PHILOSOPHER IN LOVE

Press, 29 July 1978, Page 17

PHILOSOPHER IN LOVE

John Stuart Mill in Love. By J. Kamm. Gordon and Cremonesi. Bibliography and index. 230 pp. $18.90.

(Reviewed by

Meriel Farnsworth)

The author of this biography tells us she was commissioned to write on the influence of women in Mill’s life and work. Only a small part of the book deals with his “romantic” life so the title is rather misleading. John’s mother was beautiful and practical, but her intellectual shortcomings earned her the contempt of her brilliant and dictatorial husband, an attitude only too readily adopted by his son. Mill’s father, determined to mould a genius, subjected John to an educational programme so demanding — Greek at the age of three, Latin at five, logic and philosophy at 12 — that there was little opportunity for the development of normal human relationships. As a reaction, it is not surprising to find John Stuart falling deeply and irrecoverably in love with a woman intellectually gifted and even more dedicated than himself to the causes of social justice and women’s rights (a cause that was anathema to his father). Harriet was the wife of one John Taylor, a wholesale druggist, described by Carlyle as “an innocent, dull, good man,” and the mother or three children. The exact nature of their relationship has been a matter of

endless speculation, but whatever its basis there is no doubt about the forbearance of the long-suffering husband. The marriage continued in name only while Harriet and John travelled on the Continent and in England. Nineteen years later, on the death of Taylor, they were able to marry.

Harriet was highly intelligent with a clear analytical mind; she was also possessive, domineering and selfish. Blind to her faults, Mill worshipped her as a paragon of all the virtues, an adoration which many of his friends found ludicrous. His dependence on her in all practical matters, and his willingness to have this thinking shaped by. her more radical outlook, were signs of his emotional immaturity. On her death he was inconsolable, but the need to be dominated by a strong-minded woman still remained. The role was filled more than adequately by Helen Taylor, Harriet’s daughter. Till the end of his life she acted as Mill’s housekeeper, secretary, collaborator and companion. Whereas Harriet had isolated Mill from the world, Helen drew him back into it. She persuaded him to stand for Parliament and worked tirelessly to support his campaign for women's suffrage.

As an account of Mill's work the book is superficial. As an account of his life it is inclined to become bogged down in wearisome detail.