1851
34.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Thursday [after Jan. 22, 1851]
Dear Chadwick—
I ought to have written to you yesterday morning to prevent your coming round in the evening—I intended, but I am ashamed to say I forgot—I have read the Water Report & a great deal of the Appx. It is all very interesting but on the main question you had said all it contains, & more too—
I shall not give the Assn a long answer. If they want me as an authority against the nonsense of the Economist &c. they will get what they want—
ever yrs
J. S. Mill
35.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
3rd March
1851
Dear Hickson
If you are inclined for an article on the Emanicipation of Women, a propos of the Convention in Massachusetts which I mentioned to you the last time I saw you, I have one nearly ready, which can be finished & sent to you within a week, which, I suppose, is in time for your April number.
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
36.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
10th March
1851
Dear Hickson
I am sorry that there is not likely to be room for the article in the next number of the Westr. If not, I will take care to send it in time for the July number.
I shall regret much if the review passes out of your hands into those of anyone who would have no object but to endeavour to make it profitable. It is the only organ through which really advanced opinions can get access to the public & it is very honourable to you that you have kept that organ in life & at work for ten years past and have made it so good a thing, under difficult circumstances, as you have. It has improved too in its late numbers.
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
37.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
19th March
1851
Dear Hickson
After your former note, & as I did not hear from you for some days, subsequently I concluded that the article could not be printed in this number of the review. It is therefore not in a state to be got ready by Friday. It must therefore wait till July. I hope you will not be put to any inconvenience for want of it.
I shall very much regret if the review should pass out of your control. I am very glad that the arrangement you speak of is not final.
in haste
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
38.
TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY
Thursday [March 27, 1851]
Sir—
I shall be happy to see you at the India House tomorrow at one—but if the weather & the state of your health, which I regret to hear is unsatisfactory should again interfere with your intention, any other day except Saturday or Sunday will suit me equally well—
I am Sir
J. S. Mill
39.
TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY
Friday
[March 28, 1851]
Dear Sir—
As you suggested, I have put my reply to the very flattering proposal of the League, into the form of an answer to Mr Lucas’ letter, which I now send to you.
I shall continue to watch the progress of the League with great interest & the best wishes for its success.
I hope your health is improving—though this weather is most unpropitious for an invalid.
I am Dear Sir
Yours faithfully
J. S. Mill
40.
TO FREDERIC LUCAS
28th March 1851
Dear Sir—
I beg that you will make my respectful acknowledgments to the Council of the Tenant League for the great honour they have done me by their proposal, communicated through you & Mr Duffy & by the very flattering terms of their Resolution. If it were in my power to go into parliament at present I should be highly gratified by being returned for a purpose so congenial to my principles & convictions as the reform of the pernicious system of landed tenure which more than any other cause keeps the great body of the agricultural population of Ireland always on the verge of starvation. You are aware however that I hold an office under the E[ast] I[ndia] C[ompany] which of necessity occupies a large portion of my time: & I have reason to believe that the C[ourt] of D[irectors] would consider a seat in parliament as incompatible with it. Whatever therefore I might have done under other circumstances, I am compelled to decline the offered honour—& I feel it right to do so at once, rather than (as you suggest) to leave the question in any degree open, since I could not in fairness allow any trouble to be taken for a purpose which would merely give greater publicity to the honour intended me, while I could not hold out the prospect of its leading to any practical result.
With regard to the wish entertained by the Council to reprint in a separate form such passages of my Pol. Ec. as they may think likely to be useful to their cause, any such proposal can only be made to my publisher Mr Parker to whom I have parted with the property of the present edition. Should he give his consent I shall most willingly give mine; but the application could not with any propriety be made to him by myself. In any future edition of the book there will doubtless, as you observe, be much to alter & improve in the parts relating to Ireland, but it would not be fair to Mr Parker that I should publish these improvements before the present edition is exhausted.
—I am Dear Sir very faithfully yours
F. Lucas Esq
41.
TO DR. JOHN FORBES ROYLE
Friday
[Before April 4, 1851]
Dear Dr. Royle
Are you disengaged on Sunday, & will it suit you to have another matinée botanique?
If you are not likely to be at the I.H. tomorrow will you kindly write a line to 18 Kensington Square.
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
42.
TO GEORGE GROTE MILL
April 8, 1851
Lord J. Russell has been justly punished for his truckling to the Times, the parsons and the bigots. He has disgusted all real liberals without satisfying or pleasing any one else. He has left to such men as Sir J. Graham and Lord Aberdeen the whole credit of standing up for religious liberty and for justice to Ireland, and he is now a minister by sufferance, until it suits any one of the factions of the H. of C. to turn him out: continually beaten and unable to count on a single vote except those of the office holders and their family connexions.
43.
TO JANE MILL FERRABOSCHI
11th April 1851.
Dear Jane
Thanks for the congratulations & good wishes in your letter, which I found waiting for me on returning from the country. No one ever was more to be congratulated than I am. As to your questions—I shall take a fortnight at Easter, when we shall be married in Dorsetshire where Mrs Taylor & her family are staying—We intend to live a little way out of London if we find a house that suits us—the particular place therefore is as yet quite uncertain.
About the money matters you mention—Crompton certainly ought to give a power of attorney for your dividends if he cannot be in town to receive them. Those for last July I remitted because he told me he should not be in town then, or for some time after. He appears never to have been in town since. When he receives them he will of course repay me & that will be soon enough—
In future please to send all your letters direct to Kensington except when intended for me only—
yrs afy
J.S.M.
44.
TO WILHELMINA MILL KING
11 April 1851
Dear W.
I thank you for your congratulations & good wishes. I am indeed very much to be congratulated. I have just returned from Dorsetshire where we shall be married about the end of this month, but I do not think we shall make any tour before autumn.
About your own affairs I cannot judge of the furniture question. You must decide. I suppose you will not sell it if you can either let your apartment furnished or find a boarder. I wonder you do not persuade my mother to live with you—She likes housekeeping, & to keep house for you seems to me the most sensible & suitable thing she could do. With her income in Germany she would be almost rich & I am convinced the climate would exactly suit her—you know cold never disagrees with her but damp warm weather does.
About all the other circumstances & people mentioned in your letter you will no doubt hear from them at K[ensington] & in future send all yr letters direct to K except when you write specially to me.
Yrs affy
J.S.M.
45.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
14th April
1851
Dear Hickson
The new number of the Westr is a woful specimen of the new editorship —the general character of the writing is verbose emptiness—feebleness of stile, & total absence of thought or of any decided opinion on any subject. In the midst of the vapid want of meaning, only two things stand out prominently: one of these is a very vulgar attack on H. Martineau’s book for irreligion—the other, in the small print at the end, is a denunciation of the author of “Social Statics” for “pushing his conclusions too far” on the “rights of women and children” “from not perceiving with sufficient clearness that no one can have a valid claim to a right without the capacity for performing its correlative duty”—the article I proposed to you on the rights of women narrowly missed being bound up with this despicable trash! It is hard to see a review that so many have worked in for advanced opinions, thus sunk in the mud—to see it converted into an organ against its former opinions.
Is it not possible that Mr. Lombe, being so zealous & liberal, would as soon spend the money he now gives for single articles in being proprietor of the review? If a paid manager were provided for the business department, perhaps the literary editorship, without the pecuniary responsibility, would not be more than you might be willing to retain, for the sake of preserving an organ of really free opinions? I feel so strongly on the subject that if you would not like to make the suggestion yourself, I should have no objection to write to Mr Lombe proposing it, & offering to give you & him all the help that my other occupations admit of. Do tell me what you think of the whole matter.
Yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
46.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
Monday [April (28?) 1851]
Dear Hickson
Having received your two notes only this morning, I must take a day for consideration before I can make any answer to your proposal. I earnestly hope the review may be kept out of the hands of merely pecuniary speculators & of the present editor and may remain what it has always been till now, an organ for the most advanced opinions.
Thanks for your congratulations.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
47.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
29 April 1851
Dear Hickson
I am afraid, all that I could engage to do towards carrying on the Westr would be to write for it often, & to give the best of my judgment on the choice of subjects & articles. If I were to undertake the editorship, though without the mere business department, so much time & exertion would be required, that I could not write anything else of importance,—& I think I can now do more for my opinions by writing books than by the best I could hope to make of the review. While I should be glad to second any plan for preserving the review, I cannot be the pivot on which the plan turns. If I thought that £500 expended on the review would have the effect you seem to think it would—if it would enable the Westr to take the place of the Edinburgh—I would gladly help to raise it—but I do not think there is any probability of much. . . .
48.
TO SIR GEORGE GREY
May 5. 1851
Sir—
I hope I may be pardoned for addressing to you in this form rather than through the newspapers, a remonstrance against the gross insult to every woman in the country, which has found its way into the Govt bill now passing through the H. of C. for regulating the sale of arsenic. The clause, which did not form part of the bill as it came from the hands of its framers, but was added in the H. of L. at the suggestion of some unknown person, is that which forbids arsenic to be sold in less quantity than ten pounds to any person “other than a male person of full age”—all women, from the highest to the lowest, being declared unfit to have poison in their possession, lest they shall commit murder. It is impossible to believe that so monstrous a proposition could have obtained the assent of Govt except through inadvertence—& an individual, though personally unknown to you, may hope to be excused if at the hazard of being thought intrusive, he takes such means as are in his power of soliciting from you that attention to the subject which he is persuaded cannot yet have been given to it.
If the bill passes with this clause, it is a retrograde step in legislation, a return to the ideas and practices of barbarous ages. One of the characteristics of the improved spirit of the present time is the growing tendency to the elevation of women—towards their relief from disabilities, their increased estimation, the assignment to them of a higher position, both social & domestic. But this clause is a blind step in the reverse direction. It singles out women for the purpose of degrading them. It establishes a special restriction, a peculiar disqualification against them alone. It assumes that women are more addicted than men to committing murder! Does the criminal calendar, or the proceedings of the police courts, shew a preponderance of women among the most atrocious criminals? Everybody knows that the direct contrary is the truth, & that men outnumber women in the records of crime, in the ratio of four to one. On what supposition are men to be trusted with poisons & women not, unless that of their peculiar wickedness? While the spirit of the age & the tendency of all improvement is to make women the equals of men, this bill puts on them the stamp of the most degrading inferiority, precisely where the common voice of mankind proclaims them superior—in moral goodness.
If all the restrictions imposed by this bill were common to men & women, it would be giving up pro tanto the peculiar, & one of the most valuable characteristics of English freedom; it would be treating all mankind, except the government & its agents, as children; but it would be giving an equal measure of justice to all, & would be no insult or disparagement peculiarly to any. The legislature will not declare that Englishmen cannot be trusted with poisons, but it is not ashamed to assert that Englishwomen cannot. A law which if common to both would be merely a specimen of timidity & over caution, is when limited to women, a legislative declaration that Englishwomen are poisoners—Englishwomen as a class—as distinguished from Englishmen. And for what reason, or under what incitement is this insult passed upon them? Because among the last dozen murders there were two or three cases, which attracted some public attention, of poisoning by women. Is it the part of a legislature to shape its laws to the accidental peculiarities of the latest crime reported in the newspapers? If the last two or three murderers had been men with red hair, as well might Parliament have rushed to pass an Act restricting all red haired men from buying or possessing deadly weapons.
The silence of all who from their position could have made their voice heard, will I hope be my excuse for addressing to you, even at so late a period, this appeal.
I have the honor to be Sir
Your obedt Servt
J. S. Mill
49.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
6th May [1851]
Dear Hickson
You have, I doubt not, chosen the best of the offers made to you for the review —but it is a great burthen on you to spend the whole summer in labouring for it only to give it up to Chapman six months hence. How is it that since you have decided to let Chapman have the review, he does not take it at once? Is it necessary that you should carry it on as a mere locum tenens for him? For my own part I am not sure nor do I think it likely, that I should be disposed to work for Chapman & though I am anxious to do all I can to help you in your difficulty about the numbers to be brought out by you I shall grudge both your time & trouble & my own for a mere interim arrangement.
If you go on with your present plan, I will endeavour to write something besides the article on the women’s subject. A review of the session would perhaps be as suitable as anything else I could do.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
50.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
May 13, 1851.
Dear Hickson
At whatever cost, I am very glad that you have taken the review out of such entirely unsuitable hands. As for this man’s threat of associating his name with those of his betters by publishing all that you have written or said to him about contributors and others, it appears to be one of the manoeuvres of the day, by which obscure literary people thrust themselves into some sort of notice. A man who fights with such weapons cannot be treated with. You are quite right to leave him to do his worst.
What are your prospects as to articles? Shall you have Roebuck’s for this number? I will do all I can to help you until you are able to make some permanent arrangement. I will send you the article I have in hand as soon as I can —after which, though very busy at present, I will set about writing something else, probably on taxation. If you think of any subject you should like better, pray suggest it.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
51.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
Wednesday [May 1851]
Dear Hickson
The printer has only this morning sent the proof. I should wish to keep it as long as you can conveniently let me. It is necessary on such a subject to be as far as possible invulnerable. I have not quite fixed on a heading. The best I have thought of is “Enfranchisement of Women.” The one you propose with the word “sex” in it would never do. That word is enough to vulgarize a whole review. It is almost as bad as “female.”
A young friend of mine is writing an article on a new Life of Gregory Nazianzus intending to offer it to you for this number: would the subject suit you? It is on the tapis just now.
Perhaps Burton’s Political and Social Economy, or Spencer’s Social Statics, might furnish me with matter for a few pages. I have not read either book and should like to see them—but if you have not them already, it is not worth while to get them for a mere possibility. I have not been able to get them from any Library.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
52.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
May 23. 1851
Sir
I shall be happy to give an opinion, to the best of my judgment, on any matter upon which you may wish to consult me respecting the Westminster Review, in which I have always taken & still take much interest—but it must be by correspondence. I am much engaged at present, & living out of town, & in any case I could answer, much more satisfactorily to myself, a written, than a verbal communication.
I am
yr obt Servt
J. S. Mill
53.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
June 9. 1851.
Sir—
I have read the Prospectus on which you ask my opinion, & I now put down some of the remarks which occur to me on the subject. The Prospectus is addressed to “the friends of philosophic Reform”; I think this a bad phrase. “Philosophic Reformers” is a worn-out & gone by expression; it had a meaning twenty years ago. “Philosophic reform” does not, to my mind, carry any meaning at all—unless to signify a reform in philosophy.
The Prospectus says, that the Review is to be distinctly characterised by “certain definite but broad principles”: but instead of laying down any such principles it contains little else than details of the measures which the review will advocate on the principal political questions just now discussed in the newspapers. The only sentence which seems intended for a declaration of principles is that forming the third paragraph—& this, so far from “distinctly characterising” any set of opinions or course of conduct, contains nothing to distinguish the review from any liberal or semi liberal newspaper or periodical, or from anybody who says he is for reform but not for revolution. The doctrine stated, such as it is, I do not agree in. Instead of thinking that “strength & durability are the result only of a slow & peaceful development,” I think that changes effected rapidly & by force are often the only ones which in given circumstances would be permanent: & by the statement that “reforms to be salutary must be graduated to the average moral & intellectual growth of society” I presume is meant (though I am by no means sure about the meaning if any) that the measures of a government ought never to be in advance of the average intellect & virtue of the people—according to which doctrine there would neither have been the Reformation, the Commonwealth, nor the Revolution of 1688, & the stupidity & habitual indifference of the mass of mankind would bear down by its dead weight all the efforts of the more intelligent & active minded few.
The Prospectus says “the review will not neglect that important range of subjects which are related to Politics as an inner concentric circle, & which have been included under the term Sociology.” I understand by Sociology not a particular class of subjects included within Politics, but a vast field including it—the whole field of enquiry & speculation respecting human society & its arrangements, of which the forms of government, & the principles of the conduct of governments are but a part. And it seems to me impossible that even the politics of the day can be discussed on principle, or with a view to anything but the exigencies of the moment, unless by setting out from definite opinions respecting social questions more fundamental than what is commonly called politics. I cannot, therefore, understand how a review making the professions which the Prospectus does, can treat such questions as a particular “range of subjects” which will merely not be neglected, & on which “diverse theories” will be considered with a view chiefly to ascertain “how far our efforts after a more perfect social state must be restrained” by certain conditions mentioned. I confess it seems to me, the only worthy object of a Review of Progress is to consider how far & in what manner such objects may be promoted, & how the obstacles, whether arising from the cause mentioned or from any other, may most effectually be overcome.
In conclusion, I think it right to say that if your wish to consult me respecting the Westminster Review arises from any belief that I am likely to be a contributor to it, I can hold out no prospect that the expectation will be realized. My willingness to contribute even occasionally to the Westr under any new management would entirely depend on the opinion I form of it after seeing it in operation.
I am Sir
yr obt sert
J. S. Mill
54.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
Monday [June 9, 1851]
Dear Hickson
I am surprised to see by the revise of my article that you have made two verbal alterations. I gave you the article on an understood consideration, the only one on which I ever write, that no alterations should be made by anyone but myself, & from this condition I cannot depart. I have returned the corrected revise to the printer. I should be obliged by your letting me have (if possible before the review is out) twenty-five separate copies, at my expense. I wish for no title page, but in place of it a page with only the words “Reprinted from the Westminster Review for July 1851.” I should like to see a proof of the reprint.
I send the short article I mentioned to you. The subject may make an agreeable variety.
Yours truly,
J. S. Mill
55.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
9th June 1851
Dear Sir
From what I have read of the writings of the Christian Socialists, & from the communications which I have had with some of them, I have found their principles & mine to be too radically opposed for any verbal explanation or discussion between us to be of advantage. I think quite as unfavourably of the present constitution of society as they do—probably much more so; & I look forward to alterations extending to many more, & more important points than the relation between masters & workmen: I should not expect much practical benefit from a modification of that single relation, without changes fully as great in existing opinions & institutions on religious moral & domestic subjects, all of which the Christian Socialists desire to preserve,—or without accepting & acting upon principles of political & social economy which they reject. So far as they promote experiments on the association of workpeople, & so far as they cultivate, in any workpeople under their influence the dispositions & habits which tend to make association practicable & beneficial, I approve their intention & applaud their efforts: but even where my objects are the same with theirs, my premises are mostly so different, that my path & theirs must lie separate, & I must beg you to excuse me from joining in your proposed conferences with them
I am Dear Sir
yours truly
J. S. Mill
56.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
June 16 [1851]
Dear Hickson
The article on Gregory must wait if necessary, till the October number,—but I should like it to be in that number as it is written by a young man of promise, who it is desirable should be encouraged to write. If not used at present you will perhaps send it back, as it was written hastily in the expectation of being wanted for the July number, & if time were taken for its revision it could probably be improved.
Chapman wrote asking to see me on the subject of the Westr. I answered that I would willingly give my opinion but only in writing. He afterwards sent me the Prospectus & I wrote to him my opinion of it.
If Newman’s book is worth reviewing, it will be best I think, to take it by itself. Spencer or Burton I thought of only as a pis aller. If the book has been sent to you I should be glad to see it & I can then decide whether to write about it or not.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
57.
TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY
June 17. 1851
Dear Sir
I have to apologize for the delay in answering your note of April 23. I was out of town when it arrived. When I returned it was hastily looked at & thrown aside with other papers, & though I read & was much interested by the pamphlet which accompanied it, I had forgotten until the note accidentally turned up the other day, that you had ever written asking my opinion of the plan: especially as you were already aware from our conversation when you were in London, that I thought very favourably of it. This favourable opinion has been confirmed by reading the pamphlet. The machinery of the scheme seems unobjectionable—the success of the Land Societies in England demonstrates its feasibility: & it is open to none of the objections which old prejudice urges against any more summary mode of creating a body of small landholders owning the land they cultivate.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
58.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
June 20. 1851
Sir
I fully understood that the Prospectus you sent me was not finally determined on. As you asked for my opinion, I gave it freely—& I can have no objection, if desired, to tell you with the same freedom what I think of any future one —but to give positive suggestions, only belongs to those whose organ the work is to be. Those only can prepare the programme who are to conduct the review—since they best know what they intend, & what they have the power to accomplish.
The reason you give for what you very truly call the air of conservatism in the Prospectus, is intelligible; but does not seem to me to render advisable the use of expressions giving the idea that the Westr no longer wishes to be considered as professing extreme opinions. The review was founded by people who held what were then thought extreme opinions, & it is only needed as an organ of opinions as much in advance of the present state of the public mind as those were in advance of its then state. Anything less is but child’s play after the events of the last three years in Europe & besides, every intermediate position is fully occupied by other periodicals.
I am Sir
yr obt sert
J. S. Mill
59.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
July 28th [1851]
Dear Hickson
I cannot think of any subject of an article for your October number more suitable than Newman’s book —so I will write on that—& you may depend on having the article, but I cannot yet judge what will be its length.
The paper on Gregory Nazianzus shall be sent in two or three days. I enclose the extract from the Times.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
60.
TO GEORGE GROTE MILL
August 4, 1851
I have long ceased to be surprised at any want of good sense or good manners in what proceeds from you—you appear to be too thoughtless or too ignorant to be capable of either—but such want of good feeling, together with such arrogant assumption, as are shown in your letters to my wife & to Haji I was not prepared for. The best construction that can be put upon them is that you really do not know what insolence and presumption are: or you would not write such letters & seem to expect to be as well liked as before by those to whom & of whom they are written. You were “surprised,” truly, at our marriage & do not “know enough of the circumstances to be able to form an opinion on the subject.” Who asks you to form an opinion? An opinion on what? Do men usually when they marry consult the opinion of a brother twenty years younger than themselves? or at my age of any brother or person at all? But though you form no “opinion” you presume to catechize Haji respecting his mother, & call her to account before your tribunal for the conformity between her conduct & her principles—being at the same time, as you say yourself, totally ignorant what her principles are. On the part of any one who avowedly does not know what her principles are, the surmise that she may have acted contrary to them is a gratuitous impertinence. To every one who knows her it would be unnecessary to say that she has, in this as in all things, acted according to her principles. What imaginary principles are they which should prevent people who have known each other the greater part of their lives, during which her & Mr. Taylor’s house has been more a home to me than any other, and who agree perfectly in all their opinions, from marrying?
You profess to have taken great offence because you knew of our intended marriage “only at second hand.” People generally hear of marriages at “second hand”, I believe. If you mean that I did not write to you on the subject, I do not know any reason you had to expect that I should. I informed your mother & sisters who I knew would inform you—& I did not tell them of it on account of any right they had to be informed, for my relations with any of them have been always of too cool & distant a kind to give them the slightest right or reason to expect anything more than ordinary civility from me—& when I did tell them I did not receive ordinary civility in return. In the dissertation on my character with which you favour Haji, you shew yourself quite aware that it has never been my habit to talk to them about my concerns—& assuredly the feelings you have shown to me in the last two or three years have not been so friendly as to give me any cause for making you an exception. As for the “mystery” which on my father’s authority you charge me with, if we are to bandy my father’s sayings I could cite plenty of them about all his family except the younger ones, compared with which this is very innocent. It could be said at all but as a half joke—& every one has a right to be mysterious if they like. But I have not been mysterious, for I had never anything to be mysterious about. I have not been in the habit of talking unasked about my friends, or indeed about any other subject.
J.S.M.
61.
TO ANNA BLACKWELL
August 16 [1851]
Madam—
The article you mention is anonymous & I beg to decline your attributing it to me.
I am yr obt Servt
J. S. Mill
62.
TO ALEXANDER BAIN
[Summer 1851]
I am for the first time downhearted about French affairs. The party in possession of power is evidently determined to go to all lengths, and I fear both events are favourable to them. If they succeed in provoking an emeute, they will put it down and then execute all their designs at once; if there is no emeute, they will go from one step to another till they have effected all they want.
63.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
Sept. 9 [1851]
Dear Hickson
If you could conveniently send a proof of the article on Newman addressed to me Poste Restante at Brussels so as to arrive there on the 15th or 16th I would return it to you the next day, which I suppose would not be so late as to cause inconvenience. I congratulate you on being so near to the termination of your labours.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
64.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Sept. 29. [1851]
Sir
Having been out of town when your note dated the 10th was sent to the India House, I have only just received it. Mr. Place, whom I have not seen for very many years, knows nothing whatever of me or of my literary engagements. I have never had any intention of writing on Comte’s book, nor do I think that a translation or an abridgement of it is likely to be either useful or successful.
I am quite unable to point out any one whom I think in any degree competent to write an article on Asiatic life, of the comprehensive kind which you appear to desire. Writers capable of treating any large subject in a large & free manner, along with precision & definiteness of meaning, seem to be rarer than ever in this country. The vast subject you indicate is one of the many on which nothing has yet been written, nor do I believe there is any person in this country competent to attempt it.
I will very willingly give you my opinion on your new Prospectus.
I am Sir
yr obt Sert
J. S. Mill
65.
TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON
Oct. 15, 1851
Dear Hickson
You cannot expect me to like an article of which the conclusions are so opposite to mine; & as I do not think that they admit of being supported by good arguments, this implies that I think yours fallacious. The strong points seem to me some of your replies to other people’s arguments, but your own appear to me no better than those you reply to. To mention minor matters—there are two mistakes in the Greek which it would be well to correct. Pyrrho (the sceptic) is printed Pyrrhus (king of Epirus), & Academus, a man’s name, is printed instead of the Academy or the Academics. It is impossible to say The Academus. (A propos the Greek in the article on Gregory is very incorrectly printed).
If I should criticize on a matter of taste, I should say that your article loses altogether in appearance of strength by the capitals and italics. Italics are bad enough but Capitals make anything look weak.
The article on Newman is spoilt by printer’s punctuation & typographical errors.
I wonder that you as the representative of the old sterling Westminster Review opinions, should have allowed to be printed in it vulgar misrepresentation of Bentham, its founder; vilifying a man who has done more for the world than any man of modern times, by talking about “the Gospel according to Jeremy Bentham” as synonymous with the most grovelling selfishness. (There is no selfishness in Bentham’s doctrines). I think you should have struck out both that expression and also the “godless Benthamism” because intended for abuse.
It is a pity that a man of Mr. Lombe’s public spirit has not made a better use of £500 than giving it for a translation of Comte —whose book can be read in French by anybody likely to read it at all, or who could derive any benefit from the only good part of it, the scientific, for his opinions on social matters are very bad. H. Martineau besides cannot translate the mathematics which is the principal thing in the book.
The article in the Globe is evidently by Newman. He is in a furious rage, & means to be as offensive as he knows how to be, but he is such a poor creature, so terrified at anything like really free opinions & so in awe of the gone-by phrases about them, that he thinks the severest thing he can say of the writer of the article is to charge him, in those gone-by phrases, with the very opinions which the article itself professes.
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
66.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Oct. 17. [1851]
Sir
I like the altered Prospectus better than the first; but I should have greatly preferred a simple & plain expression of the plan & principles intended to be followed. The Prospectus still seems to me to rely on sound rather than on sense; the only distinct statement of opinion being on the mere newspaper topics of the day. Some expressions seem to me more than questionable: for instance “free trade in every department of commerce”—this must mean “free trade in every department of trade.”
The first number will shew what meaning the writers attach to the word Progress, & how far the review will be an organ of it.
I am Sir
yr obt Sert
J. S. Mill
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