms the chief feature of his political writings.
It is rather a measure of his success in promoting these
oj ects, and  F'l ee'lUis t with whiich his- "s"u>c~.
ga~rded bbyLose" who are opposed to his political ideas.
It was known, or ought to have been known, by every
one who supported Mr. Mill's candidature in I865, that
he was a powerful advocate of proportional representation, and that he attributed the very greatest importance
to the political, industrial, and social emancipation of
women; he advocated years ago, in his " Political Economy," the scheme of land-tenure reform with which his




HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN. 83
name is now practically associated; his essay " On Liberty " left no doubt as to his opinions upon the value of
maintaining freedom of thought and speech; his article
entitled " A Few Words on Non-Intervention " might have
warned the partisans of the Manchester school that he
had no sympathy with their views on foreign policy.
There is little doubt that the majority of Mr. Mill's supporters in I865 did not know what his political opinions
were, and that tfiey voted for him simply on his reputation as a great thinker. A large number, however, probably supported him, knowing in a general way the views
advocated in his writings, but thinking that he would
probably be like many other politicians, and not allow
his practice to be in the least degree influenced by his
theories. Just as radical heirs-apparent are said to lay
aside all inconvenient revolutionary opinions when they
come to the throne, it was believed that Mr. Mill in Parliament would be an entirely different person from Mr.
Mill in his study. It was one thing to write an essay
in favor of proportional representation: it was another
thing to assist in the insertion of the principle of proportional representation in the Reform Bill, and to form a
school of practical politicians who took care to insure
the adoption of this principle in the school-board elections.  It was one thing to advocate theoretically the
claims of women to representation: it was another to introduce the subject into the House of Commons, to promote an active political organization in its favor, and
thus to convert it, from a philosophical dream, into a
question of pressing and practical importance. It was
one thing to advocate freedom of thought and discussion
in all political and religious questions: it was another to




84             JOHN STUART 1MILL.
speak respectfully of Mr. Odger, and to send Mr. Bradlaugh a contribution toward the expenses of his candidature for Northampton. The discovery that Mr. Mill's
chief objects in Parliament were the same as his chief
objects out of Parliament branded him at once as an unpractical man: and his success in promoting these objects
constituted his "failure" as a politician.  His fearless
disregard of unpopularity, as manifested in his prosecution, in conjunction with Mr. P. A. Taylor, of Ex-Governor Eyre, was another proof that he was entirely unlike the people who call themselves "practical politicians." His persistency in conducting this prosecution
was one of the main causes of his defeat at the election
of i868.
If to be unpopular because he promoted the practical
success of the opinions his life had been spent in advocating is to have failed, then Mr. Mill failed. If, however, the success of a politician is to be measured by the
degree in which he is able personally to influence the
course of politics, and attach to himself a school of political thought, then Mr. Mill, in the best meaning of the
words, has succeeded. If Mr. Mill had died ten years
ago, is it probable that his views on representative reform would have received so much practical recognition
as they have obtained during the last five years? If he
had never entered the House of Commons, would the
women's-suffrage question be where it now is? Before
he introduced the subject into the House of Commons
in I867, it may be said to have had no political existence in this country. The whole question was held in
such contempt by "practical politicians," that the House
would probably have refused to listen to any member,




HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN. 85
except Mr. Mill, who advocated the removal of the political disabilities of women.  Mir. Mill was the one
member of Parliament whose high intellectual position
enabled him to raise the question without being laughed
down as a fool. To every one's astonishment, seventyfour members followed Mr. Mill into the lobby: the
most sanguine estimate, previous to the division, of the
number of his supporters had been thirty.  Since that
time, the movement in favor of women's suffrage has
made rapid and steady progress. Like all genuine political movements, it has borne fruit' in many measures
which are intended to remove the grievances of which
those who advocate the movement complain: among
these collateral results of the agitation for women's suffrage, may be enumerated the Married Women's Property Act, the Custody of Infants Bill, and the admission
of women to the municipal and educational franchises
and to seats upon school-boards. A large part of the
present anxiety to improve the education of girls and
women is also due to the conviction that the political
disabilities of women will not be maintained. In this
question of the general improvement of the position of
women, Mr. Mill's influence can scarcely'be over-estimated. All through his life he regarded it as a question
-offirst-raeifmportaLnce; and the extent to which he was
able practically to promote it is sufficient in itself to
make his career as a politician a success. A strong proof
of the vitality of the movement, of which he was the principal originator, is that his death cannot injuriously affect
its activity or its prospects of ultimate success. What
he has done for woinen is final: he gave to their service
the best powers of his mind and the best years of his
8




86             JOHN STUART MILL.
life. His death consecrates the gift: it can never lessen
its value.
What is true of Mr. Mill's influence on the women'ssuffrage question is true also of the other political movements in which he took an active interest. He was able
in all of these powerfully to influence the political hIistory of his day in the direction in which he desired to
influence it. If this is failure, failure is worth much
more than success.
Of the influence of Mr. Mill's personal character on
those who were his political associates, it is difficult to
speak too warmly.  No one could be with him or work
with him without being conscious of breathing a purer
moral atmosphere: he made mean personal ambitions
and rivalries seem despicable and ridiculous, not so
much by any thing that he said directly on the subject,
as by contrast with his own noble, strong, and generous
nature. It is almost impossible to imagine that any one
could be so insensible to the high morality of Mr. Mill's
character as to suggest to him any course of conduct that
was not entirely upright and consistent. A year or two
ago, however, a story was told of a gentleman who asked
1\r. Mill to stand for an Irish constituency, and stated
that the only opinion it would be necessary for him to
change was the one he had so often expressed, against
denominational education. A smile at the man's stupidity, and the remark, "I should like to have seen Mill's
face when he heard this suggestion," is the almost invariable comment on this story. It is a very suggestive indication of the impression Mr. Mill's moral influence
made on those who knew him.
An apology is due to the readers of these pages that




HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN. 87
the task of speaking of Mr. Mill as a practical politician
has not fallen into more competent hands. No one can
be more deeply sensible of my inability to deal adequately with the subject than I am myself. This sketch
ought to have been written by one who is in every way
more qualified to speak of Mr. Mill's political career
than I am. Unavoidable circumstances, however, prevented his undertaking the work; and as the time was
too short to allow of any being spent in a search that
might have proved fruitless, the honor of writing these
lines has devolved upon me.
MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.




Xl.
HIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM.1
THE present course of lectures on a special subject
has made no pretension to present the religious aspect
of Positivism, and I shall not venture to intrude on one
of its gravest functions the due commemoration of the
dead. But nothing that is spoken here should have a
merely scientific form, nor can I be satisfied until I have
tried to give expression to the feeling which must be
foremost in the minds of all present.  It is impossible to
forget that it was by Mr. Mill that Comte was first made
known in this country, and that by him first in this
country the great doctrines of positive thought, the supreme reign of law in the moral and social world, no less
than in the intellectual world, were reduced to system
and life. This conception as a whole has been gradually forming in the minds of all modern thinkers; but its
full scope and force were presented to Englishmen for
the first time by Mr. Mill. The growth of my own mind,
and of that of all those with whom I have been associated, has been simply the recognition of this truth in all
1 Part of a lecture on " Political Institutions," delivered at the Positivist
School, May II.
88




HIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM.          89
its bearings and force; and it was in minds saturated
with this principle by the teaching of Mr. Mill that the
great phases of English thought have germinated in our
day. In this place it is impossible to forget, that, in introducing to the English world the principles of Comte,
Mr. Mill so clearly and ardently professed the positive
philosophy at that time restricted to its earlier phase
alone. In this place it is impossible, too, to forget the
generous assistance which he extended to Comte, whereby he was enabled to continue his labors in philosophy,
impossible also to forget the active communion of mind
between them, and the large space which their intercourse occupied in the thoughts and labors of both.
Nor can I, and many present here, forget the many occasions on which we have been guided by his counsel
and supported by his help in many a practical work in
which we have depended on his example and experience.
It is needless to repeat, for it must be present to all
minds, how many and deep are the differences which
separate him from the later doctrines of Comte, and how
completely he repudiated connection with the religious
reconstruction of Positivism. We here, at any rate, shall
claim Mr. Mill for Positivism in no other sense than that
in which he claimed it for himself in his own latest writings. These differences we shall neither exaggerate nor
veil. They stand all written most clearly for all men to
weigh and to use. But naturally we shall point, as one
of us has already publicly pointed, to the cardinal features of agreement, and the vast importance of the
features for which we may claim the whole weight of his
authority. Yet I would not pretend that it is only on
this side of his connection with the founder and princi8*




90             JOHN STUART MILL.
ples of Positivism, that we dwell on the memory of Mr.
Mill with admiration and sympathy. We reverence that
unfaltering fearlessness of spirit, that warmth of generous emotion, that guileless simplicity of nature, which
made his life heroic. Neither insult, failure, nor abandonment could shake his sense of duty, or touch his
gentle and serene fortitude. For us his high example,
his noble philosophic calm, continue to live and to teach.
He, being dead, yet speaketh. And, if his great heart
and brain are no longer amongst us as visible and conscious agencies, his spirit lives yet in all that he has
given to the generation of to-day: the work of his spirit
is not ended, nor the task of his life accomplished; but
we feel that his nature is entering on a new and greater
life amongst us, — one that is entirely spiritual, intellectual, and moral.
FREDERIC HARRISON.




XII.
HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER.
IT is always hazardous to forecast the estimation in
which any man will be held by posterity. In one sense
truly we have no right to anticipate the judgmept of the
future, sufficient for us to form  opinions satisfactory
within the limits of our own generation. Sometimes, by
evil chance, a great name is covered with undeserved reproach; and it is reserved for a distant future to do it
justice. But such a work as Mr. Carlyle did for Cromwell we may confidently anticipate will never be required for the name of John Stuart Mill. He is already
enrolled among the first of contemporary thinkers, and
from that list his name will never be erased. The nature
of Mr. Mill's work is such as to make it easy to predict
the character of his future reputation.  His is the kind
of philosophy that is destined to become the commonplace of the future. We may anticipate that many of his
most remarkable views will become obsolete in the best
sense: they will become worked up into practice, and embodied in institutions. Indeed, the place that he will hold
will probably be closely resembling that of the great
father of English philosophy,- John Locke. There is
9'




92             JOHN STUART MILL.
indeed, amid distinguishing differences, a remarkable similarity between the two men, and the character of their
influence on the world.  What Locke was to the liberal
movements of the sevententh century, Mr. Mill has more
than been to the liberal movement of the nineteenth
century. The intellectual powers of the two men had
much in common, and they were exercised upon precisely
similar subjects. The "Essay on the Human Understanding" covered doubtless a field more purely psychological than the " Logic;" but we must remember that the
" Analysis of the Mind" by the elder Mill had recently
carried the inductive study of mind to an advanced point.
If, however, we regard less the topics on which these two
illustrious men wrote, than the special service rendered
by each of them to intellectual progress, we may not unfittingly compare the work of Locke- the descent from
metaphysics to psychology-to the noble purpose of
redeeming logic from the superstition of the Aristotelians, and exalting it to something higher than a mere
verbal exercise for school-boys. The attack that Locke
opened with such tremendous effect on the a priori school
of philosophy was never more ably supported than by
the "Logic " and controversial writings of Mr. Mill.
The remarkable fact in regard to both these great
thinkers — these conquerors in the realms of abstract
speculation- is their relation to politics. Locke was
the political philosopher of the Revolution of i688;
Mr. Mill has been the political philosopher of the
democracy of the nineteenth century. The vast space
that lies between their treatises represents a difference, not in the men, but in the times.   Locke
found opposed to the common weal an odious the



HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER.         93
ory of arbitrary and absolute power. It is interesting
to remember what were the giants necessary to be
slain in those days. The titles of his first chapters on
"Government" significantly attest the rudimentary
condition of political philosophy in Locke's day.
Adam was generally considered to have had a divine
power of government, which was transmitted to a
favored few of his descendants. Accordingly Locke
disposes of Adam's title to sovereignty to whatever
origin it may have been ascribed, — to "creation,"
"donation," "the subjection of Eve," or " fatherhood."
There is something almost ludicrous in discussing fundamental questions of government with reference to
such scriptural topics; and it is a striking evidence of
the change that has passed over England since the
Revolution, that, whereas Locke's argument looks like
a commentary on the Bible, even the bishops now do
not in Parliament quote the Bible on the question of
marriage with a deceased wife's sister. Nevertheless
Locke clearly propounded the great principle, which,
in spite of many errors and much selfishness, has been
the fruitful heritage of the Whig party.  " Political
power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with
penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties,
for the regulating and preserving of property, and of
employing the force of the community in the execution
of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth
from foreign injury, and all this onlyfor thepublic good."
Locke also enounced the maxim, that the state of nature is one of equality. Mr. Mill's special views on
the land question are not without parallel in Locke; for
that acute thinker distinctively laid down that " labor"




94             JOHN STUART MILL.
was the true ground even of property in land.  Still it
must be confessed that Locke's political philosophy is
much cruder than Mr. Mill's.  His " Essay on Government" is as the rough work of a boy of genius, the
"Representative Government " a finished work of art
of the experienced master. And this difference corresponds with the rate of political progress. The English constitution, as we now understand it, was unknown at the Revolution: it had to be slowly created.
Now the great task of the future is to raise the mass of
the people to a higher standard of political intelligence
and material comfort. To that great end no man has
contributed so much as Mr. Mill.
Perhaps the one writing for which above all others
Mr. Mill's disciples will love his memory is his essay " On Liberty."  In this undertaking Mr. NMill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with greater
largeness of view and perfection of work.  Locke's
four letters " Concerning Toleration" constitute a
splendid manifesto of the Liberals of the seventeenth
century. The principle, that the ends of political society
are life, health, liberty, and immunity from harm, and
not the salvation of souls, has taken nearly two centuries to root'itself in English law, but has long been
recognized by all but the shallowest bigots. And yet
Locke spoke of " atheism being a crime, which, for its
madness as well as guilt, ought to shut a man out of
all sober and civil society." Here again, what a stride
does the Liberty make?  It is, once more, the difference of the times, rather than of the men. The same
noble and prescient insight into the springs of national
greatness and social progress characterizes the work




HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER.        95
of both men, but in what different measures? Again,
we must say, the disciple is greater than the master.
Closelybearing on this topic is the relation of the two
men to Christianity. Locke not only wrote to show
the " Reasonableness of Christianity," but paraphrased
several of the books of the New Testament. Mr. Mill
has never written one sentence to give the least encouragement to Christianity. But, although a contrast
appears to exist, there is really none.  Locke was
what may be called a Bible Christian. He rejected all
theological systems, and constructed his religious belief in the truly Protestant way, -with the Bible and his
inner consciousness. His creed was the Bible as conformed to reason; but he never doubted which, in the
event of a conflict, ought to give way. To him the destructive criticism of biblical scholars and the discoveries of geology had given no disquietude; and he
died with the happy conviction, that, without abandoning his religious teaching, he could remain faithful to reason. Mr. Mill inherited a vast controversy;
and he had to make a choice: like Locke, he remained faithful only to reason.
Perhaps, it might be urged, this comparison leaves
out of account the very greatest work of Mr. Mill,his "Political Economy."  Locke lived too soon to
be an Adam Smith; but, curiously enough, the parallel is not broken even at this point. In I69I and
again in I695 he wrote, "Some considerations of
the consequences of the lowering oif interest, and
raising the value of money," in which he propounded
among other views, that, "taxes, however contrived,
and out of whose hands soever immediately taken, do,




96            JOHN STUART MILL.
in a country where the great fund is in land, for the
most part terminate upon land." There is of course
no comparison between the two men on this head:
nevertheless it is interesting to note in prototype the
germs of the great work of Mr. Mill. It shows the
remarkable and by no means accidental similarity
between the men.
The parallel is already too much drawn out; otherwise it would be worth observing on the characters and lives of these two men. Enough, however,
has been said to show that we may not unreasonably anticipate for Mr. Mill a future such as has fallen
to Locke. His wisdom will be the commonplace of
other times: his theories will be realized in politiical institutions; and we may hope and believe the
working-class will rise to such a standard of wealth
and culture and political power as to realize the
generous aspirations of one of England's greatest
sons.
W. A. HUNTER.