 Section 17, Autobiography of John Stuart Mill This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tony Richardson Chapter 7 Part 2 View of the Reminder of My Life The rapid success of the political economy showed that the public wanted and were prepared for such a book. Published early in 1848, an edition of a thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another similar edition was published in the spring of 1849. And a third of 1,250 copies early in 1852. It was from the first. Continually cited and referred to as an authority because it was not a book merely of abstract science, but also of application. And treated political economy not as a thing by itself, but as a fragment of the greater whole. A branch of social philosophy so interlinked with all the other branches that its conclusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from causes not directly within its scope. While to the character of a practical guide, it has no pretension, apart from other classes of considerations. Political economy in truth has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own. Though people who knew nothing but political economy and therefore knew that ill have taken upon themselves to advise and could only do so by such lights as they had. But the numerous sentimental enemies of political economy and its still more numerous interested enemies in sentimental guise have been very successful in gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations against it. And the principles having, in spite of the freedom of many of its opinions, become for the present the most popular treatise on the subject has helped to disarm the enemies of so important a study. The amount of its worth as an exposition of the science and the value of the different applications which it suggests others, of course, must judge. For a considerable time after this I published no work of magnitude, though I still occasionally wrote in periodicals and my correspondence, much of it with persons quite unknown to me, on subjects of public interest swelled to a considerable bulk. During these years I wrote or commenced various essays for eventual publication on some of the fundamental questions of human and social life with regard to several of which I have already much exceeded the severity of the oration precept. I continued to watch with keen interest the progress of public events, but it was not on the whole very encouraging to me. The European reaction after 1848 and the success of an unprincipled usurper in December 1851 put an end, as it seemed, to all present hope for freedom or social improvement in France and the continent. In England I had seen and continued to see many of the opinions of my youth obtain general recognition and many of the reforms in institutions for which I had through life contended, either effected or in course of being so. But these changes had been attended with much less benefit to human well-being than I should formally have anticipated because they had produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in the light of mankind depends on their intellectual and moral state. And it might even be questioned if the various causes of deterioration which had been at work in the meanwhile had not more than counterbalanced the tendencies to improvement. I had learned from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. The English public, for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of political economy since the nation has been converted to free trade as they were before and are still further from having acquired better habits of thought and feeling or being in any way better fortified against error on subjects of a more elevated character. For, though they have thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their minds intellectually and morally is not altered. I am now convinced that no great improvements in the light of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. The old opinions in religion, morals, and politics are so much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have lost the greater part of their efficacy for good while they have still life enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to the growing up of any better opinions on those subjects. When the philosophic minds of the world can no longer believe its religion or can only believe it with modifications amounting to an essential change of its character, a transitional period commences of weak convictions, paralyzed intellects, and growing laxity of principle which cannot terminate until a renovation has been affected in the basis of their belief leading to the evolution of some faith, whether religious or merely human, which they can really believe. And when things are in this state, all thinking or writing which does not tend to promote such a renovation is of very little value beyond the moment. Since there was little in the apparent condition of the public mind indicative of any tendency in this direction, my view of the immediate prospects of human improvement was not sanguine. More recently, a spirit of free speculation has sprung up, giving a more encouraging prospect to the gradual mental emancipation of England and concurring with the renewal under better auspices of the movement for political freedom in the rest of Europe has given to the present condition of human affairs a more hopeful aspect. Between the time of which I have now spoken and the present took place the most important events in my private life. The first of these was my marriage in April 1851 to the lady whose incomparable worth has made her friendship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of improvement during many years in which we never expected to be in any closer relation to one another. Hardly as I should have aspired to this complete union of our lives at any time in the course of my existence at which it had been practicable, I as much as my wife would far rather have foregone that privilege forever than have owed it to the premature death of one for whom I had the sincerest respect and sheed the strongest defection. That event however having taken place in July 1849 it was granted to me to derive from that evil my own greatest good by adding to the partnership of thought feeling and writing which had long existed a partnership of our entire existence. For seven and a half years that blessing was mine for seven and a half only. I can say nothing which could describe even in the faintest manner what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would have wished it I endeavored to make the best of what life I have left and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her and communion with her memory. When two persons have their thoughts and speculations completely in common with all subjects of intellectual or moral interest are discussed between them in daily life and probe to much greater depth than are usually are conveniently sounded in writings intended for general readers. When they set out from the same principles and arrive at their conclusions by processes pursued jointly it is of little consequence in respect to the question of originality which of them holds the pen. The one who contributes least to the composition may contribute more to the thought the writings which result of the joint production of both and it must often be impossible to disentangle their respective parts and affirm that this belongs to one and that to the other. In this wide sense not only during the years of our married life but during many of the years of confidential friendship which preceded all my published writings were as much her work as mine. Her share in them constantly increasing as years advanced but in certain cases what belongs to her can be distinguished and specially identified. Over and above the general influence which her mind had over mine the most valuable ideas and features in these joint productions those which have been most fruitful of important results and have contributed most to the success and reputation of the works themselves originated with her emanations from her mind my part in them being no greater than in any of the thoughts which I found in previous writers and made my own only by incorporating them with my own system of thought during the greater part of my literary life I have performed the office in relation to her which from a rather early period I had considered as the most useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought that of an interpreter of original thinkers and mediator between them and the public I had always a humble opinion of my own powers as an original thinker except in abstract science, logic, metaphysics and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics but thought myself much superior to most of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to learn from everybody as I found hardly anyone who made such a point of examining what was said in defense of all opinions however new or however old even if there were errors there might be a substratum of truth underneath them and that in any case the discovery of what it was that made them plausible would be a benefit to truth I had in consequence marked this out as a sphere of usefulness in which I was under a special obligation to make myself active the more so as the acquaintance I had formed with the ideas of the colorigians of the German thinkers and of Carlisle all of them fiercely opposed to the mode of thought in which I had been brought up had convinced me that along with much error they possessed much truth which was veiled from minds otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut it up and from which they neither cared nor knew how to disengage it and I did not despair of separating the truth from the error and exposing it in terms which would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own side in philosophy thus prepared it will easily be believed that when I came into close intellectual communion with a person of the most imminent faculties whose genius as it grew and unfolded itself in thought continually struck out truths far in advance of me but in which I could not as I had done in those others detect any mixture of error the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in the assimilation of those truths and the most valuable part of my intellectual work was in building the bridges and clearing the paths which connected them with my general system of thought the first of my books in which her share was conspicuous was the principles of political economy the system of logic owed little to her except in the minute matters of composition in which respect my writings both great and small have largely benefited by her accurate and clear-sighted criticism the chapter of the political economy which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the rest that on the probable future of the laboring classes is entirely due to her in that first draft of the book that chapter did not exist she pointed out the need of such a chapter and the extreme imperfection of the book without it she was the cause of my writing it and the more general part of the chapter the statement and discussion of the two opposite theories respecting the proper condition of the laboring classes was wholly an exposition of her thoughts often in words taken from her own lips the purely scientific part of the political economy I did not learn from her but it was chiefly her influence that gave to the book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous expositions of political economy that had any pretension to being scientific and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which those previous expositions had repelled this tone consisted chiefly in making the proper distinction between the laws of the production of wealth which are laws of nature dependent on the properties of objects and the modes of its distribution which subject to certain conditions depend on the human will the common run of political economists confused these together under the designation of economic laws which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions of our earthly existence and to those which being but the necessary consequences of particular social arrangements are merely co-extensive with these given certain institutions and customs wages, profits and rents will be determined by certain causes but this class of political economists drop the indispensable presupposition and argue that these causes must by an inherent necessity against which no human means can avail determine the shares which fall in the division of the produce to laborers, capitalists and landlords the principle of political economy yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the scientific appreciation of the action of these causes under the condition which they presuppose but it set the example of not treating those conditions as final the economic generalizations which depend not on the necessities of nature but on those combined with the existing arrangements of society it deals with only as provisional and as liable to be much altered by the progress of social improvement I had indeed partially learnt this view of things from the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of Saint Simonians but it was made a living principle pervading and animating the book by my wife's promptings this example illustrates well the general character of what she contributed to my writings what was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine the properly human element came from her in all that concerned the application of philosophy through the exegesis of human society and progress I was her people a likened boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment far on the one hand she was much more courageous and farsighted than without her I should have been in anticipation of an order of things to come in which many of the limited generalizations now so often confounded with universal principles will cease to be applicable those parts of my writings and especially of the political economy which contemplate possibilities in the future such as when affirmed by socialists have in general been fiercely denied by political economists would but for her either have been absent or the suggestions would have been made much more timidly and in a more qualified form but while she thus rendered me bolder in speculation on human affairs her practical turn of mind and her almost unerring estimate of practical obstacles repressed in me all tendencies that were really visionary her mind invested all ideas in a concrete shape and formed to itself a conception of how they would actually work and her knowledge of the existing feelings and conduct of mankind was so seldom at fault that the weak point in any unworkable suggestion seldom escapes her during the two years which immediately preceded the cessation of my official life my wife and I were working together at the liberty I had first planned and written it as a short essay in 1854 it was in mounting the steps of the capital in January 1855 that the thought first arose of converting it into a volume none of my writings have been either so carefully composed or so sedulously corrected as this after it had been written as usual twice over we kept it by us bringing it out from time to time and going through it to Novo reading, weighing, criticizing every sentence its final revision was to have been a work of the winter of 1858 and 59 the first year after my retirement which we had arranged to pass in the south of Europe that hope and every other were frustrated by the most unexpected and bitter calamity of her death had avingyong on our way to Mount Pilier from a sudden attack of pulmonary congestion since then I have sought for such alleviations as my state admitted of by the mode of life which most enabled me to feel her still near me I bought a cottage as close as possible to the place where she's buried and there her daughter my fellow sufferer and now my chief comfort and I live constantly during a great portion of the year my objects in life are solely those which were hers the suits and occupations those in which she shared are sympathized and which are indissolubly associated with her her memory is to me a religion and her approbation the standard by which summing up as it does all worthiness I endeavour to regulate my life after my irreparable loss one of my earliest cares was to print and publish the treatise so much of which was the work of her whom I had lost and consecrate it to her memory I have made no alteration or addition to it nor shall I ever though it wants the last touch of her hand no substitute for that touch shall ever be attempted by mine the liberty was more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name for there was not a sentence of it that was not several times gone through by us together turned over in many ways and carefully weeded out of any faults either in thought or expression that we detected in it it is in consequence to this that although it never underwent her final revision it far surpasses as a mere specimen of composition anything which has preceded from me either before or since with regard to the thoughts it is difficult to identify any particular part or element as being more hers than all the rest the whole mode of thinking of which the book was the expression was emphatically hers but I also was thoroughly imbued with it that the same thoughts naturally occurred to us both that I was thus penetrated with it however I owe in a great degree to her there was a moment in my mental progress when I might easily have fallen into a tendency towards over-government both social and political as there was also a moment when by reaction from a contrary excess I might have become a less thorough radical and democrat than I am both these points as in many others she benefited me by keeping me right where I was right as by leading me to new truths and ridding me of errors my great readiness and eagerness to learn from everybody and to make room in my opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting the old and the new to one another might but for her stating influence I have seduced me into modifying my early opinions too much she was in nothing more valuable to my mental development than by her just measure of the relative importance of different considerations which often protected me from allowing to truths I had only recently learnt to see a more important place in my thoughts than was properly there due the liberty is likely to survive longer than anything else that I've written with the possible exception of the logic because the conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophical textbook of a single truth which the changes progressively take place in modern society and to bring out into ever stronger belief the importance to man and society of a large variety and types of character and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions nothing can better show how deep are the foundations of this truth than the great impression made by the exposition of it of time which to superficial observation did not seem to stand much in need of such a lesson the fears we expressed lest the inevitable growth of social equality and of the government of public opinion should impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice might easily have appeared chemical to those who look more at present facts than at tendencies for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and institutions has thus far been decidedly favorable to the development of new opinions and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced hearing than they previously met with but this is the feature belonging to periods of transition when old notions and feelings have been unsettled and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy at such times people of any mental activity having given up their old beliefs and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain stand unmodified listen eagerly to new opinions but this state of things is necessarily transitory some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the majority around it organizes social institutions and modes of action conformal to itself education impresses this new creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have led to it and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression so long exercised by the creeds of which it has taken the place whether this noxious power will be exercised depends on whether mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human nature it is then that the teachings of the liberty will have their greatest value and it is to be feared that they will retain that value a long time End of section 17 Recording by Tony Richardson Section 18 The biography of John Stuart Mill This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tony Richardson Chapter 7 Part 3 General view of the remainder of my life As regards originality it has of course no other than that which every thoughtful mind gives to its own mode of conceiving and expressing truths which are common property The leading thought of the book is one which though in many ages confined to insulated thinkers mankind have probably at no time since the beginning of civilization been entirely without To speak only of the last few generations it is distinctly contained in the vein of important thought respecting education and culture spread through the European mind by the labors and genius of Pestilosi the unqualified championship of it by Wilhelm von Humboldt which is referred to in the book but he by no means stood alone in his own country During the early part of the present century the doctrine of the rights of individuality and the claim of the moral nature to develop itself in its own way was pushed by a whole school of German authors even to exaggeration and the writing of Goethe the most celebrated of all German authors though not belonging to that or to any other school are penetrated throughout by views of moral and of conduct in life often in my opinion not defensible but which are incessantly seeking whatever defense they admit of in the theory of the right and duty of self-development in our own country before the book on liberty was written the doctrine of individuality had been enthusiastically asserted in a style of vigorous declamation sometimes reminding one of Fitch by Mr. William McCall in a series of writings of which the most elaborate is entitled elements of individualism and a remarkable American Mr. Warren had framed a system of society on the foundation of the sovereignty of the individual had obtained a number of followers and had actually commenced the formation of a village community whether it now exists or not I know not which though bearing a superficial resemblance to some of the projects of socialists is diametrically opposite to them in principle since it recognizes no authority whatever in society over the individual except to enforce equal freedom of development for all individualities as the book which bears my name claimed no originality for any of its doctrines it was not intended to write their history the only author who had preceded me in their assertion of whom I thought it appropriate to say anything was humbold who furnished the motto to the work although in one passage I borrowed from the Warrenites their phrase the sovereignty of the individual it is hardly necessary here to remark that there are abundant differences in detail between the conception of the doctrine by any of the predecessors I have mentioned and that set forth in the book the political circumstances of the time induced me shortly after to complete and publish a pamphlet thoughts on parliamentary reform part of which had been written some years previously on the occasion of one of the abortive reform bills and had at the time been approved and revised by her its principal features were hostility to the ballot a change of opinion in both of us in which she rather preceded me and a claim of representation for minorities not however at that time going beyond the cumulative vote proposed by Mr. Garth Marshall in finishing the pamphlet for publication with the view to the discussions on the reform bill of Lord Derbys and Mr. Disraeli's government in 1859 I added a third feature a plurality of votes to be given not to property but to prove superiority of education this recommended itself to me as a means of reconciling the irresistible claim of every man or woman to be consulted and to be allowed a voice in the regulation of affairs which vitally concerned them with the superiority of weight justly due to opinions grounded on superiority of knowledge the suggestion however was one which I had never discussed with my almost infallible counselor and I have no evidence that she would have concurred in it as far as I have been able to observe it has found favor with nobody all who desire any sort of inequality in the electoral vote desiring it in favor of property and not of intelligence or knowledge if it ever overcomes the strong feeling which exists against it this will only be after the establishment of a systematic national education by which the various grades of political valuable acquirement may be accurately defined and authenticated without this it will always remain liable to strong possibly conclusive objections and with this it would perhaps not be needed it was soon after the publication of thoughts on parliamentary reform that I became acquainted with Mr. Hale's admirable system of personal representation which in its present shape was then for the first time published I saw in this great practical and philosophical idea the greatest improvement of which the system of representative government is susceptible an improvement which in the most felicitous manner exactly meets and cures the grand and what before seemed the inherent defect in the representative system that of giving to a numerical majority all power instead of only a power proportional to its numbers and enabling the strongest party to exclude all weaker parties from making their opinions heard in the assembly of the nation except through such opportunity as may be given to them by the accidentally unequal distribution of opinions in different localities to these great evils nothing more than very imperfect palliations had seemed possible Mr. Hale's system affords a radical cure this great discovery for it is no less in the political art inspired me as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who have adopted it with new and more sanguine hopes respecting the prospects of human society by freeing the form of political institutions towards which the whole civilized world is manifestly and irresistibly tending from the chief part of what seemed to qualify or rendered out for its ultimate benefits minorities so long as they remain minorities are and ought to be out voted but under arrangements which enable any assemblage of voters amounting to a certain number to place in the legislature a representative of its own choice minorities cannot be suppressed independent opinions will force their way into the council of the nation and make themselves heard there a thing which often cannot happen in the existing forms of representative democracy and the legislature instead of being weeded of individual peculiarities and entirely made up of men who simply represent the creed of great political or religious parties will comprise a large portion of the most imminent individual minds in the country placed there without reference to party by votes who appreciate their individual eminence I can understand that persons otherwise intelligent should for want of sufficient examination be repelled from Mr. Hare's plan by what they think the complex nature of its machinery but anyone who does not feel the want which the scheme is intended to supply anyone who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or crotchet tending to no valuable purpose and unworthy of the attention of practical men may be pronounced an incompetent statesman unequal to the politics of the future I mean unless he is a minister or aspires to become one for we are quite accustomed to a minister continuing to profess unqualified hostility to an improvement almost to the very day when his conscience or his interest induces him to take it up as a public measure and carry it had I met with Mr. Hare's system before the publication of my pamphlet I should have given an account of it there not having done so I wrote an article in Frazier's magazine reprinted in my miscellaneous writings principally for that purpose though I included in it along with Mr. Hare's book a review of two other productions on the question of the day one of them a pamphlet by my early friend Mr. John Austin who had in his old age become an enemy of all further parliamentary reform the other enable and vigorous though partially erroneous work by Mr. Lorimer in the course of the same summer I fulfilled a duty particularly incumbent upon me that of helping by an article in the Edinburgh Review to make known Mr. Bain's profound treatise on the mind just then completed by the publication of its second volume and I carried through the press a selection of my minor writings forming the first two volumes of dissertations and discussions the selection had been made during my wife's lifetime but the revision in concert with her with a view to republication had been barely commenced and when I had no longer the guidance of her judgment I despaired of pursuing it further and republished the pages as they were with the exception of striking out such passages as were no longer in accordance with my opinions my literary work of the year was terminated with an essay in Frazier's magazine afterwards republished in the third volume of dissertations and discussions entitled A Few Words on Non-Intervention I was prompted to write this paper by a desire while vindicating England from the imputations commonly brought against her on the continent of a particular selfishness and matters of foreign policy to warn Englishmen of the color given to this imputation by the low tone in which English statesmen are accustomed to speak of English policy as concerned only with English interests and by the conduct of Lord Palmerston at that particular time in opposing the Suez Canal and I took the opportunity of expressing ideas which had long been in my mind some of them generated by my Indian experience and others by the international questions which then greatly occupied the European public respecting the true principles of international morality and the legitimate modifications made in it by difference of times and circumstances a subject I had already to some extent discussed in the vindication of the provisional government of 1848 against the attacks of Lord Brahman and others which I published at the time in the Westminster Review and which is reprinted in the dissertations I had now settled as I believed for the remainder of my existence into a purely literary life if that can be called literary I continued to be occupied in a preeminent degree with politics and not merely with theoretical but practical politics although a great part of the year was spent at a distance of many hundreds miles from the chief seat of the politics of my own country to which and primarily for which I wrote but in truth the modern facilities of communication not only removed all the disadvantages to a political writer in tolerably easy circumstances of distance from the scene of political action but have converted them into advantages the immediate and regular receipt of newspapers and periodicals keep him au courant of even the most temporary politics and gives him a much more correct view of the state and progress of opinion than he could acquire by personal contact with individuals for everyone's social intercourse is more or less limited to particular sets or classes whose impressions and no others reach him through that channel and experiences taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion remain much more ignorant of the general state either of the public mind or of the active and instructed part of it than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be there are no doubt disadvantages in too long a separation from one's country and not occasionally renewing one's impressions of the light in which men and things appear when seen from a position in the midst of them but the deliberate judgment formed at a distance and undisturbed by inequalities of perspective is the most to be depended on even for application to practice alternating between the two positions I combined the advantages of both and though the inspired of my best thoughts was no longer with me I was not alone she had left a daughter my stepdaughter Miss Helen Taylor the inheritor of much of her wisdom and of all her nobleness of character whose ever growing and ripening talents from that day to this have been devoted to the same great purposes and have already made her name better and more widely known than was that of her mother though far less so I predict that if she lives it is destined to become of the value of her direct cooperation with me something will be said hereafter of what I owe in the way of instruction to her great powers of original thought and soundness of practical judgment it would be a vain attempt to give an adequate idea surely no one ever before was so fortunate as after such a loss as mine to draw another prize in the lottery of life another companion stimulator advisor and instructor of the rarest quality whoever either now or hereafter may think of me and the work I have done must never forget that it is the product not of one intellect and conscience but of three the least considerable of whom and above all the least original is the one whose name is attached to it the work of the years 1860 and 1861 consisted chiefly of two treatises only one of which was intended for immediate publication this was the considerations on representative government a connected exposition of what by the thoughts of many years I had come to regard as the best form of a popular constitution along with as much of the general theory of government as is necessary to support this particular portion of its practice the volume contained many matured views of the principal questions which occupy the present age within the province of purely organic institutions and raises by anticipation some other questions to which growing necessities will sooner or later compel the attention both of theoretical and of practical politicians the chief of these last is the distinction between the function of making laws for which a numerous popular assembly is radically unfit and that of getting good laws made which is the proper duty and cannot be satisfactorily fulfilled by any other authority and the consequent need of a legislative commission as a permanent part of the constitution of a free country consisting of a small number of highly trained political minds on whom when Parliament has determined that a law shall be made the task of making it should be devolved Parliament retaining the power of passing or rejecting the bill when drawn up but not of altering it otherwise than by sending proposed amendments to be dealt with by the commission the question here raised respecting the most important of all public functions that of legislation is a particular case of the great problem of modern political organization stated I believe for the first time in its full extent by Bentham though in my opinion not always satisfactorily resolved by him the combination of complete popular control over public affairs with the greatest attainable perfection of skilled agency the other treatise written at this time is the one which was published some years later under the title of the Subjection of Women it was written at my daughter's suggestion that there might in any event be in existence a written exposition of my opinions on that great question as full and conclusive as I could make it the intention was to keep this among other unpublished papers improving it from time to time if I was able and to publish it at the time when it should seem likely to be most useful as ultimately published it was enriched with some important ideas of my daughters and passages of her writing but in what was of my own composition all that is most striking and profound belongs to my wife coming from the fund of thought which had been made common to us both by our innumerable conversations and discussions on a topic which fills so large a place in our minds soon after this time I took from their repository a portion of unpublished papers which I had written during the last years of our married life and shaped them with some additional matter into the little work entitled Utilitarianism which was first published in three parts in successive numbers of Frazier's magazine and afterwards reprinted in a volume before this however the state of public affairs had become extremely critical by the commencement of the American Civil War my strongest feelings were engaged in this struggle which I felt from the beginning was destined to be a turning point for good or evil of the course of human affairs for an indefinite duration having been a deeply interested observer of the slavery quarrel in America during the many years that preceded the open breach I knew that it was in all its stages an aggressive enterprise of the slave owners to extend the territory of slavery under the combined influences of pecuniary interest domineering temper and fanaticism of a class for its class privileges influences so fully and powerfully depicted in the admirable work of my friend Professor Carnes the slave power their success if they succeeded would be a victory of the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the spirits of its friends all over the civilized world while it would create a formidable military power grounded on the worst and most antisocial form of the tyranny of men over men and by destroying for a long time the prestige of the great democratic republic would give to all the privileged classes of Europe a false confidence probably only to be extinguished in blood on the other hand if the spirit of the north was sufficiently roused to carry the war to a successful termination and if that termination did not come too soon and too easily I foresaw from the laws of human nature and the experience of revolutions that when it did come it would in all probability be thorough that the bulk of the northern population whose conscience had as yet been awakened only to the point of resisting the further extension of slavery but whose fidelity to the constitution of the United States made them disprove of any attempt by the federal government to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed would acquire feelings of another kind when the constitution had been shaken off by armed rebellion would determine to have done forever with the accursed thing and would join their banner with that of the noble body of abolitionists of whom garrison was the courageous and single-minded apostle Wendell Phillips the eloquent orator and John Brown the voluntary martyr then too the whole mind of the United States would be let loose from its bonds no longer corrupted by the supposed necessity of apologizing to foreigners for the most flagrant of all possible violations of the free principles of their constitution while the tendency of a fixed state of society to stereotype a set of national opinions would be at least temporarily checked and the national mind would become more open to the recognition of whatever was bad in either the institutions or the customs of the people these hopes so far as related to slavery have been completely and in other respects are in course of being progressively realized foreseeing from the first this double set of consequences from the success or failure of the rebellion it may be imagined with what feelings I contemplated the rush of nearly the whole upper and middle classes of my own country even those who pass for liberals into a furious pro-southern partnership the working classes and some of the literary and scientific men being almost sole exceptions to the general frenzy I never before felt so keenly how little permanent improvement had reached the minds of our influential classes and of what small value were the liberal opinions they had got into the habit of professing none of the continental liberals committed the same frightful mistake but the generation which had extorted Negro emancipation from our West India planners had passed away another had succeeded which had not learned by many years of discussion and exposure to feel strongly the enormity of slavery and the inattention habitual with Englishman to whatever is going on in the world outside their own island made them profoundly ignorant of all the antecedents of the struggle in so much that it was not generally believed in England the first year or two of the war that the quarrel was one of slavery there were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathize of a people struggling for independence end of section 18 recording by Tony Richardson section 19 autobiography of John Stuart Mill this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tony Richardson chapter 7 part 4 general view of the remainder of my life it was my obvious duty to be one of the small minority who protested against this perverted state of public opinion I was not the first to protest it ought to be remembered to the honor of Mr. Hughes and of Mr. Ludlow that they, by writings published at the very beginning of the struggle began the protestation Mr. Bright followed in one of the most powerful of his speeches followed by others not less striking I was on the point of adding my words to theirs when there occurred towards the end of 1861 the seizure of the Southern envoys on board a British vessel by an officer of the United States even English forgetfulness has not yet had time to lose all remembrance of the explosion of feeling in England which then burst forth the expectation prevailing for some weeks of war with the United States and the warlike preparations actually commenced on this side while this state of things lasted there was no chance of a hearing for anything favorable to the American cause and moreover I agreed with those who thought the act unjustifiable and such as to require that England should demand its disavowal when the disavowal came and the alarm of war was over I wrote in January 1862 the paper in Frazier's magazine entitled The Contest in America and I shall always feel grateful to my daughter that her urgency prevailed on me to write it when I did for we were then on the point of setting out for a journey of some months in Greece and Turkey and but for her I should have deferred writing till our return written and published when it was this paper helped to encourage those liberals who had felt overborn by the tide of liberal opinion and to form in favor of the good cause a nucleus of opinion which increased gradually even after the success of the North began to seem probable rapidly when we returned from our journey I wrote a second article a preview of Professor Carnes' book published in the Westminster Review England is paying the penalty in many uncomfortable ways of the durable resentment which her ruling classes have stirred up in the United States by their ostentatious wishes for the ruin of America as a nation they have reason to be thankful that if only a few known writers and speakers standing firmly by the Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty expected a partial diversion of these bitter feelings and made Great Britain not altogether odious to the Americans this duty having been performed my principal occupation for the next two years was on subjects not political the publication of Mr. Austen's lectures on jurisprudence after his decease gave me an opportunity of paying a deserved tribute to his memory and at the same time expressing some thoughts on a subject on which in my old days of venomism I had bestowed much study but the chief product of those years was the examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy his lectures published in 1860 and 1861 I had read towards the end of the latter year with a half-formed intention of giving an account of them in a review but I soon found that this would be idle and that justice could not be done to the subject in less than a volume I had then to consider whether it would be advisable that I myself should attempt such a performance on consideration there seemed to be strong reasons for doing so I was greatly disappointed with the lectures I read them certainly with no prejudice against Sir William Hamilton I had up to that time deferred the study of his notes to read on account of their unfinished state but I had not neglected his discussions in philosophy and though I knew that his general mode of treating the facts of mental philosophy differed from that of which I most approved yet his vigorous polemic against the latter transcendentalists and his strenuous assertion of some important principles especially the relativity of human knowledge gave me many points of sympathy with his opinions and made me think that genuine psychology had considerably more to gain than to lose by his authority and reputation his lectures and the dissertation on read dispelled this illusion even the discussions read by the light which these throw on them lost much of their value I found that the points of apparent agreement between his opinions and mine were more verbal than real that the important philosophical principles which I had thought he recognized were so explained away by him as to mean little or nothing or were continually lost sight of doctrines entirely inconsistent with them were taught in nearly every part of his philosophical writings my estimation of him was therefore so far altered that instead of regarding him as occupying a kind of intermediate position between the two rival philosophies holding some of the principles of both and supplying to both powerful weapons of attack and defense I now looked upon him as one of the pillars and in this country from his high philosophical reputation the chief pillar of that one of the two which seemed to me to be erroneous now the difference between these two schools of philosophy that of intuition and that of experience and association is not a mere amount of abstract speculation it is full of practical consequences and lies at the foundation of all the greatest differences of practical opinion in an age of progress the practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely spread feelings or to question the apparent necessity and defeasiveness of established facts and it is often an indispensable part of his argument to show how those powerful feelings had their origin and how those facts came to seem necessary and indefeasible there is therefore a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circumstances and association and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favorite doctrines as intuitive truths and deems intuition to be the voice of nature and of God speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason in particular I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate and in the main indelible and to ignore the irresistible proves that by far the greatest part of those differences whether between individuals, races or sexes are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances is one of the chief hindrances of the rational treatment of great social questions and one of the great stumbling blocks to human improvement this tendency has its source in the intuitional metaphysics which characterized the reaction of the 19th century against the 18th and it is a tendency so agreeable to human indolence as well as to conservative interest generally that unless attacked at the very root it is sure to be carried to even a greater length than is really justified by the more moderate forms of the intuitional philosophy that philosophy not always in its moderate forms had ruled the thought of Europe for the greater part of a century my father's analysis of the mind my own logic and Professor Bain's great treatise had attempted to reintroduce a better mode of philosophizing laterally with quite as much success as could be expected but I had for some time felt that the mere contrast of the two philosophers was not enough that there ought to be a hand to hand fight between them that controversial as well as expository writings were needed and that the time was come when such controversy would be useful considering then the writings and fame of Sir W. Hamilton as the great fortress of the intuitional philosophy in this country a fortress the more formidable from the imposing character and the in many respects great personal merits and mental endowments of the man I thought it might be a real service to philosophy to attempt a thorough examination of all his most important doctrines and an estimate of his general claims to eminence as a philosopher and I was confirmed in this resolution by observing that in the writings of at least one and him of the ablest of Sir W. Hamilton's followers his peculiar doctrines were made the justification of a view of religion which I hold to be profoundly immoral that it is our duty to bow down in worship before a being whose moral attributes are affirmed to be unknowable by us and to be perhaps extremely different from those which when we are speaking of our fellow creatures we called by the same names as I advanced in my task the damage to Sir W. Hamilton's reputation became greater than I at first expected through the almost incredible multitude of inconsistencies which showed themselves on comparing different passages with one another it was my business however to show things exactly as they were and I did not flinch from it I endeavored always to treat the philosopher whom I criticized with the most scrupulous fairness and I knew that he had abundance of disciples and admirers to correct me if I ever unintentionally did him injustice many of them accordingly have answered me more or less elaborately and they have pointed out oversights and misunderstandings though few a number and most are very unimportant in substance such of those as had to my knowledge been pointed out before the publication of the latest edition at present the third have been corrected there and the remainder of the criticisms have been as far as seemed necessary replied to on the whole the book has done its work it has shown the weak side of Sir William Hamilton and has reduced his two great philosophical reputation with then more moderate bounds and by some of its discussions as well as by two expository chapters on the notions of matter and of mind it has perhaps thrown additional light on some of the disputed questions in the domain of psychology and metaphysics after the completion of the book on Hamilton I applied myself to a task which a variety of reasons seemed to render specially incumbent upon me that of giving an account and forming an estimate of the doctrines of August come I had contributed more than anyone else to make his speculations known in England and in consequence chiefly of what I had said of him in my logic he had readers and admirers among thoughtful men on this side of the channel had a time when his name had not yet in France emerged from obscurity so unknown and unappreciated at the time when my logic was written and published that to criticize his weak points might well appear superfluous while it was a duty to give as much publicity as one could to the important contributions he had made to philosophic thought at the time however at which I have now arrived this state of affairs had entirely changed his name at least was known almost universally and the general character of his doctrines very widely he had taken his place in the estimation both of friends and opponents as one of the conspicuous figures in the thought of the age the better parts of his speculations had made great progress in working their way into those minds by their previous culture and tendencies were fitted to receive them undercover of those better parts those of the worst character greatly developed and added to in his later writings had also made some way having obtained active and enthusiastic adherents some of them of no inconsiderable personal merit in England France and other countries these causes not only made it desirable that someone should undertake the task of sifting what is good from what is bad in M comp's speculations but seemed to impose on myself in particular a special obligation to make the attempt this I accordingly did in two essays published in successive numbers of the Westminster Review and reprinted in a small volume under the title August comp and positivism the writings which I have now mentioned together with a small number of papers and periodicals which I have not deemed worth preserving were the whole of the products of my activity as a writer during the years from 1859 to 1865 in the early part of the last mentioned year in compliance with the wish frequently expressed to me by working men I published cheap people's editions of those of my writings which seemed the most likely to find readers among the working classes visibly principles of political economy liberty and representative government this was a considerable sacrifice of my pecuniary interest especially as I resigned all idea of deriving profit from the cheap editions and after ascertaining from my publishers the lowest price which they thought would remunerate them on the usual terms of an equal division of profits I gave up my half share to enable the price to be fixed still lower to the credit of Mrs. Longman they fixed unasked a certain number of years after which the copyright and stereotype plates were to revert to me and a certain number of copies after the sale of which I should receive half of any of my profit this number of copies which in the case of the political economy was ten thousand has for some time been exceeded and the people's editions have begun to yield me a small but unexpected pecuniary return though very far from an equivalent for the diminution of profit from the library editions this summary of my outward life I have now arrived at the period at which my tranquil and retired existence as a writer of books was to be exchanged for the less congenial occupation of a member of the House of Commons the proposal made to me early in 1865 by some electors of Westminster did not present the idea to me for the first time was not even the first offer I had received for more than ten years previous in consequence of my opinions on the Irish land question Mr. Lucas and Mr. Duffy in the name of the popular party in Ireland offered to bring me into Parliament for an Irish county which they could easily have done but the incompatibility of a seat in Parliament with the office I then held in the India House precluded even consideration of the proposal after I had quitted the India House several of my friends would gladly have seen me a member of Parliament but there seemed no probability that the idea would ever take any practical shape I was convinced that no numerous or influential portion of any electoral body really wished to be represented by person of my opinions and that one who possessed no local connection or popularity and who did not choose to stand as the mere organ of a party had small chance of being elected anywhere unless through the expenditure of money now it was and is my fixed conviction that a candidate ought not to incur one farthing of expense for undertaking a public duty such as the lawful expenses of an election as have no special reference to any particular candidate ought to be born as a public charge either by the state or by the locality what has to be done by the supporters of each candidate in order to bring his claims properly before the constituency should be done by unpaid agency or by voluntary subscription if members of the electoral body or others are willing to subscribe money of their own for the purpose of bringing by lawful means into Parliament someone who they think would be useful there no one is entitled to object but that the expense or any part of it should fall on the candidate is fundamentally wrong because it amounts in reality to buying his seat even on the most favorable supposition as to the mode in which the money is expended there is a legitimate suspicion that anyone who gives money for a leave to undertake a public trust has other than public ends to promote by it and a consideration of the greatest importance the cost of elections when born by the candidates deprives the nation of the services as members of Parliament of all who cannot or will not afford to incur a heavy expense I do not say that so long as there is scarcely a chance for an independent candidate to come into Parliament without complying with this vicious practice it must always be morally wrong in him to spend money provided that no part of it is either directly or indirectly employed in corruption but to justify it he ought to be very certain that he can be of more use than in any other mode which is open to him and this assurance in my own case I did not feel it was by no means clear to me that I could do more to advance the public objects which had a claim on my exertions from the benches of the House of Commons than from the simple position of a writer I felt therefore that I ought not to seek election to Parliament much less to spend any money in procuring it but the conditions of the question were considerably altered when a body of electors sought me out and spontaneously offered to bring me forward as their candidate if it should appear on explanation that they persisted in this wish knowing my opinions and conditions on which I could conscientiously serve it was questionable whether this was not one of those calls upon a member of the community by his fellow citizens which he was scarcely justified in rejecting I therefore put their disposition to the proof by one of the frankest explanations ever tendered I should think to an electoral body by a candidate to offer a letter for publication saying that I had no personal wish to be a member of Parliament that I thought a candidate ought neither to canvas nor to incur any expense and that I could not consent to do either I said further that if elected I could not undertake to give any of my time and labor to their local interests with respect to general politics I told them without reserve what I thought on a number of important subjects which they had asked my opinion and one of these being the suffrage I was made known to them among other things my conviction as I was bound to do since I intended if elected to act on it that women were entitled to representation in Parliament on the same terms with men it was the first time doubtless that such a doctrine had ever been mentioned to English electors and the fact that I was elected after proposing it gave the start to the movement which has since become so vigorous in favor of women's suffrage nothing at the time appeared more unlikely than that a candidate I could be called whose professions and conduct set so completely at defiance all ordinary notions of electioneering should nevertheless be elected a well known literary man who was also a man of society was heard to say that the Almighty himself would have no chance of being elected on such a program I strictly adhered to it neither spending money nor canvassing nor did I take any personal part in the election until about a week preceding the day of nomination when I attended a few public meetings to state my principles and give to any questions which the electors might exercise their just right of putting to me for their own guidance as plain and unreserved as my address on one subject only my religious opinions I announced from the beginning that I would answer no questions a determination which appeared to be completely approved by those who attended the meetings my frankness on all other subjects on which I was interrogated evidently did me far more good than my answers whatever they might be did harm among the proofs I received of this one is too remarkable not to be recorded in the pamphlet thoughts on parliamentary reform I had said rather bluntly that the working classes though differing from those of some other countries and being ashamed of lying are yet general liars this passage some opponent got printed in a placard which was handed to me at a meeting chiefly composed of the working classes and I was asked whether I had written and published it I at once answered I did scarcely with these two words out of my mouth when vehement applause resounded through the whole meeting it was evident that the working people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion from those who sought their suffrage that when they found instead of that a direct a vowel of what was likely to be disagreeable to them instead of being affronted they concluded at once that this was a person whom they could trust a more striking instance never came under my notice of what I believe is the experience of those who best know the working classes that the most essential of all recommendations to their favors is that of complete straightforwardness its presence outweighs in their minds very strong objections while no amount of other qualities will make amends for its apparent absence the first working man who spoke after the incident I have mentioned Mr. Odger said that the working classes had no desire not to be told of their faults they wanted friends not flatterers and felt under obligation to anyone who told them anything in themselves which he sincerely believed to require amendment and to this the meeting heartily responded end of section 19 recording by Tony Richardson