The letters of John Stuart Mill;

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Preface

On Mill's death in 1873, he left behind him an almost complete record of his correspondence over a large period of his life. Painstaking and assiduous to a unique degree, he rarely wrote a letter even on unimportant matters without a liberal sprinkling of erasures and interlineations, which often made its deciphering a task of some difficulty. He therefore formed the habit of transcribing every letter he wrote after he had revised it ; the transcribed letter he despatched to his correspondent, while he himself carefully preserved the rough draft. These rough drafts accumulated in the course of years to many thousands, and it is from them that the bulk of the present book is taken. It was clearly Mill's intention that a selection of them should be published after his death, for across many of them he had written — " For publication. J. S. Mill." While I have included in the present collection all those so marked by Mill, even though in some cases their interest at the present day hardly seemed to justify it, I have inserted in addition a large number which he had not marked, but which appeared to me to possess an interest, either on account of modern developments in political and philosophical speculation, or on some other grounds.

The first three chapters of the book are derived from a different source. With the exception of one letter to Gustave d'Eichthal, they consist exclusively of letters to Carlyle, John Sterling, and Lytton Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton). The letters to Sterling are printed from the letters actually sent by Mill, which were apparently returned by Sterling's relatives after his death. In the case of the letters to Carlyle and Bulwer, I have not had vi PREFACE

access to the originals, but only to copies. The Carlyle side of the correspondence is preserved with the Mill papers ; but I have failed to obtain permission to print it.

I have generally excluded from the present collection such letters as have already been published in other works — those for instance appearing in Mrs. Grote's Life of her husband, in Duncan's " Life of Herbert Spencer," in the " Memories " of Caroline Fox, in the Letters of Kingsley, of Gustave d'Eichthal, the " Lettres in^dites de Mill a Comte," &c., &c.

Miss Helen Taylor, to whom the letters passed when Mill died, took no steps towards their publication. Her death took place on 29th January 1907, and the letters then became the property of Miss Mary Taylor, daughter of Algernon Taylor, and grand-daughter of Mrs. Mill. She decided that the time had come for the publication of the letters, which are accordingly now presented to the public.

Among the various portraits included in the book, I wish to draw special attention to that of James Mill. Like tlie portrait published in Bain's " Life of James Mill," it is from a drawing that originally belonged to Mrs. Grote. It is the portrait of which Bain wrote in his preface to that biography : " A still better likeness was at one time in her possession, but I cannot learn what became of it." It may therefore be considered as the best existing likeness of James Mill. The frontispiece of vol. ii. is from the well-known Watts portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. This is not the portrait for which Mill actually sat, but is a copy of it made by Watts from his original, which is now in the possession of Sir Charles Dilke.

The index is the work of Mr. Richard Gurney, B.A.

HUGH ELLIOT.

Contents

INTRODUCTION xi

5oME Notes on the Private Life of John

Stuart Mill xxxix

Introduction

In the brief sketch of Mill's life and character that I am about to give, I propose to make very slight reference to his home life and domestic surroundings. I have been so fortunate as to secure from Miss Mary Taylor a short paper on this subject, embodying the information which she acquired from her father Mr. Algernon Taylor, and from her aunt Miss Helen Taylor, with whom she lived for a few years.

The family of Mill ^ sprang from a part of Scotland, on the slopes of the Grampian chain, that is famous for the production of metaphysical talent. James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, was the eldest son of a small shoemaker, who appears to have been an honest and intelligent man, but not notably different from his neighbours. The shoemaker's wife was believed to have been brought up in better circumstances, her descent in the world being due to the fact of her father joining in the Stuart rising of 1745. At all events, she set her heart from an early date on bringing up her eldest son as a gentleman. In this ambition she was greatly encouraged by the marvellous precocity that young James soon displayed. From the parish school of Logic Pert he passed to Montrose Academy, where he stayed till nearly eighteen. During the whole of his youth he was never once called upon to assist in his father's trade, or to work in the fields, or to do any other manual labour. His parents succeeded, not only in dispensing with his assistance, but in finding the money to carry him through a continuous

' The name Mill is the same as the common Scotch name of Milne. In James Mill's birth register, indeed, his father's name is spelt Milne. For this and other statements concerning James Mill, the authority is Bain's " Life of James Mill."

xii INTRODUCTION

course of education. That he can have had no superfluous luxuries is obvious ; his weekly board while at Montrose Academy is set down at half-a-crown. On leaving the Academy, he was appointed tutor to the daughter of Sir John Stuart of Fettercairn, the young lady who afterwards became the heroine of Scott's passion ; and being taken in this capacity to Edinburgh, was able to avail himself of the courses of study at Edinburgh University. It was probably while studying at Edinburgh University that he laid the foundation of many of his friendships in later life ; for his fellowstudents included Thomas M'Crie, John Leyden, Thomas Thomson the chemist, David Brewster, William Wallace, and Brougham.

The incidents of his life at this time and during the next ten or twelve years, are involved in obscurity. It is believed that he acted as tutor in various families ; but it was not till he had reached the age of twenty-nine that he went up to London, and commenced his literary career. At this time he is described as being strikingly handsome and well-proportioned, exceedingly attractive in conversation, and charming in manner. I need not trace the various stages of his literary progress. Suffice it to say that he was quickly appointed to two editorships, bringing in over ;^5oo a year, and that two years after his arrival in London he married Harriet Burrow, a young woman of Yorkshire family, daughter of a widow who kept an establishment for lunatics at Hoxton. The marriage was never happy. From the letters of hers which I have had the opportunity of examining, I have no doubt that she was of a kind and loving disposition, but not competent to enter into the exalted intellectual occupations of her husband. Almost immediately after his marriage Mill lost both his editorships, and thereafter appears to have been thrown for his support wholly upon what he could earn with his pen. The difficulties which beset him may easily be imagined, when I mention that his family went on increasing until he ultimately had no fewer than nine children.

INTRODUCTION xiii

It is with the eldest of this numerous family that we have here specially to deal. John Stuart Mill was born on 2oth May 1806, and from the earliest age was subjected to that remarkable experiment in education which I shall shortly describe. The remainder of James Mill's career need not detain us long. It was during the period of his greatest poverty that he wrote the "History of British India," the most famous of all his writings. His labours at this time were enormous. He told Francis Place that his working day was from 5 A.M. to 1 1 P.M.^ The work took him ten years to execute, hampered as he was by the necessity of writing for his living and educating his children. Soon after its completion, the influence of his friends procured him an appointment to the India House. Here his immense ability and energy gradually brought him to the highest post ; and on his death from consumption in 1836, he was in the enjoyment of a salary of ^2000 a year. The best known of his later writings was his " Analysis of the Human Mind " ; a very able, though, from a modern standpoint, a very incomplete exposition of Psychology ; being largely devoted to an attempt to analyse complex emotions into elementary sensations, under the law of Association.

During his lifetime he was best known as the lieutenant and fervent disciple of Jeremy Bentham. His friendship with Bentham was, indeed, one of the most important factors in his career. At the time when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, Bentham assisted him, not only by letting him a house in London at half the normal rent, but by entertaining him at his place. Ford Abbey in Devonshire, for many months together, year after year. Mill accepted Bentham's principles in their entirety, and drove them everywhere to their logical conclusions. On Bentham's death he fell naturally into the position of leader of the Utilitarians ; and the standard expression of the views of the school at that time were summed up succinctly in his famous article on "Government " written for the supplement to the third edition of

' " The English Utilitarians," by Leslie Stephen, vol. ii. p. 23.

xiv INTRODUCTION

the Encyclopcedia Britannica. But we are here more nearly concerned with another article he wrote for the same publication — that, namely, on " Education." The theory underlying the two articles is in reality the same. In each Mill assumes the indefinite modifiability of human nature by education and environment. Just as in the article " Government " he assumes that a sound political organisation will remove all evils from the body politic, so, in the article " Education," he assumes that a sound system of education will remove all the evils in human nature. He adopts the theory of Helvetius that mankind are all born alike, that a child's mind is tabula rasa, on which may be indelibly stamped any impression it is desired to make, and that all human differences are solely due to differences in education. To believe in a principle was with Mill to apply it in every situation where there seemed any room whatever for its application ; and he was not slow to put his theories into practice in the education of his son.

During his early years, John Mill was subjected to so vehement and strenuous an education, as perhaps had never been seen before, and never will be seen again. James Mill was a man of iron will, of energy almost miraculous ; he was largely indifferent to pleasure or pain, and inaccessible to the softer sides of human existence. From the moment that John was born, he had decided what John should be. The details of the education are fully set forth in the " Autobiography," but may be recapitulated here. He started learning to read when he was two years old.^ He began the study of Greek when he was three ; and when he was still only seven, he had read the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's " Cyropaedia " and " Memorials of Socrates " ; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius ; part of Lucian, and Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. When he was eight, he read the first six dialogues of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theoctetus inclusive. Mill observes : " My father demanded of me not only the utmost that I

' "John Stuart Mill," by Alexander Bain, p. i.

INTRODUCTION xv

could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done." At this age Mill had undergone in addition an extended course of English reading, including Robertson's histories, Hume, Gibbon, Watson's " Philip the Second and Third," Hooke's " History of Rome," two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's " Ancient History of Greece," Langhorne's translation of Plutarch, Burnet's " History of His Own Time," the historical part of the "Annual Register " from the beginning down to about 1788, Millar's " Historical View of the English Government," Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," M'Crie's " Life of John Knox," Sewell and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers, and a number of other books besides. Thoroughly characteristic of James Mill's stern philosophy was his fondness for putting into his son's hands " books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them."

That Mill continued to flourish under this severe treatment must be attributed partly to the vigour of his own constitution, and partly to the fact that his father was one of the most brilliant men, and the leading psychologist of the age. Under less able guidance. Mill's youthful mind would assuredly have been crushed and maimed ; but in the hands of James Mill that fatality was avoided, and the precise result which he desired was achieved. When John was six years old, and his father's health seemed very precarious, Bentham wrote one of his characteristic letters, offering to undertake the guardianship of the child. It is addressed to James Mill from Queen's Square Place, dated Saturday, 25th July 1812, and runs as follows: —

" If in the meantime any such thing as dying should happen to you (for we are all mortal ! ! ! !), you having however between the act of such dying as aforesaid and the act of receiving these presents, time to make your will (which to the purpose in question may be done by word of mouth, but if you cannot write it yourself better have it set down in writing and read to you), if you will appoint me guardian to Mr. John Stuart Mill, I will, in the event of his father's being disposed of elsewhere, take VOL. I. b xvi INTRODUCTION

him to Q. S. P.' and there or elsewhere, by whipping or otherwise, do whatsoever may seem most necessary and proper, for teaching him to make all proper distinctions, such as between the Devil and the Holy Ghost, and how to make Codes and Encyclopaedias, and whatsoever else may be proper to be made, so long as I remain an inhabitant of this vale of tears, after which — but this must remain for God's providence to determine. . . ."

Clearly James Mill had been suffering from gout, for farther on in the same letter, Bentham offers to " come and sit with you, and help worship Mistink,^ and during the armistice of your arm, help whip Mr. John Mill."

To this Mill replied : ^ " I take your offer quite seriously, and then we may perhaps leave him a successor worthy of both of us."

From the eighth to the twelfth year Mill's education was carried forward on the same inexorable plan. The list of classical authors read during this period would be tedious to enumerate ; geometry and algebra were included in the curriculum, as also the differential calculus and other branches of the higher mathematics. He was exceedingly fond of history ; and while he was still eleven he had composed a Roman History, " picked out of Hooke " ; an " Abridgment of the Ancient Universal History " ; a " History of Holland " ; and a " History of the Roman Government," compiled from Livy and Dionysius. At twelve, he began logic and read the " Organon," though he observes that he " profited little by the Posterior Analytics." He read several Latin treatises on the scholastic logic.

In 1818 the "History of India" was published, and in the following year James Mill received his appointment to the India House. But his new duties did not cause him to relax the rigour of his son's education. When the latter was thirteen years of age, he took him through a complete course of political economy.

• Queen's Square Place. 2 The cat.

' "The English Utilitarians," by Leslie Stephen, vol. iii. d. 7.

INTRODUCTION xvii

The mode of instruction in political economy adopted by James Mill well exemplifies the methods of his teaching. To impart to a child of thirteen knowledge of a subject naturally so abstruse, and so forbidding to a youthful mind, involved all the grave dangers which " cramming " inevitably brings — a weakening of the intelligence by an undue tax on the receptive powers of the pupil. But Mill took care that his education should not degenerate into mere blind cramming. There was at that time no text-book which embodied the most recent results of economic science ; Ricardo's great work had not yet been published. So Mill, in the course of his daily walks with his son, delivered expositions to him on the subject, which John had to write out afterwards and hand to his father next day. The notes thus accumulated served as a basis for the " Elements of Political Economy " which James Mill subsequently wrote. These notes had to be written over and over again before the exacting father was satisfied.

When John had reached the age of fourteen, there occurred a break in his life which marks the end of his first period of education. He was invited by Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham, for a six months' visit in the South of France ; and the invitation being subsequently extended to twelve months, he was able to spend a year in gaining experience of the world from a totally new aspect. It may easily be imagined that a change from the strenuous and intellectual, though narrow, outlook of his father's household had become well-nigh a necessity. Life hitherto had been for him a purely intellectual experience. If it had been marred by no unhappiness or misery, neither had it brought any pleasures or intensity of feeling. Can we wonder, then, at the profound impression produced upon his young and ardent mind, when he first gazed upon the grand mountain scenery of the Pyrenees ? Here was a novel sensation indeed 1 Here was something, not intellectual, which yet produced a hitherto unexperienced elation of soul. Here, for the first time, his virgin emotions xviii INTRODUCTION

were deeply stirred ; the first ray of sunshine fell upon that germ in his character which afterwards sprang up, leading him to rebel against his father's creed and throw over the crabbed doctrines of the early utiHtarians.

His studies, however, were not discontinued during his residence in France. Chemistry, zoology, metaphysics, logic, were a few of the subjects to which he then devoted himself ; while he acquired at the same time a thorough acquaintance with the French language, his proficiency in which appears in the letters to distinguished Frenchmen scattered through the present volumes. He returned to England in 1821, and thereafter the course of his former studies was resumed. Psychology now occupied a great share of his attention. He studied Roman law with John Austin, and at the age of fifteen a mental revolution was wrought in him by the reading of Dumont's "Traite de Legislation," in which work the principal speculations of Bentham were interpreted to the world. This book supplied to Mill a system of philosophy ; it focussed his opinions, and gave him a creed, not drily maintained by the intellect, but enthusiastically supported by the whole mind. This doubtless marks the stage at which he first began to think for himself, to rely upon his own opinions, to take the first and most arduous step in his emancipation from the bondage of authority. With many persons this stage has been reached, as it was in Mill, by a sudden revolution, which is often delayed till comparatively late in life ; with others it is a slow growth ; while with the great majority it is never reached at all.

From this time forward Mill's intellectual cultivation was carried on by writing even more than by reading. He committed to paper various essays on political or historical subjects, which, besides the educative effect of preparing them, led to instructive conversations with his father. From this time also he commenced to converse with the able men collected round his father. He formed o c fr\ oil c /~i r* 1 ctT

INTRODUCTION xix

under the influence of Bentham and James Mill. To this society he gave the name of the UtiHtarian Society ; and the label thus selected gradually became adopted into the language to designate the system of views held by these thinkers. At the age of seventeen he entered upon his professional career with an appointment from the East India Company immediately under his father ; in which service he was destined to remain for thirty-five years, until the abolition of the Company in 1858.

The commencement of Mill's literary activities dates" from the foundation of the Westminster Review in 1824. Before that time he had written a few short articles in one or two newspapers, but they were of little importance. In 1823 Bentham formed the project of starting a review which should act as a vehicle for the expression of the views held by him and his disciples. At the same period, there happened to be projected a scheme for the foundation of a purely literary journal ; and the two projects were amalgamated, resulting in the issue of the first number of the Westminster Review in April 1824. •'^ attracted immediate notice, mainly on account of an article by James Mill criticising the Edinburgh Review since its foundation. The attack on the Edinburgh was continued by the son in the second number ; and thenceforward he continued to be closely associated with the Review, which took its place as the special organ of " Philosophic Radicalism."

About the beginning of 1825 a new work was undertaken by Mill — that of editing and preparing for the press Bentham's book on Evidence. Bentham had commenced the execution of this work no less than three times, but on each occasion had failed to complete it. His papers had already been used by Dumont as a foundation for his "Traits des Preuves Judiciaires " ; and he now entrusted Mill with the task of condensing the masses of manuscript into a single treatise. The chief value to Mill of this work was undoubtedly the opportunity which it afforded of cultivating his powers of composition. The practice which he derived from it

XX INTRODUCTION

benefited him to such an extent that he was able to say, " Everything which I wrote subsequently to this editorial employment was markedly superior to anything that I had written before it."

It was about this time that Mill tells us he passed through a critical period of nervous depression and mental inertia. He seems to have been troubled with all sorts of curious fancies. He was, for instance, " seriously tormented by the thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations. The octave consists only of five tones and two semi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways, of which but a small proportion are beautiful : most of these, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers to strike out, as these had done, entirely new and surprisingly rich veins of musical beauty." He awoke from this condition to a reaction from the fervent Benthamism which had till then possessed him. The reaction was instituted by his chancing to open a copy of Wordsworth, and deriving great enjoyment from it. Thereupon his mind was opened to new ideas from all quarters ; he scandalised his former friends by studying Coleridge, Goethe, and Carlyle. He was greatly influenced by the theories of the St. Simonians, who were then beginning to attract attention in France ; and he very soon came under the spell of Auguste Comte.

From this time onward the " Letters " supply a tolerably connected history of Mill's life ; and I need only touch lightly on the more important events of his career. In 1830 he was introduced to Mrs. Taylor, and thus commenced the great affection of his life. After twenty years of the closest intimacy, the death of Mrs. Taylor's husband left her free to marry Mill. But during this time Mill's reputation suffered greatly through his connection with her. His father "taxed him with being in love with another man's wife," and expressed " his strong disapproval of the affair." ^ Mill's

INTRODUCTION xxi

affection was intense, and when they ultimately married, they withdrew almost entirely from society. The dedication to the " Liberty," the inscription on her tomb at Avignon, the "Autobiography," indicate the intensity of feeling.

In 1835 Sir William Molesworth founded the London Review, on the understanding that Mill should act as editor. Soon afterwards Molesworth bought the Westminster Review and united it with the London, which was conducted by Mill till 1840 under the title of the London and Westminster Review. It was of course used to propagate the views of the Philosophic Radicals ; but Mill had no intention of confining it to one narrow school of thought, and admitted articles by such men as Carlyle and John Sterling. The Review never paid its way ; after two or three years Molesworth determined to part with it, and it was acquired by Mill himself. He kept it till 1840, when he passed it on to one of the most regular of its contributors. The " Logic " was published in the spring of 1843. It was offered to Murray but refused by him, and was finally published by the firm of Parker. On the completion of the " Logic," he turned his thoughts to a work on " Ethology," or the science of character ; but, failing to make anything of it, turned his attention to writing the " Political Economy," which was published in 1848. All this time he continued his career at the India House, and in 1856 reached the highest place in the office. He only enjoyed that position for two years ; on the abolition of the East India Company in 1858, he retired on a pension of ;^i5oo a year. In the same year he suffered the crowning calamity of his life, namely, his wife's death at Avignon, while on their way to the South of France.

The shock was, indeed, terrible. Mill took a cottage in the district of St. V6ran, near Avignon, close to her tomb, and for most of the remainder of his life made this his home, spending only a short part of each year at his house at Blackheath. Miss Helen Taylor, Mrs. Mill's daughter, now kept house for her stepfather ;

xxii INTRODUCTION

and the tranquillity of his subsequent life was only interrupted during the three years (1865-1868) that he represented Westminster in the House of Commons. The story of his election and subsequent defeat are recorded in detail in the " Letters," and I need do no more than allude to it.

During his retirement he wrote several works. The most important is that on " Liberty," which he believed was " likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible exception of the ' Logic ')." It was the joint product, he tells us, of himself and his wife, and was published immediately after her death. Among his other productions were the " Utilitarianism," the " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," the " Representative Government," the " Subjection of Women." He died on 8th May 1873. During his life he had suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, which profoundly injured one lung, but proceeded no further. A few days before his death he went on a botanical excursion with some friends ; and after a long walk, feeling tired, he adopted the unusual course of taking a carriage home. The unaccustomed drive at night in his overfatigued condition gave him a chill, which developed into erysipelas — a disease endemic around Avignon in consequence of the marshes in the neighbourhood. The disease soon attacked the brain, and killed him in a day or two.

Mill's education was so remarkable that we turn with interest to an analysis of his character. We find it to be, indeed, very different from anything that his published works would suggest. So far from being a mere "logicchopping machine," Mill was a man of such intensity and depth of feeling as is rarely to be met with. In vain do we search in his character for those weaknesses, whether of emotion or of will, that are so often found to accompany transcendent intellectual power. Mill's superiority of intellect was not derived from any sapping of other departments of his mind. He was not, like Herbert Snenrer. Hefirient in nnwpr nf annlirQ+inn +/->

INTRODUCTION xxiii

disagreeable subjects, nor in the active and volitional side of mind ; nor was he, like Jeremy Bentham, or James Mill, or Alexander Bain, a man of low emotional susceptibility. Mill's emotional history is perhaps the most remarkable element of a remarkable personality. His upbringing, as we have seen, was carried out without the smallest reference to emotional cultivation. From the earliest years he was absorbed in intellectual pursuits ; there was no outlet for the natural affections of his childhood. True, he had brothers and sisters ; but his relation to them was rather that of teacher than of playmate. " I never was a boy," he wrote sadly ; ^ for almost his entire waking hours were applied to study, and relaxation would have brought down upon him the austere censure of his father. That he was bound to his father by strong ties there can be no question. But the ties were not the ties of love ; they were constituted by the cold sentiments of respect and awe, and the enthralling influence of a powerful personality upon the unformed mind of a child. Yet the large endowment of feeling which Nature had implanted in his youthful mind was not extirpated by this radical treatment. It was perhaps overlaid and rendered latent for a time. But as the boy grew older it gradually asserted itself with increasing insistence. I have already pointed out how profoundly he was affected by the mountain scenery of the Pyrenees. Even in the most sectarian period of his Benthamism, a chance reading of Pope's " Essay on Man," promulgating views in every respect contrary to his own, wrought a vivid effect upon his imagination. Later still, his admiration of Wordsworth heralded and symbolised the breach which was shortly to take place with his father's views. And then there came the warm friendships with Carlyle and with John Sterling, friendships cemented by true affection, and not owing their strength to mere intellectual community. But the culminating point of his increasing emotional fervour was reached when he became acquainted