Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/331

Rh MILL 313 most closely reasoned and characteristic works, the Liberty, the Utilitarianism, the Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, and the Subjection of Women, besides his posthumously published essays on Nature and on the Utility of Religion, were thought out and partly written in collaboration with his wife. In 1856 he became head of the examiner s office in the India House, and for two years, till the dissolution of the Company in 1858, his official work, never a light task, kept him fully occupied. It fell to him as head of the office to write the defence of the Company s government of India when the transfer of its powers was proposed. Mill was earnestly opposed to the transfer, and the documents in which he substantiated the proud boast for the Company that &quot; few governments even under far more favourable circumstances have attempted so much for the good of their subjects or carried so many of their attempts to a beneficial issue,&quot; and exposed the defects of the proposed new government, are models of trenchant and dignified pleading. His prediction that the Indian Secretary s council would serve as a screen and not as a check was in the opinion of many amply verified a few years ago. On the dissolution of the Company, Mill was offered a seat in the new council, but declined. His retirement from official work was followed almost immediately by his wife s death, and from this calamity he sought relief in active literary occupation. Politics, sociology, and psycho logy divided as before the energies of his active mind. One of his first cares was to publish with a touching dedication to his wife the treatise on Liberty, which they had wrought out together, principle by principle and sentence by sentence. This pious duty discharged, he turned to current politics, and published, in view of the impending Reform Bill, a pamphlet on parliamentary reform. The chief feature in this was an idea concerning which he and Mrs Mill often deliberated, the necessity of providing checks against uneducated democracy. His fanciful suggestion of a plurality of votes, proportioned to the elector s degree of education, was avowedly put forward only as an ideal ; he admitted that no authentic test of education could for the present be found. An anonymous Conservative caught at the scheme in another pamphlet, proposing income as a test. Soon after, Mill supported in Eraser s, still with the same object, Mr Hare s scheme for the representation of minorities. In the autumn of the same year he turned to psychology, reviewing Mr Bain s works in the Edinburgh Review. In this way the indefatigable thinker worked on, throw ing himself by turns into the various lines along which he saw prospects of fulfilling his mission as an apostle of pro gress. In his Representative Government (1 860) he systema tized opinions already put forward in many casual articles and essays. His Utilitarianism (published in Fraser s in 1861) was a closely reasoned systematic attempt to answer objections to his ethical theory and remove misconceptions of it. As the inventor of the term Utilitarianism, he was entitled to define its meaning ; and he was especially anxious to make it clear that he included in utility the pleasures of the imagination and the gratification of the higher emotions, and to show how powerfully the good of mankind as a motive appealed to the imagination. His treatise on the Subjection of Women, in its ruling intention a protest against the abuse of power, was Mill s next work, though it was not published till 1869. His Examination of Hamilton s Philosophy, published in 1865, had engaged a large share of his time for three years before. When it first occurred to him that a criticism of the chief of our native intuitional psychologists would cause a wholesome stir and serve enlightenment, he thought only of an article such as he wrote about Austin s Jurisprudence or Grote s Plato. But he soon found that the subject required a book, and a book appeared which certainly answered the purpose of rousing the sleepy realms of philosophy and theology. While mainly occupied in those years with philosophical studies, Mill did not remit his interest in current politics. He made his voice heard on the contest in America in 1862, taking the side of the North then very unpopular in London and using all his strength to explain what has since been universally recognized as the issue really at stake in the struggle, the abolition of slavery. It was characteristic of the closeness with which he watched current events, and of his zeal in the cause of &quot; lucidity,&quot; that, when the Reader, an organ of science and unpartisan opinion, fell into difficulties in 1865, Mill joined with some distinguished men of science and letters in an effort to keep it afloat. He supplied part of the money for carrying it on, contributed several articles, and assisted the editor, Mr Fraser Rae, with his advice. The effort was vain, though such men as Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Cairnes, Mark Pattison, F. Harrison, Sir Frederick Pollock, and Lockyer were among the contributors. In 1865 a new channel was opened to his influence. He was requested to stand for Westminster, and agreed on conditions strictly in accordance with his principles of parliamentary election. He would not canvass, nor pay agents to canvass for him, nor would he engage to attend to the local business of the constituency. He was with difficulty persuaded even to address a meeting of the electors. The story of this remarkable election has been told by Mr James Beal, one of the most active supporters of Mill s candidature. In parliament he adhered to his lifelong principle of doing only work that needed to be done, and that nobody else seemed equally able or willing to do. It may have been a consciousness of this fact which prompted a remark made by the Speaker that Mill s presence in parliament elevated the tone of debate. The impression made by him in parliament is in some danger of being forgotten, because he was not instrumental in carrying any great measure that might serve as an abiding memorial. But, although in one of his first speeches against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland he was very unfavourably received, Mill thoroughly succeeded in what is called &quot; gaining the ear of the House.&quot; The only speech made by him during his three years in parliament that was listened to with impatience was, curiously enough, his speech in favour of counteracting democracy by providing for the representation of minorities. His attack on the conduct of General Eyre in Jamaica was listened to, but with repugnance by the majority, although his action in this matter in and out of parliament was far from being ineffectual. He took an active part in the debates on Mr Disraeli s Reform Bill, and helped to extort from the Government several useful modifications of the Bill for the Prevention of Corrupt Practices. The reform of land tenure in Ireland, the representation of women, the reduction of the national debt, the reform of London government, the abrogation of the declaration of Paris, were among the topics on which he spoke with marked effect. He took occasion more than once to enforce what he had often advocated in writing, England s duty to intervene in Continental politics in support of the cause of freedom. As a speaker Mill was somewhat hesitating, pausing occasionally as if to recover the thread of his argument, but he showed great readiness in extem poraneous debate. Viewed as a candidate for ministerial office, he might be regarded as a failure in parliament, but there can be no doubt that his career there greatly extended his influence. Mill s subscription to the election expenses of Mr Bradlaugh, and his attitude towards Governor Eyre, are XVI. 4-0