Autobiography by John Stuart Mill (easy books to read txt) 📖

a class. For several years from this period, our

social studies assumed a shape which contributed very much to my mental

progress. The idea occurred to us of carrying on, by reading and

conversation, a joint study of several of the branches of science which

we wished to be masters of. We assembled to the number of a dozen or

more. Mr. Grote lent a room of his house in Threadneedle Street for the

purpose, and his partner, Prescott, one of the three original members of

the Utilitarian Society, made one among us. We met two mornings in every

week, from half-past eight till ten, at which hour most of us were

called off to our daily occupations. Our first subject was Political

Economy. We chose some systematic treatise as our text-book; my father's

_Elements_ being our first choice. One of us read aloud a chapter, or

some smaller portion of the book. The discussion was then opened, and

anyone who had an objection, or other remark to make, made it. Our rule

was to discuss thoroughly every point raised, whether great or small,

prolonging the discussion until all who took part were satisfied with

the conclusion they had individually arrived at; and to follow up every

topic of collateral speculation which the chapter or the conversation

suggested, never leaving it until we had untied every knot which we

found. We repeatedly kept up the discussion of some one point for

several weeks, thinking intently on it during the intervals of our

meetings, and contriving solutions of the new difficulties which had

risen up in the last morning's discussion. When we had finished in this

way my father's _Elements_, we went in the same manner through Ricardo's

_Principles of Political Economy_, and Bailey's _Dissertation on Value_.

These close and vigorous discussions were not only improving in a high

degree to those who took part in them, but brought out new views of some

topics of abstract Political Economy. The theory of International Values

which I afterwards published, emanated from these conversations, as did

also the modified form of Ricardo's _Theory of Profits_, laid down in my

_Essay on Profits and Interest_. Those among us with whom new

speculations chiefly originated, were Ellis, Graham, and I; though

others gave valuable aid to the discussions, especially Prescott and

Roebuck, the one by his knowledge, the other by his dialectical

acuteness. The theories of International Values and of Profits were

excogitated and worked out in about equal proportions by myself and

Graham: and if our original project had been executed, my _Essays on

Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_ would have been brought

out along with some papers of his, under our joint names. But when my

exposition came to be written, I found that I had so much over-estimated

my agreement with him, and he dissented so much from the most original

of the two Essays, that on International Values, that I was obliged to

consider the theory as now exclusively mine, and it came out as such

when published many years later. I may mention that among the

alterations which my father made in revising his _Elements_ for the

third edition, several were founded on criticisms elicited by these

conversations; and in particular he modified his opinions (though not to

the extent of our new speculations) on both the points to which I

have adverted.

 

When we had enough of political economy, we took up the syllogistic

logic in the same manner, Grote now joining us. Our first text-book was

Aldrich, but being disgusted with its superficiality, we reprinted one

of the most finished among the many manuals of the school logic, which

my father, a great collector of such books, possessed, the _Manuductio

ad Logicam_ of the Jesuit Du Trieu. After finishing this, we took up

Whately's _Logic_, then first republished from the _Encyclopedia

Metropolitana_, and finally the _Computatio sive Logica_ of Hobbes.

These books, dealt with in our manner, afforded a high range for

original metaphysical speculation: and most of what has been done in the

First Book of my _System of Logic_, to rationalize and correct the

principles and distinctions of the school logicians, and to improve the

theory of the Import of Propositions, had its origin in these

discussions; Graham and I originating most of the novelties, while Grote

and others furnished an excellent tribunal or test. From this time I

formed the project of writing a book on Logic, though on a much humbler

scale than the one I ultimately executed.

 

Having done with Logic, we launched into Analytic Psychology, and having

chosen Hartley for our text-book, we raised Priestley's edition to an

extravagant price by searching through London to furnish each of us with

a copy. When we had finished Hartley, we suspended our meetings; but my

father's _Analysis of the Mind_ being published soon after, we

reassembled for the purpose of reading it. With this our exercises

ended. I have always dated from these conversations my own real

inauguration as an original and independent thinker. It was also through

them that I acquired, or very much strengthened, a mental habit to which

I attribute all that I have ever done, or ever shall do, in speculation:

that of never accepting half-solutions of difficulties as complete;

never abandoning a puzzle, but again and again returning to it until it

was cleared up; never allowing obscure corners of a subject to remain

unexplored, because they did not appear important; never thinking that I

perfectly understood any part of a subject until I understood the whole.

 

Our doings from 1825 to 1830 in the way of public speaking, filled a

considerable place in my life during those years, and as they had

important effects on my development, something ought to be said of them.

 

There was for some time in existence a society of Owenites, called the

Co-operative Society, which met for weekly public discussions in

Chancery Lane. In the early part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck in

contact with several of its members, and led to his attending one or two

of the meetings and taking part in the debate in opposition to Owenism.

Some one of us started the notion of going there in a body and having a

general battle: and Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not

usually take part in our joint exercises, entered into the project. It

was carried out by concert with the principal members of the Society,

themselves nothing loth, as they naturally preferred a controversy with

opponents to a tame discussion among their own body. The question of

population was proposed as the subject of debate: Charles Austin led the

case on our side with a brilliant speech, and the fight was kept up by

adjournment through five or six weekly meetings before crowded

auditories, including along with the members of the Society and their

friends, many hearers and some speakers from the Inns of Court. When

this debate was ended, another was commenced on the general merits of

Owen's system: and the contest altogether lasted about three months. It

was a _lutte corps à corps_ between Owenites and political economists,

whom the Owenites regarded as their most inveterate opponents: but it

was a perfectly friendly dispute. We who represented political economy,

had the same objects in view as they had, and took pains to show it; and

the principal champion on their side was a very estimable man, with whom

I was well acquainted, Mr. William Thompson, of Cork, author of a book

on the Distribution of Wealth, and of an " Appeal" in behalf of women

against the passage relating to them in my father's _Essay on

Government_. Ellis, Roebuck, and I took an active part in the debate,

and among those from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I remember

Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on the population

question, very efficient support from without. The well-known Gale

Jones, then an elderly man, made one of his florid speeches; but the

speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly

every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of St.

David's, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation

for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union before the era of Austin

and Macaulay. His speech was in answer to one of mine. Before he had

uttered ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had ever

heard, and I have never since heard anyone whom I placed above him.

 

The great interest of these debates predisposed some of those who took

part in them, to catch at a suggestion thrown out by McCulloch, the

political economist, that a Society was wanted in London similar to the

Speculative Society at Edinburgh, in which Brougham, Horner, and others

first cultivated public speaking. Our experience at the Co-operative

Society seemed to give cause for being sanguine as to the sort of men

who might be brought together in London for such a purpose. McCulloch

mentioned the matter to several young men of influence, to whom he was

then giving private lessons in political economy. Some of these entered

warmly into the project, particularly George Villiers, after Earl of

Clarendon. He and his brothers, Hyde and Charles, Romilly, Charles

Austin and I, with some others, met and agreed on a plan. We determined

to meet once a fortnight from November to June, at the Freemasons'

Tavern, and we had soon a fine list of members, containing, along with

several members of Parliament, nearly all the most noted speakers of the

Cambridge Union and of the Oxford United Debating Society. It is

curiously illustrative of the tendencies of the time, that our principal

difficulty in recruiting for the Society was to find a sufficient number

of Tory speakers. Almost all whom we could press into the service were

Liberals, of different orders and degrees. Besides those already named,

we had Macaulay, Thirlwall, Praed, Lord Howick, Samuel Wilberforce

(afterwards Bishop of Oxford), Charles Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord

Sydenham), Edward and Henry Lytton Bulwer, Fonblanque, and many others

whom I cannot now recollect, but who made themselves afterwards more or

less conspicuous in public or literary life. Nothing could seem more

promising. But when the time for action drew near, and it was necessary

to fix on a President, and find somebody to open the first debate, none

of our celebrities would consent to perform either office. Of the many

who were pressed on the subject, the only one who could be prevailed on

was a man of whom I knew very little, but who had taken high honours at

Oxford and was said to have acquired a great oratorical reputation

there; who some time afterwards became a Tory member of Parliament. He

accordingly was fixed on, both for filling the President's chair and for

making the first speech. The important day arrived; the benches were

crowded; all our great speakers were present, to judge of, but not to

help our efforts. The Oxford orator's speech was a complete failure.

This threw a damp on the whole concern: the speakers who followed were

few, and none of them did their best: the affair was a complete

_fiasco_; and the oratorical celebrities we had counted on went away

never to return, giving to me at least a lesson in knowledge of the

world. This unexpected breakdown altered my whole relation to the

project. I had not anticipated taking a prominent part, or speaking much

or often, particularly at first, but I now saw that the success of the

scheme depended on the new men, and I put my shoulder to the wheel. I

opened the second question, and from that time spoke in nearly every

debate. It was very uphill work for some time. The three Villiers and

Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the patience of all the

founders of the Society was at last exhausted, except me and Roebuck. In

the season following, 1826-7, things began to mend. We had acquired two

excellent Tory speakers, Hayward and Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee):

the Radical side was reinforced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and others

of the second generation of Cambridge Benthamities; and with their and

other occasional aid, and the two Tories as well as Roebuck and me for

regular speakers, almost every debate was a _bataille rangée_ between

the "philosophic Radicals" and the Tory lawyers; until our conflicts

were talked about, and several persons of note and consideration came to

hear us. This happened still more in the subsequent seasons, 1828 and

1829, when the Coleridgians, in the persons of Maurice and Sterling,

made their appearance in the Society as a second Liberal and even

Radical party, on totally different grounds from Benthamism and

vehemently opposed to it; bringing into these discussions the general

doctrines and modes of thought of the European reaction against the

philosophy of the eighteenth century; and adding a third and very

important belligerent party to our contests, which were now no bad

exponent of