The Online Library of Liberty

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• Preface
• Introduction
• Abbreviations and Short Titles
• The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812–1837
• 1812–1830
• 1831
• 1832
• 1833
• 1834
• 1835
• 1836
• 1837

1834

95.

TO THOMAS CARLYLE¹

• Kensington

12^th January 1834.

My dear Carlyle

Your little note dated the 24^th was evidently written before you received my letter written I forget when, but which I fear lost the first week’s post. I am therefore still expecting an answer to that letter, but shall not wait for it, mindful that I still owe you an answer to your last long letter,² —and a fuller answer too than can be given in any moderate space. I feel that letter a kind of call upon me to a more complete unfolding to you of my opinions and ways of thinking than I have ever yet made; which however cannot be all accomplished at once, but must be gradual. In the very fact that there has not been that full explanation, and that I feel moved to it now, you may see that there has taken place a great change in my character and one of which you will wholly approve—a change, not from any kind of insincerity, but to a far higher kind of sincerity than belonged to me before. This change has been progressive, and had barely begun to take place when you were in London two years ago. I was then, and had been for some years, in an intermediate state—a state of reaction from logical-utilitarian narrowness of the very narrowest kind, out of which after much unhappiness and inward struggling I had emerged, and had taken temporary refuge in its extreme opposite. My first state had been one of intense philosophic intolerance; not arising from the scornfulness of the heart but from the onesidedness of the understanding: seeing nothing myself but the distorted image, thrown back from many most oblique and twisted reflectors, of one side only of the truth. I felt towards all who saw any other side, not indeed a feeling of disdain, for that never was in my character but the very utmost excess of intellectual vilipending. At that time I was thought to outrer the doctrines of utilitarianism, even by those who now consider me a lost sheep who has strayed from the flock and been laid hold of by the wolves. That was not wonderful; because even in the narrowest of my then associates, they being older men, their ratiocinative and nicely concatenated dreams were at some point or other, & in some degree or other, corrected and limited by their experience of actual realities, while I, a school-boy fresh from the logic-school, had never conversed with a reality; never seen one; knew not what manner of thing it was; had only spun, first other people’s & then my own deductions from assumed premisses. Now when I had got out of this state, and saw that my premisses were mere generalizations of one of the innumerable aspects of Reality, & that far from being the most important one; and when I had tried to go all round every object which I surveyed, and to place myself at all points of view, so to have the best chance of seeing all sides; I think it is scarcely surprising that for a time I became catholic and tolerant in an extreme degree, & thought one-sidedness almost the one great evil in human affairs, seeing it was the evil which had been the bane of my own teachers, & was also that of those who were warring against my teachers. I never indeed was tolerant of aught but earnest Belief; but I saw, or seemed to see, so much of good & of truth in the positive part of the most opposite opinions & practices, could they but be divested of their exclusive pretensions, that I scarcely felt myself called upon to deny anything but Denial itself. I never made strongly prominent my differences with any sincere, truth-loving person; but held communion with him through our points of agreement, endeavoured in the first place to appropriate to myself whatever was positive in him, & if he gave me any encouragement, brought before him also whatever of positive might be in me, which he till then had not. A character most unlike yours; of a quite lower kind, & which if I had not outgrown, & speedily too, there could have been little worth in me.—Do you remember a paper I wrote in an early number of Tait,³ reviewing a book by a Mr. Lewis (a man of considerable worth, of whom I shall have something more to say yet). That paper paints exactly the state of my mind & feelings at that time. It was the truest paper I had ever written, for it was the most completely an outgrowth of my own mind & character: not that what is there taught, was the best I even then had to teach; nor perhaps did I even think it so; but it contained what was uppermost in me at that time; and differed from most else that I knew in having emanated from me, not, with more or less perfect assimilation, merely worked itself into me.—Now from this my intellectual history, in relating which I have faith that I have not presumed too much upon your interest in me, you will easily see why it is that we two have so rarely canvassed together, or even mentioned to each other our differences. I never or rarely felt myself called upon to come into collision with any one, except those to whom I felt myself altogether superior, & with whom if I had any intellectual communion it was not for the sake of learning but of teaching. I have not, till lately, and very gradually, found out that this is not honest; that although I have not positively, I have negatively, done much to give to you and to others, a false opinion of me: though the deliberation with which you form your opinions, always waiting for sufficient grounds, has I think protected you from forming an actually false opinion of me, & I have only to accuse myself of not having afforded you sufficient means of forming the true. Whether if you knew me thoroughly I should stand higher, or lower, either in your esteem or in your affection, I know not; in some things you seem to think me further from you than I am, in others perhaps I am further from you than you know. On the whole I think if all were told I should stand lower; but there cannot fail, any way, to be much which we shall mutually not only respect but greatly prize in each other; and after all, this, as you & I both know, is altogether of secondary importance; the first being, that we, and all persons and all things, should be seen truly—and as they are.

Our differences are indeed of the first importance, and to you must appear of infinite importance; though for reasons which you will feel the force of, they do not, in my feeling, throw me to so great a distance from you as they perhaps will in yours. The first and principal of these differences is, that I have only, what appears to you much the same thing as, or even worse than, no God at all; namely, a merely probable God. By probable I do not mean as you sometimes do, in the sense of the Jesuits, “that which has weighty authorities in its favour”. I mean that the existence of a Creator is not to me a matter of faith, or of intuition; & as a proposition to be proved by evidence, it is but a hypothesis, the proofs of which as you I know agree with me, do not amount to absolute certainty. As this is my condition in spite of the strongest wish to believe, I fear it is hopeless; the unspeakable good it would be to me to have a faith like yours, I mean as firm as yours, on that, to you, fundamental point, I am as strongly conscious of when life is a happiness to me, as when it is, what it has been for long periods now past by, a burthen. But I know that neither you nor any one else can be of any use to me in this, & I content myself with doing no ill, by never propagating my uncertainties. The reason why I think I shall never alter on this matter is, that none of the ordinary difficulties as they are called, as the origin of evil, & such like, are any serious obstacles to me; it is not that the logical understanding, invading the province of another faculty, will not let that other higher faculty do its office; there is wanting something positive in me, which exists in others; whether that something be, as sceptics say, an acquired association, or as you say, a natural faculty. So you see I am nearly as proper an object of your pity as Cavaignac; nevertheless I do not feel myself so, having, as I have, other supports, which the want of that one cannot take away. With respect to the immortality of the soul I see no reason to believe that it perishes; nor sufficient ground for complete assurance that it survives; but if it does, there is every reason to think that it continues in another state such as it has made itself here, & no further affected by the change than it would be by any equally great event during its sojourn on earth, were such possible. Consequently in all we do here we are working for our “hereafter” as well as our “now.”—Now, were you aware that I was in such a state of uncertainty on these main points? I am almost sure that you were not much mistaken in the matter, but yet were not quite certain that you knew.

Another of our differences is, that I am still, & am likely to remain, a utilitarian; though not one of “the people called utilitarians”; indeed, having scarcely one of my secondary premisses in common with them; nor a utilitarian at all, unless in quite another sense from what perhaps any one except myself understands by the word. It would take a whole letter to make it quite clear to you what I mean; & I feel perfectly that I have stated the difference between us in a manner & in terms which give no just idea of what it really is, & that every explanation I shall hereafter make will show that difference to be less than the words I have used seem to import. One of the explanations I have to give, I partly indicate by saying, as I do most fully, that I entirely recognise with you the “infinite nature of Duty”.⁴ Yet by this too, if unexplained, I should convey an idea of as much greater an agreement with you than the truth warrants, as I do in the other case of a less agreement. This also must wait till another time for a fuller developement. You will see, partly, with what an immense number & variety of explanations my utilitarianism must be taken, & that those explanations affect its essence, not merely its accidental forms, when I tell you that on the very point on which you express your belief so kindly & with so much ménagement and appeal to my future self, & promise not to be angry if I differ from you “even with vehemence”, I agree & have long agreed with you, even in the most decided and vehement manner. I have never, at least since I had any convictions of my own, belonged to the benevolentiary, soup-kitchen school. Though I hold the good of the species (or rather of its several units) to be the ultimate end, (which is the alpha & omega of my utilitarianism) I believe with the fullest Belief that this end can in no other way be forwarded but by the means you speak of, namely by each taking for his exclusive aim the development of what is best in himself.⁵ I qualify or explain this doctrine no otherwise than as you yourself do, since you hold that every human creature has an appointed task to perform which task he is to know & find out for himself; this can only be by discovering in what manner such faculties as he possesses or can acquire may produce most good in the world: meaning by the world a larger or a smaller part of it as may happen. Thus you think it a part of your duty, of your work, to address yourself, through the press, to the “species” at large. Further than that I do not go; perhaps even less far. And when once I have written down my Belief & sent it forth in such manner as happens or seems to be the most effectual within my reach, I harass myself as little as you do with any thought about the consequences; being like yourself perfectly satisfied that what I have done, if done in the spirit of my own creed, will “prove in reality all & the utmost that I was capable of doing” for mankind.

And now do not “take it ill” if I say how much it surprised me that you should think it necessary to say you would not “take it ill” if I differed from you. I never for an instant suspected that you would take ill any difference of opinion while you continue fully assured that the dissentient is sincere, earnest, & truth-loving: and you never allow me to be under a moment’s fear that you are unassured of that in my case. Grieved you might be at what you might deem my errors, but that feeling you could not mean to disavow; nor would it be any pleasure to me, but the contrary, if you could.—In your recent letters you have several times expressed surprise at opinions & feelings of mine which you did not expect, & which you have said proved to you how little you yet know me; & which in truth did shew, how small a part of my character I had yet shewn to you; so much smaller a part than I was aware of: truly I begin to think that instead of being as I once thought I was, the most self-conscious person living, I am much less self-conscious now, (whatever I was once) than almost anybody. But what most shews how little I had afforded you an insight into, is that the fact of my having recently read the New Testament, & what I wrote to you of the impressions it had made upon me,⁶ should have formed as it seems to have done, an era in your opinion & feeling concerning me. In my own history it is no era; it has made no new impression, only strengthened the best of the old: I have for years had the very same idea of Christ, & the same unbounded reverence for him as now; it was because of this reverence that I sought a more perfect acquaintance with the records of his life, that indeed gave new life to the reverence, which in any case was becoming or was closely allied with all that was becoming a living principle in my character.

Here is a very long letter; yet how little it says of all that is to be said! However you see that you are likely to know much more of me hereafter than you have known hitherto. I must expend this remaining space on matters of fact. The two volumes on the collier, together with Henault⁷ , came from Adolphe d’Eichthal & went off immediately, I hope in time to go by Fraser’s last parcel. I wonder at your not having received the other books. The Examiner subscribers amount now to 80 of the required 100, & others are known to be coming.—The review proceeds hopefully, but assurance is needed of a greater number of acceptable writers. The paper on the Repository was mine, also that in last Examiner on the new number,⁸ & I have recommenced my French articles. The paper on Miss Martineau⁹ was really a paper on Impressment. D’Eichthal says you will find much on the collier in the history by the Abbé Montgaillard,¹⁰ and in the Mémoires secrets de Bachaumont:¹¹ this last person wrote down the doings & talkings of every successive day. The 2 vols I have sent, contain the mémoires of the different parties in the cause. How find you the Goesman Memoires?¹² Make my kind remembrances to Mrs Carlyle and believe me Faithfully yours

J. S. Mill.

96.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

• Kensington,

17th January, [1834]²

My dear Sir,

Your letter gave me the pleasure your letters always do, and that is a constantly increasing pleasure, for every fresh communication discloses new points of agreement and sympathy. Whoever else may have difficulty in co-operating, we two shall find it easy; for wherever we turn our minds separately to the same subject, we seem always to arrive at the same, or at the lowest, perfectly harmonious conclusions. . . . About the Review—though I felt almost sure that you would approve of it, and enter into it with the warmth which I wish were as characteristic of all our friends as of you, it is no less a satisfaction to me to find that I was not mistaken. The project advances, and if we had a sufficient list of good writers on whom we could rely so as to be independent of chance contributions, we could start almost immediately; but, unhappily, “the harvest is great, and the labourers are few”—there are scarcely any first-rate minds forming—indè origo mali—we want such an organ quite as much to train up public instructors, to erect a Normal School of Literature as for any temporary or party purposes. Though I do not say so to any one whose zeal I am afraid of damping, I do not think we shall be ready before the 1st of January next year. We can do little till Parliament meets, and our friends come to town; and our arrangements will not be made in time to publish the first number before the end of the session, which is so bad a time for a new literary undertaking that it will be better to postpone, and employ the delay in accumulating a stock of good articles to start with. Meantime, we shall increase our corps, and shall ascertain the result of several experiments, especially Tait’s reduction of price (Roebuck, who has just come from Bath, says the reduction will tenfold the sale in that city, but then Tait’s magazine means Roebuck’s magazine, at Bath, where his popularity is boundless. I say boundless, because he is able to get over everything though constantly meeting with rubs. Two public meetings have been necessary to obliterate the impression produced by his having, in Tait, termed Watts’ hymns a “wretched farrago”).³ About an editor—the fittest who has presented himself, and also the least objected to hitherto, is Mr. Fox, whom you know probably most as a writer in The Westminster Review, and leader of the Political Union in London. His principles, opinions, talents, and attainments, render him, I think, eminently fit; the objection is his being a Unitarian minister, and that objection is only as to the appearance, not the fact, as you well know if you ever read The Monthly Repository, of which he is editor and proprietor, and has divested it of its sectarian character so completely as to have lost the support of almost all the Unitarians. His religion, of the most unobtrusive kind, is what the religion of all denominations would be, if we were in a healthy state—a religion of spirit, not of dogma, and catholic in the best sense. For writers, those we most rely on for regular support are my father, who, if he continues to be satisfied with the conduct of the Review, will, I have no doubt, write frequently; Roebuck, Buller, and myself (the originators of the scheme), Fonblanque, John Wilson, secretary to the Factory Commission, a most valuable man; Fox himself, to whom we have now the pleasure of adding you. Strutt and Hawkins⁴ will write occasionally. Many others, some of them most valuable, have promised assistance, but we cannot count upon them to the same extent. With some of the very best it is on the cards whether they will be able to give us much of their time or none; for instance, Chadwick, the poor Law Commissioner, one of the most remarkable men of our time in the practical art of Government, Dr. Southwood Smith,⁵ and a variety of others. Can you help us to swell the list? Since I have mentioned The Monthly Repository, I will exhort you if it falls in your way to read it, and I should be happy, if it does not, to send you a number now and then as I am anxious both for Mr. Fox’s sake and for its merit, to spread it abroad in every way—it has an uphill fight for success, having lost almost all its old circulation and gained an entirely new one—and it has little or no bibliopolic support. It is highly gratifying to me to find my views on the definition and method of Political Economy⁶ coinciding with those of so competent a judge as yourself—it is by the approbation of such persons as you (and how few they are) that the fate of such speculations must be decided—but I hope for more from you than simple approbation, you who will enter perfectly into the spirit of all I have written so far as it is true, will also be able to add much to it and to suggest all manner of further developments, clearer explanations and apter illustrations, and I most earnestly beg you to do so—as I am ambitious that the essay, even if for that end it should remain unpublished for twenty years, should become classical and of authority; and as I am persuaded that the foundation of the truth is here, I do not despair by the help of the very few whose help is worth having in such a case, of gradually perfecting the execution until it may deserve more than an ephemeral existence. I was prepared for our agreeing in the main, as I think we always shall on questions of philosophic method, because we always have hitherto, and because we have both of us laid the foundation in the study of physics. Though my acquaintance with either mathematical or experimental science is not profound as yours is, but extremely superficial, it is sufficient to have enabled me to lay hold of the methods and appropriate to myself fully as much as any metaphysician has ever done, the logic of physical science—yet I feel great imperfections still in that department, and look forward to soliciting much of your aid not only for little things like this but for a much more elaborate work on Logic which I have made some progress in. I am extremely glad that you are writing for the F.Q.⁷ an article which I have long wished written, and look forward to its perusal with great expectation both of pleasure and of valuable suggestions for the guidance of my own mind. It is a great honour to my MS. that you should wish to quote anything from it in your article; I most readily delegate to you absolute powers over it for that purpose; only the very flattering expressions which you are kind enough to apply to it in your letter induce me to request that if you mention my name (which I leave to your option) the quotation may be left to speak for itself. The passport of your recommendation is given by the fact of its insertion, and the public have seen so much of coteries of men puffing one another into a fictitious reputation that one is anxious to avoid any such appearance—but you do not need that I should say to you these things—though if I were writing of you perhaps I should. My habit and inclination is to simplicity in all things, and I can as little conceive that a man of any dignity of character can feel hurt by praise as by blame—but one is obliged to defer to appearances and avoid vulgarising oneself by being confounded with the herd of those who quack for a reputation. Tait has shown his usual want of delicacy (he has the least nicety of perception of all men I know) in laying praise with a trowel on his own contributors as he does—if I had not been past blushing I should have blushed the other day both for him and those of us whom he bedaubed in a recent number.⁸

Yours ever,

J. S. Mill.

97.

TO WILLIAM TAIT¹

• India House

13^th February
1834

My dear Sir

A few weeks ago I cashed the accompanying draft for our friend Roebuck and I now send it, but am in no hurry for payment.

The first number of your new series is I think better than any of the old—and I like the getting up & the outward & inward appearance of the new much more than of the old.

Is the “English Opium-Eater” the author of the clever gossiping paper on Hannah More?² and is it permitted to ask who he is? & also who is the writer on “the Decline & Fall of the Empire of Fashion”?³

The paper I like least is that on the “Streets of London.”⁴

I shall expect with some anxiety the result of the experiment of lowering the price. Roebuck says that it will increase tenfold the sale at Bath—but Bath is not a fair specimen, for Tait to the Bath people means Roebuck, & all his party who can afford it are sure to buy it—

Ever yours

J. S. Mill.

98.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

Friday [Feb. 14?, 1834]

I send the first of the notes² —I have two short ones besides, which I do not send yet, because something may occur in the remaining days of the month to change them.

You will tell me when I must close the series & send them to press?

On looking again at those two articles in the last M. R. I wonder how I could ever have said what I did say to their disadvantage—but I suppose first impressions, in a question of manner, are most likely to be right.

Thibaudeau³ is so dilatory that I fear I shall scarcely have my French paper for this month.

I like the Coriolanus⁴ better on a second reference to it.

I hope we shall meet oftener—we four or rather five⁵ —as we did on Tuesday—I do not see half enough of you—and I do not, half enough, see anybody along with her⁶ —that I think is chiefly what is wanting now—that, and other things like it—

J. S. M.

99.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

Saturday [Feb. 22, 1834]

On second thoughts I do not find so much to say as I expected about tithes—a few lines will do their business.² If it would not be troublesome & expensive to add & subtract when the article is in type, we might see how much it prints to, & then judge. I go on at all events, writing the notes, so if it be found worth while to introduce a half sheet in the manner you mention, there is sure to be matter enough to fill it up.

On the subject of attendance³ I agree with you, & will subjoin the sentence you suggest—respecting libel⁴ I adhere to the full extent of my opinion, and should be glad if you differ from me to make the M.R. the scene of an amicable controversy on the subject. I think “tolerance, freedom, and sincerity” would not be generated; to suppose they would, is to suppose that the revelations in question would ultimately lead to this, that true statements would be believed & false ones disbelieved: now my whole argument rests upon this as its foundation that truth, in any rational sense of the term, cannot in such cases be got at by the public; that true charges cannot be distinguished from false ones by such a tribunal. I should expect one of two results; that the lives of all but the independent in fortune & brave in heart, would be thoroughly artificialized, by becoming one continued struggle to save appearances & escape misinterpretation, or else that freedom would work itself out by what seems to have taken place in America, calumny & scandal carried to such a length that nobody believes anything which appears in print, & as none can escape such imputations, nobody regards them.

J.S.M.

[Postscript probably intended for Eliza Flower]

The three beautiful children⁵ shall have justice done them on the appearance of the third⁶ —The birth of the eldest was announced,⁷ and a good word spoken for the expected family—

February⁸is a beauty—but March⁹ is grand—

I wish I could give him¹⁰ half of my health and take half of some of his other endowments.

J.S.M.

Now I hope you will get this in time—

100.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

[Feb. 24, 1834]

Let it be so by all means. You will have received today from her,² the note on Tithe.³ As the subject will have got on into another stage by next month, this might if there be room & if it is worth while, be added at the end of the N^o. as a separate short article.

I know all about the Saturday scheme, & in any way if it takes effect I hope to have a share in it. How could it give pain, or anything but extreme pleasure to me? but all the pros and cons have been discussed yestereven and she will have told you all that we think about it.

On the truth question she completely agrees with me.⁴

Health and peace and blessing and love to both—and continue to give some love to me as I do to you—

J.S.M.

It was sweet of you to write those last words.⁵

101.

TO THOMAS CARLYLE¹

• Kensington

2d March 1834

My dear Carlyle

This is going to be a strange miscellaneous kind of a letter. I have a long arrear of little things to bring up, and for the present few great ones to say—and am in a mood in which it is impossible for me to say them if I had, for nothing but the most dogged determination not to lose another post could induce me to overcome the extreme aversion which I feel to writing a letter this morning. I must take your two letters as an index of the subjects to be written about. First, to answer your questions as to the projected Periodical. On a rough classification of periodicals into Tory, Whig, & Radical, there are as you truly say, various radical reviews & magazines already; even radical-utilitarian ones; but the radical-utilitarians who promote this new project, do not recognise in any of the existing works what they want; they wish to throw the combined strength of the most thoughtful & fertile-minded of the radicals into one publication, of a more weighty & elaborate character than any magazine can be; allowing itself to treat subjects at greater length than the Repository, or Tait; excluding all things which compromise the radical cause by platitude, or mediocrity, or ignorance, or subservience to any popular delusion; & on the whole representing as favourably as the materials admit, the radical intellect, which certainly is not, & never has been, fairly represented. Tait and the Westminster give an altogether exaggerated notion of its poverty and bareness. The “philosophical radicals” are narrow enough, it is true, though few of them are so narrow as Col. Thompson, the presiding spirit of the Westminster Review. But many of them are far from being empty; and they are generally much offended by the emptiness of the radical publications. I have no doubt that this review if it be started, will be one with which it will be pleasant to be associated; one will have not only more freedom, but far better companionship than in any publication which has yet existed. I have no doubt of its being established, except that which arises from my abundant experience of the incapacity of the radicals to cooperate. Those of them who have money, & station, are mostly impracticably fastidious; men of small objections; men to whom small difficulties appear great ones. They mostly surprised me by taking up this scheme with warmth.—Your papers on Knox, & on Authors,² would both, I think, be extremely suitable to such a work: suitable both in respect to the subjects, & to the light in which you are likely to place them—You have time before you however, for as it will not be possible to start the work until the dead time of the year, we think it better to wait for the beginning of the next. Before the time therefore when it will be necessary to set about one or other of your articles, you will have heard more; I hope, seen: for if you come to London you can judge for yourself.

I greatly commend your project of establishing yourself here; which I have long thought would, as far as all circumstances are concerned of which I could judge, be the best thing you could do. I have thought so, this much more than ever, lately, in proportion as I have seen that you are capable of deriving much pleasure & support from communion with persons who are even a little superior to the herd in any of the elements of spiritual worth. I can now promise you, what I had not ventured to promise a year ago, that you will find many more persons than you expect who will be more or less in sympathy with you, & interesting to you. Any way, you will find many more here than anywhere else. Meantime you may reckon upon my doing all I can to smooth the way to your coming, & when you are come, to your finding all that you do or may seek.

The parcel of books came through Tait, a considerable time before they were announced; & came safe, but, by what misadventure I know not, saturated with whiskey: from the odour of which it will require considerable airing to free them, so thoroughly are they impregnated. You have not told me whether you will have Babbage. I have not much else to send you, except Repositories. I would send Montgaillard & Bachaumont³ if I had them or knew how to obtain them but by ordering them from a bookseller. Of the former I once read the first two volumes, & found much in them which at that time interested me; you will find the title in the review I wrote for the W.R. of Scott’s Napoleon⁴ if you still have the copy I gave you (if you have not I will send you another). Of Bachaumont, a work in innumerable volumes, I know nothing but what I may have read of it in the spurious Memoirs of Louis 18^th,⁵ which they say were almost wholly made up from it, & which were certainly most amusing & most like an authentic picture of what one may suppose to have been going on then. By the way, have you ever read the Memoirs of St Simon?⁶ (the Duc de St Simon in the time of Louis 14^th.) From what I read of it formerly (an abridged or rather mutilated edition) & from all I have heard of it since the complete edition appeared, I should think that no more complete setting before one’s eyes of a set of human creatures, had ever been achieved: the creatures themselves it is true were as little worth it, as any who have really existed can well be. Adolphe has repeated his recommendation of Montgaillard & Bachaumont, which therefore I suppose would be of real & great use to you.

What of work I have been doing lately has been chiefly for the day, until something of a more durable kind ripen itself within me. You will have recognised in the Examiner the resumption of my papers on French politics.⁷ Besides these I have written in the last Repository & mean to continue during the session “notes on the newspapers”⁸ so as to present for once at least a picture of our “statesmen” & of their doings, taken from the point of view of a radical to whom yet radicalism in itself is but a small thing. This was worth doing I think, & I have not been capable of doing much else lately. The Repository is also publishing some notes of mine upon Plato,⁹ mostly written long ago, which I thought might be of some interest & perhaps use, chiefly because they do not speculate and talk about Plato, but shew to the reader Plato himself. Copies of these I will speedily send to you through Simpkin & Marshall.—I am not at all “amazed” at your reading Homer, & should like very much to hear all you will have to say about him.—I entirely agree in what you say about Beaumarchais; of Morellet¹⁰ I have no very accurate recollection.

I have scarcely heard at all from any of my acquaintances (correspondents I cannot call them) at Paris; except a note from Cousin asking me to do some things for him, & the least, or shortest word of salutation from Cavaignac. His preface to “Paris Revolutionnaire”¹¹ impressed me, much as it did you. It was to me, also, a résumé and piecing together of many scattered and fragmentitious notions gathered from his conversation. I have no doubt of the perfect sincerity of the paper; that is, of its containing the genuine views of life and human nature, which have possessed themselves of his convictions, & by which he steers his own course. He is accused however, of being much influenced by vanity, & the love of popularity: I should have thought, without ground, had not the most keen-sighted & penetrating discerner of character I ever knew, drawn from opportunities of observation at least equal to mine, that very inference.—I am not much surprised at not hearing from Carrel, as he is in such a state of persecution & harassing from the French government. This you will have learnt from the Examiner.

Fonblanque’s business goes well. Thanks for your mention of it to Tait; who has subscribed, & promised to speak to others. There is no necessity however for any further exertions, as the money is now all obtained or as good as obtained.

I would say something in acknowledgment of your so kind answer to my letter of “revelations” but I really cannot, just now, say anything of what I would say. I would rather ask of you, to speak more & more freely to me on those subjects & unfold to me more & more your whole mind in regard to them. I will also ask one or two questions more: Is not the distinction between Mysticism, the mysticism which is of Truth, & mere dreaming, or the substitution of imaginations for realities, exactly this, that mysticism may be “translated into logic?” I mean in the only sense in which I ever endeavour so to translate it. You will understand what I mean. Logic proves nothing, yet points out clearly whether and how all things are proved. This being my creed, of course none of my mysticism, if mysticism it be, rests on logic as its basis; yet I require to see how it looks in the logical dialect before I feel sure of it. And if I have any vocation I think it is exactly this, to translate the mysticism of others into the language of Argument. Have not all things two aspects, an Artistic and a Scientific; to the former of which the language of mysticism is the most appropriate, to the latter that of Logic? The mechanical people, whether theorists or men of the world, find the former unintelligible, & despise it. Through the latter one has a chance of forcing them to respect even what they cannot understand—and that once done, they may be made to believe what to many of them must always be in the utmost extent of the term “things unseen.” This is the service I should not despair of assisting to render, & I think it is even more needed now than works of art, because it is their most useful precursor, & one might, almost say, in these days their necessary condition.

Expand to me also more & more the meaning of “Humility” and “Entsagen.”

I had almost forgotten to mention the cost of those books. The Mémoires Adolphe was obliged to pay 24 francs for; if they be not worth that to you, they will (when you have done with them) to me, who am a sort of collector of books on French history. The Hénault cost (I think) 12 francs. There were I believe no others. Adolphe said he knew of no Dictionnaire Néologique, and we tried together to get a map of the “Ile de France” but could not find one. A map of the department of Seine et Oise might be got of course, & I expected that Adolphe would have sent it if he still found it impossible to procure the other. It can be got immediately if it would still be of use.

I am thinking of ordering from Paris a series which is in the course of publication & which from notices in the National I see to be very interesting, “Histoire parlementaire de la revolution française”¹² being by far the completest collection ever made of original documents; including debates in the Clubs, & so forth. There are likewise memoirs concerning & papers of Mirabeau,¹³ published by a relation of his & undoubtedly authentic, but I fear having but little in them. These I shall attempt to borrow & look through before I buy them.

Thiers completely verifies the impression his history makes. Even among French ministers he stands out, conspicuously unprincipled.

Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill.

102.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

• India House,

15th April, 1834.

My dear Sir,

The inclosed statement is all that I have been able to think of that can at all promote your purpose. It is taken from the annual statistical volume now published by the Board of Trade, and prepared by Mr. Porter,² of that department; a most valuable collection, which you ought to have, as it will not only save you hundreds of troublesome references, but also afford much information, the very existence of which you would not otherwise know of. This account, like many others in the volume, was prepared from returns furnished by the Inspector General of Exports and Imports expressly for that work. The table of protections annexed to Sir Henry Parnell’s book³ is classified by himself; at least, he gives a separate list of those which he considers to be inoperative; and I, judging only by conjecture, am unable to correct it in any point. But for your purpose, which does not require minute accuracy, the enclosed paper may perhaps afford sufficient materials. I suppose you have Sir Henry’s book.

I had been a letter in your debt for a most unreasonable time before I received your last, and I know not how to excuse myself for being so, for such a letter as yours was most assuredly deserved better treatment. Every letter I receive from you discovers, I will not say more and more points of agreement between us, for that would be little, but more and more traces of a general conformity in our views and in our methods; and this strikes me more whenever we travel on new ground. For instance, I was wondering whether you were a reader of Coleridge, and should certainly have asked you the question very soon, when you unexpectedly wrote to me about him exactly what I think of him myself—except, by the way, when you say, “as a politician he seems unprincipled.” I think he is not unprincipled but principled—his views on politics are, I have reason to believe, systematic. Did you ever read his little work on Church and State?⁴ If not, read it; if you have, tell me whether you agree with it in the main (I mean the Church part of it) as I do. Few persons have exercised more influence over my thoughts and character than Coleridge has; not much by personal knowledge of him, though I have seen and conversed with him several times, but by his works, and by the fact that several persons with whom I have been very intimate were completely trained in his school. Through them, too, I have had opportunities of reading various unpublished manuscripts of his; and, on the whole, I can trace through what I know of his works, pieced together by what I have otherwise learned of his opinions, a most distinct thread of connection. I consider him the most systematic thinker of our time, without excepting even Bentham, whose edifice is as well bound together, but is constructed on so much simpler a plan, and covers so much less ground. On the whole, there is more food for thought—and the best kind of thought—in Coleridge than in all other contemporary writers; and it is in many respects a great good that almost all the most accomplished and zealous of the rising defenders of the Church of England are pupils of his. They are mischievous only in this, that they will be effectual in keeping up, for a time, what they will not be effectual in shaping to their ideal of what it ought to be.

I am expecting with great anticipations of pleasure, your paper⁵ in the Foreign Quarterly—on a subject I have long wished to see treated as you will treat it—and also your tract on the Corn Law⁶ controversy. You should have a Bread-eaters’ Union to counteract the Bread-taxers’ Union. That Fife Herald⁷ interested me exceedingly; one so seldom has the pleasure of seeing a fallacy torn up by the roots, instead of being merely lopped, or at most levelled with the ground. What an immense superiority the scientific study of any detached point, by which I mean the habit of viewing it in its relations to all the rest of the field of which it forms a part, gives one over the mere dealers in εἰκότα και σημει̑α !⁸ I was forcibly struck with this when, soon after reading your Fife Herald, I read Lord Milton’s address to the landowners on the corn laws⁹ —well meant, but as feeble and shallow as may be expected from those who, as Plato says, “study pottery in the pot itself;”¹⁰ or, as Bacon says, “Naturam rei in ipsâ re perscrutantur.”¹¹ It is a primitive fallacy to imagine that assurance of truth can be had by looking at the subject-matter in the concrete, without that process of analysis which men term abstraction. But that is the wise, practical way; and, for want of disciplined minds, you cannot make people understand that no conclusion obtained in that way ever rises above a more or less strong presumption, requiring to be philosophically verified—brought to the test of analytic investigation.

As for those Essays,¹² not only I do not want them but I beg you to keep them by you a while longer, and to annotate them copiously—they have much need of it. By-the-bye, I believe almost all that I have written in the fourth essay¹³ concerning Interest is erroneous but it may lead you to think on the subject, if you have not already.

The Review scheme has been slumbering temporarily for want of assurance of a sufficient number of writers. O for ten men with your ardour of character, and rectitude of intellect! I am not meaning it as praise, but as the expression of a lamentable fact that I know not any three except you, me, and Mr. Fox, who I feel sure will always be moving and could always move together—and I could name perhaps fifty who have every requisite except some one. There is always some fatal want. Now, by way of a beginning, will you say how much you think you could undertake to write regularly? I mean on the average, not to tie you to a particular time. We want sixteen sheets a quarter or thereabouts—if you will undertake for one sheet in every number, I will do the same, and I will see what others will do—but our poor Radicals! what a miserable figure they make in Parliament!

Yours ever faithfully,

J. S. Mill.

The “Philosophy of Taxation” is an excellent subject, and you will do it ample justice.

I have not yet sent the St. Simonians,¹⁴ but I will send them almost immediately, and some numbers of the Monthly Repository with them.

J.S.M.

103.

TO THOMAS CARLYLE¹

• India House

28^th April 1834.

My dear Carlyle

I received, a week ago, your little note² —it had not escaped me that for an unusual length of time I had not heard from you—but I had ascribed it to the very cause you mention³ —which is also the cause of my not having written for so long a period. The same reason will make this letter an empty one; nor should I write it did I not know that the most intrinsically worthless communication between us two is valuable to both. All that either cares about is so much better spoken than written of. You will find me too “altered & altering”; perhaps more so than you expect; more, too, than will probably be quite intelligible to you, without my opening up to you many incidents in my spiritual history, which, on a principle which I have heard you also profess, I like not to speak fully and freely of, until I myself have a sufficiently clear perception of the meaning and bearing of them. But I too have what for a considerable time was quite suspended in me, the “feeling of growth.” I feel myself much more knowing, more seeing, having a far greater experience, of realities, not abstractions, than ever before; nor do I doubt that this superior knowledge and insight will one day make itself available in the form of greater power, for accomplishing whatever work I may be called to, shall I say also for chusing the work which I may most worthily perform? Every increase of insight carries with it the uncomfortable feeling of being separated more & more widely from almost all other human beings; this one would the less care for, did it not also damp all those feelings which prompt one to exertion through the hope of success, I mean any other success than is constituted by the struggle itself. One feels more & more that one is drifting so far out of the course of other men’s navigation as to be altogether below their horizon; not only they will not go with us, but they cannot see whither we are steering, & they believe if they ever catch a glimpse of us, that we are letting ourselves go blindly whither we may. However this must be, & may be, borne with, when one’s own path is clear—and mine is always becoming clearer.—On every account which I can judge of, I am convinced that you do wisely in coming to London. Nowhere else, at least nowhere in this country are there so many realities to be known & communed with; whereof not a few in the shape of true-hearted men and women, who to the extent of their intellect or experience, believe aright & act according to their belief. There are very few of them in whom there is not wanting something of the very first importance, but still there is in many enough & more than enough of good to give you a stronger interest in them than merely that which you have in all Actualities. Some of these I shall have opportunities of making known to you, & you to them, to the mutual advantage and pleasure of both.—I should send to you various books, if you were not so soon to be here; among others several numbers of the Repository, with writings of mine in them: but a much more remarkable production than anything of mine is a novel which has lately appeared, entituled “Eustace Conway” written by a far superior man,⁴ evidently, to the author of “Arthur Coningsby” but the tone of thinking is much the same. You will read it with great interest I am sure, though you will probably differ from many of the author’s opinions as widely as I do—but you will perhaps agree in a greater number of them. I thought I had told you that the author of Arthur Coningsby is John Sterling, who at that time was in the ferment & effervescence of the process of forming his opinions & his character—now he has become as you say “compacted and adjusted” & like all Coleridge’s disciples has become a sort of conservative & churchman—he is going into orders—but will not keep upon terms with any lie notwithstanding—he is able, which it is happy for him that he is, still to believe Christianity without doing violence to his understanding, and that therefore not being, to his mind, false in the smallest particle, he can & does denounce all which he recognises as false, in the speculation or practice of those among whom he is about to find himself.⁵ I believe there are not a few such persons, & that many of the most earnest and most genially-natured of the youth of the English Universities are gone or going into the clerical profession with similar views. If the Church conformed to their ideal of what it should be, I could say to them, Ite fausto pede; but they will not regenerate it from within so soon as it will be pulled down from without.—I long to hear all you could say about Homer—I hope you will, some time, write & publish it. Mr Austin is better: Buller, poor fellow, is but indifferently in health. Have you yet seen M^rs Austin’s Cousin?⁶ Her preface is the truest & best piece of printed writing I have read for many months. Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill.

104.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

[June 17, 1834]

I have some news for you. Molesworth, without any suggestion or solicitation, has spontaneously offered to establish, at his own expense, the review² we were talking of—making but one condition viz. that substantially it shall be under my direction—he knows that I cannot on account of my position in the India House, be myself the editor, or be ostensibly connected with the review in any way, except as an occasional writer—but he will appoint his editor under the complete understanding that he is to be guided altogether by me.

This is a much more feasible scheme than the former one³ —because there will be but one person to satisfy, and he a man of decided movement principles, docile, and who will certainly be pleased with the thing if it is such as will please us. At the same time we must not allow him to throw away his money—we must see our way clearly to being able to carry it on before we announce it—a failure would be disastrous to the cause.

I am anxious to talk over the matter with you and let us lay our heads together to see what can be done—a great part of the chance of success will depend upon the degree in which you can cooperate.

We can speak of it as Molesworth’s review—none out of our own circle should be told that I have more to do with it that any of the rest of us.

Do think about it—& if you do not come to me in a day or two, we will come to you.

J.S.M.

105.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

[June 26, 1834]

I have sent to P.R.² I think about as much matter as we agreed upon. I have no subjects remaining, except the Beer Bill,³ on which I shall send (today) a single paragraph; the debate on education & crime; & the admission of Dissenters to the Universities:⁴ on these last subjects I shall write something & send it, but if necessary it can stand over to next month, with an announcement to that effect.

I should like to have a proof—

The following are the titles:

Abolition of Patronage in the Church of Scotland

Mr Rawlinson & the man of no religion

Business of the House of Commons

The Tom-foolery at Oxford

Parliamentary Monstrosities

The Ministry.

William Adams will like my notes this time—at least the first five. There is much of “the devil” in them.

How are you? do, one of you, write & let me know.

Our affairs have been gradually getting into a more & more unsatisfactory state—and are now in a state which, a very short time ago, would have made me quite miserab[le]⁵ but now I am altogether in a higher state than I was & better able to conquer evil & to bear it. I will tell you all about it some day—perhaps the first time we meet—but by that time perhaps the atmosphere will be clearer—adieu—

I have not spoken much to you about our affairs lately, as I did while she⁶ was away; partly because I did not so much need to give confidence & ask support when she was with me, partly because I know you disapprove & cannot enter with the present relation between her & me & him.⁷ but a time perhaps is coming when I shall need your kindness more than ever—if so, I know I shall always have it—⁸

106.

TO HARRIET TAYLOR¹

[Summer, 1834?]

I have been made most uncomfortable all day by your dear letter sweet & loving as it was dearest one—because of your having had that pain—& because of my having given you pain. You cannot imagine dearest how very much it grieves me now when even a small thing goes wrong now that thank heaven it does not often happen so, & therefore always happens unexpectedly. As for my saying “do not let us talk of that now” I have not the remotest recollection of my having said so, or what it was that I did not want to talk about—but I am sure that it was something which I considered to be settled & done with long ago, & therefore not worth talking any more about, a reason which you yourself so continually express for not explaining to me or telling me about impressions of yours, uncertainty about the nature of which is tormenting me—& I have latterly learnt sufficient selfsacrifice, sometimes to yield to that feeling, & leave off asking you questions which you tell me it is unpleasant to you to answer. But whatever it was that we were talking about on the common I am sure if I had thought that anything remained to be said about it, much more if I had thought that such a matter as whether we can or cannot be in complete sympathy, had depended on what remained unsaid, I should have been a great deal more anxious to have everything said, than you would have been to say it. O my own love, if you were beginning to say something which you had been thinking of for days or weeks, why did you not tell me so? why did you not make me feel that you were saying what was important to you, & what had not been said or had not been exhausted before? I am writing you know in complete ignorance about what it was—but I am sure I have tormented you enough & long enough by refusing to acquiesce in your seemingly determined resolution that there should be radical differences of some sort in some of our feelings, and now having found, & convinced you, that there are none that need make us unhappy, I have learnt from you to be able to bear that there should be some—consisting chiefly in the want of some feelings in me which you have. But I thought we perfectly knew & understood what those were, & that neither of us saw any good in discussing them further—& when I ask you questions which you do not like to answer, it is only to know what is paining you at the time—not meaning to discuss feelings any more if it is feelings and not facts that are annoying you.

I know darling it is very doubtful if you will get this before I see you—but I cannot help writing it & perhaps I shall feel easier afterwards. at present I feel utterly unnerved & quite unfit for thinking or writing or any business—but I shall get better, & don’t let it make you uncomfortable mine own—o you dear one.

107.

TO WILLIAM JOHNSON FOX¹

Monday
[July 14, 1834]

We had a great deal more discussion after we left you, and we all (three) most decidedly think that since the crisis in the congregation² appears to have been brought on principally by the belief³ that a fact, which would be of the greatest importance in their eyes, though of none at all in yours, is true—it would be very foolish that you should not have the full advantage of its not being true. Even supposing that your separation from the chapel were inevitable in every case, the effect on your future prospects will entirely depend upon that fact being denied or not—& whether you feel it consistent, or not, with your personal dignity to deny it, we are quite convinced that we, and all your friends, ought. While that fact is denied and deniable, all who are otherwise favourably disposed to you will not be afraid to stand by you, & there will be at least a strong diversion in your favour against the tide which will set in against you. But if it were made impossible for any one to defend you except those who were willing to encounter the odium of justifying all which is now alleged against you, I am afraid you will be worse situated than if no defence were made at all, since people will make it a matter of conscience to discountenance what they consider the open profession & vindication of immorality.

This being the case, I should not, if I were in your situation, think myself bound to court attention to the fact that expediency only & not principle was the cause of your not having gone to the full length of what they assert. If they put that very question to you, no doubt you ought to say so—but I think not otherwise. It seems to me quite enough if you appeal to those articles in the Repos^y4 as containing your principles on the subject. You might say that you have acted no otherwise than in consistency with those principles; and if they ask you whether the particular fact is true, you might deny altogether their concern with it or right to enquire into it, but nevertheless profess your willingness voluntarily to give the information sought, by denying the assertion. We all think it of great importance that every public mention of the charge should be accompanied by mention of your denying it—& also that the effect of this denial should not, unless it be absolutely necessary to your integrity, be injured by the public profession of the extent to which your principles go in that one matter. She⁵ went to Walworth yesterday to endeavour to induce Mr Hardy⁶ to move in the matter—I know not yet with what success. But it is of importance that the steps they take should be in a better spirit & taste than if the affair is left to its original promoters it probably would happen.

all quite well
let me hear from you

J.S.M.

108.

TO [ADOLPHE NARCISSE THIBAUDEAU]¹

• London

August 20, 1834.

I have great pleasure in introducing to you M^r Thomas Holcroft, whose father is doubtless known to you by his dramatic writings, if not by his other works, and whose mother was the daughter of Mercier,² your father’s³ colleague in the Convention.

M^r Holcroft is desirous of learning & observing as much as can be learned in a few weeks about French affairs, especially politics, and with your knowledge both of France & England he will learn more from you in two or three conversations than from any one else in as many months.

I am anxious to hear from you about the Globe. Did you receive my letter, and will the proposal suit you?

109.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

• India House,

30th August, 1834.

My dear Sir,

I need not say with how much pleasure I have read your letter, and how gladly I close with your proposal about a series of Political Economy papers for the Review.² I anticipate that you will have a far less formidable idea of the said Review by the time a number or two have appeared; I should think better of our times than I do if I thought it were possible to bring together a corps of writers who would contribute only articles of “a very exalted cast.” If there are one or two such articles in every number my utmost hopes will be satisfied. However, there is no immediate necessity for an article on the state of the science generally, and we need not, therefore, discuss the sufficiency of the modest reason you give for not writing one. The article you offer for the first number is one I have long been desirous to see written, especially since (which is only lately) I became acquainted with Chalmers’s book,³ which I have just finished a very careful perusal of. I have derived many new ideas from it, and it has even suggested an entirely new view of the order in which the truths of the science ought to be arranged. What he understands, he explains very clearly and forcibly. It is unfortunate that he is so profoundly ignorant of some branches of the subject.

About publishing my concluding essay⁴ in the Review; I think with you, but am afraid it would take up too much room. The essay on gluts⁵ must be entirely remodelled; there is much new speculation to be added to it. I think I shall, some time or other, write a Treatise on the whole Science. I am fearful that the Essay on Wages and Profits,⁶ which you say you do not quite understand, is little better than elaborate trifling, and that the doctrine that profits depend on wages, though scientifically correct, does not present the more important aspect of the law of profits, perhaps not the ultimate law at all, and is, therefore, of little use in philosophy. The whole of the speculation on productive and unproductive⁷ I must revise, or rather reconsider ab initio. I am impatient for your remarks on the commercial essay.⁸ There is no hurry about the MSS. nor about the St. Simonian books.

Those scraps on Poetry in the Repository⁹ I believe to be true as far as they go, but that is not far. There is much more ready to be written in the Review on that matter. I am much obliged to you for the little paper you sent me. I do not see any traces of the thoughtlessness or want of information you speak of, nor of presumption, unless you allude to the sarcastic sentence on Bentham. I think I agree in your view of the character of Hamlet, though you appear to go farther or to have gone farther at that time with the Coleridgian and German metaphysics than I do. But it is a great pleasure to meet you as I do in all regions of speculation. I believe, contrary to the vulgar opinion, that there never was a first-rate mind which was not universal, I mean in its studies, reflections, and feelings, although almost everyone must limit himself to a comparatively narrow sphere in his actual contributions to science, or art, or the business of life, for want of time to acquire the requisite practical skill in many different lines of activity.

I have a strong wish, of a higher kind than curiosity, to see anything which you ever write on any subject. I should like particularly to see your paper for The F.Q. as soon as it is in a state in which you would like to let it out of your hands.

Your plan, in The Fife Herald, for the adjustment of the corn laws, is good, under certain conditions, but I doubt it will be with that question as with the Catholic—it will not be carried at all until it be carried out and out.

I will write to the Australian people¹⁰ about your suggestion. They intend, I know, to have agents in various parts of the country; and Scotch labourers, both agriculturists and mechanics, are of the very kind they will most value. They will, I doubt not, grant free passage from the outset.

Brougham is only showing his true character, which is much public spirit and little honesty, with extreme excitability and a tongue ungovernable either by good feeling or discretion.¹¹ It is quite false, I believe, that he drinks, but there is madness in the family; and his flightiness is only the temperament of madness, without the actual disease.¹² Our friend Tait appears to sell well, but his writers are mostly naught. Let me hear from you soon again, and believe me,

Yours ever faithfully,

J. S. Mill.

110.

TO VICTOR COUSIN¹

India House, 4 septembre 1834

Mon cher Monsieur,

Il y a déjà bien longtemps que je me reproche tous les jours de n’avoir pas répondu à votre aimable lettre. Je ne veux pas retarder davantage ma réponse.

Je savais que les séries des Rapports des deux Sociétés n’étaient pas complètes. Ceux qui manquaient aux envois, manquaient aux Sociétés elles-mêmes. J’ai pourtant renouvelé ma demande à l’une et à l’autre Société, en y ajoutant celle de vous envoyer tous les ans le rapport annuel. J’ai reçu de M. Dunn,² secrétaire de la British and Foreign School Society, une réponse des plus promptes, dans laquelle il disait qu’il tâcherait d’obtenir pour vous, de quelque membre de la Société, le Rapport de 1832, et qu’il se préparait de vous écrire incessamment. Le Secrétaire de la National Society, le Révérend J. C. Wigram,³ ne m’a point répondu. Peutêtre serait-il en correspondance avec vous. Si non, une lettre de vous pourrait bien avoir un meilleur résultat. L’adresse est Central national schools, Westminster.

Quant aux Poor Law Reports, M^me Austin n’est nullement coupable de leur non-arrivée. Permettez-moi d’écrire en mauvais français, quand je n’en ai pas de bon. Le fait est que mon ami Chadwick, qui vous envoya les Factory Reports, n’a pas envoyé ceux de l’Enquête des pauvres. Cependant, il m’a promis de vous envoyer incessamment le Rapport général; plus, un volume de rapports choisis des Assistant Commissioner; plus, son propre rapport en entier, dès qu’il en aura des exemplaires. C’est tout ce qui est en son pouvoir, bien qu’il soit nommé secrétaire du Bureau des pauvres, créé par la nouvelle loi.

Nous travaillons toujours à la cause de l’éducation. Cette année, Roebuck a prononcé un nouveau discours encore meilleur que le premier;⁴ et il a obtenu un comité d’enquête, qui a fait du bien et qui annonce un renouvellement d’enquête dans la session prochaine. Le système coërcitif effraie surtout nos sectaires religieux, soit dans le sein de l’Eglise, soit hors d’elle. Le public l’a assez bien accueilli. En attendant, nous aurons, d’ici à la fin de l’année, un commencement d’écoles normales. En fait de fonds, les anciennes dotations suffisent, dès que le gouvernement les reprend d’entre les mains de mandataires infidèles, qui les gaspillent sans pitié. Je ne parle pas des Universités, mais des nombreuses Charity schools, et surtout des fondations, où des écoles devraient être et ne sont pas. Mais nos Universités, plus encores que nos Académies, ont besoin d’une réforme et même d’une réorganisation complète. L’Eglise seule s’y oppose, parce que les établissements d’Oxford et de Cambridge lui appartiennent; et s’ils ne forment pas de chrétiens, ils forment des churchmen.

Malgré le retard que j’ai mis à répondre à votre lettre, j’ose encore vous prier que vous me chargiez de toute autre commission que vous auriez à faire ici.

Veuillez agréer ma plus haute éstime.

J. S. Mill

111.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

London, 14th October, 1834.

Dear Sir,

When I received your first letter on the subject of the office, I happened to be in Buckinghamshire, thirty-five miles from London, taking advantage of the short holiday time which we are allowed at the India House. I wrote immediately to my father. When I received your second note it was Saturday, and, of course, writing again to hurry him would have done no good, the election coming on so soon as Tuesday. I found yesterday on my return that he had actually prepared a letter, which he expected to get Mr. Senior to sign along with him, but was prevented by a sudden attack of illness, from which he has only just recovered; and it would at all events have been too late. So you see it was not from any want of zeal on his part or on mine, but from cross-accidents, that the certificate did not reach you; a circumstance which I should extremely regret if it had any influence on the result of the election. We are both of us very sorry that the Edinburgh Bailies did not do themselves the honour of electing you; but the office after all was no very advantageous one, and one at least equally suitable to you can hardly fail to fall in your way. My father thinks that a professorship in a Scotch university² would suit you; and it may be in his power to be of some aid to you in obtaining one, if it were vacant. He thinks you would promote your success by writing in some work more known and talked of among the people on whom such things depend, than any you write in now; as, for instance, if you were to write something for that new society of the chancellor’s for the diffusion of Political Knowledge.³ For my part I feel certain, notwithstanding my father’s name and Grote’s, and those of several other Radicals,⁴ that the society in question will be thoroughly Whig; but Political Economy, at least, is of no party. I am satisfied that my father will do everything he can to serve you, whenever he can find any opportunity.

Your long letter, received last month, interested me very much. I am glad that so competent a person as you are, has turned his attention to the philosophy of mathematics. I have thought, and even written on the subject, ever since I began to speculate on metaphysics at all; but with very imperfect success. I think, however, that my logical speculations have at length given me a clue to that subject also, and that I shall be able to get to the bottom of it in time; but I shall need all the help I can obtain from you, and from any other of the very few who have any capacity for such enquiries. One thing which I had already meditated, your letter has determined me to do; and that is, as you have found my Political Economy speculations not uninteresting to you, to request that you will allow me to send to you as much as is written of my book on Logic; if book it can be called, which is but the raw material out of which I shall some time or other make a book.⁵ I anticipate the greatest pleasure and advantage from your remarks, whether they are in confirmation or contestation of my own ideas; and I see you are exactly in that stage of your enquiries, on this particular subject, in which what I have done may perhaps help you over some difficulties. You will then, I know, lend a hand to help me over mine.

For the present I am obliged to suspend this, which is my favourite pursuit, in order to stick to the Review. I am writing for it an attack upon Sedgwick’s precious discourse,⁶ which you perhaps know. I am not yet convinced of the possibility of using that Political Economy discourse⁷ for the Review. The first part, on the definition, strikes me as being too technical; and the latter part, on the method of the science, though it may, as you suggest, admit of condensation, would I think, to produce any effect in a popular review, require amplification also, and illustration from the mistakes actually committed by individuals or schools of political economists. This might be done, though it scarcely suits my vocation, which is not for illustration or exemplification; I am always much too dry and abstract. But then I should be stirring up divisions among Political Economists, and giving a handle to the enemies of the science; which such men as Torrens⁸ and Malthus and even Senior are constantly doing, and which I systematically avoid. I am even anxious that in your article on the theory of a “glut of capital,” you should avoid the phrase “glut” or any other which will bring you into seeming collision (though not real) with my father’s and Say’s doctrine respecting a general glut. It may easily be shown that they were right; and yet that Chalmers and Wakefield⁹ are not wrong. However, I need not say these things to you.

You were mistaken in ascribing the article on Bentham’s Deontology¹⁰ to me; it was written by the Rev. James Martineau,¹¹ brother of Harriet Martineau, and a Unitarian minister at Liverpool. He is a clever man, and has consented to be a frequent contributor to our Review. I think him one of the best metaphysicians of the day; as he has shown by a series of articles on Dr. Priestley, which appeared in The Monthly Repository early in 1833,¹² and which if you have not read them, are worth your reading. I agree in your high opinion of much of the article on that unfortunate book, which Bowring has made out of fragments of Bentham;¹³ but I do not agree with him on all points. I dissent particularly from his adoption of what is called the selfish system, and which he has put under the same mantle as the utilitarian doctrine. I once wrote a brief statement of my views respecting Bentham’s philosophy, and Bulwer printed it as an appendix to his England and the English,¹⁴ where, perhaps, you have seen it. It is not, and must not be, known to be mine. You will observe, if it fall in your way, that my views differ from Mr. Martineau’s both in going further and in not going so far. On the whole, the article disappointed me. There are few who can grapple with first principles on any subject. Of all views I have yet seen taken of the utilitarian scheme, I like Austin’s best, in his book on The Province of Jurisprudence;¹⁵ but even that falls very far short of what is wanted.

The few sketchy paragraphs which I added to the notes on the Phaedrus¹⁶ do not give any just notion of my metaphysical creed, which is quite different from that of the Condillac school, and comes nearest to Hartley’s and my father’s. Have you ever read my father’s metaphysical work?¹⁷ If not, let me send you a copy. I think it explains completely the cause of our attaching the ideas of infinity and necessity to space and time. I know not that anyone can analyse or explain succession and co-existence, when reduced to their simplest forms. The theory of association presupposes them both, and divides associations into synchronous and successive. We must, I think, rank them as ultimate laws of our minds, or (what is the same thing in other words) of the phenomena of nature.

Believe me, yours ever faithfully

J. S. Mill.

112.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

• India House,

26th November, 1834.

My dear Sir,

Your letter gave me all the pleasure such a letter from you must give. I feared I had made an unfavourable impression on you merely from consciousness of my own want of tact in expression, by which I continually give notions of my feelings and character different from the true ones.

I like your plan for the article on Chalmers exceedingly. I think, however, that the main point might be put in a more trenchant manner than you put it. . . . If you do not agree with me, write in your own way, which will probably in that case be the right one.

I should wish, if convenient to you, to have the articles on Tithes²first, and as soon as possible, because that is absolutely indispensable for the first number. The other, not being of temporary interest, we may be obliged to postpone till No. 2, in consequence of the superabundance of serious, and, to the many, dull articles. I am obliged myself, having now finished a very long article on that precious “Discourse” of Sedgwick’s,³ to turn to a literary subject,⁴ though out of my proper line, merely to give relief to the number. The article on Sedgwick will, I am sure, interest you. I have said a number of things in it which I have never put into print before, and have represented the “utilitarian theory of morals,” as he calls it, I think for the first time in its true colours. At all events, I have incidentally represented my own mode of looking at ethical questions; having never yet seen in print any statement of principles on the subject to which I could subscribe.

I will send the Logic⁵ very soon. I anticipate the greatest help in it, both from your general powers of thought and from your peculiar acquaintance with the philosophy of algebra, in which I am myself far from profound, but yet have found the little I do know to be of the utmost possible use.

Well, here is the trial come at last,⁶ and has already done more good than the Whigs would have done in a twelvemonth. The movement has advanced several years by this universal demonstration throughout the country, at once of hatred to the Tories, dissatisfaction with the Whigs, and conviction of the necessity not only of reforms, but of further constitutional reforms. We begin to think here that Peel will not accept office and that there will be no Tory ministry. At all events, whoever is in place, the march of Reform is wonderfully accelerated. How nobly and with what wisdom the people have acted. In the meantime our friends, as individuals, have gained vastly in importance and reputation. You have seen how this crisis has called Buller out, and made him what I always knew he was capable of being. If he improves his position, as I think he will, he will now be a very important man in Parliament. Roebuck also has raised himself greatly. We now see the importance of the rallying point which Lord Durham⁷ has afforded. Any banner, placed so high that what is written upon it can be read by everybody, is all-important towards forming a party; but Lord Durham has really acted with consummate skill and in the best possible spirit. Whether he is ever minister or not, we have a great prize in him.

I will not fail to send Malthus’s book⁸ as soon as I can get a copy of it.

Believe me, ever faithfully yours,

J. S. Mill.

113.

TO ADOLPHE NARCISSE THIBAUDEAU¹

• India House

28^th November
1834

My dear Thibaudeau

I have not had a single line from you since you left London: however as I have myself been almost equally remiss, we will consider that account as balanced, & now I will proceed to business.

We are going to start our Review immediately. The first number will appear in two months unless we should think it necessary to postpone it till the public know who is to be minister, & are willing to read something besides newspapers. Now, it is of the utmost importance that we should have the best articles possible on France: & for this purpose we are anxious to keep up a regular communication with you & Carrel, or whichever of you has most leisure. It has occurred to me that the following arrangements might be made. 1. You, or Carrel, of both, might send articles, to be translated here, with liberty for us to make such alterations as are necessary to adapt them to the English public. In your articles, little alteration would probably be necessary, because you know England: in Carrel’s, probably much more. 2^dly. In other cases, some one here might write the articles, from materials furnished by you, the payment being equally divided. To give you an idea of what I mean: We want an article on Henry Bulwer’s France.² Now what I should like would be that you, or if you have not time, Carrel, should take the trouble to read the book attentively, & write down every remark of importance which occurs to you on it, particularly in the way of correcting matters of fact. With such annotations before me, I could venture to review the book, & I am sure that I could make a very good article & one which would serve both countries extremely. But without such help I should not like to attempt it. Now tell me what you think of such an arrangement.

In the second place—if you would not object to send me the National in exchange for the Examiner, I beg you will send it by post, & I will pay the expenses, reduced as they now are.

In the third place, there is now at Paris a Mr. Priaulx,³ a young man of a rich Guernsey family, who is a particular friend of Wilson,⁴ of the Globe, & a clever & interesting person. He is authorized to communicate with you on all subjects relating to the Globe. Wilson has asked me to give Mr Priaulx a letter of introduction to you. Will you be so kind as to consider this an introduction.

On the state of our politics⁵ you will learn as much from the English newspapers as I could tell you. The change of Ministry would have been a great evil if the people had remained quiet; but after the demonstration they have made, I think the effect will be very good. It is very probable that Peel will not chuse to accept office; if he does not, the whole thing is at an end. But if the Tories do come in, it must now be as Reformers, & even greater reformers than the poor Whigs were, otherwise they will be turned out on the very first day of the session. We might have waited whole years for such a unanimous declaration from the whole country in favour of the ballot, triennial parliaments & a further extension of the suffrage, as this has produced. We shall have no more now of the “final measure.”⁶ Be assured that the Movement has gained immensely by all this, & is gaining every day. In fact, it is impossible that anything which produces political excitement should not now do good. I am quite tranquil & easy about public affairs whichever way the present crisis terminates. We shall either have a Tory ministry granting large reforms, & a Whig & Radical opposition demanding larger; or we shall have the Whigs in again, & the two parties competing for the favour of the Radicals, who will evidently be the supreme power in the country; for all the present demonstrations are the work of the radicals; not a Whig stirs a finger even to bring the Whigs into place again.

Will you make my best regards to Carrel. I will write to him soon.—Pray write to me as soon as possible.

Yours ever

J. S. Mill

I send you the Examiners. I suppose it is to you & not to Carrel that they should now be sent.

114.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL¹

• India House

29^th November
1834

My dear d’Eichthal

You would have a right to be greatly offended with me for having made no answer to two such letters as yours. I assure you my silence did not proceed from indifference; I was deeply interested in all the particulars you told me about Greece,² and highly gratified by the intelligence respecting yourself. I can only say that between my occupations, which have been unusually great, & my natural laziness, I always procrastinated, feeling that I ought not to write a short letter, & shrinking from the trouble of writing a long one: but I hope now that we shall correspond regularly. My present letter may be interesting to you, being written while we are in the midst of a political crisis. You have heard by this time of the dismissal of the Whig ministry & the reappointment of the Duke of Wellington, who however waits until Peel returns from Italy to form a Ministry. When this most unexpected event occurred, our friends were in some apprehension at first, because they knew how the lukewarmness, the temporizing, and general imbecility of the Whigs, had cooled the ardour of the people in their support, & it seemed not improbable that the people, thinking the Whigs no better than the Tories, might quietly look on. That was the hope of the Tories themselves. But the result has completely disappointed them. The conduct of the people has been noble. There has been one unanimous shout from the whole nation that they will not have the Tories on any terms; declaring at the same time that the Whigs have not satisfied them, & that they must have a ministry who will not only give them the consequences of the Reform Bill, but further organic reforms; the suffrage extended to all householders, triennial elections, & vote by ballot. Happily, Lord Durham had just before placed himself at the head of the radicals, first at the Edinburgh dinner to Lord Grey,³ by taking up the gauntlet which Brougham had thrown down; next at the dinner given to himself by the Glasgow Reformers,⁴ where he publicly declared for the three constitutional changes which I have just mentioned. His words have gone forth & been reechoed by the whole people, & the Movement party now everywhere look to him. There have been already some addresses to the King to appoint him Minister. Nevertheless, he will not be minister yet, nor perhaps ever: he is too vain, too imperious, & too much the slave of mere temperament. But you need fear nothing for us; the Tories, at first elated, are already crestfallen: the growing opinion is, that Peel, when he sees the state of the country, will not accept office; & if he refuses, the Duke of Wellington will not go on. At all events, if they do take office, they will not survive the first day of the session except by outbidding the Whigs in popular measures. Their own calculations do not give them a majority in the elections if they dissolve parliament at present, & my belief is that they will not. At any rate, be assured that the Movement has advanced exceedingly by these events. You will be glad to hear that Buller & Roebuck have taken a most conspicuous part in this crisis, & have distinguished themselves exceedingly, Buller especially, who has headed the London reformers throughout, even from the first day. Roebuck at that time was out of town. They are sure to be important men in the history of their country before long. Roebuck during the last two sessions has risen in reputation & influence both in & out of Parliament, in a degree which would astonish you. The other radicals have all disappointed us: even Grote, who has been very inactive. Only one other man in the House, Clay, from whom we expected nothing, has distinguished himself on the popular side. I consider it certain that either the Whigs will come in again, with the Tories no longer resisting them in front & the people more than ever pressing them on from behind; or there will be a Tory ministry which will do more for the people than the Whigs have yet done, & a strong popular opposition consisting of the radicals joined by the best of the Whigs.

And now for our personal share in the Movement. One of the radical members, a friend of Buller’s and mine, Sir William Molesworth, is about to establish a review at his private expense, & all our friends are to write in it, as well as all the Movement writers whom we have thought it worth while to ask; not one has refused. It will, unless I am much mistaken, be infinitely the best review ever yet published. You must not look in it for a doctrine générale et unitaire; you know as well as I do that English minds are not yet ripe for that; but whatever vues d’avenir there are in England, will be presented there in full detail. The object is, to rally the instructed radicals round a common standard, & induce the other radicals to follow them. And now I have a request to make. You have it in your power to serve us and our cause & to serve Greece at the same time, by chusing our review as a means of making known here, the present state of Greece. If you would send us, either as a review of Thiersch’s book,⁵ or in the form of an original essay, an article on the recent history, & present state & prospects of Greece, you will do us a great favour. We have no objection to publish the severest strictures on the conduct of our own Government or its functionaries, provided we are not committed to any facts which cannot be substantiated. We have the most perfect reliance on you, & should publish without hesitation any statement which came from you or recommended by you. The same article might be made a means of furthering your views of colonization, by giving publicity to the facilities & advantages the Greek Government affords to settlers, & by shewing the very favorable prospects which the state of Greece holds out to speculations of that kind. Our first number will be published in two months,⁶ but I hope you will be able either to write, or get written for us, a paper which can appear in the second.

I suppose your plans of colonization are by this time in some degree matured. I have no doubt you are right in thinking it desirable that the first emigration should be of capitalists, & of mechanics and artizans. I have no doubt of your success. Numbers of both, are emigrating every year from this country, & if they feel any confidence in the security of person & property in Greece, they will emigrate thither as readily as to any other place. I can suggest no plan, except that of appointing some mercantile house in England the agent of the Greek Government for emigration, & making extensively known through them, the terms on which the Government will grant land, & the advantages of all other kinds which it will hold out. The main point is, to convince our capitalists that they & their property will be safe. This must be done by giving publicity, & repeated, continual publicity to all that the Government has done & goes on doing to restore order. I know no one thing so likely to have that effect, as the article I am proposing to you to write for our review, which we could get quoted & commented upon by the whole of the newspaper press, London & provincial. There are plenty of first-rate mechanics in Scotland who are ready to go, but they must be taken out by capitalists who will ensure them employment when there. The grand thing is to gain the confidence of capitalists. This depends wholly upon the impression you can make concerning the state of the country.

I am most truly glad that the Greek Government has had the good sense to place so important a department of its affairs in the hands of yourself, & of two such men as you describe your colleagues. If they chuse all their other agents as well, I have no fear for the good administration of their country. The absence of a territorial aristocracy, & the deep root which popular municipal institutions seem to have in the country, are immense advantages. Have you seen Urquhart’s book, “Turkey and its Resources”?⁷ If so, is it to be depended upon?—Pray do not imitate my negligence, but write to me soon, & believe me

Ever faithfully & affectionately yours

J. S. Mill.

115.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK¹

• I.H.

10 Dec. 1834

My dear Chadwick

Monsieur Guilbert,² one of the editors of the Bon Sens,³ has come over here to learn all he can of the present condition & prospects of this country and its people. Your assistance would be of great use to him, by indicating documents & letting him know your own general views, & you will much oblige me by doing anything to aid him which your occupations allow.

Ever yours

J. S. Mill

116.

TO FRANCIS PLACE¹

[Dec., 1834?]

Dear Mr Place

M. Guilbert, one of the editors of the French newspaper, “Le Bon Sens,” is desirous of the pleasure of your acquaintance. He is anxious to learn all he can about the state, moral, physical and intellectual of our working people, and nobody can tell him more on the subject than you can.

Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

117.

TO JOHN PRINGLE NICHOL¹

• India House,

18th December, 1834.

My dear Sir,

I am grieved to hear of your narrow escape, and most heartily congratulate you and myself that the danger is past. By all means keep yourself as quiet as possible, and do not even think of any intellectual exertion till you are completely recovered. I once lost a most valued friend, one of the most valued I ever had—though not to be compared with you in intellect—in consequence of a similar disease—the eldest son of Tooke, the political economist.² I believe he brought on the malady almost entirely by intense and unremitting study. I most earnestly entreat you, for the sake of us all, not to expose yourself to a similar danger. It is better that our first number should even appear without your article, than that your health should be exposed to the slightest risk. However, I hope that your health will be firmly re-established before we shall need your article. We do not think of publishing the first number while the crisis³ lasts; and on the whole, if your paper reaches us by the end of January, I have no doubt that it will be in time. When I know whether a still longer delay will be compatible with its appearance in the first number, I will let you know.

On the whole, our prospects grow better and better—those of the Review, I mean, though I might add, those of the nation too. The Review is, and will be, principally deficient in articles on literary subjects. If you have leisure, may I hope that you will give some assistance in that department, as well as in your own peculiar one? I am obliged to do the same; and I find that we can in general trust none except our scientific writers with even our literary subjects. I shall have two in the first number; one on Sedgwick, and one on Tennyson’s Poems⁴ —the best poems, in my estimation, which have appeared since the best days of Coleridge.

Have you seen Peel’s address to the electors of Tamworth?⁵ Was there ever such empty mouthing? Nothing appears clearly in it but that he means to halve the reforms of even the poor Whigs. I hope they will dissolve Parliament. It will be a thousand pities now to lose the triumph which the elections will give us.

Yours in haste,

J. S. Mill.

118.

TO ALBANY FONBLANQUE¹

• Kensington

25 Dec. 1834

My dear Fonblanque

Could you insert the enclosed² in your next paper?

You are fighting the good fight nobly—and you are the only writer (except Buller occasionally in the Globe) who are doing it with any spirit.

I send copies of the Prospectus of the new review. Some notice of it in your paper would be useful—but perhaps not during the present excitement. We shall send round our advertisements presently; & the Prospectus will appear in the January periodicals.

We do not think of publishing our first number till after the crisis:³ & consequently not till after the meeting of Parliament, unless (which is most unlikely) the Tories should be so discouraged by the result of the elections as to retire.

Will you allow me to remind you of our hopes of an article from you for the first number? & to say that I am ready to work for the Examiner to any extent that could be needful while you are about it.

We have promises of support (as writers) from my father, Grote, John Austin, Bailey of Sheffield,⁴ Peacock,⁵ Fox, James Martineau of Liverpool, Nichol of Montrose, Cornewall Lewis, Buller, Roebuck, Wilson,⁶ Strutt, Mrs. Austin—everybody in short whom we thought worth asking, except Bulwer, and he has almost promised. But without you we should be weak in some very important departments—& there would not be sufficient relief to our heaviness & dulness.

Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

[1. ]Addressed: Thos. Carlyle Esq. / Craigenputtoch / Dumfries. Postmarks: EX / 14 JA 14 / 1834; C+ / 14 JA 14 / 1834; and DUMFRIES / 16 JAN 1834. Franked by Charles Buller. MS at NLS. Published, with omissions, in Elliot, I, 87-93. In reply to Carlyle’s of Dec. 17 and 24, 1833, A. Carlyle, pp. 82-90; answered by Carlyle, Jan. 20, 1834, A. Carlyle, pp. 90-96.

[2. ]Of Dec. 17, 1833.

[3. ]See Letter 51, n. 15.

[4. ]From Carlyle’s letter (see A. Carlyle, p. 84); cf. also Sartor Resartus, Bk. II, chap. 9.

[5. ]“The good of the species . . . I leave, with the most perfect trust, to God Almighty, the All-governing who does comprehend it; believing withal . . . that no good thing I can perform, or make myself capable of performing, can be lost to my Brothers, but will prove in reality all and the utmost that I was capable of doing for them.” Carlyle’s letter of Dec. 17, 1833, A. Carlyle, p. 85.

[6. ]In Letter 87.

[7. ]See Letter 91, n. 4 and 5.

[8. ]“The Monthly Repository for December,” Examiner, Dec. 15, 1833, pp. 788-89; “The Monthly Repository for January,” ibid., Jan. 12, 1834, p. 21.

[9. ]See Letter 91, n. 22.

[10. ]Abbé G. H. R. de Montgaillard, Histoire de France . . . (9 vols., Paris, 1827).

[11. ]L. P. de Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets . . . (36 vols., London, 1777-89).

[12. ]Since Carlyle had inquired (Dec. 17, 1833) whether JSM had “his [Beaumarchais’] Mémoires,” probably a reference to the section of that work which deals with L. V. Goezman (1730-1794).

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 661-63. MS not located. The indicated deletion in the letter is by Knight.

[2. ]Knight dates this letter as 1833, but internal evidence, notably the discussion of the projected Review, clearly points to 1834 as the correct year. See also n. 3.

[3. ]Roebuck’s phrase did not specifically refer to Isaac Watts’ hymns but to a work called “The Second Catechism, without Proofs,” published by the Sunday School Union. See “Children’s Books,” Tait’s, IV (Dec., 1833), 285-86.

[4. ]Probably John Heywood Hawkins (1803-1877), MP for Newport, Isle of Wight, 1832-41.

[5. ]Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith (1788-1861), sanitary reformer, active Benthamite and Unitarian.

[6. ]See Letters 86 and 102.

[7. ]No such article seems to have appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review.

[8. ]Probably a reference to this sentence: “We [Tait’s Magazine] had the most gifted political writers of the day with us, and a publisher who, for activity and industry, has not been surpassed . . . ” (Tait’s, IV [Jan., 1834], 494).

[1. ]MS at LSE.

[2. ][Thomas De Quincey], “Mrs. Hannah More,” Tait’s, IV (Dec., 1833), 293-321.

[3. ]Tait’s, NS I (Feb., 1834), 54-59. Author not identified.

[4. ]“London Sights—The Streets,” Tait’s, pp. 38-44.

[1. ]MS at King’s. Excerpt published by Hayek, pp. 92-93, but dated as of “about April 1834.”

[2. ]For his series, “Notes on the Newspapers,” in MR, VIII, March-Sept., 1834. The first four of the notes are dated Feb. 5, 6, 7, and 12. For paging, see MacMinn, Bibliog., p. 38.

[3. ]Comte Adolphe Narcisse Thibaudeau (1795-1856), administrator, friend of Lafayette, Carrel, and Cavaignac, writer of English correspondence signed O. in the National.

[4. ][W. B. Adams], “Coriolanus No Aristocrat,” MR, VIII (Jan.-April, 1834), 41-54, 129-39, 190-202, 292-99.

[5. ]The group probably included Eliza and Sarah Flower, Mrs. Taylor, Fox, and JSM.

[6. ]Mrs. Taylor.

[1. ]Addressed: Rev. W. J. Fox / 1 Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton. Postmarks: T. P / Leadenhall St, and 7 NIGHT 7 / FE. 22 / 1834. MS at King’s. Published in part in Garnett, pp. 153-54.

[2. ]The note on “The Ministerial Resolutions on the Irish Tithe,” dated Feb. 21, did not appear in the March Repository but headed the “Notes on the Newspapers” in the April number (VIII, 233-34).

[3. ]“Attendance in the House,” MR, VIII (March, 1834), 167-69.

[4. ]“Mr. O’Connell’s Bill for the Liberty of the Press,” ibid., pp. 173-76. Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847), the famous Irish politician, had proposed that in cases of private libel, truth should be a justification. JSM saw “insuperable objections” to permitting the details of private conduct to be subjected to judicial investigation whenever any accuser wished. See Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent, p. 274 n.

[5. ]A feature of the Repository for 1834 was the publication each month of a “Song of the Month,” music by Eliza Flower.

[6. ]JSM praised the songs in his notice “Songs of the Months, Nos. I, II, III, IV,” Examiner, April 20, 1834, p. 244.

[7. ]In his notice, “The Monthly Repository for January,” Examiner, Jan. 12, 1834, p. 21.

[8. ]Charles Reece Pemberton’s “St. Valentine’s Day,” MR, VIII (Feb., 1834), 99.

[9. ]Sarah Flower’s “Winds and Clouds,” MR (March, 1834), 203.

[10. ]Evidently Fox.

[1. ]Addressed: Rev. W. J. Fox / 1 Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton. Postmarks: T. P. / Leadenhall St. / 7 NIGHT 7 / FE 24 / 1834, and 8 MORN 8 / FE 25 / 1834. MS at King’s. Published in part in Garnett, p. 154.

[2. ]Mrs. Taylor.

[3. ]See preceding letter, n. 2.

[4. ]Ibid., n. 4.

[5. ]The postscript was probably intended for Eliza Flower.

[1. ]Addressed: Thos Carlyle Esq / Craigenputtoch / Dumfries / N.B. Postmarks: FREE / 3 MR 3 / 1834; O / MR 3 / 1834; and DUMFRIES / 5 MAR 1834. Franked by Chas. Buller. MS at NLS. Published in part in Elliot, I, 93-97. In reply to Carlyle’s of Jan. 20 and Feb. 22, 1834, A. Carlyle, pp. 90-99; answered by Carlyle, April 18, 1834, A. Carlyle, 99-102.

[2. ]Carlyle in his letter of Jan. 20, 1834, suggested that he might write for the proposed review two articles he had long had in mind, an “Essay on Authors” and another on John Knox. The first he seems never to have written, and one on Knox not until 1875. He did deal with Knox, however, in his lecture on “The Hero as Priest” (1840).

[3. ]See Letter 95, n. 10 and 11.

[4. ]“Scott’s Life of Napoleon,” WR, IX (April, 1828), 251-313. See Letters 19 and 22.

[5. ]Mémoires de Louis XVIII, recueillis et mis en ordre par M. le Duc de D*** [or rather, written by E. L. de La Mothe Houdancourt, pseudonym of Baron de La Mothe-Langon] (12 vols., Paris, 1832-33).

[6. ]The complete edition referred to below was: Mémoires complets et authentiques du Duc de Saint-Simon (21 vols., Paris, 1829-30). Prior to this, from 1788 on, various incomplete editions had appeared.

[7. ]The summary of French news in the Examiner each week from Dec. 29, 1833, to Feb. 16, 1834.

[8. ]See Letter 98, n. 2.

[9. ]See Letter 88, n. 5.

[10. ]See Letter 91, n. 10.

[11. ]See ibid., n. 19.

[12. ]P. J. B. Buchez and P. C. Roux, Histoire parlementaire de la révolution française . . . (40 vols., Paris, 1833-38). Carlyle later reviewed the first twenty-three volumes for the LWR, V (April, 1837), 233-47.

[13. ]Mémoires biographiques, littéraires et politiques de Mirabeau, écrits par lui-même, par son père, son oncle et son fils adoptif [ed. by the latter, J. M. N. Lucas de Motigny] (8 vols., Paris, 1834-35). The work was later reviewed unfavourably by Carlyle in LWR, IV (Jan., 1837), 382-439.

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 665-67. MS not located.

[2. ]George R. Porter (1792-1852), statistician.

[3. ]Sir Henry Brooke Parnell, later first Baron Congleton (1776-1842), liberal Whig politician and highly reputed political economist and writer on finance.

The “table of protections” is in App. III of On Financial Reform (3rd ed., London, 1831).

[4. ]See Letter 43, n. 6.

[5. ]“Comparative Mortality of Different Populations,” FQR, XIII (May, 1834), 272-82.

[6. ]Unidentified.

[7. ]Published in the town of Cupar. It was described in Tait’s (NS III [March, 1836], 195) as “a Radical paper of distinguished ability, and extensively circulated among the numerous small towns of Fife, where reading and Radicalism are nearly universal.” Nichol’s contributions have not been identified.

[8. ]“probabilities and signs.”

[9. ]Lord Milton’s “Address to the Landowners of Great Britain on the Corn Laws,” dated Feb., 1831, appeared in various editions, 1832-35.

[10. ]JSM’s own translation of Plato’s Gorgias, 514E (see Four Dialogues of Plato, trans. JSM, ed. Ruth Borchardt [London, 1946]; p. 159), slightly alters the meaning of the passage, which might more literally be translated: “Isn’t it foolish, as the proverb goes, to begin with the big jar when you’re learning the potter’s art?”

[11. ]Adapted from Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum, Aphorism LXX.

[12. ]See Letters 86 and 96.

[13. ]Early draft of “On Profits, and Interest,” published in Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.

[14. ]Perhaps “the earlier of the St. Simonian tracts,” including Comte’s Système de politique positive, the return of which Mill requested on Dec. 21, 1837. See Letter 228.

[1. ]Addressed: Thomas Carlyle Esq. / Craigenputtoch / Dumfries / N.B. Postmarks: L.S / 28 AP 28 / 1834, and DUMFRIES / AP 30 / 1834. MS at NLS. Published, with omissions, in Elliot, I, 97-99.

[2. ]Of April 18, 1834, in A. Carlyle, pp. 99-102.

[3. ]The Carlyles’ impending move to London would make correspondence unnecessary; they arrived early in May and henceforth made their home there.

[4. ]Frederick Denison Maurice.

[5. ]Sterling was ordained deacon in the Anglican Church on June 22, 1834, and for the next eight months served as curate at Herstmonceux. He resigned in Feb., 1835, partly because of ill health, but also because of religious difficulties. Though he continued his study of theological questions for some years, he never resumed clerical duties.

[6. ]Her translation (London, 1834) of Victor Cousin’s Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia, which JSM reviewed favourably in MR, VIII (July, 1834), 502-13.

[1. ]Addressed: Rev. W. J. Fox / 1 Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton. Postmarks: T. P / Leadenhall St; EVEN 4 / JU 17 / 1834. MS at King’s. Published in Garnett, pp. 149-50.

[2. ]The London Review.

[3. ]See Letter 94.

[1. ]Addressed: Rev. W. J. Fox / 1 Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton. Postmarks: 4 / JU 26 / 1834 / EVEN / T P / Leadenhall St, and 2 EVEN 2 / JU 26 / 1834. MS at King’s.

[2. ]Paternoster Row, where the Monthly Repository was printed.

[3. ]The paragraph on “The Beer Bill,” dated June 20, concludes the “Notes on the Newspapers” in MR, VIII (July, 1834), 521-28. All but one (“Mr Rawlinson & the man of no religion”) of the notes listed below appeared in the July issue.

[4. ]Notes on “The Alleged Increase of Crime” and “Debate on the Universities Admission Bill” appeared in the Aug. number, pp. 589-90.

[5. ]Page torn.

[6. ]Mrs. Taylor.

[7. ]John Taylor.

[8. ]This postscript is written at the top of the verso.

[1. ]MS at Yale. No salutation or signature. Published, with minor variations, in Hayek, pp. 93-94, with facsimile of the original. At the end is written, in Mrs. Taylor’s hand: “my own adored one!”

[1. ]Addressed: Rev. W. J. Fox / 1 Stamford Grove / Upper Clapton. Postmarks: T. P. / Leadenhall St /, and 4 EVEN 4 / JY. 14 / 1834. MS at King’s. Published in part in Garnett, pp. 164-65.

[2. ]The crisis in Fox’s church, South Place Chapel, had arisen from his domestic difficulties. As early as 1832 because of his growing affection for his ward, Eliza Flower, Fox and his wife had agreed to consider themselves separated although they (and Eliza) continued to live under the same roof. In the summer of 1834 Mrs. Fox confided her troubles to some of her husband’s congregation; the resultant scandal led to some demands that he resign. Fox had taken the position that he could not sacrifice his personal dignity by denying specific charges. On Aug. 15, he offered his resignation but in Sept. he was acquitted of the charges (in effect, of adultery) and was asked to withdraw his resignation. See Garnett, pp. 155-68, and Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent, pp. 188-97.

[3. ]Their belief that he and Eliza Flower had been lovers.

[4. ]Fox had expressed advanced views in the Monthly Repository on the emancipation of women and on divorce. See “The Dissenting Marriage Question,” MR, VII (Feb., 1833), 136-42. For a discussion of his views, see Mineka, The Dissidence of Dissent, pp. 284-96.

[5. ]Mrs. Taylor.

[6. ]Dr. Thomas Hardy (ca. 1775-1849), father of Mrs. Taylor, and member of Fox’s congregation.

[1. ]Printed, without identification of recipient, in Morrison, 253. MS not located.

The reference in the first paragraph to the recipient’s father makes the identification highly probable.

[2. ]Louis Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814), writer, member of the Convention during the Revolution.

[3. ]Comte Antoine Claire Thibaudeau (1765-1854), politician and historian.

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 667-68. MS not located.

[2. ]No such series appeared in the London Review.

[3. ]Thomas Chalmers, On Political Economy in Connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society (Glasgow, 1832). Chalmers (1780-1847), theologian, was professor of divinity at Edinburgh University for many years.

[4. ]See Letters 86, 96, and 102.

[5. ]Probably the early version of the essay “Of the Influence of Consumption on Production,” which appeared as the second of his Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.

[6. ]Probably the early version of “On Profits, and Interest,” ibid.

[7. ]“On the Words Productive and Unproductive,” ibid.

[8. ]“Of the Laws of Interchange between Nations; and the Distribution of the Gains of Commerce among the Countries of the Commercial World,” ibid.

[9. ]See Letter 85.

[10. ]The South Australian Association, formed earlier in 1834, included among its directorate such friends of JSM as Buller, Grote, and Molesworth. The Association had succeeded earlier in Aug. in getting through Parliament the South Australian Act establishing a Crown colony. See Richard Garnett, Edward Gibbon Wakefield (New York, 1898), pp. 98-104.

[11. ]For an account of Brougham’s strange behaviour in the political crisis of the summer of 1834, see Arthur Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party (Manchester, 1927), pp. 193-201.

[12. ]Gossip was rife that Brougham was mad. The Times, which had now turned against him, on Aug. 19, 1834, p. 2, remarked: “For some months Lord Brougham has been under a morbid excitement, seldom evinced by those of His Majesty’s subjects who are suffered to remain masters of their own actions” (quoted in Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party, p. 209).

[1. ]Published by J. Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire in M. Victor Cousin, Sa Vie et Sa Correspondance (3 vols., Paris, 1895), I, 396-98. MS not located.

[2. ]Henry Dunn (1800-1878), religious and educational writer.

[3. ]Joseph Cotton Wigram (1798-1867), religious and educational writer, secretary of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church; later, Bishop of Rochester.

[4. ]Roebuck’s second major speech on education had been made in the House of Commons on June 3, 1834, in support of his motion for a select committee to inquire into the means of establishing a system of national education. His first speech on the subject had been made on July 30, 1833.

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 668-70. MS not located.

[2. ]Nichol in 1836 was appointed Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University.

[3. ]One of Brougham’s purposes in founding the Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge was to combat “the violent and slanderous press.” See Aspinall, Lord Brougham and the Whig Party, p. 208.

[4. ]For a list of the original members of the Society, see Companion to the Newspaper, II (Aug., 1834), 168. The Companion was thereafter published under the auspices of the Society.

[5. ]Probably the MS in the Pierpont Morgan Library, which bears the following note on the first folio: “This copy of Mr Mill’s Logic / being an early manuscript draft / was sent by the author to my Father / the late Professor J. P. Nichol. / J.N.” The draft, not in JSM’s handwriting, corresponds roughly to Books I to III, chap. 4, of the System of Logic.

[6. ]The attack on Adam Sedgwick’s Discourse on the Studies of the University (London, Cambridge, 1833) appeared in the first number of the London Review, I (April, 1835), 94-135; reprinted in Dissertations, I, 121-85.

[7. ]Eventually published in LWR, XXVI (Oct., 1836), 1-29, and reprinted in Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.

[8. ]Robert Torrens (1780-1864), economist and advocate of Australian colonization.

JSM’s first published letter to a newspaper had been a reply to an editorial by Torrens criticizing James Mill’s views on the cost of production; see “Exchangeable Value,” Traveller, Dec. 6, 1822, p. 3, and MacMinn, Bibliog., p. 1.

[9. ]Edward Wakefield (1774-1854), economist and father of the colonial statesman, Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

[10. ]MR, VIII (1834), 612-24.

[11. ]Rev. James Martineau (1805-1900), Unitarian divine and philosopher.

[12. ]“On the Life, Character, and Works of Dr. Priestley,” MR, VII (1833), 19-30, 84-88, 231-41; reprinted in Martineau’s Essays, Reviews and Addresses (4 vols., London, 1890-91).

[13. ]Deontology or the Science of Morality . . . (2 vols., London, 1834).

[14. ]See Letter 72, n. 12.

[15. ]John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (London, 1832).

[16. ]“Notes on . . . Plato. No. 2. The Phaedrus,” MR, VIII (1834), 404-20, 633-46.

[17. ]Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (2 vols., London, 1829).

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 670-71. MS not located.

[2. ]An article on “Tithes, and their Commutation,” signed J.P.N., appeared in the first number of the London Review, I (April, 1835), 164-73. No article on Chalmers was published. The only other article signed J.P.N. published under JSM’s editorship was “The State of Discovery and Speculation concerning the Nebulae,” LWR, XXV (July, 1836), 390-409.

[3. ]See preceding letter, n. 6.

[4. ]“Tennyson’s Poems,” which did not appear until the second number (July, 1835). See Letter 117.

[5. ]See preceding letter, n. 5.

[6. ]On Nov. 14, the King had suddenly dismissed the Whig ministry. This precipitate action took by surprise Tories as well as Whigs. Sir Robert Peel, who was to become the new Prime Minister, had to be summoned from Italy, where he was vacationing.

[7. ]John George Lambton, first Earl of Durham (1792-1840), at this time emerging as a leader of the advanced Whigs. A few years later JSM became one of the staunchest defenders of Durham’s Canadian policy (see Letter 288, n. 14).

[8. ]Possibly, in view of their concern with definitions in the study of political economy, Malthus’ Definitions in Political Economy (London, 1827).

[1. ]MS in the Hollander Collection, University of Illinois Library.

[2. ]The first two volumes of Henry Lytton Bulwer, La France: sociale, politique et littéraire (4 vols., Paris, 1834-36). See Letter 172, n. 2.

[3. ]Probably Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx or De Preaux (1805-1891), barrister, author of Outlines of a System of National Education (London, 1834); of National Education (London, 1837); and of other works.

[4. ]John Wilson. The London newspaper referred to should not be confused with the Saint-Simonian periodical, Le Globe.

[5. ]See preceding letter, n. 6.

[6. ]I.e., the position of the conservatives that the Reform Act of 1832 was a final constitutional change.

[1. ]MS at Arsenal. Published, with omissions, in Cosmopolis, VI, 363-66, and in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 164-71.

[2. ]After the dispersal of the Saint-Simonians, D’Eichthal had gone to Greece and had become director of the “Bureau d’Economie politique,” a kind of ministry of public works.

[3. ]On Sept. 15, 1834. At the dinner, Brougham, already in trouble with the Grey faction of the party, counselled caution in the reform programme. Durham urged an immediate programme of sweeping reform. His speech was widely interpreted as a violent attack on Brougham; this was the beginning of the famous quarrel which led to the destruction of Brougham’s political power. See C. W. New, Lord Durham (Oxford, 1929), pp. 244-79.

[4. ]On Oct. 29, 1834.

[5. ]Bernhard Thiersch, Ueber das Zeitalter und Vaterland des Homer (Halberstadt, 1832). No such review or article appeared in the London Review.

[6. ]It did not appear until April, 1835.

[7. ]David Urquhart, Turkey and Its Resources (London, 1833).

[1. ]Addressed: Edwin Chadwick / 7 Trevor Square / Knightsbridge. MS at UCL.

[2. ]Aristide Mathieu Guilbert (1804-1863), writer, who because of the exile of his father, had lived in London from 1815 to 1830. In the spring of 1835 he became Paris correspondent for the new London Review (see Letter 127).

[3. ]Le Bon Sens, established as a Sunday paper shortly after the revolution of 1830 by members of the popular party, became a daily in April, 1834. The Examiner, Feb. 8, 1835, p. 82, praised it warmly.

[1. ]MS at Brit. Mus. Undated, but presumably written about the same time as the preceding letter to Edwin Chadwick.

[1. ]Published by Knight, pp. 671-72. MS not located.

[2. ]See Letter 29.

[3. ]The political crisis brought on by the King’s dismissal of the Whig ministry.

[4. ]The article on Tennyson did not appear until the second number.

[5. ]The famous Tamworth Manifesto, calling for a new Conservative programme of progressive reform, had just been published in The Times, p. 5, on the morning of this letter.

[1. ]MS at LSE. Last two paragraphs published in Life and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, ed. E. B. de Fonblanque (London, 1874), p. 39.

[2. ]Probably JSM’s notice of Eliza Flower’s Songs of the Months. A Musical Garland, in Examiner, Jan. 4, 1835, p. 4.

[3. ]See Letters 112 and 114.

[4. ]Samuel Bailey (1791-1870), philosophical writer greatly admired by James Mill. JSM reviewed favourably his Rationale of Political Representation in London Rev., I (July, 1835), 341-71, but attacked his Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, WR, XXXVIII (Oct., 1842), 318-86, reprinted in Dissertations, II, 162-97. No contribution by Bailey to the London Review has been identified.

[5. ]Thomas Love Peacock (1775-1866), novelist, long associated with the Mills in the employ of the East India Company. He contributed several essays to the London Review.

[6. ]Probably John Wilson, secretary to the Factory Commission, and an editor of the Globe newspaper.