Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/355

Rh "If this be failure, failure is but the second degree of success; the first and highest degree may be yet to come."

The succeeding number appears in April, 1839, and contains the last, and in one view the greatest, of Mill's political series. Liberalism in Parliament is now at its lowest ebb: and only some new and grand expedient can be of any avail. Departing from his old vein of criticism of Whigs and Radicals, he plans the "reorganization of the Reform party" by an inquiry into the origin-and foundations of the two great parties in the state. He inquires who, by position and circumstances, are natural Radicals, and who are natural Tories; who are interested in progress, and who in things as they are. I strongly recommend this article as a piece of admirable political philosophy, and I do not know any reason for his not preserving it, except that it is so closely connected with the passing politics of the time. At all events, it is the farewell to his ten years' political agitation. As this was the year of his second bad illness, I presume the article was written in the end of 1838, in the midst of great suffering.

After six months' interval, the next number appeared October, 1839. It contained no article of Mill's: he had been abroad the first half of the year. The number is otherwise notable for Sterling's article on Carlyle, and Robertson's on Cromwell. In March, 1840, was published the last number under Mill's proprietorship. It opened with his "Coleridge" article.

The Bentham article both stands alone as an appreciation of Bentham's work, and also forms one member of a correlative couple with the disquisition on Coleridge. No one possessed the qualifications of Mill for setting forth Bentham's merits and defects: we wish that he had made still more use of his means in depicting Bentham's personality. But in the mode of dealing with the defective side of Bentham, he undoubtedly gave offense to the Benthamite circle. He admits (in the "Autobiography") that it was too soon to bring forward the faults of Bentham; and, looking at the article now, we may be allowed to say that a little more explanation is wanted on various points; as, for example, Bentham's deficiency in imagination, his omission of high motives in his springs of action, and his aversion to the phrases "good and bad taste." It is apparent that Mill is criticising him from a point of view not taken by any other of Bentham's friends and disciples. When we turn to the "Coleridge" article, we find the more explicit statement of his position, as between the great rival schools. There we have a labored introduction to show the necessity of studying the conflicting modes of thought on all questions; we are told that, as partisans of any one side, we see only part of the truth, and must learn from our opponents the other part. Following out this text, Mill endeavors to assign the truth that there is in Conservatism, when purified by Coleridge and raised to a coherent system, or a philosophy. It is needless to advert to the detailed illustration, but the conclusion