MR. JOHN STUART MILL, M.P.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2433, 27 October 1866, Page 6

MR. JOHN STUART MILL, M.P.

"Tiie learned Master of Trinity, a few , days before his death, congratulated the of "Westminster, on having realised a suggestion of Plato's, that it would •be well for a country to give its philosophers a place among its political rulers. It is yet to soon for us to anticipate the part which Mr. Stuart Mill is likely to "take in the practical debates of Parliament, though his bill for the reorganisation of local G-overnment in the metro--polis seems a valuable contribution to » the legislative stock. But his theoretical *• opinions on nearly all the questions of essential principle that underlie the controversies of the present day are very clearly denned. It is not our purpose . here to estimate the significance of his ■presence in the new House of Commons. He is welcomed there by the wisest and .most thoughtful men of all parties — Conservatives as well as Reformers — who > cherished the intellectual reputation of that House, and trust that the standard of ai'gument in its discussions may be . improved by the example of one of the greatest masters of the^art of think- • His eminence in that capacity is recognised by all the educated classes of nis countrymen. Some years ago, when a meeting of the British Social Science Association had brought many strangers to Oxford, a Frenchman, happening to talk with a resident member of the ITniversity, inquired about the state of philo-'sophic-al pursuits among us. " I see here," he said, " in your ancient colleges] . a richly-endowed provision of that kind b'f scholarship which consists of the study of the classical languages and literature ; I see, too, in the movement of your scientific societies and congresses a great deal of activity employed in the investigation of physical phenomena, or in the collection and comparison of statistics relating to the practical interests of mankind. But have yon any philosopher of first rate power who etudies to verify aud to account for the original sources of human knowledge — who strives to understand the process of belief, or who seeks to analyse the constitution of the mind, to define its # capacities and operations, and the conditions, and the limits of its acquaintance with the universe?" The Englishman answered " Yes ; we have John Stuart Mill.

IHe is not only a political thinker, who has defined the functions of the Government, and whoso ' Essay on Liberty' is •as good as your Rousseau's ' Contract Social' is bad ; for Mill concludes in favor of the perfect freedom of the individual, while Rousseau ends by establishing the absolute power of tho community over eacli of its members. Mill is not only an economist who has treated — with tho most refined scientific analysis, and in a most comprehensive discussion — of the laws of the production and diffusion of wealth, yet regarding them as subordinate to the improvement of humanity. Hejs not only a moralist, who has enlarged, elevated, and purified the meagre Utilitarianism of Bentham ; and while vindicating the ethical principle of the greatest happiness, shown how it may bo reconciled with the aspirations of heroic virtue and devotion. He is also a mental philosopher, allied most nearly to Locke, but one who has arrived at tho best results that are attainable within the limits of that theory which makes experience tho source of all our knowledge ; and on this ground he has taken a position rivalling at least the chief of' the fcscotfci.sk metaphysicians. Pie is above all, the author of a complete system of logic, exhibiting all the methods or processes, both the syllogistic and tho inductive, which can be employed by the intellect in the pursuit of truth ; he has laid down rules for the investigation of facts, and for drawing correct inferences from their evidence, with a view to positive science, as tho lawyers have their own rules of evidence to direct the trial of cases in our courts ; and so far as tho moral sciences arc concerned, lie has, with as much success as M. Comte in. your country, described their place and order in a general system of philosophy, aud the respective conditions of their study." This beiug the intellectual reputation of Mr. Mill, whoso works are used as authorised text books in the great English Universities, and who is hold by his numerous disciples to have supersed tho famous philosophical teaching of the University of Edinburgh, there is one thing about his personal history which seems to deserve special remark. His mind, one of the most highly cultivated as well as one of the most original which the world can boast, was never subjected to academical instruction at school or college. In his youth he was taught ah home by his eminent father, and no education could have done so much for him as to be the child and pupil of such a man as James Mill, whose merits and achievements are rather enhanced than eclipsed by the more illustrious career of his son.

When lie was fourteen years did, Jolm Stuart Mill, who had learnt Greek at the age when other* children are in the nursery, and had entered into the conversations of his father and Jeremy Bontham on political and ethical questions, was sent for three years to France, with Sir Samuel Bontham, and had thus been led to obtain such an intimate and familiar acquaintance with Trench habits of thought, and, likewise with the character of French society aud institutions, as few other Englishmen possess ; abundant instances of which are to be found in his illustrations of political economy. Having returned to London, he became, at the age of seventeen, a clerk in the India House, in. the department of the Examiner of Political Correspondence, of which his father was head. His official career during thirty-five years was an unbroken bourse of steady attention, to the service with gradual promotion imtil he -bccairio chief of the same department, having continued in it from the first. This was but two years before the abolition of the Government of the East India Company in 1358. To that measure, briuging the administration of India under the direct management of the Ministers of the Crown, he was most strenuously opposed. He refused Lord Stanley's offer of a seat in the new Indian Council, and 'retired on the pension granted by Parliament, which was fixed at three-fourths of his previous salary of £2,000 a year. iVs a diligent and able servant of the old semi-independent Indian Grovernment in Leadcnhall street, Mr. Mill, though his work was of the higher diplomatic sort, could never have risen to fame. It was by the contributions of his spare hours to the gravest discussions in the periodical literature of the • day that ho rained his great authority over the minds of his instructed countrymen. Wo find him just after the passing of the Reform Act in the thick of political controversy ; on the one hand, contending for the abstract right of the Legislature to dispose of the endowed estates of the Church, of charity trusts and school or college trusts, saving the life interests of incumbents, for the object of popular education ; on the other hand, denouncing as an impudent robbery, the scheme of an unlimited paper currency to pay the debts of the nation. In 1835 the "London Review" (afterwards merged in the "Westminister") was started by Sir William Molosworth— one of that group, *of some of the best leading men of the Reform party, whoso deaths, from that of Charles Duller to that of Sir Grcorge Cornowall Lewis, have deprived England of much advantage, which she might now have derived from the aid of their enlightened judgments. Mr. John Stuart Mill was the editor, the principal editor, and after a time sole proprietor, of the Radical quarterly, which, instead of attempting to repair the hopeless decadence of the Whig party, laid the foundations broad and deep for the advanced Liberalism of a later day. It has been the good fortune- of those philosophical reformers to see many of the objects of

their most earnest advocacy ultimately adopted and carried into effect by their opponents. Among his collected essays from the " "Westminister Review," most especially in his trenchant criticism of Professor Sedgwiek's discourse at Cambridge, are some of tho severest censures that wore ever passed on the authorities of tho two English Universities for their wilful neglect to provide any effectual, instruction in mental and moral science ; as well as for tho almost wicked enforcement of needless subscriptions to a theoretical , creed, reckless of their injurious effect on tho intellectual freedom, the love of truth, and the spirit of honesty, of the young i men under their charge. Mr. Mill has lived to see these matters considerably mended at Oxford and Cambridge, though something yet remains to be done. The philosophical discussions opened by Mr. Mill about the same period havo been pursued with entire consistency, but with increasing depth and width, to the most recent date. In ISGS, when Professor Sedgwick had gone out of his way to disparage Locke and Paley, Mr. Mill, after showing that Professor Sedgwick had mistaken both of them, avowed his own adherence to tho main principle of Locke's' system, that of tracing all ideas to experience denying any innate in the mind. Again, though he repudiated Paloy's applications of the Utilitarian principle of ethics, ho was equally propared to defend that principle, with an enlarged definition of happiness, embracing the highest spiritual good. The positions were resumed, a few years later, in his articles on IJentham and Coleridge — a pair of tho most admirable specimens of critical biography in our language ; not, indeed, of brilliant writinglikeMacaulay's, full of anecdote and epigram ; but of profound psychological insight, one of the clearest, the most candid and catholic appreciation of opposite moods and habits of thought. Of his three great works, any one of which is sufficient to have ensured the : abiding fame of its author — namoly, his "Principles of Political Economy," his inestimable " System of Logic," and his " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," no account need here be given. Tho first, of course, is well known to all readers who havo the commonest acquaintance with the matter. To that division of his writings which it is rather for tho student of philosophy than for the general reader to estimato at their true worth, belong his essay on the current objections to Utilitarianism, and his recent criticism of Augustc Comto. We rejoice in the popularity of two other of his minor works, his noble argument for individual liberty and his theory of the constitution and functions of a Representative Parliament. In the latter, which has been commended as " a manual for statesmen and electors," it may be remarked, in view of tho present discussions on reform, that Mr. Mill declares himself i for a simple education franchise, tested by reading, writing, and cyphering, but that he would admit the votes of women. Ho puts great stress on tho representation of the minorities, and he would also bcstoAv a plurality of votes on each elector of the educated classes of society. He disapproves of secret voting. These, assuredly, are not the principles of Mr. I Bright. Oil the whole, the electors of Westminster may well bo proud of the man whom they sought and won — for he did not ask it — to appear for them in the House of Commons. It is not improbable that the circumstances of that election will be interesting to some of our posterity, if the fame of any of the greatest authors of this age should outlast the present generation. — London Him Crated News: