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

the

_Review_ cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as

a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of

my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner

from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the

general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles,

but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the _Dissertations_)

which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In

the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I

pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his

philosophy. The substance of this criticism _I_ still think perfectly

just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at

that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument

of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its

work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing

more harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when a

counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is good in

Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this criticism of its

defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by vindications of the

fundamental principles of Bentham's philosophy, which are reprinted

along with it in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I

attempted to characterize the European reaction against the negative

philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, if the effect only of

this one paper were to be considered, I might be thought to have erred

by giving undue prominence to the favourable side, as I had done in the

case of Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the impetus with

which I had detached myself from what was untenable in the doctrines of

Bentham and of the eighteenth century, may have carried me, though in

appearance rather than in reality, too far on the contrary side. But as

far as relates to the article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was

writing for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to dwell most

on that, in writers of a different school, from the knowledge of which

they might derive most improvement.

 

The number of the _Review_ which contained the paper on Coleridge, was

the last which was published during my proprietorship. In the spring of

1840 I made over the _Review_ to Mr. Hickson, who had been a frequent

and very useful unpaid contributor under my management: only stipulating

that the change should be marked by a resumption of the old name, that

of _Westminster Review_. Under that name Mr. Hickson conducted it for

ten years, on the plan of dividing among contributors only the net

proceeds of the _Review_ giving his own labour as writer and editor

gratuitously. Under the difficulty in obtaining writers, which arose

from this low scale of payment, it is highly creditable to him that he

was able to maintain, in some tolerable degree, the character of the

_Review_ as an organ of radicalism and progress. I did not cease

altogether to write for the _Review_, but continued to send it

occasional contributions, not, however, exclusively; for the greater

circulation of the _Edinburgh Review_ induced me from this time to offer

articles to it also when I had anything to say for which it appeared to

be a suitable vehicle. And the concluding volumes of _Democracy in

America_, having just then come out, I inaugurated myself as a

contributor to the _Edinburgh_, by the article on that work, which heads

the second volume of the _Dissertations_.

CHAPTER VII. (GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE.)

From this time, what is worth relating of my life will come into a very

small compass; for I have no further mental changes to tell of, but

only, as I hope, a continued mental progress; which does not admit of a

consecutive history, and the results of which, if real, will be best

found in my writings. I shall, therefore, greatly abridge the chronicle

of my subsequent years.

 

The first use I made of the leisure which I gained by disconnecting

myself from the _Review_, was to finish the _Logic_. In July and August,

1838, I had found an interval in which to execute what was still undone

of the original draft of the Third Book. In working out the logical

theory of those laws of nature which are not laws of Causation, nor

corollaries from such laws, I was led to recognize kinds as realities in

nature, and not mere distinctions for convenience; a light which I had

not obtained when the First Book was written, and which made it

necessary for me to modify and enlarge several chapters of that Book.

The Book on Language and Classification, and the chapter on the

Classification of Fallacies, were drafted in the autumn of the same

year; the remainder of the work, in the summer and autumn of 1840. From

April following to the end of 1841, my spare time was devoted to a

complete rewriting of the book from its commencement. It is in this way

that all my books have been composed. They were always written at least

twice over; a first draft of the entire work was completed to the very

end of the subject, then the whole begun again _de novo_; but

incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences and parts of

sentences of the old draft, which appeared as suitable to my purpose as

anything which I could write in lieu of them. I have found great

advantages in this system of double redaction. It combines, better than

any other mode of composition, the freshness and vigour of the first

conception, with the superior precision and completeness resulting from

prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, I have found that the

patience necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of

composition and expression, costs much less effort after the entire

subject has been once gone through, and the substance of all that I find

to say has in some manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper. The

only thing which I am careful, in the first draft, to make as perfect as

I am able, is the arrangement. If that is bad, the whole thread on which

the ideas string themselves becomes twisted; thoughts placed in a wrong

connection are not expounded in a manner that suits the right, and a

first draft with this original vice is next to useless as a foundation

for the final treatment.

 

During the re-writing of the _Logic_, Dr. Whewell's _Philosophy of the

Inductive Sciences_ made its appearance; a circumstance fortunate for

me, as it gave me what I greatly desired, a full treatment of the

subject by an antagonist, and enabled me to present my ideas with

greater clearness and emphasis as well as fuller and more varied

development, in defending them against definite objections, or

confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. The controversies

with Dr. Whewell, as well as much matter derived from Comte, were first

introduced into the book in the course of the re-writing.

 

At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the press, I offered it to

Murray, who kept it until too late for publication that season, and then

refused it, for reasons which could just as well have been given at

first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my

offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring of

My original expectations of success were extremely limited.

Archbishop Whately had, indeed, rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the

study of the forms, rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr.

Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of

my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, on a matter so

abstract, could not be expected to be popular; it could only be a book

for students, and students on such subjects were not only (at least in

England) few, but addicted chiefly to the opposite school of

metaphysics, the ontological and "innate principles" school. I therefore

did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and

looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the

tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy. What hopes I

had of exciting any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the

polemical propensities of Dr Whewell; who, I thought, from observation

of his conduct in other cases, would probably do something to bring the

book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to the attack on his

opinions. He did reply but not till 1850, just in time for me to answer

him in the third edition. How the book came to have, for a work of the

kind, so much success, and what sort of persons compose the bulk of

those who have bought, I will not venture to say read, it, I have never

thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction with the many proofs

which have since been given of a revival of speculation, speculation too

of a free kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one time I

should have least expected it) in the Universities, the fact becomes

partially intelligible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book

had made any considerable impression on philosophical opinion. The

German, or _a priori_ view of human knowledge, and of the knowing

faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a

diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves

with such inquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the "System of

Logic" supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite

doctrine--that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all

moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to

the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either

an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence,

can do by themselves towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the

understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them

of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true

philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the

mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind

may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation

and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great

intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid

of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of

which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the

obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own

all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an

instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices. And the

chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and

religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the

evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science.

To expel it from these, is to drive it from its stronghold: and because

this had never been effectually done, the intuitive school, even after

what my father had written in his _Analysis of the Mind_, had in

appearance, and as far as published writings were concerned, on the

whole the best of the argument. In attempting to clear up the real

nature of the evidence of mathematical and physical truths, the _System

of Logic_ met the intuitive philosophers on ground on which they had

previously been deemed unassailable; and gave its own explanation, from

experience and association, of that peculiar character of what are

called necessary truths, which is adduced as proof that their evidence

must come from a deeper source than experience. Whether this has been

done effectually, is still _sub judice_; and even then, to deprive a

mode of thought so strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities,

of its mere speculative support, goes but a very little way towards

overcoming it; but though only a step, it is a quite indispensable one;

for since, after all,