Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

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Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by

JOHN STUART MILL





CONTENTS


CHAPTER I   1806-1819

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION


CHAPTER II   1813-1821

MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH--MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS


CHAPTER III   1821-1823

LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION


CHAPTER IV   1823-1828

YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM--THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW"


CHAPTER V   1826-1832

A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY--ONE STAGE ONWARD


CHAPTER VI   1830-1840

COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE--MY FATHER'S
DEATH--WRITINGS AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840


CHAPTER VII   1840-1870

GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE.--COMPLETION OF THE "SYSTEM
OF LOGIC"--PUBLICATION OF THE "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY"
--MARRIAGE--RETIREMENT FROM THE INDIA HOUSE--PUBLICATION OF "LIBERTY"
--"CONSIDERATIONS ON REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT"--CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA
--EXAMINATION OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY--PARLIAMENTARY LIFE
--REMAINDER OF MY LIFE






CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION


It seems proper that I should prefix to the following biographical sketch
some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I
should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine.
I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate can
be interesting to the public as a narrative or as being connected with
myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education and its
improvement are the subject of more, if not of profounder, study than at
any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should
be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and
which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is
commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years
which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little
better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition
in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in
noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward,
equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or from
those of others. But a motive which weighs more with me than either of
these, is a desire to make acknowledgment of the debts which my
intellectual and moral development owes to other persons; some of them of
recognised eminence, others less known than they deserve to be, and the
one to whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no opportunity of
knowing. The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to
blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from
him than that of bearing in mind that for him these pages were not written.

I was born in London, on the 20th of May, 1806, and was the eldest son
of James Mill, the author of the _History of British India_. My father,
the son of a petty tradesman and (I believe) small farmer, at Northwater
Bridge, in the county of Angus, was, when a boy, recommended by his
abilities to the notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the
Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, and was, in consequence, sent to
the University of Edinburgh, at the expense of a fund established by
Lady Jane Stuart (the wife of Sir John Stuart) and some other ladies
for educating young men for the Scottish Church. He there went through
the usual course of study, and was licensed as a Preacher, but never
followed the profession; having satisfied himself that he could not
believe the doctrines of that or any other Church. For a few years he
was a private tutor in various families in Scotland, among others that
of the Marquis of Tweeddale, but ended by taking up his residence in
London, and devoting himself to authorship. Nor had he any other means
of support until 1819, when he obtained an appointment in the India House.

In this period of my father's life there are two things which it is
impossible not to be struck with: one of them unfortunately a very
common circumstance, the other a most uncommon one. The first is, that
in his position, with no resource but the precarious one of writing in
periodicals, he married and had a large family; conduct than which
nothing could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense and of
duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later period of life, he
strenuously upheld. The other circumstance, is the extraordinary
energy which was required to lead the life he led, with the
disadvantages under which he laboured from the first, and with those
which he brought upon himself by his marriage. It would have been no
small thing, had he done no more than to support himself and his
family during so many years by writing, without ever being in debt,
or in any pecuniary difficulty; holding, as he did, opinions, both in
politics and in religion, which were more odious to all persons of
influence, and to the common run of prosperous Englishmen, in that
generation than either before or since; and being not only a man whom
nothing would have induced to write against his convictions, but one
who invariably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his
convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any way permit:
being, it must also be said, one who never did anything negligently;
never undertook any task, literary or other, on which he did not
conscientiously bestow all the labour necessary for performing it
adequately. But he, with these burdens on him, planned, commenced, and
completed, the _History of India_; and this in the course of about ten
years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had
no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical
work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of
reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the
whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in
the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself,
he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if
ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give,
according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual
education.

A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the
principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule
in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time
when I began to learn Greek; I have been told that it was when I was
three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of
committing to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists of
common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he
wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I
learnt no more than the inflections of the nouns and verbs, but, after
a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly
remember going through Aesop's _Fables_, the first Greek book which
I read. The _Anabasis_, which I remember better, was the second. I
learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under
my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I
remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's _Cyropaedia_ and
_Memorials of Socrates_; some of the lives of the philosophers by
Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad
Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common
arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theoctetus inclusive:
which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted,
as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in
all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do,
but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself
willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from
the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek
lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing:
and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could
make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without
having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him
for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant
interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and
wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all
else that he had to write during those years.

The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in this part
of my childhood, was arithmetic: this also my father taught me: it was
the task of the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeableness.
But the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction I received.
Much of it consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father's
discourses to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of
1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic
neighbourhood. My father's health required considerable and constant
exercise, and he walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the
green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him,
and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers,
is mingled that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the
day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather
than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while
reading, and from these in the morning walks, I told the story to him;
for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner
a great number: Robertson's histories, Hume, Gibbon; but my greatest
delight, then and for long afterwards, was Watson's _Philip the Second
and Third_. The heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against the
Turks, and of the revolted Provinces of the Netherlands against Spain,
excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next to Watson, my
favourite historical reading was Hooke's _History of Rome_. Of Greece
I had seen at that time no regular history, except school abridgments
and the last two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's
_Ancient History_, beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with
great delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English history,
beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading Burnet's
_History of his Own Time_, though I cared little for anything in it
except the wars and battles; and the historical part of the _Annual
Register_, from the beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my
father borrowed for me from Mr. Bentham left off. I felt a lively
interest in Frederic of Prussia during his difficulties, and in Paoli,
the Corsican patriot; but when I came to the American War, I took my
part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the
wrong side, because it was called the English side. In these frequent
talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give
me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality,
mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him
in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of,
many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me
to read them of myself: among other's Millar's _Historical View of the
English Government_, a book of great merit for its time, and which he
highly valued; Mosheim's _Ecclesiastical History_, McCrie's _Life of
John Knox_, and even Sewell and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was
fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and
resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and
overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's _African Memoranda_,
and Collins's _Account of the First Settlement of New South Wales_.
Two books which I never wearied of reading were Anson's Voyages, so
delightful to most young persons, and a collection (Hawkesworth's, I
believe) of _Voyages round the World_, in four volumes, beginning with
Drake and ending with Cook and Bougainville. Of children's books, any
more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift
from a relation or acquaintance: among those I had, _Robinson Crusoe_
was pre-eminent, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood.
It was no part, however, of my father's system to exclude books of
amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he
possessed at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me;
those which I remember are the _Arabian Nights_, Cazotte's _Arabian
Tales_, _Don Quixote_, Miss Edgeworth's _Popular Tales_, and a book
of some reputation in its day, Brooke's _Fool of Quality_.

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a
younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards
repeated the lessons to my father; from this time, other sisters and
brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my
day's work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which
I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the
lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I,
however, derived from this discipline the great advantage, of learning
more thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the things which I was
set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining
difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In
other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favourable to the
plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I
am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well know that the
relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline
to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a
considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Caesar's Commentaries, but
afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer
ones of my own.

In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement
in the Greek poets with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in
this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first
English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in
which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it
from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it
worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I
had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant
specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys,
as I should have expected both _a priori_ and from my individual
experience. Soon after this time I commenced Euclid, and somewhat later,
Algebra, still under my father's tuition.

From my eighth to my twelfth year, the Latin books which I remember
reading were, the _Bucolics_ of Virgil, and the first six books of the
Aeneid; all Horace, except the Epodes; the Fables of Phaedrus; the
first five books of Livy (to which from my love of the subject I
voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first
decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_;
some plays of Terence; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the
Orations of Cicero, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters
to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the
French the historical explanations in Mingault's notes. In Greek I
read the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ through; one or two plays of Sophocles,
Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all
Thucydides; the _Hellenics_ of Xenophon; a great part of Demosthenes,
Aeschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the _Anthology_;
a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly
Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, which, as the first expressly scientific
treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and
containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human
nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar care, and throw
the matter of it into synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt
elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus,
and other portions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly: for
my father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired
knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for removing my
difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little other aid
than that of books: while I was continually incurring his displeasure
by my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did not see
that I had not the necessary previous knowledge.

As to my private reading, I can only speak of what I remember. History
continued to be my strongest predilection, and most of all ancient
history. Mitford's Greece I read continually; my father had put me on
my guard against the Tory prejudices of this writer, and his
perversions of facts for the whitewashing of despots, and blackening
of popular institutions. These points he discoursed on, exemplifying
them from the Greek orators and historians, with such effect that in
reading Mitford my sympathies were always on the contrary side to
those of the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the
point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new pleasure
with which I read the book. Roman history, both in my old favourite,
Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, in
spite of what is called the dryness of its style, I took great
pleasure in, was the _Ancient Universal History_, through the
incessant reading of which, I had my head full of historical details
concerning the obscurest ancient people, while about modern history,
except detached passages, such as the Dutch War of Independence, I
knew and cared comparatively little. A voluntary exercise, to which
throughout my boyhood I was much addicted, was what I called writing
histories. I successively composed a Roman History, picked out
of Hooke; and an Abridgment of the _Ancient Universal History_; a
History of Holland, from my favourite Watson and from an anonymous
compilation; and in my eleventh and twelfth year I occupied myself
with writing what I flattered myself was something serious. This was
no less than a History of the Roman Government, compiled (with the
assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much
as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch of the
Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of the struggles between
the patricians and plebeians, which now engrossed all the interest in
my mind which I had previously felt in the mere wars and conquests of
the Romans. I discussed all the constitutional points as they arose:
though quite ignorant of Niebuhr's researches, I, by such lights as my
father had given me, vindicated the Agrarian Laws on the evidence of
Livy, and upheld, to the best of my ability, the Roman Democratic
party. A few years later, in my contempt of my childish efforts, I
destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating that I could ever
feel any curiosity about my first attempts at writing and reasoning.
My father encouraged me in this useful amusement, though, as I think
judiciously, he never asked to see what I wrote; so that I did not
feel that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor had the
chilling sensation of being under a critical eye.

But though these exercises in history were never a compulsory lesson,
there was another kind of composition which was so, namely, writing
verses, and it was one of the most disagreeable of my tasks. Greek
and Latin verses I did not write, nor learnt the prosody of those
languages. My father, thinking this not worth the time it required,
contented himself with making me read aloud to him, and correcting
false quantities. I never composed at all in Greek, even in prose, and
but little in Latin. Not that my father could be indifferent to the
value of this practice, in giving a thorough knowledge of these
languages, but because there really was not time for it. The verses
I was required to write were English. When I first read Pope's Homer,
I ambitiously attempted to compose something of the same kind, and
achieved as much as one book of a continuation of the _Iliad_. There,
probably, the spontaneous promptings of my poetical ambition would
have stopped; but the exercise, begun from choice, was continued by
command. Conformably to my father's usual practice of explaining to
me, as far as possible, the reasons for what he required me to do,
he gave me, for this, as I well remember, two reasons highly
characteristic of him: one was, that some things could be expressed
better and more forcibly in verse than in prose: this, he said, was
a real advantage. The other was, that people in general attached more
value to verse than it deserved, and the power of writing it, was, on
this account, worth acquiring. He generally left me to choose my own
subjects, which, as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some
mythological personage or allegorical abstraction; but he made me
translate into English verse many of Horace's shorter poems: I also
remember his giving me Thomson's _Winter_ to read, and afterwards
making me attempt (without book) to write something myself on the same
subject. The verses I wrote were, of course, the merest rubbish, nor
did I ever attain any facility of versification, but the practice may
have been useful in making it easier for me, at a later period, to
acquire readiness of expression.[1] I had read, up to this time, very
little English poetry. Shakspeare my father had put into my hands,
chiefly for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however,
I went on to the others. My father never was a great admirer of
Shakspeare, the English idolatry of whom he used to attack with some
severity. He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for
whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns, and Gray's
_Bard_, which he preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cowper and
Beattie. He had some value for Spenser, and I remember his reading to
me (unlike his usual practice of making me read to him) the first book
of the _Fairie Queene_; but I took little pleasure in it. The poetry
of the present century he saw scarcely any merit in, and I hardly
became acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood,
except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I read at his
recommendation and was intensely delighted with; as I always was with
animated narrative. Dryden's Poems were among my father's books, and
many of these he made me read, but I never cared for any of them
except _Alexander's Feast_, which, as well as many of the songs
in Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my own: to
some of the latter, indeed, I went so far as to compose airs, which
I still remember. Cowper's short poems I read with some pleasure, but
never got far into the longer ones; and nothing in the two volumes
interested me like the prose account of his three hares. In my
thirteenth year I met with Campbell's poems, among which _Lochiel_,
_Hohenlinden_, _The Exile of Erin_, and some others, gave me
sensations I had never before experienced from poetry. Here, too,
I made nothing of the longer poems, except the striking opening of
_Gertrude of Wyoming_, which long kept its place in my feelings as
the perfection of pathos.

During this part of my childhood, one of my greatest amusements was
experimental science; in the theoretical, however, not the practical
sense of the word; not trying experiments--a kind of discipline which
I have often regretted not having had--nor even seeing, but merely
reading about them. I never remember being so wrapt up in any book, as
I was in Joyce's _Scientific Dialogues_; and I was rather recalcitrant
to my father's criticisms of the bad reasoning respecting the first
principles of physics, which abounds in the early part of that work. I
devoured treatises on Chemistry, especially that of my father's early
friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I attended a
lecture or saw an experiment.

From about the age of twelve, I entered into another and more advanced
stage in my course of instruction; in which the main object was no
longer the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves.
This commenced with Logic, in which I began at once with the _Organon_,
and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by the
Posterior Analytics, which belong to a branch of speculation I was not
yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the _Organon_, my father made me
read the whole or parts of several of the Latin treatises on the
scholastic logic; giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account
of what I had read, and answering his numerous and most searching
questions. After this, I went in a similar manner through the _Computatio
sive Logica_ of Hobbes, a work of a much higher order of thought than the
books of the school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in my
own opinion beyond its merits, great as these are. It was his invariable
practice, whatever studies he exacted from me, to make me as far as
possible understand and feel the utility of them: and this he deemed
peculiarly fitting in the case of the syllogistic logic, the usefulness
of which had been impugned by so many writers of authority. I well
remember how, and in what particular walk, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot
Heath (where we were on a visit to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one
of the Mathematical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by
questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some conception of
what constituted the utility of the syllogistic logic, and when I had
failed in this, to make me understand it by explanations. The
explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time;
but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my
observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his
general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances
which came under my notice afterwards. My own consciousness and
experience ultimately led me to appreciate quite as highly as he did,
the value of an early practical familiarity with the school logic.
I know of nothing, in my education, to which I think myself more
indebted for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first
intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was
dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay:
and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained, was due to the
fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most
perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the
school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were
among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that
nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to
form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and
propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous
terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to
it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of
correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to
an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it
does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and
reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable
of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory
thought, before their own thinking faculties are much advanced; a
power which, for want of some such discipline, many otherwise able
men altogether lack; and when they have to answer opponents, only
endeavour, by such arguments as they can command, to support the
opposite conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the
reasonings of their antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost,
leaving the question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one.

During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I continued to read
with my father were chiefly such as were worth studying, not for the
language merely, but also for the thoughts. This included much of the
orators, and especially Demosthenes, some of whose principal orations
I read several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full
analysis of them. My father's comments on these orations when I read
them to him were very instructive to me. He not only drew my attention
to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the
principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated,
but pointed out the skill and art of the orator--how everything
important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had
brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to
receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by
insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner,
would have roused their opposition. Most of these reflections were
beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left
seed behind, which germinated in due season. At this time I also read
the whole of Tacitus, Juvenal, and Quintilian. The latter, owing to
his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many parts
of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom sufficiently
appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia of the thoughts of
the ancients on the whole field of education and culture; and I have
retained through life many valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace
to my reading of him, even at that early age. It was at this period
that I read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues
of Plato, in particular the _Gorgias_, the _Protagoras_, and the
_Republic_. There is no author to whom my father thought himself more
indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more
frequently recommended to young students. I can bear similar testimony
in regard to myself. The Socratic method, of which the Platonic
dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for
correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the
_intellectus sibi permissus_, the understanding which has made up all
its bundles of associations under the guidance of popular phraseology.
The close, searching _elenchus_ by which the man of vague generalities
is constrained either to express his meaning to himself in definite
terms, or to confess that he does not know what he is talking about;
the perpetual testing of all general statements by particular instances;
the siege in form which is laid to the meaning of large abstract terms,
by fixing upon some still larger class-name which includes that and more,
and dividing down to the thing sought--marking out its limits and
definition by a series of accurately drawn distinctions between it and
each of the cognate objects which are successively parted off from it
--all this, as an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and
all this, even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of
my own mind. I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs
by far better right to those who have been nourished in and have
endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those
who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical
conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible of his works, and
which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether
he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic
conjectures.

In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could now read these
authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease, I
was not required to construe them sentence by sentence, but to read
them aloud to my father, answering questions when asked: but the
particular attention which he paid to elocution (in which his own
excellence was remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most
painful task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was none
which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpetually lost his
temper with me. He had thought much on the principles of the art of
reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the inflections of
the voice, or _modulation_, as writers on elocution call it (in
contrast with _articulation_ on the one side, and _expression_ on the
other), and had reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis
of a sentence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, and took me
severely to task for every violation of them: but I even then remarked
(though I did not venture to make the remark to him) that though he
reproached me when I read a sentence ill, and _told_ me how I ought to
have read it, he never by reading it himself, _showed_ me how it ought
to be read. A defect running through his otherwise admirable modes of
instruction, as it did through all his modes of thought, was that of
trusting too much to the intelligibleness of the abstract, when not
embodied in the concrete. It was at a much later period of my youth,
when practising elocution by myself, or with companions of my own age,
that I for the first time understood the object of his rules, and saw
the psychological grounds of them. At that time I and others followed
out the subject into its ramifications, and could have composed a very
useful treatise, grounded on my father's principles. He himself left
those principles and rules unwritten. I regret that when my mind was
full of the subject, from systematic practice, I did not put them, and
our improvements of them, into a formal shape.

A book which contributed largely to my education, in the best sense of
the term, was my father's _History of India_. It was published in the
beginning of 1818. During the year previous, while it was passing
through the press, I used to read the proof sheets to him; or rather,
I read the manuscript to him while he corrected the proofs. The number
of new ideas which I received from this remarkable book, and the
impulse and stimulus as well as guidance given to my thoughts by its
criticism and disquisitions on society and civilization in the Hindoo
part, on institutions and the acts of governments in the English part,
made my early familiarity with it eminently useful to my subsequent
progress. And though I can perceive deficiencies in it now as compared
with a perfect standard, I still think it, if not the most, one of the
most instructive histories ever written, and one of the books from
which most benefit may be derived by a mind in the course of making up
its opinions.

The Preface, among the most characteristic of my father's writings, as
well as the richest in materials of thought, gives a picture which may
be entirely depended on, of the sentiments and expectations with which
he wrote the History. Saturated as the book is with the opinions and
modes of judgment of a democratic radicalism then regarded as extreme;
and treating with a severity, at that time most unusual, the English
Constitution, the English law, and all parties and classes who
possessed any considerable influence in the country; he may have
expected reputation, but certainly not advancement in life, from its
publication; nor could he have supposed that it would raise up anything
but enemies for him in powerful quarters: least of all could he have
expected favour from the East India Company, to whose commercial
privileges he was unqualifiedly hostile, and on the acts of whose
government he had made so many severe comments: though, in various parts
of his book, he bore a testimony in their favour, which he felt to be
their just due, namely, that no Government had on the whole given so much
proof, to the extent of its lights, of good intention towards its subjects;
and that if the acts of any other Government had the light of publicity
as completely let in upon them, they would, in all probability, still less
bear scrutiny.

On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about a year after the
publication of the History, that the East India Directors desired to
strengthen the part of their home establishment which was employed in
carrying on the correspondence with India, my father declared himself
a candidate for that employment, and, to the credit of the Directors,
successfully. He was appointed one of the Assistants of the Examiner
of India Correspondence; officers whose duty it was to prepare drafts
of despatches to India, for consideration by the Directors, in the
principal departments of administration. In this office, and in that
of Examiner, which he subsequently attained, the influence which his
talents, his reputation, and his decision of character gave him, with
superiors who really desired the good government of India, enabled him
to a great extent to throw into his drafts of despatches, and to carry
through the ordeal of the Court of Directors and Board of Control,
without having their force much weakened, his real opinions on Indian
subjects. In his History he had set forth, for the first time, many of
the true principles of Indian administration: and his despatches,
following his History, did more than had ever been done before to
promote the improvement of India, and teach Indian officials to
understand their business. If a selection of them were published, they
would, I am convinced, place his character as a practical statesman
fully on a level with his eminence as a speculative writer.

This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in his attention to
my education. It was in this same year, 1819, that he took me through a
complete course of political economy. His loved and intimate friend,
Ricardo, had shortly before published the book which formed so great an
epoch in political economy; a book which would never have been published
or written, but for the entreaty and strong encouragement of my father;
for Ricardo, the most modest of men, though firmly convinced of the
truth of his doctrines, deemed himself so little capable of doing them
justice in exposition and expression, that he shrank from the idea of
publicity. The same friendly encouragement induced Ricardo, a year or
two later, to become a member of the House of Commons; where, during the
remaining years of his life, unhappily cut short in the full vigour of
his intellect, he rendered so much service to his and my father's
opinions both on political economy and on other subjects.

Though Ricardo's great work was already in print, no didactic treatise
embodying its doctrines, in a manner fit for learners, had yet appeared.
My father, therefore, commenced instructing me in the science by a sort
of lectures, which he delivered to me in our walks. He expounded each
day a portion of the subject, and I gave him next day a written account
of it, which he made me rewrite over and over again until it was clear,
precise, and tolerably complete. In this manner I went through the whole
extent of the science; and the written outline of it which resulted from
my daily _compte rendu_, served him afterwards as notes from which to
write his _Elements of Political Economy_. After this I read Ricardo,
giving an account daily of what I read, and discussing, in the best
manner I could, the collateral points which offered themselves in our
progress.

On Money, as the most intricate part of the subject, he made me read
in the same manner Ricardo's admirable pamphlets, written during what
was called the Bullion controversy; to these succeeded Adam Smith; and
in this reading it was one of my father's main objects to make me
apply to Smith's more superficial view of political economy, the
superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious in Smith's
arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. Such a mode of
instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it
required to be worked by a thinker, as close and vigorous as my
father. The path was a thorny one, even to him, and I am sure it was
so to me, notwithstanding the strong interest I took in the subject.
He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases
where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method
was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific
teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the
faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were
taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree,
to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out
everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after,
I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an
accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were
then understood, but made me a thinker on both. I thought for myself
almost from the first, and occasionally thought differently from him,
though for a long time only on minor points, and making his opinion
the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally convinced
him, and altered his opinion on some points of detail: which I state
to his honour, not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect candour,
and the real worth of his method of teaching.

At this point concluded what can properly be called my lessons: when I
was about fourteen I left England for more than a year; and after my
return, though my studies went on under my father's general direction,
he was no longer my schoolmaster. I shall therefore pause here, and
turn back to matters of a more general nature connected with the part
of my life and education included in the preceding reminiscences.

In the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the
point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during
the years of childhood, an amount of knowledge in what are considered
the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if
acquired at all) until the age of manhood. The result of the experiment
shows the ease with which this may be done, and places in a strong
light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are spent in
acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek commonly taught to schoolboys;
a waste which has led so many educational reformers to entertain the
ill-judged proposal of discarding these languages altogether from
general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of
apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory,
or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial
would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather
below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any
boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and
if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate
circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on
me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a
quarter of a century over my contemporaries.

There was one cardinal point in this training, of which I have already
given some indication, and which, more than anything else, was the
cause of whatever good it effected. Most boys or youths who have had
much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not
strengthened, but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts,
and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are
accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own;
and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in
their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have
learnt, incapable of using their minds except in the furrows traced
for them. Mine, however, was not an education of cram. My father never
permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise
of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with
every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything
which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had
exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself. As far as I can trust
my remembrance, I acquitted myself very lamely in this department; my
recollection of such matters is almost wholly of failures, hardly ever
of success. It is true the failures were often in things in which
success, in so early a stage of my progress, was almost impossible.
I remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my happening to
use the word idea, he asked me what an idea was; and expressed some
displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to define the word: I recollect
also his indignation at my using the common expression that something
was true in theory but required correction in practice; and how, after
making me vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its
meaning, and showed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I
had used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a
correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as something which
might be at variance with practice, I had shown unparalleled ignorance.
In this he seems, and perhaps was, very unreasonable; but I think, only
in being angry at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded
which he cannot do, never does all he can.

One of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency,
and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously
guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme
vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led
to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From
his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble
opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to
me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to
do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences
he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were
anything unusual at my age. If I accidentally had my attention drawn to
the fact that some other boy knew less than myself--which happened less
often than might be imagined--I concluded, not that I knew much, but that
he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that his knowledge was of
a different kind from mine. My state of mind was not humility, but neither
was it arrogance. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I can do,
so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly: I did not estimate
myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was that I was
rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself so, in
comparison with what my father expected from me. I assert this with
confidence, though it was not the impression of various persons who saw
me in my childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and
disagreeably self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did
not scruple to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said.
I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having been encouraged in an
unusual degree to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons,
while I never had inculcated on me the usual respect for them. My father
did not correct this ill-breeding and impertinence, probably from not
being aware of it, for I was always too much in awe of him to be otherwise
than extremely subdued and quiet in his presence. Yet with all this I had
no notion of any superiority in myself; and well was it for me that I had
not. I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year,
on the eve of leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me
that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been
taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that
many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment
me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very
imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than
others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual
advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to
teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was
no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a
similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a
distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to
me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated,
was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which
my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all
impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself
upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what
I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever
they might be, were any merit of mine: but, now when my attention was
called to the subject, I felt that what my father had said respecting my
peculiar advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the matter,
and it fixed my opinion and feeling from that time forward.




CHAPTER II

MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS


In my education, as in that of everyone, the moral influences, which
are so much more important than all others, are also the most
complicated, and the most difficult to specify with any approach to
completeness. Without attempting the hopeless task of detailing the
circumstances by which, in this respect, my early character may have
been shaped, I shall confine myself to a few leading points, which
form an indispensable part of any true account of my education.

I was brought up from the first without any religious belief, in the
ordinary acceptation of the term. My father, educated in the creed of
Scotch Presbyterianism, had by his own studies and reflections been
early led to reject not only the belief in Revelation, but the
foundations of what is commonly called Natural Religion. I have heard
him say, that the turning point of his mind on the subject was reading
Butler's _Analogy_. That work, of which he always continued to speak
with respect, kept him, as he said, for some considerable time, a
believer in the divine authority of Christianity; by proving to him
that whatever are the difficulties in believing that the Old and New
Testaments proceed from, or record the acts of, a perfectly wise and
good being, the same and still greater difficulties stand in the way
of the belief, that a being of such a character can have been the
Maker of the universe. He considered Butler's argument as conclusive
against the only opponents for whom it was intended. Those who admit
an omnipotent as well as perfectly just and benevolent maker and ruler
of such a world as this, can say little against Christianity but what
can, with at least equal force, be retorted against themselves.
Finding, therefore, no halting place in Deism, he remained in a state
of perplexity, until, doubtless after many struggles, he yielded to
the conviction, that concerning the origin of things nothing whatever
can be known. This is the only correct statement of his opinion; for
dogmatic atheism he looked upon as absurd; as most of those, whom the
world has considered Atheists, have always done. These particulars are
important, because they show that my father's rejection of all that is
called religious belief, was not, as many might suppose, primarily a
matter of logic and evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more
than intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world so
full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with
perfect goodness and righteousness. His intellect spurned the
subtleties by which men attempt to blind themselves to this open
contradiction. The Sabaean, or Manichaean theory of a Good and an Evil
Principle, struggling against each other for the government of the
universe, he would not have equally condemned; and I have heard him
express surprise, that no one revived it in our time. He would have
regarded it as a mere hypothesis; but he would have ascribed to it no
depraving influence. As it was, his aversion to religion, in the sense
usually attached to the term, was of the same kind with that of
Lucretius: he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental
delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest
enemy of morality: first, by setting up fictitious excellences--belief
in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the
good of human-kind--and causing these to be accepted as substitutes
for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the
standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being,
on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in
sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. I have a hundred times
heard him say that all ages and nations have represented their gods as
wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind have gone
on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect
conception of wickedness which the human mind can devise, and have
called this God, and prostrated themselves before it. This _ne plus
ultra_ of wickedness he considered to be embodied in what is commonly
presented to mankind as the creed of Christianity. Think (he used to
say) of a being who would make a Hell--who would create the human race
with the infallible foreknowledge, and therefore with the intention,
that the great majority of them were to be consigned to horrible and
everlasting torment. The time, I believe, is drawing near when this
dreadful conception of an object of worship will be no longer
identified with Christianity; and when all persons, with any sense of
moral good and evil, will look upon it with the same indignation with
which my father regarded it. My father was as well aware as anyone
that Christians do not, in general, undergo the demoralizing
consequences which seem inherent in such a creed, in the manner or
to the extent which might have been expected from it. The same
slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears,
wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving
a contradiction in terms, prevents them from perceiving the logical
consequences of the theory. Such is the facility with which mankind
believe at one and the same time things inconsistent with one another,
and so few are those who draw from what they receive as truths, any
consequences but those recommended to them by their feelings, that
multitudes have held the undoubting belief in an Omnipotent Author
of Hell, and have nevertheless identified that being with the best
conception they were able to form of perfect goodness. Their worship
was not paid to the demon which such a being as they imagined would
really be, but to their own ideal of excellence. The evil is, that
such a belief keeps the ideal wretchedly low; and opposes the most
obstinate resistance to all thought which has a tendency to raise it
higher. Believers shrink from every train of ideas which would lead
the mind to a clear conception and an elevated standard of excellence,
because they feel (even when they do not distinctly see) that such a
standard would conflict with many of the dispensations of nature, and
with much of what they are accustomed to consider as the Christian
creed. And thus morality continues a matter of blind tradition, with
no consistent principle, nor even any consistent feeling, to guide it.

It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father's ideas of duty,
to allow me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and
feelings respecting religion: and he impressed upon me from the first,
that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject
on which nothing was known: that the question, "Who made me?" cannot
be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information
from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty
a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself,
"Who made God?" He, at the same time, took care that I should be
acquainted with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable
problems. I have mentioned at how early an age he made me a reader of
ecclesiastical history; and he taught me to take the strongest interest
in the Reformation, as the great and decisive contest against priestly
tyranny for liberty of thought.

I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, of one who has
not thrown off religious belief, but never had it: I grew up in a
negative state with regard to it. I looked upon the modern exactly as
I did upon the ancient religion, as something which in no way concerned
me. It did not seem to me more strange that English people should believe
what I did not, than that the men I read of in Herodotus should have done
so. History had made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact familiar
to me, and this was but a prolongation of that fact. This point in my
early education had, however, incidentally one bad consequence deserving
notice. In giving me an opinion contrary to that of the world, my father
thought it necessary to give it as one which could not prudently be avowed
to the world. This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself, at that early
age, was attended with some moral disadvantages; though my limited
intercourse with strangers, especially such as were likely to speak to
me on religion, prevented me from being placed in the alternative of
avowal or hypocrisy. I remember two occasions in my boyhood, on which I
felt myself in this alternative, and in both cases I avowed my disbelief
and defended it. My opponents were boys, considerably older than myself:
one of them I certainly staggered at the time, but the subject was never
renewed between us: the other who was surprised and somewhat shocked, did
his best to convince me for some time, without effect.

The great advance in liberty of discussion, which is one of the most
important differences between the present time and that of my childhood,
has greatly altered the moralities of this question; and I think that
few men of my father's intellect and public spirit, holding with such
intensity of moral conviction as he did, unpopular opinions on religion,
or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now either
practise or inculcate the withholding of them from the world, unless in
the cases, becoming fewer every day, in which frankness on these subjects
would either risk the loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to
exclusion from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the
capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the time appears
to me to have come when it is the duty of all who, being qualified in
point of knowledge, have on mature consideration satisfied themselves
that the current opinions are not only false but hurtful, to make their
dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose station or
reputation gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an
avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the vulgar prejudice,
that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, is connected with any
bad qualities either of mind or heart. The world would be astonished if
it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments--of those most
distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue--are
complete sceptics in religion; many of them refraining from avowal, less
from personal considerations than from a conscientious, though now in my
opinion a most mistaken, apprehension, lest by speaking out what would
tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as they suppose)
existing restraints, they should do harm instead of good.

Of unbelievers (so called) as well as of believers, there are many
species, including almost every variety of moral type. But the best
among them, as no one who has had opportunities of really knowing them
will hesitate to affirm, are more genuinely religious, in the best
sense of the word religion, than those who exclusively arrogate to
themselves the title. The liberality of the age, or in other words the
weakening of the obstinate prejudice which makes men unable to see
what is before their eyes because it is contrary to their expectations,
has caused it be very commonly admitted that a Deist may be truly
religious: but if religion stands for any graces of character and not
for mere dogma, the assertion may equally be made of many whose belief
is far short of Deism. Though they may think the proof incomplete that
the universe is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve
that it can have an Author and Governor who is _absolute_ in power as
well as perfect in goodness, they have that which constitutes the
principal worth of all religions whatever, an ideal conception of a
Perfect Being, to which they habitually refer as the guide of their
conscience; and this ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection
than the objective Deity of those who think themselves obliged to find
absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded with suffering
and so deformed by injustice as ours.

My father's moral convictions, wholly dissevered from religion, were
very much of the character of those of the Greek philosophers; and
were delivered with the force and decision which characterized all
that came from him. Even at the very early age at which I read with
him the _Memorabilia_ of Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from
his comments a deep respect for the character of Socrates; who stood
in my mind as a model of ideal excellence: and I well remember how my
father at that time impressed upon me the lesson of the "Choice of
Hercules." At a somewhat later period the lofty moral standard
exhibited in the writings of Plato operated upon me with great force.
My father's moral inculcations were at all times mainly those of the
"Socratici viri"; justice, temperance (to which he gave a very
extended application), veracity, perseverance, readiness to encounter
pain and especially labour; regard for the public good; estimation of
persons according to their merits, and of things according to their
intrinsic usefulness; a life of exertion in contradiction to one of
self-indulgent ease and sloth. These and other moralities he conveyed
in brief sentences, uttered as occasion arose, of grave exhortation,
or stern reprobation and contempt.

But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect does more; and
the effect my father produced on my character, did not depend solely
on what he said or did with that direct object, but also, and still
more, on what manner of man he was.

In his views of life he partook of the character of the Stoic, the
Epicurean, and the Cynic, not in the modern but the ancient sense of
the word. In his personal qualities the Stoic predominated. His
standard of morals was Epicurean, inasmuch as it was utilitarian,
taking as the exclusive test of right and wrong, the tendency of
actions to produce pleasure or pain. But he had (and this was the
Cynic element) scarcely any belief in pleasure; at least in his later
years, of which alone, on this point, I can speak confidently. He was
not insensible to pleasures; but he deemed very few of them worth the
price which, at least in the present state of society, must be paid
for them. The greater number of miscarriages in life he considered to
be attributable to the overvaluing of pleasures. Accordingly,
temperance, in the large sense intended by the Greek philosophers
--stopping short at the point of moderation in all indulgences--was
with him, as with them, almost the central point of educational
precept. His inculcations of this virtue fill a large place in my
childish remembrances. He thought human life a poor thing at best,
after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by.
This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may
be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it
was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes
say that if life were made what it might be, by good government and
good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with
anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. He never varied in
rating intellectual enjoyments above all others, even in value as
pleasures, independently of their ulterior benefits. The pleasures of
the benevolent affections he placed high in the scale; and used to
say, that he had never known a happy old man, except those who were
able to live over again in the pleasures of the young. For passionate
emotions of all sorts, and for everything which bas been said or
written in exaltation of them, he professed the greatest contempt.
He regarded them as a form of madness. "The intense" was with him a
bye-word of scornful disapprobation. He regarded as an aberration of
the moral standard of modern times, compared with that of the ancients,
the great stress laid upon feeling. Feelings, as such, he considered
to be no proper subjects of praise or blame. Right and wrong, good and
bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct--of acts and omissions;
there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead,
either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to
act right, often leading people to act wrong. Consistently carrying
out the doctrine that the object of praise and blame should be the
discouragement of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, he
refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the
agent. He blamed as severely what he thought a bad action, when the
motive was a feeling of duty, as if the agents had been consciously
evil doers. He would not have accepted as a plea in mitigation for
inquisitors, that they sincerely believed burning heretics to be an
obligation of conscience. But though he did not allow honesty of purpose
to soften his disapprobation of actions, it had its full effect on his
estimation of characters. No one prized conscientiousness and rectitude
of intention more highly, or was more incapable of valuing any person
in whom he did not feel assurance of it. But he disliked people quite
as much for any other deficiency, provided he thought it equally likely
to make them act ill. He disliked, for instance, a fanatic in any bad
cause, as much as or more than one who adopted the same cause from
self-interest, because he thought him even more likely to be practically
mischievous. And thus, his aversion to many intellectual errors, or what
he regarded as such, partook, in a certain sense, of the character of a
moral feeling. All this is merely saying that he, in a degree once common,
but now very unusual, threw his feelings into his opinions; which truly
it is difficult to understand how anyone who possesses much of both, can
fail to do. None but those who do not care about opinions will confound
this with intolerance. Those who, having opinions which they hold to be
immensely important, and their contraries to be prodigiously hurtful,
have any deep regard for the general good, will necessarily dislike, as
a class and in the abstract, those who think wrong what they think right,
and right what they think wrong: though they need not therefore be, nor
was my father, insensible to good qualities in an opponent, nor governed
in their estimation of individuals by one general presumption, instead
of by the whole of their character. I grant that an earnest person,
being no more infallible than other men, is liable to dislike people
on account of opinions which do not merit dislike; but if he neither
himself does them any ill office, nor connives at its being donc by
others, he is not intolerant: and the forbearance which flows from a
conscientious sense of the importance to mankind of the equal freedom
of all opinions, is the only tolerance which is commendable, or, to the
highest moral order of minds, possible.

It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, and the character,
above described, was likely to leave a strong moral impression on any
mind principally formed by him, and that his moral teaching was not
likely to err on the side of laxity or indulgence. The element which
was chiefly deficient in his moral relation to his children was that
of tenderness. I do not believe that this deficiency lay in his own
nature. I believe him to have had much more feeling than he habitually
showed, and much greater capacities of feeling than were ever
developed. He resembled most Englishmen in being ashamed of the signs
of feeling, and, by the absence of demonstration, starving the
feelings themselves. If we consider further that he was in the trying
position of sole teacher, and add to this that his temper was
constitutionally irritable, it is impossible not to feel true pity for
a father who did, and strove to do, so much for his children, who
would have so valued their affection, yet who must have been
constantly feeling that fear of him was drying it up at its source.
This was no longer the case later in life, and with his younger
children. They loved him tenderly: and if I cannot say so much of
myself, I was always loyally devoted to him. As regards my own
education, I hesitate to pronounce whether I was more a loser or
gainer by his severity. It was not such as to prevent me from having a
happy childhood. And I do not believe that boys can be induced to
apply themselves with vigour, and--what is so much more
difficult--perseverance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force
of persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much must be
learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and known liability
to punishment, are indispensable as means. It is, no doubt, a very
laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of
what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them.
But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them
to learn anything _but_ what has been made easy and interesting, one
of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I rejoice in the
decline of the old brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which,
however, did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new,
as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable
of doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then,
believe that fear, as an element in education, can be dispensed with;
but I am sure that it ought not to be the main element; and when it
predominates so much as to preclude love and confidence on the part of
the child to those who should be the unreservedly trusted advisers of
after years, and perhaps to seal up the fountains of frank and
spontaneous communicativeness in the child's nature, it is an evil for
which a large abatement must be made from the benefits, moral and
intellectual, which may flow from any other part of the education.

During this first period of my life, the habitual frequenters of my
father's house were limited to a very few persons, most of them little
known to the world, but whom personal worth, and more or less of
congeniality with at least his political opinions (not so frequently
to be met with then as since), inclined him to cultivate; and his
conversations with them I listened to with interest and instruction.
My being an habitual inmate of my father's study made me acquainted
with the dearest of his friends, David Ricardo, who by his benevolent
countenance, and kindliness of manner, was very attractive to young
persons, and who, after I became a student of political economy,
invited me to his house and to walk with him in order to converse on
the subject. I was a more frequent visitor (from about 1817 or 1818)
to Mr. Hume, who, born in the same part of Scotland as my father, and
having been, I rather think, a younger schoolfellow or college
companion of his, had on returning from India renewed their youthful
acquaintance, and who--coming, like many others, greatly under the
influence of my father's intellect and energy of character--was
induced partly by that influence to go into Parliament, and there
adopt the line of conduct which has given him an honourable place in
the history of his country. Of Mr. Bentham I saw much more, owing to
the close intimacy which existed between him and my father. I do not
know how soon after my father's first arrival in England they became
acquainted. But my father was the earliest Englishman of any great
mark, who thoroughly understood, and in the main adopted, Bentham's
general views of ethics, government and law: and this was a natural
foundation for sympathy between them, and made them familiar
companions in a period of Bentham's life during which he admitted much
fewer visitors than was the case subsequently. At this time Mr.
Bentham passed some part of every year at Barrow Green House, in a
beautiful part of the Surrey Hills, a few miles from Godstone, and
there I each summer accompanied my father in a long visit. In 1813 Mr.
Bentham, my father, and I made an excursion, which included Oxford,
Bath and Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. In this journey I
saw many things which were instructive to me, and acquired my first
taste for natural scenery, in the elementary form of fondness for a
"view." In the succeeding winter we moved into a house very near Mr.
Bentham's, which my father rented from him, in Queen Square,
Westminster. From 1814 to 1817 Mr. Bentham lived during half of each
year at Ford Abbey, in Somersetshire (or rather in a part of
Devonshire surrounded by Somersetshire), which intervals I had the
advantage of passing at that place. This sojourn was, I think, an
important circumstance in my education. Nothing contributes more to
nourish elevation of sentiments in a people, than the large and free
character of their habitations. The middle-age architecture, the
baronial hall, and the spacious and lofty rooms, of this fine old
place, so unlike the mean and cramped externals of English
middle-class life, gave the sentiment of a larger and freer existence,
and were to me a sort of poetic cultivation, aided also by the
character of the grounds in which the Abbey stood; which were _riant_
and secluded, umbrageous, and full of the sound of falling waters.

I owed another of the fortunate circumstances in my education, a
year's residence in France, to Mr. Bentham's brother, General Sir
Samuel Bentham. I had seen Sir Samuel Bentham and his family at their
house near Gosport in the course of the tour already mentioned (he
being then Superintendent of the Dockyard at Portsmouth), and during a
stay of a few days which they made at Ford Abbey shortly after the
Peace, before going to live on the Continent. In 1820 they invited me
for a six months' visit to them in the South of France, which their
kindness ultimately prolonged to nearly a twelvemonth. Sir Samuel
Bentham, though of a character of mind different from that of his
illustrious brother, was a man of very considerable attainments and
general powers, with a decided genius for mechanical art. His wife, a
daughter of the celebrated chemist, Dr. Fordyce, was a woman of strong
will and decided character, much general knowledge, and great
practical good sense of the Edgeworth kind: she was the ruling spirit
of the household, as she deserved, and was well qualified, to be.
Their family consisted of one son (the eminent botanist) and three
daughters, the youngest about two years my senior. I am indebted to
them for much and various instruction, and for an almost parental
interest in my welfare. When I first joined them, in May, 1820, they
occupied the Château of Pompignan (still belonging to a descendant of
Voltaire's enemy) on the heights overlooking the plain of the Garonne
between Montauban and Toulouse. I accompanied them in an excursion to
the Pyrenees, including a stay of some duration at Bagnčres de
Bigorre, a journey to Pau, Bayonne, and Bagnčres de Luchon, and an
ascent of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre.

This first introduction to the highest order of mountain scenery made
the deepest impression on me, and gave a colour to my tastes through
life. In October we proceeded by the beautiful mountain route of
Castres and St. Pons, from Toulouse to Montpellier, in which last
neighbourhood Sir Samuel had just bought the estate of Restincličre,
near the foot of the singular mountain of St. Loup. During this
residence in France I acquired a familiar knowledge of the French
language, and acquaintance with the ordinary French literature; I took
lessons in various bodily exercises, in none of which, however, I made
any proficiency; and at Montpellier I attended the excellent winter
courses of lectures at the Faculté des Sciences, those of M. Anglada
on chemistry, of M. Provençal on zoology, and of a very accomplished
representative of the eighteenth century metaphysics, M. Gergonne, on
logic, under the name of Philosophy of the Sciences. I also went
through a course of the higher mathematics under the private tuition
of M. Lenthéric, a professor at the Lycée of Montpellier. But the
greatest, perhaps, of the many advantages which I owed to this episode
in my education, was that of having breathed for a whole year, the
free and genial atmosphere of Continental life. This advantage was not
the less real though I could not then estimate, nor even consciously
feel it. Having so little experience of English life, and the few
people I knew being mostly such as had public objects, of a large and
personally disinterested kind, at heart, I was ignorant of the low
moral tone of what, in England, is called society; the habit of, not
indeed professing, but taking for granted in every mode of
implication, that conduct is of course always directed towards low and
petty objects; the absence of high feelings which manifests itself by
sneering depreciation of all demonstrations of them, and by general
abstinence (except among a few of the stricter religionists) from
professing any high principles of action at all, except in those
preordained cases in which such profession is put on as part of the
costume and formalities of the occasion. I could not then know or
estimate the difference between this manner of existence, and that of
a people like the French, whose faults, if equally real, are at all
events different; among whom sentiments, which by comparison at least
may be called elevated, are the current coin of human intercourse,
both in books and in private life; and though often evaporating in
profession, are yet kept alive in the nation at large by constant
exercise, and stimulated by sympathy, so as to form a living and
active part of the existence of great numbers of persons, and to be
recognised and understood by all. Neither could I then appreciate the
general culture of the understanding, which results from the habitual
exercise of the feelings, and is thus carried down into the most
uneducated classes of several countries on the Continent, in a degree
not equalled in England among the so-called educated, except where an
unusual tenderness of conscience leads to a habitual exercise of the
intellect on questions of right and wrong. I did not know the way in
which, among the ordinary English, the absence of interest in things
of an unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here and
there, and the habit of not speaking to others, nor much even to
themselves, about the things in which they do feel interest, causes
both their feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain
undeveloped, or to develop themselves only in some single and very
limited direction; reducing them, considered as spiritual beings, to
a kind of negative existence. All these things I did not perceive till
long afterwards; but I even then felt, though without stating it
clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability and
amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode of
existence, in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few, or
no exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. In France, it is true,
the bad as well as the good points, both of individual and of national
character, come more to the surface, and break out more fearlessly in
ordinary intercourse, than in England: but the general habit of the
people is to show, as well as to expect, friendly feeling in every one
towards every other, wherever there is not some positive cause for the
opposite. In England it is only of the best bred people, in the upper
or upper middle ranks, that anything like this can be said.

In my way through Paris, both going and returning, I passed some time
in the house of M. Say, the eminent political economist, who was a
friend and correspondent of my father, having become acquainted with
him on a visit to England a year or two after the Peace. He was a man
of the later period of the French Revolution, a fine specimen of the
best kind of French Republican, one of those who had never bent the
knee to Bonaparte though courted by him to do so; a truly upright,
brave, and enlightened man. He lived a quiet and studious life, made
happy by warm affections, public and private. He was acquainted with
many of the chiefs of the Liberal party, and I saw various noteworthy
persons while staying at this house; among whom I have pleasure in the
recollection of having once seen Saint-Simon, not yet the founder
either of a philosophy or a religion, and considered only as a clever
original. The chief fruit which I carried away from the society I saw,
was a strong and permanent interest in Continental Liberalism, of
which I ever afterwards kept myself _au courant_, as much as of
English politics: a thing not at all usual in those days with
Englishmen, and which had a very salutary influence on my development,
keeping me free from the error always prevalent in England--and from
which even my father, with all his superiority to prejudice, was not
exempt--of judging universal questions by a merely English standard.
After passing a few weeks at Caen with an old friend of my father's,
I returned to England in July, 1821 and my education resumed its
ordinary course.




CHAPTER III

LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION


For the first year or two after my visit to France, I continued my old
studies, with the addition of some new ones. When I returned, my
father was just finishing for the press his _Elements of Political
Economy_, and he made me perform an exercise on the manuscript, which
Mr. Bentham practised on all his own writings, making what he called
"marginal contents"; a short abstract of every paragraph, to enable
the writer more easily to judge of, and improve, the order of the
ideas, and the general character of the exposition. Soon after, my
father put into my hands Condillac's _Traité des Sensations_, and the
logical and metaphysical volumes of his _Cours d'Etudes_; the first
(notwithstanding the superficial resemblance between Condillac's
psychological system and my father's) quite as much for a warning as
for an example. I am not sure whether it was in this winter or the
next that I first read a history of the French Revolution. I learnt
with astonishment that the principles of democracy, then apparently in
so insignificant and hopeless a minority everywhere in Europe, had
borne all before them in France thirty years earlier, and had been the
creed of the nation. As may be supposed from this, I had previously a
very vague idea of that great commotion. I knew only that the French
had thrown off the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. and XV., had put
the King and Queen to death, guillotined many persons, one of whom was
Lavoisier, and had ultimately fallen under the despotism of Bonaparte.
From this time, as was natural, the subject took an immense hold of my
feelings. It allied itself with all my juvenile aspirations to the
character of a democratic champion. What had happened so lately,
seemed as if it might easily happen again: and the most transcendent
glory I was capable of conceiving, was that of figuring, successful or
unsuccessful, as a Girondist in an English Convention.

During the winter of 1821-2, Mr. John Austin, with whom at the time of
my visit to France my father had but lately become acquainted, kindly
allowed me to read Roman law with him. My father, notwithstanding his
abhorrence of the chaos of barbarism called English Law, had turned
his thoughts towards the bar as on the whole less ineligible for me
than any other profession: and these readings with Mr. Austin, who had
made Bentham's best ideas his own, and added much to them from other
sources and from his own mind, were not only a valuable introduction
to legal studies, but an important portion of general education. With
Mr. Austin I read Heineccius on the Institutes, his _Roman Antiquities_,
and part of his exposition of the Pandects; to which was added a
considerable portion of Blackstone. It was at the commencement of these
studies that my father, as a needful accompaniment to them, put into my
hands Bentham's principal speculations, as interpreted to the Continent,
and indeed to all the world, by Dumont, in the _Traité de Législation_.
The reading of this book was an epoch in my life; one of the turning
points in my mental history.

My previous education had been, in a certain sense, already a course
of Benthamism. The Benthamic standard of "the greatest happiness" was
that which I had always been taught to apply; I was even familiar
with an abstract discussion of it, forming an episode in an
unpublished dialogue on Government, written by my father on the
Platonic model. Yet in the first pages of Bentham it burst upon me
with all the force of novelty. What thus impressed me was the chapter
in which Bentham passed judgment on the common modes of reasoning in
morals and legislation, deduced from phrases like "law of nature,"
"right reason," "the moral sense," "natural rectitude," and the like,
and characterized them as dogmatism in disguise, imposing its
sentiments upon others under cover of sounding expressions which
convey no reason for the sentiment, but set up the sentiment as its
own reason. It had not struck me before, that Bentham's principle put
an end to all this. The feeling rushed upon me, that all previous
moralists were superseded, and that here indeed was the commencement
of a new era in thought. This impression was strengthened by the
manner in which Bentham put into scientific form the application of
the happiness principle to the morality of actions, by analysing the
various classes and orders of their consequences. But what struck me
at that time most of all, was the Classification of Offences, which is
much more clear, compact, and imposing in Dumont's _rédaction_ than in
the original work of Bentham from which it was taken. Logic and the
dialectics of Plato, which had formed so large a part of my previous
training, had given me a strong relish for accurate classification.
This taste had been strengthened and enlightened by the study of
botany, on the principles of what is called the Natural Method, which
I had taken up with great zeal, though only as an amusement, during my
stay in France; and when I found scientific classification applied to
the great and complex subject of Punishable Acts, under the guidance
of the ethical principle of Pleasurable and Painful Consequences,
followed out in the method of detail introduced into these subjects by
Bentham, I felt taken up to an eminence from which I could survey a
vast mental domain, and see stretching out into the distance
intellectual results beyond all computation. As I proceeded further,
there seemed to be added to this intellectual clearness, the most
inspiring prospects of practical improvement in human affairs. To
Bentham's general view of the construction of a body of law I was not
altogether a stranger, having read with attention that admirable
compendium, my father's article on Jurisprudence: but I had read it
with little profit, and scarcely any interest, no doubt from its
extremely general and abstract character, and also because it
concerned the form more than the substance of the _corpus juris_, the
logic rather than the ethics of law. But Bentham's subject was
Legislation, of which Jurisprudence is only the formal part: and at
every page he seemed to open a clearer and broader conception of what
human opinions and institutions ought to be, how they might be made
what they ought to be, and how far removed from it they now are. When
I laid down the last volume of the _Traité_, I had become a different
being. The "principle of utility," understood as Bentham understood
it, and applied in the manner in which he applied it through these
three volumes, fell exactly into its place as the keystone which held
together the detached and fragmentary component parts of my knowledge
and beliefs. It gave unity to my conceptions of things. I now had
opinions; a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy; in one among the best
senses of the word, a religion; the inculcation and diffusion of which
could be made the principal outward purpose of a life. And I had a
grand conception laid before me of changes to be effected in the
condition of mankind through that doctrine. The _Traité de Legislation_
wound up with what was to me a most impressive picture of human life as
it would be made by such opinions and such laws as were recommended in
the treatise. The anticipations of practicable improvement were
studiously moderate, deprecating and discountenancing as reveries of
vague enthusiasm many things which will one day seem so natural to human
beings, that injustice will probably be done to those who once thought
them chimerical. But, in my state of mind, this appearance of superiority
to illusion added to the effect which Bentham's doctrines produced on me,
by heightening the impression of mental power, and the vista of improvement
which he did open was sufficiently large and brilliant to light up my life,
as well as to give a definite shape to my aspirations.

After this I read, from time to time, the most important of the other
works of Bentham which had then seen the light, either as written by
himself or as edited by Dumont. This was my private reading: while,
under my father's direction, my studies were carried into the higher
branches of analytic psychology. I now read Locke's _Essay_, and wrote
out an account of it, consisting of a complete abstract of every
chapter, with such remarks as occurred to me; which was read by, or
(I think) to, my father, and discussed throughout. I performed the same
process with _Helvetius de L'Esprit_, which I read of my own choice.
This preparation of abstracts, subject to my father's censorship, was
of great service to me, by compelling precision in conceiving and
expressing psychological doctrines, whether accepted as truths or only
regarded as the opinion of others. After Helvetius, my father made me
study what he deemed the really master-production in the philosophy
of mind, Hartley's _Observations on Man_. This book, though it did
not, like the _Traité de Législation_, give a new colour to my
existence, made a very similar impression on me in regard to its
immediate subject. Hartley's explanation, incomplete as in many points
it is, of the more complex mental phenomena by the law of association,
commended itself to me at once as a real analysis, and made me feel by
contrast the insufficiency of the merely verbal generalizations of
Condillac, and even of the instructive gropings and feelings about for
psychological explanations, of Locke. It was at this very time that my
father commenced writing his _Analysis_ of the Mind, which carried
Hartley's mode of explaining the mental phenomena to so much greater
length and depth. He could only command the concentration of thought
necessary for this work, during the complete leisure of his holiday
for a month or six weeks annually: and he commenced it in the summer
of 1822, in the first holiday he passed at Dorking; in which
neighbourhood, from that time to the end of his life, with the
exception of two years, he lived, as far as his official duties
permitted, for six months of every year. He worked at the _Analysis_
during several successive vacations, up to the year 1829, when it was
published, and allowed me to read the manuscript, portion by portion,
as it advanced. The other principal English writers on mental
philosophy I read as I felt inclined, particularly Berkeley, Hume's
_Essays_, Reid, Dugald Stewart and Brown on Cause and Effect. Brown's
_Lectures_ I did not read until two or three years later, nor at that
time had my father himself read them.

Among the works read in the course of this year, which contributed
materially to my development, I owe it to mention a book (written on
the foundation of some of Bentham's manuscripts and published under
the pseudonyme of Philip Beauchamp) entitled _Analysis of the Influence
of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind_. This was an
examination not of the truth, but of the usefulness of religious belief,
in the most general sense, apart from the peculiarities of any special
revelation; which, of all the parts of the discussion concerning
religion, is the most important in this age, in which real belief in
any religious doctrine is feeble and precarious, but the opinion of
its necessity for moral and social purposes almost universal; and when
those who reject revelation, very generally take refuge in an
optimistic Deism, a worship of the order of Nature, and the supposed
course of Providence, at least as full of contradictions, and
perverting to the moral sentiments, as any of the forms of
Christianity, if only it is as completely realized. Yet very little,
with any claim to a philosophical character, has been written by
sceptics against the usefulness of this form of belief. The volume
bearing the name of Philip Beauchamp had this for its special object.
Having been shown to my father in manuscript, it was put into my hands
by him, and I made a marginal analysis of it as I had done of the
_Elements of Political Economy_. Next to the Traité de Législation_,
it was one of the books which by the searching character of its
analysis produced the greatest effect upon me. On reading it lately
after an interval of many years, I find it to have some of the defects
as well as the merits of the Benthamic modes of thought, and to
contain, as I now think, many weak arguments, but with a great
overbalance of sound ones, and much good material for a more
completely philosophic and conclusive treatment of the subject.

I have now, I believe, mentioned all the books which had any
considerable effect on my early mental development. From this point
I began to carry on my intellectual cultivation by writing still more
than by reading. In the summer of 1822 I wrote my first argumentative
essay. I remember very little about it, except that it was an attack
on what I regarded as the aristocratic prejudice, that the rich were,
or were likely to be, superior in moral qualities to the poor. My
performance was entirely argumentative, without any of the declamation
which the subject would admit of, and might be expected to suggest to
a young writer. In that department, however, I was, and remained, very
inapt. Dry argument was the only thing I could, manage, or willingly
attempted; though passively I was very susceptible to the effect of
all composition, whether in the form of poetry or oratory, which
appealed to the feelings on any basis of reason. My father, who knew
nothing of this essay until it was finished, was well satisfied, and,
as I learnt from others, even pleased with it; but, perhaps from a
desire to promote the exercise of other mental faculties than the
purely logical, he advised me to make my next exercise in composition
one of the oratorical kind; on which suggestion, availing myself of
my familiarity with Greek history and ideas, and with the Athenian
orators, I wrote two speeches, one an accusation, the other a defence
of Pericles, on a supposed impeachment for not marching out to fight
the Lacedemonians on their invasion of Attica. After this I continued
to write papers on subjects often very much beyond my capacity, but
with great benefit both from the exercise itself, and from the
discussions which it led to with my father.

I had now also begun to converse, on general subjects, with the
instructed men with whom I came in contact: and the opportunities of
such contact naturally became more numerous. The two friends of my
father from whom I derived most, and with whom I most associated, were
Mr. Grote and Mr. John Austin. The acquaintance of both with my father
was recent, but had ripened rapidly into intimacy. Mr. Grote was
introduced to my father by Mr. Ricardo, I think in 1819 (being then
about twenty-five years old), and sought assiduously his society and
conversation. Already a highly instructed man, he was yet, by the side
of my father, a tyro in the great subjects of human opinion; but he
rapidly seized on my father's best ideas; and in the department of
political opinion he made himself known as early as 1820, by a
pamphlet in defence of Radical Reform, in reply to a celebrated
article by Sir James Mackintosh, then lately published in he
_Edinburgh Review_. Mr. Grote's father, the banker, was, I believe,
a thorough Tory, and his mother intensely Evangelical; so that for
his liberal opinions he was in no way indebted to home influences.
But, unlike most persons who have the prospect of being rich by
inheritance, he had, though actively engaged in the business of
banking, devoted a great portion of time to philosophic studies; and
his intimacy with my father did much to decide the character of the
next stage in his mental progress. Him I often visited, and my
conversations with him on political, moral, and philosophical subjects
gave me, in addition to much valuable instruction, all the pleasure
and benefit of sympathetic communion with a man of the high
intellectual and moral eminence which his life and writings have since
manifested to the world.

Mr. Austin, who was four or five years older than Mr. Grote, was the
eldest son of a retired miller in Suffolk, who had made money by
contracts during the war, and who must have been a man of remarkable
qualities, as I infer from the fact that all his sons were of more
than common ability and all eminently gentlemen. The one with whom we
are now concerned, and whose writings on jurisprudence have made him
celebrated, was for some time in the army, and served in Sicily under
Lord William Bentinck. After the Peace he sold his commission and
studied for the bar, to which he had been called for some time before
my father knew him. He was not, like Mr. Grote, to any extent, a pupil
of my father, but he had attained, by reading and thought, a
considerable number of the same opinions, modified by his own very
decided individuality of character. He was a man of great intellectual
powers, which in conversation appeared at their very best; from the
vigour and richness of expression with which, under the excitement of
discussion, he was accustomed to maintain some view or other of most
general subjects; and from an appearance of not only strong, but
deliberate and collected will; mixed with a certain bitterness, partly
derived from temperament, and partly from the general cast of his
feelings and reflections. The dissatisfaction with life and the world,
felt more or less in the present state of society and intellect by
every discerning and highly conscientious mind, gave in his case a
rather melancholy tinge to the character, very natural to those whose
passive moral susceptibilities are more than proportioned to their
active energies. For it must be said, that the strength of will of
which his manner seemed to give such strong assurance, expended itself
principally in manner. With great zeal for human improvement, a strong
sense of duty, and capacities and acquirements the extent of which is
proved by the writings he has left, he hardly ever completed any
intellectual task of magnitude. He had so high a standard of what
ought to be done, so exaggerated a sense of deficiencies in his own
performances, and was so unable to content himself with the amount of
elaboration sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, that he not
only spoilt much of his work for ordinary use by overlabouring it, but
spent so much time and exertion in superfluous study and thought, that
when his task ought to have been completed, he had generally worked
himself into an illness, without having half finished what he
undertook. From this mental infirmity (of which he is not the sole
example among the accomplished and able men whom I have known),
combined with liability to frequent attacks of disabling though not
dangerous ill-health, he accomplished, through life, little in
comparison with what he seemed capable of; but what he did produce is
held in the very highest estimation by the most competent judges; and,
like Coleridge, he might plead as a set-off that he had been to many
persons, through his conversation, a source not only of much
instruction but of great elevation of character. On me his influence
was most salutary. It was moral in the best sense. He took a sincere
and kind interest in me, far beyond what could have been expected
towards a mere youth from a man of his age, standing, and what seemed
austerity of character. There was in his conversation and demeanour a
tone of high-mindedness which did not show itself so much, if the
quality existed as much, in any of the other persons with whom at that
time I associated. My intercourse with him was the more beneficial,
owing to his being of a different mental type from all other
intellectual men whom I frequented, and he from the first set himself
decidedly against the prejudices and narrownesses which are almost
sure to be found in a young man formed by a particular mode of thought
or a particular social circle.

His younger brother, Charles Austin, of whom at this time and for the
next year or two I saw much, had also a great effect on me, though of
a very different description. He was but a few years older than
myself, and had then just left the University, where he had shone with
great _éclat_ as a man of intellect and a brilliant orator and
converser. The effect he produced on his Cambridge contemporaries
deserves to be accounted an historical event; for to it may in part be
traced the tendency towards Liberalism in general, and the Benthamic
and politico-economic form of it in particular, which showed itself in
a portion of the more active-minded young men of the higher classes
from this time to 1830. The Union Debating Society, at that time at
the height of its reputation, was an arena where what were then
thought extreme opinions, in politics and philosophy, were weekly
asserted, face to face with their opposites, before audiences
consisting of the _élite_ of the Cambridge youth: and though many
persons afterwards of more or less note (of whom Lord Macaulay is the
most celebrated) gained their first oratorical laurels in those
debates, the really influential mind among these intellectual
gladiators was Charles Austin. He continued, after leaving the
University, to be, by his conversation and personal ascendency, a
leader among the same class of young men who had been his associates
there; and he attached me among others to his car. Through him I
became acquainted with Macaulay, Hyde and Charles Villiers, Strutt
(now Lord Belper), Romilly (now Lord Romilly and Master of the Rolls),
and various others who subsequently figured in literature or politics,
and among whom I heard discussions on many topics, as yet to a certain
degree new to me. The influence of Charles Austin over me differed
from that of the persons I have hitherto mentioned, in being not the
influence of a man over a boy, but that of an elder contemporary. It
was through him that I first felt myself, not a pupil under teachers,
but a man among men. He was the first person of intellect whom I met
on a ground of equality, though as yet much his inferior on that
common ground. He was a man who never failed to impress greatly those
with whom he came in contact, even when their opinions were the very
reverse of his. The impression he gave was that of boundless strength,
together with talents which, combined with such apparent force of will
and character, seemed capable of dominating the world. Those who knew
him, whether friendly to him or not, always anticipated that he would
play a conspicuous part in public life. It is seldom that men produce
so great an immediate effect by speech, unless they, in some degree,
lay themselves out for it; and he did this in no ordinary degree. He
loved to strike, and even to startle. He knew that decision is the
greatest element of effect, and he uttered his opinions with all the
decision he could throw into them, never so well pleased as when he
astonished anyone by their audacity. Very unlike his brother, who made
war against the narrower interpretations and applications of the
principles they both professed, he, on the contrary, presented the
Benthamic doctrines in the most startling form of which they were
susceptible, exaggerating everything in them which tended to
consequences offensive to anyone's preconceived feelings. All which,
he defended with such verve and vivacity, and carried off by a manner
so agreeable as well as forcible, that he always either came off
victor, or divided the honours of the field. It is my belief that much
of the notion popularly entertained of the tenets and sentiments of
what are called Benthamites or Utilitarians had its origin in paradoxes
thrown out by Charles Austin. It must be said, however, that his example
was followed, _haud passibus aequis_, by younger proselytes, and that to
_outrer_ whatever was by anybody considered offensive in the doctrines
and maxims of Benthamism, became at one time the badge of a small coterie
of youths. All of these who had anything in them, myself among others,
quickly outgrew this boyish vanity; and those who had not, became tired
of differing from other people, and gave up both the good and the bad part
of the heterodox opinions they had for some time professed.

It was in the winter of 1822-3 that I formed the plan of a little
society, to be composed of young men agreeing in fundamental
principles--acknowledging Utility as their standard in ethics and
politics, and a certain number of the principal corollaries drawn from
it in the philosophy I had accepted--and meeting once a fortnight to
read essays and discuss questions conformably to the premises thus
agreed on. The fact would hardly be worth mentioning, but for the
circumstance, that the name I gave to the society I had planned was the
Utilitarian Society. It was the first time that anyone had taken the
title of Utilitarian; and the term made its way into the language, from
this humble source. I did not invent the word, but found it in one of
Galt's novels, the _Annals of the Parish_, in which the Scotch
clergyman, of whom the book is a supposed autobiography, is represented
as warning his parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become
utilitarians. With a boy's fondness for a name and a banner I seized
on the word, and for some years called myself and others by it as a
sectarian appellation; and it came to be occasionally used by some
others holding the opinions which it was intended to designate. As those
opinions attracted more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and
opponents, and got into rather common use just about the time when those
who had originally assumed it, laid down that along with other sectarian
characteristics. The Society so called consisted at first of no more
than three members, one of whom, being Mr. Bentham's amanuensis,
obtained for us permission to hold our meetings in his house. The number
never, I think, reached ten, and the Society was broken up in 1826. It
had thus an existence of about three years and a half. The chief effect
of it as regards myself, over and above the benefit of practice in oral
discussion, was that of bringing me in contact with several young men at
that time less advanced than myself, among whom, as they professed the
same opinions, I was for some time a sort of leader, and had considerable
influence on their mental progress. Any young man of education who fell
in my way, and whose opinions were not incompatible with those of the
Society, I endeavoured to press into its service; and some others I
probably should never have known, had they not joined it. Those of the
members who became my intimate companions--no one of whom was in any sense
of the word a disciple, but all of them independent thinkers on their own
basis--were William Eyton Tooke, son of the eminent political economist,
a young man of singular worth both moral and intellectual, lost to the
world by an early death; his friend William Ellis, an original thinker in
the field of political economy, now honourably known by his apostolic
exertions for the improvement of education; George Graham, afterwards
official assignee of the Bankruptcy Court, a thinker of originality and
power on almost all abstract subjects; and (from the time when he came
first to England to study for the bar in 1824 or 1825) a man who has made
considerably more noise in the world than any of these, John Arthur Roebuck.

In May, 1823, my professional occupation and status for the next
thirty-five years of my life, were decided by my father's obtaining for
me an appointment from the East India Company, in the office of the
Examiner of India Correspondence, immediately under himself. I was
appointed in the usual manner, at the bottom of the list of clerks, to
rise, at least in the first instance, by seniority; but with the
understanding that I should be employed from the beginning in preparing
drafts of despatches, and be thus trained up as a successor to those who
then filled the higher departments of the office. My drafts of course
required, for some time, much revision from my immediate superiors, but
I soon became well acquainted with the business, and by my father's
instructions and the general growth of my own powers, I was in a few
years qualified to be, and practically was, the chief conductor of the
correspondence with India in one of the leading departments, that of the
Native States. This continued to be my official duty until I was
appointed Examiner, only two years before the time when the abolition of
the East India Company as a political body determined my retirement. I
do not know any one of the occupations by which a subsistence can now be
gained, more suitable than such as this to anyone who, not being in
independent circumstances, desires to devote a part of the twenty-four
hours to private intellectual pursuits. Writing for the press cannot be
recommended as a permanent resource to anyone qualified to accomplish
anything in the higher departments of literature or thought: not only on
account of the uncertainty of this means of livelihood, especially if
the writer has a conscience, and will not consent to serve any opinions
except his own; but also because the writings by which one can live are
not the writings which themselves live, and are never those in which the
writer does his best. Books destined to form future thinkers take too
much time to write, and when written come, in general, too slowly into
notice and repute, to be relied on for subsistence. Those who have to
support themselves by their pen must depend on literary drudgery, or at
best on writings addressed to the multitude; and can employ in the
pursuits of their own choice, only such time as they can spare from
those of necessity; which is generally less than the leisure allowed by
office occupations, while the effect on the mind is far more enervating
and fatiguing. For my own part I have, through life, found office duties
an actual rest from the other mental occupations which I have carried on
simultaneously with them. They were sufficiently intellectual not to be
a distasteful drudgery, without being such as to cause any strain upon
the mental powers of a person used to abstract thought, or to the labour
of careful literary composition. The drawbacks, for every mode of life
has its drawbacks, were not, however, unfelt by me. I cared little for
the loss of the chances of riches and honours held out by some of the
professions, particularly the bar, which had been, as I have already
said, the profession thought of for me. But I was not indifferent to
exclusion from Parliament, and public life: and I felt very sensibly the
more immediate unpleasantness of confinement to London; the holiday
allowed by India House practice not exceeding a month in the year, while
my taste was strong for a country life, and my sojourn in France had
left behind it an ardent desire of travelling. But though these tastes
could not be freely indulged, they were at no time entirely sacrificed.
I passed most Sundays, throughout the year, in the country, taking long
rural walks on that day even when residing in London. The month's
holiday was, for a few years, passed at my father's house in the
country; afterwards a part or the whole was spent in tours, chiefly
pedestrian, with some one or more of the young men who were my chosen
companions; and, at a later period, in longer journeys or excursions,
alone or with other friends. France, Belgium, and Rhenish Germany were
within easy reach of the annual holiday: and two longer absences, one of
three, the other of six months, under medical advice, added Switzerland,
the Tyrol, and Italy to my list. Fortunately, also, both these journeys
occurred rather early, so as to give the benefit and charm of the
remembrance to a large portion of life.

I am disposed to agree with what has been surmised by others, that the
opportunity which my official position gave me of learning by personal
observation the necessary conditions of the practical conduct of
public affairs, has been of considerable value to me as a theoretical
reformer of the opinions and institutions of my time. Not, indeed,
that public business transacted on paper, to take effect on the other
side of the globe, was of itself calculated to give much practical
knowledge of life. But the occupation accustomed me to see and hear
the difficulties of every course, and the means of obviating them,
stated and discussed deliberately with a view to execution: it gave
me opportunities of perceiving when public measures, and other
political facts, did not produce the effects which had been expected
of them, and from what causes; above all, it was valuable to me by
making me, in this portion of my activity, merely one wheel in a
machine, the whole of which had to work together. As a speculative
writer, I should have had no one to consult but myself, and should
have encountered in my speculations none of the obstacles which would
have started up whenever they came to be applied to practice. But as a
Secretary conducting political correspondence, I could not issue an
order, or express an opinion, without satisfying various persons very
unlike myself, that the thing was fit to be done. I was thus in a good
position for finding out by practice the mode of putting a thought
which gives it easiest admittance into minds not prepared for it by
habit; while I became practically conversant with the difficulties of
moving bodies of men, the necessities of compromise, the art of
sacrificing the non-essential to preserve the essential. I learnt how
to obtain the best I could, when I could not obtain everything;
instead of being indignant or dispirited because I could not have
entirely my own way, to be pleased and encouraged when I could have
the smallest part of it; and when even that could not be, to bear with
complete equanimity the being overruled altogether. I have found,
through life, these acquisitions to be of the greatest possible
importance for personal happiness, and they are also a very necessary
condition for enabling anyone, either as theorist or as practical man,
to effect the greatest amount of good compatible with his opportunities.




CHAPTER IV

YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM. THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW"


The occupation of so much of my time by office work did not relax my
attention to my own pursuits, which were never carried on more
vigorously. It was about this time that I began to write in newspapers.
The first writings of mine which got into print were two letters
published towards the end of 1822, in the _Traveller_ evening newspaper.
The _Traveller_ (which afterwards grew into the _Globe and Traveller_,
by the purchase and incorporation of the _Globe_) was then the property
of the well-known political economist, Colonel Torrens, and under the
editorship of an able man, Mr. Walter Coulson (who, after being an
amanuensis of Mr. Bentham, became a reporter, then an editor, next a
barrister and conveyancer, and died Counsel to the Home Office), it had
become one of the most important newspaper organs of Liberal politics.
Colonel Torrens himself wrote much of the political economy of his
paper; and had at this time made an attack upon some opinion of Ricardo
and my father, to which, at my father's instigation, I attempted an
answer, and Coulson, out of consideration for my father and goodwill to
me, inserted it. There was a reply by Torrens, to which I again
rejoined. I soon after attempted something considerably more ambitious.
The prosecutions of Richard Carlile and his wife and sister for
publications hostile to Christianity were then exciting much attention,
and nowhere more than among the people I frequented. Freedom of
discussion even in politics, much more in religion, was at that time far
from being, even in theory, the conceded point which it at least seems
to be now; and the holders of obnoxious opinions had to be always ready
to argue and re-argue for the liberty of expressing them. I wrote a
series of five letters, under the signature of Wickliffe, going over the
whole length and breadth of the question of free publication of all
opinions on religion, and offered them to the _Morning Chronicle_. Three
of them were published in January and February, 1823; the other two,
containing things too outspoken for that journal, never appeared at all.
But a paper which I wrote soon after on the same subject, _ŕ propos_ of
a debate in the House of Commons, was inserted as a leading article; and
during the whole of this year, 1823, a considerable number of my
contributions were printed in the _Chronicle_ and _Traveller_: sometimes
notices of books, but oftener letters, commenting on some nonsense
talked in Parliament, or some defect of the law, or misdoings of the
magistracy or the courts of justice. In this last department the
_Chronicle_ was now rendering signal service. After the death of Mr.
Perry, the editorship and management of the paper had devolved on Mr.
John Black, long a reporter on its establishment; a man of most
extensive reading and information, great honesty and simplicity of mind;
a particular friend of my father, imbued with many of his and Bentham's
ideas, which he reproduced in his articles, among other valuable
thoughts, with great facility and skill. From this time the _Chronicle_
ceased to be the merely Whig organ it was before, and during the next
ten years became to a considerable extent a vehicle of the opinions of
the Utilitarian Radicals. This was mainly by what Black himself wrote,
with some assistance from Fonblanque, who first showed his eminent
qualities as a writer by articles and _jeux d'esprit_ in the
_Chronicle_. The defects of the law, and of the administration of
justice, were the subject on which that paper rendered most service to
improvement. Up to that time hardly a word had been said, except by
Bentham and my father, against that most peccant part of English
institutions and of their administration. It was the almost universal
creed of Englishmen, that the law of England, the judicature of England,
the unpaid magistracy of England, were models of excellence. I do not go
beyond the mark in saying, that after Bentham, who supplied the
principal materials, the greatest share of the merit of breaking down
this wretched superstition belongs to Black, as editor of the _Morning
Chronicle_. He kept up an incessant fire against it, exposing the
absurdities and vices of the law and the courts of justice, paid and
unpaid, until he forced some sense of them into people's minds. On many
other questions he became the organ of opinions much in advance of any
which had ever before found regular advocacy in the newspaper press.
Black was a frequent visitor of my father, and Mr. Grote used to say
that he always knew by the Monday morning's article whether Black had
been with my father on the Sunday. Black was one of the most influential
of the many channels through which my father's conversation and personal
influence made his opinions tell on the world; cooperating with the
effect of his writings in making him a power in the country such as it
has rarely been the lot of an individual in a private station to be,
through the mere force of intellect and character: and a power which was
often acting the most efficiently where it was least seen and suspected.
I have already noticed how much of what was done by Ricardo, Hume, and
Grote was the result, in part, of his prompting and persuasion. He was
the good genius by the side of Brougham in most of what he did for the
public, either on education, law reform, or any other subject. And his
influence flowed in minor streams too numerous to be specified. This
influence was now about to receive a great extension by the foundation
of the _Westminster Review_.

Contrary to what may have been supposed, my father was in no degree a
party to setting up the _Westminster Review_. The need of a Radical
organ to make head against the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly_ (then in the
period of their greatest reputation and influence) had been a topic of
conversation between him and Mr. Bentham many years earlier, and it had
been a part of their _Château en Espagne_ that my father should be the
editor; but the idea had never assumed any practical shape. In 1823,
however, Mr. Bentham determined to establish the _Review_ at his own
cost, and offered the editorship to my father, who declined it as
incompatible with his India House appointment. It was then entrusted to
Mr. (now Sir John) Bowring, at that time a merchant in the City. Mr.
Bowring had been for two or three years previous an assiduous frequenter
of Mr. Bentham, to whom he was recommended by many personal good
qualities, by an ardent admiration for Bentham, a zealous adoption of
many, though not all of his opinions, and, not least, by an extensive
acquaintanceship and correspondence with Liberals of all countries,
which seemed to qualify him for being a powerful agent in spreading
Bentham's fame and doctrines through all quarters of the world. My
father had seen little of Bowring, but knew enough of him to have formed
a strong opinion, that he was a man of an entirely different type from
what my father considered suitable for conducting a political and
philosophical Review: and he augured so ill of the enterprise that he
regretted it altogether, feeling persuaded not only that Mr. Bentham
would lose his money, but that discredit would probably be brought upon
Radical principles. He could not, however, desert Mr. Bentham, and he
consented to write an article for the first number. As it had been a
favourite portion of the scheme formerly talked of, that part of the
work should be devoted to reviewing the other Reviews, this article of
my father's was to be a general criticism of the _Edinburgh Review_ from
its commencement. Before writing it he made me read through all the
volumes of the _Review_, or as much of each as seemed of any importance
(which was not so arduous a task in 1823 as it would be now), and make
notes for him of the articles which I thought he would wish to examine,
either on account of their good or their bad qualities. This paper of my
father's was the chief cause of the sensation which the _Westminster
Review_ produced at its first appearance, and is, both in conception and
in execution, one of the most striking of all his writings. He began by
an analysis of the tendencies of periodical literature in general;
pointing out, that it cannot, like books, wait for success, but must
succeed immediately or not at all, and is hence almost certain to
profess and inculcate the opinions already held by the public to which
it addresses itself, instead of attempting to rectify or improve those
opinions. He next, to characterize the position of the _Edinburgh
Review_ as a political organ, entered into a complete analysis, from the
Radical point of view, of the British Constitution. He held up to notice
its thoroughly aristocratic character: the nomination of a majority of
the House of Commons by a few hundred families; the entire
identification of the more independent portion, the county members, with
the great landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oligarchy
was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share of power; and finally,
what he called its two props, the Church, and the legal profession. He
pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this
composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession
of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and
become the predominant section by the aid of public opinion, without any
essential sacrifice of the aristocratical predominance. He described the
course likely to be pursued, and the political ground occupied, by an
aristocratic party in opposition, coquetting with popular principles for
the sake of popular support. He showed how this idea was realized in the
conduct of the Whig party, and of the _Edinburgh Review_ as its chief
literary organ. He described, as their main characteristic, what he
termed "seesaw"; writing alternately on both sides of the question which
touched the power or interest of the governing classes; sometimes in
different articles, sometimes in different parts of the same article:
and illustrated his position by copious specimens. So formidable an
attack on the Whig party and policy had never before been made; nor had
so great a blow ever been struck, in this country, for Radicalism; nor
was there, I believe, any living person capable of writing that article
except my father.[2]

In the meantime the nascent _Review_ had formed a junction with another
project, of a purely literary periodical, to be edited by Mr. Henry
Southern, afterwards a diplomatist, then a literary man by profession.
The two editors agreed to unite their corps, and divide the editorship,
Bowring taking the political, Southern the literary department.
Southern's Review was to have been published by Longman, and that firm,
though part proprietors of the _Edinburgh_, were willing to be the
publishers of the new journal. But when all the arrangements had been
made, and the prospectuses sent out, the Longmans saw my father's attack
on the _Edinburgh_, and drew back. My father was now appealed to for his
interest with his own publisher, Baldwin, which was exerted with a
successful result. And so in April, 1824, amidst anything but hope on my
father's part, and that of most of those who afterwards aided in
carrying on the _Review_, the first number made its appearance.

That number was an agreeable surprise to most of us. The average of the
articles was of much better quality than had been expected. The literary
and artistic department had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a barrister
(subsequently a police magistrate), who had been for some years a
frequenter of Bentham, was a friend of both the Austins, and had adopted
with great ardour Mr. Bentham's philosophical opinions. Partly from
accident, there were in the first number as many as five articles by
Bingham; and we were extremely pleased with them. I well remember the
mixed feeling I myself had about the _Review_; the joy of finding, what
we did not at all expect, that it was sufficiently good to be capable of
being made a creditable organ of those who held the opinions it
professed; and extreme vexation, since it was so good on the whole, at
what we thought the blemishes of it. When, however, in addition to our
generally favourable opinion of it, we learned that it had an
extraordinary large sale for a first number, and found that the
appearance of a Radical Review, with pretensions equal to those of the
established organs of parties, had excited much attention, there could
be no room for hesitation, and we all became eager in doing everything
we could to strengthen and improve it.

My father continued to write occasional articles. The _Quarterly Review_
received its exposure, as a sequel to that of the _Edinburgh_. Of his
other contributions, the most important were an attack on Southey's
_Book of the Church_, in the fifth number, and a political article in
the twelfth. Mr. Austin only contributed one paper, but one of great
merit, an argument against primogeniture, in reply to an article then
lately published in the _Edinburgh Review_ by McCulloch. Grote also
was a contributor only once; all the time he could spare being already
taken up with his _History of Greece_. The article he wrote was on his
own subject, and was a very complete exposure and castigation of
Mitford. Bingham and Charles Austin continued to write for some time;
Fonblanque was a frequent contributor from the third number. Of my
particular associates, Ellis was a regular writer up to the ninth
number; and about the time when he left off, others of the set began;
Eyton Tooke, Graham, and Roebuck. I was myself the most frequent writer
of all, having contributed, from the second number to the eighteenth,
thirteen articles; reviews of books on history and political economy, or
discussions on special political topics, as corn laws, game laws, law of
libel. Occasional articles of merit came in from other acquaintances of
my father's, and, in time, of mine; and some of Mr. Bowring's writers
turned out well. On the whole, however, the conduct of the Review was
never satisfactory to any of the persons strongly interested in its
principles, with whom I came in contact. Hardly ever did a number come
out without containing several things extremely offensive to us, either
in point of opinion, of taste, or by mere want of ability. The
unfavourable judgments passed by my father, Grote, the two Austins, and
others, were re-echoed with exaggeration by us younger people; and as
our youthful zeal rendered us by no means backward in making complaints,
we led the two editors a sad life. From my knowledge of what I then was,
I have no doubt that we were at least as often wrong as right; and I am
very certain that if the _Review_ had been carried on according to our
notions (I mean those of the juniors), it would have been no better,
perhaps not even so good as it was. But it is worth noting as a fact in
the history of Benthamism, that the periodical organ, by which it was
best known, was from the first extremely unsatisfactory to those whose
opinions on all subjects it was supposed specially to represent.

Meanwhile, however, the _Review_ made considerable noise in the world,
and gave a recognised _status_, in the arena of opinion and discussion,
to the Benthamic type of Radicalism, out of all proportion to the number
of its adherents, and to the personal merits and abilities, at that
time, of most of those who could be reckoned among them. It was a time,
as is known, of rapidly rising Liberalism. When the fears and
animosities accompanying the war with France had been brought to an end,
and people had once more a place in their thoughts for home politics,
the tide began to set towards reform. The renewed oppression of the
Continent by the old reigning families, the countenance apparently given
by the English Government to the conspiracy against liberty called the
Holy Alliance, and the enormous weight of the national debt and taxation
occasioned by so long and costly a war, rendered the government and
parliament very unpopular. Radicalism, under the leadership of the
Burdetts and Cobbetts, had assumed a character and importance which
seriously alarmed the Administration: and their alarm had scarcely been
temporarily assuaged by the celebrated Six Acts, when the trial of Queen
Caroline roused a still wider and deeper feeling of hatred. Though the
outward signs of this hatred passed away with its exciting cause, there
arose on all sides a spirit which had never shown itself before, of
opposition to abuses in detail. Mr. Hume's persevering scrutiny of the
public expenditure, forcing the House of Commons to a division on every
objectionable item in the estimates, had begun to tell with great force
on public opinion, and had extorted many minor retrenchments from an
unwilling administration. Political economy had asserted itself with
great vigour in public affairs, by the petition of the merchants of
London for free trade, drawn up in 1820 by Mr. Tooke and presented by
Mr. Alexander Baring; and by the noble exertions of Ricardo during the
few years of his parliamentary life. His writings, following up the
impulse given by the Bullion controversy, and followed up in their turn
by the expositions and comments of my father and McCulloch (whose
writings in the _Edinburgh Review_ during those years were most
valuable), had drawn general attention to the subject, making at least
partial converts in the Cabinet itself; and Huskisson, supported by
Canning, had commenced that gradual demolition of the protective system,
which one of their colleagues virtually completed in 1846, though the
last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone in 1860. Mr. Peel,
then Home Secretary, was entering cautiously into the untrodden and
peculiarly Benthamic path of Law Reform. At this period, when Liberalism
seemed to be becoming the tone of the time, when improvement of
institutions was preached from the highest places, and a complete change
of the constitution of Parliament was loudly demanded in the lowest, it
is not strange that attention should have been roused by the regular
appearance in controversy of what seemed a new school of writers,
claiming to be the legislators and theorists of this new tendency. The
air of strong conviction with which they wrote, when scarcely anyone
else seemed to have an equally strong faith in as definite a creed; the
boldness with which they tilted against the very front of both the
existing political parties; their uncompromising profession of
opposition to many of the generally received opinions, and the suspicion
they lay under of holding others still more heterodox than they
professed; the talent and verve of at least my father's articles, and
the appearance of a corps behind him sufficient to carry on a Review;
and finally, the fact that the _Review_ was bought and read, made the
so-called Bentham school in philosophy and politics fill a greater place
in the public mind than it had held before, or has ever again held since
other equally earnest schools of thought have arisen in England. As I
was in the headquarters of it, knew of what it was composed, and as one
of the most active of its very small number, might say without undue
assumption, _quorum pars magna fui_, it belongs to me more than to most
others, to give some account of it.

This supposed school, then, had no other existence than what was
constituted by the fact, that my father's writings and conversation drew
round him a certain number of young men who had already imbibed, or who
imbibed from him, a greater or smaller portion of his very decided
political and philosophical opinions. The notion that Bentham was
surrounded by a band of disciples who received their opinions from his
lips, is a fable to which my father did justice in his "Fragment on
Mackintosh," and which, to all who knew Mr. Bentham's habits of life and
manner of conversation, is simply ridiculous. The influence which
Bentham exercised was by his writings. Through them he has produced, and
is producing, effects on the condition of mankind, wider and deeper, no
doubt, than any which can be attributed to my father. He is a much
greater name in history. But my father exercised a far greater personal
ascendency. He _was_ sought for the vigour and instructiveness of his
conversation, and did use it largely as an instrument for the diffusion
of his opinions. I have never known any man who could do such ample
justice to his best thoughts in colloquial discussion. His perfect
command over his great mental resources, the terseness and
expressiveness of his language and the moral earnestness as well as
intellectual force of his delivery, made him one of the most striking of
all argumentative conversers: and he was full of anecdote, a hearty
laugher, and, when with people whom he liked, a most lively and amusing
companion. It was not solely, or even chiefly, in diffusing his merely
intellectual convictions that his power showed itself: it was still more
through the influence of a quality, of which I have only since learnt to
appreciate the extreme rarity: that exalted public spirit, and regard
above all things to the good of the whole, which warmed into life and
activity every germ of similar virtue that existed in the minds he came
in contact with: the desire he made them feel for his approbation, the
shame at his disapproval; the moral support which his conversation and
his very existence gave to those who were aiming at the same objects, and
the encouragement he afforded to the fainthearted or desponding among
them, by the firm confidence which (though the reverse of sanguine as to
the results to be expected in any one particular case) he always felt in
the power of reason, the general progress of improvement, and the good
which individuals could do by judicious effort.

If was my father's opinions which gave the distinguishing character to
the Benthamic or utilitarian propagandism of that time. They fell
singly, scattered from him, in many directions, but they flowed from him
in a continued stream principally in three channels. One was through me,
the only mind directly formed by his instructions, and through whom
considerable influence was exercised over various young men, who became,
in their turn, propagandists. A second was through some of the Cambridge
contemporaries of Charles Austin, who, either initiated by him or under
the general mental impulse which he gave, had adopted many opinions
allied to those of my father, and some of the more considerable of whom
afterwards sought my father's acquaintance and frequented his house.
Among these may be mentioned Strutt, afterwards Lord Belper, and the
present Lord Romilly, with whose eminent father, Sir Samuel, my father
had of old been on terms of friendship. The third channel was that of a
younger generation of Cambridge undergraduates, contemporary, not with
Austin, but with Eyton Tooke, who were drawn to that estimable person by
affinity of opinions, and introduced by him to my father: the most
notable of these was Charles Buller. Various other persons individually
received and transmitted a considerable amount of my father's influence:
for example, Black (as before mentioned) and Fonblanque: most of these,
however, we accounted only partial allies; Fonblanque, for instance, was
always divergent from us on many important points. But indeed there was
by no means complete unanimity among any portion of us, nor had any of
us adopted implicitly all my father's opinions. For example, although
his _Essay on Government_ was regarded probably by all of us as a
masterpiece of political wisdom, our adhesion by no means extended to
the paragraph of it in which he maintains that women may, consistently
with good government, be excluded from the suffrage, because their
interest is the same with that of men. From this doctrine, I, and all
those who formed my chosen associates, most positively dissented. It is
due to my father to say that he denied having intended to affirm that
women _should_ be excluded, any more than men under the age of forty,
concerning whom he maintained in the very next paragraph an exactly
similar thesis. He was, as he truly said, not discussing whether the
suffrage had better be restricted, but only (assuming that it is to be
restricted) what is the utmost limit of restriction which does not
necessarily involve a sacrifice of the securities for good government.
But I thought then, as I have always thought since that the opinion
which he acknowledged, no less than that which he disclaimed, is as
great an error as any of those against which the _Essay_ was directed;
that the interest of women is included in that of men exactly as much as
the interest of subjects is included in that of kings, and no more; and
that every reason which exists for giving the suffrage to anybody,
demands that it should not be withheld from women. This was also the
general opinion of the younger proselytes; and it is pleasant to be able
to say that Mr. Bentham, on this important point, was wholly on our side.

But though none of us, probably, agreed in every respect with my father,
his opinions, as I said before, were the principal element which gave
its colour and character to the little group of young men who were the
first propagators of what was afterwards called "Philosophic Radicalism."
Their mode of thinking was not characterized by Benthamism in any sense
which has relation to Bentham as a chief or guide, but rather by a
combination of Bentham's point of view with that of the modern political
economy, and with the Hartleian metaphysics. Malthus's population
principle was quite as much a banner, and point of union among us, as
any opinion specially belonging to Bentham. This great doctrine,
originally brought forward as an argument against the indefinite
improvability of human affairs, we took up with ardent zeal in the
contrary sense, as indicating the sole means of realizing that
improvability by securing full employment at high wages to the whole
labouring population through a voluntary restriction of the increase of
their numbers. The other leading characteristics of the creed, which we
held in common with my father, may be stated as follows:

In politics, an almost unbounded confidence in the efficacy of two
things: representative government, and complete freedom of discussion.
So complete was my father's reliance on the influence of reason over the
minds of mankind, whenever it is allowed to reach them, that he felt as
if all would be gained if the whole population were taught to read, if
all sorts of opinions were allowed to be addressed to them by word and
in writing, and if by means of the suffrage they could nominate a
legislature to give effect to the opinions they adopted. He thought that
when the legislature no longer represented a class interest, it would
aim at the general interest, honestly and with adequate wisdom; since
the people would be sufficiently under the guidance of educated
intelligence, to make in general a good choice of persons to represent
them, and having done so, to leave to those whom they had chosen a
liberal discretion. Accordingly aristocratic rule, the government of the
Few in any of its shapes, being in his eyes the only thing which stood
between mankind and an administration of their affairs by the best
wisdom to be found among them, was the object of his sternest
disapprobation, and a democratic suffrage the principal article of his
political creed, not on the ground of liberty, Rights of Man, or any of
the phrases, more or less significant, by which, up to that time,
democracy had usually been defended, but as the most essential of
"securities for good government." In this, too, he held fast only to
what he deemed essentials; he was comparatively indifferent to
monarchical or republican forms--far more so than Bentham, to whom a
king, in the character of "corrupter-general," appeared necessarily very
noxious. Next to aristocracy, an established church, or corporation of
priests, as being by position the great depravers of religion, and
interested in opposing the progress of the human mind, was the object of
his greatest detestation; though he disliked no clergyman personally who
did not deserve it, and was on terms of sincere friendship with several.
In ethics his moral feelings were energetic and rigid on all points
which he deemed important to human well being, while he was supremely
indifferent in opinion (though his indifference did not show itself in
personal conduct) to all those doctrines of the common morality, which
he thought had no foundation but in asceticism and priestcraft. He
looked forward, for example, to a considerable increase of freedom in
the relations between the sexes, though without pretending to define
exactly what would be, or ought to be, the precise conditions of that
freedom. This opinion was connected in him with no sensuality either of
a theoretical or of a practical kind. He anticipated, on the contrary,
as one of the beneficial effects of increased freedom, that the
imagination would no longer dwell upon the physical relation and its
adjuncts, and swell this into one of the principal objects of life; a
perversion of the imagination and feelings, which he regarded as one of
the deepest seated and most pervading evils in the human mind. In
psychology, his fundamental doctrine was the formation of all human
character by circumstances, through the universal Principle of
Association, and the consequent unlimited possibility of improving the
moral and intellectual condition of mankind by education. Of all his
doctrines none was more important than this, or needs more to be
insisted on; unfortunately there is none which is more contradictory to
the prevailing tendencies of speculation, both in his time and since.

These various opinions were seized on with youthful fanaticism by the
little knot of young men of whom I was one: and we put into them a
sectarian spirit, from which, in intention at least, my father was
wholly free. What we (or rather a phantom substituted in the place of
us) were sometimes, by a ridiculous exaggeration, called by others,
namely a "school," some of us for a time really hoped and aspired to be.
The French _philosophes_ of the eighteenth century were the examples we
sought to imitate, and we hoped to accomplish no less results. No one of
the set went to so great excesses in his boyish ambition as I did; which
might be shown by many particulars, were it not an useless waste of
space and time.

All this, however, is properly only the outside of our existence; or, at
least, the intellectual part alone, and no more than one side of that.
In attempting to penetrate inward, and give any indication of what we
were as human beings, I must be understood as speaking only of myself,
of whom alone I can speak from sufficient knowledge; and I do not
believe that the picture would suit any of my companions without many
and great modifications.

I conceive that the description so often given of a Benthamite, as a
mere reasoning machine, though extremely inapplicable to most of those
who have been designated by that title, was during two or three years of
my life not altogether untrue of me. It was perhaps as applicable to me
as it can well be to anyone just entering into life, to whom the common
objects of desire must in general have at least the attraction of
novelty. There is nothing very extraordinary in this fact: no youth of
the age I then was, can be expected to be more than one thing, and this
was the thing I happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction I had
in abundance; and zeal for what I thought the good of mankind was my
strongest sentiment, mixing with and colouring all others. But my zeal
was as yet little else, at that period of my life, than zeal for
speculative opinions. It had not its root in genuine benevolence, or
sympathy with mankind; though these qualities held their due place in
my ethical standard. Nor was it connected with any high enthusiasm for
ideal nobleness. Yet of this feeling I was imaginatively very
susceptible; but there was at that time an intermission of its natural
aliment, poetical culture, while there was a superabundance of the
discipline antagonistic to it, that of mere logic and analysis. Add to
this that, as already mentioned, my father's teachings tended to the
undervaluing of feeling. It was not that he was himself cold-hearted or
insensible; I believe it was rather from the contrary quality; he
thought that feeling could take care of itself; that there was sure to
be enough of it if actions were properly cared about. Offended by the
frequency with which, in ethical and philosophical controversy, feeling
is made the ultimate reason and justification of conduct, instead of
being itself called on for a justification, while, in practice, actions
the effect of which on human happiness is mischievous, are defended as
being required by feeling, and the character of a person of feeling
obtains a credit for desert, which he thought only due to actions, he
had a real impatience of attributing praise to feeling, or of any but
the most sparing reference to it, either in the estimation of persons or
in the discussion of things. In addition to the influence which this
characteristic in him had on me and others, we found all the opinions to
which we attached most importance, constantly attacked on the ground of
feeling. Utility was denounced as cold calculation; political economy as
hard-hearted; anti-population doctrines as repulsive to the natural
feelings of mankind. We retorted by the word "sentimentality," which,
along with "declamation" and "vague generalities," served us as common
terms of opprobrium. Although we were generally in the right, as against
those who were opposed to us, the effect was that the cultivation of
feeling (except the feelings of public and private duty) was not in much
esteem among us, and had very little place in the thoughts of most of
us, myself in particular. What we principally thought of, was to alter
people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know
what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we
thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one
another. While fully recognising the superior excellence of unselfish
benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of
mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect
of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings. Although this
last is prodigiously important as a means of improvement in the hands of
those who are themselves impelled by nobler principles of action, I do
not believe that any one of the survivors of the Benthamites or
Utilitarians of that day now relies mainly upon it for the general
amendment of human conduct.

From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation of
feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing of
poetry, and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature. It
is, or was, part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are
enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham himself; he used to
say that "all poetry is misrepresentation": but in the sense in which he
said it, the same might have been said of all impressive speech; of all
representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a
sum in arithmetic. An article of Bingham's in the first number of the
_Westminster Review_, in which he offered as an explanation of something
which he disliked in Moore, that "Mr. Moore _is_ a poet, and therefore
is _not_ a reasoner," did a good deal to attach the notion of hating
poetry to the writers in the _Review_. But the truth was that many of us
were great readers of poetry; Bingham himself had been a writer of it,
while as regards me (and the same thing might be said of my father), the
correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was
theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any sentiments in poetry
which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal.
And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of
educating the feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible to
some kinds of it. In the most sectarian period of my Benthamism, I
happened to look into Pope's _Essay on Man_, and, though every opinion
in it was contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it acted on
my imagination. Perhaps at that time poetical composition of any higher
type than eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a
similar effect upon me: at all events I seldom gave it an opportunity.
This, however, was a mere passive state. Long before I had enlarged in
any considerable degree the basis of my intellectual creed, I had
obtained, in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of
the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives
and characters of heroic persons; especially the heroes of philosophy.
The same inspiring effect which so many of the benefactors of mankind
have left on record that they had experienced from Plutarch's _Lives_,
was produced on me by Plato's pictures of Socrates, and by some modern
biographies, above all by Condorcet's _Life of Turgot_; a book well
calculated to rouse the best sort of enthusiasm, since it contains one
of the wisest and noblest of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and
noblest of men. The heroic virtue of these glorious representatives of
the opinions with which I sympathized, deeply affected me, and I
perpetually recurred to them as others do to a favourite poet, when
needing to be carried up into the more elevated regions of feeling and
thought. I may observe by the way that this book cured me of my
sectarian follies. The two or three pages beginning "Il regardait toute
secte comme nuisible," and explaining why Turgot always kept himself
perfectly distinct from the Encyclopedists, sank deeply into my mind.
I left off designating myself and others as Utilitarians, and by the
pronoun "we," or any other collective designation, I ceased to
_afficher_ sectarianism. My real inward sectarianism I did not get rid
of till later, and much more gradually.

About the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, Mr. Bentham, having lately
got back his papers on Evidence from M. Dumont (whose _Traité des
Preuves Judiciaires_, grounded on them, was then first completed and
published), resolved to have them printed in the original, and bethought
himself of me as capable of preparing them for the press; in the same
manner as his _Book of Fallacies_ had been recently edited by Bingham.
I gladly undertook this task, and it occupied nearly all my leisure for
about a year, exclusive of the time afterwards spent in seeing the five
large volumes through the press. Mr. Bentham had begun this treatise
three time's, at considerable intervals, each time in a different
manner, and each time without reference to the preceding: two of the
three times he had gone over nearly the whole subject. These three
masses of manuscript it was my business to condense into a single
treatise, adopting the one last written as the groundwork, and
incorporating with it as much of the two others as it had not completely
superseded. I had also to unroll such of Bentham's involved and
parenthetical sentences as seemed to overpass by their complexity the
measure of what readers were likely to take the pains to understand. It
was further Mr. Bentham's particular desire that I should, from myself,
endeavour to supply any _lacunae_ which he had left; and at his instance
I read, for this purpose, the most authoritative treatises on the
English Law of Evidence, and commented on a few of the objectionable
points of the English rules, which had escaped Bentham's notice. I also
replied to the objections which had been made to some of his doctrines
by reviewers of Dumont's book, and added a few supplementary remarks on
some of the more abstract parts of the subject, such as the theory of
improbability and impossibility. The controversial part of these
editorial additions was written in a more assuming tone than became one
so young and inexperienced as I was: but indeed I had never contemplated
coming forward in my own person; and as an anonymous editor of Bentham I
fell into the tone of my author, not thinking it unsuitable to him or to
the subject, however it might be so to me. My name as editor was put to
the book after it was printed, at Mr. Bentham's positive desire, which I
in vain attempted to persuade him to forego.

The time occupied in this editorial work was extremely well employed in
respect to my own improvement. The _Rationale of Judicial Evidence_ is
one of the richest in matter of all Bentham's productions. The theory of
evidence being in itself one of the most important of his subjects, and
ramifying into most of the others, the book contains, very fully
developed, a great proportion of all his best thoughts: while, among
more special things, it comprises the most elaborate exposure of the
vices and defects of English law, as it then was, which is to be found
in his works; not confined to the law of evidence, but including, by way
of illustrative episode, the entire procedure or practice of Westminster
Hall. The direct knowledge, therefore, which I obtained from the book,
and which was imprinted upon me much more thoroughly than it could have
been by mere reading, was itself no small acquisition. But this
occupation did for me what might seem less to be expected; it gave a
great start to my powers of composition. Everything which I wrote
subsequently to this editorial employment, was markedly superior to
anything that I had written before it. Bentham's later style, as the
world knows, was heavy and cumbersome, from the excess of a good
quality, the love of precision, which made him introduce clause within
clause into the heart of every sentence, that the reader might receive
into his mind all the modifications and qualifications simultaneously
with the main proposition: and the habit grew on him until his sentences
became, to those not accustomed to them, most laborious reading. But his
earlier style, that of the _Fragment on Government, Plan of a Judicial
Establishment_, etc., is a model of liveliness and ease combined with
fulness of matter, scarcely ever surpassed: and of this earlier style
there were many striking specimens in the manuscripts on Evidence, all
of which I endeavoured to preserve. So long a course of this admirable
writing had a considerable effect upon my own; and I added to it by the
assiduous reading of other writers, both French and English, who
combined, in a remarkable degree, ease with force, such as Goldsmith,
Fielding, Pascal, Voltaire, and Courier. Through these influences my
writing lost the jejuneness of my early compositions; the bones and
cartilages began to clothe themselves with flesh, and the style became,
at times, lively and almost light.

This improvement was first exhibited in a new field. Mr. Marshall, of
Leeds, father of the present generation of Marshalls, the same who was
brought into Parliament for Yorkshire, when the representation forfeited
by Grampound was transferred to it, an earnest Parliamentary reformer,
and a man of large fortune, of which he made a liberal use, had been
much struck with Bentham's _Book of Fallacies_; and the thought had
occurred to him that it would be useful to publish annually the
Parliamentary Debates, not in the chronological order of Hansard, but
classified according to subjects, and accompanied by a commentary
pointing out the fallacies of the speakers. With this intention, he very
naturally addressed himself to the editor of the _Book of Fallacies_;
and Bingham, with the assistance of Charles Austin, undertook the
editorship. The work was called _Parliamentary History and Review_. Its
sale was not sufficient to keep it in existence, and it only lasted
three years. It excited, however, some attention among parliamentary and
political people. The best strength of the party was put forth in it;
and its execution did them much more credit than that of the
_Westminster Review_ had ever done. Bingham and Charles Austin wrote
much in it; as did Strutt, Romilly, and several other Liberal lawyers.
My father wrote one article in his best style; the elder Austin another.
Coulson wrote one of great merit. It fell to my lot to lead off the
first number by an article on the principal topic of the session (that
of 1825), the Catholic Association and the Catholic Disabilities. In the
second number I wrote an elaborate Essay on the Commercial Crisis of
1825 and the Currency Debates. In the third I had two articles, one on
a minor subject, the other on the Reciprocity principle in commerce,
_ŕ propos_ of a celebrated diplomatic correspondence between Canning
and Gallatin. These writings were no longer mere reproductions and
applications of the doctrines I had been taught; they were original
thinking, as far as that name can be applied to old ideas in new forms
and connexions: and I do not exceed the truth in saying that there was a
maturity, and a well-digested, character about them, which there had not
been in any of my previous performances. In execution, therefore, they
were not at all juvenile; but their subjects have either gone by, or
have been so much better treated since, that they are entirely
superseded, and should remain buried in the same oblivion with my
contributions to the first dynasty of the _Westminster Review_.

While thus engaged in writing for the public, I did not neglect other
modes of self-cultivation. It was at this time that I learnt German;
beginning it on the Hamiltonian method, for which purpose I and several
of my companions formed a class. For several years from this period, our
social studies assumed a shape which contributed very much to my mental
progress. The idea occurred to us of carrying on, by reading and
conversation, a joint study of several of the branches of science which
we wished to be masters of. We assembled to the number of a dozen or
more. Mr. Grote lent a room of his house in Threadneedle Street for the
purpose, and his partner, Prescott, one of the three original members of
the Utilitarian Society, made one among us. We met two mornings in every
week, from half-past eight till ten, at which hour most of us were
called off to our daily occupations. Our first subject was Political
Economy. We chose some systematic treatise as our text-book; my father's
_Elements_ being our first choice. One of us read aloud a chapter, or
some smaller portion of the book. The discussion was then opened, and
anyone who had an objection, or other remark to make, made it. Our rule
was to discuss thoroughly every point raised, whether great or small,
prolonging the discussion until all who took part were satisfied with
the conclusion they had individually arrived at; and to follow up every
topic of collateral speculation which the chapter or the conversation
suggested, never leaving it until we had untied every knot which we
found. We repeatedly kept up the discussion of some one point for
several weeks, thinking intently on it during the intervals of our
meetings, and contriving solutions of the new difficulties which had
risen up in the last morning's discussion. When we had finished in this
way my father's _Elements_, we went in the same manner through Ricardo's
_Principles of Political Economy_, and Bailey's _Dissertation on Value_.
These close and vigorous discussions were not only improving in a high
degree to those who took part in them, but brought out new views of some
topics of abstract Political Economy. The theory of International Values
which I afterwards published, emanated from these conversations, as did
also the modified form of Ricardo's _Theory of Profits_, laid down in my
_Essay on Profits and Interest_. Those among us with whom new
speculations chiefly originated, were Ellis, Graham, and I; though
others gave valuable aid to the discussions, especially Prescott and
Roebuck, the one by his knowledge, the other by his dialectical
acuteness. The theories of International Values and of Profits were
excogitated and worked out in about equal proportions by myself and
Graham: and if our original project had been executed, my _Essays on
Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy_ would have been brought
out along with some papers of his, under our joint names. But when my
exposition came to be written, I found that I had so much over-estimated
my agreement with him, and he dissented so much from the most original
of the two Essays, that on International Values, that I was obliged to
consider the theory as now exclusively mine, and it came out as such
when published many years later. I may mention that among the
alterations which my father made in revising his _Elements_ for the
third edition, several were founded on criticisms elicited by these
conversations; and in particular he modified his opinions (though not to
the extent of our new speculations) on both the points to which I
have adverted.

When we had enough of political economy, we took up the syllogistic
logic in the same manner, Grote now joining us. Our first text-book was
Aldrich, but being disgusted with its superficiality, we reprinted one
of the most finished among the many manuals of the school logic, which
my father, a great collector of such books, possessed, the _Manuductio
ad Logicam_ of the Jesuit Du Trieu. After finishing this, we took up
Whately's _Logic_, then first republished from the _Encyclopedia
Metropolitana_, and finally the _Computatio sive Logica_ of Hobbes.
These books, dealt with in our manner, afforded a high range for
original metaphysical speculation: and most of what has been done in the
First Book of my _System of Logic_, to rationalize and correct the
principles and distinctions of the school logicians, and to improve the
theory of the Import of Propositions, had its origin in these
discussions; Graham and I originating most of the novelties, while Grote
and others furnished an excellent tribunal or test. From this time I
formed the project of writing a book on Logic, though on a much humbler
scale than the one I ultimately executed.

Having done with Logic, we launched into Analytic Psychology, and having
chosen Hartley for our text-book, we raised Priestley's edition to an
extravagant price by searching through London to furnish each of us with
a copy. When we had finished Hartley, we suspended our meetings; but my
father's _Analysis of the Mind_ being published soon after, we
reassembled for the purpose of reading it. With this our exercises
ended. I have always dated from these conversations my own real
inauguration as an original and independent thinker. It was also through
them that I acquired, or very much strengthened, a mental habit to which
I attribute all that I have ever done, or ever shall do, in speculation:
that of never accepting half-solutions of difficulties as complete;
never abandoning a puzzle, but again and again returning to it until it
was cleared up; never allowing obscure corners of a subject to remain
unexplored, because they did not appear important; never thinking that I
perfectly understood any part of a subject until I understood the whole.

Our doings from 1825 to 1830 in the way of public speaking, filled a
considerable place in my life during those years, and as they had
important effects on my development, something ought to be said of them.

There was for some time in existence a society of Owenites, called the
Co-operative Society, which met for weekly public discussions in
Chancery Lane. In the early part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck in
contact with several of its members, and led to his attending one or two
of the meetings and taking part in the debate in opposition to Owenism.
Some one of us started the notion of going there in a body and having a
general battle: and Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not
usually take part in our joint exercises, entered into the project. It
was carried out by concert with the principal members of the Society,
themselves nothing loth, as they naturally preferred a controversy with
opponents to a tame discussion among their own body. The question of
population was proposed as the subject of debate: Charles Austin led the
case on our side with a brilliant speech, and the fight was kept up by
adjournment through five or six weekly meetings before crowded
auditories, including along with the members of the Society and their
friends, many hearers and some speakers from the Inns of Court. When
this debate was ended, another was commenced on the general merits of
Owen's system: and the contest altogether lasted about three months. It
was a _lutte corps ŕ corps_ between Owenites and political economists,
whom the Owenites regarded as their most inveterate opponents: but it
was a perfectly friendly dispute. We who represented political economy,
had the same objects in view as they had, and took pains to show it; and
the principal champion on their side was a very estimable man, with whom
I was well acquainted, Mr. William Thompson, of Cork, author of a book
on the Distribution of Wealth, and of an " Appeal" in behalf of women
against the passage relating to them in my father's _Essay on
Government_. Ellis, Roebuck, and I took an active part in the debate,
and among those from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I remember
Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on the population
question, very efficient support from without. The well-known Gale
Jones, then an elderly man, made one of his florid speeches; but the
speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly
every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of St.
David's, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation
for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union before the era of Austin
and Macaulay. His speech was in answer to one of mine. Before he had
uttered ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had ever
heard, and I have never since heard anyone whom I placed above him.

The great interest of these debates predisposed some of those who took
part in them, to catch at a suggestion thrown out by McCulloch, the
political economist, that a Society was wanted in London similar to the
Speculative Society at Edinburgh, in which Brougham, Horner, and others
first cultivated public speaking. Our experience at the Co-operative
Society seemed to give cause for being sanguine as to the sort of men
who might be brought together in London for such a purpose. McCulloch
mentioned the matter to several young men of influence, to whom he was
then giving private lessons in political economy. Some of these entered
warmly into the project, particularly George Villiers, after Earl of
Clarendon. He and his brothers, Hyde and Charles, Romilly, Charles
Austin and I, with some others, met and agreed on a plan. We determined
to meet once a fortnight from November to June, at the Freemasons'
Tavern, and we had soon a fine list of members, containing, along with
several members of Parliament, nearly all the most noted speakers of the
Cambridge Union and of the Oxford United Debating Society. It is
curiously illustrative of the tendencies of the time, that our principal
difficulty in recruiting for the Society was to find a sufficient number
of Tory speakers. Almost all whom we could press into the service were
Liberals, of different orders and degrees. Besides those already named,
we had Macaulay, Thirlwall, Praed, Lord Howick, Samuel Wilberforce
(afterwards Bishop of Oxford), Charles Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord
Sydenham), Edward and Henry Lytton Bulwer, Fonblanque, and many others
whom I cannot now recollect, but who made themselves afterwards more or
less conspicuous in public or literary life. Nothing could seem more
promising. But when the time for action drew near, and it was necessary
to fix on a President, and find somebody to open the first debate, none
of our celebrities would consent to perform either office. Of the many
who were pressed on the subject, the only one who could be prevailed on
was a man of whom I knew very little, but who had taken high honours at
Oxford and was said to have acquired a great oratorical reputation
there; who some time afterwards became a Tory member of Parliament. He
accordingly was fixed on, both for filling the President's chair and for
making the first speech. The important day arrived; the benches were
crowded; all our great speakers were present, to judge of, but not to
help our efforts. The Oxford orator's speech was a complete failure.
This threw a damp on the whole concern: the speakers who followed were
few, and none of them did their best: the affair was a complete
_fiasco_; and the oratorical celebrities we had counted on went away
never to return, giving to me at least a lesson in knowledge of the
world. This unexpected breakdown altered my whole relation to the
project. I had not anticipated taking a prominent part, or speaking much
or often, particularly at first, but I now saw that the success of the
scheme depended on the new men, and I put my shoulder to the wheel. I
opened the second question, and from that time spoke in nearly every
debate. It was very uphill work for some time. The three Villiers and
Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the patience of all the
founders of the Society was at last exhausted, except me and Roebuck. In
the season following, 1826-7, things began to mend. We had acquired two
excellent Tory speakers, Hayward and Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee):
the Radical side was reinforced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and others
of the second generation of Cambridge Benthamities; and with their and
other occasional aid, and the two Tories as well as Roebuck and me for
regular speakers, almost every debate was a _bataille rangée_ between
the "philosophic Radicals" and the Tory lawyers; until our conflicts
were talked about, and several persons of note and consideration came to
hear us. This happened still more in the subsequent seasons, 1828 and
1829, when the Coleridgians, in the persons of Maurice and Sterling,
made their appearance in the Society as a second Liberal and even
Radical party, on totally different grounds from Benthamism and
vehemently opposed to it; bringing into these discussions the general
doctrines and modes of thought of the European reaction against the
philosophy of the eighteenth century; and adding a third and very
important belligerent party to our contests, which were now no bad
exponent of the movement of opinion among the most cultivated part of
the new generation. Our debates were very different from those of common
debating societies, for they habitually consisted of the strongest
arguments and most philosophic principles which either side was able to
produce, thrown often into close and _serré_ confutations of one
another. The practice was necessarily very useful to us, and eminently
so to me. I never, indeed, acquired real fluency, and had always a bad
and ungraceful delivery; but I could make myself listened to: and as I
always wrote my speeches when, from the feelings involved, or the nature
of the ideas to be developed, expression seemed important, I greatly
increased my power of effective writing; acquiring not only an ear for
smoothness and rhythm, but a practical sense for _telling_ sentences,
and an immediate criterion of their telling property, by their effect on
a mixed audience.

The Society, and the preparation for it, together with the preparation
for the morning conversations which were going on simultaneously,
occupied the greater part of my leisure; and made me feel it a relief
when, in the spring of 1828, I ceased to write for the _Westminster_.
The _Review_ had fallen into difficulties. Though the sale of the first
number had been very encouraging, the permanent sale had never, I
believe, been sufficient to pay the expenses, on the scale on which the
_Review_ was carried on. Those expenses had been considerably, but not
sufficiently, reduced. One of the editors, Southern, had resigned; and
several of the writers, including my father and me, who had been paid
like other contributors for our earlier articles, had latterly written
without payment. Nevertheless, the original funds were nearly or quite
exhausted, and if the _Review_ was to be continued some new arrangement
of its affairs had become indispensable. My father and I had several
conferences with Bowring on the subject. We were willing to do our
utmost for maintaining the _Review_ as an organ of our opinions, but not
under Bowring's editorship: while the impossibility of its any longer
supporting a paid editor, afforded a ground on which, without affront to
him, we could propose to dispense with his services. We and some of our
friends were prepared to carry on the _Review_ as unpaid writers, either
finding among ourselves an unpaid editor, or sharing the editorship
among us. But while this negotiation was proceeding with Bowring's
apparent acquiescence, he was carrying on another in a different quarter
(with Colonel Perronet Thompson), of which we received the first
intimation in a letter from Bowring as editor, informing us merely that
an arrangement had been made, and proposing to us to write for the next
number, with promise of payment. We did not dispute Bowring's right to
bring about, if he could, an arrangement more favourable to himself than
the one we had proposed; but we thought the concealment which he had
practised towards us, while seemingly entering into our own project, an
affront: and even had we not thought so, we were indisposed to expend
any more of our time and trouble in attempting to write up the _Review_
under his management. Accordingly my father excused himself from
writing; though two or three years later, on great pressure, he did
write one more political article. As for me, I positively refused. And
thus ended my connexion with the original _Westminster_. The last
article which I wrote in it had cost me more labour than any previous;
but it was a labour of love, being a defence of the early French
Revolutionists against the Tory misrepresentations of Sir Walter Scott,
in the introduction to his _Life of Napoleon_. The number of books which
I read for this purpose, making notes and extracts--even the number I
had to buy (for in those days there was no public or subscription
library from which books of reference could be taken home)--far exceeded
the worth of the immediate object; but I had at that time a half-formed
intention of writing a History of the French Revolution; and though I
never executed it, my collections afterwards were very useful to Carlyle
for a similar purpose.




CHAPTER V

CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. ONE STAGE ONWARD


For some years after this time I wrote very little, and nothing
regularly, for publication: and great were the advantages which I
derived from the intermission. It was of no common importance to me, at
this period, to be able to digest and mature my thoughts for my own mind
only, without any immediate call for giving them out in print. Had I
gone on writing, it would have much disturbed the important
transformation in my opinions and character, which took place during
those years. The origin of this transformation, or at least the process
by which I was prepared for it, can only be explained by turning some
distance back.

From the winter of 1821, when I first read Bentham, and especially from
the commencement of the _Westminster Review_, I had what might truly be
called an object in life; to be a reformer of the world. My conception
of my own happiness was entirely identified with this object. The
personal sympathies I wished for were those of fellow labourers in this
enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up as many flowers as I could by the
way; but as a serious and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon,
my whole reliance was placed on this; and I was accustomed to felicitate
myself on the certainty of a happy life which I enjoyed, through placing
my happiness in something durable and distant, in which some progress
might be always making, while it could never be exhausted by complete
attainment. This did very well for several years, during which the
general improvement going on in the world and the idea of myself as
engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill
up an interesting and animated existence. But the time came when I
awakened from this as from a dream. It was in the autumn of 1826. I was
in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody is occasionally liable to;
unsusceptible to enjoyment or pleasurable excitement; one of those moods
when what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid or indifferent;
the state, I should think, in which converts to Methodism usually are,
when smitten by their first "conviction of sin." In this frame of mind
it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that
all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in
institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be
completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and
happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly
answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on
which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have
been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to
charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I
seemed to have nothing left to live for.

At first I hoped that the cloud would pass away of itself; but it did
not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy for the smaller vexations of
life, had no effect on it. I awoke to a renewed consciousness of the
woful fact. I carried it with me into all companies, into all
occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me even a few minutes'
oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow thicker and
thicker. The lines in Coleridge's _Dejection_--I was not then acquainted
with them--exactly describe my case:

   "A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
    A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
    Which finds no natural outlet or relief
    In word, or sigh, or tear."

In vain I sought relief from my favourite books; those memorials of past
nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn strength
and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed
feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded, that my love of
mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself out. I
sought no comfort by speaking to others of what I felt. If I had loved
anyone sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a necessity, I should
not have been in the condition I was. I felt, too, that mine was not an
interesting, or in any way respectable distress. There was nothing in it
to attract sympathy. Advice, if I had known where to seek it, would have
been most precious. The words of Macbeth to the physician often occurred
to my thoughts. But there was no one on whom I could build the faintest
hope of such assistance. My father, to whom it would have been natural
to me to have recourse in any practical difficulties, was the last
person to whom, in such a case as this, I looked for help. Everything
convinced me that he had no knowledge of any such mental state as I was
suffering from, and that even if he could be made to understand it, he
was not the physician who could heal it. My education, which was wholly
his work, had been conducted without any regard to the possibility of
its ending in this result; and I saw no use in giving him the pain of
thinking that his plans had failed, when the failure was probably
irremediable, and, at all events, beyond the power of _his_ remedies. Of
other friends, I had at that time none to whom I had any hope of making
my condition intelligible. It was, however, abundantly intelligible to
myself; and the more I dwelt upon it, the more hopeless it appeared.

My course of study had led me to believe, that all mental and moral
feelings and qualities, whether of a good or of a bad kind, were the
results of association; that we love one thing, and hate another, take
pleasure in one sort of action or contemplation, and pain in another
sort, through the clinging of pleasurable or painful ideas to those
things, from the effect of education or of experience. As a corollary
from this, I had always heard it maintained by my father, and was myself
convinced, that the object of education should be to form the strongest
possible associations of the salutary class; associations of pleasure
with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of pain with all
things hurtful to it. This doctrine appeared inexpugnable; but it now
seemed to me, on retrospect, that my teachers had occupied themselves
but superficially with the means of forming and keeping up these
salutary associations. They seemed to have trusted altogether to the old
familiar instruments, praise and blame, reward and punishment. Now, I
did not doubt that by these means, begun early, and applied unremittingly,
intense associations of pain and pleasure, especially of pain, might be
created, and might produce desires and aversions capable of lasting
undiminished to the end of life. But there must always be something
artificial and casual in associations thus produced. The pains and
pleasures thus forcibly associated with things, are not connected with
them by any natural tie; and it is therefore, I thought, essential to
the durability of these associations, that they should have become so
intense and inveterate as to be practically indissoluble, before the
habitual exercise of the power of analysis had commenced. For I now saw,
or thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity
--that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings:
as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the
analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and
correctives. The very excellence of analysis (I argued) is that it tends
to weaken and undermine whatever is the result of prejudice; that it
enables us mentally to separate ideas which have only casually clung
together: and no associations whatever could ultimately resist this
dissolving force, were it not that we owe to analysis our clearest
knowledge of the permanent sequences in nature; the real connexions
between Things, not dependent on our will and feelings; natural laws,
by virtue of which, in many cases, one thing is inseparable from another
in fact; which laws, in proportion as they are clearly perceived and
imaginatively realized, cause our ideas of things which are always
joined together in Nature, to cohere more and more closely in our
thoughts. Analytic habits may thus even strengthen the associations
between causes and effects, means and ends, but tend altogether to
weaken those which are, to speak familiarly, a _mere_ matter of feeling.
They are therefore (I thought) favourable to prudence and clear-
sightedness, but a perpetual worm at the root both of the passions and
of the virtues; and, above all, fearfully undermine all desires, and
all pleasures, which are the effects of association, that is, according
to the theory I held, all except the purely physical and organic; of the
entire insufficiency of which to make life desirable, no one had a
stronger conviction than I had. These were the laws of human nature, by
which, as it seemed to me, I had been brought to my present state. All
those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy
with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and
especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were
the greatest and surest sources of happiness. Of the truth of this I was
convinced, but to know that a feeling would make me happy if I had it,
did not give me the feeling. My education, I thought, had failed to
create these feelings in sufficient strength to resist the dissolving
influence of analysis, while the whole course of my intellectual
cultivation had made precocious and premature analysis the inveterate
habit of my mind. I was thus, as I said to myself, left stranded at the
commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but
no sail; without any real desire for the ends which I had been so
carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, or the general
good, but also just as little in anything else. The fountains of vanity
and ambition seemed to have dried up within me, as completely as those
of benevolence. I had had (as I reflected) some gratification of vanity
at too early an age: I had obtained some distinction and felt myself of
some importance, before the desire of distinction and of importance had
grown into a passion: and little as it was which I had attained, yet
having been attained too early, like all pleasures enjoyed too soon, it
had made me _blasé_ and indifferent to the pursuit. Thus neither selfish
nor unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me. And there seemed no power
in nature sufficient to begin the formation of my character anew, and
create, in a mind now irretrievably analytic, fresh associations of
pleasure with any of the objects of human desire.

These were the thoughts which mingled with the dry, heavy dejection of
the melancholy winter of 1826-7. During this time I was not incapable of
my usual occupations. I went on with them mechanically, by the mere
force of habit. I had been so drilled in a certain sort of mental
exercise, that I could still carry it on when all the spirit had gone
out of it. I even composed and spoke several speeches at the debating
society, how, or with what degree of success, I know not. Of four years'
continual speaking at that society, this is the only year of which I
remember next to nothing. Two lines of Coleridge, in whom alone of all
writers I have found a true description of what I felt, were often in my
thoughts, not at this time (for I had never read them), but in a later
period of the same mental malady:

    "Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
     And hope without an object cannot live."

In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar as I fancied it,
and I doubt not that many others have passed through a similar state;
but the idiosyncrasies of my education had given to the general
phenomenon a special character, which made it seem the natural effect of
causes that it was hardly possible for time to remove. I frequently
asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life
must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself that I did
not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however, not
more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light
broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's
_Mémoires_, and came to the passage which relates his father's death,
the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by
which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be
everything to them--would supply the place of all that they had lost. A
vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was
moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression
of the thought that all feeling was dead within me was gone. I was no
longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed,
some of the material out of which all worth of character, and all
capacity for happiness, are made. Relieved from my ever-present sense of
irremediable wretchedness, I gradually found that the ordinary incidents
of life could again give me some pleasure; that I could again find
enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness, in sunshine and
sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs; and that there was,
once more, excitement, though of a moderate, kind, in exerting myself
for my opinions, and for the public good. Thus the cloud gradually drew
off, and I again enjoyed life; and though I had several relapses, some
of which lasted many months, I never again was as miserable as I
had been.

The experiences of this period had two very marked effects on my opinions
and character. In the first place, they led me to adopt a theory of life,
very unlike that on which I had before I acted, and having much in common
with what at that time I certainly had never heard of, the anti-self-
consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction
that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life.
But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it
the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds
fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of
others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit,
followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at
something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life
(such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing,
when they are taken _en passant_, without being made a principal object.
Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient.
They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you
are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not
happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your
self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust
themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will
inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or
thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or
putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the
basis of my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the best
theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and
of capacity I for enjoyment; that is, for the great majority of mankind.

The other important change which my opinions at this time underwent, was
that I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime
necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the
individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the
ordering of outward circumstances, and the training of the human being
for speculation and for action.

I had now learnt by experience that the passing susceptibilities needed
to be cultivated as well as the active capacities, and required to be
nourished and enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an instant,
lose sight of, or undervalue, that part of the truth which I had seen
before; I never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to
consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition
both of individual and of social improvement But 1 thought that it had
consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other kinds of
cultivation with it. The maintenance of a due balance among the
faculties now seemed to be of primary importance. The cultivation of the
feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical
creed. And my thoughts and inclinations turned in an increasing degree
towards whatever seemed capable of being instrumental to that object.

I now began to find meaning in the things, which I had read or heard
about the importance of poetry and art as instruments of human culture.
But it was some time longer before I began to know this by personal
experience. The only one of the imaginative arts in which I had from
childhood taken great pleasure, was music; the best effect of which (and
in this it surpasses perhaps every other art) consists in exciting
enthusiasm; in winding up to a high pitch those feelings of an elevated
kind which are already in the character, but to which this excitement
gives a glow and a fervour, which, though transitory at its utmost
height, is precious for sustaining them at other times. This effect of
music I had often experienced; but, like all my pleasurable
susceptibilities, it was suspended during the gloomy period. I had
sought relief again and again from this quarter, but found none. After
the tide had turned, and I was in process of recovery, I had been helped
forward by music, but in a much less elevated manner. I at this time
first became acquainted with Weber's _Oberon_, and the extreme pleasure
which I drew from its delicious melodies did me good by showing me a
source of pleasure to which I was as susceptible as ever. The good,
however, was much impaired by the thought that the pleasure of music
(as is quite true of such pleasure as this was, that of mere tune) fades
with familiarity, and requires either to be revived by intermittence, or
fed by continual novelty. And it is very characteristic both of my then
state, and of the general tone of my mind at this period of my life,
that I was seriously tormented by the thought of the exhaustibility of
musical combinations. The octave consists only of five tones and two
semi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways,
of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed
to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room
for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, as these had
done, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins of musical beauty. This
source of anxiety may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the
philosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun should be burnt out. It
was, however, connected with the best feature in my character, and the
only good point to be found in my very unromantic and in no way
honourable distress. For though my dejection, honestly looked at, could
not be called other than egotistical, produced by the ruin, as I thought,
of my fabric of happiness, yet the destiny of mankind in general was ever
in my thoughts, and could not be separated from my own. I felt that the
flaw in my life, must be a flaw in life itself; that the question was,
whether, if the reformers of society and government could succeed in
their objects, and every person in the community were free and in a state
of physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer kept up by
struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures. And I felt that
unless I could see my way to some better hope than this for human
happiness in general, my dejection must continue; but that if I could
see such an outlet, I should then look on the world with pleasure;
content, as far as I was myself concerned, with any fair share of the
general lot.

This state of my thoughts and feelings made the fact of my reading
Wordsworth for the first time (in the autumn of 1828), an important
event of my life. I took up the collection of his poems from curiosity,
with no expectation of mental relief from it, though I had before
resorted to poetry with that hope. In the worst period of my depression,
I had read through the whole of Byron (then new to me), to try whether a
poet, whose peculiar department was supposed to be that of the intenser
feelings, could rouse any feeling in me. As might be expected, I got no
good from this reading, but the reverse. The poet's state of mind was
too like my own. His was the lament of a man who had worn out all
pleasures, and who seemed to think that life, to all who possess the
good things of it, must necessarily be the vapid, uninteresting thing
which I found it. His Harold and Manfred had the same burden on them
which I had; and I was not in a frame of mind to desire any comfort from
the vehement sensual passion of his Giaours, or the sullenness of his
Laras. But while Byron was exactly what did not suit my condition,
Wordsworth was exactly what did. I had looked into the _Excursion_ two
or three years before, and found little in it; and I should probably
have found as little, had I read it at this time. But the miscellaneous
poems, in the two-volume edition of 1815 (to which little of value was
added in the latter part of the author's life), proved to be the precise
thing for my mental wants at that particular juncture.

In the first place, these poems addressed themselves powerfully to one
of the strongest of my pleasurable susceptibilities, the love of rural
objects and natural scenery; to which I had been indebted not only for
much of the pleasure of my life, but quite recently for relief from one
of my longest relapses into depression. In this power of rural beauty
over me, there was a foundation laid for taking pleasure in Wordsworth's
poetry; the more so, as his scenery lies mostly among mountains, which,
owing to my early Pyrenean excursion, were my ideal of natural beauty.
But Wordsworth would never have had any great effect on me, if he had
merely placed before me beautiful pictures of natural scenery. Scott
does this still better than Wordsworth, and a very second-rate landscape
does it more effectually than any poet. What made Wordsworth's poems a
medicine for my state of mind, was that they expressed, not mere outward
beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, under
the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of the
feelings, which I was in quest of. In them I seemed to draw from a
source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which
could be shared in by all human beings; which had no connection with
struggle or imperfection, but would be made richer by every improvement
in the physical or social condition of mankind. From them I seemed to
learn what would be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the
greater evils of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once
better and happier as I came under their influence. There have certainly
been, even in our own age, greater poets than Wordsworth; but poetry of
deeper and loftier feeling could not have done for me at that time what
his did. I needed to be made to feel that there was real, permanent
happiness in tranquil contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only
without turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest in, the
common feelings and common destiny of human beings. And the delight
which these poems gave me, proved that with culture of this sort, there
was nothing to dread from the most confirmed habit of analysis. At the
conclusion of the Poems came the famous Ode, falsely called Platonic,
"Intimations of Immortality": in which, along with more than his usual
sweetness of melody and rhythm, and along with the two passages of grand
imagery but bad philosophy so often quoted, I found that he too had had
similar experience to mine; that he also had felt that the first
freshness of youthful enjoyment of life was not lasting; but that he had
sought for compensation, and found it, in the way in which he was now
teaching me to find it. The result was that I gradually, but completely,
emerged from my habitual depression, and was never again subject to it.
I long continued to value Wordsworth less according to his intrinsic
merits, than by the measure of what he had done for me. Compared with
the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures,
possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are
precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation
Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically
far more poets than he.

It so fell out that the merits of Wordsworth were the occasion of my
first public declaration of my new way of thinking, and separation from
those of my habitual companions who had not undergone a similar change.
The person with whom at that time I was most in the habit of comparing
notes on such subjects was Roebuck, and I induced him to read
Wordsworth, in whom he also at first seemed to find much to admire: but
I, like most Wordsworthians, threw myself into strong antagonism to
Byron, both as a poet and as to his influence on the character. Roebuck,
all whose instincts were those of action and struggle, had, on the
contrary, a strong relish and great admiration of Byron, whose writings
he regarded as the poetry of human life, while Wordsworth's, according
to him, was that of flowers and butterflies. We agreed to have the fight
out at our Debating Society, where we accordingly discussed for two
evenings the comparative merits of Byron and Wordsworth, propounding and
illustrating by long recitations our respective theories of poetry:
Sterling also, in a brilliant speech, putting forward his particular
theory. This was the first debate on any weighty subject in which
Roebuck and I had been on opposite sides. The schism between us widened
from this time more and more, though we continued for some years longer
to be companions. In the beginning, our chief divergence related to the
cultivation of the feelings. Roebuck was in many respects very different
from the vulgar notion of a Benthamite or Utilitarian. He was a lover of
poetry and of most of the fine arts. He took great pleasure in music, in
dramatic performances, especially in painting, and himself drew and
designed landscapes with great facility and beauty. But he never could
be made to see that these things have any value as aids in the formation
of character. Personally, instead of being, as Benthamites are supposed
to be, void of feeling, he had very quick and strong sensibilities. But,
like most Englishmen who have feelings, he found his feelings stand very
much in his way. He was much more susceptible to the painful sympathies
than to the pleasurable, and, looking for his happiness elsewhere, he
wished that his feelings should be deadened rather than quickened. And,
in truth, the English character, and English social circumstances, make
it so seldom possible to derive happiness from the exercise of the
sympathies, that it is not wonderful if they count for little in an
Englishman's scheme of life. In most other countries the paramount
importance of the sympathies as a constituent of individual happiness is
an axiom, taken for granted rather than needing any formal statement;
but most English thinkers always seem to regard them as necessary evils,
required for keeping men's actions benevolent and compassionate. Roebuck
was, or appeared to be, this kind of Englishman. He saw little good in
any cultivation of the feelings, and none at all in cultivating them
through the imagination, which he thought was only cultivating
illusions. It was in vain I urged on him that the imaginative emotion
which an idea, when vividly conceived, excites in us, is not an illusion
but a fact, as real as any of the other qualities of objects; and, far
from implying anything erroneous and delusive in our mental apprehension
of the object, is quite consistent with the most accurate knowledge and
most perfect practical recognition of all its physical and intellectual
laws and relations. The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud
lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud
is vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of
suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these
physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been
incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness.

While my intimacy with Roebuck diminished, I fell more and more into
friendly intercourse with our Coleridgian adversaries in the Society,
Frederick Maurice and John Sterling, both subsequently so well known,
the former by his writings, the latter through the biographies by Hare
and Carlyle. Of these two friends, Maurice was the thinker, Sterling the
orator, and impassioned expositor of thoughts which, at this period,
were almost entirely formed for him by Maurice.

With Maurice I had for some time been acquainted through Eyton Tooke,
who had known him at Cambridge, and although my discussions with him
were almost always disputes, I had carried away from them much that
helped to build up my new fabric of thought, in the same way as I was
deriving much from Coleridge, and from the writings of Goethe and other
German authors which I read during these years. I have so deep a respect
for Maurice's character and purposes, as well as for his great mental
gifts, that it is with some unwillingness I say anything which may seem
to place him on a less high eminence than I would gladly be able to
accord to him. But I have always thought that there was more
intellectual power wasted in Maurice than in any other of my
contemporaries. Few of them certainly have had so much to waste. Great
powers of generalization, rare ingenuity and subtlety, and a wide
perception of important and unobvious truths, served him not for putting
something better into the place of the worthless heap of received
opinions on the great subjects of thought, but for proving to his own
mind that the Church of England had known everything from the first, and
that all the truths on the ground of which the Church and orthodoxy have
been attacked (many of which he saw as clearly as anyone) are not only
consistent with the Thirty-nine Articles, but are better understood and
expressed in those Articles than by anyone who rejects them. I have
never been able to find any other explanation of this, than by
attributing it to that timidity of conscience, combined with original
sensitiveness of temperament, which has so often driven highly gifted
men into Romanism, from the need of a firmer support than they can find
in the independent conclusions of their own judgment. Any more vulgar
kind of timidity no one who knew Maurice would ever think of imputing to
him, even if he had not given public proof of his freedom from it, by
his ultimate collision with some of the opinions commonly regarded as
orthodox, and by his noble origination of the Christian Socialist
movement. The nearest parallel to him, in a moral point of view, is
Coleridge, to whom, in merely intellectual power, apart from poetical
genius, I think him decidedly superior. At this time, however, he might
be described as a disciple of Coleridge, and Sterling as a disciple of
Coleridge and of him. The modifications which were taking place in my
old opinions gave me some points of contact with them; and both Maurice
and Sterling were of considerable use to my development. With Sterling I
soon became very intimate, and was more attached to him than I have ever
been to any other man. He was indeed one of the most lovable of men. His
frank, cordial, affectionate, and expansive character; a love of truth
alike conspicuous in the highest things and the humblest; a generous and
ardent nature, which threw itself with impetuosity into the opinions it
adopted, but was as eager to do justice to the doctrines and the men it
was opposed to, as to make war on what it thought their errors; and an
equal devotion to the two cardinal points of Liberty and Duty, formed a
combination of qualities as attractive to me as to all others who knew
him as well as I did. With his open mind and heart, he found no
difficulty in joining hands with me across the gulf which as yet divided
our opinions. He told me how he and others had looked upon me (from
hearsay information), as a "made" or manufactured man, having had a
certain impress of opinion stamped on me which I could only reproduce;
and what a change took place in his feelings when he found, in the
discussion on Wordsworth and Byron, that Wordsworth, and all which that
name implies, "belonged" to me as much as to him and his friends. The
failure of his health soon scattered all his plans of life, and
compelled him to live at a distance from London, so that after the first
year or two of our acquaintance, we only saw each other at distant
intervals. But (as he said himself in one of his letters to Carlyle)
when we did meet it was like brothers. Though he was never, in the full
sense of the word, a profound thinker, his openness of mind, and the
moral courage in which he greatly surpassed Maurice, made him outgrow
the dominion which Maurice and Coleridge had once exercised over his
intellect; though he retained to the last a great but discriminating
admiration of both, and towards Maurice a warm affection. Except in that
short and transitory phasis of his life, during which he made the
mistake of becoming a clergyman, his mind was ever progressive: and the
advance he always seemed to have made when I saw him after an interval,
made me apply to him what Goethe said of Schiller, "er hatte eine
furchtliche Fortschreitung." He and I started from intellectual points
almost as wide apart as the poles, but the distance between us was
always diminishing: if I made steps towards some of his opinions, he,
during his short life, was constantly approximating more and more to
several of mine: and if he had lived, and had health and vigour to
prosecute his ever assiduous self-culture, there is no knowing how much
further this spontaneous assimilation might have proceeded.

After 1829 I withdrew from attendance on the Debating Society. I had had
enough of speech-making, and was glad to carry on my private studies and
meditations without any immediate call for outward assertion of their
results. I found the fabric of my old and taught opinions giving way in
many fresh places, and I never allowed it to fall to pieces, but was
incessantly occupied in weaving it anew. I never, in the course of my
transition, was content to remain, for ever so short a time, confused
and unsettled. When I had taken in any new idea, I could not rest till I
had adjusted its relation to my old opinions, and ascertained exactly
how far its effect ought to extend in modifying or superseding them.

The conflicts which I had so often had to sustain in defending the
theory of government laid down in Bentham's and my father's writings,
and the acquaintance I had obtained with other schools of political
thinking, made me aware of many things which that doctrine, professing
to be a theory of government in general, ought to have made room for,
and did not. But these things, as yet, remained with me rather as
corrections to be made in applying the theory to practice, than as
defects in the theory. I felt that politics could not be a science of
specific experience; and that the accusations against the Benthamic
theory of _being_ a theory, of proceeding _a priori_ by way of general
reasoning, instead of Baconian experiment, showed complete ignorance of
Bacon's principles, and of the necessary conditions of experimental
investigation. At this juncture appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_,
Macaulay's famous attack on my father's _Essay on Government_. This gave
me much to think about. I saw that Macaulay's conception of the logic of
politics was erroneous; that he stood up for the empirical mode of
treating political phenomena, against the philosophical; that even in
physical science his notions of philosophizing might have recognised
Kepler, but would have excluded Newton and Laplace. But I could not help
feeling, that though the tone was unbecoming (an error for which the
writer, at a later period, made the most ample and honourable amends),
there was truth in several of his strictures on my father's treatment of
the subject; that my father's premises were really too narrow, and
included but a small number of the general truths on which, in politics,
the important consequences depend. Identity of interest between the
governing body and the community at large is not, in any practical sense
which can be attached to it, the only thing on which good government
depends; neither can this identity of interest be secured by the mere
conditions of election. I was not at all satisfied with the mode in
which my father met the criticisms of Macaulay. He did not, as I thought
he ought to have done, justify himself by saying, "I was not writing a
scientific treatise on politics, I was writing an argument for
parliamentary reform." He treated Macaulay's argument as simply
irrational; an attack upon the reasoning faculty; an example of the
saying of Hobbes, that When reason is against a man, a man will be
against reason. This made me think that there was really something more
fundamentally erroneous in my father's conception of philosophical
method, as applicable to politics, than I had hitherto supposed there
was. But I did not at first see clearly what the error might be. At last
it flashed upon me all at once in the course of other studies. In the
early part of 1830 I had begun to put on paper the ideas on Logic
(chiefly on the distinctions among Terms, and the import of
Propositions) which had been suggested and in part worked out in the
morning conversations already spoken of. Having secured these thoughts
from being lost, I pushed on into the other parts of the subject, to try
whether I could do anything further towards clearing up the theory of
logic generally. I grappled at once with the problem of Induction,
postponing that of Reasoning, on the ground that it is necessary to
obtain premises before we can reason from them. Now, Induction is mainly
a process for finding the causes of effects: and in attempting to fathom
the mode of tracing causes and effects in physical science, I soon saw
that in the more perfect of the sciences, we ascend, by generalization
from particulars, to the tendencies of causes considered singly, and
then reason downward from those separate tendencies, to the effect of
the same causes when combined. I then asked myself, what is the ultimate
analysis of this deductive process; the common theory of the syllogism
evidently throwing no light upon it. My practice (learnt from Hobbes and
my father) being to study abstract principles by means of the best
concrete instances I could find, the Composition of Forces, in dynamics,
occurred to me as the most complete example of the logical process I was
investigating. On examining, accordingly, what the mind does when it
applies the principle of the Composition of Forces, I found that it
performs a simple act of addition. It adds the separate effect of the
one force to the separate effect of the other, and puts down the sum of
these separate effects as the joint effect. But is this a legitimate
process? In dynamics, and in all the mathematical branches of physics,
it is; but in some other cases, as in chemistry, it is not; and I then
recollected that something not unlike this was pointed out as one of the
distinctions between chemical and mechanical phenomena, in the
introduction to that favourite of my boyhood, Thompson's _System of
Chemistry_. This distinction at once made my mind clear as to what was
perplexing me in respect to the philosophy of politics. I now saw, that
a science is either deductive or experimental, according as, in the
province it deals with, the effects of causes when conjoined, are or are
not the sums of the effects which the same causes produce when separate.
It followed that politics must be a deductive science. It thus appeared,
that both Macaulay and my father were wrong; the one in assimilating the
method of philosophizing in politics to the purely experimental method
of chemistry; while the other, though right in adopting a deductive
method, had made a wrong selection of one, having taken as the type of
deduction, not the appropriate process, that of the deductive branches
of natural philosophy, but the inappropriate one of pure geometry,
which, not being a science of causation at all, does not require or
admit of any summing-up of effects. A foundation was thus laid in my
thoughts for the principal chapters of what I afterwards published on
the Logic of the Moral Sciences; and my new position in respect to my
old political creed, now became perfectly definite.

If I am asked, what system of political philosophy I substituted for
that which, as a philosophy, I had abandoned, I answer, No system: only
a conviction that the true system was something much more complex and
many-sided than I had previously had any idea of, and that its office
was to supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from
which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances might be
deduced. The influences of European, that is to say, Continental,
thought, and especially those of the reaction of the nineteenth century
against the eighteenth, were now streaming in upon me. They came from
various quarters: from the writings of Coleridge, which I had begun to
read with interest even before the change in my opinions; from the
Coleridgians with whom I was in personal intercourse; from what I had
read of Goethe; from Carlyle's early articles in the _Edinburgh_ and
Foreign Reviews, though for a long time I saw nothing in these (as my
father saw nothing in them to the last) but insane rhapsody. From these
sources, and from the acquaintance I kept up with the French literature
of the time, I derived, among other ideas which the general turning
upside down of the opinions of European thinkers had brought uppermost,
these in particular: That the human mind has a certain order of possible
progress, in which some things must precede others, an order which
governments and public instructors can modify to some, but not to an
unlimited extent: that all questions of political institutions are
relative, not absolute, and that different stages of human progress not
only _will_ have, but _ought_ to have, different institutions: that
government is always either in the hands, or passing into the hands, of
whatever is the strongest power in society, and that what this power is,
does not depend on institutions, but institutions on it: that any
general theory or philosophy of politics supposes a previous theory of
human progress, and that this is the same thing with a philosophy of
history. These opinions, true in the main, were held in an exaggerated
and violent manner by the thinkers with whom I was now most accustomed
to compare notes, and who, as usual with a reaction, ignored that half
of the truth which the thinkers of the eighteenth century saw. But
though, at one period of my progress, I for some time undervalued that
great century, I never joined in the reaction against it, but kept as
firm hold of one side of the truth as I took of the other. The fight
between the nineteenth century and the eighteenth always reminded me of
the battle about the shield, one side of which was white and the other
black. I marvelled at the blind rage with which the combatants rushed
against one another. I applied to them, and to Coleridge himself, many
of Coleridge's sayings about half truths; and Goethe's device,
"many-sidedness," was one which I would most willingly, at this period,
have taken for mine.

The writers by whom, more than by any others, a new mode of political
thinking was brought home to me, were those of the St. Simonian school
in France. In 1829 and 1830 I became acquainted with some of their
writings. They were then only in the earlier stages of their
speculations. They had not yet dressed out their philosophy as a
religion, nor had they organized their scheme of Socialism. They were
just beginning to question the principle of hereditary property. I was
by no means prepared to go with them even this length; but I was greatly
struck with the connected view which they for the first time presented
to me, of the natural order of human progress; and especially with their
division of all history into organic periods and critical periods.
During the organic periods (they said) mankind accept with firm
conviction some positive creed, claiming jurisdiction over all their
actions, and containing more or less of truth and adaptation to the
needs of humanity. Under its influence they make all the progress
compatible with the creed, and finally outgrow it; when a period follows
of criticism and negation, in which mankind lose their old convictions
without acquiring any new ones, of a general or authoritative character,
except the conviction that the old are false. The period of Greek and
Roman polytheism, so long as really believed in by instructed Greeks and
Romans, was an organic period, succeeded by the critical or sceptical
period of the Greek philosophers. Another organic period came in with
Christianity. The corresponding critical period began with the
Reformation, has lasted ever since, still lasts, and cannot altogether
cease until a new organic period has been inaugurated by the triumph of
a yet more advanced creed. These ideas, I knew, were not peculiar to the
St. Simonians; on the contrary, they were the general property of
Europe, or at least of Germany and France, but they had never, to my
knowledge, been so completely systematized as by these writers, nor the
distinguishing characteristics of a critical period so powerfully set
forth; for I was not then acquainted with Fichte's _Lectures on the
Characteristics of the Present Age_. In Carlyle, indeed, I found bitter
denunciations of an "age of unbelief," and of the present age as such,
which I, like most people at that time, supposed to be passionate
protests in favour of the old modes of belief. But all that was true in
these denunciations, I thought that I found more calmly and
philosophically stated by the St. Simonians. Among their publications,
too, there was one which seemed to me far superior to the rest; in which
the general idea was matured into something much more definite and
instructive. This was an early work of Auguste Comte, who then called
himself, and even announced himself in the title-page as, a pupil of
Saint Simon. In this tract M. Comte first put forth the doctrine, which
he afterwards so copiously illustrated, of the natural succession of
three stages in every department of human knowledge: first, the
theological, next the metaphysical, and lastly, the positive stage; and
contended, that social science must be subject to the same law; that the
feudal and Catholic system was the concluding phasis of the theological
state of the social science, Protestantism the commencement, and the
doctrines of the French Revolution the consummation, of the
metaphysical; and that its positive state was yet to come. This doctrine
harmonized well with my existing notions, to which it seemed to give a
scientific shape. I already regarded the methods of physical science as
the proper models for political. But the chief benefit which I derived
at this time from the trains of thought suggested by the St. Simonians
and by Comte, was, that I obtained a clearer conception than ever before
of the peculiarities of an era of transition in opinion, and ceased to
mistake the moral and intellectual characteristics of such an era, for
the normal attributes of humanity. I looked forward, through the present
age of loud disputes but generally weak convictions, to a future which
shall unite the best qualities of the critical with the best qualities
of the organic periods; unchecked liberty of thought, unbounded freedom
of individual action in all modes not hurtful to others; but also,
convictions as to what is right and wrong, useful and pernicious, deeply
engraven on the feelings by early education and general unanimity of
sentiment, and so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exigencies
of life, that they shall not, like all former and present creeds,
religious, ethical, and political, require to be periodically thrown off
and replaced by others.

M. Comte soon left the St. Simonians, and I lost sight of him and his
writings for a number of years. But the St. Simonians I continued to
cultivate. I was kept _au courant_ of their progress by one of their
most enthusiastic disciples, M. Gustave d'Eichthal, who about that time
passed a considerable interval in England. I was introduced to their
chiefs, Bazard and Enfantin, in 1830; and as long as their public
teachings and proselytism continued, I read nearly everything they
wrote. Their criticisms on the common doctrines of Liberalism seemed to
me full of important truth; and it was partly by their writings that my
eyes were opened to the very limited and temporary value of the old
political economy, which assumes private property and inheritance as
indefeasible facts, and freedom of production and exchange as the
_dernier mot_ of social improvement. The scheme gradually unfolded by
the St. Simonians, under which the labour and capital of society would
be managed for the general account of the community, every individual
being required to take a share of labour, either as thinker, teacher,
artist, or producer, all being classed according to their capacity, and
remunerated according to their work, appeared to me a far superior
description of Socialism to Owen's. Their aim seemed to me desirable and
rational, however their means might be inefficacious; and though I
neither believed in the practicability, nor in the beneficial operation
of their social machinery, I felt that the proclamation of such an ideal
of human society could not but tend to give a beneficial direction to
the efforts of others to bring society, as at present constituted,
nearer to some ideal standard. I honoured them most of all for what they
have been most cried down for--the boldness and freedom from prejudice
with which they treated the subject of the family, the most important of
any, and needing more fundamental alterations than remain to be made in
any other great social institution, but on which scarcely any reformer
has the courage to touch. In proclaiming the perfect equality of men and
women, and an entirely new order of things in regard to their relations
with one another, the St. Simonians, in common with Owen and Fourier,
have entitled themselves to the grateful remembrance of future
generations.

In giving an account of this period of my life, I have only specified
such of my new impressions as appeared to me, both at the time and
since, to be a kind of turning points, marking a definite progress in my
mode of thought. But these few selected points give a very insufficient
idea of the quantity of thinking which I carried on respecting a host of
subjects during these years of transition. Much of this, it is true,
consisted in rediscovering things known to all the world, which I had
previously disbelieved or disregarded. But the rediscovery was to me a
discovery, giving me plenary possession of the truths, not as
traditional platitudes, but fresh from their source; and it seldom
failed to place them in some new light, by which they were reconciled
with, and seemed to confirm while they modified, the truths less
generally known which lay in my early opinions, and in no essential part
of which I at any time wavered. All my new thinking only laid the
foundation of these more deeply and strongly, while it often removed
misapprehension and confusion of ideas which had perverted their effect.
For example, during the later returns of my dejection, the doctrine of
what is called Philosophical Necessity weighed on my existence like an
incubus. I felt as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless
slave of antecedent circumstances; as if my character and that of all
others had been formed for us by agencies beyond our control, and was
wholly out of our own power. I often said to myself, what a relief it
would be if I could disbelieve the doctrine of the formation of
character by circumstances; and remembering the wish of Fox respecting
the doctrine of resistance to governments, that it might never be
forgotten by kings, nor remembered by subjects, I said that it would be
a blessing if the doctrine of necessity could be believed by all _quoad_
the characters of others, and disbelieved in regard to their own. I
pondered painfully on the subject till gradually I saw light through it.
I perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the doctrine of
Cause and Effect applied to human action, carried with it a misleading
association; and that this association was the operative force in the
depressing and paralysing influence which I had experienced: I saw that
though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do
much to shape those circumstances; and that what is really inspiriting
and ennobling in the doctrine of freewill is the conviction that we have
real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by
influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or
capabilities of willing. All this was entirely consistent with the
doctrine of circumstances, or rather, was that doctrine itself, properly
understood. From that time I drew, in my own mind, a clear distinction
between the doctrine of circumstances and Fatalism; discarding
altogether the misleading word Necessity. The theory, which I now for
the first time rightly apprehended, ceased altogether to be
discouraging; and, besides the relief to my spirits, I no longer
suffered under the burden--so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer
in opinions--of thinking one doctrine true and the contrary doctrine
morally beneficial. The train of thought which had extricated me from
this dilemma seemed to me, in after years, fitted to render a similar
service to others; and it now forms the chapter on Liberty and Necessity
in the concluding Book of my _System of Logic_.

Again, in politics, though I no longer accepted the doctrine of the
_Essay on Government_ as a scientific theory; though I ceased to
consider representative democracy as an absolute principle, and regarded
it as a question of time, place, and circumstance; though I now looked
upon the choice of political institutions as a moral and educational
question more than one of material interests, thinking that it ought to
be decided mainly by the consideration, what great improvement in life
and culture stands next in order for the people concerned, as the
condition of their further progress, and what institutions are most
likely to promote that; nevertheless, this change in the premises of my
political philosophy did not alter my practical political creed as to
the requirements of my own time and country. I was as much as ever a
Radical and Democrat for Europe, and especially for England. I thought
the predominance of the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in
the English constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not
on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small inconvenience, but
as the great demoralizing agency in the country. Demoralizing, first,
because it made the conduct of the Government an example of gross public
immorality, through the predominance of private over public interests in
the State, and the abuse of the powers of legislation for the advantage
of classes. Secondly, and in a still greater degree, because the respect
of the multitude always attaching itself principally to that which, in
the existing state of society, is the chief passport to power; and under
English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost
exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the signs of
riches, were almost the only things really respected, and the life of
the people was mainly devoted to the pursuit of them. I thought, that
while the higher and richer classes held the power of government, the
instruction and improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to
the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render the people
more powerful for throwing off the yoke: but if the democracy obtained a
large, and perhaps the principal share, in the governing power, it would
become the interest of the opulent classes to promote their education,
in order to ward off really mischievous errors, and especially those
which would lead to unjust violations of property. On these grounds I
was not only as ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but
earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. Simonian, and all other anti-property
doctrines might spread widely among the poorer classes; not that I
thought those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted on,
but in order that the higher classes might be made to see that they had
more to fear from the poor when uneducated than when educated.

In this frame of mind the French Revolution of July found me: It roused
my utmost enthusiasm, and gave me, as it were, a new existence. I went
at once to Paris, was introduced to Lafayette, and laid the groundwork
of the intercourse I afterwards kept up with several of the active
chiefs of the extreme popular party. After my return I entered warmly,
as a writer, into the political discussions of the time; which soon
became still more exciting, by the coming in of Lord Grey's Ministry,
and the proposing of the Reform Bill. For the next few years I wrote
copiously in newspapers. It was about this time that Fonblanque, who had
for some time written the political articles in the _Examiner_, became
the proprietor and editor of the paper. It is not forgotten with what
verve and talent, as well as fine wit, he carried it on, during the
whole period of Lord Grey's Ministry, and what importance it assumed as
the principal representative, in the newspaper press, of Radical
opinions. The distinguishing character of the paper was given to it
entirely by his own articles, which formed at least three-fourths of all
the original writing contained in it: but of the remaining fourth I
contributed during those years a much larger share than anyone else. I
wrote nearly all the articles on French subjects, including a weekly
summary of French politics, often extending to considerable length;
together with many leading articles on general politics, commercial and
financial legislation, and any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt
interested, and which were suitable to the paper, including occasional
reviews of books. Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or
questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any
general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to
embody in a series of articles, headed "The Spirit of the Age," some of
my new opinions, and especially to point out in the character of the
present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic of the transition
from a system of opinions which had worn out, to another only in process
of being formed. These articles, were, I fancy, lumbering in style, and
not lively or striking enough to be, at any time, acceptable to
newspaper readers; but had they been far more attractive, still, at that
particular moment, when great political changes were impending, and
engrossing all minds, these discussions were ill-timed, and missed fire
altogether. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them,
was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them
in his solitude, and, saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "Here
is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting
their authorship; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our
becoming personally acquainted.

I have already mentioned Carlyle's earlier writings as one of the
channels through which I received the influences which enlarged my early
narrow creed; but I do not think that those writings, by themselves,
would ever have had any effect on my opinions. What truths they
contained, though of the very kind which I was already receiving from
other quarters, were presented in a form and vesture less suited than
any other to give them access to a mind trained as mine had been. They
seemed a haze of poetry and German metaphysics, in which almost the only
clear thing was a strong animosity to most of the opinions which were
the basis of my mode of thought; religious scepticism, utilitarianism,
the doctrine of circumstances, and the attaching any importance to
democracy, logic, or political economy. Instead of my having been taught
anything, in the first instance, by Carlyle, it was only in proportion
as I came to see the same truths through media more suited to my mental
constitution, that I recognised them in his writings. Then, indeed, the
wonderful power with which he put them forth made a deep impression upon
me, and I was during a long period one of his most fervent admirers; but
the good his writings did me, was not as philosophy to instruct, but as
poetry to animate. Even at the time when our acquaintance commenced, I
was not sufficiently advanced in my new modes of thought to appreciate
him fully; a proof of which is, that on his showing me the manuscript of
_Sartor Resartus_, his best and greatest work, which he just then
finished, I made little of it; though when it came out about two years
afterwards in _Fraser's Magazine_ I read it with enthusiastic admiration
and the keenest delight. I did not seek and cultivate Carlyle less on
account of the fundamental differences in our philosophy. He soon found
out that I was not "another mystic," and when for the sake of my own
integrity I wrote to him a distinct profession of all those of my
opinions which I knew he most disliked, he replied that the chief
difference between us was that I "was as yet consciously nothing of a
mystic." I do not know at what period he gave up the expectation that I
was destined to become one; but though both his and my opinions
underwent in subsequent years considerable changes, we never approached
much nearer to each other's modes of thought than we were in the first
years of our acquaintance. I did not, however, deem myself a competent
judge of Carlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was not; that he
was a man of intuition, which I was not; and that as such, he not only
saw many things long before me, which I could only, when they were
pointed out to me, hobble after and prove, but that it was highly
probable he could see many things which were not visible to me even
after they were pointed out. I knew that I could not see round him, and
could never be certain that I saw over him; and I never presumed to
judge him with any definiteness, until he was interpreted to me by one
greatly the superior of us both--who was more a poet than he, and more a
thinker than I--whose own mind and nature included his, and
infinitely more.

Among the persons of intellect whom I had known of old, the one with
whom I had now most points of agreement was the elder Austin. I have
mentioned that he always set himself in opposition to our early
sectarianism; and latterly he had, like myself, come under new
influences. Having been appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the
London University (now University College), he had lived for some time
at Bonn to study for his Lectures; and the influences of German
literature and of the German character and state of society had made a
very perceptible change in his views of life. His personal disposition
was much softened; he was less militant and polemic; his tastes had
begun to turn themselves towards the poetic and contemplative. He
attached much less importance than formerly to outward changes; unless
accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward nature. He had a
strong distaste for the general meanness of English life, the absence of
enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on which the
faculties of all classes of the English are intent. Even the kind of
public interests which Englishmen care for, he held in very little
esteem. He thought that there was more practical good government, and
(which is true enough) infinitely more care for the education and mental
improvement of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian monarchy,
than under the English representative government: and he held, with the
French _Economistes_, that the real security for good government is un
_peuple éclairé_, which is not always the fruit of popular institutions,
and which, if it could be had without them, would do their work better
than they. Though he approved of the Reform Bill, he predicted, what in
fact occurred, that it would not produce the great immediate
improvements in government which many expected from it. The men, he
said, who could do these great things did not exist in the country.
There were many points of sympathy between him and me, both in the new
opinions he had adopted and in the old ones which he retained. Like me,
he never ceased to be a utilitarian, and, with all his love for the
Germans and enjoyment of their literature, never became in the smallest
degree reconciled to the innate-principle metaphysics. He cultivated
more and more a kind of German religion, a religion of poetry and
feeling with little, if anything, of positive dogma; while in politics
(and here it was that I most differed with him) he acquired an
indifference, bordering on contempt, for the progress of popular
institutions: though he rejoiced in that of Socialism, as the most
effectual means of compelling the powerful classes to educate the
people, and to impress on them the only real means of permanently
improving their material condition, a limitation of their numbers.
Neither was he, at this time, fundamentally opposed to Socialism in
itself as an ultimate result of improvement. He professed great
disrespect for what he called "the universal principles of human nature
of the political economists," and insisted on the evidence which history
and daily experience afford of the "extraordinary pliability of human
nature" (a phrase which I have somewhere borrowed from him); nor did he
think it possible to set any positive bounds to the moral capabilities
which might unfold themselves in mankind, under an enlightened direction
of social and educational influences. Whether he retained all these
opinions to the end of life I know not. Certainly the modes of thinking
of his later years, and especially of his last publication, were much
more Tory in their general character than those which he held at
this time.

My father's tone of thought and feeling, I now felt myself at a great
distance from: greater, indeed, than a full and calm explanation and
reconsideration on both sides, might have shown to exist in reality. But
my father was not one with whom calm and full explanations on
fundamental points of doctrine could be expected, at least with one whom
he might consider as, in some sort, a deserter from his standard.
Fortunately we were almost always in strong agreement on the political
questions of the day, which engrossed a large part of his interest and
of his conversation. On those matters of opinion on which we differed,
we talked little. He knew that the habit of thinking for myself, which
his mode of education had fostered, sometimes led me to opinions
different from his, and he perceived from time to time that I did not
always tell him _how_ different. I expected no good, but only pain to
both of us, from discussing our differences: and I never expressed them
but when he gave utterance to some opinion or feeling repugnant to mine,
in a manner which would have made it disingenuousness on my part to
remain silent.

It remains to speak of what I wrote during these years, which,
independently of my contributions to newspapers, was considerable. In
1830 and 1831 I wrote the five Essays since published under the title of
_Essays on some Unsettled Questions of political Economy_, almost as
they now stand, except that in 1833 I partially rewrote the fifth Essay.
They were written with no immediate purpose of publication; and when,
some years later, I offered them to a publisher, he declined them. They
were only printed in 1844, after the success of the _System of Logic_. I
also resumed my speculations on this last subject, and puzzled myself,
like others before me, with the great paradox of the discovery of new
truths by general reasoning. As to the fact, there could be no doubt. As
little could it be doubted, that all reasoning is resolvable into
syllogisms, and that in every syllogism the conclusion is actually
contained and implied in the premises. How, being so contained and
implied, it could be new truth, and how the theorems of geometry, so
different in appearance from the definitions and axioms, could be all
contained in these, was a difficulty which no, one, I thought, had
sufficiently felt, and which, at all events, no one had succeeded in
clearing up. The explanations offered by Whately and others, though they
might give a temporary satisfaction, always, in my mind, left a mist
still hanging over the subject. At last, when reading a second or third
time the chapters on Reasoning in the second volume of Dugald Stewart,
interrogating myself on every point, and following out, as far as I knew
how, every topic of thought which the book suggested, I came upon an
idea of his respecting the use of axioms in ratiocination, which I did
not remember to have before noticed, but which now, in meditating on it,
seemed to me not only true of axioms, but of all general propositions
whatever, and to be the key of the whole perplexity. From this germ grew
the theory of the Syllogism propounded in the Second Book of the
_Logic_; which I immediately fixed by writing it out. And now, with
greatly increased hope of being able to produce a work on Logic, of some
originality and value, I proceeded to write the First Book, from the
rough and imperfect draft I had already made. What I now wrote became
the basis of that part of the subsequent Treatise; except that it did
not contain the Theory of Kinds, which was a later addition, suggested
by otherwise inextricable difficulties which met me in my first attempt
to work out the subject of some of the concluding chapters of the Third
Book. At the point which I had now reached I made a halt, which lasted
five years. I had come to the end of my tether; I could make nothing
satisfactory of Induction, at this time. I continued to read any book
which seemed to promise light on the subject, and appropriated, as well
as I could, the results; but for a long time I found nothing which
seemed to open to me any very important vein of meditation.

In 1832 I wrote several papers for the first series of _Tait's
Magazine_, and one for a quarterly periodical called the _Jurist_, which
had been founded, and for a short time carried on, by a set of friends,
all lawyers and law reformers, with several of whom I was acquainted.
The paper in question is the one on the rights and duties of the State
respecting Corporation and Church Property, now standing first among the
collected _Dissertations and Discussions_; where one of my articles in
_Tait_, "The Currency Juggle," also appears. In the whole mass of what
I wrote previous to these, there is nothing of sufficient permanent
value to justify reprinting. The paper in the _Jurist_, which I still
think a very complete discussion of the rights of the State over
Foundations, showed both sides of my opinions, asserting as firmly as I
should have done at any time, the doctrine that all endowments are
national property, which the government may and ought to control; but
not, as I should once have done, condemning endowments in themselves,
and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On
the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of a provision for
education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on
the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to
establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to
be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these
opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole of my
subsequent reflections.





CHAPTER VI.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. MY
FATHER'S DEATH. WRITINGS AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840.


It was the period of my mental progress which I have now reached that I
formed the friendship which has been the honour and chief blessing of my
existence, as well as the source of a great part of all that I have
attempted to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement. My
first introduction to the lady who, after a friendship of twenty years,
consented to become my wife, was in 1830, when I was in my twenty-fifth
and she in her twenty-third year. With her husband's family it was the
renewal of an old acquaintanceship. His grandfather lived in the next
house to my father's in Newington Green, and I had sometimes when a boy
been invited to play in the old gentleman's garden. He was a fine
specimen of the old Scotch puritan; stern, severe, and powerful, but
very kind to children, on whom such men make a lasting impression.
Although it was years after my introduction to Mrs. Taylor before my
acquaintance with her became at all intimate or confidential, I very
soon felt her to be the most admirable person I had ever known. It is
not to be supposed that she was, or that any one, at the age at which I
first saw her, could be, all that she afterwards became. Least of all
could this be true of her, with whom self-improvement, progress in the
highest and in all senses, was a law of her nature; a necessity equally
from the ardour with which she sought it, and from the spontaneous
tendency of faculties which could not receive an impression or an
experience without making it the source or the occasion of an accession
of wisdom. Up to the time when I first saw her, her rich and powerful
nature had chiefly unfolded itself according to the received type of
feminine genius. To her outer circle she was a beauty and a wit, with an
air of natural distinction, felt by all who approached her: to the
inner, a woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and intuitive
intelligence, and of an eminently meditative and poetic nature. Married
at an early age to a most upright, brave, and honourable man, of liberal
opinions and good education, but without the intellectual or artistic
tastes which would have made him a companion for her, though a steady
and affectionate friend, for whom she had true esteem and the strongest
affection through life, and whom she most deeply lamented when dead;
shut out by the social disabilities of women from any adequate exercise
of her highest faculties in action on the world without; her life was
one of inward meditation, varied by familiar intercourse with a small
circle of friends, of whom one only (long since deceased) was a person
of genius, or of capacities of feeling or intellect kindred with her
own, but all had more or less of alliance with her in sentiments and
opinions. Into this circle I had the good fortune to be admitted, and I
soon perceived that she possessed in combination, the qualities which in
all other persons whom I had known I had been only too happy to find
singly. In her, complete emancipation from every kind of superstition
(including that which attributes a pretended perfection to the order of
nature and the universe), and an earnest protest against many things
which are still part of the established constitution of society,
resulted not from the hard intellect, but from strength of noble and
elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly reverential nature. In
general spiritual characteristics, as well as in temperament and
organisation, I have often compared her, as she was at this time, to
Shelley: but in thought and intellect, Shelley, so far as his powers
were developed in his short life, was but a child compared with what she
ultimately became. Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in
the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same
perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter;
always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and
rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her
mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have
fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and
her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and
her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in
practical life, would, in the times when such a _carričre_ was open to
women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her
intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the
noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life. Her
unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart
which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and
often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively
investing their feelings with the intensity of its own. The passion of
justice might have been thought to be her strongest feeling, but for her
boundless generosity, and a lovingness ever ready to pour itself forth
upon any or all human beings who were capable of giving the smallest
feeling in return. The rest of her moral characteristics were such as
naturally accompany these qualities of mind and heart: the most genuine
modesty combined with the loftiest pride; a simplicity and sincerity
which were absolute, towards all who were fit to receive them; the
utmost scorn of whatever was mean and cowardly, and a burning
indignation at everything brutal or tyrannical, faithless or
dishonourable in conduct and character, while making the broadest
distinction between _mala in se_ and mere _mala prohibita_--between acts
giving evidence of intrinsic badness in feeling and character, and those
which are only violations of conventions either good or bad, violations
which, whether in themselves right or wrong, are capable of being
committed by persons in every other respect lovable or admirable.

To be admitted into any degree of mental intercourse with a being of
these qualities, could not but have a most beneficial influence on my
development; though the effect was only gradual, and many years elapsed
before her mental progress and mine went forward in the complete
companionship they at last attained. The benefit I received was far
greater than any which I could hope to give; though to her, who had at
first reached her opinions by the moral intuition of a character of
strong feeling, there was doubtless help as well as encouragement to be
derived from one who had arrived at many of the same results by study
and reasoning: and in the rapidity of her intellectual growth, her
mental activity, which converted everything into knowledge, doubtless
drew from me, as it did from other sources, many of its materials. What
I owe, even intellectually, to her, is in its detail, almost infinite;
of its general character a few words will give some, though a very
imperfect, idea.

With those who, like all the best and wisest of mankind, are
dissatisfied with human life as it is, and whose feelings are wholly
identified with its radical amendment, there are two main regions of
thought. One is the region of ultimate aims; the constituent elements of
the highest realizable ideal of human life. The other is that of the
immediately useful and practically attainable. In both these departments,
I have acquired more from her teaching, than from all other sources
taken together. And, to say truth, it is in these two extremes
principally, that real certainty lies. My own strength lay wholly in the
uncertain and slippery intermediate region, that of theory, or moral and
political science: respecting the conclusions of which, in any of the
forms in which I have received or originated them, whether as political
economy, analytic psychology, logic, philosophy of history, or anything
else, it is not the least of my intellectual obligations to her that I
have derived from her a wise scepticism, which, while it has not
hindered me from following out the honest exercise of my thinking
faculties to whatever conclusions might result from it, has put me on my
guard against holding or announcing these conclusions with a degree of
confidence which the nature of such speculations does not warrant, and
has kept my mind not only open to admit, but prompt to welcome and eager
to seek, even on the questions on which I have most meditated, any
prospect of clearer perceptions and better evidence. I have often
received praise, which in my own right I only partially deserve, for the
greater practicality which is supposed to be found in my writings,
compared with those of most thinkers who have been equally addicted to
large generalizations. The writings in which this quality has been
observed, were not the work of one mind, but of the fusion of two, one
of them as pre-eminently practical in its judgments and perceptions of
things present, as it was high and bold in its anticipations for a
remote futurity. At the present period, however, this influence was only
one among many which were helping to shape the character of my future
development: and even after it became, I may truly say, the presiding
principle of my mental progress, it did not alter the path, but only
made me move forward more boldly, and, at the same time, more
cautiously, in the same course. The only actual revolution which has
ever taken place in my modes of thinking, was already complete. My new
tendencies had to be confirmed in some respects, moderated in others:
but the only substantial changes of opinion that were yet to come,
related to politics, and consisted, on one hand, in a greater
approximation, so far as regards the ultimate prospects of humanity, to
a qualified Socialism, and on the other, a shifting of my political
ideal from pure democracy, as commonly understood by its partisans, to
the modified form of it, which is set forth in my _Considerations on
Representative Government_.

This last change, which took place very gradually, dates its
commencement from my reading, or rather study, of M. de Tocqueville's
_Democracy in America_, which fell into my hands immediately after its
first appearance. In that remarkable work, the excellences of democracy
were pointed out in a more conclusive, because a more specific manner
than I had ever known them to be, even by the most enthusiastic
democrats; while the specific dangers which beset democracy, considered
as the government of the numerical majority, were brought into equally
strong light, and subjected to a masterly analysis, not as reasons for
resisting what the author considered as an inevitable result of human
progress, but as indications of the weak points of popular government,
the defences by which it needs to be guarded, and the correctives which
must be added to it in order that while full play is given to its
beneficial tendencies, those which are of a different nature may be
neutralized or mitigated. I was now well prepared for speculations of
this character, and from this time onward my own thoughts moved more and
more in the same channel, though the consequent modifications in my
practical political creed were spread over many years, as would be shown
by comparing my first review of _Democracy in America_, written and
published in 1835, with the one in 1840 (reprinted in the _Dissertations_),
and this last, with the _Considerations on Representative Government_.

A collateral subject on which also I derived great benefit from the
study of Tocqueville, was the fundamental question of centralization.
The powerful philosophic analysis which he applied to American and to
French experience, led him to attach the utmost importance to the
performance of as much of the collective business of society, as can
safely be so performed, by the people themselves, without any
intervention of the executive government, either to supersede their
agency, or to dictate the manner of its exercise. He viewed this
practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one
of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and
practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so
indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive
to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary
protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in
the modern world, there is real danger--the absolute rule of the head
of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals
but all slaves. There was, indeed, no immediate peril from this source
on the British side of the channel, where nine-tenths of the internal
business which elsewhere devolves on the government, was transacted by
agencies independent of it; where centralization was, and is, the
subject not only of rational disapprobation, but of unreasoning
prejudice; where jealousy of Government interference was a blind feeling
preventing or resisting even the most beneficial exertion of legislative
authority to correct the abuses of what pretends to be local
self-government, but is, too often, selfish mismanagement of local
interests, by a jobbing and _borné_ local oligarchy. But the more
certain the public were to go wrong on the side opposed to
centralization, the greater danger was there lest philosophic reformers
should fall into the contrary error, and overlook the mischiefs of which
they had been spared the painful experience. I was myself, at this very
time, actively engaged in defending important measures, such as the
great Poor Law Reform of 1834, against an irrational clamour grounded on
the anti-centralization prejudice: and had it not been for the lessons
of Tocqueville, I do not know that I might not, like many reformers
before me, have been hurried into the excess opposite to that, which,
being the one prevalent in my own country, it was generally my business
to combat. As it is, I have steered carefully between the two errors,
and whether I have or have not drawn the line between them exactly in
the right place, I have at least insisted with equal emphasis upon the
evils on both sides, and have made the means of reconciling the
advantages of both, a subject of serious study.

In the meanwhile had taken place the election of the first Reformed
Parliament, which included several of the most notable of my Radical
friends and acquaintances--Grote, Roebuck, Buller, Sir William
Molesworth, John and Edward Romilly, and several more; besides
Warburton, Strutt, and others, who were in parliament already. Those who
thought themselves, and were called by their friends, the philosophic
Radicals, had now, it seemed, a fair opportunity, in a more advantageous
position than they had ever before occupied, for showing what was in
them; and I, as well as my father, founded great hopes on them. These
hopes were destined to be disappointed. The men were honest, and
faithful to their opinions, as far as votes were concerned; often in
spite of much discouragement. When measures were proposed, flagrantly at
variance with their principles, such as the Irish Coercion Bill, or the
Canada Coercion in 1837, they came forward manfully, and braved any
amount of hostility and prejudice rather than desert the right. But on
the whole they did very little to promote any opinions; they had little
enterprise, little activity: they left the lead of the Radical portion
of the House to the old hands, to Hume and O'Connell. A partial
exception must be made in favour of one or two of the younger men; and
in the case of Roebuck, it is his title to permanent remembrance, that
in the very first year during which he sat in Parliament, he originated
(or re-originated after the unsuccessful attempt of Mr. Brougham) the
parliamentary movement for National Education; and that he was the first
to commence, and for years carried on almost alone, the contest for the
self-government of the Colonies. Nothing, on the whole equal to these
two things, was done by any other individual, even of those from whom
most was expected. And now, on a calm retrospect, I can perceive that
the men were less in fault than we supposed, and that we had expected
too much from them. They were in unfavourable circumstances. Their lot
was cast in the ten years of inevitable reaction, when, the Reform
excitement being over, and the few legislative improvements which the
public really called for having been rapidly effected, power gravitated
back in its natural direction, to those who were for keeping things as
they were; when the public mind desired rest, and was less disposed than
at any other period since the Peace, to let itself be moved by attempts
to work up the Reform feeling into fresh activity in favour of new
things. It would have required a great political leader, which no one is
to be blamed for not being, to have effected really great things by
parliamentary discussion when the nation was in this mood. My father and
I had hoped that some competent leader might arise; some man of
philosophic attainments and popular talents, who could have put heart
into the many younger or less distinguished men that would have been
ready to join him--could have made them available, to the extent of
their talents, in bringing advanced ideas before the public--could
have used the House of Commons as a rostra or a teacher's chair for
instructing and impelling the public mind; and would either have forced
the Whigs to receive their measures from him, or have taken the lead of
the Reform party out of their hands. Such a leader there would have
been, if my father had been in Parliament. For want of such a man, the
instructed Radicals sank into a mere _Côté Gauche_ of the Whig party.
With a keen, and as I now think, an exaggerated sense of the
possibilities which were open to the Radicals if they made even ordinary
exertion for their opinions, I laboured from this time till 1839, both
by personal influence with some of them, and by writings, to put ideas
into their heads, and purpose into their hearts. I did some good with
Charles Buller, and some with Sir William Molesworth; both of whom did
valuable service, but were unhappily cut off almost in the beginning of
their usefulness. On the whole, however, my attempt was vain. To have
had a chance of succeeding in it, required a different position from
mine. It was a task only for one who, being himself in Parliament, could
have mixed with the Radical members in daily consultation, could himself
have taken the initiative, and instead of urging others to lead, could
have summoned them to follow.

What I could do by writing, I did. During the year 1833 I continued
working in the _Examiner_ with Fonblanque who at that time was zealous
in keeping up the fight for Radicalism against the Whig ministry. During
the session of 1834 I wrote comments on passing events, of the nature of
newspaper articles (under the title "Notes on the Newspapers"), in the
_Monthly Repository_, a magazine conducted by Mr. Fox, well known as a
preacher and political orator, and subsequently as member of parliament
for Oldham; with whom I had lately become acquainted, and for whose sake
chiefly I wrote in his magazine. I contributed several other articles
to this periodical, the most considerable of which (on the theory of
Poetry), is reprinted in the "Dissertations." Altogether, the writings
(independently of those in newspapers) which I published from 1832 to
1834, amount to a large volume. This, however, includes abstracts of
several of Plato's Dialogues, with introductory remarks, which, though
not published until 1834, had been written several years earlier; and
which I afterwards, on various occasions, found to have been read, and
their authorship known, by more people than were aware of anything else
which I had written, up to that time. To complete the tale of my
writings at this period, I may add that in 1833, at the request of
Bulwer, who was just then completing his _England and the English_ (a
work, at that time, greatly in advance of the public mind), I wrote for
him a critical account of Bentham's philosophy, a small part of which
he incorporated in his text, and printed the rest (with an honourable
acknowledgment), as an appendix. In this, along with the favourable,
a part also of the unfavourable side of my estimation of Bentham's
doctrines, considered as a complete philosophy, was for the first time
put into print.

But an opportunity soon offered, by which, as it seemed, I might have it
in my power to give more effectual aid, and at the same time, stimulus,
to the "philosophic Radical" party, than I had done hitherto. One of the
projects occasionally talked of between my father and me, and some of
the parliamentary and other Radicals who frequented his house, was the
foundation of a periodical organ of philosophic radicalism, to take the
place which the _Westminster Review_ had been intended to fill: and the
scheme had gone so far as to bring under discussion the pecuniary
contributions which could be looked for, and the choice of an editor.
Nothing, however, came of it for some time: but in the summer of 1834
Sir William Molesworth, himself a laborious student, and a precise and
metaphysical thinker, capable of aiding the cause by his pen as well as
by his purse, spontaneously proposed to establish a Review, provided I
would consent to be the real, if I could not be the ostensible, editor.
Such a proposal was not to be refused; and the Review was founded, at
first under the title of the _London Review_, and afterwards under that
of the _London and Westminster_, Molesworth having bought the
_Westminster_ from its proprietor, General Thompson, and merged the two
into one. In the years between 1834 and 1840 the conduct of this Review
occupied the greater part of my spare time. In the beginning, it did
not, as a whole, by any means represent my opinions. I was under the
necessity of conceding much to my inevitable associates. The _Review_
was established to be the representative of the "philosophic Radicals,"
with most of whom I was now at issue on many essential points, and among
whom I could not even claim to be the most important individual. My
father's co-operation as a writer we all deemed indispensable, and he
wrote largely in it until prevented by his last illness. The subjects of
his articles, and the strength and decision with which his opinions were
expressed in them, made the _Review_ at first derive its tone and
colouring from him much more than from any of the other writers. I could
not exercise editorial control over his articles, and I was sometimes
obliged to sacrifice to him portions of my own. The old _Westminster
Review_ doctrines, but little modified, thus formed the staple of the
_Review_; but I hoped by the side of these, to introduce other ideas and
another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of opinion a fair
representation, along with those of other members of the party. With
this end chiefly in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the work
that every article should bear an initial, or some other signature, and
be held to express the opinions solely of the individual writer; the
editor being only responsible for its being worth publishing and not in
conflict with the objects for which the _Review_ was set on foot. I had
an opportunity of putting in practice my scheme of conciliation between
the old and the new "philosophic radicalism," by the choice of a subject
for my own first contribution. Professor Sedgwick, a man of eminence in
a particular walk of natural science, but who should not have trespassed
into philosophy, had lately published his _Discourse on the Studies of
Cambridge_, which had as its most prominent feature an intemperate
assault on analytic psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of an
attack on Locke and Paley. This had excited great indignation in my
father and others, which I thought it fully deserved. And here, I
imagined, was an opportunity of at the same time repelling an unjust
attack, and inserting into my defence of Hartleianism and Utilitarianism
a number of the opinions which constituted my view of those subjects, as
distinguished from that of my old associates. In this I partially
succeeded, though my relation to my father would have made it painful to
me in any case, and impossible in a Review for which he wrote, to speak
out my whole mind on the subject at this time.

I am, however, inclined to think that my father was not so much opposed
as he seemed, to the modes of thought in which I believed myself to
differ from him; that he did injustice to his own opinions by the
unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and
that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make
room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny. I have
frequently observed that he made large allowance in practice for
considerations which seemed to have no place in his theory. His
_Fragment on Mackintosh_, which he wrote and published about this time,
although I greatly admired some parts of it, I read as a whole with more
pain than pleasure; yet on reading it again, long after, I found little
in the opinions it contains, but what I think in the main just; and I
can even sympathize in his disgust at the _verbiage_ of Mackintosh,
though his asperity towards it went not only beyond what was judicious,
but beyond what was even fair. One thing, which I thought, at the time,
of good augury, was the very favourable reception he gave to
Tocqueville's _Democracy in America_. It is true, he said and thought
much more about what Tocqueville said in favour of democracy, than about
what he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high appreciation of a
book which was at any rate an example of a mode of treating the question
of government almost the reverse of his--wholly inductive and analytical,
instead of purely ratiocinative--gave me great encouragement. He also
approved of an article which I published in the first number following
the junction of the two reviews, the essay reprinted in the _Dissertations_,
under the title "Civilization"; into which I threw many of my new opinions,
and criticised rather emphatically the mental and moral tendencies of the
time, on grounds and in a manner which I certainly had not learnt from him.

All speculation, however, on the possible future developments of my
father's opinions, and on the probabilities of permanent co-operation
between him and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be
cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his
symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after
lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June,
1836. Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent
abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons
that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the
approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm
a mind it was impossible that it should) in his convictions on the
subject of religion. His principal satisfaction, after he knew that his
end was near, seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make the
world better than he found it; and his chief regret in not living
longer, that he had not had time to do more.

His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in the political
history of his country; and it is far from honourable to the generation
which has benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and,
compared with men far his inferiors, so little remembered. This is
probably to be ascribed mainly to two causes. In the first place, the
thought of him merges too much in the deservedly superior fame of
Bentham. Yet he was anything but Bentham's mere follower or disciple.
Precisely because he was himself one of the most original thinkers of
his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and adopt the most
important mass of original thought which had been produced by the
generation preceding him. His mind and Bentham's were essentially of
different construction. He had not all Bentham's high qualities, but
neither had Bentham all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to claim
for him the praise of having accomplished for mankind such splendid
services as Bentham's. He did not revolutionize, or rather create, one
of the great departments of human thought. But, leaving out of the
reckoning all that portion of his labours in which he benefited by what
Bentham had done, and counting only what he achieved in a province in
which Bentham had done nothing, that of analytic psychology, he will be
known to posterity as one of the greatest names in that most important
branch of speculation, on which all the moral and political sciences
ultimately rest, and will mark one of the essential stages in its
progress. The other reason which has made his fame less than he
deserved, is that notwithstanding the great number of his opinions
which, partly through his own efforts, have now been generally adopted,
there was, on the whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and that
of the present time. As Brutus was called the last of the Romans, so was
he the last of the eighteenth century: he continued its tone of thought
and sentiment into the nineteenth (though not unmodified nor
unimproved), partaking neither in the good nor in the bad influences of
the reaction against the eighteenth century, which was the great
characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. The eighteenth
century was a great age, an age of strong and brave men, and he was a
fit companion for its strongest and bravest. By his writings and his
personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation.
During his later years he was quite as much the head and leader of the
intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the _philosophes_
of France. It is only one of his minor merits, that he was the
originator of all sound statesmanship in regard to the subject of his
largest work, India. He wrote on no subject which he did not enrich with
valuable thought, and excepting the _Elements of Political Economy_, a
very useful book when first written, but which has now for some time
finished its work, it will be long before any of his books will be
wholly superseded, or will cease to be instructive reading to students
of their subjects. In the power of influencing by mere force of mind and
character, the convictions and purposes of others, and in the strenuous
exertion of that power to promote freedom and progress, he left, as far
as my knowledge extends, no equal among men and but one among women.

Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in the qualities by which
he acquired his personal ascendancy, I had now to try what it might be
possible for me to accomplish without him: and the _Review_ was the
instrument on which I built my chief hopes of establishing a useful
influence over the liberal and democratic section of the public mind.
Deprived of my father's aid, I was also exempted from the restraints and
reticences by which that aid had been purchased. I did not feel that
there was any other radical writer or politician to whom I was bound to
defer, further than consisted with my own opinions: and having the
complete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved henceforth to give full
scope to my own opinions and modes of thought, and to open the _Review_
widely to all writers who were in sympathy with Progress as I understood
it, even though I should lose by it the support of my former associates.
Carlyle, consequently became from this time a frequent writer in the
_Review_; Sterling, soon after, an occasional one; and though each
individual article continued to be the expression of the private
sentiments of its writer, the general tone conformed in some tolerable
degree to my opinions. For the conduct of the _Review_, under, and in
conjunction with me, I associated with myself a young Scotchman of the
name of Robertson, who had some ability and information, much industry,
and an active scheming head, full of devices for making the _Review_
more saleable, and on whose capacities in that direction I founded a
good deal of hope: insomuch, that when Molesworth, in the beginning of
1837, became tired of carrying on the _Review_ at a loss, and desirous
of getting rid of it (he had done his part honourably, and at no small
pecuniary cost,) I, very imprudently for my own pecuniary interest, and
very much from reliance on Robertson's devices, determined to continue
it at my own risk, until his plans should have had a fair trial. The
devices were good, and I never had any reason to change my opinion of
them. But I do not believe that any devices would have made a radical
and democratic review defray its expenses, including a paid editor or
sub-editor, and a liberal payment to writers. I myself and several
frequent contributors gave our labour gratuitously, as we had done for
Molesworth; but the paid contributors continued to be remunerated on the
usual scale of the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_; and this could
not be done from the proceeds of the sale.

In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these occupations, I resumed
the _Logic_. I had not touched my pen on the subject for five years,
having been stopped and brought to a halt on the threshold of Induction.
I had gradually discovered that what was mainly wanting, to overcome the
difficulties of that branch of the subject, was a comprehensive, and, at
the same time, accurate view of the whole circle of physical science,
which I feared it would take me a long course of study to acquire; since
I knew not of any book, or other guide, that would spread out before me
the generalities and processes of the sciences, and I apprehended that I
should have no choice but to extract them for myself, as I best could,
from the details. Happily for me, Dr. Whewell, early in this year,
published his _History of the Inductive Sciences_. I read it with
eagerness, and found in it a considerable approximation to what I
wanted. Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the work appeared open
to objection; but the materials were there, for my own thoughts to work
upon: and the author had given to those materials that first degree of
elaboration, which so greatly facilitates and abridges the subsequent
labour. I had now obtained what I had been waiting for. Under the
impulse given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, I read again
Sir J. Herschel's _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_: and I
was able to measure the progress my mind had made, by the great help I
now found in this work--though I had read and even reviewed it several
years before with little profit. I now set myself vigorously to work out
the subject in thought and in writing. The time I bestowed on this had
to be stolen from occupations more urgent. I had just two months to
spare, at this period, in the intervals of writing for the _Review_. In
these two months I completed the first draft of about a third, the most
difficult third, of the book. What I had before written, I estimate at
another third, so that one-third remained. What I wrote at this time
consisted of the remainder of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of
Trains of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and the greater part of
the Book on Induction. When this was done, I had, as it seemed to me,
untied all the really hard knots, and the completion of the book had
become only a question of time. Having got thus far, I had to leave off
in order to write two articles for the next number of the _Review_. When
these were written, I returned to the subject, and now for the first
time fell in with Comte's _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, or rather
with the two volumes of it which were all that had at that time been
published. My theory of Induction was substantially completed before I
knew of Comte's book; and it is perhaps well that I came to it by a
different road from his, since the consequence has been that my treatise
contains, what his certainly does not, a reduction of the inductive
process to strict rules and to a scientific test, such as the syllogism
is for ratiocination. Comte is always precise and profound on the method
of investigation, but he does not even attempt any exact definition of
the conditions of proof: and his writings show that he never attained a
just conception of them. This, however, was specifically the problem,
which, in treating of Induction, I had proposed to myself. Nevertheless,
I gained much from Comte, with which to enrich my chapters in the
subsequent rewriting: and his book was of essential service to me in
some of the parts which still remained to be thought out. As his
subsequent volumes successively made their appearance, I read them with
avidity, but, when he reached the subject of Social Science, with
varying feelings. The fourth volume disappointed me: it contained those
of his opinions on social subjects with which I most disagree. But the
fifth, containing the connected view of history, rekindled all my
enthusiasm; which the sixth (or concluding) volume did not materially
abate. In a merely logical point of view, the only leading conception
for which I am indebted to him is that of the Inverse Deductive Method,
as the one chiefly applicable to the complicated subjects of History and
Statistics: a process differing from the more common form of the
deductive method in this--that instead of arriving at its conclusions
by general reasoning, and verifying them by specific experience (as is
the natural order in the deductive branches of physical science), it
obtains its generalizations by a collation of specific experience, and
verifies them by ascertaining whether they are such as would follow from
known general principles. This was an idea entirely new to me when I
found it in Comte: and but for him I might not soon (if ever) have
arrived at it.

I had been long an ardent admirer of Comte's writings before I had any
communication with himself; nor did I ever, to the last, see him in the
body. But for some years we were frequent correspondents, until our
correspondence became controversial, and our zeal cooled. I was the
first to slacken correspondence; he was the first to drop it. I found,
and he probably found likewise, that I could do no good to his mind, and
that all the good he could do to mine, he did by his books. This would
never have led to discontinuance of intercourse, if the differences
between us had been on matters of simple doctrine. But they were chiefly
on those points of opinion which blended in both of us with our
strongest feelings, and determined the entire direction of our
aspirations. I had fully agreed with him when he maintained that the
mass of mankind, including even their rulers in all the practical
departments of life, must, from the necessity of the case, accept most
of their opinions on political and social matters, as they do on
physical, from the authority of those who have bestowed more study on
those subjects than they generally have it in their power to do. This
lesson had been strongly impressed on me by the early work of Comte, to
which I have adverted. And there was nothing in his great Treatise which
I admired more than his remarkable exposition of the benefits which the
nations of modern Europe have historically derived from the separation,
during the Middle Ages, of temporal and spiritual power, and the
distinct organization of the latter. I agreed with him that the moral
and intellectual ascendancy, once exercised by priests, must in time
pass into the hands of philosophers, and will naturally do so when they
become sufficiently unanimous, and in other respects worthy to possess
it. But when he exaggerated this line of thought into a practical
system, in which philosophers were to be organized into a kind of
corporate hierarchy, invested with almost the same spiritual supremacy
(though without any secular power) once possessed by the Catholic
Church; when I found him relying on this spiritual authority as the only
security for good government, the sole bulwark against practical
oppression, and expecting that by it a system of despotism in the state
and despotism in the family would be rendered innocuous and beneficial;
it is not surprising, that while as logicians we were nearly at one, as
sociologists we could travel together no further. M. Comte lived to
carry out these doctrines to their extremest consequences, by planning,
in his last work, the _Systčme de Politique Positive_, the completest
system of spiritual and temporal despotism which ever yet emanated from
a human brain, unless possibly that of Ignatius Loyola: a system by
which the yoke of general opinion, wielded by an organized body of
spiritual teachers and rulers, would be made supreme over every action,
and as far as is in human possibility, every thought, of every member of
the community, as well in the things which regard only himself, as in
those which concern the interests of others. It is but just to say that
this work is a considerable improvement, in many points of feeling, over
Comte's previous writings on the same subjects: but as an accession to
social philosophy, the only value it seems to me to possess, consists in
putting an end to the notion that no effectual moral authority can be
maintained over society without the aid of religious belief; for Comte's
work recognises no religion except that of Humanity, yet it leaves an
irresistible conviction that any moral beliefs concurred in by the
community generally may be brought to bear upon the whole conduct and
lives of its individual members, with an energy and potency truly
alarming to think of. The book stands a monumental warning to thinkers
on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight, in
their speculations, of the value of Liberty and of Individuality.

To return to myself. The _Review_ engrossed, for some time longer,
nearly all the time I could devote to authorship, or to thinking with
authorship in view. The articles from the _London and Westminster
Review_ which are reprinted in the _Dissertations_, are scarcely a
fourth part of those I wrote. In the conduct of the _Review_ I had two
principal objects. One was to free philosophic radicalism from the
reproach of sectarian Benthamism. I desired, while retaining the
precision of expression, the definiteness of meaning, the contempt of
declamatory phrases and vague generalities, which were so honourably
characteristic both of Bentham and of my father, to give a wider basis
and a more free and genial character to Radical speculations; to show
that there was a Radical philosophy, better and more complete than
Bentham's, while recognizing and incorporating all of Bentham's which is
permanently valuable. In this first object I, to a certain extent,
succeeded. The other thing I attempted, was to stir up the educated
Radicals, in and out of Parliament, to exertion, and induce them to make
themselves, what I thought by using the proper means they might become
--a powerful party capable of taking the government of the country, or
at least of dictating the terms on which they should share it with the
Whigs. This attempt was from the first chimerical: partly because the
time was unpropitious, the Reform fervour being in its period of ebb,
and the Tory influences powerfully rallying; but still more, because, as
Austin so truly said, "the country did not contain the men." Among the
Radicals in Parliament there were several qualified to be useful members
of an enlightened Radical party, but none capable of forming and leading
such a party. The exhortations I addressed to them found no response.
One occasion did present itself when there seemed to be room for a bold
and successful stroke for Radicalism. Lord Durham had left the ministry,
by reason, as was thought, of their not being sufficiently Liberal; he
afterwards accepted from them the task of ascertaining and removing the
causes of the Canadian rebellion; he had shown a disposition to surround
himself at the outset with Radical advisers; one of his earliest
measures, a good measure both in intention and in effect, having been
disapproved and reversed by the Government at home, he had resigned his
post, and placed himself openly in a position of quarrel with the
Ministers. Here was a possible chief for a Radical party in the person
of a man of importance, who was hated by the Tories and had just been
injured by the Whigs. Any one who had the most elementary notions of
party tactics, must have attempted to make something of such an
opportunity. Lord Durham was bitterly attacked from all sides, inveighed
against by enemies, given up by timid friends; while those who would
willingly have defended him did not know what to say. He appeared to be
returning a defeated and discredited man. I had followed the Canadian
events from the beginning; I had been one of the prompters of his
prompters; his policy was almost exactly what mine would have been, and
I was in a position to defend it. I wrote and published a manifesto in
the _Review_, in which I took the very highest ground in his behalf,
claiming for him not mere acquittal, but praise and honour. Instantly a
number of other writers took up the tone: I believe there was a portion
of truth in what Lord Durham, soon after, with polite exaggeration, said
to me--that to this article might be ascribed the almost triumphal
reception which he met with on his arrival in England. I believe it to
have been the word in season, which, at a critical moment, does much to
decide the result; the touch which determines whether a stone, set in
motion at the top of an eminence, shall roll down on one side or on the
other. All hopes connected with Lord Durham as a politician soon
vanished; but with regard to Canadian, and generally to colonial policy,
the cause was gained: Lord Durham's report, written by Charles Buller,
partly under the inspiration of Wakefield, began a new era; its
recommendations, extending to complete internal self-government, were in
full operation in Canada within two or three years, and have been since
extended to nearly all the other colonies, of European race, which have
any claim to the character of important communities. And I may say that
in successfully upholding the reputation of Lord Durham and his advisers
at the most important moment, I contributed materially to this result.

One other case occurred during my conduct of the _Review_, which
similarly illustrated the effect of taking a prompt initiative. I
believe that the early success and reputation of Carlyle's _French
Revolution_, were considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in
the _Review_. Immediately on its publication, and before the commonplace
critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set at defiance, had
time to pre-occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and
published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions
of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves.
Neither in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the
impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any
particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one of the cases (the
article on Carlyle) I do not think the execution was good. And in both
instances, I am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, who
had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made
any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would have produced
the same effect. But, after the complete failure of my hopes of putting
a new life into Radical politics by means of the _Review_, I am glad to
look back on these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do
mediate service to things and persons that deserved it. After the last
hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared, it was time
for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money which the
_Review_ cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose as
a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in print much of
my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked manner
from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the
general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary articles,
but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the _Dissertations_)
which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In
the first of these, while doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I
pointed out what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his
philosophy. The substance of this criticism _I_ still think perfectly
just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish it at
that time. I have often felt that Bentham's philosophy, as an instrument
of progress, has been to some extent discredited before it had done its
work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing
more harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when a
counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is good in
Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this criticism of its
defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by vindications of the
fundamental principles of Bentham's philosophy, which are reprinted
along with it in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I
attempted to characterize the European reaction against the negative
philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, if the effect only of
this one paper were to be considered, I might be thought to have erred
by giving undue prominence to the favourable side, as I had done in the
case of Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the impetus with
which I had detached myself from what was untenable in the doctrines of
Bentham and of the eighteenth century, may have carried me, though in
appearance rather than in reality, too far on the contrary side. But as
far as relates to the article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was
writing for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to dwell most
on that, in writers of a different school, from the knowledge of which
they might derive most improvement.

The number of the _Review_ which contained the paper on Coleridge, was
the last which was published during my proprietorship. In the spring of
1840 I made over the _Review_ to Mr. Hickson, who had been a frequent
and very useful unpaid contributor under my management: only stipulating
that the change should be marked by a resumption of the old name, that
of _Westminster Review_. Under that name Mr. Hickson conducted it for
ten years, on the plan of dividing among contributors only the net
proceeds of the _Review_ giving his own labour as writer and editor
gratuitously. Under the difficulty in obtaining writers, which arose
from this low scale of payment, it is highly creditable to him that he
was able to maintain, in some tolerable degree, the character of the
_Review_ as an organ of radicalism and progress. I did not cease
altogether to write for the _Review_, but continued to send it
occasional contributions, not, however, exclusively; for the greater
circulation of the _Edinburgh Review_ induced me from this time to offer
articles to it also when I had anything to say for which it appeared to
be a suitable vehicle. And the concluding volumes of _Democracy in
America_, having just then come out, I inaugurated myself as a
contributor to the _Edinburgh_, by the article on that work, which heads
the second volume of the _Dissertations_.




CHAPTER VII.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE.


From this time, what is worth relating of my life will come into a very
small compass; for I have no further mental changes to tell of, but
only, as I hope, a continued mental progress; which does not admit of a
consecutive history, and the results of which, if real, will be best
found in my writings. I shall, therefore, greatly abridge the chronicle
of my subsequent years.

The first use I made of the leisure which I gained by disconnecting
myself from the _Review_, was to finish the _Logic_. In July and August,
1838, I had found an interval in which to execute what was still undone
of the original draft of the Third Book. In working out the logical
theory of those laws of nature which are not laws of Causation, nor
corollaries from such laws, I was led to recognize kinds as realities in
nature, and not mere distinctions for convenience; a light which I had
not obtained when the First Book was written, and which made it
necessary for me to modify and enlarge several chapters of that Book.
The Book on Language and Classification, and the chapter on the
Classification of Fallacies, were drafted in the autumn of the same
year; the remainder of the work, in the summer and autumn of 1840. From
April following to the end of 1841, my spare time was devoted to a
complete rewriting of the book from its commencement. It is in this way
that all my books have been composed. They were always written at least
twice over; a first draft of the entire work was completed to the very
end of the subject, then the whole begun again _de novo_; but
incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences and parts of
sentences of the old draft, which appeared as suitable to my purpose as
anything which I could write in lieu of them. I have found great
advantages in this system of double redaction. It combines, better than
any other mode of composition, the freshness and vigour of the first
conception, with the superior precision and completeness resulting from
prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, I have found that the
patience necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of
composition and expression, costs much less effort after the entire
subject has been once gone through, and the substance of all that I find
to say has in some manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper. The
only thing which I am careful, in the first draft, to make as perfect as
I am able, is the arrangement. If that is bad, the whole thread on which
the ideas string themselves becomes twisted; thoughts placed in a wrong
connection are not expounded in a manner that suits the right, and a
first draft with this original vice is next to useless as a foundation
for the final treatment.

During the re-writing of the _Logic_, Dr. Whewell's _Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences_ made its appearance; a circumstance fortunate for
me, as it gave me what I greatly desired, a full treatment of the
subject by an antagonist, and enabled me to present my ideas with
greater clearness and emphasis as well as fuller and more varied
development, in defending them against definite objections, or
confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. The controversies
with Dr. Whewell, as well as much matter derived from Comte, were first
introduced into the book in the course of the re-writing.

At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the press, I offered it to
Murray, who kept it until too late for publication that season, and then
refused it, for reasons which could just as well have been given at
first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my
offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring of
1843. My original expectations of success were extremely limited.
Archbishop Whately had, indeed, rehabilitated the name of Logic, and the
study of the forms, rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination; and Dr.
Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of
my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, on a matter so
abstract, could not be expected to be popular; it could only be a book
for students, and students on such subjects were not only (at least in
England) few, but addicted chiefly to the opposite school of
metaphysics, the ontological and "innate principles" school. I therefore
did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and
looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the
tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy. What hopes I
had of exciting any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the
polemical propensities of Dr Whewell; who, I thought, from observation
of his conduct in other cases, would probably do something to bring the
book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to the attack on his
opinions. He did reply but not till 1850, just in time for me to answer
him in the third edition. How the book came to have, for a work of the
kind, so much success, and what sort of persons compose the bulk of
those who have bought, I will not venture to say read, it, I have never
thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction with the many proofs
which have since been given of a revival of speculation, speculation too
of a free kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one time I
should have least expected it) in the Universities, the fact becomes
partially intelligible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book
had made any considerable impression on philosophical opinion. The
German, or _a priori_ view of human knowledge, and of the knowing
faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a
diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves
with such inquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the "System of
Logic" supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite
doctrine--that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all
moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to
the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either
an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence,
can do by themselves towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the
understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them
of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true
philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the
mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind
may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation
and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great
intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid
of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of
which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the
obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own
all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an
instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices. And the
chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and
religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the
evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science.
To expel it from these, is to drive it from its stronghold: and because
this had never been effectually done, the intuitive school, even after
what my father had written in his _Analysis of the Mind_, had in
appearance, and as far as published writings were concerned, on the
whole the best of the argument. In attempting to clear up the real
nature of the evidence of mathematical and physical truths, the _System
of Logic_ met the intuitive philosophers on ground on which they had
previously been deemed unassailable; and gave its own explanation, from
experience and association, of that peculiar character of what are
called necessary truths, which is adduced as proof that their evidence
must come from a deeper source than experience. Whether this has been
done effectually, is still _sub judice_; and even then, to deprive a
mode of thought so strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities,
of its mere speculative support, goes but a very little way towards
overcoming it; but though only a step, it is a quite indispensable one;
for since, after all, prejudice can only be successfully combated by
philosophy, no way can really be made against it permanently until it
has been shown not to have philosophy on its side.

Being now released from any active concern in temporary politics, and
from any literary occupation involving personal communication with
contributors and others, I was enabled to indulge the inclination,
natural to thinking persons when the age of boyish vanity is once past,
for limiting my own society to a very few persons. General society, as
now carried on in England, is so insipid an affair, even to the persons
who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any reason rather than
the pleasure it affords. All serious discussion on matters on which
opinions differ, being considered ill-bred, and the national deficiency
in liveliness and sociability having prevented the cultivation of the
art of talking agreeably on trifles, in which the French of the last
century so much excelled, the sole attraction of what is called society
to those who are not at the top of the tree, is the hope of being aided
to climb a little higher in it; while to those who are already at the
top, it is chiefly a compliance with custom, and with the supposed
requirements of their station. To a person of any but a very common
order in thought or feeling, such society, unless he has personal
objects to serve by it, must be supremely unattractive: and most people,
in the present day, of any really high class of intellect, make their
contact with it so slight, and at such long intervals, as to be almost
considered as retiring from it altogether. Those persons of any mental
superiority who do otherwise, are, almost without exception, greatly
deteriorated by it. Not to mention loss of time, the tone of their
feelings is lowered: they become less in earnest about those of their
opinions respecting which they must remain silent in the society they
frequent: they come to look upon their most elevated objects as
unpractical, or, at least, too remote from realization to be more than a
vision, or a theory, and if, more fortunate than most, they retain their
higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the persons and
affairs of their own day they insensibly adopt the modes of feeling and
judgment in which they can hope for sympathy from the company they keep.
A person of high intellect should never go into unintellectual society
unless he can enter it as an apostle; yet he is the only person with
high objects who can safely enter it at all. Persons even of
intellectual aspirations had much better, if they can, make their
habitual associates of at least their equals, and, as far as possible,
their superiors, in knowledge, intellect, and elevation of sentiment.
Moreover, if the character is formed, and the mind made up, on the few
cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on
these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite of
anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest mind. All
these circumstances united, made the number very small of those whose
society, and still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought.

Among these, by far the principal was the incomparable friend of whom I
have already spoken. At this period she lived mostly with one young
daughter, in a quiet part of the country, and only occasionally in town,
with her first husband, Mr. Taylor. I visited her equally in both
places; and was greatly indebted to the strength of character which
enabled her to disregard the false interpretations liable to be put on
the frequency of my visits to her while living generally apart from Mr.
Taylor, and on our occasionally travelling together, though in all other
respects our conduct during those years gave not the slightest ground
for any other supposition than the true one, that our relation to each
other at that time was one of strong affection and confidential intimacy
only. For though we did not consider the ordinances of society binding
on a subject so entirely personal, we did feel bound that our conduct
should be such as in no degree to bring discredit on her husband, nor
therefore on herself.

In this third period (as it may be termed) of my mental progress, which
now went hand in hand with hers, my opinions gained equally in breadth
and depth, I understood more things, and those which I had understood
before I now understood more thoroughly. I had now completely turned
back from what there had been of excess in my reaction against
Benthamism. I had, at the height of that reaction, certainly become much
more indulgent to the common opinions of society and the world, and more
willing to be content with seconding the superficial improvement which
had begun to take place in those common opinions, than became one whose
convictions on so many points, differed fundamentally from them. I was
much more inclined, than I can now approve, to put in abeyance the more
decidedly heretical part of my opinions, which I now look upon as almost
the only ones, the assertion of which tends in any way to regenerate
society. But in addition to this, our opinions were far _more_ heretical
than mine had been in the days of my most extreme Benthamism. In those
days I had seen little further than the old school of political
economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social
arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance,
appeared to me, as to them, the _dernier mot_ of legislation: and I
looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on
these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The
notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the
injustice--for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy
or not--involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast
majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by
universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the
portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a
democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less
democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be
so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the
selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate
improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly
under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with
the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which
most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward
to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the
industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will
be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the
division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great
a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert
on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer
either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert
themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be
exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.
The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the
greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the
raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the
benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that
we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these
objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how
distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to
render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an
equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated
herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority
of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour
and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social
purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But
the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor
is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of
the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as
readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow
degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive
generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But
the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature.
Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the
generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind
is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on
things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity,
as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred
from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is
capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions
as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which
forms the general character of the existing state of society, is _so_
deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions
tends to foster it; and modern institutions in some respects more than
ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do
anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent
in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity. These
considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts
to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs,
while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we
regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in
a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed
with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by
select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether
they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful
education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity
of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making
them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of
doing so.

In the _Principles of Political Economy_, these opinions were
promulgated, less clearly and fully in the first edition, rather more so
in the second, and quite unequivocally in the third. The difference
arose partly from the change of times, the first edition having been
written and sent to press before the French Revolution of 1848, after
which the public mind became more open to the reception of novelties in
opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate which would have been thought
very startling a short time before. In the first edition the
difficulties of Socialism were stated so strongly, that the tone was on
the whole that of opposition to it. In the year or two which followed,
much time was given to the study of the best Socialistic writers on the
Continent, and to meditation and discussion on the whole range of topics
involved in the controversy: and the result was that most of what had
been written on the subject in the first edition was cancelled, and
replaced by arguments and reflections which represent a more advanced
opinion.

The _Political Economy_ was far more rapidly executed than the _Logic_,
or indeed than anything of importance which I had previously written. It
was commenced in the autumn of 1845, and was ready for the press before
the end of 1847. In this period of little more than two years there was
an interval of six months during which the work was laid aside, while I
was writing articles in the _Morning Chronicle_ (which unexpectedly
entered warmly into my purpose) urging the formation of peasant
properties on the waste lands of Ireland. This was during the period of
the Famine, the winter of 1846-47, when the stern necessities of the
time seemed to afford a chance of gaining attention for what appeared to
me the only mode of combining relief to immediate destitution with
permanent improvement of the social and economical condition of the
Irish people. But the idea was new and strange; there was no English
precedent for such a proceeding: and the profound ignorance of English
politicians and the English public concerning all social phenomena not
generally met with in England (however common elsewhere), made my
endeavours an entire failure. Instead of a great operation on the waste
lands, and the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Parliament
passed a Poor Law for maintaining them as paupers: and if the nation has
not since found itself in inextricable difficulties from the joint
operation of the old evils and the quack remedy it is indebted for its
deliverance to that most unexpected and surprising fact, the
depopulation of ireland, commenced by famine, and continued by
emigration.

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
1250 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 a 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 Horatian
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 formerly have anticipated, because they had
produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in
the lot 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 learnt 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 lot 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, paralysed
intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot terminate
until a renovation has been effected 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 of 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.[3]

Between the time of which I have now spoken, and the present, took place
the most important events of my private life. The first of these was my
marriage, in April, 1851, to the lady whose incomparable worth had 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. Ardently 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 for ever, than have owed it to
the premature death of one for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she
the strongest affection. 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 endeavour 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; when all subjects of intellectual or moral interest are
discussed between them in daily life, and probed to much greater depths
than are usually or 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 are the joint
product 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 here 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, were 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; for 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 defence of all opinions, however new or however old, in
the conviction that even if they 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 Coleridgians, of the
German thinkers, and of Carlyle, 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
eminent 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.[4]

The first of my books in which her share was conspicious was the
_Principles of Political Economy_. The _System of Logic_ owed little to
her except in the minuter matters of composition, in which respect my
writings, both great and small, have largely benefited by her accurate
and clear-sighted criticism.[5] The chapter of the _Political Econonomy_
which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the rest, that on
'the Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,' is entirely due to her;
in the 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 labouring 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 human will. The commom run of political economists
confuse 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 rent 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 labourers, capitalists, and landlords. The _Principles of
Political Economy_ yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the
scientific appreciation of the action of these causes, under the
conditions which they presuppose; but it set the example of not treating
those conditions as final. The economic generalizations which depend not
on necessaties 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 the St. 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 to the exigencies of human society and
progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and
cautiousness of practical judgment. For, on the one hand, she was much
more courageous and far-sighted 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.[6]

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 Capitol, 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 _de novo_,
reading, weighing, and criticizing every sentence. Its final revision
was to have been a work of the winter of 1858-9, the first 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--at Avignon, on our way to Montpellier, from a
sudden attack of pulmonary congestion.

Since then I have sought for such allevation 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
is 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; my pursuits and
occupations those in which she shared, or 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 of any faults, either in thought or
expression, that we detected in it. It is in consequence of this that,
although it never underwent her final revision, it far surpasses, as a
mere specimen of composition, anything which has proceeded 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 so 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. In both these
points, as in many others, she benefited me as much 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 steadying influence, 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 their due.

The _Liberty_ is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have
written (with the possible exception of the _Logic_), because the
conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic
text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking
place in modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: 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. Nothing can better show how deep
are the foundations of this truth, than the great impression made by the
exposition of it at a 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
chimerical to those who looked more at present facts than at tendencies;
for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and
institutions has, thus far, been decidedly favourable to the development
of new opinions, and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced
hearing than they previously met with. But this is a 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 can
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 round it, organizes social institutions and
modes of action conformably 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 had 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.

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 labours and genius of
Pestalozzi. The unqualified championship of it by Wilhelm von Humboldt
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 writings 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 morals and of
conduct in life, often in my opinion not defensible, but which are
incessantly seeking whatever defence 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 Fichte, by Mr. William Maccall, 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 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, and 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 Humboldt, 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 a view to the discussions on the
Reform Bill of Lord Derby's and Mr. Disraeli's Government in 1859, I
added a third feature, a plurality of votes, to be given, not to
property, but to proved 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 concern 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 counsellor, and I have no evidence that she would have
concurred in it. As far as I have been able to observe, it has found
favour with nobody; all who desire any sort of inequality in the
electoral vote, desiring it in favour 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 politically
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. Hare'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 of 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;
but Mr. Hare'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 render doubtful, its ultimate benefits.
Minorities, so long as they remain minorities, are, and ought to be,
outvoted; 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 proportion of the most eminent individual
minds in the country, placed there, without reference to party, by
voters 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 any one who does not feel the want
which the scheme is intended to supply; any one 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 _Fraser'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 to all further Parliamentary
reform; the other an able and vigourous, 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 papers 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
_Fraser'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 peculiar selfishness in matters of foreign policy to
warn Englishmen of the colour 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 French Provisional Government of 1848 against the
attacks of Lord Brougham 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 which continued
to be occupied in a pre-eminent 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 hundred 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 have 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 keeps 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 every one's social intercourse is more or less limited
to particular sets or classes, whose impressions and no others reach him
through that channel; and experience has 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--in 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 inspirer 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 than 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, adviser, and
instructor of the rarest quality]. Whoever, either now or hereafter, may
think of me and of 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 contains 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 its 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[7] 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 daughter's, 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 filled so large a place in our minds.

Soon after this time I took from their repository a portion of the
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 _Fraser'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 the fanaticism of a class for its
class privileges, influences so fully and powerfully depicted in the
admirable work of my friend Professor Cairnes, _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 anti-social
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 disapprove
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 for ever 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.[8] 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 passed for
Liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship: the working
classes, and some of the literary and scientific men, being almost the
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 planters had passed away; another had
succeeded which had not learnt by many years of discussion and exposure
to feel strongly the enormities of slavery; and the inattention habitual
with Englishmen to whatever is going on in the world outside their own
island, made them profoundly ignorant of all the antecedents of the
struggle, insomuch that it was not generally believed in England, for
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.

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 honour 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
favourable 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 _Fraser'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 overborne by
the tide of illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good cause a
nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, and, after the success of
the North began to seem probable, rapidly. When we returned from our
journey I wrote a second article, a review of Professor Cairnes' book,
published in the _Westminster Review_. England is paying the penalty, in
many uncomfortable ways, of the durable resentment which her ruling
classes 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 a
few, if only a few, known writers and speakers, standing firmly by the
Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty, effected 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. Austin'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 Benthamism, 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 Reid_ 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 later 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 _Dissertations on Reid_ dispelled this illusion: and
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 recognised,
were so explained away by him as to mean little or nothing, or were
continually lost sight of, and 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 defence, 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 matter
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
indefeasibleness 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
favourite 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 proofs
that by far the greater 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 to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one
of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. This tendency has
its source in the intuitional metaphysics which characterized the
reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, and it is a
tendency so agreeable to human indolence, as well as to conservative
interests 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
re-introduce a better mode of philosophizing, latterly with quite as
much success as could be expected; but I had for some time felt that the
mere contrast of the two philosophies 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 one 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 call 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
endeavoured 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 in
number, and mostly 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 too great
philosophical reputation within 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
Auguste Comte. I had contributed more than any one 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 at a time when his name had not yet in
France emerged from obscurity. So unknown and unappreciated was he 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, which, by their previous culture
and tendencies, were fitted to receive them: under cover of those better
parts those of a worse 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 some one should undertake the task of sifting
what is good from what is bad in M. Comte'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 _Auguste Comte and Positivism_.

The writings which I have now mentioned, together with a small number of
papers in 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 a 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; viz,
_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 Messrs. 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 further profit. This number
of copies (which in the case of the _Political Economy_ was 10,000) 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.

In 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. It 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 a 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
of the lawful expenses of an election as have no special reference to
any particular candidate, ought to be borne 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 some one 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 favourable supposition
as to the mode in which the money is expended, there is a legitimate
suspicion that any one who gives money for 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 borne 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 to his country as a member of Parliament 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 expend 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 accepting the only
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. I wrote, in reply to the 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 canvass 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 labour to
their local interests. With respect to general politics, I told them
without reserve, what I thought on a number of important subjects on
which they had asked my opinion: and one of these being the suffrage, I
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 favour of women's suffrage. Nothing, at the time, appeared
more unlikely than that a candidate (if 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
programme. 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; answers 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, in being ashamed of lying, are yet generally 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 were 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 suffrages, that when they found, instead of
that, a direct avowal 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 favour 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 (it was 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 any one who told them anything in themselves which he
sincerely believed to require amendment. And to this the meeting
heartily responded.

Had I been defeated in the election, I should still have had no reason
to regret the contact it had brought me into with large bodies of my
countrymen; which not only gave me much new experience, but enabled me
to scatter my political opinions rather widely, and, by making me known
in many quarters where I had never before been heard of, increased the
number of my readers, and the presumable influence of my writings. These
latter effects were of course produced in a still greater degree, when,
as much to my surprise as to that of any one, I was returned to
Parliament by a majority of some hundreds over my Conservative
competitor.

I was a member of the House during the three sessions of the Parliament
which passed the Reform Bill; during which time Parliament was
necessarily my main occupation, except during the recess. I was a
tolerably frequent speaker, sometimes of prepared speeches, sometimes
extemporaneously. But my choice of occasions was not such as I should
have made if my leading object had been Parliamentary influence. When I
had gained the ear of the House, which I did by a successful speech on
Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill, the idea I proceeded on was that when
anything was likely to be as well done, or sufficiently well done, by
other people, there was no necessity for me to meddle with it. As I,
therefore, in general reserved myself for work which no others were
likely to do, a great proportion of my appearances were on points on
which the bulk of the Liberal party, even the advanced portion of it,
either were of a different opinion from mine, or were comparatively
indifferent. Several of my speeches, especially one against the motion
for the abolition of capital punishment, and another in favour of
resuming the right of seizing enemies' goods in neutral vessels, were
opposed to what then was, and probably still is, regarded as the
advanced liberal opinion. My advocacy of women's suffrage and of
Personal Representation, were at the time looked upon by many as whims
of my own; but the great progress since made by those opinions, and
especially the response made from almost all parts of the kingdom to the
demand for women's suffrage, fully justified the timeliness of those
movements, and have made what was undertaken as a moral and social duty,
a personal success. Another duty which was particularly incumbent on me
as one of the Metropolitan Members, was the attempt to obtain a
Municipal Government for the Metropolis: but on that subject the
indifference of the House of Commons was such that I found hardly any
help or support within its walls. On this subject, however, I was the
organ of an active and intelligent body of persons outside, with whom,
and not with me, the scheme originated, and who carried on all the
agitation on the subject and drew up the Bills. My part was to bring in
Bills already prepared, and to sustain the discussion of them during the
short time they were allowed to remain before the House; after having
taken an active part in the work of a Committee presided over by Mr.
Ayrton, which sat through the greater part of the Session of 1866, to
take evidence on the subject. The very different position in which the
question now stands (1870) may justly be attributed to the preparation
which went on during those years, and which produced but little visible
effect at the time; but all questions on which there are strong private
interests on one side, and only the public good on the other, have a
similar period of incubation to go through.

The same idea, that the use of my being in Parliament was to do work
which others were not able or not willing to do, made me think it my
duty to come to the front in defence of advanced Liberalism on occasions
when the obloquy to be encountered was such as most of the advanced
Liberals in the House, preferred not to incur. My first vote in the
House was in support of an amendment in favour of Ireland, moved by an
Irish member, and for which only five English and Scotch votes were
given, including my own: the other four were Mr. Bright, Mr. McLaren,
Mr. T.B. Potter, and Mr. Hadfield. And the second speech I delivered[9]
was on the bill to prolong the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in
Ireland. In denouncing, on this occasion, the English mode of governing
Ireland, I did no more than the general opinion of England now admits to
have been just; but the anger against Fenianism was then in all its
freshness; any attack on what Fenians attacked was looked upon as an
apology for them; and I was so unfavourably received by the House, that
more than one of my friends advised me (and my own judgment agreed with
the advice) to wait, before speaking again, for the favourable
opportunity that would be given by the first great debate on the Reform
Bill. During this silence, many flattered themselves that I had turned
out a failure, and that they should not be troubled with me any more.
Perhaps their uncomplimentary comments may, by the force of reaction,
have helped to make my speech on the Reform Bill the success it was. My
position in the House was further improved by a speech in which I
insisted on the duty of paying off the National Debt before our coal
supplies are exhausted, and by an ironical reply to some of the Tory
leaders who had quoted against me certain passages of my writings, and
called me to account for others, especially for one in my
_Considerations on Representative Government_, which said that the
Conservative party was, by the law of its composition, the stupidest
party. They gained nothing by drawing attention to the passage, which up
to that time had not excited any notice, but the _sobriquet_ of "the
stupid party" stuck to them for a considerable time afterwards. Having
now no longer any apprehension of not being listened to, I confined
myself, as I have since thought too much, to occasions on which my
services seemed specially needed, and abstained more than enough from
speaking on the great party questions. With the exception of Irish
questions, and those which concerned the working classes, a single
speech on Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill was nearly all that I contributed
to the great decisive debates of the last two of my three sessions.

I have, however, much satisfaction in looking back to the part I took on
the two classes of subjects just mentioned. With regard to the working
classes, the chief topic of my speech on Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill was
the assertion of their claims to the suffrage. A little later, after the
resignation of Lord Russell's Ministry and the succession of a Tory
Government, came the attempt of the working classes to hold a meeting in
Hyde Park, their exclusion by the police, and the breaking down of the
park railing by the crowd. Though Mr. Beales and the leaders of the
working men had retired under protest before this took place, a scuffle
ensued in which many innocent persons were maltreated by the police, and
the exasperation of the working men was extreme. They showed a
determination to make another attempt at a meeting in the Park, to which
many of them would probably have come armed; the Government made
military preparations to resist the attempt, and something very serious
seemed impending. At this crisis I really believe that I was the means
of preventing much mischief. I had in my place in Parliament taken the
side of the working men, and strongly censured the conduct of the
Government. I was invited, with several other Radical members, to a
conference with the leading members of the Council of the Reform League;
and the task fell chiefly upon myself, of persuading them to give up the
Hyde Park project, and hold their meeting elsewhere. It was not Mr.
Beales and Colonel Dickson who needed persuading; on the contrary, it
was evident that these gentlemen had already exerted their influence in
the same direction, thus far without success. It was the working men who
held out, and so bent were they on their original scheme, that I was
obliged to have recourse to _les grands moyens_. I told them that a
proceeding which would certainly produce a collision with the military,
could only be justifiable on two conditions: if the position of affairs
had become such that a revolution was desirable, and if they thought
themselves able to accomplish one. To this argument, after considerable
discussion, they at last yielded: and I was able to inform Mr. Walpole
that their intention was given up. I shall never forget the depth of his
relief or the warmth of his expressions of gratitude. After the working
men had conceded so much to me, I felt bound to comply with their
request that I would attend and speak at their meeting at the
Agricultural Hall; the only meeting called by the Reform League which I
ever attended. I had always declined being a member of the League, on
the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood
suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I
could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the
assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied;
since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried, and professes
to take one's stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of
the principle. I have entered thus particularly into this matter because
my conduct on this occasion gave great displeasure to the Tory and
Tory-Liberal press, who have charged me ever since with having shown
myself, in the trials of public life, intemperate and passionate. I do
not know what they expected from me; but they had reason to be thankful
to me if they knew from what I had, in all probability preserved them.
And I do not believe it could have been done, at that particular
juncture, by any one else. No other person, I believe, had at that
moment the necessary influence for restraining the working classes,
except Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, neither of whom was available: Mr.
Gladstone, for obvious reasons; Mr. Bright because he was out of town.

When, some time later, the Tory Government brought in a bill to prevent
public meetings in the Parks, I not only spoke strongly in opposition to
it, but formed one of a number of advanced Liberals, who, aided by the
very late period of the session, succeeded in defeating the Bill by what
is called talking it out. It has not since been renewed.

On Irish affairs also I felt bound to take a decided part. I was one of
the foremost in the deputation of Members of Parliament who prevailed on
Lord Derby to spare the life of the condemned Fenian insurgent, General
Burke. The Church question was so vigorously handled by the leaders of
the party, in the session of 1868, as to require no more from me than an
emphatic adhesion: but the land question was by no means in so advanced
a position; the superstitions of landlordism had up to that time been
little challenged, especially in Parliament, and the backward state of
the question, so far as concerned the Parliamentary mind, was evidenced
by the extremely mild measure brought in by Lord Russell's government in
1866, which nevertheless could not be carried. On that bill I delivered
one of my most careful speeches, in which I attempted to lay down some
of the principles of the subject, in a manner calculated less to
stimulate friends, than to conciliate and convince opponents. The
engrossing subject of Parliamentary Reform prevented either this bill,
or one of a similar character brought in by Lord Derby's Government,
from being carried through. They never got beyond the second reading.
Meanwhile the signs of Irish disaffection had become much more decided;
the demand for complete separation between the two countries had assumed
a menacing aspect, and there were few who did not feel that if there was
still any chance of reconciling Ireland to the British connection, it
could only be by the adoption of much more thorough reforms in the
territorial and social relations of the country, than had yet been
contemplated. The time seemed to me to have come when it would be useful
to speak out my whole mind; and the result was my pamphlet _England and
Ireland_, which was written in the winter of 1867, and published shortly
before the commencement of the session of 1868. The leading features of
the pamphlet were, on the one hand, an argument to show the
undesirableness, for Ireland as well as England, of separation between
the countries, and on the other, a proposal for settling the land
question by giving to the existing tenants a permanent tenure, at a
fixed rent, to be assessed after due inquiry by the State.

The pamphlet was not popular, except in Ireland, as I did not expect it
to be. But, if no measure short of that which I proposed would do full
justice to Ireland, or afford a prospect of conciliating the mass of the
Irish people, the duty of proposing it was imperative; while if, on the
other hand, there was any intermediate course which had a claim to a
trial, I well knew that to propose something which would be called
extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more
moderate experiment. It is most improbable that a measure conceding so
much to the tenantry as Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Bill, would have been
proposed by a Government, or could have been carried through Parliament,
unless the British public had been led to perceive that a case might be
made, and perhaps a party formed, for a measure considerably stronger.
It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and
middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce
them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look
upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and
violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther,
upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it
proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any
scheme for Irish Land reform short of mine, came to be thought moderate
by comparison. I may observe that the attacks made on my plan usually
gave a very incorrect idea of its nature. It was usually discussed as a
proposal that the State should buy up the land and become the universal
landlord; though in fact it only offered to each individual landlord
this as an alternative, if he liked better to sell his estate than to
retain it on the new conditions; and I fully anticipated that most
landlords would continue to prefer the position of landowners to that of
Government annuitants, and would retain their existing relation to their
tenants, often on more indulgent terms than the full rents on which the
compensation to be given them by Government would have been based. This
and many other explanations I gave in a speech on Ireland, in the debate
on Mr. Maguire's Resolution, early in the session of 1868. A corrected
report of this speech, together with my speech on Mr. Fortescue's Bill,
has been published (not by me, but with my permission) in Ireland.

Another public duty, of a most serious kind, it was my lot to have to
perform, both in and out of Parliament, during these years. A
disturbance in Jamaica, provoked in the first instance by injustice, and
exaggerated by rage and panic into a premeditated rebellion, had been
the motive or excuse for taking hundreds of innocent lives by military
violence, or by sentence of what were called courts-martial, continuing
for weeks after the brief disturbance had been put down; with many added
atrocities of destruction of property logging women as well as men, and
a general display of the brutal recklessness which usually prevails when
fire and sword are let loose. The perpetrators of those deeds were
defended and applauded in England by the same kind of people who had so
long upheld negro slavery: and it seemed at first as if the British
nation was about to incur the disgrace of letting pass without even a
protest, excesses of authority as revolting as any of those for which,
when perpetrated by the instruments of other governments, Englishmen can
hardly find terms sufficient to express their abhorrence. After a short
time, however, an indignant feeling was roused: a voluntary Association
formed itself under the name of the Jamaica Committee, to take such
deliberation and action as the case might admit of, and adhesions poured
in from all parts of the country. I was abroad at the time, but I sent
in my name to the Committee as soon as I heard of it, and took an active
part in the proceedings from the time of my return. There was much more
at stake than only justice to the negroes, imperative as was that
consideration. The question was, whether the British dependencies, and
eventually, perhaps, Great Britain itself, were to be under the
government of law, or of military licence; whether the lives and persons
of British subjects are at the mercy of any two or three officers
however raw and inexperienced or reckless and brutal, whom a
panic-stricken Governor, or other functionary, may assume the right to
constitute into a so-called court-martial. This question could only be
decided by an appeal to the tribunals; and such an appeal the Committee
determined to make. Their determination led to a change in the
chairmanship of the Committee, as the chairman, Mr. Charles Buxton,
thought it not unjust indeed, but inexpedient, to prosecute Governor
Eyre and his principal subordinates in a criminal court: but a
numerously attended general meeting of the Association having decided
this point against him, Mr. Buxton withdrew from the Committee, though
continuing to work in the cause, and I was, quite unexpectedly on my own
part, proposed and elected chairman. It became, in consequence, my duty
to represent the Committee in the House of Commons, sometimes by putting
questions to the Government, sometimes as the recipient of questions,
more or less provocative, addressed by individual members to myself; but
especially as speaker in the important debate originated in the session
of 1866, by Mr. Buxton: and the speech I then delivered is that which I
should probably select as the best of my speeches in Parliament.[10] For
more than two years we carried on the combat, trying every avenue
legally open to us, to the Courts of Criminal Justice. A bench of
magistrates in one of the most Tory counties in England dismissed our
case: we were more successful before the magistrates at Bow Street;
which gave an opportunity to the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's
Bench, Sir Alexander Cockburn, for delivering his celebrated charge,
which settled the law of the question in favour of liberty, as far as it
is in the power of a judge's charge to settle it. There, however, our
success ended, for the Old Bailey Grand jury by throwing out our bill
prevented the case from coming to trial. It was clear that to bring
English functionaries to the bar of a criminal court for abuses of power
committed against negroes and mulattoes was not a popular proceeding
with the English middle classes. We had, however, redeemed, so far as
lay in us, the character of our country, by showing that there was at
any rate a body of persons determined to use all the means which the law
afforded to obtain justice for the injured. We had elicited from the
highest criminal judge in the nation an authoritative declaration that
the law was what we maintained it to be; and we had given an emphatic
warning to those who might be tempted to similar guilt hereafter, that,
though they might escape the actual sentence of a criminal tribunal,
they were not safe against being put to some trouble and expense in
order to avoid it. Colonial governors and other persons in authority,
will have a considerable motive to stop short of such extremities in
future.

As a matter of curiosity I kept some specimens of the abusive letters,
almost all of them anonymous, which I received while these proceedings
were going on. They are evidence of the sympathy felt with the
brutalities in Jamaica by the brutal part of the population at home.
They graduated from coarse jokes, verbal and pictorial, up to threats of
assassination.

Among other matters of importance in which I took an active part, but
which excited little interest in the public, two deserve particular
mention. I joined with several other independent Liberals in defeating
an Extradition Bill introduced at the very end of the session of 1866,
and by which, though surrender avowedly for political offences was not
authorized, political refugees, if charged by a foreign Government with
acts which are necessarily incident to all attempts at insurrection,
would have been surrendered to be dealt with by the criminal courts of
the Government against which they had rebelled: thus making the British
Government an accomplice in the vengeance of foreign despotisms. The
defeat of this proposal led to the appointment of a Select Committee (in
which I was included), to examine and report on the whole subject of
Extradition Treaties; and the result was, that in the Extradition Act
which passed through Parliament after I had ceased to be a member,
opportunity is given to any one whose extradition is demanded, of being
heard before an English court of justice to prove that the offence with
which he is charged, is really political. The cause of European freedom
has thus been saved from a serious misfortune, and our own country from
a great iniquity. The other subject to be mentioned is the fight kept up
by a body of advanced Liberals in the session of 1868, on the Bribery
Bill of Mr. Disraeli's Government, in which I took a very active part. I
had taken counsel with several of those who had applied their minds most
carefully to the details of the subject--Mr. W.D. Christie, Serjeant
Pulling, Mr. Chadwick--as well as bestowed much thought of my own, for
the purpose of framing such amendments and additional clauses as might
make the Bill really effective against the numerous modes of corruption,
direct and indirect, which might otherwise, as there was much reason to
fear, be increased instead of diminished by the Reform Act. We also
aimed at engrafting on the Bill, measures for diminishing the
mischievous burden of what are called the legitimate expenses of
elections. Among our many amendments, was that of Mr. Fawcett for making
the returning officer's expenses a charge on the rates, instead of on
the candidates; another was the prohibition of paid canvassers, and the
limitation of paid agents to one for each candidate; a third was the
extension of the precautions and penalties against bribery to municipal
elections, which are well known to be not only a preparatory school for
bribery at parliamentary elections, but an habitual cover for it. The
Conservative Government, however, when once they had carried the leading
provision of their Bill (for which I voted and spoke), the transfer of
the jurisdiction in elections from the House of Commons to the Judges,
made a determined resistance to all other improvements; and after one of
our most important proposals, that of Mr. Fawcett, had actually obtained
a majority, they summoned the strength of their party and threw out the
clause in a subsequent stage. The Liberal party in the House was greatly
dishonoured by the conduct of many of its members in giving no help
whatever to this attempt to secure the necessary conditions of an honest
representation of the people. With their large majority in the House
they could have carried all the amendments, or better ones if they had
better to propose. But it was late in the session; members were eager to
set about their preparations for the impending General Election: and
while some (such as Sir Robert Anstruther) honourably remained at their
post, though rival candidates were already canvassing their constituency,
a much greater number placed their electioneering interests before their
public duty. Many Liberals also looked with indifference on legislation
against bribery, thinking that it merely diverted public interest from
the Ballot, which they considered--very mistakenly as I expect it will
turn out--to be a sufficient, and the only, remedy. From these causes our
fight, though kept up with great vigour for several nights, was wholly
unsuccessful, and the practices which we sought to render more difficult,
prevailed more widely than ever in the first General Election held under
the new electoral law.

In the general debates on Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, my participation
was limited to the one speech already mentioned; but I made the Bill an
occasion for bringing the two great improvements which remain to be made
in Representative Government, formally before the House and the nation.
One of them was Personal, or, as it is called with equal propriety,
Proportional Representation. I brought this under the consideration of
the House, by an expository and argumentative speech on Mr. Hare's plan;
and subsequently I was active in support of the very imperfect
substitute for that plan, which, in a small number of constituencies,
Parliament was induced to adopt. This poor makeshift had scarcely any
recommendation, except that it was a partial recognition of the evil
which it did so little to remedy. As such, however, it was attacked by
the same fallacies, and required to be defended on the same principles,
as a really good measure; and its adoption in a few Parliamentary
elections, as well as the subsequent introduction of what is called the
Cumulative Vote in the elections for the London School Board, have had
the good effect of converting the equal claim of all electors to a
proportional share in the representation, from a subject of merely
speculative discussion, into a question of practical politics, much
sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

This assertion of my opinions on Personal Representation cannot be
credited with any considerable or visible amount of practical result. It
was otherwise with the other motion which I made in the form of an
amendment to the Reform Bill, and which was by far the most important,
perhaps the only really important, public service I performed in the
capacity of a Member of Parliament: a motion to strike out the words
which were understood to limit the electoral franchise to males, and
thereby to admit to the suffrage all women who, as householders or
otherwise, possessed the qualification required of male electors. For
women not to make their claim to the suffrage, at the time when the
elective franchise was being largely extended, would have been to abjure
the claim altogether; and a movement on the subject was begun in 1866,
when I presented a petition for the suffrage, signed by a considerable
number of distinguished women. But it was as yet uncertain whether the
proposal would obtain more than a few stray votes in the House: and
when, after a debate in which the speaker's on the contrary side were
conspicuous by their feebleness, the votes recorded in favour of the
motion amounted to 73--made up by pairs and tellers to above 80--the
surprise was general, and the encouragement great: the greater, too,
because one of those who voted for the motion was Mr. Bright, a fact
which could only be attributed to the impression made on him by the
debate, as he had previously made no secret of his nonconcurrence in the
proposal. [The time appeared to my daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, to have
come for forming a Society for the extension of the suffrage to women.
The existence of the Society is due to my daughter's initiative; its
constitution was planned entirely by her, and she was the soul of the
movement during its first years, though delicate health and
superabundant occupation made her decline to be a member of the
Executive Committee. Many distinguished members of parliament,
professors, and others, and some of the most eminent women of whom the
country can boast, became members of the Society, a large proportion
either directly or indirectly through my daughter's influence, she
having written the greater number, and all the best, of the letters by
which adhesions was obtained, even when those letters bore my signature.
In two remarkable instances, those of Miss Nightingale and Miss Mary
Carpenter, the reluctance those ladies had at first felt to come
forward, (for it was not on their past difference of opinion) was
overcome by appeals written by my daughter though signed by me.
Associations for the same object were formed in various local centres,
Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, and Glasgow; and others
which have done much valuable work for the cause. All the Societies take
the title of branches of the National Society for Women's Suffrage; but
each has its own governing body, and acts in complete independence of
the others.]

I believe I have mentioned all that is worth remembering of my
proceedings in the House. But their enumeration, even if complete, would
give but an inadequate idea of my occupations during that period, and
especially of the time taken up by correspondence. For many years before
my election to Parliament, I had been continually receiving letters from
strangers, mostly addressed to me as a writer on philosophy, and either
propounding difficulties or communicating thoughts on subjects connected
with logic or political economy. In common, I suppose, with all who are
known as political economists, I was a recipient of all the shallow
theories and absurd proposals by which people are perpetually
endeavouring to show the way to universal wealth and happiness by some
artful reorganization of the currency. When there were signs of
sufficient intelligence in the writers to make it worth while attempting
to put them right, I took the trouble to point out their errors, until
the growth of my correspondence made it necessary to dismiss such
persons with very brief answers. Many, however, of the communications I
received were more worthy of attention than these, and in some,
oversights of detail were pointed out in my writings, which I was thus
enabled to correct. Correspondence of this sort naturally multiplied
with the multiplication of the subjects on which I wrote, especially
those of a metaphysical character. But when I became a member of
Parliament. I began to receive letters on private grievances and on
every imaginable subject that related to any kind of public affairs,
however remote from my knowledge or pursuits. It was not my constituents
in Westminster who laid this burthen on me: they kept with remarkable
fidelity to the understanding on which I had consented to serve. I
received, indeed, now and then an application from some ingenuous youth
to procure for him a small government appointment; but these were few,
and how simple and ignorant the writers were, was shown by the fact that
the applications came in about equally whichever party was in power. My
invariable answer was, that it was contrary to the principles on which I
was elected to ask favours of any Government. But, on the whole, hardly
any part of the country gave me less trouble than my own constituents.
The general mass of correspondence, however, swelled into an oppressive
burthen.

[At this time, and thenceforth, a great proportion of all my letters
(including many which found their way into the newspapers) were not
written by me but by my daughter; at first merely from her willingness
to help in disposing of a mass of letters greater than I could get
through without assistance, but afterwards because I thought the letters
she wrote superior to mine, and more so in proportion to the difficulty
and importance of the occasion. Even those which I wrote myself were
generally much improved by her, as is also the case with all the more
recent of my prepared speeches, of which, and of some of my published
writings, not a few passages, and those the most successful, were hers.]

While I remained in Parliament my work as an author was unavoidably
limited to the recess. During that time I wrote (besides the pamphlet on
Ireland, already mentioned), the Essay on Plato, published in the
_Edinburgh Review_, and reprinted in the third volume of _Dissertations
and Discussions_; and the address which, conformably to custom, I
delivered to the University of St. Andrew's, whose students had done me
the honour of electing me to the office of Rector. In this Discourse I
gave expression to many thoughts and opinions which had been
accumulating in me through life, respecting the various studies which
belong to a liberal education, their uses and influences, and the mode
in which they should be pursued to render their influences most
beneficial. The position taken up, vindicating the high educational
value alike of the old classic and the new scientific studies, on even
stronger grounds than are urged by most of their advocates, and
insisting that it is only the stupid inefficiency of the usual teaching
which makes those studies be regarded as competitors instead of allies,
was, I think, calculated, not only to aid and stimulate the improvement
which has happily commenced in the national institutions for higher
education, but to diffuse juster ideas than we often find, even in
highly educated men, on the conditions of the highest mental
cultivation.

During this period also I commenced (and completed soon after I had left
Parliament) the performance of a duty to philosophy and to the memory of
my father, by preparing and publishing an edition of the _Analysis of
the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, with notes bringing up the doctrines
of that admirable book to the latest improvements in science and in
speculation. This was a joint undertaking: the psychological notes being
furnished in about equal proportions by Mr. Bain and myself, while Mr.
Grote supplied some valuable contributions on points in the history of
philosophy incidentally raised, and Dr. Andrew Findlater supplied the
deficiencies in the book which had been occasioned by the imperfect
philological knowledge of the time when it was written. Having been
originally published at a time when the current of metaphysical
speculation ran in a quite opposite direction to the psychology of
Experience and Association, the _Analysis_ had not obtained the amount
of immediate success which it deserved, though it had made a deep
impression on many individual minds, and had largely contributed,
through those minds, to create that more favourable atmosphere for the
Association Psychology of which we now have the benefit. Admirably
adapted for a class book of the Experience Metaphysics, it only required
to be enriched, and in some cases corrected, by the results of more
recent labours in the same school of thought, to stand, as it now does,
in company with Mr. Bain's treatises, at the head of the systematic
works on Analytic psychology.

In the autumn of 1868 the Parliament which passed the Reform Act was
dissolved, and at the new election for Westminster I was thrown out; not
to my surprise, nor, I believe, to that of my principal supporters,
though in the few days preceding the election they had become more
sanguine than before. That I should not have been elected at all would
not have required any explanation; what excites curiosity is that I
should have been elected the first time, or, having been elected then,
should have been defeated afterwards. But the efforts made to defeat me
were far greater on the second occasion than on the first. For one
thing, the Tory Government was now struggling for existence, and success
in any contest was of more importance to them. Then, too, all persons of
Tory feelings were far more embittered against me individually than on
the previous occasion; many who had at first been either favourable or
indifferent, were vehemently opposed to my re-election. As I had shown
in my political writings that I was aware of the weak points in
democratic opinions, some Conservatives, it seems, had not been without
hopes of finding me an opponent of democracy: as I was able to see the
Conservative side of the question, they presumed that, like them, I
could not see any other side. Yet if they had really read my writings,
they would have known that after giving full weight to all that appeared
to me well grounded in the arguments against democracy, I unhesitatingly
decided in its favour, while recommending that it should be accompanied
by such institutions as were consistent with its principle and
calculated to ward off its inconveniences: one of the chief of these
remedies being Proportional Representation, on which scarcely any of the
Conservatives gave me any support. Some Tory expectations appear to have
been founded on the approbation I had expressed of plural voting, under
certain conditions: and it has been surmised that the suggestion of this
sort made in one of the resolutions which Mr. Disraeli introduced into
the House preparatory to his Reform Bill (a suggestion which meeting
with no favour, he did not press), may have been occasioned by what I
had written on the point: but if so, it was forgotten that I had made it
an express condition that the privilege of a plurality of votes should
be annexed to education, not to property, and even so, had approved of
it only on the supposition of universal suffrage. How utterly
inadmissible such plural voting would be under the suffrage given by the
present Reform Act, is proved, to any who could otherwise doubt it, by
the very small weight which the working classes are found to possess in
elections, even under the law which gives no more votes to any one
elector than to any other.

While I thus was far more obnoxious to the Tory interest, and to many
Conservative Liberals than I had formerly been, the course I pursued in
Parliament had by no means been such as to make Liberals generally at
all enthusiastic in my support. It has already been mentioned, how large
a proportion of my prominent appearances had been on questions on which
I differed from most of the Liberal party, or about which they cared
little, and how few occasions there had been on which the line I took
was such as could lead them to attach any great value to me as an organ
of their opinions. I had moreover done things which had excited, in many
minds, a personal prejudice against me. Many were offended by what they
called the persecution of Mr. Eyre: and still greater offence was taken
at my sending a subscription to the election expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh.
Having refused to be at any expense for my own election, and having had
all its expenses defrayed by others, I felt under a peculiar obligation
to subscribe in my turn where funds were deficient for candidates whose
election was desirable. I accordingly sent subscriptions to nearly all
the working class candidates, and among others to Mr. Bradlaugh. He had
the support of the working classes; having heard him speak, I knew him
to be a man of ability and he had proved that he was the reverse of a
demagogue, by placing himself in strong opposition to the prevailing
opinion of the democratic party on two such important subjects as
Malthusianism and Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who, while
sharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, judged political
questions for themselves, and had courage to assert their individual
convictions against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me,
in Parliament, and I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh's anti-religious
opinions (even though he had been intemperate in the expression of them)
ought to exclude him. In subscribing, however, to his election, I did
what would have been highly imprudent if I had been at liberty to
consider only the interests of my own re-election; and, as might be
expected, the utmost possible use, both fair and unfair, was made of
this act of mine to stir up the electors of Westminster against me. To
these various causes, combined with an unscrupulous use of the usual
pecuniary and other influences on the side of my Tory competitor, while
none were used on my side, it is to be ascribed that I failed at my
second election after having succeeded at the first. No sooner was the
result of the election known than I received three or four invitations
to become a candidate for other constituencies, chiefly counties; but
even if success could have been expected, and this without expense, I
was not disposed to deny myself the relief of returning to private life.
I had no cause to feel humiliated at my rejection by the electors; and
if I had, the feeling would have been far outweighed by the numerous
expressions of regret which I received from all sorts of persons and
places, and in a most marked degree from those members of the liberal
party in Parliament, with whom I had been accustomed to act.

Since that time little has occurred which there is need to commemorate
in this place. I returned to my old pursuits and to the enjoyment of a
country life in the south of Europe, alternating twice a year with a
residence of some weeks or months in the neighbourhood of London. I have
written various articles in periodicals (chiefly in my friend Mr.
Morley's _Fortnightly Review_), have made a small number of speeches on
public occasions, especially at the meetings of the Women's Suffrage
Society, have published the _Subjection of Women_, written some years
before, with some additions [by my daughter and myself,] and have
commenced the preparation of matter for future books, of which it will
be time to speak more particularly if I live to finish them. Here,
therefore, for the present, this memoir may close.



NOTES:

[1]In a subsequent stage of boyhood, when these exercises had ceased
to be compulsory, like most youthful writers I wrote tragedies; under
the inspiration not so much of Shakspeare as of Joanna Baillie, whose
_Constantine Paleologus_ in particular appeared to me one of the most
glorious of human compositions. I still think it one of the best dramas
of the last two centuries.

[2] The continuation of this article in the second number of the
_Review_ was written by me under my father's eye, and (except as
practice in composition, in which respect it was, to me, more useful
than anything else I ever wrote) was of little or no value.

[3] Written about 1861.

[4] The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to her were
far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the subject
would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, that my
strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political,
social, and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and
women, may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far from
being the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest results
of the application of my mind to political subjects, and the strength
with which I held them was, as I believe, more than anything else, the
originating cause of the interest she felt in me. What is true is that,
until I knew her, the opinion was in my mind little more than an
abstract principle. I saw no more reason why women should be held in
legal subjection to other people, than why men should. I was certain
that their interests required fully as much protection as those of men,
and were quite as little likely to obtain it without an equal voice in
making the laws by which they were bound. But that perception of the
vast practical bearings of women's disabilities which found expression
in the book on the _Subjection of Women_ was acquired mainly through her
teaching. But for her rare knowledge of human nature and comprehension
of moral and social influences, though I should doubtless have held my
present opinions, I should have had a very insufficient perception of
the mode in which the consequences of the inferior position of women
intertwine themselves with all the evils of existing society and with
all the difficulties of human improvement. I am indeed painfully
conscious of how much of her best thoughts on the subject I have failed
to reproduce, and how greatly that little treatise falls short of what
it would have been if she had put on paper her entire mind on this
question, or had lived to revise and improve, as she certainly would
have done, my imperfect statement of the case.

[5] The only person from whom I received any direct assistence in the
preparation of the _System of Logic_ was Mr. Bain, since so justly
celebrated for his philosophical writings. He went carefully through the
manuscript before it was sent to the press, and enriched it with a great
number of additional examples and illustrations from science; many of
which, as well as some detached remarks of his own in confirmation of my
logical views, I inserted nearly in his own words.

[6] A few dedicatory lines acknowledging what the book owed to her, were
prefixed to some of the presentation copies of the _Political Economy_
on iets first publication. Her dislike of publicity alone prevented
their insertion in the other copies of the work. During the years which
intervened between the commencement of my married life and the
catastrophe which closed it, the principal occurrences of my outward
existence (unless I count as such a first attack of the family disease,
and a consequent journey of more than six months for the recovery of
health, in Italy, Sicily, and Greece) had reference to my position in
the India House. In 1856 I was promoted to the rank of chief of the
office in which I had served for upwards of thirty-three years. The
appointment, that of Examiner of India Correspondence, was the highest,
next to that of Secretary, in the East India Company's home service,
involving the general superintendence of all the correspondence with the
Indian Governments, except the military, naval, and financial. I held
this office as long as it continued to exist, being a little more than
two years; after which it pleased Parliament, in other words Lord
Palmerston, to put an end to the East india Company as a branch of the
government of India under the Crown, and convert the administration of
that country into a thing to be scrambled for by the second and third
class of English parliamentary politicians. I was the chief manager of
the resistance which the Company made to their own political extinction,
and to the letters and petitions I wrote for them, and the concluding
chapter of my treatise on Representative Government, I must refer for my
opinions on the folly and mischief of this ill-considered change.
Personally I considered myself a gainer by it, as I had given enough of
my life to india, and was not unwilling to retire on the liberal
compensation granted. After the change was consummated, Lord Stanley,
the first Secretary of State for India, made me the honourable offer of
a seat in the Council, and the proposal was subsequently renewed by the
Council itself, on the first occasion of its having to supply a vacancy
in its own body. But the conditions of Indian government under the new
system made me anticipate nothing but useless vexation and waste of
effort from any participation in it: and nothing that has since happened
has had any tendency to make me regret my refusal.

[7] In 1869.

[8]The saying of this true hero, after his capture, that he was worth
more for hanging than any other purpose, reminds one, by its combination
of wit, wisdom, and self-devotion, of Sir Thomas More.

[9] The first was in answer to Mr. Lowe's reply to Mr. Bright on the
Cattle Plague Bill, and was thought at the time to have helped to get
rid of a provision in the Government measure which would have given to
landholders a second indemnity, after they had already been once
indemnified for the loss of some of their cattle by the increased
selling price of the remainder.

[10] Among the most active members of the Committee were Mr. P.A.
Taylor, M.P., always faithful and energetic in every assertion of the
principles of liberty; Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr.
Slack, Mr. Chamerovzow, Mr. Shaen, and Mr. Chesson, the Honorary
Secretary of the Association.