{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15268/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15268","id":"gutenberg_15268","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15268","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Economics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873","Philosophers -- Great Britain -- Biography"],"text":"E-text prepared by the Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State\nUniversity Libraries, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, and the Project Gutenberg\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\nJOHN STUART MILL: HIS LIFE AND WORKS\n\nTwelve Sketches by\n\nHerbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison,\nand Other Distinguished Authors\n\nBoston: James R Osgood and Company\n(Late Ticknor & Field and Fields Osgood, & Co.)\n\n1873\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nJOHN STUART MILL\n\n   I. A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.\n         H. R. Fox Bourne\n\n  II. HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE.\n         W. T. Thornton\n\n III. HIS MORAL CHARACTER.\n         Herbert Spencer\n\n  IV. HIS BOTANICAL STUDIES.\n         Henry Trimen\n\n   V. HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC.\n         W. Minto\n\n  VI. HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY.\n         J. H. Levy\n\n VII. HIS STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE.\n         W. A. Hunter\n\nVIII. HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.\n         J. E. Cairnes\n\n  IX. HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES.\n         Henry Fawcett\n\n   X. HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN.\n         Millicent Garrett Fawcett\n\n  XI. HIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM.\n         Frederic Harrison\n\n XII. HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER.\n         W. A. Hunter\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nA SKETCH OF HIS LIFE\n\n\nJohn Stuart Mill was born on the 20th of May, 1806. \"I am glad,\" wrote\nGeorge Grote to him in 1865, with reference to a forthcoming article\non his \"Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,\" \"to get an\nopportunity of saying what I think about your 'System of Logic' and\n'Essay on Liberty,' but I am still more glad to get (or perhaps to\n_make_) an opportunity of saying something about your father. It has\nalways rankled in my thoughts that so grand and powerful a mind as his\nleft behind it such insufficient traces in the estimation of\nsuccessors.\" That regret was natural. The grand and powerful mind of\nJames Mill left very notable traces, however, in the philosophical\nliterature of his country, and in the training of the son who was to\ncarry on his work, and to be the most influential teacher in a new\nschool of thought and action, by which society is likely to be\nrevolutionized far more than it has been by any other agency since\nthe period of Erasmus and Martin Luther. James Mill was something more\nthan the disciple of Bentham and Ricardo. He was a profound and\noriginal philosopher, whose depth and breadth of study were all the\nmore remarkable because his thoughts were developed and his knowledge\nwas acquired mainly by his own exertions. He had been helped out of\nthe humble life into which he had been born by Sir John Stuart, who\nassisted him to attend the lectures of Dugald Stewart and others at\nEdinburgh with a view to his becoming a minister in the Church of\nScotland. Soon finding that calling distasteful to him, he had, in or\nnear the year 1800, settled in London as a journalist, resolved by\nephemeral work to earn enough money to maintain him and his family in\nhumble ways while he spent his best energies in the more serious\npursuits to which he was devoted. His talents soon made him friends,\nand the greatest of these was Jeremy Bentham.\n\nAs erroneous opinions have been current as to the relations between\nBentham and James Mill and have lately been repeated in more than one\nnewspaper, it may be well here to call attention to the contradiction\nof them that was published by the son of the latter in \"The Edinburgh\nReview\" for 1844. \"Mr. Mill and his family,\" we there read, \"lived\nwith Mr. Bentham for half of four years at Ford Abbey,\"--that is,\nbetween 1814 and 1817,--\"and they passed small portions of previous\nsummers with him at Barrow Green. His last visit to Barrow Green was\nof not more than a month's duration, and the previous ones all\ntogether did not extend to more than six months, or seven at most.\nThe pecuniary benefit which Mr. Mill derived from his intimacy with\nBentham consisted in this,--that he and his family lived with him as\nhis guests, while he was in the country, periods amounting in all to\nabout two years and a half. I have no reason to think that his\nhospitality was either given or accepted as pecuniary assistance, and\nI will add that the obligation was not exclusively on one side.\nBentham was not then, as he was afterwards, surrounded by persons who\ncourted his society, and were ever ready to volunteer their services,\nand, to a man of his secluded habits, it was no little advantage to\nhave near him such a man as Mr. Mill, to whose advice and aid he\nhabitually had recourse in all business transactions with the outward\nworld of a troublesome or irksome nature. Such as the connection was,\nit was not of Mr. Mill's seeking.\" On the same unquestionable\nauthority we learn, that \"Mr. Mill never in his life was in debt, and\nhis income, whatever it might be, always covered his expenses.\" It is\nclear, that, from near the commencement of the present century, James\nMill and Bentham lived for many years on terms of great intimacy, in\nwhich the poorer man was thoroughly independent, although it suited\nthe other to make a fair return for the services rendered to him. A\nvery characteristic letter is extant, dated 1814, in which James Mill\nproposes that the relations between him and his \"dear friend and\nmaster\" shall be to some extent altered, but only in order that their\ncommon objects may be the more fully served. \"In reflecting,\" he says,\n\"upon the duty which we owe to our principles,--to that system of\nimportant truths of which you have the immortal honor to be the\nauthor, but of which I am a most faithful and fervent disciple, and\nhitherto, I have fancied, my master's favorite disciple,--I have\nconsidered that there was nobody at all so likely to be your real\nsuccessor as myself. Of talents it would be easy to find many\nsuperior. But, in the first place, I hardly know of anybody who has so\ncompletely taken up the principles, and is so thoroughly of the same\nway of thinking with yourself. In the next place, there are very few\nwho have so much of the necessary previous discipline, my antecedent\nyears having been wholly occupied in acquiring it. And, in the last\nplace, I am pretty sure you cannot think of any other person whose\nwhole life will be devoted to the propagation of the system.\" \"There\nwas during the last few years of Bentham's life,\" said James Mill's\nson, \"less frequency and cordiality of intercourse than in former\nyears, chiefly because Bentham had acquired newer, and to him more\nagreeable intimacies, but Mr. Mill's feeling never altered towards\nhim, nor did he ever fail, publicly or privately, in giving due honor\nto Bentham's name and acknowledgment of the intellectual debt he owed\nto him.\"\n\nThose extracts are made, not only in justice to the memory of James\nMill, but as a help towards understanding the influences by which his\nson was surrounded from his earliest years. James Mill was living in a\nhouse at Pentonville when this son was born, and partly because of the\npeculiar abilities that the boy displayed from the first, partly\nbecause he could not afford to procure for him elsewhere such teaching\nas he was able himself to give him, he took his education entirely\ninto his own hands. With what interest--even jealous interest, it\nwould seem--Bentham watched that education, appears from a pleasant\nlittle letter addressed to him by the elder Mill in 1812. \"I am not\ngoing to die,\" he wrote, \"notwithstanding your zeal to come in for a\nlegacy. However, if I were to die any time before this poor boy is a\nman, one of the things that would pinch me most sorely would be the\nbeing obliged to leave his mind unmade to the degree of excellence of\nwhich I hope to make it. But another thing is, that the only prospect\nwhich would lessen that pain would be the leaving him in your hands. I\ntherefore take your offer quite seriously, and stipulate merely that\nit shall be made as soon as possible; and then we may perhaps leave\nhim a successor worthy of both of us.\" It was a bold hope, but one\ndestined to be fully realized. At the time of its utterance, the \"poor\nboy\" was barely more than six years old. The intellectual powers of\nwhich he gave such early proof were carefully, but apparently not\nexcessively, cultivated. Mrs. Grote, in her lately-published \"Personal\nLife of George Grote,\" has described him as he appeared in 1817, the\nyear in which her husband made the acquaintance of his father. \"John\nStuart Mill, then a boy of about twelve years old,\"--he was really\nonly eleven,--\"was studying, with his father as sole preceptor, under\nthe paternal roof. Unquestionably forward for his years, and already\npossessed of a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, as well as of\nsome subordinate though solid attainments, John was, as a boy,\nsomewhat repressed by the elder Mill, and seldom took any share in the\nconversation carried on by the society frequenting the house.\" It is\nperhaps not strange that a boy of eleven, at any rate a boy who was to\nbecome so modest a man, should not take much part in general\nconversation; and Mr. Mill himself never, in referring to his father,\nled his hearers to suppose that he had, as a child, been in any way\nunduly repressed by him. The tender affection with which he always\ncherished his father's memory in no way sanctions the belief that he\nwas at any time subjected to unreasonable discipline. By him his\nfather was only revered as the best and kindest of teachers.\n\nThere was a break in the home teaching in 1820. James Mill, after\nbearing bravely with his early difficulties, had acquired so much\nrenown by his famous \"History of India,\" that, in spite of its adverse\ncriticisms of the East-India Company, the directors of the Company in\n1817 honorably bestowed upon him a post in the India House, where he\nsteadily and rapidly rose to a position which enabled him to pass the\nlater years of his life in more comfort than had hitherto been within\nhis reach. The new employment, however, interfered with his other\noccupation as instructor to his boy; and for this reason, as well\nprobably as for others tending to his advancement, the lad was, in the\nsummer of 1820, sent to France for a year and a half. For several\nmonths he lived in Paris, in the house of Jean Baptiste Say, the\npolitical economist. The rest of his time was passed in the company of\nSir Samuel Bentham, Jeremy Bentham's brother. Early in 1822, before he\nwas eighteen, he returned to London, soon to enter the India Office as\na clerk in the department of which his father was chief. In that\noffice he remained for five and thirty years, acquitting himself with\ngreat ability, and gradually rising to the most responsible position\nthat could be there held by a subordinate.\n\nBut, though he was thus early started in life as a city clerk, his\nself-training and his education by his father were by no means\nabandoned. The ancient and modern languages, as well as the various\nbranches of philosophy and philosophical thought in which he was\nafterwards to attain such eminence, were studied by him in the early\nmornings, under the guidance of his father, before going down to pass\nhis days in the India Office. During the summer evenings, and on such\nholidays as he could get, he began those pedestrian exploits for which\nhe afterwards became famous, and in which his main pleasure appears to\nhave consisted in collecting plants and flowers in aid of the\nbotanical studies that were his favorite pastime, and something more\nthan a pastime, all through his life. His first printed writings are\nsaid to have been on botany, in the shape of some articles contributed\nto a scientific journal while he was still in his teens, and it is\nprobable, that, could they now be detected, we should find in other\nperiodicals traces of his work, at nearly if not quite as early a\nperiod in other lines of study. That he worked early and with\nwonderful ability in at least one very deep line, appears from the\nfact that while he was still only a lad, Jeremy Bentham intrusted to\nhim the preparation for the press, and the supplementary annotation,\nof his \"Rationale of Judicial Evidence.\" That work, for which he was\nhighly commended by its author, published in 1827, contains the first\npublicly acknowledged literary work of John Stuart Mill.\n\nWhile he was producing that result of laborious study in a special and\nintricate subject, his education in all sorts of other ways was\ncontinued. In evidence of the versatility of his pursuits, the veteran\nauthor of a short and ungenerous memoir that was published in \"The\nTimes\" of May the 10th contributes one interesting note. \"It is within\nour personal knowledge,\" he says, \"that he was an extraordinary youth\nwhen, in 1824, he took the lead at the London Debating Club in one of\nthe most remarkable collections of 'spirits of the age' that ever\ncongregated for intellectual gladiatorship, he being by two or three\nyears the junior of the clique. The rivalry was rather in knowledge\nand reasoning than in eloquence, mere declamation was discouraged; and\nsubjects of paramount importance were conscientiously thought out.\" In\nevidence of his more general studies, we may here repeat a few\nsentences from an account, by an intimate friend of both these great\nmen, of the life of Mr. Grote, which was published in our columns two\nyears ago. \"About this time a small society was formed for readings in\nphilosophical subjects. The meetings took place at Mr. Grote's house\nin Threadneedle Street, on certain days from half past eight till ten\nin the morning, at which hour the members (all in official employment)\nhad to repair to their respective avocations. The members were Grote,\nJohn Mill, Roebuck, William Ellice, William Henry Prescott, two\nbrothers Whitmore, and George John Graham. The mentor of their\nstudies was the elder Mr. Mill. The meetings were continued for two or\nthree years. The readings embraced a small manual of logic, by Du\nTrieu, recommended by Mr. Mill, and reprinted for the purpose,\nWhately's Logic, Hobbes's Logic, and Hartley on Man, in Priestley's\nedition. The manner of proceeding was thorough. Each paragraph, on\nbeing read, was commented on by every one in turn, discussed and\nrediscussed, to the point of total exhaustion. In 1828 the meetings\nceased; but they were resumed in 1830, upon Mill's 'Analysis of the\nMind,' which was gone over in the same manner.\" These philosophical\nstudies were not only of extreme advantage in strengthening and\ndeveloping the merits of Mr. Mill and his friends, nearly all of whom\nwere considerably older than he was, they also served to unite the\nfriends in close and lasting intimacy of the most refined and\nelevating sort. Mr. Grote, his senior by twelve years, was perhaps the\nmost intimate, as he was certainly the ablest, of all the friends whom\nMr. Mill thus acquired.\n\nMany of these friends were contributors to the original \"Westminster\nReview,\" which was started by Bentham in 1824. Bentham himself and the\nelder Mill were its chief writers at first; and in 1828, if not\nsooner, the younger Mill joined the number. In that year he reviewed\nWhately's Logic; and it is probable that in the ensuing year he\ncontributed numerous other articles. His first literary exploit,\nhowever, which he cared to reproduce in his \"Dissertations and\nDiscussions\" was an article that appeared in \"The Jurist,\" in 1833,\nentitled \"Corporation and Church Property.\" That essay, in some\nrespects, curiously anticipated the Irish Church legislation of\nnearly forty years later. In the same year he published, in \"The\nMonthly Repository,\" a remarkably able and quite a different\nproduction,--\"Poetry and its Varieties,\" showing that in the\ndepartment of _belles-lettres_ he could write with nearly as much\nvigor and originality as in the philosophical and political\ndepartments of thought to which, ostensibly, he was especially\ndevoted. Shortly after that he embarked in a bolder literary venture.\nDifferences having arisen concerning \"The Westminster Review,\" a new\nquarterly journal--\"The London Review\"--was begun by Sir William\nMolesworth, with Mr. Mill for editor, in 1835. \"The London\" was next\nyear amalgamated with \"The Westminster,\" and then the nominal if not\nthe actual editorship passed into the hands of Mr. John Robertson. Mr.\nMill continued, however, to be one of its most constant and able\ncontributors until the Review passed into other hands in 1840. He\naided much to make and maintain its reputation as the leading organ of\nbold thought on religious and social as well as political matters.\nBesides such remarkable essays as those on Civilization, on Armand\nCarrel, on Alfred de Vigny, on Bentham, and on Coleridge, which, with\nothers, have been republished in his collection of minor writings, he\ncontributed many of great importance. One on Mr. Tennyson, which was\npublished in 1835, is especially noteworthy. Others referred more\nespecially to the politics of the day. From one, which appeared in\n1837, reviewing Albany Fonblanque's \"England under Seven\nAdministrations,\" and speaking generally in high terms of the\npolitics of \"The Examiner,\" we may extract a few sentences which\ndefine very clearly the political ground taken by Mr. Mill, Mr.\nFonblanque, and those who had then come to be called Philosophical\nRadicals. \"There are divers schools of Radicals,\" said Mr. Mill.\n\"There are the historical Radicals, who demand popular institutions as\nthe inheritance of Englishmen, transmitted to us from the Saxons or\nthe barons of Runnymede. There are the metaphysical Radicals, who hold\nthe principles of democracy, not as means to good government, but as\ncorollaries from some unreal abstraction,--from 'natural liberty' or\n'natural rights.' There are the radicals of occasion and circumstance,\nwho are radicals because they disapprove the measures of the\ngovernment for the time being. There are, lastly, the Radicals of\nposition, who are Radicals, as somebody said, because they are not\nlords. Those whom, in contradistinction to all these, we call\nPhilosophical Radicals, are those who in politics observe the common\nmanner of philosophers; that is, who, when they are discussing means,\nbegin by considering the end, and, when they desire to produce\neffects, think of causes. These persons became Radicals because they\nsaw immense practical evils existing in the government and social\ncondition of this country, and because the same examination which\nshowed them the evils showed also that the cause of those evils was\nthe aristocratic principle in our government,--the subjection of the\nmany to the control of a comparatively few, who had an interest, or\nfancied they had an interest, in perpetuating those evils. These\ninquirers looked still farther, and saw, that, in the present\nimperfect condition of human nature, nothing better than this\nself-preference was to be expected from a dominant few; that the\ninterests of the many were sure to be in their eyes a secondary\nconsideration to their own ease or emolument. Perceiving, therefore,\nthat we are ill-governed, and perceiving that, so long as the\naristocratic principle continued predominant in our government, we\ncould not expect to be otherwise, these persons became Radicals; and\nthe motto of their Radicalism was, Enmity to the aristocratical\nprinciple.\"\n\nThe period of Mr. Mill's most intimate connection with \"The London and\nWestminster Review\" forms a brilliant episode in the history of\njournalism; and his relations, then and afterwards, with other men of\nletters and political writers,--some of them as famous as Mr. Carlyle\nand Coleridge, Charles Buller and Sir Henry Taylor, Sir William\nMolesworth, Sir John Bowring, and Mr. Roebuck,--yield tempting\nmaterials for even the most superficial biography; but we must pass\nthem by for the present. And here we shall content ourselves with\nenumerating, in the order of their publication, those lengthier\nwritings with which he chiefly occupied his leisure during the next\nquarter of a century; though that work was frequently diversified by\nimportant contributions to \"The Edinburgh\" and \"The Westminster\nReview,\" \"Fraser's Magazine,\" and other periodicals. His first great\nwork was \"A System of Logic,\" the result of many years' previous\nstudy, which appeared in 1843. That completed, he seems immediately to\nhave paid chief attention to politico-economical questions. In 1844\nappeared \"Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy,\"\nwhich were followed, in 1848, by the \"Principles of Political\nEconomy.\" After that there was a pause of ten years, though the works\nthat were issued during the next six years show that he had not been\nidle during the interval. In 1857 were published two volumes of the\n\"Dissertations and Discussions,\" consisting solely of printed\narticles, the famous essay \"On Liberty,\" and the \"Thoughts on\nParliamentary Reform.\" \"Considerations on Representative Government\"\nappeared in 1861, \"Utilitarianism,\" in 1863, \"Auguste Comte and\nPositivism\" and the \"Examination of Sir William Hamilton's\nPhilosophy,\" in 1865. After that, besides the very welcome \"Inaugural\nAddress\" at St. Andrew's in 1867, his only work of importance was \"The\nSubjection of Women,\" published in 1869. A fitting conclusion to his\nmore serious literary labors appeared also in 1869 in his annotated\nedition of his father's \"Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.\"\n\nWhen we remember how much and what varied knowledge is in those\nlearned books, it is almost difficult to believe, that, during most of\nthe years in which he was preparing them, Mr. Mill was also a hard\nworker in the India House, passing rapidly, and as the reward only of\nhis assiduity and talent, from the drudgery of a junior clerk to a\nposition involving all the responsibility, if not quite all the\ndignity, of a secretary of state. One of his most intimate friends,\nand the one who knew far more of him in this respect than any other,\nhas in another column penned some reminiscences of his official life;\nbut if all the state papers that he wrote, and all the correspondence\nthat he carried on with Indian officials and the native potentates of\nthe East, could be explored, more than one volume would have to be\nwritten in supplement to his father's great \"History of British\nIndia.\"\n\nHaving retired from the India House in 1858, Mr. Mill went to spend\nthe winter in Avignon, in the hope of improving the broken health of\nthe wife to whom he was devotedly attached. He had not been married\nmany years, but Mrs. Mill, who was the widow of Mr. John Taylor, a\nLondon merchant, had been his friend since 1835, or even earlier.\nDuring more than twenty years he had been aided by her talents, and\nencouraged by her sympathy, in all the work he had undertaken, and to\nher rare merits he afterwards paid more than one tribute in terms that\nhave no equal for the intensity of their language, and the depth of\naffection contained in them. Mrs. Mill's weak state of health seems to\nhave hardly repressed her powers of intellect. By her was written the\ncelebrated essay on \"The Enfranchisement of Women\" contributed to \"The\nWestminster Review,\" and afterwards reprinted in the \"Dissertations\nand Discussions,\" with a preface avowing, that by her Mr. Mill had\nbeen greatly assisted in all that he had written for some time\nprevious. But the assistance was to end now. Mrs. Mill died at Avignon\non the 3d of November, 1858, and over her grave was placed one of the\nmost pathetic and eloquent epitaphs that have been ever penned. \"Her\ngreat and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original,\nand comprehensive intellect,\" it was there written, \"made her the\nguide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and the example in\ngoodness, as she was the sole earthly delight, of those who had the\nhappiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was\ngenerous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been\nfelt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in\nthose still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like\nhers, this earth would already become the hoped-for heaven.\"\nHenceforth, during the fourteen years and a half that were to elapse\nbefore he should be laid in the same grave, Avignon was the chosen\nhaunt of Mr. Mill.\n\nPassing much of his time in the modest house that he had bought, that\nhe might be within sight of his wife's tomb, Mr. Mill was also\nfrequently in London, whither he came especially to facilitate the new\ncourse of philosophical and political writing on which he entered. He\nfound relief also in excursions, one of which was taken nearly every\nyear, in company with his step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, into\nvarious parts of Europe. Italy, Switzerland, and many other districts,\nwere explored, partly on foot, with a keen eye both to the natural\nfeatures of the localities, especially in furtherance of those\nbotanical studies to which Mr. Mill now returned with the ardor of his\nyouth, and also to their social and political institutions. Perhaps\nthe longest and most eventful of these excursions was taken in 1862 to\nGreece. On this occasion it had been proposed that his old friend, Mr.\nGrote, should accompany him. \"To go through those scenes, and\nespecially to go through them in your company,\" wrote Mr. Grote in\nJanuary, \"would be to me pre-eminently delightful; but, alas! my\nphysical condition altogether forbids it. I could not possibly stay\naway from London, without the greatest discomfort, for so long a\nperiod as two months. Still less could I endure the fatigue of horse\nand foot exercise which an excursion in Greece must inevitably\nentail.\" The journey occupied more than two months; but in the autumn\nMr. Mill was at Avignon; and, returning to London in December, he\nspent Christmas week with Mr. Grote at his residence, Barrow\nGreen,--Bentham's old house, and the one in which Mr. Mill had played\nhimself when he was a child. \"He is in good health and spirits,\" wrote\nMr. Grote to Sir G.C. Lewis after that visit; \"violent against the\nSouth in this American struggle; embracing heartily the extreme\nAbolitionist views, and thinking about little else in regard to the\ngeneral question.\"\n\nIt was only to be expected that Mr. Mill would take much interest in\nthe American civil war, and sympathize strongly with the Abolitionist\nparty. His interest in politics had been keen, and his judgment on\nthem had been remarkably sound all through life, as his early articles\nin \"The Morning Chronicle\" and \"The London and Westminster Review,\"\nand his later contributions to various periodicals, helped to testify;\nbut towards the close of his life the interest was perhaps keener, as\nthe judgment was certainly more mellowed. It was not strange,\ntherefore, that his admirers among the working classes, and the\nadvanced radicals of all grades, should have urged him, and that,\nafter some hesitation, he should have consented, to become a candidate\nfor Westminster at the general election of 1865. That candidature\nwill be long remembered as a notable example of the dignified way in\nwhich an honest man, and one who was as much a philosopher in practice\nas in theory, can do all that is needful, and avoid all that is\nunworthy, in an excited electioneering contest, and submit without\ninjury to the insults of political opponents and of political\ntime-servers professing to be of his own way of thinking. The result\nof the election was a far greater honor to the electors who chose him\nthan to the representative whom they chose; though that honor was\ngreatly tarnished by Mr. Mill's rejection when he offered himself for\nre-election three years later.\n\nThis is hardly the place in which to review at much length Mr. Mill's\nparliamentary career, though it may be briefly referred to in evidence\nof the great and almost unlooked-for ability with which he adapted\nhimself to the requirements of a philosophical politician as distinct\nfrom a political philosopher. His first speech in the House of\nCommons, delivered very soon after its assembling, was on the occasion\nof the second reading of the Cattle Diseases Bill, on the 14th of\nFebruary, 1866, when he supported Mr. Bright in his opposition to the\nproposals of Mr. Lowe for compensation to their owners for the\nslaughter of such animals as were diseased or likely to spread\ninfection. His complaint against the bill was succinctly stated in two\nsentences, which fairly illustrated the method and basis of all his\narguments upon current politics. \"It compensates,\" he said, \"a class\nfor the results of a calamity which is borne by the whole community.\nIn justice, the farmers who have not suffered ought to compensate\nthose who have; but the bill does what it ought not to have done, and\nleaves undone what it ought to have done, by not equalizing the\nincidence of the burden upon that class, inasmuch as, from the\noperation of the local principle adopted, that portion of an\nagricultural community who have not suffered at all will not have to\npay at all, and those who have suffered little will have to pay\nlittle; while those who have suffered most will have to pay a great\ndeal.\" \"An aristocracy,\" he added, in words that as truly indicate the\nway in which he subjected all matters of detail to the test of general\nprinciples of truth and expediency,--\"an aristocracy should have the\nfeelings of an aristocracy; and, inasmuch as they enjoy the highest\nhonors and advantages, they ought to be willing to bear the first\nbrunt of the inconveniences and evils which fall on the country\ngenerally. This is the ideal character of an aristocracy: it is the\ncharacter with which all privileged classes are accustomed to credit\nthemselves; though I am not aware of any aristocracy in history that\nhas fulfilled those requirements.\"\n\nThat, and the later speeches that Mr. Mill delivered on the Cattle\nDiseases Bill, at once announced to the House of Commons and the\npublic, if they needed any such announcement, the temper and spirit in\nwhich he was resolved to execute his legislative functions. The same\nspirit and temper appeared in the speech on the Habeas Corpus\nSuspension (Ireland) Bill, which he delivered on the 17th of February;\nbut his full strength as a debater was first manifested during the\ndiscussion on Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill of 1866, which was brought\non for second reading on the 12th of April. His famous speech on that\noccasion, containing the most powerful arguments offered by any\nspeaker in favor of the measure, and his shorter speech during its\ndiscussion on the 31st of May, need not here be recapitulated. They\nwere only admirable developments in practical debate of those\nprinciples of political science which he had already enforced in his\npublished works. The other leading topics handled by Mr. Mill during\nthe session of 1866 were the expediency of reducing the National Debt,\nwhich he urged on the occasion of Mr. Neate's proposal on the 17th of\nApril; the Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland) Bill, on which he\nspoke at length and with force on the 17th of May, then practically\ninitiating the movement in favor of land-reform, which he partly\nhelped to enforce in part with regard to Ireland, and for the more\ncomplete adoption of which in England he labored to the last; the\nJamaica outbreak, and the conduct of Governor Eyre, on which he spoke\non the 31st of July; and the electoral disabilities of women, which he\nfirst brought within the range of practical politics by moving, on the\n20th of July, for a return of the numbers of householders, and others\nwho, \"fulfilling the conditions of property or rental prescribed by\nlaw as the qualification for the electoral franchise, are excluded\nfrom the franchise by reason of their sex.\"\n\nIn the session of 1867 Mr. Mill took a prominent part in the\ndiscussions on the Metropolitan Poor Bill; and he spoke on various\nother topics,--his introduction of the Women's Electoral Disabilities\nRemoval Bill being in some respects the most notable: but his chief\naction was with reference to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, several\nclauses of which he criticised and helped to alter in committee.\nThough he was as zealous as ever, however, in his attendance to\npublic business, he made fewer great speeches, being content to set a\nwise example to other and less able men in only speaking when he felt\nit absolutely necessary to do so, and in generally performing merely\nthe functions of a \"silent member.\"\n\nIn 1868 he was, if not more active, somewhat more prominent. On March\nthe 6th, on the occasion of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's motion respecting the\n\"Alabama Claims,\" he forcibly expressed his opinions as to the wrong\ndone by England to the United States during the civil war, and the\nneed of making adequate reparation; and on the 12th of the same month\nhe spoke with equal boldness on Mr. Maguire's motion for a committee\nto inquire into the state of Ireland, repeating anew and enforcing the\nviews he had lately put forward in his pamphlet on Ireland, and\nconsiderably aiding by anticipation the passage of Mr. Gladstone's two\ngreat measures of Irish Reform. He took an important part in the\ndiscussion of the Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices Bill; and\namong a great number of other measures on which he spoke was the\nMarried Women's Property Bill of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre.\n\nSoon after that the House of Commons was dissolved, and Mr. Mill's too\nbrief parliamentary career came to an end. The episode, however, had\nto some extent helped to quicken his always keen interest in political\naffairs. This was proved, among other ways, by the publication of his\npamphlet on \"England and Ireland\" in 1868, and of his treatise \"On the\nSubjection of Women\" in 1869, as well as by the especial interest\nwhich he continued to exhibit in two of the most important political\nmovements of the day,--all the more important because they are yet\nalmost in their infancy,--the one for the political enfranchisement\nof women, the other for a thorough reform of our system of land\ntenure. The latest proof of his zeal on the second of these important\npoints appeared in the address which he delivered at Exeter Hall on\nthe 18th of last March, and in two articles which he contributed to\n\"The Examiner\" at the commencement of the present year. We may be\npermitted to add that it was his intention to use some of the greater\nquiet that he expected to enjoy during his stay at Avignon in writing\nfrequent articles on political affairs for publication in these\ncolumns. He died while his intellectual powers were as fresh as they\nhad ever been, and when his political wisdom was only ripened by\nexperience.\n\nIn this paper we purposely limit ourselves to a concise narrative of\nthe leading events of Mr. Mill's life, and abstain as far as possible\nfrom any estimate of either the value or the extent of his work in\nphilosophy, in economics, in politics, or in any other of the\ndepartments of thought and study to which, with such depth and breadth\nof mind, he applied himself; but it is impossible for us to lay down\nthe pen without some slight reference, however inadequate it may be,\nto the nobility of his character, and the peculiar grace with which he\nexhibited it in all his dealings with his friends and with the whole\ncommunity among whom he lived, and for whom he worked with the\nself-sacrificing zeal of an apostle. If to labor fearlessly and\nceaselessly for the good of society, and with the completest\nself-abnegation that is consistent with healthy individuality, be the\ntrue form of religion, Mr. Mill exhibited such genuine and profound\nreligion--so permeating his whole life, and so engrossing his every\naction--as can hardly be looked for in any other man of this\ngeneration. Great as were his intellectual qualities, they were\ndwarfed by his moral excellences. He did not, it is true, aim at any\nfanciful ideal, or adopt any fantastic shibboleths. He was only a\nutilitarian. He believed in no inspiration but that of experience. He\nhad no other creed or dogma or gospel than Bentham's axiom,--\"The\ngreatest happiness of the greatest number.\" But many will think that\nherein was the chief of all his claims to the honor of all men, and\nthe best evidence of his worth. At any rate, he set a notable example\nof the way in which a man, making the best use in his power of merely\nhis own reason and the accumulated reason of those who have gone\nbefore him, wisely exercising the faculties of which he finds himself\npossessed, and seeking no guidance or support from invisible beacons\nand intangible props, may lead a blameless life, and be one of the\ngreatest benefactors of his race. No one who had any personal\nknowledge of him could fail to discern the singular purity of his\ncharacter; and to those who knew him best that purity was most\napparent. He may have blundered and stumbled in his pursuit of truth;\nbut it was part of his belief that stumbling and blundering are\nnecessary means towards the finding of truth, and that honesty of\npurpose is the only indispensable requisite for the nearest approach\ntowards truth of which each individual is capable. That belief\nrendered him as charitable towards others as he was modest concerning\nhis own attainments. He never boasted; and he despised no one. The\nonly things really hateful to him were arrogance and injustice, and\nfor these he was, to say the least, as willing and eager to find\nexcuse as could be the most devout utterer of the prayer, \"Father,\nforgive them, for they know not what they do.\" We had noted many\ninstances, coming within our own very limited observation, of his\nremarkable, almost unparalleled magnanimity and generosity; but such\ndetails would here be almost out of place, and they who need such will\ndoubtless before long receive much more convincing proof of his moral\nexcellence.\n\nWe shall not here dilate on those minor qualities of mind and heart\nthat made Mr. Mill's society so charming to all who were fortunate\nenough to have any share in it; and these, especially in recent years,\nwere many. When the first burden of his grief at the loss of his wife\nhad passed,--perhaps partly as a relief from the solitude, save for\none devoted companion, that would otherwise have been now forced upon\nhim,--he mixed more freely than he had done before in the society of\nall whose company could yield him any satisfaction or by whom his\nfriendship was really valued. His genial and graceful bearing towards\nevery one who came near him must be within the knowledge of very many\nwho will read this column; and they will remember, besides his\ntransparent nobility of character, and the genial ways in which it\nexhibited itself, certain intellectual qualities for which he was\nremarkable. We here refer, not to his higher abilities as a thinker,\nbut to such powers of mind as displayed themselves in conversation.\nWithout any pedantry,--without any sort of intentional notification to\nthose with whom he conversed that he was the greatest logician,\nmetaphysician, moralist, and economist of the day,--his speech was\nalways, even on the most trivial subjects, so clear and incisive, that\nit at once betrayed the intellectual vigor of the speaker. Not less\nremarkable also than his uniform refinement of thought, and the\ndeftness with which he at all times expressed it, were the grasp and\nkeenness of his observation, and the strength of memory with which he\nstored up every thing he had ever seen, heard, or read. Nothing\nescaped his notice at the time of its occurrence: nothing was\nforgotten by him afterwards. His friends often found, to their\nastonishment, that he knew far more about any passages in their lives\nthat he had been made aware of than they could themselves remember;\nand, whenever that disclosure was made to them, they must have been\nrejoiced to think, that this memory of his, instead of being, as it\nmight well have been, a dangerous garner of severe judgments and\nfairly-grounded prejudices, was a magic mirror, in which their follies\nand foibles were hardly at all reflected, and only kindly\nreminiscences and generous sympathies found full expression.\n\nBut he is dead now. Although the great fruits of his life--a life in\nwhich mind and heart, in which senses and emotions, were singularly\nwell balanced--are fruits that cannot die, all the tender ties of\nfriendship, all the strictly personal qualities that so much aided his\nwork as a teacher of the world, as the foremost leader of his\ngeneration in the search after truth and righteousness, are now\nsnapped forever. Only four weeks ago he left London for a\nthree-months' stay in Avignon. Two weeks ago he was in his customary\nhealth. On the 5th of May he was attacked by a virulent form of\nerysipelas. On the 8th he died. On the 10th he was buried in the grave\nto which he had, through fourteen years, looked forward as a pleasant\nresting-place, because during fourteen years there had been in it a\nvacant place beside the remains of the wife whom he so fondly loved.\n\nH. R. FOX BOURNE.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nHIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE\n\n\nI have undertaken to prepare a sketch of Mr. Mill's official career,\nbut find, on inquiry, scarcely any thing to add to the few particulars\non the subject which have already found their way into print. Of his\nearly official associates, all have, with scarcely an exception,\nalready passed away; and there is no one within reach to whom I can\napply for assistance in verifying or correcting my own impressions.\nThese are in substance the following.\n\nIn the few last decades of its existence, the East-India Company's\nestablishment, in Leadenhall Street, consisted of three\ndivisions,--the secretary's, military secretary's, and examiners'\noffices,--in the last of which most of the despatches and letters were\ncomposed which were afterwards signed by the directors or the\nsecretary. Into this division, in the year 1821, the directors,\nperceiving an infusion of new blood to be very urgently required,\nintroduced, as assistant examiners, four outsiders,--Mr. Strachey\n(father of the present Sir John and Major-Gen. Richard Strachey),\nThomas Love Peacock (author of \"Headlong Hall\"), Mr. Harcourt, and\nMr. James Mill; the selection of the last-named being all the more\ncreditable to them, because, in his \"History of British India,\" he had\nanimadverted with much severity on some parts of the Company's\nadministration. Two years afterwards, in 1823, the historian's son,\nthe illustrious subject of these brief memoirs, then a lad of\nseventeen, obtained a clerkship under his father. According to the\nordinary course of things in those days, the newly-appointed junior\nwould have had nothing to do, except a little abstracting, indexing,\nand searching, or pretending to search, into records; but young Mill\nwas almost immediately set to indite despatches to the governments of\nthe three Indian Presidencies, on what, in India-House phraseology,\nwere distinguished as \"political\" subjects,--subjects, that is, for\nthe most part growing out of the relations of the said governments\nwith \"native\" states or foreign potentates. This continued to be his\nbusiness almost to the last. In 1828 he was promoted to be assistant\nexaminer, and in 1856 he succeeded to the post of chief examiner;\nafter which his duty consisted rather in supervising what his\nassistants had written than in writing himself: but for the three and\ntwenty years preceding he had had immediate charge of the political\ndepartment, and had written almost every \"political\" despatch of any\nimportance that conveyed the instructions of the merchant princes of\nLeadenhall Street to their pro-consuls in Asia. Of the quality of\nthese documents, it is sufficient to say, that they were John Mill's;\nbut, in respect to their quantity, it may be worth mentioning that a\ndescriptive catalogue of them completely fills a small quarto volume\nof between three hundred and four hundred pages, in their author's\nhandwriting, which now lies before me; also that the share of the\nCourt of Directors in the correspondence between themselves and the\nIndian governments used to average annually about ten huge\nvellum-bound volumes, foolscap size, and five or six inches thick, and\nthat of these volumes two a year, for more than twenty years running,\nwere exclusively of Mill's composition; this, too, at times, when he\nwas engaged upon such voluntary work in addition as his \"Logic\" and\n\"Political Economy.\"\n\nIn 1857 broke out the Sepoy war, and in the following year the\nEast-India Company was extinguished in all but the name, its\ngovernmental functions being transferred to the Crown. That most\nillustrious of corporations died hard; and with what affectionate\nloyalty Mill struggled to avert its fate is evidenced by the famous\nPetition to Parliament which he drew up for his old masters, and which\nopens with the following effective antithesis: \"Your petitioners, at\ntheir own expense, and by the agency of their own civil and military\nservants, originally acquired for this country its magnificent empire\nin the East. The foundations of this empire were laid by your\npetitioners, at that time neither aided nor controlled by Parliament,\nat the same period at which a succession of administrations under the\ncontrol of Parliament were losing, by their incapacity and rashness,\nanother great empire on the opposite side of the Atlantic.\"\n\nI am fortunate enough to be the possessor of the original MS. of this\nadmirable state paper, which I mention, because I once heard its real\nauthorship denied in that quarter of all others in which it might have\nbeen supposed to be least likely to be questioned. On one of the last\noccasions of the gathering together of the Proprietors of East-India\nStock, I could scarcely believe my ears, when one of the directors,\nalluding to the petition, spoke of it as having been written by a\ncertain other official who was silting by his side, adding, after a\nmoment's pause, \"with the assistance, as he understood, of Mr. Mill,\"\nlikewise present. As soon as the Court broke up, I burst into Mill's\nroom, boiling over with indignation, and exclaiming, \"What an infamous\nshame!\" and no doubt adding a good deal more that followed in natural\nsequence on such an exordium. \"What's the matter?\" replied Mill as\nsoon as he could get a word in. \"M----[the director] was quite right.\nThe petition was the joint work of ---- and myself.\"--\"How can you be\nso perverse?\" I retorted. \"You know that I know you wrote every word of\nit.\"--\"No,\" rejoined Mill, \"you are mistaken: one whole line on the\nsecond page was put in by----.\"\n\nIn August, 1858, the East-India Company's doom was pronounced by\nParliament. The East-India House was completely re-organized, its very\nname being changed into that of the India Office, and a Secretary of\nState in Council taking the place of the Court of Directors. But a\nchange of scarcely secondary importance to many of those immediately\nconcerned was Mill's retirement on a pension. A few months after he\nhad left us an attempt was made to bring him back. At that time only\none-half of the Council were nominated by the Crown, the other half\nhaving been elected, and the law prescribing that any vacancy among\nthese latter should be filled by election on the part of the remaining\nelected members. On the first occasion of the kind that occurred,\nMill was immediately proposed; and I had the honor of being\ncommissioned to sound him on the subject of the intended offer, and to\nendeavor to overcome the objections to acceptance which it was feared\nhe might entertain. I went accordingly to his house at Blackheath, but\nhad no sooner broached the subject than I saw that my mission was\nhopeless. The anguish of his recent bereavement was as yet too fresh.\nHe sought eagerly for some slight alleviation of despair in hard\nliterary labor; but to face the outside world was for the present\nimpossible.\n\nHere my scanty record must end, unless I may be permitted to\nsupplement its meagreness by one or two personal--not to say\negotistical--reminiscences. The death of Mr. Mill senior, in 1836, had\noccasioned a vacancy at the bottom of the examiner's office, to which\nI was appointed through the kindness of Sir James Carnac, then\nchairman of the Company, in whose gift it was. Within a few months,\nhowever, I was transferred to a newly-created branch of the\nsecretary's office; owing to which cause, and perhaps also to a little\n(or not a little) mutual shyness, I for some years came so seldom into\ncontact with Mr. Mill, that, though he of course knew me by sight, we\nscarcely ever spoke, and generally passed each other without any mark\nof recognition when we happened to meet in or out of doors. Early in\n1846, however, I sent him a copy of a book I had just brought out, on\n\"Over-population.\" A day or two afterwards he came into my room to\nthank me for it; and during the half-hour's conversation that\nthereupon ensued, sprang up, full grown at its birth, an intimate\nfriendship, of which I feel that I am not unduly boasting in declaring\nit to have been equally sincere and fervent on both sides. From that\ntime for the next ten or twelve years, a day seldom passed without, if\nI did not go into his room, his coming into mine, often telling me as\nhe entered, that he had nothing particular to say; but that, having a\nfew minutes to spare, he thought we might as well have a little talk.\nAnd what talks we have had on such occasions, and on what various\nsubjects! and not unfrequently, too, when the room was Mill's, Grote,\nthe historian, would join us, first announcing his advent by a\npeculiar and ever-welcome rat-tat with his walking-stick on the door.\nI must not dwell longer over these recollections; but there are two\nspecial obligations of my own to Mill which I cannot permit myself to\npass over. When, in 1856, he became examiner, he had made it, as I\nhave been since assured by the then chairman of the East-India\nCompany, a condition of his acceptance of the post, that I, whose name\nvery likely the Chairman had never before heard, should be associated\nwith him as one of his assistant examiners; and I was placed, in\nconsequence, in charge of the Public-Works Department. Not long\nafterwards, having lapsed into a state of nervous weakness, which for\nnearly a year absolutely incapacitated me for mental labor, I should,\nbut for Mill, have been compelled to retire from the service. From\nthis, however, he saved me by quietly taking upon himself, and for the\nspace of twelve months discharging, the whole of my official duties,\nin addition to his own. Is it wonderful that such a man, supposed by\nthose who did not know him to be cold, stern, and dry, should have\nbeen enthusiastically beloved by those who did?\n\nIt is little to say, that my own friendship with him was, from first\nto last, never once ruffled by difference or misunderstanding of any\nkind. Differences of opinion we had in abundance; but my open avowal\nof them was always recognized by him as one of the strongest proofs of\nrespect, and served to cement instead of weakening our attachment.[1]\nThe nearest approach made throughout our intercourse to any thing of\nan unpleasant character was about the time of his retirement from the\nIndia House. Talking over that one day with two or three of my\ncolleagues, I said it would not do to let Mill go without receiving\nsome permanently-visible token of our regard. The motion was no sooner\nmade than it was carried by acclamation. Every member of the\nexaminers' office--for we jealously insisted on confining the affair\nto ourselves--came tendering his subscription, scarcely waiting to be\nasked; in half an hour's time some fifty or sixty pounds--I forget the\nexact sum--was collected, which in due course was invested in a superb\nsilver inkstand, designed by our friend, Digby Wyatt, and manufactured\nby Messrs. Elkington. Before it was ready, however, an unexpected\ntrouble arose. In some way or other, Mill had got wind of our\nproceeding, and, coming to me in consequence, began almost to upbraid\nme as its originator. I had never before seen him so angry. He hated\nall such demonstrations, he said, and was quite resolved not to be\nmade the subject of them. He was sure they were never altogether\ngenuine or spontaneous; there were always several persons who took\npart in them merely because they did not like to refuse; and, in\nshort, whatever we might do, he would have none of it. In vain I\nrepresented how eagerly everybody, without exception, had come\nforward; that we had now gone too far to recede; that, if he would not\ntake the inkstand, we should be utterly at a loss what to do with it;\nand that I myself should be in a specially embarrassing position. Mill\nwas not to be moved. This was a question of principle, and on\nprinciple he could not give way. There was nothing left, therefore,\nbut resort to a species of force. I arranged with Messrs. Elkington\nthat our little testimonial should be taken down to Mr. Mill's house\nat Blackheath by one of their men, who, after leaving it with the\nservant, should hurry away without waiting for an answer. This plan\nsucceeded; but I have always suspected, though she never told me so,\nthat its success was mainly due to Miss Helen Taylor's good offices.\nBut for her, the inkstand would almost certainly have been returned,\ninstead of being promoted, as it eventually was, to a place of honor\nin her own and her father's drawing-room.\n\nMine is scarcely just now the mood in which I should have been\nnaturally disposed to relate anecdotes like this; but, in the\nexecution of my present task, I have felt bound chiefly to consider\nwhat would be likely to interest the reader.\n\nW.T. THORNTON.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n     [1] I may be permitted here, without Mr. Thornton's\n     knowledge, to recall a remark made by Mr. Mill only a few\n     weeks ago. We were speaking of Mr. Thornton's recently\n     published \"Old-fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense\n     Metaphysics,\" when I remarked on Mr. Mill's wide divergence\n     from most of the views contained in it. \"Yes,\" he replied,\n     \"it is pleasant to find _something_ on which to differ from\n     Thornton.\" Mr. Mill's prompt recognition of the importance\n     of Mr. Thornton's refutation of the wage-fund theory is only\n     one out of numberless instances of his peculiar\n     magnanimity.--B.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nHIS MORAL CHARACTER.\n\n\nTo dilate upon Mr. Mill's achievements, and to insist upon the\nwideness of his influence over the thought of his time and\nconsequently over the actions of his time, seems to me scarcely\nneedful. The facts are sufficiently obvious, and are recognized by all\nwho know any thing about the progress of opinion during the last half\ncentury. My own estimate of him, intellectually considered, has been\nemphatically though briefly given on an occasion of controversy\nbetween us, by expressing my regret at 'having to contend against the\ndoctrine of one whose agreement I should value more than that of any\nother thinker.'\n\nWhile, however, it is almost superfluous to assert of him that\nintellectual height so generally admitted there is more occasion for\ndrawing attention to a moral elevation that is less recognized partly\nbecause his activities in many directions afforded no occasion for\nexhibiting it, and partly because some of its most remarkable\nmanifestations in conduct are known only to those whose personal\nrelations with him have called them forth. I feel especially prompted\nto say something on this point, because, where better things might\nhave been expected, there has been, not only a grudging recognition of\nintellectual rank, but a marked blindness to those fine traits of\ncharacter, which, in the valuation of men, must go for more than\nsuperiority of intelligence.\n\nIt might indeed have been supposed, that even those who never enjoyed\nthe pleasure of personal acquaintance with Mr. Mill would have been\nimpressed with the nobility of his nature as indicated in his opinions\nand deeds. How entirely his public career has been determined by a\npure and strong sympathy for his fellow men, how entirely this\nsympathy has subordinated all desires for personal advantage, how\nlittle even the fear of being injured in reputation or position has\ndeterred him from taking the course which he thought equitable or\ngenerous--ought to be manifest to every antagonist, however bitter. A\ngenerosity that might almost be called romantic was obviously the\nfeeling prompting sundry of those courses of action which have been\ncommented upon as errors. And nothing like a true conception of him\ncan be formed, unless, along with dissent from them, there goes\nrecognition of the fact that they resulted from the eagerness of a\nnoble nature impatient to rectify injustice and to further human\nwelfare.\n\nIt may perhaps be that my own perception of this pervading warmth of\nfeeling has been sharpened by seeing it exemplified, not in the form\nof expressed opinions only, but in the form of private actions, for\nMr. Mill was not one of those, who, to sympathy with their fellow men\nin the abstract, join indifference to them in the concrete. There came\nfrom him generous acts that corresponded with his generous sentiments.\nI say this, not from second-hand knowledge, but having in mind a\nremarkable example known only to myself and a few friends. I have\nhesitated whether to give this example, seeing that it has personal\nimplications. But it affords so clear an insight into Mr. Mill's\ncharacter, and shows so much more vividly than any description could\ndo how fine were the motives swaying his conduct, that I think the\noccasion justifies disclosure of it.\n\nSome seven years ago, after bearing as long as was possible the\ncontinued losses entailed on me by the publication of the \"System of\nPhilosophy,\" I notified to the subscribers that I should be obliged to\ncease at the close of the volume then in progress. Shortly after the\nissue of this announcement I received from Mr. Mill a letter, in\nwhich, after expressions of regret, and after naming a plan which he\nwished to prosecute for re-imbursing me, he went on to say, \"In the\nnext place ... what I propose is, that you should write the next of\nyour treatises, and that I should guarantee the publisher against\nloss; i.e., should engage, after such length of time as may be agreed\non, to make good any deficiency that may occur, not exceeding a given\nsum,--that sum being such as the publisher may think sufficient to\nsecure him.\" Now, though these arrangements were of kinds that I could\nnot bring myself to yield to, they none the less profoundly impressed\nme with Mr. Mill's nobility of feeling, and his anxiety to further\nwhat he regarded as a beneficial end. Such proposals would have been\nremarkable even had there been entire agreement of opinion, but they\nwere the more remarkable as being made by him under the consciousness\nthat there existed between us certain fundamental differences, openly\navowed. I had, both directly and by implication, combated that form\nof the experiential theory of human knowledge which characterizes Mr.\nMill's philosophy: in upholding Realism, I had opposed in decided ways\nthose metaphysical systems to which his own Idealism was closely\nallied; and we had long carried on a controversy respecting the test\nof truth, in which I had similarly attacked Mr. Mill's positions in an\noutspoken manner. That, under such circumstances, he should have\nvolunteered his aid, and urged it upon me, as he did, on the ground\nthat it would not imply any personal obligation, proved in him a very\nexceptional generosity.\n\nQuite recently I have seen afresh illustrated this fine trait,--this\nability to bear with unruffled temper, and without any diminution of\nkindly feeling, the publicly-expressed antagonism of a friend. The\nlast evening I spent at his house was in the company of another\ninvited guest, who, originally agreeing with him entirely on certain\ndisputed questions, had some fortnight previously displayed his change\nof view,--nay, had publicly criticised some of Mr. Mill's positions in\na very undisguised manner. Evidently, along with his own unswerving\nallegiance to truth, there was in Mr. Mill an unusual power of\nappreciating in others a like conscientiousness, and so of suppressing\nany feeling of irritation produced by difference,--suppressing it, not\nin appearance only, but in reality, and that, too, under the most\ntrying circumstances.\n\nI should say indeed, that Mr. Mill's general characteristic,\nemotionally considered, was an unusual predominance of the higher\nsentiments,--a predominance which tended, perhaps, both in theory and\npractice, to subordinate the lower nature unduly. That rapid advance\nof age which has been conspicuous for some years past, and which\ndoubtless prepared the way for his somewhat premature death, may, I\nthink, be regarded as the outcome of a theory of life which made\nlearning and working the occupations too exclusively considered. But\nwhen we ask to what ends he acted out this theory, and in so doing too\nlittle regarded his bodily welfare, we see that even here the excess,\nif such we call it, was a noble one. Extreme desire to further human\nwelfare was that to which he sacrificed himself.\n\nHERBERT SPENCER.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nHIS BOTANICAL STUDIES.\n\n\nIf we would have a just idea of any man's character, we should view it\nfrom as many points, and under as many aspects, as we can. The\nside-lights thrown by the lesser occupations of a life are often very\nstrong, and bring out its less obvious parts into startling\nprominence. Much especially is to be learned of character by taking\ninto consideration the employment of times of leisure or relaxation;\nthe occupation of such hours being due almost solely to the natural\nbent of the individual, without the interfering action of necessity or\nexpediency. Most men, perhaps especially eminent men, have a\n\"hobby\",--some absorbing object, the pursuit of which forms the most\nnatural avocation of their mind, and to which they turn with the\ncertainty of at least satisfaction, if not of exquisite pleasure. The\nman who follows any branch of natural science in this way is almost\nalways especially happy in its prosecution; and his mental powers are\nrefreshed and invigorated for the more serious and engrossing if less\ncongenial occupation of his life. Mr. Mill's hobby was practical field\nbotany; surely in all ways one very well suited to him.\n\nOf the tens of thousands who are acquainted with the philosophical\nwritings of Mr. Mill, there are probably few beyond the circle of his\npersonal friends who are aware that he was also an author in a modest\nway on botanical subjects, and a keen searcher after wild plants. His\nshort communications on botany were chiefly if not entirely published\nin a monthly magazine called \"The Phytologist,\" edited, from its\ncommencement in 1841, by the late George Luxford, till his death, in\n1854, and afterwards conducted by Mr. A. Irvine of Chelsea, an\nintimate friend of Mr. Mill's, till its discontinuance in 1863. In the\nearly numbers of this periodical especially will be found frequent\nnotes and short papers on the facts of plant distribution brought to\nlight by Mr. Mill during his botanical rambles. His excursions were\nchiefly in the county of Surrey, and especially in the neighborhood of\nGuildford and the beautiful vale of the Sittingbourne, where he had\nthe satisfaction of being the first to notice several plants of\ninterest, as _Polygonum dumetorum_, _Isatis tinctoria_, and _Impatiens\nfulva_, an American species of balsam, affording a very remarkable\nexample of complete naturalization in the Wey and other streams\nconnected with the lower course of the Thames. Mr. Mill says he first\nobserved this interloper in 1822 at Albury, a date which probably\nmarks about the commencement of his botanical investigations, if not\nthat of the first notice of the plant in this country. Mr. Mill's\ncopious MS lists of observations in Surrey were subsequently forwarded\nto the late Mr. Salmon of Godalming, and have been since published\nwith the large collection of facts made by that botanist in the \"Flora\nof Surrey,\" printed under the auspices of the Holmesdale (Reigate)\nNatural History Club. Mr. Mill also contributed to the same\nscientific magazine some short notes on Hampshire botany, and is\nbelieved to have helped in the compilation of Mr. G.G. Mill's\n\"Catalogue of the Plants of Great Marlow, Bucks.\"\n\nThe mere recording of isolated facts of this kind of course affords no\nscope for any style in composition. It may, however, be thought worth\nwhile to reproduce here the concluding paragraph of a short article on\n\"Spring Flowers in the South of Europe,\" as a sample of Mr. Mill's\npopular manner, as well as for its own sake as a fine description of a\nmatchless scene. He is describing the little mountain range of Albano,\nbeloved of painters, and, after comparing its vernal flora with that\nin England, goes on:--\n\n     'If we would ascend the highest member of the mountain group,\n     the Monte Cavo, we must make the circuit of the north flank\n     of the mountains of Marino, on the edge of the Albano Lake,\n     and Rocca di Tassa, a picturesque village in the hollow\n     mountain side, from which we climb through woods, abounding\n     in _Galanthus nivalis_ and _Corydalis cava_, to that summit\n     which was the _arx_ of Jupiter Latialis, and to which the\n     thirty Latian cities ascended in solemn procession to offer\n     their annual sacrifice. The place is now occupied by a\n     convent, under the wall of which I gathered _Orinthogalum\n     nutans_; and from its neighborhood I enjoyed a panoramic\n     view, surely the most glorious, in its combination of\n     natural beauty and grandeur of historical recollections, to\n     be found anywhere on earth. The eye ranged from Terracina on\n     one side to Veii on the other, and beyond Veii to the hills\n     of Sutrium and Nepete, once covered by the Cimmian forests,\n     then deemed an impenetrable barrier between the interior of\n     Etruria and Rome. Below my feet the Alban mountain, with all\n     its forest-covered folds, and in one of them the dark-blue\n     Lake of Nemi; that of Albano, I think, was invisible. To the\n     north, in the dim distance, the Eternal City, to the west\n     the eternal sea, for eastern boundary, the long line of\n     Sabine mountains from Soracte past Tibur and away towards\n     Proeneste. The range then passed behind the Alban group, but\n     re-appeared to the south-east as the mountain crescent of\n     Cora and Pometia, enclosing between its horns the Pontine\n     marshes, which lay spread out below as far as the sea line,\n     extending east and west from Terracina in the bay of Fondi,\n     the Volscian Anxur, to the angle of the coast where rises\n     suddenly, between the marshes and the sea, the mountain\n     promontory of Circeii, celebrated alike in history and in\n     fable. Within the space visible from this one point, the\n     destinies of the human race were decided. It took the Romans\n     nearly five hundred years to vanquish and incorporate the\n     warlike tribes who inhabited that narrow tract, but, this\n     being accomplished, two hundred more sufficed them to\n     complete the conquest of the world.\n\nDuring the frequent and latterly prolonged residence at Avignon, Mr.\nMill, carrying on his botanical propensities, had become very well\nacquainted with the vegetation of the district, and at the time of his\ndeath had collected a mass of notes and observations on the subject.\nIt is believed to have been his intention to have printed these as the\nfoundation of a flora of Avignon.\n\nIn the slight contributions to the literature of botany made by Mr.\nMill, there is nothing which gives any inkling of the great\nintellectual powers of their writer. Though always clear and accurate,\nthey are merely such notes as any working botanical collector is able\nto supply in abundance. Mainly content with the pursuit as an outdoor\noccupation, with such an amount of home work as was necessary to\ndetermine the names and affinities of the species, Mr. Mill never\npenetrated deeply into the philosophy of botany, so as to take rank\namong those who have, like Herbert Spencer, advanced that science by\noriginal work either of experiment or generalization, or have entered\ninto the battle-field where the great biological questions of the day\nare being fought over. The writer of this notice well remembers\nmeeting, a few years since, the (at that time) parliamentary logician,\nwith his trousers turned up out of the mud, and armed with the tin\ninsignia of his craft, busily occupied in the search after a\nmarsh-loving rarity in a typical spongy wood on the clay to the north\nof London.\n\nBut however followed, the investigation of nature cannot fail to\ninfluence the mind in the direction of a more just appreciation of the\nnecessity of system in arrangement, and of the principles which must\nregulate all attempts to express notions of system in a\nclassification. Traces of this are not difficult to find in Mr. Mill's\nwritings. It may be safely stated, that the chapters on classification\nin the \"Logic\" would not have taken the form they have, had not the\nwriter been a naturalist as well as a logician. The views expressed so\nclearly in these chapters are chiefly founded on the actual needs\nexperienced by the systematic botanist; and the argument is largely\nsustained by references to botanical systems and arrangements. Most\nbotanists agree with Mr. Mill in his objections to Dr. Whewell's views\nof a natural classification by resemblance to \"types,\" instead of in\naccordance with well-selected characters; and indeed the whole of\nthese chapters are well deserving the careful study of naturalists,\nnotwithstanding that the wonderfully rapid progress in recent years of\nnew ideas, lying at the very root of all the natural sciences, may be\nthought by some to give the whole argument, in spite of its logical\nexcellence, a somewhat antiquated flavor. How fully Mr. Mill\nrecognized the great importance of the study of biological\nclassifications, and the influence such a study must have had on\nhimself, may be judged from the following quotation:--\n\n     \"Although the scientific arrangements of organic nature\n     afford as yet the only complete example of the true\n     principles of rational classification, whether as to the\n     formation of groups or of series, those principles are\n     applicable to all cases in which mankind are called upon to\n     bring the various parts of any extensive subject into mental\n     co-ordination. They are as much to the point when objects\n     are to be classed for purposes of art or business as for\n     those of science. The proper arrangement, for example, of a\n     code of laws, depends on the same scientific conditions as\n     the classifications in natural history; nor could there be a\n     better preparatory discipline for that important function\n     than the study of the principles of a natural arrangement,\n     not only in the abstract, but in their actual application to\n     the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated,\n     and which are still the best school for learning their use.\n     Of this, the great authority on codification, Bentham, was\n     perfectly aware; and his early 'Fragment on Government,' the\n     admirable introduction to a series of writings unequalled in\n     their department, contains clear and just views (as far as\n     they go) on the meaning of a natural arrangement, such as\n     could scarcely have occurred to any one who lived anterior\n     to the age of Linnaeus and Bernard de Jussieu\" (_System of\n     Logic_, ed. 6, ii., p. 288).\n\nHENRY TRIMEN.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nHIS PLACE AS A CRITIC\n\n\nMr. Mill's achievements as an economist, logician, psychologist, and\npolitician are known more or less vaguely to all educated men; but his\ncapacity and his actual work as a critic are comparatively little\nregarded. In the three volumes of his collected miscellaneous\nwritings, very few of the papers are general reviews either of books\nor of men; and even these volumes derive their character from the\nessays they contain on the severer subjects with which Mr. Mill's name\nhas been more peculiarly associated. Nobody buys his \"Dissertations\nand Discussions\" for the sake of his theory of poetry, or his essays\non Armand Carrel and Alfred de Vigny, noble though these are in many\nways. His essay on Coleridge is very celebrated; but it deals, not\nwith Coleridge's place as a poet, but with his place as a\nthinker--with Coleridge as the antagonistic power to Bentham in\nforming the opinions of the generation now passing away. Still at such\na time as this it is interesting to make some endeavor to estimate the\nvalue of what Mr. Mill has done in the way of criticism. It is at\nleast worth while to examine whether one who has shown himself\ncapable of grappling effectively with the driest and most abstruse\nproblems that vex the human intellect was versatile enough to study\npoetry with an understanding heart, and to be alive to the distinctive\npowers of individual poets.\n\nIt was in his earlier life, when his enthusiasm for knowledge was fresh,\nand his active mind, \"all as hungry as the sea,\" was reaching out\neagerly and strenuously to all sorts of food for thought,--literary,\nphilosophical, and political,--that Mr. Mill set himself, among other\nthings, to study and theorize upon poetry and the arts generally. He\ncould hardly have failed to know the most recent efflorescence of\nEnglish poetry, living as he did in circles where the varied merits of\nthe new poets were largely and keenly discussed. He had lived also for\nsome time in France, and was widely read in French poetry. He had\nnever passed through the ordinary course of Greek and Latin at school\nand college, but he had been taught by his father to read these\nlanguages, and had been accustomed from the first to regard their\nliterature as literature, and to read their poetry as poetry. These\nwere probably the main elements of his knowledge of poetry. But it\nwas not his way to dream or otherwise luxuriate over his favorite\npoets for pure enjoyment. Mr. Mill was not a cultivator of art for\nart's sake. His was too fervid and militant a soul to lose itself in\nserene love and culture of the calmly beautiful. He read poetry for\nthe most part with earnest, critical eye, striving to account for it,\nto connect it with the tendencies of the age, or he read to find\nsympathy with his own aspirations after heroic energy. He read De\nVigny and other French poets of his generation, with an eye to their\nrelations to the convulsed and struggling state of France, and because\nthey were compelled by their surroundings to take life _au serieux_,\nand to pursue, with all the resources of their art, something\ndifferent from beauty in the abstract. Luxurious passive enjoyment or\ntorpid half-enjoyment must have been a comparatively rare condition of\nhis finely-strung, excitable, and fervid system. I believe that his\nmoral earnestness was too imperious to permit much of this. He was\ncapable indeed of the most passionate admiration of beauty, but even\nthat feeling seems to have been interpenetrated by a certain militant\napostolic fervor; his love was as the love of a religious soldier for\na patron saint who extends her aid and countenance to him in his wars.\nI do not mean to say that his mind was in a perpetual glow: I mean\nonly that this surrender to impassioned transports was more\ncharacteristic of the man than serene openness to influx of enjoyment.\nHis \"Thoughts on Poetry and its Varieties,\" while clear and strenuous\nas most of his thoughts were, are neither scientifically precise, nor\ndo they contain any notable new idea not previously expressed by\nColeridge, except perhaps the idea, that emotions are the main links\nof association in the poetic mind: still his working out of the\ndefinition of poetry, his distinction between novels and poems, and\nbetween poetry and eloquence, is interesting as throwing light upon\nhis own poetic susceptibilities. He holds that poetry is the\ndelineation of the deeper and more secret workings of human emotion.\nIt is curious to find one who is sometimes assailed as the advocate of\na grovelling philosophy complaining that the chivalrous spirit has\nalmost disappeared from books of education, that the youth of both\nsexes of the educated classes are growing up unromantic. \"Catechisms,\"\nhe says, \"will be found a poor substitute for the old romances,\nwhether of chivalry or faery, which, if they did not give a true\npicture of actual life, did not give a false one, since they did not\nprofess to give any, but (what was much better) filled the youthful\nimagination with pictures of heroic men, and of what are at least as\nmuch wanted,--heroic women.\"\n\nIf Mr. Mill did not love poetry with a purely disinterested love, but\nwith an eye to its moral causes and effects, neither did he study\ncharacter from mere delight in observing the varieties of mankind.\nArmand Carrel the Republican journalist, Alfred de Vigny the Royalist\npoet, Coleridge the Conservative, and Bentham the Reformer, are taken\nup and expounded, not as striking individuals, but as types of\ninfluences and tendencies. This habit of keeping in view mind in the\nabstract, or men in the aggregate, may have been in a large measure a\nresult of his education by his father; but I am inclined to think that\nhe was of too ardent and pre-occupied a disposition, perhaps too much\ndisposed to take favorable views of individuals, to be very sensitive\nto differences of character. It should not, however, be forgotten that\nin one memorable case he showed remarkable discrimination. Soon after\nMr. Tennyson published his second issue of poems, Mr. Mill reviewed\nthem in \"The Westminster Review\" for July, 1835, and, with his usual\nearnestness and generosity, applied all his powers to making a just\nestimate of the new aspirant. To have reprinted this among his\nmiscellaneous writings might have seemed rather boastful, as claiming\ncredit for the first full recognition of a great poet: still it is a\nvery remarkable review; and one would hope it will not be omitted if\nthere is to be any further collection of his casual productions. I\nshall quote two passages which seem obvious enough now, but which\nrequired true insight, as well as courageous generosity, to write them\nin 1835--\n\n     \"Of all the capacities of a poet, that which seems to have\n     arisen earliest in Mr. Tennyson, and in which he most\n     excels, is that of scene-painting in the higher sense of the\n     term; not the mere power of producing that rather vapid\n     species of composition usually termed descriptive\n     poetry,--for there is not in these volumes one passage of\n     pure description,--but the power of creating scenery in\n     keeping with some state of human feeling, so fitted to it as\n     to be the embodied symbol of it, and to summon up the state\n     of feeling itself with a force not to be surpassed by any\n     thing but reality.\"\n\n            *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"The poems which we have quoted from Mr. Tennyson prove\n     incontestably that he possesses in an eminent degree the\n     natural endowment of a poet,--the poetic temperament. And it\n     appears clearly, not only from a comparison of the two\n     volumes, but of different poems in the same volume, that\n     with him the other element of poetic excellence,\n     intellectual culture, is advancing both steadily and\n     rapidly; that he is not destined, like so many others, to be\n     remembered for what he might have done rather than for what\n     he did; that he will not remain a poet of mere temperament,\n     but is ripening into a true artist.... We predict, that, as\n     Mr. Tennyson advances in general spiritual culture, these\n     higher aims will become more and more predominant in his\n     writings; that he will strive more and more diligently, and,\n     even without striving, will be more and more impelled by the\n     natural tendencies of an expanding character, towards what\n     has been described as the highest object of poetry,--'to\n     incorporate the everlasting reason of man in forms visible\n     to his sense, and suitable to it.'\"\n\nThis last sentence might easily be construed into a prediction of \"In\nMemoriam\" and \"The Idyls of the King.\"\n\nIf it is asked why Mr. Mill, with all his width of knowledge and\nsympathy, has achieved so little of a reputation as a miscellaneous\nwriter, part of the reason no doubt is, that he sternly repressed his\ndesultory tendencies, and devoted his powers to special branches of\nknowledge, attaining in them a distinction that obscured his other\nwritings. Another reason is, that, although his style is extremely\nclear, he was for popular purposes dangerously familiar with terms\nbelonging more or less to the schools. He employed these in literary\ngeneralizations, without remembering that they were not equally\nfamiliar to his readers; and thus general readers, like Tom Moore, or\nthe author of the recent notice in \"The Times,\" who read more for\namusement than instruction, were disposed to consider Mr. Mill's style\n\"vastly unreadable.\"\n\nW. MINTO.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nHIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nTo a savage contemplating a railway train in motion, the engine would\npresent itself as the master of the situation,--the determining cause\nof the motion and direction of the train. It visibly takes the lead,\nit looks big and important, and it makes a great noise. Even people a\nlong way up in the scale of civilization are in the habit of taking\nthese attributes, perhaps not as the essential ones of leadership, but\nat all events as those by which a leader may be recognized. Still that\nblustering machine, which puffs and snorts, and drags a vast multitude\nin its wake, is moving along a track determined by a man hidden away\nfrom the public gaze. A line of rail lies separated from an adjacent\none, the pointsman moves a handle, and the foaming giant, that would,\nit may be, have sped on to his destruction and that of the passive\ncrew who follow in his rear, is shunted to another line running in a\ndifferent direction and to a more desirable goal.\n\nThe great intellectual pointsman of our age--the man who has done more\nthan any other of this generation to give direction to the thought of\nhis contemporaries--has passed away; and we are left to measure the\nloss to humanity by the result of his labors. Mr. Mill's achievements\nin both branches of philosophy are such as to give him the foremost\nplace in either. Whether we regard him as an expounder of the\nphilosophy of mind or the philosophy of society, he is _facile\nprinceps_. Still it is his work in mental science which will, in our\nopinion, be in future looked upon as his great contribution to the\nprogress of thought. His work on political economy not only put into\nthorough repair the structure raised by Adam Smith, Malthus, and\nRicardo, but raised it at least one story higher. His inestimable\n\"System of Logic\" was a revolution. It hardly needs, of course, to be\nsaid that he owed much to his predecessors,--that he borrowed from\nWhewell much of his classification, from Brown the chief lines of his\ntheory of causation, from Sir John Herschel the main principles of the\ninductive methods. Those who think this a disparagement of his work\nmust have very little conception of the mass of original thought that\nstill remains to Mr. Mill's credit, the great critical power that\ncould gather valuable truths from so many discordant sources, and the\nwonderful synthetic ability required to weld these and his own\ncontributions into one organic whole.\n\nWhen Mr. Mill commenced his labors, the only logic recognized was the\nsyllogistic. Reasoning consisted solely, according to the then\ndominant school, in deducing from general propositions other\npropositions less general. It was even asserted confidently, that\nnothing more was to be expected,--that an inductive logic was\nimpossible. This conception of logical science necessitated some\ngeneral propositions to start with; and these general propositions\nbeing _ex hypothesi_ incapable of being proved from other\npropositions, it followed, that, if they were known to us at all, they\nmust be original data of consciousness. Here was a perfect paradise of\nquestion begging. The ultimate major premise in every argument being\nassumed, it could of course be fashioned according to the particular\nconclusion it was called in to prove. Thus an 'artificial ignorance,'\nas Locke calls it, was produced, which had the effect of sanctifying\nprejudice by recognizing so-called necessities of thought as the only\nbases of reasoning. It is true, that outside of the logic of the\nschools great advances had been made in the rules of scientific\ninvestigation; but these rules were not only imperfect in themselves,\nbut their connection with the law of causation was but imperfectly\nrealized, and their true relation to syllogism hardly dreamt of.\n\nMr. Mill altered all this. He demonstrated that the general type of\nreasoning is neither from generals to particulars, nor from\nparticulars to generals, but from particulars to particulars. \"If from\nour experience of John, Thomas, &c., who once were living, but are now\ndead, we are entitled to conclude that all human beings are mortal, we\nmight surely, without any logical inconsequence, have concluded at\nonce from those instances, that the Duke of Wellington is mortal. The\nmortality of John, Thomas, and others is, after all, the whole\nevidence we have for the mortality of the Duke of Wellington. Not one\niota is added to the proof by interpolating a general proposition.\" We\nnot only may, according to Mr. Mill, reason from some particular\ninstances to others, but we frequently do so. As, however, the\ninstances which are sufficient to prove one fresh instance must be\nsufficient to prove a general proposition, it is most convenient to\nat once infer that general proposition, which then becomes a formula\naccording to which (but not from which) any number of particular\ninferences may be made. The work of deduction is the interpretation of\nthese formulas, and therefore, strictly speaking, is not inferential\nat all. The real inference was accomplished when the universal\nproposition was arrived at.\n\nIt will easily be seen that this explanation of the deductive process\ncompletely turns the tables on the transcendental school. All\nreasoning is shown to be at bottom inductive. Inductions and their\ninterpretation make up the whole of logic; and to induction\naccordingly Mr. Mill devoted his chief attention. For the first time\ninduction was treated as the _opus magnum_ of logic, and the\nfundamental principles of science traced to their inductive origin. It\nwas this, taken with his theory of the syllogism, which worked the\ngreat change. Both his \"System of Logic\" and his \"Examination of Sir\nWilliam Hamilton's Philosophy\" are for the most part devoted to\nfortifying this position, and demolishing beliefs inconsistent with\nit. As a systematic psychologist Mr. Mill has not done so much as\neither Professor Bain or Mr. Herbert Spencer. The perfection of his\nmethod, its application, and the uprooting of prejudices which stood\nin its way,--this was the task to which Mr. Mill applied himself with\nan ability and success rarely matched and never surpassed.\n\nThe biggest lion in the path was the doctrine of so-called \"necessary\ntruth.\" This doctrine was especially obnoxious to him, as it set up a\npurely subjective standard of truth, and a standard--as he was easily\nable to show--varying according to the psychological history of the\nindividual. Such thinkers as Dr. Whewell and Mr. Herbert Spencer had\nto be met in intellectual combat. Dr. Whewell held, not that the\ninconceivability of the contradictory of a proposition is a proof of\nits truth co-equal with experience, but that its value transcends\nexperience. Experience may tell us what _is_; but it is by the\nimpossibility of conceiving it otherwise that we know it _must be_.\nMr. Herbert Spencer, too, holds that propositions whose negation is\ninconceivable have \"a higher warrant than any other whatever.\" It is\nthrough this door that ontological belief was supposed to enter.\n\"Things in themselves\" were to be believed in because we could not\nhelp it. Modern Noumenalists agree that we can know nothing more of\n\"things in themselves\" than their existence, but this they continue to\nassert with a vehemence only equalled by its want of meaning.\n\nIn his \"Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,\" Mr. Mill\ngives battle to this mode of thought. After reviewing, in an opening\nchapter, the various views which have been held respecting the\nrelativity of human knowledge, and stating his own doctrine, he\nproceeds to judge by this standard the philosophy of the absolute and\nSir William Hamilton's relation to it. The argument is really on the\nquestion whether we have or have not an intuition of God, though, as\nMr. Mill says, \"the name of God is veiled under two extremely abstract\nphrases,--'The Infinite' and 'The Absolute.'\" So profound and friendly\na thinker as the late Mr. Grote held this raising of the veil\ninexpedient, but he proved, by a mistake he fell into, the necessity\nof looking at the matter in the concrete. He acknowledged the force of\nMr. Mill's argument, that \"The Infinite\" must include \"a farrago of\ncontradictions;\" but so also, he said, does the Finite. Now\nundoubtedly finite things, taken distributively, have contradictory\nattributes, but not as a class. Still less is there any one individual\nthing, \"The Finite,\" in which these contradictory attributes inhere.\nBut it was against a corresponding being, \"The Infinite,\" that Mr.\nMill was arguing. It is this that he calls a \"fasciculus of\ncontradictions,\" and regarded as the _reductio ad absurdissimum_ of\nthe transcendental philosophy.\n\nMr. Mill's religious tendencies may very well be gathered from a\npassage in his review of Auguste Comte, a philosopher with whom he\nagreed on all points save those which are specially M. Comte's.\n\"Candid persons of all creeds may be willing to admit, that if a\nperson has an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards\nwhich are able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and\npropensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, that person has a\nreligion; and though every one naturally prefers his own religion to\nany other, all must admit, that if the object of his attachment, and\nof this feeling of duty, is the aggregate of our fellow-creatures,\nthis religion of the infidel cannot in honesty and conscience be\ncalled an intrinsically bad one. Many indeed may be unable to believe\nthat this object is capable of gathering round it feelings\nsufficiently strong; but this is exactly the point on which a doubt\ncan hardly remain in an intelligent reader of M. Comte: and we join\nwith him in contemning, as equally irrational and mean, the conception\nof human nature as incapable of giving its love, and devoting its\nexistence, to any object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity\nof personal enjoyment.\" Never has the libel of humanity involved in\nthe current theology been more forcibly pointed out, with its constant\nappeal to low motives of personal gain, or still lower motives of\npersonal fear. Never has the religious sentiment which must take the\nplace of the present awe of the unknown been more clearly indicated.\nIt is this noble sentiment which shines out from every page of Mr.\nMill's writings and all his relations to his fellow-creatures: the\nvery birds about his dwelling seemed to recognize it. It is this noble\nsentiment which infuses a soul of life into his teachings, and the\nenunciation and acting-out of which constitute him, not only the great\nphilosopher, but also the great prophet of our time.\n\nJ. H. LEVY.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nHIS STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE\n\n\nThe two chief characteristics of Mr. Mill's mind are conspicuous in\nthe field of morals and jurisprudence. He united in an extraordinary\ndegree an intense delight in thinking for its own sake, with an almost\npassionate desire to make his intellectual excursions contribute to\nthe amelioration of the lot of mankind, especially of the poorer and\nsuffering part of mankind. And yet he never allowed those high aims to\nclash with one another: he did not degrade his intellect to the\nsophistical office of finding reasons for a policy arising from mere\nemotion, nor did he permit it to run waste in barren speculations,\nwhich might have excited admiration, but never could have done any\ngood. This is the reason why so many persons have been unable to\nunderstand him as the prophet of utilitarianism. A man of such\nexquisite feeling, of such pure conscientiousness, of such\nself-denying life, must surely be an advocate of what is called\nabsolute morality. Utilitarianism is the proper creed of hard\nunemotional natures, who do not respond to the more subtle moral\ninfluences. Such is the view natural to those who cannot dissociate\nthe word \"utilitarianism\" from the narrow meaning of utility, as\ncontrasted with the pleasures of art. The infirmity of human\nlanguage excuses such errors; for the language in which controversy\nis conducted is so colored by sentiment that it may well happen\nthat two shall agree on the thing, and fight to the death about\nthe word. We need the support of such reflections when we recall\nthe history of such a word as \"pleasure.\" To pursue pleasure, say the\nanti-utilitarians, is a swinish doctrine. \"Yes,\" replied Mr. Mill, \"if\nmen were swine, and capable only of the pleasures appropriate to that\nspecies of animals.\" Those who could not answer this argument, and at\nthe same time cannot divest themselves of the association of pleasure\nwith the ignoble, took refuge in the charge of inconsistency, and,\nfinding there was not less but more nobility in Mr. Mill's writing\nthan their own theory, accused him of abandoning the tradition of his\nschool. Mahomet would not go to the mountain, and they pleased\nthemselves with the thought that the mountain had gone to Mahomet.\nSuch a charge is really tantamount to a confession that popular\nantipathy was more easily excited by the word than by the real\ndoctrine. Nevertheless Mr. Mill did an incalculable service in showing\nnot less by his whole life, than by his writings, that utilitarianism\ntakes account of all that is good in man's nature, and includes the\nhighest emotions, as well as those that are more commonplace. He took\naway a certain reproach of narrowness, which was never in the\ndoctrine, and which was loudly, though perhaps with little reason,\nurged against some of its most conspicuous supporters. An important\naddition to the theory of morals is also contained in the book on\n\"Utilitarianism.\" His analysis of \"justice\" is one of the happiest\nefforts of inductive definition to be found in any book on ethics.\nFrom any point of view, it must be regarded as a valuable addition to\nthe literature of ethical philosophy.\n\nThe somewhat technical subject of jurisprudence was not too much for\nMr. Mill's immense power of assimilation. One of his earliest efforts\nwas as editor of Bentham's \"Rationale of Judicial Evidence.\" He must,\ntherefore, at an early period, have been master of the most original\nand enlightened theory of judicial evidence that the world has seen.\nHe lived to see nearly all the important innovations proposed by\nBentham become part and parcel of the law of the land; one of the last\nrelics of bigotry--the exclusion of honest atheists (and only of such)\nfrom the witness-box--having been removed two or three years ago. Mr.\nMill, in after years, attended Austin's famous lectures on\njurisprudence, taking extensive notes; so that he was able to supply\nthe matter wanting to complete two important lectures, as they were\nprinted in the first edition of Austin's works. Among the\n\"Dissertations and Discussions,\" is a criticism of Austin's work,\nwhich shows that he was far more than a scholar,--a most competent\njudge of his master. He pointed out in Austin's definition of \"right\"\na real defect. One of the points that Austin elaborated most was a\nclassification such as might serve for a scientific code of law. Mr.\nMill fully acknowledged the merits of the scheme, but laid his finger\nunerringly on its weakest part. His remarks show, that, if he had\nfollowed up the subject with an adequate knowledge of any good system\nof law, he would have rivalled or surpassed his achievements in other\ndepartments of knowledge.\n\nW. A. HUNTER.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nHIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY.\n\n\nThe task of fairly estimating the value of Mr. Mill's achievements in\npolitical economy--and indeed the same remark applies to what he has\ndone in every department of philosophy--is rendered particularly\ndifficult by a circumstance which constitutes their principal merit.\nThe character of his intellectual, no less than of his moral nature,\nled him to strive to connect his thoughts, whatever was the branch of\nknowledge at which he labored, with the previously-existing body of\nspeculation, to fit them into the same framework, and exhibit them as\nparts of the same scheme; so that it might be truly said of him, that\nhe was at more pains to conceal the originality and independent value\nof his contributions to the stock of knowledge than most writers are\nto set forth those qualities in their compositions. As a consequence\nof this, hasty readers of his works, while recognizing the\ncomprehensiveness of his mind, have sometimes denied its originality;\nand in political economy in particular he has been frequently\nrepresented as little more than an expositor and popularizer of\nRicardo. It cannot be denied that there is a show of truth in this\nrepresentation; about as much as there would be in asserting that\nLaplace and Herschel were the expositors and popularizers of Newton,\nor that Faraday performed a like office for Sir Humphry Davy. In\ntruth, this is an incident of all progressive science. The cultivators\nin each age may, in a sense, be said to be the interpreters and\npopularizers of those who have preceded them; and it is in this sense,\nand in this sense only, that this part can be attributed to Mill. In\nthis respect he is to be strongly contrasted with the great majority\nof writers on political economy, who, on the strength perhaps of a\nverbal correction or an unimportant qualification of a received\ndoctrine, if not on the score of a pure fallacy, would fain persuade\nus that they have achieved a revolution in economic doctrine, and that\nthe entire science must be rebuilt from its foundation in conformity\nwith their scheme. This sort of thing has done infinite mischief to\nthe progress of economic science; and one of Mill's great merits is,\nthat both by example and by precept he steadily discountenanced it.\nHis anxiety to affiliate his own speculations to those of his\npredecessors is a marked feature in all his philosophical works, and\nillustrates at once the modesty and comprehensiveness of his mind.\n\nIt is quite true that Mill, as an economist, was largely indebted to\nRicardo; and he has so fully and frequently acknowledged the debt,\nthat there is some danger of rating the obligation too highly. As he\nhimself used to put it, Ricardo supplied the backbone of the science;\nbut it is not less certain that the limbs, the joints, the muscular\ndevelopments,--all that renders political economy a complete and\norganized body of knowledge,--have been the work of Mill. In Ricardo's\ngreat work, the fundamental doctrines of production, distribution, and\nexchange have been laid down, but for the most part in mere outline;\nso much so, that superficial students are in general wholly unable to\nconnect his statement of principles with the facts, as we find them,\nof industrial life. Hence we have innumerable \"refutations of\nRicardo,\"--almost invariably refutations of the writers' own\nmisconceptions. In Mill's exposition, the connection between\nprinciples and facts becomes clear and intelligible. The conditions\nand modes of action are exhibited by which human wants and\ndesires--the motive powers of industry--come to issue in the actual\nphenomena of wealth, and political economy becomes a system of\ndoctrines susceptible of direct application to human affairs. As an\nexample, I may refer to Mill's development of Ricardo's doctrine of\nforeign trade. In Ricardo's pages, the fundamental principles of that\ndepartment of exchange are indeed laid down with a master's hand; but\nfor the majority of readers they have little relation to the actual\ncommerce of the world. Turn to Mill, and all becomes clear. Principles\nof the most abstract kind are translated into concrete language, and\nbrought to explain familiar facts; and this result is achieved, not\nsimply or chiefly by virtue of mere lucidity of exposition, but\nthrough the discovery and exhibition of modifying conditions and links\nin the chain of causes overlooked by Ricardo. It was in his \"Essays on\nUnsettled Questions in Political Economy\" that his views upon this\nsubject were first given to the world,--a work of which M. Cherbuliez\nof Geneva speaks as \"un travail le plus important et le plus original\ndont la science economique se soit enrichie depuis une vingtaine\nd'annees.\"\n\nOn some points, however, and these points of supreme importance, the\ncontributions of Mill to economic science are very much more than\ndevelopments--even though we understand that term in its largest\nsense--of any previous writer. No one can have studied political\neconomy in the works of its earlier cultivators without being struck\nwith the dreariness of the outlook which, in the main, it discloses\nfor the human race. It seems to have been Ricardo's deliberate\nopinion, that a substantial improvement in the condition of the mass\nof mankind was impossible. He considered it as the normal state of\nthings that wages should be at the _minimum_ requisite to support the\nlaborer in physical health and strength, and to enable him to bring up\na family large enough to supply the wants of the labor-market. A\ntemporary improvement indeed, as the consequence of expanding commerce\nand growing capital, he saw that there might be; but he held that the\nforce of the principle of population was always powerful enough so to\naugment the supply of labor as to bring wages ever again down to the\n_minimum_ point. So completely had this belief become a fixed idea in\nRicardo's mind, that he confidently drew from it the consequence, that\nin no case could taxation fall on the laborer, since--living, as a\nnormal state of things, on the lowest possible stipend adequate to\nmaintain him and his family--he would inevitably, he argued, transfer\nthe burden to his employer; and a tax nominally on wages would in the\nresult become invariably a tax upon profits. On this point Mill's\ndoctrine leads to conclusions directly opposed to Ricardo's, and to\nthose of most preceding economists. And it will illustrate his\nposition as a thinker, in relation to them, if we note how this result\nwas obtained. Mill neither denied the premises nor disputed the logic\nof Ricardo's argument: he accepted both; and in particular he\nrecognized fully the force of the principle of population; but he took\naccount of a further premise which Ricardo had overlooked, and which,\nduly weighed, led to a reversal of Ricardo's conclusion. The _minimum_\nof wages, even such as it exists in the case of the worst-paid\nlaborer, is not the very least sum that human nature can subsist upon:\nit is something more than this; in the case of all above the\nworst-paid class it is decidedly more. The _minimum_ is, in truth, not\na physical but a moral _minimum_, and as such, is capable of being\naltered with the changes in the moral character of those whom it\naffects. In a word, each class has a certain standard of comfort below\nwhich it will not consent to live, or at least to multiply,--a\nstandard, however, not fixed, but liable to modification with the\nchanging circumstances of society, and which, in the case of a\nprogressive community, is, in point of fact, constantly rising, as\nmoral and intellectual influences are brought more and more\neffectually to bear on the masses of the people. This was the new\npremise brought by Mill to the elucidation of the wages question; and\nit sufficed to change the entire aspect of human life regarded from\nthe point of view of political economy. The practical deductions made\nfrom it were set forth in the celebrated chapter on \"The Future of\nthe Industrial Classes,\"--a chapter which it is no exaggeration to say\nplaces a gulf between Mill and all who preceded him, and opens an\nentirely new vista to economic speculation.\n\nThe doctrine of the science with which Mill's name has been most\nprominently associated within the last few years is that which relates\nto the economic nature of land, and the consequences to which this\nshould lead in practical legislation. It is very commonly believed,\nthat on this point Mill has started aside from the beaten highway of\neconomic thought, and propounded views wholly at variance with those\ngenerally entertained by orthodox economists. No economist need be\ntold that this is an entire mistake. In truth, there is no portion of\nthe economic field in which Mill's originality is less conspicuous\nthan in that which deals with the land. His assertion of the peculiar\nnature of landed property, and again his doctrine as to the \"unearned\nincrement\" of value arising from land with the growth of society, are\nsimply direct deductions from Ricardo's theory of rent, and cannot be\nconsistently denied by any one who accepts that theory. All that Mill\nhas done here has been to point the application of principles all but\nuniversally accepted to the practical affairs of life. This is not the\nplace to consider how far the plan proposed by him for this purpose is\nsusceptible of practical realization; but it may at least be\nconfidently stated, that the scientific basis on which his proposal\nrests is no strange novelty invented by him, but simply a principle as\nfundamental and widely recognized as any within the range of the\nscience of which it forms a part.\n\nI have just remarked that Mill's originality is less conspicuous in\nrelation to the economic theory of land than in other problems of\npolitical economy, but the reader must not understand me from this to\nsay, that he has not very largely contributed to the elucidation of\nthis topic. He has indeed done so, though not, as is commonly\nsupposed, by setting aside principles established by his predecessors,\nbut, as his manner was, while accepting those principles, by\nintroducing a new premise into the argument. The new premise\nintroduced in this case was the influence of custom as modifying the\naction of competition. The existence of an active competition, on the\none hand between farmers seeking farms, on the other between farming\nand other modes of industry as offering inducements to the investment\nof capital, is a constant assumption in the reasoning by which Ricardo\narrived at his theory of rent. Granting this assumption, it followed\nthat farmers as a rule would pay neither higher nor lower rents than\nwould leave them in possession of the average profits on their capital\ncurrent in the country. Mill fully acknowledged the force of this\nreasoning, and accepted the conclusion as true wherever the conditions\nassumed were realized; but he proceeded to point out, that, in point\nof fact, the conditions are not realized over the greater portion of\nthe world, and, as a consequence, that the rent actually paid by the\ncultivators to the owners of the soil by no means, as a general rule,\ncorresponds with that portion of the produce which Ricardo considered\nas properly \"rent.\" The real regulator of actual rent over the greater\npart of the habitable globe was, he showed, not competition, but\ncustom; and he further pointed out that there are countries in which\nthe actual rent paid by the cultivators is governed neither by the\ncauses set forth by Ricardo, nor yet by custom, but by a third cause\ndifferent from either,--the absolute will of the owners of the soil,\ncontrolled only by the physical exigencies of the cultivator, or by\nthe fear of his vengeance if disturbed in his holding. The recognition\nof this state of things threw an entirely new light over the whole\nproblem of land-tenure, and plainly furnished grounds for legislative\ninterference in the contracts between landlords and tenants. Its\napplication to Ireland was obvious; and Mill himself, as the world\nknows, did not hesitate to urge the application with all the energy\nand enthusiasm which he invariably threw into every cause that he\nespoused.\n\nIn the above remarks, I have attempted to indicate briefly some few of\nthe salient features in Mill's contributions to the science of\npolitical economy. There is still one more which ought not to be\nomitted from even the most meagre summary. Mill was not the first to\ntreat political economy as a science; but he was the first, if not to\nperceive, at least to enforce the lesson, that, just because it is a\nscience, its conclusions carried with them no obligatory force with\nreference to human conduct. As a science, it tells us that certain\nmodes of action lead to certain results; but it remains for each man\nto judge of the value of the results thus brought about, and to decide\nwhether or not it is worth while to adopt the means necessary for\ntheir attainment. In the writings of the economists who preceded Mill,\nit is very generally assumed, that to prove that a certain course of\nconduct tends to the most rapid increase of wealth suffices to entail\nupon all who accept the argument the obligation of adopting the course\nwhich leads to this result. Mill absolutely repudiated this inference,\nand, while accepting the theoretic conclusion, held himself perfectly\nfree to adopt in practice whatever course he preferred. It was not for\npolitical economy or for any science to say what are the ends most\nworthy of being pursued by human beings; the task of science is\ncomplete when it shows us the means by which the ends may be attained;\nbut it is for each individual man to decide how far the end is\ndesirable at the cost which its attainment involves. In a word, the\nsciences should be our servants, and not our masters. This was a\nlesson which Mill was the first to enforce, and by enforcing which he\nmay be said to have emancipated economists from the thraldom of their\nown teaching. It is in no slight degree through the constant\nrecognition of its truth, that he has been enabled to divest of\nrepulsiveness even the most abstract speculations, and to impart a\nglow of human interest to all that he has touched.\n\nJ. E. CAIRNES.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nHIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES.\n\n\nSome time ago, when there was no reason to suppose that we should so\nsoon have to mourn the loss of the great thinker and of the kind\nfriend who has just passed away, I had occasion to remark upon the\ninfluence which Mr. Mill had exercised at the universities. I will\nquote my words as they stand, because it is difficult to write with\nimpartiality about one whose recent death we are deploring; and Mr.\nMill would, I am sure, have been the first to say, that it is\ncertainly not honoring the memory of one who is dead to lavish upon\nhim praise which would not be bestowed upon him if he were living. I\nwill therefore repeat my words exactly as they were written two years\nsince: 'Any one who has resided during the last twenty years at either\nof our universities must have noticed that Mr. Mill is the author who\nhas most powerfully influenced nearly all the young men of the\ngreatest promise.' In thus referring to the powerful influence\nexercised by Mr. Mill's works, I do not wish it to be supposed that\nthis influence is to be measured by the extent to which his books form\na part of the university _curriculum_. His \"Logic\" has no doubt\nbecome a standard examination-book at Oxford. At Cambridge the\nmathematical and classical triposes still retain their former\n_prestige_. The moral science tripos, though increasing in importance,\nstill attracts a comparatively small number of students, and there is\nprobably no other examination for which it is necessary to read Mr.\nMill's \"Logic\" and \"Political Economy.\" This fact affords the most\nsatisfactory evidence that the influence he has exerted is\nspontaneous, and is therefore likely to be lasting in its effects. If\nstudents had been driven to read his books by the necessity which\nexaminations impose, it is quite possible, that, after the\nexamination, the books might never be looked at again. A resident,\nhowever, at the university can scarcely fail to be struck with the\nfact, that many who perfectly well know that they will never in any\nexamination be asked to answer a question in logic or political\neconomy are among the most diligent students of Mr. Mill's books. When\nI was an undergraduate, I well remember that most of my friends who\nwere likely to take high mathematical honors were already so\nultimately acquainted with Mr. Mill's writings, and were so much\nimbued with their spirit, that they might have been regarded as his\ndisciples. Many looked up to him as their teacher; many have since\nfelt that he then instilled into them principles, which, to a great\nextent, have guided their conduct in after life. Any one who is\nintimately acquainted with Mr. Mill's writings will readily understand\nhow it is that they possess such peculiar attractiveness for the class\nof readers to whom I am now referring. There is nothing more\ncharacteristic in his writings than generosity and courage. He always\nstates his opponent's case with the most judicial impartiality. He\nnever shrinks from the expression of opinion because he thinks it\nunpopular; and there is nothing so abhorrent to him as that bigotry\nwhich prevents a man from appreciating what is just and true in the\nviews of those who differ from him. This toleration, which is so\npredominant a feature of his writings, is probably one of the rarest\nof all qualities in a controversialist. Those who do not possess it\nalways produce an impression that they are unfair; and this\nimpression, once produced, exercises a repelling influence upon the\nyoung. Another cause of the attractiveness of Mr. Mill's writings is\nthe precision with which his views are expressed, and the systematic\nform which is given to his opinions. Confidence is reposed in him as a\nguide, because it is found that there is some definite goal to which\nhe is leading his readers: he does not conduct them they know not\nwhither, as a traveller who has lost his way in a mist, or a navigator\nwho is steering his ship without a compass. The influence exercised by\nMr. Mill does not chiefly depend upon the originality of his writings.\nHe did not make any great discovery which will form an epoch in the\nhistory of human thought; he did not create a new science, or become\nthe founder of a new system of philosophy. There is perhaps not so\nmuch originality in his \"Political Economy\" as in Ricardo's; but there\nare thousands who never thought of reading Ricardo who were so much\nattracted by Mr. Mill's book, that its influence might be traced\nthroughout the rest of their lives. No doubt one reason of his\nattractiveness as a writer, in addition to other circumstances to\nwhich allusion has already been made, is the unusual power he\npossessed in applying philosophical principles to the facts of\nordinary life. To those who believe that the influence Mr. Mill has\nexercised at the universities has been in the highest degree\nbeneficial,--to those who think that his books not only afford the\nmost admirable intellectual training, but also are calculated to\nproduce a most healthy moral influence,--it may be some consolation,\nnow that we are deploring his death, to know, that, although he has\npassed away, he may still continue to be a teacher and a guide. I\nbelieve he never visited the English universities: it was consequently\nentirely through his books that he was known. Not one of those who\nwere his greatest admirers at Cambridge, when I was an undergraduate,\never saw him till many years after they had left the University. I\nremember that we often used to say, that there was nothing we should\nesteem so great a privilege as to spend an hour in Mr. Mill's society.\nThere is probably no bond of attachment stronger than that which\nunites a pupil to one who has attracted him to new intellectual\npursuits, and has awakened in him new interests in life. Some four or\nfive years after taking my degree, I met Mr. Mill for the first time;\nand from that hour an intimate friendship commenced, which I shall\nalways regard as a peculiarly high privilege to have enjoyed. Intimacy\nwith Mr. Mill convinced me, that, if he had happened to live at either\nof the universities, his personal influence would have been no less\nstriking than his intellectual influence. Nothing, perhaps, was so\nremarkable in his character as his tenderness to the feelings of\nothers, and the deference with which he listened to those in every\nrespect inferior to himself. There never was a man who was more\nentirely free from that intellectual conceit which breeds disdain.\nNothing is so discouraging and heart-breaking to young people as the\nsneer of an intellectual cynic. A sarcasm about an act of youthful\nmental enthusiasm not only often casts a fatal chill over the\ncharacter, but is resented as an injury never to be forgiven. The most\nhumble youth would have found in Mr. Mill the warmest and most kindly\nsympathy.\n\nIt may be said, if Mr. Mill has not become the founder of a new\nphilosophical school at the universities where must we seek the result\nof his influence? I cannot give any thing like a complete reply to\nthis question now; but any one who has observed the marked change\nwhich has come over the mode of thought in the universities in the\nlast few years will be able to form some idea of the kind of influence\nwhich has been exercised by Mr. Mill. Speaking generally, he has\nobtained a very wide acceptance of the utilitarian doctrines: they\nwere presented by Bentham in a form so harsh and unattractive as to\nproduce an almost repelling effect. Mr. Mill, on the contrary, showed\nthat the utilitarian philosophy might inspire the most active\nbenevolence and the most generous enthusiasm. This acceptance of\nutilitarianism has produced a very striking effect in modifying the\npolitical opinions prevalent in the universities. For many years what\nhas been known as the liberalism of young Oxford and Cambridge is in\nmany respects fundamentally different from what is known as liberalism\noutside the universities. The liberalism of the universities, as well\nas that of the Manchester school, are both popularly described as\nadvanced but between the two there is in many essentials the widest\npossible divergence. What is known as Philosophical Radicalism will\nlong bear the impression of Mr. Mill's teaching.\n\nIt should be particularly remembered, that, avowing himself a liberal,\nhe never forgot that it is the essence of true liberalism to be\ntolerant of opinions from which one differs, and to appreciate the\nadvantages of branches of learning to which one has not devoted\nspecial attention. It is somewhat rare to find that those who profess\nthemselves undoubted liberals are prepared to accept a consistent\napplication of their principles. There is almost sure to be some\nregion of inquiry which they regard as so dangerous that they regret\nthat any one should enter upon it. Sometimes it is said that freedom\nof thought, though admirable in politics, is mischievous in theology:\nsome, advancing what they believe to be one step further, express a\ngeneral approbation of freedom of thought, but stigmatize\nfree-thinkers. Again, it may be not infrequently observed that\ndevotion to some particular study makes men illiberal to other\nbranches of knowledge. Metaphysicians and physiologists who have never\ntaken the trouble to master mathematical principles dogmatically\ndenounce the influence of mathematics. Eminent classics and\nmathematicians have too frequently sneered at each other's studies. No\none was ever more free from this kind of bigotry than Mr. Mill, and it\nprobably constitutes one of the main causes of his influence. Some\nyears ago I happened to be conversing at Cambridge with three men who\nwere respectively of great eminence in mathematics, classics, and\nphysiology. We were discussing the inaugural address which Mr. Mill\nhad just delivered as rector of the St. Andrew's University. The\nmathematician said, that he had never seen the advantages to be\nderived from the study of mathematics so justly and so forcibly\ndescribed; the same remark was made by the classic about classics, and\nby the physiologist about natural science. No more fitting homage can\nprobably be offered to the memory of one to whom so many of us are\nbound by the strongest ties of gratitude and affection, than if,\nprofiting by his example, we endeavor to remember, that above all\nthings he was just to his opponents, that he appreciated opinions from\nwhich he differed, and that one of his highest claims to our\nadmiration was his general sympathy with all branches of knowledge.\n\nHENRY FAWCETT.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nHIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN.\n\n\nEvery one must be familiar with the often expressed opinion, that, as\na practical politician, Mr. Mill's career was essentially a failure.\nIt has been said a thousand times that the principal result of his\nbrief representation of Westminster was to furnish an additional\nproof, if one were wanted, that a philosopher is totally incapable of\nexercising any useful influence in the direction of practical\npolitics. It is proposed briefly to examine this opinion, though it\nmay, indeed, with truth be urged that the present time is not\ncalculated to make the examination an impartial one. The inquiry\ninvolves an almost constant reference, either expressed or implied, to\nMr. Mill's personal character and influence, and it is hardly possible\nfor those who are mourning him as a friend to speak of these\ndispassionately. It is perhaps hardly necessary at such a time as this\nto ask the indulgence of the reader if this unworthy tribute to the\nmemory of a great man is colored by personal reverence and gratitude.\n\nWhen, it is said that Mr. Mill failed as a practical politician,\nthere are two questions to be asked: \"Who says he has failed?\" And\n\"What is it said that he failed in?\" Now, it seems that the persons\nwho are loudest in the assertion of his failure are precisely those to\nwhom the reforms advocated by Mr. Mill in his writings are\ndistasteful. They are those who pronounce all schemes of electoral\nreform embodying the principle of proportional representation to be\nthe result of a conspiracy of fools and rogues; they are those who\nsneer at the \"fanciful rights of women;\" they are those who think our\npresent land tenure eminently calculated to make the rich contented,\nand keep the poor in their proper places; they are those who believe\nthat republicans and atheists ought to be treated like vermin, and\nexterminated accordingly; they are those who think that all must be\nwell with England if her imports and exports are increasing, and that\nwe are justified in repudiating our foreign engagements, if to\nmaintain them would have an injurious effect upon trade. The assertion\nof failure coming from such persons does not mean that Mr. Mill failed\nto promote the practical success of those objects the advocacy of\nwhich forms the chief feature of his political writings. It is rather\na measure of his success in promoting these objects, and of the\ndisgust with which his success is regarded by those who are opposed to\nhis political ideas. It was known, or ought to have been known, by\nevery one who supported Mr. Mill's candidature in 1865, that he was a\npowerful advocate of proportional representation, and that he\nattributed the very greatest importance to the political, industrial,\nand social emancipation of women; he advocated years ago, in his\n\"Political Economy,\" the scheme of land tenure reform with which his\nname is now practically associated; his essay \"On Liberty\" left no\ndoubt as to his opinions upon the value of maintaining freedom of\nthought and speech, his article entitled \"A Few Words on\nNon-intervention\" might have warned the partisans of the Manchester\nschool that he had no sympathy with their views on foreign policy.\nThere is little doubt that the majority of Mr. Mill's supporters in\n1865 did not know what his political opinions were, and that they\nvoted for him simply on his reputation as a great thinker. A large\nnumber, however, probably supported him, knowing in a general way the\nviews advocated in his writings, but thinking that he would probably\nbe like many other politicians, and not allow his practice to be in\nthe least degree influenced by his theories. Just as radical heirs\napparent are said to lay aside all inconvenient revolutionary opinions\nwhen they come to the throne, it was believed that Mr. Mill in\nParliament would be an entirely different person from Mr. Mill in his\nstudy. It was one thing to write an essay in favor of proportional\nrepresentation it was another thing to assist in the insertion of the\nprinciple of proportional representation in the Reform Bill, and to\nform a school of practical politicians who took care to insure the\nadoption of this principle in the school board elections. It was one\nthing to advocate theoretically the claims of women to representation\nit was another to introduce the subject into the House of Commons, to\npromote an active political organization in its favor, and thus to\nconvert it, from a philosophical dream, into a question of pressing\nand practical importance. It was one thing to advocate freedom of\nthought and discussion in all political and religious questions it was\nanother to speak respectfully of Mr. Odger, and to send Mr. Bradlaugh\na contribution toward the expenses of his candidature for Northampton.\nThe discovery that Mr. Mill's chief objects in Parliament were the\nsame as his chief objects out of Parliament branded him at once as an\nunpractical man: and his success in promoting these objects\nconstituted his \"failure\" as a politician. His fearless disregard of\nunpopularity, as manifested in his prosecution, in conjunction with\nMr. P.A. Taylor, of Ex-Governor Eyre, was another proof that he was\nentirely unlike the people who call themselves \"practical\npoliticians.\" His persistency in conducting this prosecution was one\nof the main causes of his defeat at the election of 1868.\n\nIf to be unpopular because he promoted the practical success of the\nopinions his life had been spent in advocating is to have failed, then\nMr. Mill failed. If, however, the success of a politician is to be\nmeasured by the degree in which he is able personally to influence the\ncourse of politics, and attach to himself a school of political\nthought, then Mr. Mill, in the best meaning of the words, has\nsucceeded. If Mr. Mill had died ten years ago, is it probable that his\nviews on representative reform would have received so much practical\nrecognition as they have obtained during the last five years? If he\nhad never entered the House of Commons, would the women's-suffrage\nquestion be where it now is? Before he introduced the subject into the\nHouse of Commons in 1867, it may be said to have had no political\nexistence in this country. The whole question was held in such\ncontempt by \"practical politicians,\" that the House would probably\nhave refused to listen to any member, except Mr. Mill, who advocated\nthe removal of the political disabilities of women. Mr. Mill was the\none member of Parliament whose high intellectual position enabled him\nto raise the question without being laughed down as a fool. To every\none's astonishment, seventy-four members followed Mr. Mill into the\nlobby: the most sanguine estimate, previous to the division, of the\nnumber of his supporters had been thirty. Since that time, the\nmovement in favor of women's suffrage has made rapid and steady\nprogress. Like all genuine political movements, it has borne fruit in\nmany measures which are intended to remove the grievances of which\nthose who advocate the movement complain: among these collateral\nresults of the agitation for women's suffrage, may be enumerated the\nMarried Women's Property Act, the Custody of Infants Bill, and the\nadmission of women to the municipal and educational franchises and to\nseats upon school-boards. A large part of the present anxiety to\nimprove the education of girls and women is also due to the conviction\nthat the political disabilities of women will not be maintained. In\nthis question of the general improvement of the position of women, Mr.\nMill's influence can scarcely be over-estimated. All through his life\nhe regarded it as a question of first-rate importance; and the extent\nto which he was able practically to promote it is sufficient in itself\nto make his career as a politician a success. A strong proof of the\nvitality of the movement, of which he was the principal originator, is\nthat his death cannot injuriously affect its activity or its prospects\nof ultimate success. What he has done for women is final: he gave to\ntheir service the best powers of his mind and the best years of his\nlife. His death consecrates the gift: it can never lessen its value.\n\nWhat is true of Mr. Mill's influence on the women's-suffrage question\nis true also of the other political movements in which he took an\nactive interest. He was able in all of these powerfully to influence\nthe political history of his day in the direction in which he desired\nto influence it. If this is failure, failure is worth much more than\nsuccess.\n\nOf the influence of Mr. Mill's personal character on those who were\nhis political associates, it is difficult to speak too warmly. No one\ncould be with him or work with him without being conscious of\nbreathing a purer moral atmosphere: he made mean personal ambitions\nand rivalries seem despicable and ridiculous, not so much by any thing\nthat he said directly on the subject, as by contrast with his own\nnoble, strong, and generous nature. It is almost impossible to imagine\nthat any one could be so insensible to the high morality of Mr. Mill's\ncharacter as to suggest to him any course of conduct that was not\nentirely upright and consistent. A year or two ago, however, a story\nwas told of a gentleman who asked Mr. Mill to stand for an Irish\nconstituency, and stated that the only opinion it would be necessary\nfor him to change was the one he had so often expressed against\ndenominational education. A smile at the man's stupidity, and the\nremark, \"I should like to have seen Mill's face when he heard this\nsuggestion,\" is the almost invariable comment on this story. It is a\nvery suggestive indication of the impression Mr. Mill's moral\ninfluence made on those who knew him.\n\nAn apology is due to the readers of these pages that the task of\nspeaking of Mr. Mill as a practical politician has not fallen into\nmore competent hands. No one can be more deeply sensible of my\ninability to deal adequately with the subject than I am myself. This\nsketch ought to have been written by one who is in every way more\nqualified to speak of Mr. Mill's political career than I am.\nUnavoidable circumstances, however, prevented his undertaking the\nwork; and as the time was too short to allow of any being spent in a\nsearch that might have proved fruitless, the honor of writing these\nlines has devolved upon me.\n\nMILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nHIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM.[2]\n\nThe present course of lectures on a special subject has made no\npretension to present the religious aspect of Positivism, and I shall\nnot venture to intrude on one of its gravest functions the due\ncommemoration of the dead. But nothing that is spoken here should have\na merely scientific form, nor can I be satisfied until I have tried to\ngive expression to the feeling which must be foremost in the minds of\nall present. It is impossible to forget that it was by Mr. Mill that\nComte was first made known in this country, and that by him first in\nthis country the great doctrines of positive thought, the supreme\nreign of law in the moral and social world, no less than in the\nintellectual world, were reduced to system and life. This conception\nas a whole has been gradually forming in the minds of all modern\nthinkers; but its full scope and force were presented to Englishmen\nfor the first time by Mr. Mill. The growth of my own mind, and of that\nof all those with whom I have been associated, has been simply the\nrecognition of this truth in all its bearings and force; and it was\nin minds saturated with this principle by the teaching of Mr. Mill\nthat the great phases of English thought have germinated in our day.\nIn this place it is impossible to forget, that, in introducing to the\nEnglish world the principles of Comte, Mr. Mill so clearly and\nardently professed the positive philosophy at that time restricted to\nits earlier phase alone. In this place it is impossible, too, to\nforget the generous assistance which he extended to Comte, whereby he\nwas enabled to continue his labors in philosophy, impossible also to\nforget the active communion of mind between them, and the large space\nwhich their intercourse occupied in the thoughts and labors of both.\nNor can I, and many present here, forget the many occasions on which\nwe have been guided by his counsel and supported by his help in many a\npractical work in which we have depended on his example and\nexperience. It is needless to repeat, for it must be present to all\nminds, how many and deep are the differences which separate him from\nthe later doctrines of Comte, and how completely he repudiated\nconnection with the religious reconstruction of Positivism. We here,\nat any rate, shall claim Mr. Mill for Positivism in no other sense\nthan that in which he claimed it for himself in his own latest\nwritings. These differences we shall neither exaggerate nor veil. They\nstand all written most clearly for all men to weigh and to use. But\nnaturally we shall point, as one of us has already publicly pointed,\nto the cardinal features of agreement, and the vast importance of the\nfeatures for which we may claim the whole weight of his authority. Yet\nI would not pretend that it is only on this side of his connection\nwith the founder and principles of Positivism, that we dwell on the\nmemory of Mr. Mill with admiration and sympathy. We reverence that\nunfaltering fearlessness of spirit, that warmth of generous emotion,\nthat guileless simplicity of nature, which made his life heroic.\nNeither insult, failure, nor abandonment could shake his sense of\nduty, or touch his gentle and serene fortitude. For us his high\nexample, his noble philosophic calm, continue to live and to teach.\nHe, being dead, yet speaketh. And, if his great heart and brain are no\nlonger amongst us as visible and conscious agencies, his spirit lives\nyet in all that he has given to the generation of to-day: the work of\nhis spirit is not ended, nor the task of his life accomplished; but we\nfeel that his nature is entering on a new and greater life amongst\nus,--one that is entirely spiritual, intellectual, and moral.\n\nFREDERIC HARRISON.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n     [2] Part of a lecture on \"Political Institutions,\" delivered\n     at the Positivist School, May 11.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nHIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER.\n\n\nIt is always hazardous to forecast the estimation in which any man\nwill be held by posterity. In one sense truly we have no right to\nanticipate the judgment of the future, sufficient for us to form\nopinions satisfactory within the limits of our own generation.\nSometimes, by evil chance, a great name is covered with undeserved\nreproach; and it is reserved for a distant future to do it justice.\nBut such a work as Mr. Carlyle did for Cromwell we may confidently\nanticipate will never be required for the name of John Stuart Mill. He\nis already enrolled among the first of contemporary thinkers, and from\nthat list his name will never be erased. The nature of Mr. Mill's work\nis such as to make it easy to predict the character of his future\nreputation. His is the kind of philosophy that is destined to become\nthe commonplace of the future. We may anticipate that many of his most\nremarkable views will become obsolete in the best sense: they will\nbecome worked up into practice, and embodied in institutions. Indeed,\nthe place that he will hold will probably be closely resembling that\nof the great father of English philosophy,--John Locke. There is\nindeed, amid distinguishing differences, a remarkable similarity\nbetween the two men, and the character of their influence on the\nworld. What Locke was to the liberal movements of the seventeenth\ncentury, Mr. Mill has more than been to the liberal movement of the\nnineteenth century. The intellectual powers of the two men had much in\ncommon, and they were exercised upon precisely similar subjects. The\n\"Essay on the Human Understanding\" covered doubtless a field more\npurely psychological than the \"Logic;\" but we must remember that the\n\"Analysis of the Mind\" by the elder Mill had recently carried the\ninductive study of mind to an advanced point. If, however, we regard\nless the topics on which these two illustrious men wrote, than the\nspecial service rendered by each of them to intellectual progress, we\nmay not unfittingly compare the work of Locke--the descent from\nmetaphysics to psychology--to the noble purpose of redeeming logic\nfrom the superstition of the Aristotelians, and exalting it to\nsomething higher than a mere verbal exercise for school-boys. The\nattack that Locke opened with such tremendous effect on the _a priori_\nschool of philosophy was never more ably supported than by the \"Logic\"\nand controversial writings of Mr. Mill.\n\nThe remarkable fact in regard to both these great thinkers--these\nconquerors in the realms of abstract speculation--is their relation to\npolitics. Locke was the political philosopher of the Revolution of\n1688; Mr. Mill has been the political philosopher of the democracy of\nthe nineteenth century. The vast space that lies between their\ntreatises represents a difference, not in the men, but in the times.\nLocke found opposed to the common weal an odious theory of arbitrary\nand absolute power. It is interesting to remember what were the giants\nnecessary to be slain in those days. The titles of his first chapters\non \"Government\" significantly attest the rudimentary condition of\npolitical philosophy in Locke's day. Adam was generally considered to\nhave had a divine power of government, which was transmitted to a\nfavored few of his descendants. Accordingly Locke disposes of Adam's\ntitle to sovereignty to whatever origin it may have been ascribed,--to\n\"creation,\" \"donation,\" \"the subjection of Eve,\" or \"fatherhood.\"\nThere is something almost ludicrous in discussing fundamental\nquestions of government with reference to such scriptural topics; and\nit is a striking evidence of the change that has passed over England\nsince the Revolution, that, whereas Locke's argument looks like a\ncommentary on the Bible, even the bishops now do not in Parliament\nquote the Bible on the question of marriage with a deceased wife's\nsister. Nevertheless Locke clearly propounded the great principle,\nwhich, in spite of many errors and much selfishness, has been the\nfruitful heritage of the Whig party. \"Political power, then, I take to\nbe a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently\nall less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and\nof employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws,\nand in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, _and all\nthis only for the public good_.\" Locke also enounced the maxim, that\nthe state of nature is one of equality. Mr. Mill's special views on\nthe land question are not without parallel in Locke; for that acute\nthinker distinctively laid down that \"labor\" was the true ground even\nof property in land. Still it must be confessed that Locke's political\nphilosophy is much cruder than Mr. Mill's. His \"Essay on Government\"\nis as the rough work of a boy of genius, the \"Representative\nGovernment\" a finished work of art of the experienced master. And this\ndifference corresponds with the rate of political progress. The\nEnglish constitution, as we now understand it, was unknown at the\nRevolution: it had to be slowly created. Now the great task of the\nfuture is to raise the mass of the people to a higher standard of\npolitical intelligence and material comfort. To that great end no man\nhas contributed so much as Mr. Mill.\n\nPerhaps the one writing for which above all others Mr. Mill's\ndisciples will love his memory is his essay \"On Liberty.\" In this\nundertaking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with\ngreater largeness of view and perfection of work. Locke's four letters\n\"Concerning Toleration\" constitute a splendid manifesto of the\nLiberals of the seventeenth century. The principle, that the ends of\npolitical society are life, health, liberty, and immunity from harm,\nand not the salvation of souls, has taken nearly two centuries to root\nitself in English law, but has long been recognized by all but the\nshallowest bigots. And yet Locke spoke of \"atheism being a crime,\nwhich, for its madness as well as guilt, ought to shut a man out of\nall sober and civil society.\" Here again, what a stride does the\n_Liberty_ make? It is, once more, the difference of the times, rather\nthan of the men. The same noble and prescient insight into the springs\nof national greatness and social progress characterizes the work of\nboth men, but in what different measures? Again, we must say, the\ndisciple is greater than the master. Closely bearing on this topic is\nthe relation of the two men to Christianity. Locke not only wrote to\nshow the \"Reasonableness of Christianity,\" but paraphrased several of\nthe books of the New Testament. Mr. Mill has never written one\nsentence to give the least encouragement to Christianity. But,\nalthough a contrast appears to exist, there is really none. Locke was\nwhat may be called a Bible Christian. He rejected all theological\nsystems, and constructed his religious belief in the truly Protestant\nway,--with the Bible and his inner consciousness. His creed was the\nBible as conformed to reason; but he never doubted which, in the event\nof a conflict, ought to give way. To him the destructive criticism of\nbiblical scholars and the discoveries of geology had given no\ndisquietude; and he died with the happy conviction, that, without\nabandoning his religious teaching, he could remain faithful to reason.\nMr. Mill inherited a vast controversy, and he had to make a choice\nlike Locke, he remained faithful only to reason.\n\nPerhaps, it might be urged, this comparison leaves out of account the\nvery greatest work of Mr. Mill,--his 'Political Economy.' Locke lived\ntoo soon to be an Adam Smith; but, curiously enough, the parallel is\nnot broken even at this point. In 1691 and again in 1695 he wrote,\n\"Some considerations of the consequences of the lowering of interest,\nand raising the value of money,\" in which he propounded among other\nviews, that, \"taxes, however contrived, and out of whose hands soever\nimmediately taken, do, in a country where the great fund is in land\nfor the most part terminate upon land.\" There is of course no\ncomparison between the two men on this head: nevertheless it is\ninteresting to note in prototype the germs of the great work of Mr.\nMill. It shows the remarkable and by no means accidental similarity\nbetween the men.\n\nThe parallel is already too much drawn out, otherwise it would be\nworth observing on the characters and lives of these two men. Enough,\nhowever, has been said to show that we may not unreasonably anticipate\nfor Mr. Mill a future such as has fallen to Locke. His wisdom will be\nthe commonplace of other times: his theories will be realized in\npolitical institutions; and we may hope and believe the working-class\nwill rise to such a standard of wealth and culture and political power\nas to realize the generous aspirations of one of England's greatest\nsons.\n\nW.A. HUNTER.","title":"John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works: Twelve Sketches by Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, and Other Distinguished Authors","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":24325}