|
ON LIBERTY |
|
PUBLISHER'S NOTE ON THE TEXT It had been the publisher's intention to combine with Mill's most popular work, On Liberty, his least- known essay, On Social Freedom, which was posthumously published in the Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1907. However, before going to press the Editor, Professor Currin V. Shields, and the publisher learned of Professor John C. Rees's (Swansea) recent publication, Mill and his Early Critics, [1] in which the author submits evidence tending to cast serious doubt on Mill's authorship of the essay, On Social Freedom. In his Introduction, Professor Shields himself had already pointed to the fact that the background of the essay and the circumstances which prompted Mill to write it are completely obscure. There is no reference to the essay in his Autobiography, nor in any of his other writings. As an essay by John Stuart Mill, On Social Freedom would have had considerable significance since it would be indicative of the author's thought during his gradual shift from his liberal, individualistic position toward socialism and idealism, to both of which Mill was inclined in the later period of his life. With Mill's authorship now in doubt, at least for the time being, the essay has no significance in connection with the essay On Liberty, and has been withdrawn from the present edition. It will be added if Mill's authorship is again affirmed. The present edition of On Liberty follows the standard text. It has been carefully compared with earlier editions. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been revised to conform to present American usage. Notes added to this edition have been set in brackets. O.P. _______________ NOTES: 1 Published by University College, Leicester, England. John Stuart Mill is today no doubt the most widely known nineteenth-century British political writer. And justly so, for he was a prolific author of influential political tracts. Mill was born in London on May 20, 1806, the eldest son of James Mill, who named his first-born child after a generous Scottish benefactor, Sir John Stuart. No child has undergone a more (in his own words) "unusual and remarkable" boyhood than young John Mill. The story of his early life Mill recounts in detail in his Autobiography. [1] Two years after John's birth his father met Jeremy Bentham. James Mill soon became a dedicated Benthamite; during the remainder of his life he devoted his energy and talents to promoting the cause of Utilitarian reform. [2] Bentham's faithful disciple selected his son, John Stuart, to be the legitimate heir of the Benthamite tradition. James Mill, conforming to the dictates of his theory of the tabula rasa, set about to manufacture, by a process of managed instruction, the perfect Utilitarian mind. The younger Mill's entire formal education was under the direct tutelage of his determined parent. James Mill was an exacting teacher of momentous subjects, and if we are to accept his son's testimony, a stern and severe taskmaster as well. John's daily preparation of his lessons started at the tender age of three with the study of Greek. At eight years he began the study of Latin. Reading in the classics and history followed. At twelve he commenced his serious inquiry in philosophy. In John's fourteenth year there was an interlude for travel abroad. But while he spent the year living in France with the family of General Sir Samuel Bentham (Jeremy's brother), John's "mental cultivation" continued without interruption. When he returned to London he read law, at the age of fifteen, with the Benthamite legalist, John Austin. His rigorous scholarly training was climaxed by the study of "mental philosophy." But John's education also included earnest conversations with the master himself, with his father's close friend, David Ricardo, and with the many other distinguished members of the Benthamite circle who frequented the Mill residence. In the course of the daily drills and recitations and lectures and conversations, James Mill shaped as best he could his son's mind to suit the Benthamite image. John's formal education ended as his professional career began, in 1823, when he was appointed an assistant to his father, the Examiner of Correspondence for the East India Company. After the favorable reception of his definitive History of British India (1817), the elder Mill, by profession a journalist, was granted an administrative post with the Company in its London office; he remained in its employ until his death in 1836. John Mill likewise spent his entire professional life, a period of thirty-five years, in the employment of the East India Company. In 1856 he was promoted to the office of Chief Examiner, the post second in command in the home service to the Secretary. This office he held until the Company was dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1858. Mill then declined an offer of a Government post, preferring instead to retire from the administrative service. In 1865 he was elected a member of the House of Commons for Westminster; he served three years, until his defeat for re-election. The last years of his life Mill devoted to his writings. Much of the time he lived in France with his stepdaughter as a companion. Mill died on May 8, 1873 at Avignon, where he now lies buried in a tomb with his wife. II Mill's biographers agree that he was unusually receptive to the influence of other minds. This a curious and inquiring intellect is perhaps prone to be. Mill himself recognized that the cast of his thought and character was the work of many diverse influences. At one time or another he was deeply impressed by the views of David Ricardo, Alexis de Tocqueville. Thomas Carlyle, Auguste Comte -- to mention but a few intellectual figures of his time. But Mill credits, and properly, so it seems, two people above all with most profoundly shaping his thought: his father and his wife. The pull and thrust of these two forceful personalities are evident in Mill's thinking. For good or ill, they sent Mill in his writings, not marching fixedly down a single straight path, but wandering aimlessly in opposite directions. [?] The youthful Mill was, of course, just as his father had planned, an ardent Benthamite. The principle of utility was for him, he later testified, "a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy" -- "a religion." He too dedicated himself to promoting the cause of Radical reform. At the age of seventeen he founded the original Utilitarian Society, a study group of young Radicals who met at Bentham's Westminster residence. He helped launch the propagandist journal, the Westminster Review, as a Benthamite house organ. He was the leader of the clique of younger Benthamites called the "Philosophical Radicals." Young John Stuart was a zealous champion of the Utilitarian gospel, until he suffered a nervous breakdown. At the age of twenty Mill passed into what he later called "a crisis in my mental history." From this crisis dates Mill's gradual disenchantment with the dogmas of Benthamism. So does his progressive reaction against his illustrious father's intellectual domination. Years after James Mill's death the son was still trying to escape from the father's intellectual shadow. Mill attributed his "mental crisis" to his childhood training. It was faulty, he charged, because his "moral sentiments" were insufficiently cultivated, at least to "resist the dissolving influence of analysis." John Mill unquestionably had enormous respect for his father and for the rare intellectual ability he displayed. By such a standard, James Mill certainly was one of the most extraordinary men of his time. John was a dutiful son, but he evidently felt little affection for his father. Only a few years before his death, John Mill complained that his father made "reason" a religion and always deprecated sentiment and feeling. In his relations with his children James Mill's principal shortcoming, his son remarked, was the lack of a feeling of tenderness. Their intellects he assiduously instructed, but their emotions he wholly ignored. During his "mental crisis" he could not turn to his father for help, John said, because the elder Mill would have been incapable of understanding his predicament. Young Mill was simply void of emotion: he felt no sense of mission, no purpose in life. He was, in his own words, "left stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and rudder, but no sail." In groping for a way out of his psychological torment, Mill reached two convictions, both at odds with his father's teachings: that happiness cannot be directly sought as an end in itself, instead it is a by-product of otherwise purposeful conduct, and that the cultivation of the feelings is vital for a well-balanced personality. Mill set out to remedy the defects left in his character by his father's austere intellectual discipline. To satisfy his craving for emotional stimulation, he turned to music, poetry, and art. He read for the first time Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Goethe, instead of Locke, Hume, and Hanley. For several years, while outwardly continuing a normal existence, John Mill silently struggled to regain control of his own life. Mill's crisis came to an end when he formed what he called "the most valuable friendship of my life." At the age of twenty-five John Mill, already a prominent figure in British intellectual life, met the young and attractive wife of a prosperous merchant with Radical sympathies. Mrs. Harriet Taylor and Mill became, in his words, "intimate and confidential friends." The friendship, with the indulgence of Mrs. Taylor's husband, matured over a period of twenty years. Mill frequented the Taylor residence and he and Mrs. Taylor collaborated on numerous projects. Mill was such a regular visitor and constant companion for Mrs. Taylor that London society, it seems, became scandalized by their unusual friendship. After some years Mrs. Taylor and Mill found the arrangement unsatisfactory, so she then lived apart from her husband until 1849, when Mr. Taylor died of cancer. After a decent interval Mill and his most valuable friend were joined in marriage at a quiet civil ceremony with only two of Mrs. Taylor's children in attendance. That was in 1851. For eight years Mill and Harriet, neither enjoying robust health, lived quiet and secluded lives together, shunning the company even of old friends. But they evidently lived happy and contented lives, spending long hours conversing about the great issues of the day, planning and working on manuscripts. Then suddenly, while on a holiday at Avignon in 1858, Harriet Mill died. Mill's lavish praise of his wife's fine moral and mental qualities, her "penetrating and intuitive intelligence," her "meditative and poetic nature," her "gifts of feeling and imagination," her "fiery and tender soul" -- this praise we can to some extent discount, perhaps, as the laments of a lover. But by all accounts Harriet Taylor was a woman of singular talents. What John Mill found so lacking in his father, he found abundant in Harriet. She once confided in him that "the desire to give and receive feeling is almost the whole of my character." [3] Mill certainly felt his wife's influence on him to be most beneficial. That she did profoundly influence Mill's thinking cannot be denied. They were devoted and congenial companions, but they were also felicitous literary collaborators. Mill's finest work dates from his association with Harriet Taylor and her mark is definitely impressed on his later writings. Mill credited Harriet with the "properly human element" in his writings. It was Harriet, he claimed, who was adept in applying principles to the practical exigencies of human society. She was, as he put it, "the socialist in the family." It was Harriet who first pointed out to him the crucial distinction between the principles of wealth production and those which govern its distribution. Her "wise skepticism" discouraged him, he confessed, from "extremism" in his opinions. It was Harriet who kept him from overestimating the practicality of popular government and from tending to favor "over-government." In fact Mill maintained that the writings of his later years were actually "joint productions," in which he merely "held the pen." III Today we remember John Stuart Mill because of his literary efforts, of course, not because of his work as an official at India House. Mill was not, however, a professional writer. Over a period of fifty years he authored many dozens of articles, essays, and pamphlets, and several substantial treatises. Yet Mill's notable writings were prepared during his "leisure" time, after working hours, on weekends, and during holidays. At least this was the case until after his retirement at the age of fifty-two. In literary enterprise as in other respects, John Mill was a precocious youth. His career as a writer began when he was sixteen. In 1822 he wrote his first "argumentative essay" and contributed a series of articles to a Liberal newspaper, the Traveller. The next year he assisted in founding the Westminster Review and regularly contributed articles for some years, until he and the editor, Bowring, had serious differences about the management of the journal. Mill's first major literary effort was to prepare from Bentham's fugitive manuscripts an edition of The Rationale of Judicial Evidence; after several years of intensive labor the five-volume work was published in 1827, when Mill was twenty-one. His next main effort was a series of articles written in 1830-1831 which was published some years later under the title of Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844). The original Westminster Review failed to meet the expectations of the Benthamites. In 1834 they started the London Review as a journal of Radical opinion. The younger Mill was the actual editor of the publication, as well as a regular contributor, until 1840. During this period Mill began work, in 1838, on his first important treatise, A System of Logic; it was published in two volumes in 1843. The Logic proved to be a successful publishing venture and went into a number of editions during Mill's lifetime; the eighth edition appeared in 1872, shortly before his death. Mill's next major publication was the Principles of Political Economy. He started work on the manuscript in 1845 and finished it in 1847. The first edition was published in 1848, also in two volumes. It was another publishing success; the definitive seventh edition Mill prepared for publication in 1871. The Political Economy, incidentally, was his first book in which, according to Mill, Harriet Taylor's "share was conspicuous." He gave her entire credit for the chapter on "The Probable Future of the Labouring Classes," which was added to the later editions. It was after Mill had established his reputation as an essayist and writer of philosophical treatises that his best-known political works were published. These writings were apparently planned and for the most part drafted during Harriet Mill's lifetime, though they actually appeared in print after her death. Mill's important political writings include the essay On Liberty, which we shall shortly consider in some detail. About the same time this essay was completed, Mill wrote his Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859). The tract was inspired by the Tory Democrat Disraeli's proposal for reform in the franchise to give skilled workingmen the vote. In the essay Mill argues against the use of the secret ballot, in favor of representation of minorities (a theme later elaborated in his Representative Government in the form of the Hare scheme of proportional representation), and for plural voting by the educationally superior. These three views, Mill recalled, were entertained by his wife before he adopted them. A few years later Mill's most ambitious political tract, Considerations on Representative Government (1861), was published. In this work Mill contends that democracy is "the ideally best form of government," then proceeds to repudiate the distinctive principles of democratic rule. His criticism of the practical workings of popular government is a mine of elitist doctrine which Liberal thinkers still work for arguments against self-government. Also in 1861 Mill wrote a series of articles for Fraser's Magazine (October-December, 1861) which were printed as a short treatise on the subject which absorbed Mill's attention throughout his entire lifetime: social ethics. He professes in Utilitarianism (1863) to set forth the mature teachings of the utilitarian ethics. It is in this work that Mill draws his famous distinction between the quantity and the quality of pleasure. By the time Mill concludes his exposition of utilitarianism, he has virtually abandoned every distinctive tenet of the Benthamite faith. In 1865 two of Mill's lesser works were published: An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and Auguste Comte and Positivism; the latter originally appeared in the form of articles in the Westminster Review. The remaining political tract by Mill which was published during his lifetime was The Subjection of Women (1869). It was a fitting climax for his career as a writer of political essays. The manuscript, which was actually drafted some years earlier, Mill referred to as "an imperfect statement of the case" contained in Harriet Taylor's teachings. He apologized because the treatise failed to reproduce "her best thoughts on the subject." In addition to his Autobiography, two of Mill's minor works were published posthumously: Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism (1874), and Chapters on Socialism, published in 1879 in the Fortnightly Review. Mill's literary output was truly impressive, especially when it is borne in mind that during the half century that Mill was writing these and other works not mentioned, he was regularly contributing reviews and articles to the British journals of his time, such as Tait's Magazine and the Edinburgh Review. IV The essay On Liberty is no doubt Mill's most famous political writing. He planned it in 1854 and first wrote it as a brief article, then later decided to expand the argument and publish it as a book. Mill and Harriet worked together on the manuscript for several years; it was, he recalled, "more directly and literally our joint production than anything else which bears my name." Mill considered it as his (or their) finest work: "None of my writings have been either so carefully composed, or so sedulously corrected as this." The final revision of the manuscript was not finished when in November, 1858, Harriet suddenly died. The next year the bereaved Mill sent the manuscript, untouched after his wife's death, to his publisher. It first appeared, bearing the affectionate and laudatory dedication to his wife's memory, in 1859. Since then the essay has been reprinted in numerous editions, including foreign language editions, and its fame has continued to grow. A person who is acquainted with but one of Mill's writings most likely knows this, his most famous essay, though unfortunately On Liberty is seemingly much more often talked about than read. In the opening passages of the essay Mill poses a question: What are (i.e., should be) the limits of the collective authority of society over the individual? He sets as his task to explain "a very simple principle" for determining the proper limits for individual and collective action. The principle applies to governmental authority, but his main purpose, Mill declares, is to show the limits of interference "by the collective opinion of society" in private affairs. Interference is justified, he contends, only by the need for "self-protection": to prevent harm to others. Then Mill, loyal to his Utilitarian upbringing, tries to prove, in terms of social utility in "the larger sense," why this principle should be applied in resolving questions of social ethics. Mill first explains the application of his principle to "thought and opinion." A government under the control of a majority, he argues, has no right to suppress freedom of opinion. In defense of his position Mill advances a twofold line of argument, stressing the social advantages of individual freedom and the disadvantages of collective interference in matters of opinion. He concentrates on three contentions: (1) Suppression of opinion may blot out truth; no one is infallible and an unconventional opinion may turn out to be true. (2) Even though an opinion is false, truth is served by refuting error; beliefs not founded on reasoned conviction are not held firmly enough to guide human conduct. (3) No opinion is completely true or false; an unconventional opinion may be useful because it contains some partial truth. He concludes: freedom of thought and opinion should not be curbed by collective authority. Next Mill discusses "individuality" as one of the "elements of well-being." He distinguishes between "opinion" and "action." Of course freedom of action is desirable. But individual action may affect other members of society. Even freedom of opinion is not an absolute right. By the test of effect on others, action must be more restricted than opinion. Still, an individual should be encouraged to decide for himself his actions. He must learn to exercise moral choice in his conduct in order to develop his personality. Diversity of individual taste should be encouraged. The needs of individuals differ, and it is the exceptional individual who instructs the rest of mankind on their forward movement. Since progress depends on the cultivation of individuality, freedom of individual action should be encouraged as much as possible. After praising the social value of individuality, Mill returns to the question of the limits of authority over the individual. While much collective interference in individual affairs is not justified, he contends, some certainly is. Collective authority can be used to interfere, but it should not be used to interfere "wrongly." What are the rightful limits, then, to individuality? An individual, says Mill, has duties as well as rights. He has duties to himself and to others. He has a duty to bear a fair share of society's burdens, and a duty not to injure others by his conduct. Over individual conduct which affects the interests of others, society has jurisdiction. When definite damage or risk of damage to others results from individual action, the case is taken out of the province of liberty and placed in that of law, because society has a right to protect its members from "moral vices." In the final chapter of the essay Mill attempts to apply his principle to practice, not systematically, but merely to illustrate it. Two maxims, he says, should always be observed: "First, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself." "Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or legal punishment, if society is of the opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection." In terms of these maxims, differentiating between "self-regarding" and "other-regarding" conduct, Mill justifies, in the general interest, some governmental restraints on trade and some police actions in preventing crimes, but condemns others. Drunkenness and idleness may or may not be crimes against others; it depends. Promoting intemperance by encouraging the consumption of strong drinks, he declares, is a social evil that the government should restrain. About prohibiting procuring and gambling in public, Mill is unable to decide whether liberty is at stake. Taxing liquor to discourage consumption is not justified, but a tax on liquor to raise revenue is no violation of liberty. Licensing public houses to discourage the drinking of stimulants is not justified, but such control to prevent a public nuisance is quite all right. Liberty is not infringed by prohibiting an individual from selling himself into slavery, or by compelling a parent to give his children a proper education, or by forbidding the marriage of individuals who cannot afford to support a family decently. Mill concludes. his remarkable essay by summing up three other objections to governmental intervention in individual affairs, where, he says, the question of liberty has no direct bearing: (1) perhaps the thing to be done can be better done by individuals than by government; (2) perhaps the thing to be done, though not best done by individuals, should still be done by them "as a means to their own mental education"; (3) perhaps the thing to be done adds unnecessarily to the already vast powers of government. Mill closes his essay on the theme that a State which does too much for its citizens hampers the cultivation of individuality at the expense of social progress. V In this brief introduction no thorough critique of Mill's theory can be undertaken. That the reader must do for himself. Perhaps in this enterprise he can he aided, however, if in passing we give some attention to several points about this theory Mill advances in On Liberty. It has been said that political theories are of two sorts: some are logical, others are useful. To accommodate Mill's theory of liberty, a third category must be added. The argument of the essay in its separate parts seems rather clear, but the argument as a whole is far from clear. In fact, Mill's theory is a parcel of logical difficulties. These chiefly result from confusion on Mill's part about his purpose, or purposes, in the essay. Mill often leaves an impression that he is discussing one issue, when actually he is discussing, in a misleading way, an entirely different issue. This confusion is enhanced by Mill's failure to draw with precision and maintain with consistency three crucial distinctions he at least tacitly assumes: (1) between thought and action; (2) between social convention and governmental control; and (3) between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. On Liberty has been praised as a classic statement of the case for individual liberty from governmental control. Such praise misses the mark. Mill does caution against certain excesses of governmental intervention in private affairs, and does plead for what he calls "individuality." But the sort of liberty that Mill is anxious to preserve does not directly concern government. His plea is definitely not an injunction against governmental control over individual action where other members of society have an interest. In fact, in the last chapters of his essay, Mill advances a cogent argument for governmental intervention in individual affairs. Using the principle Mill endorses, most any governmental restraint on individual conduct can be readily justified. The impression that Mill is advocating liberty from governmental control is given in part by his remarks about freedom of thought. Much of Mill's argument in defense of liberty pertains only to freedom of thought and is not relevant to any relation between individual action and governmental authority. Mill contends that freedom of thought is socially valuable in searching out truth and in cultivating the mental and moral character of the individual, thus fostering social progress. It is Mill's phrase "the expression of opinion" which obscures the difficulty. What a person thinks has no social consequences, unless he expresses his opinion. The expression of an opinion is for Mill an action which may affect other members of society. On the question of limiting liberty of opinion, Mill's argument about freedom of individual action has direct bearing. This is significant because Mill's principal concern in the essay is about human conduct in society. On the matter of freedom of opinion, Mill's plea is directed against interference by "the collective authority of public opinion" in the affairs of individuals which are of no interest to the other members of society. What he (and Harriet) feared was "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." In another passage of the Autobiography, Mill formulates his doctrine of individuality as "the right of the moral nature to develop itself in its own way." Now, this was a right which Harriet Taylor did not deny her friend: she encouraged him to cultivate his individuality to the full. But this right James Mill certainly denied his famous son. And in another fashion, so did the social conventions of nineteenth-century British life. Mill voices no complaint that individuality is jeopardized by the actions of the British Government. But he speaks with disdain about the conventional standards of taste and manners enforced by public opinion; it is these which threaten the cultivation of the moral nature of exceptional individuals. It was the liberty that was denied Mill and Harriet Taylor during their twenty years of unconventional friendship, by the gossip and scorn of London society, that Mill is intent to secure. The great truth of the essay dedicated to Harriet is, on Mill's own testimony, "the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions." In the essay Mill's purpose in part is, then, to show the social value which accrues from the full and rich cultivation of individual characters. In behalf of this purpose Mill argues that in developing his mental and moral nature an individual should not be restrained by social conventions. Mill advocates the greatest possible amount of individual liberty from collective authority -- compatible with living in a society. This suggests another difficulty in Mill's theory. It was Mill's purpose, again in part, to promote the acceptance of a moral principle which could, he believed, satisfactorily guide the conduct of members of society. Mill's position is that an individual should be free to act, provided his actions adversely affect no one else. He argues that an individual should not be interfered with when other members of society have no interest in his conduct. This sort of conduct Mill calls "self-regarding." But Mill is not particularly concerned about conduct which does not affect other people, since it involves no problem of social ethics. Mill holds the position that society has jurisdiction over conduct where the members of society have an interest. To protect the general interest, he argues, society is entitled to intervene in what he calls "other-regarding" conduct. Incidentally, this view was later expressed by Mr. Justice Holmes for the Supreme Court of the United States as the doctrine of "clear and present danger." The problem of social ethics for Mill was to separate the legitimate sphere of individual liberty from that of collective authority. The key to Mill's solution is "social progress." Mill does not value the freedom of other-regarding conduct as an end in itself. He stresses the value of liberty and urges its recognition, but he makes no claim that any liberty is absolute. Individual freedom is justified, according to Mill, by a contribution to the general interest. Liberty is a valuable means to the more highly valued end of progress, in which every member of society has an interest. Mill believed that his principle supplies a practical criterion for distinguishing those actions which advance progress from those which hamper it. The former actions should be encouraged in practice, while the latter could he restrained. Thus Mill believed he solved the problem of the relation between liberty and authority. In his belief about the practicality of his "very simple principle," Mill was plainly mistaken. Implicit in his formulation of the problem is a practical question: Who should decide which actions are contrary to the general interest and should be restrained? This question Mill never really answers. He does say that the individual has jurisdiction over his "self-regarding" conduct, while society has jurisdiction over "other-regarding" conduct. But this is no help, because the problem in practice is to determine which actions adversely affect other people. When persons disagree about this, who should make the binding decision? The individual? Or society? Mill gives no forthright answer to this question; he shrinks from the two logical alternatives his theory implies. Mill cannot accept the view that the individual should decide because he believes that few people are capable of making reasoned decisions. The alternative, that society should decide, Mill finds unpalatable, too; after all, part of his message is to caution against the tyranny of common opinion. What Mill tacitly assumes, apparently, is that "reason" can reveal to an exceptional few the correct answer. But doubts about this assumption are suggested by the inability of the "saint of rationalism" himself to decide whether or not certain individual actions should be restrained in the general interest. As a practical matter, Mill's principle offers no guidance whatsoever in determining the morality of "other-regarding" conduct. VI Fitzjames Stephen, a sharp critic of Mill, once remarked; "One who knew him only through his writings knew but half of him, and that not the best half.'" It would indeed be presumptuous of me, by necessity not knowing Mill's better half, to attempt to judge the man. [?] But about his place in modern political thought, perhaps a few comments are in order. The remark is often made that Mill's political theory lacks logical coherence. It is characteristic of Mill to take away by one argument what he has granted by another. The abundance of logical contradictions in Mill's thought can perhaps be partly explained by the fact that he was not by temperament a system-builder. He inherited a Benthamite system of thought which he found too confining for his inquiring nature, yet he was unable to break away from Utilitarianism entirely and start afresh to build a system more congenial to his wide-ranging intellect. His bent of mind was for analysis instead of synthesis. But this surely can be only a part of the explanation. The fact is that Mill was disposed to entertain conflicting views on issues. The question is why he was so disposed. The answer is suggested by the peculiar role it was Mill's destiny to play in modern thought. John Stuart Mill is a pathetically symbolic figure in the development of British political thought. [???] In his writings we find reflected the intellectual crosscurrents of the mid-nineteenth century, contradictory though they were. For Mill stood midway in a transition in British thought, not completed in his lifetime. Mill, born into the Utilitarian movement, was in his youth a radical reformer. He and his set agitated for the repeal of legislation which imposed restraints on the many members of British society for the benefit of the landed aristocracy. Their agitations bore fruit. Then in his later years Mill's enthusiasm for popular government declined, finally to the point of frank hostility toward democratic rule. Mill accounts for this shift in his thinking largely by the impression that Alexis de Tocqueville's "remarkable work" made on him. In this report on the American experiment in democracy, what impressed him most, Mill said, was the description of the "weaknesses" and "dangers" of popular rule. The basic problem in a system of popular government, Mill came to feel, is to prevent the tyranny by a majority of the common people -- "the uncultivated herd who now compose the laboring masses" -- over a minority of exceptional individuals. This feeling Mill shared with other middle-class Liberals. In fact, in his ambivalence toward popular governments, Mill, perhaps better than any other thinker, epitomizes nineteenth-century British Liberal thought. The best, and the worst, in Liberalism is evident in Mill's theory. Out of Utilitarianism there emerged two contrary traditions: in the fertile intellectual soil cultivated by the Benthamites, the middle-class Liberalism and the working-class Socialism of nineteenth-century Britain took seed. Both the individualist Herbert Spencer and the collectivist Robert Owen could look for inspiration to the Utilitarian creed. But middle-class Liberalism was a halfway house between the Radical reform of the Benthamites and the Fabian reform of the Socialists. This house John Stuart Mill occupied, but not with ease and comfort. Mill was neither an authentic individualist nor a genuine collectivist. In fact, he was not a doctrinaire thinker at all. He was a Liberal who wanted both to eat and keep his political cake. But Mill's uncommon common sense told him he could do neither. It was the fate of the middle-class Liberals to have their position besieged by attackers on two fronts. The traditional enemy of the middle class was the landed aristocracy. The elite of land and birth the Benthamites sought to displace, and did. The Great Reform of 1832 signaled the rise to power of the middle class. But these Radical reformers never wavered in their conviction that a superior few should rule society. The elite should be of wealth and talent, not land and birth, but an elite nonetheless, composed of gentlemen of "the middle rank in society." In discrediting rule by the upper class, the Benthamites contended that the greatest good of the greatest number should be promoted; political and social status should not be a monopoly of the landed aristocracy. The success of their efforts presented the middle-class reformers with a dilemma. They were then confronted by the growing desire of the "working poor," such as manifested by the Chartist movement, for equal political and social recognition. In the bid for working-class reform, the spokesmen for the lower classes took up the same contentions which the middle-class reformers had used with success in wresting control from the upper class. The greatest happiness principle was incorporated into the creed of British Socialism. The problem for British Liberals generally and for Mill in particular became how to justify, in terms of a creed calling for the greatest good of the greatest number, the predominant role of a minority of middle-class gentlemen in British life. This problem Mill made a valiant effort to solve. He explored every possibility that common sense admitted. His solution satisfied no one. Taken altogether, John Stuart Mill's political theory bears the unmistakable stamp of nineteenth- century British speculation during a period of ferment. Mill was the last of the Utilitarians, who lived to bury, not praise, the middle-class creed of his father. Between the Benthamite reform of the early decades of the century and the Fabian reform of the last decades. Mill stood at dead center, not firmly and steadily, but doggedly. His common sense led him to probe the implications of contradictory views which were the Liberal stock in trade. In this he pointed the way for later thinkers whose minds were less trammeled by the cliches, and whose efforts were less hampered by the prejudices, of the British middle class. CURRIN V. SHIELDS _______________ NOTES: 1. John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873). Mill wrote his autobiography during the last five years of his life, after 1868; most of the manuscript dates from 1870. Shortly after Mill's death the manuscript was edited and prepared for publication by his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor, who deleted a few passages where Mill referred to his father or his wife. Otherwise it was printed as Mill left it, still unfinished. 2. For a brief account of the early Benthamites see James Mill, Essay on Government, edited, with an introduction, by Currin V. Shields, (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1955), pp, 7-40. 3. Quoted by Michael St. John Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill (London: Seeker &: Warburg, 1954), p. 409. This, incidentally, is the latest and finest biography of Mill. 4. Quoted by Packe, op. cit., p. 504. 5. Mill reviewed the first volume of Democracy in America when it appeared in 1885. He wrote a review of the second volume for the Edinburgh Review, October, 1840. Often in his writings Mill alludes to Tocqueville's views. MILL'S MAJOR WORKS A System of Logic, 2 vols., London, 1843. 8th ed., 1872. Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols., London, 1848. 7th ed., 1871. On Liberty, London, 1859. Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, London, 1859. Dissertations and Discussions, 2 vols., 1859; 3 vols., 1867; 4 vols., 1875. A collection of miscellaneous writings. Considerations on Representative Government, London. 1861. Utilitarianism, London, 1863. Reprinted from Fraser's Magazine, Oct.-Dec., 1861. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, London, 1865, Auguste Comte and Positivism, London, 1865. Reprinted from the Westminster Review, April and July, 1865. The Subjection of Women, London, 1869. Written in 1861. Posthumously published: Autobiography, edited by Helen Taylor, London, 1873. Nature, the Utility of Religion, Theism, Being Three Essays on Religion, London, 1874. Chapters on Socialism, reprinted from the Fortnightly Review, 1879, as "Socialism -- John Stuart Mill," edited by W. D. P. Bliss, Linden, Mass., 1891. On Social freedom, Oxford and Cambridge Review, June, 1907. Reprinted, with an Introduction by Dorothy Fosdick, by Columbia University Press, New York., 1941. (Mill's authorship of this work is now in doubt. Cf. Note on the Text.) Letters of John Stuart Mill. Edited by Hugh Elliott, 2 vols., London, 1910. COLLATERAL READING Albee, Ernest, A History of English Utilitarianism. New York., 1902. Bain, Alexander, John Stuart Mill: A Criticism; with Personal Recollections. New York., 1882. Bosanquet, Bernard, The Philosophical Theory of the State. London, 1899. Davidson, William L., Political Thought in England: the Utilitarians from Bentham to J. S. Mill. New York, 1916. Grote, John, Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy. Cambridge. 1870. Halevy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism. Translated by Mary Morris; with a preface by A. D. Lindsay. London, 1949. Hayek., F. A., John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor. London, 1951. MacCunn, John, Six Radical Thinkers. London. 1910. Morlan, G., America's Heritage from John Stuart Mill. New York., 1936. Neff, Emery, Carlyle and Mill, Mystic and Utilitarian. New York., 1926. Packe, Michael St. John, The Life of John Stuart Mill. With a preface by F. A. Hayek, London, 1954. Plamenatz, John P., The English Utilitarians. Oxford. 1949. Stephen, J. Fitzjames, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. London, 1873. Stephen, Leslie, The English Utilitarians. 3 vols., London, 1900. (Vol. III is devoted to John Stuart Mill.) West, Julius, J. S. Mill. Fabian Society Tract No. 168, London, 1913.
|