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

other members of the party. With

this end chiefly in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the work

that every article should bear an initial, or some other signature, and

be held to express the opinions solely of the individual writer; the

editor being only responsible for its being worth publishing and not in

conflict with the objects for which the _Review_ was set on foot. I had

an opportunity of putting in practice my scheme of conciliation between

the old and the new "philosophic radicalism," by the choice of a subject

for my own first contribution. Professor Sedgwick, a man of eminence in

a particular walk of natural science, but who should not have trespassed

into philosophy, had lately published his _Discourse on the Studies of

Cambridge_, which had as its most prominent feature an intemperate

assault on analytic psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of an

attack on Locke and Paley. This had excited great indignation in my

father and others, which I thought it fully deserved. And here, I

imagined, was an opportunity of at the same time repelling an unjust

attack, and inserting into my defence of Hartleianism and Utilitarianism

a number of the opinions which constituted my view of those subjects, as

distinguished from that of my old associates. In this I partially

succeeded, though my relation to my father would have made it painful to

me in any case, and impossible in a Review for which he wrote, to speak

out my whole mind on the subject at this time.

 

I am, however, inclined to think that my father was not so much opposed

as he seemed, to the modes of thought in which I believed myself to

differ from him; that he did injustice to his own opinions by the

unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and

that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make

room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny. I have

frequently observed that he made large allowance in practice for

considerations which seemed to have no place in his theory. His

_Fragment on Mackintosh_, which he wrote and published about this time,

although I greatly admired some parts of it, I read as a whole with more

pain than pleasure; yet on reading it again, long after, I found little

in the opinions it contains, but what I think in the main just; and I

can even sympathize in his disgust at the _verbiage_ of Mackintosh,

though his asperity towards it went not only beyond what was judicious,

but beyond what was even fair. One thing, which I thought, at the time,

of good augury, was the very favourable reception he gave to

Tocqueville's _Democracy in America_. It is true, he said and thought

much more about what Tocqueville said in favour of democracy, than about

what he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high appreciation of a

book which was at any rate an example of a mode of treating the question

of government almost the reverse of his--wholly inductive and analytical,

instead of purely ratiocinative--gave me great encouragement. He also

approved of an article which I published in the first number following

the junction of the two reviews, the essay reprinted in the _Dissertations_,

under the title "Civilization"; into which I threw many of my new opinions,

and criticised rather emphatically the mental and moral tendencies of the

time, on grounds and in a manner which I certainly had not learnt from him.

 

All speculation, however, on the possible future developments of my

father's opinions, and on the probabilities of permanent co-operation

between him and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be

cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his

symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after

lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June,

Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent

abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons

that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the

approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm

a mind it was impossible that it should) in his convictions on the

subject of religion. His principal satisfaction, after he knew that his

end was near, seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make the

world better than he found it; and his chief regret in not living

longer, that he had not had time to do more.

 

His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in the political

history of his country; and it is far from honourable to the generation

which has benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and,

compared with men far his inferiors, so little remembered. This is

probably to be ascribed mainly to two causes. In the first place, the

thought of him merges too much in the deservedly superior fame of

Bentham. Yet he was anything but Bentham's mere follower or disciple.

Precisely because he was himself one of the most original thinkers of

his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and adopt the most

important mass of original thought which had been produced by the

generation preceding him. His mind and Bentham's were essentially of

different construction. He had not all Bentham's high qualities, but

neither had Bentham all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to claim

for him the praise of having accomplished for mankind such splendid

services as Bentham's. He did not revolutionize, or rather create, one

of the great departments of human thought. But, leaving out of the

reckoning all that portion of his labours in which he benefited by what

Bentham had done, and counting only what he achieved in a province in

which Bentham had done nothing, that of analytic psychology, he will be

known to posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important

branch of speculation, on which all the moral and political sciences

ultimately rest, and will mark one of the essential stages in its

progress. The other reason which has made his fame less than he

deserved, is that notwithstanding the great number of his opinions

which, partly through his own efforts, have now been generally adopted,

there was, on the whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and that

of the present time. As Brutus was called the last of the Romans, so was

he the last of the eighteenth century: he continued its tone of thought

and sentiment into the nineteenth (though not unmodified nor

unimproved), partaking neither in the good nor in the bad influences of

the reaction against the eighteenth century, which was the great

characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. The eighteenth

century was a great age, an age of strong and brave men, and he was a

fit companion for its strongest and bravest. By his writings and his

personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation.

During his later years he was quite as much the head and leader of the

intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the _philosophes_

of France. It is only one of his minor merits, that he was the

originator of all sound statesmanship in regard to the subject of his

largest work, India. He wrote on no subject which he did not enrich with

valuable thought, and excepting the _Elements of Political Economy_, a

very useful book when first written, but which has now for some time

finished its work, it will be long before any of his books will be

wholly superseded, or will cease to be instructive reading to students

of their subjects. In the power of influencing by mere force of mind and

character, the convictions and purposes of others, and in the strenuous

exertion of that power to promote freedom and progress, he left, as far

as my knowledge extends, no equal among men and but one among women.

 

Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in the qualities by which

he acquired his personal ascendancy, I had now to try what it might be

possible for me to accomplish without him: and the _Review_ was the

instrument on which I built my chief hopes of establishing a useful

influence over the liberal and democratic section of the public mind.

Deprived of my father's aid, I was also exempted from the restraints and

reticences by which that aid had been purchased. I did not feel that

there was any other radical writer or politician to whom I was bound to

defer, further than consisted with my own opinions: and having the

complete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved henceforth to give full

scope to my own opinions and modes of thought, and to open the _Review_

widely to all writers who were in sympathy with Progress as I understood

it, even though I should lose by it the support of my former associates.

Carlyle, consequently became from this time a frequent writer in the

_Review_; Sterling, soon after, an occasional one; and though each

individual article continued to be the expression of the private

sentiments of its writer, the general tone conformed in some tolerable

degree to my opinions. For the conduct of the _Review_, under, and in

conjunction with me, I associated with myself a young Scotchman of the

name of Robertson, who had some ability and information, much industry,

and an active scheming head, full of devices for making the _Review_

more saleable, and on whose capacities in that direction I founded a

good deal of hope: insomuch, that when Molesworth, in the beginning of

1837, became tired of carrying on the _Review_ at a loss, and desirous

of getting rid of it (he had done his part honourably, and at no small

pecuniary cost,) I, very imprudently for my own pecuniary interest, and

very much from reliance on Robertson's devices, determined to continue

it at my own risk, until his plans should have had a fair trial. The

devices were good, and I never had any reason to change my opinion of

them. But I do not believe that any devices would have made a radical

and democratic review defray its expenses, including a paid editor or

sub-editor, and a liberal payment to writers. I myself and several

frequent contributors gave our labour gratuitously, as we had done for

Molesworth; but the paid contributors continued to be remunerated on the

usual scale of the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_; and this could

not be done from the proceeds of the sale.

 

In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these occupations, I resumed

the _Logic_. I had not touched my pen on the subject for five years,

having been stopped and brought to a halt on the threshold of Induction.

I had gradually discovered that what was mainly wanting, to overcome the

difficulties of that branch of the subject, was a comprehensive, and, at

the same time, accurate view of the whole circle of physical science,

which I feared it would take me a long course of study to acquire; since

I knew not of any book, or other guide, that would spread out before me

the generalities and processes of the sciences, and I apprehended that I

should have no choice but to extract them for myself, as I best could,

from the details. Happily for me, Dr. Whewell, early in this year,

published his _History of the Inductive Sciences_. I read it with

eagerness, and found in it a considerable approximation to what I

wanted. Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the work appeared open

to objection; but the materials were there, for my own thoughts to work

upon: and the author had given to those materials that first degree of

elaboration, which so greatly facilitates and abridges the subsequent

labour. I had now obtained what I had been waiting for. Under the

impulse given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, I read again

Sir J. Herschel's _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_: and I

was able to measure the progress my mind had made, by the great help I

now found in this work--though I had read and even reviewed it several

years before with little profit. I now set myself vigorously to work out

the subject in thought and in writing. The time I bestowed on this had

to be stolen from occupations more urgent. I had just two months to

spare, at this period, in the intervals of writing for the _Review_. In

these two months I completed the first draft of about a third, the most

difficult third, of the book. What I had before written, I estimate at

another third, so that one-third remained. What I wrote at this time

consisted of the remainder of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of

Trains of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and