JOHN STUART MILL—A COMMEMORATIVE NOTICE. From the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1873-74. ⁶⁴

The name of John Stuart Mill is so intimately associated with most of the principal topics of modern philosophical discussion, and with the gravest of open questions, with so many of the weightiest subjects of unsettled theory and practice, that it would be difficult to say for which of his many works his fame is at present the greatest or is most likely to endure. Those subjects in the treatment of which the originality of his position was the least were those in which the qualities most characteristic of him, and for which his writings have been most esteemed, appear in clearest light. Unlike most other great thinkers and masters of dialectics, he did not seek to display what his own invention had contributed to the arguments, or his observation to the premises, in his discussion of philosophical and practical questions. On the contrary, he seemed to be indifferent to the appearance and reputation of originality, and actuated by a singleness of purpose and a loyalty to the views of his teachers in philosophy and science which were inconsistent with motives of personal vanity. The exercise of his admirably trained dialectical powers doubtless afforded him intrinsic delight, the joy of play, or of spontaneity of power; but it was none the less always subordinated to moral purposes which were clearly defined in his youth, and loyally pursued through an active intellectual life for nearly half a century. But his broad practical aims were never allowed, on the other hand, to pervert the integrity and honesty of his intellect. Though an advocate all his life, urging reasons for unpopular measures of reform, and defenses of an unpopular philosophy

or criticisms of the prevailing one, he was not led, as advocates too frequently are, to the indiscriminate invention and use of bad and good arguments. He weighed his arguments as dispassionately as if his aim had been pure science. Rarely have strength of emotion and purpose and strength of intellect been combined in a thinker with such balance and harmony The strength of his moral emotions gave him insights or premises which had been overlooked by the previous thinkers whose views he expounded or defended. This advantage over his predecessors was conspicuous in the form he gave to the utilitarian theory of moral principles, and in what was strictly original in his “Principles of Political Economy.”

In the latter, the two chief points of originality were, first, his treatment of the subject as a matter of pure abstract science, like geometry; or as an account of the means which are requisite to attain given ends in economics, or the cost needed to procure a given value, without bringing into the discussion the irrelevant practical questions, whether this cost should be incurred, or whether the end were on the whole desirable. These questions really belong to other branches of practical philosophy,—to the sciences of legislation, politics, and morals, to which the principles of political economy stand in the relation of an abstract science to sciences of applied principles and concrete matters. But, secondly, while thus limiting the province of this science, he introduced into it premises from the moral nature of man, by the omission of which previous writers had been led to conclusions in the science of a character gloomy and forbidding. The theory of population of Malthus, as elaborated by Ricardo, seemed to subject the human race to a hopeless necessity of poverty in the masses. Whether the principle of population did really necessitate this conclusion would depend, Mill taught, on more than the capacity of a soil to support a maximum population with the least subsistence needed for the labor of production. The principle applies without qualification to the animal world in general and to savage men; but not to progressive communities of men, in which foresight and prudence, with moral and social aspirations, are forces of more or less influence in checking increase

in population, and in improving the condition of the masses The poorest, the most wretched, are not in the same condition of want in all communities of men. The poorest savage is objectively in a worse condition than the poorest civilized man.

Mill did not oppose the views of his predecessors nor their manner of treatment, as so many other writers had done: he carried out their mode of regarding the science as a physical one, but with a thoroughness which brought to light considerations materially modifying their conclusions. The prospects of mankind are not hopeless, so long as men are capable of aspirations, foresight and hope; though they may be gloomy enough in view of the slow working of these forces. What these forces have to oppose, however, is not the resistance of an immovable necessity, but only the force of inveterate customs. To the sentimental objection that the laws of political economy are cruel, and therefore not true, Mill humorously replied that he knew of no law more cruel than that of gravity, which would put us all to death, were we not always and vigilantly on our guard against it.

With a full, perhaps a too extreme appreciation of moral forces, as elements in the problems of Political Economy, Mill still treated the science as an abstract one; as a science of conditional propositions, a science applicable to the practical problems of morals and politics, but not in itself treating of them. For example, wars are expensive, and the establishment of a new industry is also an expense which the principles of political economy can estimate; but it does so without deciding whether war or an industry ought under given circumstances to be undertaken.

Moral forces are real agents affecting the future of the human race. As causes of effects, they are calculable forces, and as means to ends are proper subjects of the abstract science of political economy. It was because Mr. Mill believed in “moral causation” (the name he gave to what had indiscriminately been called the doctrine of necessity in human volition), and because he himself was powerfully and predominantly actuated throughout his life by high moral considerations, that he gave

such emphasis to the moral elements in political economy, and made room for hope—for a sober, rational hope—respecting the practical conclusions and applications of the science; seeing that hope can subsist with the desire that inspires it, provided the desire is instrumental in effecting what is hoped for. It was because he believed in “moral causation” that he treated political science, in general, in the manner and by the methods of physical philosophy, or as a science of causes and effects. He believed that he himself and his generation would effect much for the future of mankind. His faith was that we live in times in which broad principles of justice, persistently proclaimed, end in carrying the world with them.

His hopefulness, generosity, and courage, and a chivalric, almost romantic disposition in him, seemed to those least acquainted with him inconsistent with the utilitarian philosophy of morals, which he not only professed, but earnestly and even zealously maintained. The “greatest happiness principle” was with him a religious principle, to which every impulse in his nature, high or low, was subordinated. It was for him not only a test of rational rules of conduct (which is all that could be, or was, claimed for it in his philosophy of morals), but it became for him a leading motive and sanction of conduct in his theory of life. That other minds differently constituted would be most effectively influenced to the nobility of right conduct by other sanctions and motives, to which the utilitarian principle ought to be regarded as only a remote philosophical test or rational standard, was what he believed and taught. Unlike Bentham, his master in practical philosophy, he felt no contempt for the claims of sentiment, and made no intolerant demand for toleration. He sincerely welcomed intelligent and earnest opposition with a deference due to truth itself, and to a just regard for the diversities in men’s minds from differences of education and natural dispositions. These diversities even appeared to him essential to the completeness of the examination which the evidences of truth demand. Opinions positively erroneous, if intelligent and honest, are not without their value, since the progress of truth is a succession of mistakes and corrections. Truth itself, unassailed by erroneous opinion,

would soon degenerate into narrowness and error. The errors incident to individuality of mind and character are means, in the attrition of discussion, of keeping the truth bright and untarnished, and even of bringing its purity to light. The human mind cannot afford to forget its past aberrations. These, as well as its true discoveries, are indispensable guides; nor can it ever afford to begin from the starting-point in its search for truth, in accordance with the too confident method of more ambitious philosophers.

Such being his loyalty and generosity, it is not surprising that Mill obtained a much wider acceptance of utilitarian doctrines, and a more intelligent recognition of their real import, than previous thinkers of his school had secured. He redeemed the word “utility” from the ill-repute into which it had fallen, and connected noble conceptions and motives with its philosophical meaning. It is now no longer a synonym of the ignoble or base, or the name of that quality in conduct, or in anything which conduces to the satisfaction of desires common to all men. He made it mean clearly the quality in human customs and rules of conduct which conduces to realize conditions and dispositions which for men (though not for swine) are practicable, and are the most desirable; their desirableness being tested by the actual preference which those who possess them have for them as elements in their own happiness. This meaning of utility includes the highest motives in whose satisfaction an individual’s happiness can consist, and not the baser ones alone; not even the base ones at all, so far as they obstruct the sources of a greater happiness than they can afford. It is now no longer a paradox to the intelligent student of Mill’s philosophy, that he should prefer, as he has avowed, the worst evil which could be inflicted on him against his will, to the pains of a voluntary sophistication of his intellect in respect to the more serious concerns of life.

His method led him to conceal or at least subordinate to his single purpose most of what was original in his discussions of the various philosophical subjects to which he gave his attention. Yet his studies in logic, ethics, psychology, political economy and politics, and even in poetry, are full of valuable

and fertile contributions of original thought; and of that kind of service to philosophy which he most valued in such writers as Dr. Brown and Archbishop Whately,—a kind of service which he believed would survive the works of more learned and ambitious thinkers. A thorough preparation for his work, to which his education was directed by his father, realized what is rare in modern times,—a complete command of the art of dialectics; an art which he believed to be of the greatest service in the honest pursuit of truth, though liable to abuse at the hand of the dishonest advocate. His education was like that of an ancient Greek philosopher,—by personal intercourse with other superior thinkers. He felt keenly in his later work, as Plato had, “how much more is to be learned by discussing with a man who can question and answer, than with a book which cannot.” That he was not educated at a university, and through the influences of equals and coevals in intellectual and moral development, may account for one serious defect in his powers of observation,—a lack of sensibility to the differences of character in men and between the sexes. So far as he did recognize these mental diversities, he prized them for the sake of truth, as he would have prized the addition of a new sense to the means of extending and testing knowledge. But he did not clearly discriminate what was really a reflection, as in a mirror, or a quick anticipation of his own thoughts in ‘ other minds, from true and original observations by them. This may be accounted for in part by his philosophical habit, as has been observed, “of always keeping in view mind in the abstract, or men in the aggregate.” Though he mingled in the affairs of life with other men, taking part in debates and discussions, private and public, by speech and by writing, all his life, his disposition was still essentially that of a recluse. He remained remote in his intellectual life from the minds and characters of those with whom he contended, though always loyal to those from whom his main doctrines, his education, arid inspiration were derived.

A natural consequence of his private education by a philosopher (his father), and by intercourse with superior adult minds, like Bentham and the political economist Say, was that he

soon arrived at maturity, and was in full possession of his remarkable powers in early youth, able and eager to exercise them upon the most abstruse and difficult subjects. Annotations to Bentham’s “Rationale of Judicial Evidence” was his first publicly acknowledged literary work, performed before he was yet of age; though contributions to the science of botany and other writings were labors of his youth. While still in his youth, before the age of thirty, he advocated reforms in an article in the “Jurist” on “Corporation and Church Property,” features of which became acknowledged principles of legislation in Parliament many years later. He lived to see many of the reforms proposed by Bentham enacted as public law, and to take part in Parliament in the furtherance of some of his own political ideas. His courage and hopefulness were not quixotic, but were sustained by real successes. These qualities in his character, though perhaps properly described as romantic, or as springing from an ardent emotional temperament, were always tempered by his cooler reason and by facts. In more than one division of special study in science and philosophy he mastered facts and details at first hand, or by his own observation; thus training his judgment and powers of imagination to those habits of accuracy so essential in a true education, by which knowledge more extensive, more or less superficial, and necessarily at second hand, can alone be adequately comprehended. He was prepared for writing an important part of his great work on Logic by the study of the principles, requisites, and purposes of a rational classification in the practical pursuit of botany,—a favorite pastime with him throughout his life. The use to him of this kind of knowledge, as of all other kinds worthy to be called science, was in its bearings on other and wider branches of knowledge. He generalized the principles exhibited in the natural system of botanical classification to their application “to all cases in which mankind are called upon to bring the various parts of any extensive subject into mental co-ordination. They are as much to the point,” he adds, “when objects are to be classed for purposes of art or business, as for those of science. The proper arrangement, for example, of a code of laws, depends on the same scientific conditions as the classifications of natural history; nor could there be a better preparatory discipline for that important function than the study of the principles of a natural arrangement, not only in the abstract, but in their actual applications to the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated, and which are still the best school for learning their use.” To rightly divide and define is divine, said Plato; yet it is not an excellence by which the divine is distinguished from a human perfection. It is rather a perfection which is relative to human limits and weaknesses.

The “mastery system” of studying a subject in its facts, and at first hand, was not liable with Mill to degenerate into the mere idiotic pursuit of facts, since the character of his mind was already determined by a strong philosophical bias. Even subjects like the fine arts, which are commonly and properly regarded as affording ends in themselves, or sufficient and worthy motives to study, interested Mill as affording broad principles and influences, extending beyond the immediate and present delight they inspire. In his readings of poetry he looked not merely for beauties or for sympathy, but for principles, causes, and influences; for the relations of it to the times in which it appeared. So wide was the range of his studies and his intellectual sympathies, that no writer has given wiser advice on the much debated subject of education, or advice more satisfactory to all parties, even to the advocates of special studies.

Mr. Mill was a thinker about whose personal character and circumstances of education the student naturally seeks to learn. In such a thinker, these elements of power are instinctively felt to be of prime importance. They explain Mill’s later influence at the universities, where, though not personally known, his effect upon the young men of the most active minds, through his principal works, his Political Economy and his System of Logic, became a powerful one, though purely spontaneous; for it did not come in by the normal channels of the curriculum. It was with men of the succeeding generation (as generally happens with great innovators in science and philosophy) that his teachings were destined to be fully appreciated.

But his teachings were none of them fundamentally new; or what was new in them was, or appeared to be, subordinate to what he had avowedly borrowed from previous thinkers. He was neither the author of a new system of philosophy, nor the discoverer of a new science. He can hardly be called, in strictness, the advocate even, of any previous doctrine in philosophy or science. It was one of his short-comings that he took for granted more than most of his readers knew. His starting-point was in advance of what most of them knew, and he was thus unintelligible to many of the best minds among his coevals. Starting from what many of them did not know, he completed, carried out, and put into a scientific form in his “System of Logic,” and in his “Principles of Political Economy,” the views he had adopted from his earlier teachers and from his later studies.

It was through his masterly style of exposition and his skill in dialectics, and by other traits of a personal character to which active and original youth is especially alive, that he secured an unprejudiced hearing for doctrines in philosophy and practice which had almost ceased to have adherents. These doctrines had a century before, from the time of Locke (and before Hume had developed them with such alarming effect on existing beliefs), become an especially English philosophy; but had almost disappeared through the influence of the Scottish and German reactions against Hume. When his “System of Logic” was published, he stood almost alone in his opinions. The work was not written in exposition or defense of this philosophy, but in accordance with its tenets, which were thus reduced to a proximate application, or to a more determinate or concrete form. A qualified nominalism, thoroughly English, and descended from the English schoolman William of Ockham, was its philosophical basis. He welcomed and introduced to English readers the revival of this philosophy in France, by Auguste Comte, with whom he agreed in many positions,—more especially in those which were not original with Comte. His accordance with Comte can hardly be regarded as one of discipleship, since in most important practical matters Mill dissented from the views of the French

philosopher. His real allegiance was to the once prevalent teachings of Locke, and to those of Berkeley, Hume, Brown, Hartley, and his father James Mill.

No modern thinker has striven more faithfully to restore and build upon those speculations of the past, which appeared to him just and true, or more modestly to exhibit and acknowledge his indebtedness to previous thinkers; yet, by the excellence of his works, this past has fallen to the inheritance of his name and fame. To give scientific form or systematic coherency to views put forth unsystematically by others, was to give soul and life to doctrines which were thus made especially his own. The teachings of Sir John Herschel’s celebrated ‘‘Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy” were generalized by Mill into what is his most original contribution to logic, his theory of induction and of the inductive basis of all real truth. From this theory, important consequences were drawn as to the nature and function of syllogistic inference,—consequences from which the philosophical student remounts to the philosophy of experience and the teachings of Hume. From Hume and Brown, again, he derives his theory of causation, which he connects with other elements in his system, and with illustrations in science in a manner which has made the theory peculiarly his own. But it would be out of place in this notice to attempt an analysis of Mill’s works. Our task is only to account for his influence.

In politics he belonged to what is called the school of “philosophical radicals,” who are, as he defined them, those who in politics follow the common manner of philosophers; who trust neither to tradition nor to intuition for the warrant of political rights and duties, but base the right to power in the State on the ability to govern wisely and justly, and, seeing their country badly governed, seek for the cause of this evil, and for means to remedy it. This cause they found to be in “the Aristocratical Principle,” since, in the present imperfect condition of human nature, no governing class would attend to those interests of the many which were in conflict with their own, or could be expected to give to any interests not their own any but a secondary consideration. The remedy for this

evil they found in a modified democratic principle; namely, the better ability and disposition of the many to look aftei their own interests, than any dominant few could have, or would be likely to have,—provided the many, or their representatives, are enlightened enough to know their true interests and how to serve them. The motto of this radicalism was “Enmity to the Aristocratical Principle.” From this creed sprung Mill’s ardent hostility towards the South in their rebellion against our national government, and his hearty espousal of extreme anti-slavery views.

But a democracy may be tyrannical towards minorities, and, if unchecked, is likely to become so; and, what is worse, is likely to become an unprincipled tyrant, less influenced by considerations of justice or prudence than a governing class would be. This fear made Mill distrust extreme forms of democracy and government by mere majorities. Accordingly, among his later works, his “Considerations on Representative Government” undertakes to devise checks to the abuse of power by majorities. But it is evident that Mill’s greatest trust was in those influences which have given to communities the ability, and thence the power and right, to govern themselves; namely, their intelligence and moral integrity, or that which reduces the necessity of government by force to the fewest functions and occasions. His famous essay on Liberty sought to establish, on grounds of moral principle, restraints of governmental force, in whatever way it might be exercised, whether in the form of public law or of public opinion; neither of which in any form of government is likely to be wiser beyond its proper sphere of duty than those it seeks to control. Government in advanced communities, capable of self-government, should not be of the parental type or degree of power. Coercion, which in itself is an evil, becomes a wrong, where persuasion, rational discussion, and conviction are capable of effecting the same ends, especially when these ends are less urgent than the need of security and self-protection in a community, for which it is the proper duty of government by force to provide. To place government in the hands of those sufficiently intelligent, whose true interests are most affected by it, and to limit its province

and its functions as much as possible, leaving as much as possible to non-coercive agencies, was the simple abstract creed of Mill’s political philosophy.

The essay on “Liberty” and his later essay on “The Subjection of Women” exhibit the ardent, emotional, enthusiastic, perhaps not the soundest, side of Mr. Mill’s mental character and observation of human nature. Yet he cannot be said to have been without much experience in the practical art of government. He was in immediate charge of the “political department,” so called, of the East India House for more than twenty years. It was during this period, and in the midst of active employments, that his Logic and Political Economy were written. Both were thought out in the vigor of life and at the summit of his powers. His mind and pen were never idle. At about the age of fifty, he published selections from his occasional short writings for reviews. These had more than a passing interest, since in them, as in all his writings, great and often new principles of criticism are lucidly set forth. In all his writings, his judgments are valued by his readers, not as judgments on occasional matters by a current or conventional standard, but as tests and illustrations of new standards of criticism, which have a general and enduring interest, especially to the examining minds of youth.

With a tact almost feminine, Mill avoided open war on abstract grounds. The principles of his philosophy were set forth in their applications, and were advocated by bringing them down in application to the common sense or instinctive, unanalyzed judgments of his readers. His conclusions in psychology and on the fundamental principles of philosophy were nowhere systematically set forth. In his Logic, they were rather assumed, and made the setting of his views of the science, than defended on general grounds; though, from his criticisms of adverse views on the principles of Logic, it was sufficiently apparent what his philosophy and psychological doctrines were.

English speaking and reading people had so completely forgotten, or had so obscurely understood the arguments of their greatest thinkers, that the inroad of German speculation had

almost overwhelmed the protest of these thinkers against the a priori philosophy. English-speaking people are not metaphysical, and Mill respected their prejudice. But when the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, professing to combine the Scottish and German reactions against Hume with what science had demonstrated as the necessary limits of human knowledge, was about to become the prevalent philosophy of England and America, it was not merely an opportunity, but almost a necessity, for the representative of the greatest English thinkers (himself among the greatest), to re-examine the claims of the a priori philosophy, and either to acknowledge the failure of his own attempt to revive the doctrines of his predecessors, or to refute and overthrow their most powerful British antagonist. Accordingly Mill’s “Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy,” published in 1865, when he was nearly sixty years old, but in the full vigor and maturity of his powers, was his greatest effort in polemical writing. That the reputation of Sir William Hamilton as a thinker was greatly diminished by this examination cannot be doubted. Nor can it be doubted that the pendulum of philosophical opinion has begun, through Mill’s clear expositions and vigorous defense of the Experience philosophy, to move again towards what was a century and a half ago the prevalent English philosophy. That its future movements will be less extreme in either direction, and that the amplitude of its oscillations have continually diminished in the past through the progress of philosophical discussion, were beliefs with which his studies in philosophy and his generous hopefulness inspired him. Men are still born either Platonists or Aristotelians; but by their education through a more and more free and enlightened discussion, and by progress in the sciences, they are restrained more and more from going to extremes in the directions of their native biases.

In Mill’s Examination of Hamilton, and in his last great work, the annotated edition of his father’s “Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind,” many valuable subsidiary contributions are made to the sciences of logic and psychology. But in all his writings on these subjects his attention was directed

to their bearings on the traditional problems and discussions of general philosophy. The modern developments of psychology, as a branch of experimental science, and in connection with physiology, deeply interested him; but they did not engage him in their pursuit, although they promise much towards the solution of unsettled questions. His mental powers were trained for a different though equally, important service to science,—the service of clear and distinct thought, the understanding, first of all, of that for which closer observation and the aid of experiment are needed; the precise comprehension and pertinent putting of questions. The progress of science has not yet outgrown the need of guidance by the intellectual arts of logic and method, which are still equal in importance to those of experiment. The imagination of the scientific inquisitor of nature, the fertility of his invention, his ability to frame hypotheses or put pertinent questions, though still generally dependent on his good sense, and his practical training in experimental science, are susceptible still of furtherance and improvement by the abstract studies of logic and method. Open questions on the psychological conditions of vision are to be settled, Mill thought, only when some one so unfortunate as to be born blind is fortunate enough to be born a philosopher.

Mill has been aptly compared to Locke. Their philosophies were fundamentally the same. Both were “philosophical radicals” and political reformers. “What Locke was to the liberal movements of the seventeenth century, Mr. Mill has more than been to the liberal movement of the nineteenth century.” He was born on the 20th of May, 1806, and died on the 8th of May, 1873 having nearly reached the age of sixty-seven. Previous to the brief illness from which he died, he retained unimpaired his mental vigor and industry; and though it may not be said that he lived to see the hopes of his youth fully realized, yet his efforts have met with a degree of success in later years which he did not anticipate. His followers are still few both in politics and in philosophy. So far was he from restoring the doctrines of his school as the dominant philosophy of England, that, according to his own estimate,

“we may still count in England twenty a priori or spiritualist philosophers for every partisan of the doctrine of Experience.” But it was for the practical applications of this doctrine in politics and in morals, rather than for the theoretical recognition of it in general, that he most earnestly strove; and we should probably find in England and America to-day a much larger proportion, among those holding meditated and deliberate opinions on practical matters, who are in these the disciples of Mill, than can be found among the students of abstract philosophy.