John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill; His Life and
Works, by

Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
Distinguished Authors
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Title: John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works
Author: Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
Distinguished Authors
Release Date: March 6, 2005 [eBook #15268]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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STUART MILL; HIS LIFE AND WORKS***
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JOHN STUART MILL: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
Twelve Sketches by
Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, and Other
Distinguished Authors
Boston: James R Osgood and Company (Late Ticknor & Field and
Fields Osgood, & Co.)
1873

CONTENTS.

JOHN STUART MILL
I. A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. H. R. Fox Bourne
II. HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE. W. T. Thornton
III. HIS MORAL CHARACTER. Herbert Spencer
IV. HIS BOTANICAL STUDIES. Henry Trimen
V. HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC. W. Minto
VI. HIS WORK IN PHILOSOPHY. J. H. Levy
VII. HIS STUDIES IN MORALS AND JURISPRUDENCE. W. A.
Hunter
VIII. HIS WORK IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. J. E. Cairnes
IX. HIS INFLUENCE AT THE UNIVERSITIES. Henry Fawcett
X. HIS INFLUENCE AS A PRACTICAL POLITICIAN. Millicent
Garrett Fawcett
XI. HIS RELATION TO POSITIVISM. Frederic Harrison
XII. HIS POSITION AS A PHILOSOPHER. W. A. Hunter

I.
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
John Stuart Mill was born on the 20th of May, 1806. "I am glad," wrote
George Grote to him in 1865, with reference to a forthcoming article on
his "Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," "to get an
opportunity of saying what I think about your 'System of Logic' and
'Essay on Liberty,' but I am still more glad to get (or perhaps to _make_)
an opportunity of saying something about your father. It has always
rankled in my thoughts that so grand and powerful a mind as his left
behind it such insufficient traces in the estimation of successors." That
regret was natural. The grand and powerful mind of James Mill left
very notable traces, however, in the philosophical literature of his
country, and in the training of the son who was to carry on his work,
and to be the most influential teacher in a new school of thought and
action, by which society is likely to be revolutionized far more than it
has been by any other agency since the period of Erasmus and Martin
Luther. James Mill was something more than the disciple of Bentham
and Ricardo. He was a profound and original philosopher, whose depth
and breadth of study were all the more remarkable because his thoughts
were developed and his knowledge was acquired mainly by his own
exertions. He had been helped out of the humble life into which he had

been born by Sir John Stuart, who assisted him to attend the lectures of
Dugald Stewart and others at Edinburgh with a view to his becoming a
minister in the Church of Scotland. Soon finding that calling distasteful
to him, he had, in or near the year 1800, settled in London as a
journalist, resolved by ephemeral work to earn enough money to
maintain him and his family in humble ways while he spent his best
energies in the more serious pursuits to which he was devoted. His
talents soon made him friends, and the greatest of these was Jeremy
Bentham.
As erroneous opinions have been current as to the relations between
Bentham and James Mill and have lately been repeated in more than
one newspaper, it may be well here to call attention to the contradiction
of them that was published by the son of the latter in "The Edinburgh
Review" for 1844. "Mr. Mill and his family," we there read, "lived with
Mr. Bentham for half of four years at Ford Abbey,"--that is, between
1814 and 1817,--"and they passed small portions of previous summers
with him at Barrow Green. His last visit to Barrow Green was of not
more than a month's duration, and the previous ones all together did not
extend to more than six months, or seven at most. The pecuniary
benefit which Mr. Mill derived from his intimacy with Bentham
consisted in this,--that he and his family lived with him as his guests,
while he was in the country, periods amounting in all to about two
years and a half. I have no reason to think that his hospitality was either
given or accepted as pecuniary assistance, and I