On the other hand,he has in the highest degree the power of single-minded devotion,which is pre-eminently,though not exclusively,a feminine quality.His intellect fitted him for abstract speculation,rather than for immediate practical applications.But he was from his youth upwards devoted to the spread of principles which he held to be essential to human happiness.No philanthropist or religious teacher could labour more energetically and unremittingly for the good of mankind.He never forgets the bearing of his speculations upon this ultimate end.Whatever his limitations,he brought the whole energy of a singularly clear,comprehensive,and candid intellect to bear upon the greatest problems of his time;and worked at them with unflagging industry for many years.He was eminently qualified to bring out the really strong points of his creed;while his perfect intellectual honesty forced him frankly to display its weaker side.Through Mill English Utilitarianism gave the fullest account of its method and its presuppositions.In summarising his work,I must dwell less than I have hitherto done upon surrounding conditions;and take his books,nearly in the order of publication,as representing the final outcome of Utilitarianism.He virtually answers in the Logic the question,what are the ultimate principles by which the Utilitarians had more or less unconsciously been guided.I shall first deal with this.I shall then take his Political Economy,as showing how these principles applied to sociology,which ought,upon his showing,to be the crowning science.Then I shall take the political speculations,which are a further application of the same principles;and,finally,deal with his views in ethics and in philosophy generally.
NOTES:
1.Mill's Autobiography (1873)is the main authority.Professor Bain's John Stuart Mill:a Criticism with Personal Recollections (1882),is a necessary supplement,and gives an excellent summary.The most interesting later publications are the correspondence with Gustave d'Eichthal (1898)and the correspondence with Comte.Comte's letters were published by the Positivist Society in 1877,and the whole edited by M.Ly-Bruhl in 1899.The Memories of Old Friends,by Caroline Fox (1882),gives some interesting accounts of Mill's conversation in 1840,etc.
2.Bentham's Works,x,472.
3.Cf.letter of 30th July,1819in Bain's J.S.Mill,pp.6to 9.
4.Given in Dictionary of National Biography.
5.Autobiography,p.52.
6.Autobiography,p.30.
7.Bain's J.S.Mill,p.84.
8.Mill's Autobiography,p.43;Bain's James Mill,p.90.
9.Autobiography,p.58.
10.Mill does not here make especial reference to his father,of whom,however,he had said before that he shared the ordinary English weakness of starving the feelings from dislike of expressing them.One would be inclined to guess that James Mill exaggerated rather than shared that feeling.
11.Autobiography,p.108.
12.Autobiography,p.66.
13.It was not necessary at this time for an undergraduate to sign the Thirty-nine Articles as Bain supposes.From 1773a graduate had to make the declaration that he was a 'bona fide member of the church of England,'whatever that may mean,but any one might be a member of the University and pass the examinations.Sylvester,for example,though a Jew,was second wrangler in 1837.
14.Dissertations,i.193.
15.The name soon became popular.Southey,writing to Henry Taylor (12th April,1827),call them 'Futilitarians'(Life and Correspondence).Taylor was on friendly terms with the set,and gives some account of them and the later debating society.See Autobiography,i.77-95;and Correspondence,pp.30,72.
16.About this period,Mill,then aged seventeen or eighteen,took part with some friends in distributing a pamphlet called 'What is Love?'advocating what are now called Neo-Malthusian principles.The police interferred,and some scandal was caused.
An allusion to this performance --which shows Mill's enthusiasm and honesty,if not his discretion --appeared in an article by Abraham Hayward upon Mill's death.Hayward was attacked by W.D.
Christie in an indignant pamphlet,which gives a sufficient statement of the facts.See Cobden's Political Works,vi,421(August 1824),for a reference to this affair.
17.Bain thinks that J.S.Mill wrote the article in the Review upon the Carlile prosecution in July 1824.I cannot admit this opinion.If so,Mill was a more capable journalist than the other articles would imply.But --apart from questions of style --Icannot thing that Mill would have gone out of his way to avow a belief in Christianity,as is done by the writer of the article.
18.In the collective edition of Bentham's Works the treatise occupies about 900double-column pages of some 500words to a column.If 500days were given to the task,this would mean an average output of 1500words a day.
19.Autobiography,p.133.
20.Bain's J.S.Mill,pp.43,45,90,95.
