1862
523.
TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON
Thursday evg
[1862 ?]
Dear Thornton
Louis Blanc is coming to dine with us on Sunday, and it would give us great pleasure if you could come and meet him. We dine at five.
The cheque arrived safely yesterday morning.
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
524.
TO CHARLES DUPONT-WHITE
le 10 janvier, 1862.
Mon cher Monsieur
Il est très flatteur pour moi que la Revue des Deux Mondes éprouve le désir d’avoir de ma prose. Cela est si bien à ma convenance que j’ai eu quelquefois l’idée de lui en offrir; mais j’ai tant d’occupations et de projets plus au moins en train d’exécution, qu’il m’est difficile, et même, pour le moment, impossible, de m’engager positivement à rien. A ce propos, ma réponse à la Revue Nationale ne fut pas un refus; j’ai seulement dit ne pouvoir rien promettre. Je présume qu’il n’y a pas incompatibilité entre les deux Revues; je sais, du reste, combien l’une d’elles est plus importante que l’autre. Cependant je voudrais conserver, à cet égard, toute ma liberté.
Je suis bien aise que mon livre se soutient dans votre opinion favorable au troisième examen. Peut-être aurais-je dû faire une note sur la Constituante de 1789. Cet exemple ne compte pour rien en faveur de l’élection à deux dégrés, car il y a des momens où l’opinion générale se fait jour à travers tout obstacle, et où les modes d’élection les plus divers aboutissent à des résultats à peu près identiques: il en était ainsi en 1789, et je pense que le tiers état aurait nommé, en général, les mêmes députés sous un système électoral beaucoup plus défectueux. La question des renouvellements partiaux n’est pas fondamentale: au reste, je ne crois pas les avoir condamnés d’une manière absolue.
Mon article sur vos deux livres est accepté par Reeve, mais pour le numéro d’avril, ou peut-être même pour celui de juillet. L’écrit sur la doctrine de l’utilité a paru dans Fraser’s Magazine (Octobre, Novembre, et Decembre). J’ai laissé mon éditeur le maître de décider le moment de le réimprimer en volume, mais n’ayant rien appris sur ses intentions, je présume que cette réimpression est ajournée.
Veuillez offrir à Madame Dupont-White et à vos demoiselles mes hommages respectueux, auxquels ma fille vous prie d’ajouter l’expression de ses sentiments amicaux. Votre tout dévoué.
J. S. Mill
525.
TO GEORGE GROTE
Jan. 10. 1862.
My dear Grote
A long letter from you is indeed a pleasure. We are very sorry that you and Mrs. Grote are unable to join us, but the reasons you give are superabundantly conclusive. Your life and health are so important to the world, and besides, so valuable to myself, that on either interpretation of our common standard of ethics I have the strongest reason against wishing you to expose them to any danger. I must be content with the minor pleasure of writing to you from Athens, and reporting to you what I have seen after our return.
I do not see that the opinions you express in your letter on practical ethics constitute any difference between us. I agree in them entirely, and I consider them to follow conclusively from the conception of our own happiness as a unit, neither more nor less valuable than that of another, or, in Christian language, the doctrine of loving one’s neighbour as oneself, this being of course understood not of the feeling or sentiment of love, but of perfect ethical impartiality between the two. The general happiness, looked upon as composed of as many different units as there are persons, all equal in value except as far as the amount of the happiness itself differs, leads to all the practical doctrines which you lay down. First, it requires that each shall consider it as his special business to take care of himself: the general good requiring that that one individual should be left, in all ordinary circumstances, to his own care, and not taken care of for him, further than by not impeding his own efforts, nor allowing others to do so. The good of all can only be pursued with any success by each person’s taking as his particular department the good of the only individual whose requirements he can thoroughly know; with due precautions to prevent these different persons, each cultivating a particular strip of the field, from hindering one another. Secondly, human happiness, even one’s own, is in general more successfully pursued by acting on general rules, than by measuring the consequences of each act; and this is still more the case with the general happiness, since any other plan would not only leave everybody uncertain what to expect, but would involve perpetual quarrelling: and hence general rules must be laid down for people’s conduct to one another, or in other words, rights and obligations must, as you say, be recognised; and people must, on the one hand, not be required to sacrifice even their own less good to another’s greater, where no general rule has given the other a right to the sacrifice; while, when a right has been recognised, they must, in most cases, yield to that right even at the sacrifice, in the particular case, of their own greater good to another’s less. These rights and obligations are (it is of course implied) reciprocal. And thus what each person is held to do for the sake of others is more or less definite, corresponding to the less perfect knowledge he can have of their interests, taken individually; and he is free to employ the indefinite residue of his exertions in benefitting the one person of whom he has the principal charge, and whose wants he has the means of learning the most completely. These, I think, are exactly your conclusions. And they are consistent with recognising the merit, though not the duty, of making still greater sacrifices of our own less good to the greater good of others, than the general conditions of human happiness render it expedient to prescribe. This last distinction, which I do not think inconsistent with the expressions about perfection attributed to Christ, the Catholic theologians have recognized, laying down a lower standard of disinterestedness for the world and a higher one for the “perfect” (the saints): but Protestants have in general considered this as Popish laxity, and have maintained that it is the duty of every one, absolutely to annul his own separate existence.
I am very glad that you like the papers on Utilitarianism so much. I am not more sanguine than you are about their converting opponents. The most that writing of that sort can be expected to do, is to place the doctrine in a better light, and prevent the other side having everything their own way, and triumphing in their moral and metaphysical superiority as they have done for the last half century and as they do in France still more than in England. In Germany the tide seems to be turning; & there is a commencement of turning even here. It was only lately that M. Schérer, one of the heretical Protestant theologians of France (who gave up a theological professorship at Strasbourg because he could not believe the doctrine of Biblical inspiration) declared in the Revue des Deux Mondes that the inductive and utilitarian ethics were now shewing that they could produce as good & noble fruits as the other doctrine.
My meditations on Sir W. Hamilton’s work have shaped themselves into an intention that an examination of his philosophy considered as representative of the best form of Germanism, shall be the subject of the next book I write: for it cannot be done in anything less than a book, without assuming points which it is of great importance to prove. I have tolerably well settled in my own mind what I have got to say on most of the principal points. But I do not feel properly equipped for such a piece of work until I have read your account of Plato, in which I expect to find much new and valuable thought on the great problems of metaphysics. It is some consolation for your not going over Greece with us, to think that you will be finishing Plato, which I hope may be ready for publication by the end of the year.
I have written nothing since coming here except an article on Centralization, which has been accepted by Reeve but not for the January nor perhaps for the April number. There will be nothing in it new or particularly interesting to you. I meant to have written a paper on the American question, but the miserable incident of the Trent came in the way. If that goes off favourably, which now seems more probable than the contrary, the world has had a narrow escape from one of the greatest calamities of this century.
I quite agree in your high estimate of Bain’s new book.
We think of leaving Avignon about the 29th, arriving at Athens about the 22nd of February.
With our kind regards to Mrs Grote I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
[P.S.]—As you truly say the Protagorean Socrates lays down as the standard, the happiness of the agent himself; but his standard is composed of pleasure and pain, which ranges him, upon the whole, on the utilitarian side of the controversy.
526.
TO HENRY SAMUEL CHAPMAN
Jan. 12. 1862.
Dear Chapman
I received your letter of August 26th here, and read it with great interest. I have since watched the progress of politics in your colony by means of the letters in the Times which I read with a degree of confidence that I should not have given them if I had not known their authorship: I should now, however, have been able to divine it, if you had not told me. The course of affairs under your present Constitution is exactly what it is likely to be under the falsely called democracy in which manual labourers alone are really represented. The old countries will in time come under similar influences, and the only way to mitigate them is to struggle courageously against them, as you do, but as the more educated classes in America do not; and to strive always for a fair representation of minorities. I look upon that as the sheet anchor of the democracy of the future. If it is not adopted, there is no knowing that society may not be barbarized down into not only a dead level of narrow minded stupidity, but into lawlessness; what French writers call la souveraineté du but being accepted as the supreme rule, and the but being, to make everything conform to the will (even the passing and momentary will) of the dominant majority. This particular feature of evil, which had scarcely begun to shew itself in the United States even when Tocqueville wrote, has made fearful advances since. We are here in the heart of a difficulty and danger wholly brought upon us by that spirit. Governments have often enough acted lawlessly, but even the first Napoleon, in the height of his despotism, never professed lawlessness; he seized the Duke of Enghien exactly as the Americans seized the senators in New Granada; but he never did what the American Government by its organ Mr Seward has done within the last month—profess in a public despatch that in the position his country is now in it is not bound by international rules or precedents. That open repudiation of law, and assertion of mere will and convenience, by a great nation, though it has escaped even the bitter comments of the Times, is to my mind the most alarming fact, for the future of the human race, that has occurred for generations past.
In all other respects your country seems to be thriving wonderfully. The particulars in your letter, of the reduction of household expenses from the enormous rates which had kept up for some years after the gold fever began, are very striking, and are most satisfactory indications of the return of society economically considered, to a normal condition. What you say about public libraries, schools, and the University, and about the eagerness for the better sort of new books, is very pleasant to read of, and very creditable to the country. It gives me great pleasure to hear of your own prosperity, and to think of the influence which your position both socially and politically is likely to give you in turning things into the best channel which the conditions of the state of society admit of. I was interested also by what you say concerning your son, whom I shall be glad to see, and should be still more glad to be in any way useful to. I shall not, however, be in England for a good many months to come, as we set out in a few weeks to travel in Greece and Turkey, and shall return here before going to England.
Many thanks for the Argus. I received another number of it lately (but I should think, not from you) containing a letter against Mr Hare’s plan, the objections in which are the same inconclusive ones which have been made in England. But I was glad to perceive by the first sentence that the Argus has itself written in recommendation of the plan. It is decidedly making its way and has now defenders in America and on the Continent of Europe. I am
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
527.
TO HERMAN MERIVALE
[Jan. 12, 1862]
[I shall probably be encouraged to ask you a question] now and then about Indian affairs. The rise of prices which you tell me has taken place, I can throw no light on. If permanent it must, I suppose, depend upon the same cause which is slowly raising prices through the whole commercial world, namely, the gold discoveries; though why this cause should have acted with so much greater visible force in Bengal than it has hitherto done in Europe, I cannot perceive. Can it be (since India has so long been the gulph into which silver has been constantly sinking and never reappearing) that the great upturning of things and persons which has taken place in India, among its other effects, has had that of bringing some of the hoarded silver into circulation? That would be an adequate cause, but scarcely seems a probable one. In the case of rice, the great export trade to Europe from the Bay of Bengal, which had sprung up within a few years previous to my leaving India House, may go far to account for a rise of price.
I am
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
528.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Jan. 20. 1862
Dear Sir
You have probably heard from Mr Leslie what is doing in the Political Economy Club with a view to giving the privileges of Honorary Members to the Professors in the Queen’s University. The proposal will be brought before the Club on the 6th of February with the unanimous recommendation of the Committee, consisting of Mr Newmarch, Mr Blake, and myself, and I am very confident that it will be adopted.
I have been hoping to see an advertisement of your essay on the American question, or to hear from you respecting its progress. I fear that the Trent affair may have delayed it, as there was no chance of getting a hearing for the Northern side of the question while we seemed on the brink of war with the United States. I seldom experienced so great a feeling of consternation on reading a piece of public news, as I was struck with on the arrival of the first intelligence of that affair. But it is ended, and as well ended as such a thing could be; and I have begun to look out again for tidings of your work. I also resumed a purpose which had been suspended by that untoward affair, of myself writing something on the American contest for immediate publication. The article is finished, and is to come out in the February number of Fraser. I much wished when writing it, that I had your papers on the subject to help me, and that they had come out first, so that I might have quoted them. But I hope they will follow soon after, and that others will be encouraged by our example, to help in bearing up against the stream.
We propose starting on the 29th of this month for Athens, and letters addressed Poste Restante there, will reach me till near the end of May.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
529.
TO CÉLESTIN DE BLIGNIÈRES
le 22 janvier 1862
Monsieur—
Le livre que vous avez eu la bonté de m’envoyer s’est trouvé être en effet le même que j’avais reçu il y a trois ou quatre ans. Il ne m’est pas pour cela inutile; je suis en train de le relire et j’en déjà relu une grande partie. Ce livre me paraît très remarquable sous le rapport de l’exposition et de l’expression. Il résume les plus importantes doctrines de M. Comte avec une clarté que lui-même n’a pas surpassée, et de manière à offrir souvent, pour ainsi dire, de nouveaux reflets de lumière par la manière de présenter les idées. Quant à la question qui fait, à ce qu’il paraît, votre principale différence avec M. Comte je suis assurément et pleinement de votre avis. Je crois, pourtant, que mon dissentiment va plus loin que le vôtre. On ne saurait faire mieux sentir que vous ne le faites la distinction fondamentale des pouvoirs temporel et spirituel, la nécessité de ce dernier, son existence universelle sous une forme ou sous une autre, et les suites funestes de sa réunion avec le pouvoir temporel. Voici maintenant en quoi je crois être en dissentiment avec vous. Je suis très porté à croire (sans vouloir décider positivement cette question pour l’avenir) que la nature même d’un pouvoir spirituel légitime ne comporte pas une organisation réelle. Tant qu’un accord essentiel de doctrines n’existe pas parmi les chefs spirituels, toute tentative d’organisation, en la supposant praticable, serait évidemment nuisible. Si au contraire, cet accord existait il me semble que l’organisation en corps ne serait pas nécessaire. L’autorité, qu’exerce dans les sciences positives l’opinion des savants, ne repose pas, ce me semble, sur leur réunion en Académies ou sous tout autre nom, mais sur le fait même de leur unanimité. D’ailleurs, leur organisation me donnerait des craintes sérieuses pour l’indépendance de la pensée. Tout corps scientifique organisé est toujours plus ou moins porté à repousser les innovations scientifiques, qui, pourtant, ne laissent pas d’être quelquefois nécessaires même dans les sciences qui ont reçu définitivement leur constitution positive. J’incline à croire que, lorsque l’accord général des opinions de ceux qui ont fait les études nécessaires s’étendra aux questions morales et sociologiques, la classe spéculative pourra être la classe enseignante, et exercer une grande et salutaire autorité morale, sans être organisée en corps sous une autorité dirigeante qui me semble toujours dangereuse. Je sais que la morale positive repousse toute prétention à se servir de moyens coercitifs pour agir sur les rénovateurs; mais l’opinion générale, ralliée par une puissante autorité morale suffit toujours pour exercer une pression tyrannique sur la pensée; et je ne puis oublier que M. Comte lui-même est allé jusqu’à vouloir détruire, à la manière des premiers chrétiens, les documents historiques du passé.
Cette manière de penser me conduit à admettre une certaine modification dans le principe de la non-participation des esprits spéculatifs au pouvoir temporel. Je conviens non seulement que la capacité philosophique ne doit nullement être un titre aux fonctions politiques, mais encore que les philosophes ne doivent pas, en règle générale, gouverner ni administrer, sauf les cas exceptionnels qui naissent des exigences d’une époque de transition, sauf aussi l’avantage que pourra retirer leur propre développement philosophique d’une certaine initiation dans les affaires pratiques de la vie, laquelle doit avoir lieu dans leur jeunesse et sous une autorité supérieure. Mais il me semble que les philosophes peuvent être très à leur places dans les assemblées politiques délibérantes; ce qui tient à ce que je conçois la fonction de ces assemblées tout autrement que selon l’idée ordinaire. Je les crois très peu propres à faire des lois, mais très utiles comme organes de l’opinion, soit pour critiquer tant la législation que l’administration, soit pour y donner ou refuser, en dernier lieu, la sanction nationale. Vous voyez que c’est une sorte de pouvoir spirituel que je leur accède, au sein même du pouvoir temporel. J’ai développé cette idée dans un volume sur le gouvernement représentatif, dont une traduction française est à la veille de paraître. Dès qu’elle aura paru, je vous prierai d’en accepter un exemplaire. Je ne vous offre pas l’ouvrage anglais, ne sachant pas si vous avez l’habitude de la langue anglaise. Cet ouvrage, si vous lui faites l’honneur de le lire, vous mettra au courant de la plupart des différences qui me séparent de quelques opinions de M. Comte auxquelles vous semblez adhérer.
Je compte partir dans huit jours pour un voyage en Orient, et ne retourner ici qu’à la fin de l’été. Bien qu’une lettre adressée Poste Restante à Athènes avant le milieu de mai me trouverait probablement, je n’ose vous proposer de m’écrire pendant mon absence; mais ce serait toujours pour moi un plaisir de comparer mes idées avec celles de l’auteur d’un livre si recommandable par les qualités morales et intellectuelles qu’on ne peut pas manquer d’y reconnaître dans le vôtre.
530.
TO REV. LOUIS REY
le 26 janv. 1862
Mon cher Monsieur
Comme je ne serai pas ici cette année, comme à l’ordinaire, au mois d’avril, permettez moi de vous offrir dès à présent ma contribution annuelle aux fonds de l’Eglise Protestante.
Votre tout dévoué
J. S. Mill
531.
TO PASQUALE VILLARI
Jan. 26. 1862
Mon cher M. Villari—
J’ai lu avec le plus vif intérêt votre brochure. Elle soulève à chaque page des sujets de discussions et d’entretiens dont l’occasion s’offrira, je l’espère, quelque jour. Je ne trouve pas que vous ayez fait la part trop belle aux peuples latins; d’ailleurs ce n’est pas un mal que de donner aux nations renaissantes une haute idée de leur rôle et de la place qu’ils sont tenus d’occuper dignement dans l’avenir de l’humanité. Je trouve aussi que vous avez à plusieurs égards justement apprécié les qualités et les défauts des peuples germaniques. Après cela, j’aurais bien à vous faire quelques critiques—D’abord, il me semble que, comme presque tous les penseurs des pays latins, vous ne connaissez pas assez le protestantisme. Vous pensez qu’il n’a qu’une efficacité négative. Nul anglais ne pourrait en avoir cette opinion. Son côté négatif est presque accessoire, et a cessé de prédominer, une fois que la séparation avec le catholicisme s’est pleinement effectué. C’est par son côté affirmatif qu’il s’est maintenu dans les pays protestants et surtout parmi les anglo-saxons. Si vous me demandez ce qu’il a produit dans l’ordre moral, je réponds, le sentiment du devoir, sentiment essentiellement religieux, qui est le trait le plus saillant de la moralité anglaise. L’esprit anglais est peu sympathique: il a très peu de point d’honneur national, mais il a, à un plus grand degré que tous les autres peuples, le principe du devoir, et cela lui est tellement particulier que jamais ni les hommes politiques ni les opinions des autres nations ne comprennet ce qui, dans sa civilisation et dans sa conduite, tient à ce principe. Ce qui vous fait croire au peu d’efficacité sociale et politique du protestantisme, c’est qu’en effet toutes les églises nationales protestantes, sauf celle d’Ecosse, ont joué politiquement un fort triste rôle: celle-là seule a été l’église du peuple; toutes les autres on été les églises des grands, c’est à dire, elles sont tombées, dès leur origine, dans les errements que l’église catholique n’a commis que dans sa décadence. Pour connaître le protestantisme il faut l’étudier dans l’histoire écossaise, et dans celle du puritanisme anglais et américain. Je suis très impartial en vous disant cela, puisque je n’aime ni le protestantisme écossais ni le puritanisme bien que la liberté politique leur doive beaucoup à tous deux.
Ensuite, vous dites des peuples germaniques, qu’ils oscillent entre un mysticisme tout abstrait et un matérialisme qui ne songe qu’aux choses de la terre. Cela pourrait être vrai, jusqu’à un certain point de l’Allemagne; mais je pense qu’il y a en Angleterre un plus grand nombre que partout ailleurs de ceux qui, en théorie et en pratique se tiennent à une égale distance de ces deux extrêmes, et dont les sentiments religieux se montrent surtout dans la direction plus spirituelle qu’ils donnent à la conduite pratique de la vie. Que pensez vous à cet égard des quakers? Ce sont eux qui ont commencé tous les grands mouvements philanthropiques modernes, l’affranchissement des nègres, l’instruction populaire, l’adoucissement des peines, la réforme des prisons, etc. Je vois qu’en nous accordant la poésie, vous nous refusez la philosophie; c’est que vous n’estimez guère ni l’école de Locke, ni la forme écossaise de la réaction contre elle. Mais nous avons la prétention d’avoir produit quelques uns des meilleurs penseurs philosophiques qui aient existé en temps modernes dans toutes les écoles.
Je pourrais remplir plusieurs feuilles des observations que vous avez bien voulu me demander sur votre brochure mais j’aime mieux réserver ces questions pour un temps où, soit en Italie, soit ici ou en Angleterre, nous pourrions discuter ensemble d’une manière plus satisfaisante les grandes questions philosophiques. En attendant je vous prie de me tenir au courant de tout ce que vous écrivez, car je tiens extrêmement à suivre vos idées.
Il me reste de vous engager à m’écrire Poste Restante à Athènes, ce que sera une adresse suffisante jusque vers la fin de mai. Lorsque cette adresse ne suffira plus, je vous en donnerai une autre. Nous revenir ici au mois de septembre c.à.d. ma fille et moi. Algernon Taylor ne demeure plus avec nous, il s’est marié et demeure habituellement en angleterre. Croyez toujours aux sentiments d’estime et d’affectation de votre dévoué
532.
TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON
S[aint] V[éran] Jan. 28. 1862.
Dear Thornton—
I have been very long in answering your letter of 25 Dec. The reason is that I waited for the return from Paris of the only person I know here, who has in any degree the same tastes, pursuits & opinions with myself, & from whom I hoped to be able to procure better information than I have respecting the small landed proprietors here. He has not yet returned & I am therefore less able than I hoped I should be to answer your questions. But I hope you will be here next autumn, when you can see him yourself & when we can investigate the matter together, so far as relates to this district, which however is in many respects unlike many other parts of France; as the south, also, is in many particulars unlike the north. One point of unlikeness here, to many other French provinces (but to how many I do not know) is that nearly all the working people have large families—that is, when the greater part of the children do not die. I fear that in many parts of France besides this, the population is kept down more by death, and less by prudence, than I formerly believed. There seems to be hardly such a thing as prudence in pecuniary matters here, on the part of the men, though often a great deal in the women, to whom exclusively the well-doing & prosperity of any working family seems here to be attributable. In consequence probably of the large families the idea of all the children supporting themselves on the parental bit of land seems not to exist in this country. Most peasants who have land, seem to farm other land with it, as metayers or as bailiffs, & the majority of the children go out as domestic servants or labourers or artisans; these (one may suppose, & what little I know confirms it) do not desire, when the parents die, to take their share of the land; as they say, what could they do with it? but take their portion in money. This payment in money, however, as I surmise, helps to encumber the little landed properties. Another mode in which the large families tend to prevent division is that when the parent dies there are usually children under age, & as the legal difficulties of dividing the inheritance are in that case considerable, it sometimes remains undivided in the first instance, & is managed by one of the family on the joint account. There is an example of this in the case of a woman servant of ours, one of a large family, the youngest of whom, a son, is not yet of age, & the land is managed for them by an uncle, who pays them nothing, but is censé to expend the proceeds, whatever they are, on the land itself. Her notion of what should be done is, that when the youngest brother comes of age, those of the family who are well off, among whom she reckons herself, should give up their shares to the rest, that of the remainder one brother should retain the land & the others receive their shares in money. Then, she says, when we are old we can go sometimes to see the home of our childhood. This does not throw any light on the question of indebtedness as regards the land generally. But in this aspect Lavergne’s book, which I have read & which is on the whole very favourable to peasant properties, is extremely rassurant. I have never seen the burthens of the small properties estimated at so low an amount by anybody as they are by this most careful and well-informed authority. He says that the average indebtedness of the whole landed property of France does not exceed a tenth of the value, & in the case of rural property, a twentieth. The burthen of interest he estimates up to a late period at 10 per cent, but thinks that it must now be considerably less, as ‘les dernières crises ont amené une tendance générale vers [une] liquidation:’ which I suppose means that the usurers have sold up: but the previous amount of mortgage debts, you see, is not at all consistent with Louis Blanc’s impressions.
About Lord Canning’s measure I entirely agree with you. I have always thought that a general redemption of even the permanently settled revenues must be a bad bargain to the Government, for the simple reason that it cannot answer to the proprietor to give as much for it as it would answer to the Government to take. We know that in all countries in which the good faith of the Govt is relied on, the Govt can borrow at lower interest than an individual can do even on good landed security. Suppose that the difference is no greater than that between 4 & 5 per cent; the Govt makes a losing bargain unless it can get 25 years’ purchase while the proprietor cannot afford to give more than 20, since he must pay 5 per cent. for the money if borrowed, & if he has it of his own, can get that or still better interest for it in other ways. The effect on agriculture of the redemption must be wholly injurious. If the proprietor has capital or can borrow it, he would do much better by expending it in cultivating & improving the land than in freeing himself from an annual payment, which being fixed, in no way diminishes the profits of improvement. I observe that Lord Canning does not mean to sell at less than 20 years’ purchase; this can only answer if Govt will never be able hereafter to borrow under 5 per cent.
We start on Thursday for Athens, where we expect to arrive about the 22nd of February, stopping a week at Corfu by the way. Letters directed poste restante Athens will find us for the next three months & more, for we shall be either there or journeying about Greece till near the end of May, after which we propose going to Smyrna & Constantinople but not returning to England until after the time when I shall hope to see you here, when I look forward to shewing you whatever is best worth seeing in this district & having out the subject of Darwin & many others.
[P.S.] I have been writing a paper on the American question which will come out in the February Fraser & which if noticed at all is likely to be much attacked, as it is in complete opposition to the tone of the press & of English opinion, a tone which has caused me more disgust than anything has done for a long time. I shall therefore be glad to know what is thought of the article by people who have not got pens in their hands & shall be obliged to you for any information of that sort which you may be able to communicate.
My kind regards to Major Couper. I shd much like to hear from him.
533.
TO JOHN WILLIAM PARKER
Jan 29. 1862
Dear Sir
I am desirous to see anything of consequence which may be written on the subject of my article in the forthcoming number of Fraser, especially any attack; and should therefore be obliged by your sending here, in the usual way, anything that may come out up to the 8th, and to Athens (Poste Restante) anything worth sending that may come out afterwards, and that can either be inclosed in an ordinary letter, or sent by newspaper post.
I hope the remaining sheets of the Logic and Political Economy will be looked through carefully. The reader who examines them is evidently a painstaking and careful man, but it nevertheless happens at times that one word is put instead of another with a very awkward effect.
I am
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
534.
TO JOHN NICHOL
Jan. 30, 1862
Dear Sir
I hope that you heard of my absence from Messrs Parker in time to be saved the trouble of a fruitless journey to Blackheath. I should be glad to hear that you had succeeded in obtaining the Professorship, but I do not see any way in which I could have helped you towards it. I have no influence, or acquaintance, with either the present Home Secretary or the Lord Advocate, and I, as yet, know too little of you (I hope this will not always be the case) to entitle any opinion which I am in a position to give in your favour to any attention in deciding a question of this nature.
I write in great haste, as I am on the point of starting for a long journey. If you should have occasion to write to me, a letter addressed care of Messrs Parker, Son, and Bourn with “to be forwarded” written on it, will find me.
I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
535.
TO CHARLES DUPONT-WHITE
Athènes, le 28 février 1862
Mon cher Monsieur
L’adresse de M. Reeve est Henry Reeve Esq. 62 Rutland Gate Hyde Park, London; ou l’on peut lui adresser une lettre, Council Office, Whitehall, London, en mettant “Private” sur l’adresse.
Vous voyez que votre lettre m’a suivi jusqu’ici, ou, pour mieux dire, nous a précédé en arrivant. Ce pays-ci ne fournit pour le moment rien d’intéressant en fait de nouvelles politiques. Vous avez probablement entendu parler d’une tentative de révolution militaire, mais on pense qu’elle se terminera, suivant l’usage d’ici, par une transaction sur les intérêts personnels des chefs de l’insurrection.
Je vous félicite d’avoir terminé votre travail sur le Représentatif. Je ne verrai la traduction qu’à la fin de mon voyage. La lettre que vous me destinez sera toujours la bien venue, quoique j’eusse hésité à vous en demander une. Jusqu’à la fin de mai mon adresse sera Poste Restante à Athènes.
Votre dévoué
J. S. Mill
536.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
Athens March 6. 1862
Dear Mr Fawcett
I was very glad to receive a letter from you at this remote place, and this particular letter contained many things which were specially pleasant to me. I was glad that you agreed with me so completely on the American question, glad that you thought the article was doing good, glad that the Cambridge petition is going on so well, glad above all that you are working with vigour, both orally and by writing, and that your treatise on political economy is making progress. The article on Cooperation in McMillan I have seen, and liked. Such a paper was wanted, and will be useful. The facts relating to the success of Cooperation require to be kept before the public mind. There will be a good many additional details including the Rochdale history, in the next edition of my Pol. Economy, which I have ordered to be sent to you when published. I am glad that a right view of the American question found favour with the Southwark meeting. The democracy often has great injustice done it by those who though they think themselves wiser, have not the industry, courage or public spirit to stand up for their wiser opinions, but either remain silent, or if they say anything, truckle to the low feelings and prejudices which they affect to be personally superior to. I am not at all surprised that Thornton is not with us in the American question. Though a superior man on many points, on others he feels with the herd, and one never knows which these last may be. I should be more surprised that Mr Hare is not entirely with us, were it not that he probably has not much studied the subject, nor is well in possession of the antecedent facts. I thought his article in McMillan very good, and much better adapted for its purpose than those he formerly wrote in Fraser. I observed in a letter of the Sydney correspondent of the Times that Mr Hare’s plan is attracting great attention there, partly through the exertions of Mr Holden, and that the Senate has referred it to a Committee, to consider about its practical applicability in that colony.
We have not been favoured by the weather in our journey hitherto: we found the ground covered with snow in the North of Italy, almost incessant rain at Corfu, and of the few days we have been here, very much spoiled by a thick haze. However, we have seen Athens pretty thoroughly, have climbed Hymettus and Pentelicus, and are going to set out on an excursion for a week or ten days to Sunium, Rhamnus, Marathon and other places on the eastern coast, returning here afterwards, and when the weather is sufficiently settled, starting again for Peloponnesus. You have noticed perhaps that the garrison of Nauplia is in a state of rebellion against the government, but though the King and his ministers are very unpopular, the insurrection has not spread any farther, and the matter will probably terminate as such things usually terminate here, by the submission and pardon of the chiefs of the revolt. It is a strange and half savage country, but advancing most rapidly in material prosperity, which in modern civilization is usually the first step towards moral progress. The worst is that the government, and all or nearly all the politicians, are bent solely on selfish objects, and the revenues of the country are spent in jobbing while there is hardly a road passable to carriages in the whole country; a striking contrast to the splendid roads which the English made all over Corfu and the other islands, but which are now very much falling off, because the legislature will not vote money to keep them up.
My address will be Poste Restante, Athens, probably for two months to come. When you write, pray tell me how the matter is settled about Cairnes and Leslie, and also whether judgment has yet been given in Mr Williams’ case, and to what effect. Our newspapers sometimes miscarry, and I should not like to lose so interesting a piece of news.
I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
537.
TO THOMAS HARE
[Before June 11, 1862]
[It (proportional representation) has become a matter of philosophical discussion in Germany; and in a letter which I received not long ago from Mr. Mill, he informed me of the attention which the scheme had attracted, and of its adoption by an able writer of Zurich. He adds]
It is encouraging to find that, though practical politicians are only too glad to turn from the whole subject, right ideas, now that they are promulgated, are making rapid way among thinking persons, the future teachers of all parts of the world.
538.
TO GEORGE GROTE
June 11. 1862
My dear Grote
I write, as I promised, from Athens, to tell you how our journey has prospered. It has been a complete success: the tent travelling has answered perfectly, and we have gone everywhere and seen everything, without being in any way disturbed by the Nauplia insurrection, nor experienced any of the dire consequences in the form of renewed brigandage, which the English at Athens told us we might expect and no one more than those connected with the Legation, always excepting poor Sir Thomas Wyse and Miss Wyse. We have made two expeditions of six weeks each, in which we have seen Greece more thoroughly than it has often been seen: We encamped two days at the foot of Parnassus, and two on the plateau of the mountain, climbed the mountain itself, encamped three days in the valley of the Styx, one day and two nights on Kyllene, saw nearly all Peloponnesus except the northwest corner, almost every foot of Attica and the Megarid, the north of Eubœa, the coast of Phthiotis, Lamia, Thermopylæ, Œta, Phokis and Bœotia, Delphi, the magnificent coast from thence to Naupactus and the strait of Rhium, where we crossed over. I look forward to many interesting conversations with you about localities: for instance, I walked from one end to the other of Sphakteria and wondered that there should ever have been any puzzle about that matter. We both thought the beauty of Greece quite incomparable: not so the air and the sky, about which there is as much humbug current as about any purely physical subject I know. The people are very backward, and full of the faults and vices produced by long servitude, but improvement seems to be taking place, though slowly. I hardly know what is most to be desired for them at present. The whole people, even the civil and military officers of the government, shew an unanimity in their detestation of it which I should think has seldom existed in any country not held down by foreign forces without producing a revolution; but though all sympathized with the Nauplia insurgents, the people did not join them, but allowed them to be put down, from fear, as it is said, lest brigandage should be renewed, and the tranquillity by which they have begun to profit in their pecuniary interests, brought to an end. Most people however say that if the King does not now change his policy, there will be a revolution within a year, and nobody with whom I have conversed thinks that he will change it.
There has been a mission of German archaeologists here, Böttiger and another, from the Prussian Government, with whom Curtius and others have voluntarily associated themselves. They have made some important excavations—have uncovered the real entrance to the Parthenon, have ascertained on what seems sufficient evidence the boundary which separated the temple itself from the Opisthodomus, and the true position of the statue of the goddess: they have made some discoveries at the Erechtheion, though that subject is still mysterious; have ascertained as they think, the true line of the city walls, and Curtius thinks he has made great discoveries about the Pnyx. But their main achievement is that they have opened up the Dionysiac theatre, have dug down to the stone chairs of the magistrates, which are now seen in fine preservation in the very front of the scene, and have converted the fact of its being a theatre at all from a matter of faith into one of sense. They have begun to publish the results of their operations, and I shall learn from Mr Finlay and tell you where you may find them.
A friend and correspondent of mine, Professor Villari of the University of Pisa, is now in England on a mission from the Italian Government, to make enquiries into popular education in England, competitive examinations &c. with a view to practical application in Italy, where he holds an important post under the minister of public instruction, and I have ventured to send him an introduction to you. He wishes much to know you, and I think he will both interest you, and derive real benefit from your ideas and conversation. My first knowledge of him was as having commenced a translation of my Logic, which however he has never yet had time to finish. When I was in Tuscany seven years ago, I saw him, and we have been frequent correspondents ever since. He is a man of talent and knowledge and I think, much judgment and good sense, and his opinions about Italy seem to me always marked by those qualities. He has at different times sent me things which he has published, always of merit; the most considerable is a life of Savonarola, full of new and valuable historical matter from the documents of the period.
I have had an application of another sort with reference to you, from one of my former colleagues in the India House. I inclose his note, though the matter with a view to which it was written has probably long since been decided. I have told him in reply, that there is no one more unlikely than you to be influenced by any recommendation, unless, being grounded on personal knowledge, it bears the character of actual testimony; but that no one, also, can be more surely relied on for giving conscientious and impartial attention to everything which comes before you in the shape of evidence.
We propose starting on the 17th for Smyrna, and continuing our tent journey from thence by the Troad to the Dardanelles, where as the season will be getting too far advanced for travelling in Asia, we shall probably take the steamer for Constantinople. One has not seen Greece without seeing Ionia, the Hellespont, and the Bosporus. We had the unexpected pleasure of seeing Mount Athos very clearly from near Oreos in Eubœa.
We were sorry to see in the Times Mrs. Stanley’s death. That of Sir Thomas Wyse occurred unexpectedly early, just before our first return to Athens. He had very little the appearance, when I saw him, of a person who had a mortal disease. He is much regretted and will be much missed here.
I suppose you have now nearly if not quite, finished Plato. I am very impatient for it. I am
my dear Grote
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
Our kind regards to Mrs Grote.
539.
TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON
Athens June 14. 1862
Dear Thornton—
I have been a long time without acknowledging your letter of March 20, but you know enough of the little time which travelling leaves one, not to be surprised at this especially as during the few days I have been stationary here I have received an extraordinary number of letters which required, or the writers thought they required to be answered immediately. Our journey has been successful in every respect & we have sustained no inconvenience at all from the insurrection or its consequences, which, moreover, has been put down; but there are few who do not seem to expect a much more serious one before long. This however & all other matters relating to Greece will be better discussed in the conversations I am looking forward to having with you in our little hermitage not long after the conclusion of our journey. As to the time of your coming, as you are engaged elsewhere for the first week in October if it is still equally convenient to you to come to Avignon after or before that time, I will if you allow me decide for the later of the two periods, as it will leave us a wider margin for the time of our return to Avignon. The weather will also probably be cooler for walks & other excursions.
I confess I am surprised that you attach any importance to Forster’s or any other exhibitions of what they call spiritualism. Since in all that relates to the communicators with spirits, the men are manifestly impostors, why should one feel any difficulty in believing them to be so altogether, & their apparent marvels to be juggling or other tricks? Their exploits certainly would never do anything to shake my total disbelief in clairvoyance, of which apart from its extreme antecedent improbability, I have never read of any case the evidence of which did not leave the most obvious loopholes for fraud. That so many people should have believed in it is to me one of the many proofs that honest people do not in general at all appreciate either the facility of being cheated or the frequency of the disposition to cheat.
540.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
June 15. 1862
Dear Sir
Your letter of March 4 gave me great pleasure, but I have delayed answering it, because I have been travelling about Greece for the last three months; and when I was able to write, which was only from Athens, the letters on personal or merely practical matters got themselves answered first. Probably long before this time, your book is in print. It is as much wanted as when we first talked about it, and is probably more likely to produce an effect than if published before the reaction which, I was so glad to hear from you, had commenced against the Southern feeling at one time so much fostered by the Times. The victories of the North have had much to do with the change; the altered tone of the Times itself is the measure of the greater chance it thinks there is of the North being successful. I think with you that it is a moot point whether the reunion of the North and South would be as desirable an issue of the struggle as a separation confining slavery within the Mississippi. Reunion would be best if the North could be depended upon for not making concessions to slavery, but I agree with you in having no confidence in their staunchness in this respect. I am much obliged to you for the Economist. I liked your letter in it exceedingly, and I value very highly your approbation of my article. As to the one point on which you think we differ, I did not mean to defend Seward’s despatch as a whole. His arguments to shew that the Trent was violating international law were weak and sophistical, and have been nowhere more strongly repudiated than by so high an American authority as Sumner, whose speech in the Senate of the United States on “maritime rights” is worth your reading, and who goes the whole length of Thouvenel’s excellent despatch. I am not au courant of the discussion on colonial emancipation originated by Goldwin Smith. But I think it very undesirable that anything should be done which would hasten the separation of our colonies. I believe the preservation of as much connexion as now exists to be a great good to them; and though the direct benefit to England is extremely small, beyond what would exist after a friendly separation, any separation would greatly diminish the prestige of England, which prestige I believe to be, in the present state of the world, a very great advantage to mankind.
We are about to start for Smyrna and Constantinople, after a very pleasant tour in Greece, and shall go thence by Vienna and Switzerland to Avignon returning to England at the end of autumn. When I return, you are one of the persons I shall most wish to see.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
541.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
June 24. 1862
Dear Sir
Since I wrote to you from Athens some ten days ago, I have received the copy of your book which you did me the favour to send. I read through it immediately, and I cannot help writing at once to tell you how pleased I am with it. It seems to me exactly the thing which was wanted: it brings the true aspect of the case, in all its parts, before the public, in a manner so clear, full, and impressive, that any one who reads it, unless strongly prejudiced beforehand (if he possesses the feelings and moral convictions to which it appeals) can scarcely fail to be convinced by it. The great thing now is to get it read. I wish I was in a position to do something promptly that might assist in making it widely known. I cannot doubt that the Daily News, McMillan, and probably the National Review, will make good use of it. Might it not be a good thing to send a copy to Lord Brougham? He would probably talk about it, and help to get it read.
I do not think there is an opinion or a sentiment in the book with which I substantially disagree; and this is so very generally the case when I read anything you write, that I feel growing up in me, what I seldom have, the agreeable feeling of a brotherhood in arms. This feeling being one of the pleasantest which life has to give, I owe you thanks privately as well as publicly for adding as much to it as you have done by your present volume.
I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
542.
TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL
- Therapia, near Constantinople
July 5. 1862
Dear Harriet
My answer to your two previous letters must have reached you after all was over. It seems to have been a strange disease. It is frightful to think of the quantity of suffering which so often accompanies the process of going out of life.
I write by this post (the first since receiving your letter) to Messrs Dymock and Paterson, to say that I have not the smallest idea of disputing the will. I should never dream of taking advantage of a legal technicality to defeat the moral right of any one to make what disposition he pleased of his own property, even if I did not think, as I do, that disposition to be a very proper one.
I hope your health will not have suffered materially by what you have gone through.
J.S.M.
543.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
July 17, 1862
We have just arrived here—somewhat sooner than we expected, and are at the Kaiserinn Elisabeth Hotel. If you are at Vienna, we should be most happy to see you. If I knew where to find you, I would call on you myself.
544.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
July 21. 1862
Dear Mr Fawcett
Many thanks for your interesting letter. None of my correspondents tell me so much of what I want to know as you do; though on the subject of Dr Williams’ affair you presuppose a knowledge I do not possess, for though I receive an English newspaper, it sometimes miscarries, and unluckily the paper containing the judgment has not reached me. I am glad that it is on the whole favourable to latitudinarianism and satisfactory to Dr Williams’ friends, though I am sorry to hear that there is any question of recantation. Two other pieces of news in your letter gave me great pleasure—that the Cooperative Cotton Mills hold firm, and that Cairnes and Leslie have been elected to the Pol. Ec. Club. Cairnes’ is a splendid book and if it is but read, must tell. As it is impressively and popularly written, it has, I hope, a good chance of readers. I see the National Review has an article on it, with large extracts, and in an excellent tone. He has one of the clearest intellects I know, combined, I think, with an excellent moral nature, and is capable, if he has anything like fair play, of doing great things. Buckle’s untimely end grieved me deeply. I knew of it early, having met at Athens with his travelling companion Mr Glennie, a young man of, I think, considerable promise, who occupies himself very earnestly with the higher philosophical problems on the basis of positive science. I look forward to much pleasure from your book. I sought for your name in the reports of the Social Science meetings, which were unusually interesting this year: Hare seems to have made considerable way, and the movement against the disabilities of women appears to be advancing in a most satisfactory manner. After what passed at those meetings their admission to University degrees is almost une cause gagnée, and that, (next to, if not even before, the elective franchise) is the most important point of all practically, and in its effect on their own minds.
I received at Athens a very pleasant note from Fitzjames Stephen, to which I would gladly have returned a fitting answer but had too many other letters to write, that I had not time. When you see him, pray thank him from me, and say that I look forward with pleasure to our better acquaintance.
We have enjoyed our journey extremely, and are bringing back a store of most pleasant recollections from it. We do not go at once to England, but first to Avignon, where we shall remain till the beginning of winter. If you write soon, please inclose to Parker, with the words “to be forwarded,” as he will know when to send your letter, which I should be very unwilling to lose.
Remember me kindly to Mr Hare when you see him. I am
dear Mr Fawcett
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
545.
TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
[August ? 1862]
[A copy went to John Stuart Mill, who was much pleased with the “Observations”, and was certain that] the publication of them would do vast good.
546.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Aug. 10. 1862
Dear Sir
I have long been wishing to send something to the Westminster but my good intentions have hitherto come to nothing, because I waited in hopes of offering something elaborate, and every paper I planned either required too much space, or I had not time to write it. Without giving up all hopes of this kind, it occurs to me however, that I might be more useful to the Westminster by occasionally sending something slighter and of less pretension, which one has oftener time for, and for which suitable subjects are more easily found. Perhaps it might suit you to take a short paper on Professor Cairnes’s excellent book “The Slave Power”. If so, I could perhaps get it ready in time for the October number, though I cannot positively promise it for so soon, as I shall be travelling for the next two or three weeks. If you like the proposal, please write to me at Saint-Véran, near Avignon, Vaucluse, France.
I was very sorry to hear of the loss and inconvenience you sustained by Manwaring’s failure. I congratulate you on having produced, under all difficulties, so good a number as that for July.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
547.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Aug. 31. 1862
Dear Sir
I have just arrived here and found your two notes. I will lose no time in setting to work, and I can promise that you shall have something on Professor Cairnes’ book by the 20th of September at latest. It is, however, an unlucky time for writing on the subject, as even in so short an interval events may have given an entirely new colour to the prospect. But it seems better, if only for the purpose of making Mr Cairnes’ book known as widely as possible, to write at once, rather than wait till December. If the article, when it reaches you, appears too slight for the subject, or is in any way superseded by the course of events, I shall not only take in no way amiss your omitting it, but should be obliged to you for doing so, and in that case shall be happy to attempt a better article for the January number.
From the shortness of the time, as well as for other reasons, I should rather not review any other book along with that of Mr Cairnes. I am
Dear Sir,
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
548.
TO HENRY HUTH
Aug. 31. 62
Dear Sir
On arriving here I found your two letters. I am extremely obliged to you for the interesting particulars you give respecting Buckle whose [death] no one, not personally intimate with him could regret more deeply than I do. I sympathize sincerely with Mrs Huth and thoroughly appreciate the loss both to herself and to her sons of a friend like him in such close relations with them as he was.
I would most gladly respond to her earnest appeal by giving her any advice in my power: but the intimacy and personal influence of a first rate person morally and intellectually not only to young persons but to all who are capable of receiving it, the loss of which as I know by my own experience, nothing can replace—And such are the imperfections of our educational institutions that they can hardly do any thing out of the little which could be done to supply the place of such an influence—If I knew of anyone whom I could recommend as a tutor, or of any place of education fitted for forming the kind of persons whom I conclude Mrs Huth desires her sons to be, I shd be only too happy to recommend them, but I go so little into general society that I am not in the way of hearing even of the best that is to be had. I am truly sorry that I have so little to say which can either help Mrs Huth in her difficulty or comfort her in her distress.
I am very glad to hear of the improvement in your own health and of the approach to completeness of your own work which I expect to read with much interest.
My address will be here, until the beginning of winter.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
549.
TO HENRY PARKES
Sept. 2, 1862
Dear Sir
On arriving here after a long journey only three days ago, I found your note of 28th June. Allow me to thank you for the pamphlets on Australian affairs. I take great interest in whatever affects the progress and prospects of communities which are likely to be of so much importance in the future history of mankind.
I shall be here for the next few months, but intend returning to England early in winter. Should you be at that time in England and in London, I shall hope to have the meeting with you which accidental circumstances have so long postponed. I am
Dear Sir
yrs very faithfully
J. S. Mill
Henry Parkes Esq.
550.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
S[aint] V[éran] le 7 sept. 1862
Mon cher Monsieur
Je ne suis nullement disposé à acheter le pré de M. Cade aux prix de 1000 fr. l’éminée qui me paraît très au dessus de sa valeur. J’ai tout lieu de croire que ce pré ne vaut pas même 700 francs l’éminée prix ordinaire des prairies de ce côté-ci et je propose à M. Cade ce prix-là avec les frais d’achat et la troisième coupe d’herbe. Au reste on m’offre au voisinage des prés de meilleure qualité à un prix très inférieur à ce qu’il demande.
Agréez mon cher Monsieur l’expression de ma considération la plus amicale
551.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Sept. 11. 1862
Dear Sir
I send the article by this post, and I am glad to think that you will receive it before the latest of the dates mentioned in your note of Sept. 2. If you think it good enough for insertion, and are able to send a proof, I shall be much pleased. If time forbids this, I hope that some careful person will collate the proof with the manuscript.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that the article is gratuitous. I am
Dear Sir
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
552.
TO E. R. EDGER
S[aint] V[éran] Sept. 13. 1862
Sir,—
On returning a few days ago from a distant journey I found your note dated June last & I have read attentively the MS. which accompanied it.
I shd have much to say against several of your positions, & especially against your definition of liberty; but I do not understand that you wish to discuss the subject with me, for which in any case I have not time. I understand you as wishing me to tell you whether, as far as I can judge from your MS., I consider you competent in point of ability to pursue enquiries of this nature with a useful result and I need not hesitate to answer, that I do think you competent. But what I seem to myself to see in your paper is promise rather than performance. It gives signs of several of the qualities which go towards making a genuine thinker: a real desire to go to the bottom of a subject, & not merely to skim its surface; a certain faculty of laying out a large subject & looking at it as a whole; finally, whatever you see, you see clearly, & are able to express clearly to others. I would therefore exhort you by all means, not only to continue thinking, but to continue writing; not however (I would recommend) with a view to early publication. The way to cultivate a really philosophical intellect is to go on long thinking out subjects for one’s own instruction—with a view to understand them as thoroughly as possible oneself; reading in the meanwhile whatever is best worth reading on the subjects one is studying, collating one’s own thoughts with those of the books one reads & gathering from them new materials for thinking. Those who do this, patiently & unambitiously, without looking much to any ulterior object, are the most likely to be able, sooner or later, to teach something valuable to others. They may never discover any great new truths; to do this is a good fortune which happens to few persons in a century, & the less we think of it as likely to happen to ourselves, the better for us. But originality does not consist solely in making great discoveries; whoever thinks out a subject with his own mind, not accepting the phrases of his predecessors instead of facts, is original, & it is hardly possible for any one to do this even on the most hacknied subject without turning up some new or neglected aspects of truths, or making some unexpected & perhaps fruitful applications of them.
I would recommend to you, then, by all means to persevere in your speculations; but, were you a Plato, a Locke, or a Bentham, I could not advise you, unless you had a pecuniary independence, to give your time to such pursuits to the neglect of other modes of gaining a subsistence. I believe that to do anything in philosophy, tranquillity of mind, & especially freedom from anxiety as to the means of livelihood, are almost indispensable. To live by philosophy, unless as a public teacher in an University, is wholly impossible; & if your daily occupation leaves you even a little leisure, you will very probably in that little do quite as much, in a favourite pursuit, as you would be likely to do by devoting all your time to it. The mind, if strained too long on one subject, works less pleasurably, & for that reason, even were there no other, less vigorously; while combining two occupations makes each of them, as I have found in my own experience, a rest from the other. Regretting that you could not receive this answer to your application at an earlier period,
I am yours very sincerely
553.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
Sept. 13. 1862
Dear Sir
Your letter of Feb. 13 has only reached me within these few days, on my return from a distant journey. I am not likely to forget the correspondence I have had with you, and am glad that you would like to continue it. There are many things which, in your position and with your superiority to the prejudices of that position, you must see and know much better than I do, and on which it would often be of great use to me to receive the facts and remarks which you could give. It may also be useful to both of us to compare our ideas on the practical questions bearing on the elevation of the minds and condition of the operative classes. I agree with you that more is expected from Cooperative Societies than they can, as least immediately, realize, and that the ready money principle is one chief cause of the success of the Rochdale Store. As you say, if a private tradesman were always paid ready money he could afford to sell cheaper. But would his goods be certain to be of the perfectly genuine quality which those at Rochdale are? in addition to which, the working people who buy at the Rochdale Store, share the profits among them, and obtain, at the same time, the best possible investment for their savings.
In the new edition of my Political Economy, I have somewhat altered and enlarged what I had before said on the subject of Cooperation and on that of Strikes. As you may not have seen the edition, I will, the first time I write to my publisher, desire him to send you a copy; and it would give me great satisfaction to receive any criticism which your experience and judgment may suggest to you, on the view I take of those subjects.
I am
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
Mr John Plummer
554.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
Sept. 17, 1862
We have now been rather more than a fortnight in this quiet harbour, after our journey, and are fully enjoying its peacefulness. We did not see so much of the Alps, as we expected, after leaving Ischl. . . .
I am doing little at present but reading up the French and English reviews. But since I arrived I have written and sent off an article on the American question (à propos of Mr. Cairnes’ book) which will be in the Westminster Review next month. A very interesting series of notes on America and on the war have been published this summer in an English periodical (Macmillan’s Magazine) and are, I see, lately reprinted as a volume under the title of “Six months in the Federal States”: the Author is a Mr. Dicey, who had within the last two years published a book on Rome and Italy. He writes very judiciously, as well as with right feeling, on the whole subject, and what he says respecting the people of the North, being evidently a faithful transcript of what he has seen and heard, ought to have some influence. The Times, as might be expected, is as bad as ever, and even more undisguised in the expression of its bad wishes. It let out, however, a curious admission the other day—that, whatever might be in other respects the issue of this war, it must lead to the destruction of slavery. This will be true if the North succeeds; but if the South should be successful, I expect the very reverse.—In Europe things appear to be going on well, as far at least, as mental progress is concerned. This is very visible in the higher order of writers in France; among whom I invariably remark that what is bad in thought and sentiment is found chiefly in the publicists who had made themselves known before 1848, and that the generation of those who have risen into notice since that time is both higher in morality, and more philosophic in the intellect.—The Garibaldi affair is very painful, but it has ended as litle mischievously as perhaps it could have done. It has at least given Louis Napoleon no pretext for intervention and less excuse than ever for keeping his troops in Rome; while Garibaldi, it is to be hoped, is still reserved for better times. If it also destroys Rattazzi, that will be another benefit arising from it. . . . With our compliments to your sister I am yours very sincerely,
J. St. Mill
P.S. I had written the preceding before I received yours. . . . I should have written before, had I thought you would have felt any such anxiety as you mention on our account. It will always be a pleasure for me to hear from you; let me know what you are doing and thinking, and how the political affairs of your country are proceeding. I can assure you that, however little expression I may habitually give to such a feeling, you are one of the few persons whose friendship I value and whom I would gladly see asserting an influence on the current of public affairs.
J. St. Mill
555.
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
September 17th, 1862.
My Dear Sir,
I value the permission you gave me to correspond with you much too highly not to avail myself of it thus early, although I have very little to say that will be new, and at the same time interesting, to one whose thoughts are engrossed as yours must be. If you see Macmillan’s Magazine, which has from the beginning been steadily on the right side in American affairs, you must have remarked the ‘Notes of a Journey in America,’which have been in the course of publication for some months, ending with a general summing up in the September number. This last paper especially appears to me excellent, and likely to do much good in England. The whole series has been reprinted in a volume, with the name of the writer, Mr. Edward Dicey, author of a recent book on Italy and Rome. You will probably see the Westminster Review of next month, which will contain an article of mine on the American question, apropos of Mr. Cairnes’s book. It is hastily written, and slight, for such a subject, but “every little helps,” as the nursery proverb says. I am not at all uneasy about public opinion here, if only the North is successful. The great number of well-meaning people and sincere enemies of slavery who have been led into disapproving of your resistance to the South, when carried to the length of war, have been chiefly influenced by thinking the re-conquest of the South impossible. If you prove it to be possible, if you bring the Slave States under your power, if you make use of that power to reconstitute Southern society on the basis of freedom, and if finally you wind up the financial results without breaking faith with any of the national creditors (among whom must be reckoned the holders of depreciated currency), you will have all our public with you, except the Tories, who will be mortified that what they absurdly think an example of the failure of democracy should be exchanged for a splendid example of its success. If you come well and honourably through one of the severest trials which a nation has ever undergone, the whole futurity of mankind will assume a brighter aspect. If not, it will for some time to come be very much darkened.
I have read lately two writings of Northern Americans on the subject of England, which shew a very liberal appreciation of the misdirection of English opinion and feeling respecting the contest. One is Mr. Thurlow Weed’s letter, which was published in the newspapers, and in which those just and generous allowances are made for us which many of us have not made for you. The other is the Rev. Dr. Thompson’s ‘England during our War,’ reprinted from the New Englander, which is even over-indulgent to our people, but too severe on our Government. I believe that our Government has felt more rightly all through than a majority of the public.
We shall be at this address until the end of November; afterwards at Blackheath Park, Kent. I need hardly say that if your occupations should allow of your writing to me it would not only give me great pleasure, but would make me better able to be of use to a cause which I have as much at heart as even yourself.
I am, my dear sir,
Very truly yours,
J. S. Mill
556.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Sept. 24. 1862.
Dear Sir
I am much obliged to you for the proof, of which I now return the concluding page.
I cannot think of receiving payment for any paper which I may offer to the Review so long as it is not in a position to pay all its contributors.
I shall be very happy to give you my best judgment on any matter on which you may wish to have it. In the case of Italy I am entirely with you as a matter of feeling; but going on the principle that one ought not to urge upon a Government any course which, were one in their place, one would not feel it right to adopt, I cannot think the immediate incorporation of Rome with the Kingdom of Italy of such vital importance to Italy or to the cause of freedom and progress, as to be worth a war between England and France, while there would be nothing so likely to turn the French nation against all that we wish for, and make them identify themselves with their present ruler, as any attempt by a foreign power to act upon them by intimidation. Italy has already our moral support and events have proved that this is much. L[ouis] N[apoleon] is detested in Italy; and the longer he remains at Rome, the more certain it becomes that he will have no influence over the destinies of the country but what force, or intrigue and corruption, may give him. This is not a thing of small importance: for it was a great question whether Italy would form its character as a selfgoverning nation on French ideas or on English, and this question is now rapidly deciding itself in favour of English. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
557.
TO THOMAS HARE
Oct. 9. 1862
Dear Sir
It was a curious coincidence that I should receive a letter from you dated Innsbruck, so soon after having left that place. I hope you had better weather than we had during the latter part of our Alpine journey.
Since I wrote last, I am enabled to announce to you another valuable adhesion. The Journal des Economistes (for June last) which now contains some of the most important and thorough discussions not merely on political economy but on morals and politics in general, that are to be found in any periodical, contains a review of my book on Repr. Govt by M. Eugène Véron, one of the most promising writers of the Revue Nationale; in which article a clear and intelligent account is given of your system, and a complete approval and support of it.
I have read your little book on what may be called the Building Question, with great interest. It is much to be desired that Mr. Peabody, whose influence, if exerted, would naturally be paramount in the disposal of his own magnificent gift, may see that the only way of making it useful is to erect such houses as will pay, and by selling them when built, provide a sum to recommence with. Your plan is, I think, evidently the best for combining remunerativeness with the social object in view, by appropriating the upper stories (as in Paris) to working people, the lower ones being laid out in middle class lodgings and the groundfloor in shops. You have also done good service by insisting on the fitness of having a single local government for the whole of London; which gave you, moreover, an opportunity of shewing that your plan of election, adapted as you propose, affords the only mode in which such a government could advantageously be constituted. I hope the writers in the London Review and the Nonconformist supported this part of your proposal as well as the other. I hear very good accounts of the London Review, which is said to be fitting itself more and more to take the place of the Saturday.
I suppose Mr. Morin of Geneva has sent you his second pamphlet, containing the account of your plan. Competent advocacy of it seems to be multiplying on all sides.
I cannot end my letter without expressing my exultation at the glorious news of Lincoln’s having made up his mind to propose to Congress to declare all slaves in the insurgent States free. The same scribes among us who taunted him with not doing it will now, of course, snub him for doing it; this is selon les règles. But it has come sooner than I myself ventured to predict, and however little apparent effect it may have at the first moment, it is the death-blow to negro slavery in America.
We expect to return to England early in December, up to which time we shall remain here, and I need not say how glad I shall be to hear from you.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
558.
TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
S[aint] V[éran] Oct. 31. 1862
My Dear Sir—
Allow me to thank you most warmly for your long & interesting letter, which if it had been twice as long as it was, would only have pleased me more. There are few persons that I have seen only once, with whom I so much desire to keep up a communication, as with you; & the importance of what I learn from you, respecting matters so full of momentous consequences to the world would make such communication most valuable to me even if I did not wish for it on personal grounds.—The state of affairs in America has materially improved since you wrote, by the defeat of the enemy in Maryland & their expulsion from it, & still more by Mr. Lincoln’s anti-slavery proclamation, which no American, I think, can have received with more exultation than I did. It is of the highest importance, & more so because the manifest reluctance with which the President made up his mind to that decided step indicates that the progress of opinion in the country had reached the point of seeing its necessity for the effectual prosecution of the war. The adhesion of so many Governors of States, some of them originally Democrats, is a very favorable sign, & thus far the measure does not seem to have materially weakened your hold upon the Border Slave States. The natural tendency will be if the war goes on successfully to reconcile those States to emancipating their own slaves, availing themselves of the pecuniary offers made by the Federal Govt. I still feel some anxiety about the reception which will be given to the measures by Congress when it meets & I should much like to know what are your expectations on the point. In England, the Proclamation has only increased the venom of those who after taunting you so long with caring nothing for Abolition, now reproach you for your Abolitionism as the worst of your crimes. But you will find that whenever any name is attached to these wretched effusions, it is always that of some deeply-dyed Tory—generally the kind of Tory to whom slavery is rather agreeable than not, or who so hate your democratic institutions that they would be sure to inveigh against whatever you did, & are enraged at being no longer able to taunt you with being false to your own principles. It is from these also that we are now beginning to hear, what disgusts me more than all the rest—the base doctrine that it is for the interest of England that the American Republic should be broken up. Think of us as ill as you may (& we have given you abundant cause) but do not, I entreat you, think that the general English public is so base as this. Our national faults are not now of that kind & I firmly believe that the feeling of almost all English Liberals, even those whose language has been the most objectionable, is one of sincere regret for the disruption which they think inevitable. As long as there is a Tory party in England it will rejoice at everything which injures or discredits American institutions, but the Liberal party who are now & are likely to remain much the strongest are naturally your friends & allies & will return to that position when once they see that you are not engaged in a hopeless, & therefore as they think an irrational & unjustifiable contest. There are writers enough here to keep up the fight, and meet the malevolent comments on all your proceedings by right ones. Besides Cairnes, & Dicey, & H. Martineau, & Ludlow, & Hughes, besides the D. News, & McMillan, & the Star, there is now the Westr & the London Review, to which several of the best writers of the Sat. have gone over; there is Ellison of Liverpool, the author of “Slavery & Secession” & editor of a monthly economical journal “The Exchange” & there are other writers less known who if events go on favorably, will rapidly multiply. Here, in France, the state of opinion on the subject is most gratifying. All Liberal Frenchmen seem to have been with you, from the first. They did not know more about the subject than the English, but their instincts were truer. By the way, what did you think of the narrative of the Campaign on the Potomac in the R. des deux Mondes of Oct. 15, by the Comte de Paris? It looks veracious & is certainly intelligent & in general effect likely I shd think to be very useful to the cause.
I still think you take too severe a view of the conduct of our Govt. I grant that the extra official dicta of some of the Ministry have been very unfortunate, especially that celebrated one of Lord Russell on which I have commented not sparingly in the W.R. Gladstone, too, a man of a much nobler character than Ld R, has said things lately which I very much regret though they were accompanied by other things shewing that he had no bad feelings towards you & regretted their existence in others. But as a Govt I do not see that their conduct is objectionable. The port of Nassau may be all that you say it is, but the U. States also have the power, & have used it largely, of supplying themselves with munitions of war from our ports. If the principle of neutrality is accepted, our markets must be open to both sides alike, & the general opinion in England is (I do not say whether rightly or wrongly) that if the course adopted is favorable to either side it is to the U. States, since the Confederates owing to the blockade of their ports have so much less power to take advantage of the facilities extended equally to both. Then again if the Tuscarora was ordered away, the Sumter was so too. What you mention about a seizure of arms by our Govt must, I feel confident, have taken place during the Trent difficulty, at which time alone (neither before nor after) has the export of arms to America been interdicted.
It is very possible that too much may have been made of Butler’s proclamation & that he was more wrong in form & phraseology than in substance. But with regard to the watchword said to have been given out by Pakenham at New Orleans, I have always hitherto taken it for a mere legend like the exactly parallel ones which grew up under our own eyes at Paris in 1848 respecting the socialist insurrection of June. What authority there may be for it I do not know, but if it is true nothing can mark more strongly the change which has taken place in the European standard of belligerent rights since the wars of the beginning of the century; for if any English commander at the present time were to do the like, he never could shew his face again in English society even if he escaped being broken by a court martial; & I think we are entitled to blame in others what none of us, of the present generation at least, would be capable of perpetrating. You are perhaps hardly aware how little the English of the present day feel of solidarité with past generations. We do not feel ourselves at all concerned to justify our predecessors. Foreigners reproach us with having been the great enemies of neutral rights so long as we were belligerents, & with turning round and stickling for them now when we are neutrals, but the real fact is we are concerned & have no hesitation in saying (what our Liberal party said even at the time) that our policy in that matter in the great Continental war was totally wrong.
But while I am anxious that liberal & friendly Americans should not think worse of us than we really deserve, I am deeply conscious & profoundly grieved & mortified that we deserve so ill; & are making, in consequence, so pitiful a figure before the world—with which if we are not daily & insultingly taxed by all Europe it is only because our enemies are glad to see us doing exactly what they expected, justifying their opinion of us, acting in a way which they think perfectly natural because they think it perfectly selfish.
If you kindly favour me with another letter here, it is desirable that it should arrive before the end of November. After that time my address will be Blackheath Park, Kent.
I am, my dear sir,
Very truly yours,
J. S. Mill.
559.
TO NIKOLAI OGAREFF
S[aint] V[éran] Nov. 7, 1862
Monsieur—
Je vous remercie très sincèrement de votre lettre et de l’envoi de votre livre. Loin de voir avec indifférence l’immense révolution morale, politique et sociale qui s’avance à pas croissants en Russie, je la regarde comme un des phénomènes les plus importants d’un siècle déjà si riche en grands événements. J’en observe toutes les péripéties avec le plus vif intérêt, quelque difficulté que j’éprouve à apprécier leur portée autrement que sous un point de vue général. Vous pouvez donc juger de la part que je puis tirer de votre Essai pour préciser mes idées et pour donner plus de détermination à mes espérances.
Quant à vos conclusions dont vous pensez que quelques unes pourraient me sembler douteuses il faudrait que je fusse bien présomptueux pour avoir des opinions décidées sur la manière dont les principes généraux de science sociale doivent être appliqués à un état de choses si éloigné de tous ceux dont j’ai une vraie connaissance. Mais je n’ai aucune répugnance doctrinaire envers l’administration communale des terres, et je ne suis pas éloigné de penser avec vous que la réorganisation sociale de la Russie doit respecter une institution si profondément historique et si enracinée dans les mœurs populaires. Cela admis, la plupart de vos conclusions en découlent naturellement. Quoiqu’il en soit, il me semble impossible de ne pas accepter l’idée qui fait l’esprit de tout votre livre—savoir que le fonctionarisme est le véritable fléau de la Russie et qu’une réforme quelconque ne peut réussir qu’autant qu’elle émancipe les personnes et les choses de ce joug insupportable, et fasse décider les intérêts tant communs que particuliers par les intéressés. Ceci est dans ma conviction plus important que le système représentatif même le mieux ordonné, bien qu’en Russie les deux choses paraissent devoir aller pas à pas et être nécessaires l’une à l’autre.
Agréez Monsieur l’expression de mon respect et de considération toute particulière.
560.
TO SISTER MARIE DE ST. ELIE
[After Nov. 28, 1862]
Madame—
C’est avec les sentiments du plus sincère respect pour vous et pour votre œuvre charitable que je me trouve dans l’impossibilité de m’associer à cette œuvre par une souscription pécuniaire.
Je ne suis pas Catholique et votre établissement est essentiellement un foyer d’éducation et par là de propagande catholique. Or dans un pays où la très grande majorité des familles riches professe la réligion catholique, il me semble que je suis plus dans mon dévoir en réservant les modiques moyens dont je puis disposer pour être employés à appuyer des efforts, également bienfaisants dans leur but, et plus en harmonie avec mes propres convictions.
561.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Dec. 5. 1862
Dear Sir
Your letter to Constantinople of 8th July arrived there after our departure, and was forwarded here. I have consequently only received it within the last two days. It gave me much pleasure on many accounts. I have also to thank you for the newspapers containing your excellent letters in the Daily News, and for a copy of your Lecture, which I shall read with great interest. It is very gratifying that your book should have already done so much good. There is certainly a counter current in our favour, though the readers of the Times are not allowed to hear anything about it. You probably recognized me in the review of your book in the October number of the Westminster. You may add the editor, Dr Chapman, to the number of those on whom you have made a great and useful impression. I have no doubt that, in opinion, he was with us before; but your book raised him to greater earnestness on the subject.
The article in the Edinburgh was in a very odious spirit. I should not wonder if it were Senior’s. The wretched thing in Fraser which you so justly characterize, with others as bad as itself by which it has been followed, have quite disgusted me with the present conduct of the Magazine.
I had hoped to see you at the Political Economy Club this evening, but I infer from your letter that you will not be there, as indeed neither shall I; being at present not very well, and indisposed to be out at night without stronger temptation than is held out by today’s question. I expect to be here for several months, and I hope it will not be long before I see you. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
562.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
[December] 13. 1862
Dear Sir
The article I proposed to you is sent by book post today. I can answer for the correctness of the information, and I agree generally in the remarks, which are drawn from real and intelligent observation. I am however particularly requested to say that if you do not think the article sufficiently good either in matter or execution to be inserted, the writer will be neither surprised nor discouraged. It was written, and is offered, solely from interest in the subject and in the review, and if thought worthy of acceptance, it will be gratuitous.
I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill.
563.
TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN
Dec. 14. 1862
Dear Sir,
I am indebted to you for calling my attention to what certainly seems to have been an oversight on my part, and I only wish I had known of it before, instead of just after, the publication of a new edition. My mistake was, that in setting out the number of cases I did not strike out those in which the statement of the two witnesses conflict. As I now understand the matter, out of twelve cases in which both witnesses make an assertion, there will, (according to the figures in my example) be six cases in which both are right: one in which both are wrong: three in which A is wrong and C is right; and two in which C is wrong and A is right. But the last two suppositions being known à posteriori not to have been realized, the cases consistent with known facts are in all only seven out of twelve; and among these the correctness of the joint operation of A & B is realized in six. The probability is therefore six to one, as you state.
I am, dear Sir, yours very truly
J.S.M.
564.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
Dec. 14, 1862
I will not wait for the further letter which you promise, before saying how glad I shall be to see you in January, and thanking you as well for the kind and friendly feelings shewn in your letter as for the very interesting information contained in it. I am particularly glad of what you have been doing on the Subject of the Principle of Contradiction, as I have commenced writing something to which a full understanding of that subject is indispensable, and I do not feel that I have yet thoroughly mastered it. Your account of Austrian politics is very valuable, and I thank you for the American news, which, as you anticipated, was entirely unknown to me. The paper giving an account of my article in Frazer reached me duly. I am much gratified that you thought the article worth so full an abstract even for Germany, though I am almost ashamed of the very flattering terms in which you spoke of it and of me. I am very glad that you are so far advanced with the Logic and I return your paper of questions duly filled up. I am much interested also with your Herculanean speculations. . . .
565.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Dec. 16. 1862
Dear Sir
I thank you very much for your very gratifying letter, and also for the Daily News containing the admirable letter signed Anglo Saxon. I am much mistaken if Goldwin Smith will not grow into a power in the country, and this letter shews more than anything I have yet seen of his, that he is likely to be a highly beneficent one. But the value of the letter, both here and in America, would be greatly increased if it were known from whom it comes and I greatly regret that he has not published it with his name. Would it be possible to ascertain from him whether he would allow me to make the authorship known to some of my American friends and correspondents? Every new name of importance, which is attached to sentiments like those of his letter, is worth volumes in promoting a return to friendly feelings between the two countries.
Things are already going better in both countries. Today’s Times contains, along with the cheering intelligence of Lincoln’s proposal to Congress to redeem all the slaves, the noble as well as wise act of the New York Chamber of Commerce in opening a subscription for Lancashire: Meanwhile a strong Lancashire abolitionist writes to me as follows: “The tone of public opinion both here [Manchester] and in Liverpool has undergone a slight change for the better during the last three months. Whilst formerly nearly all people frequenting the Manchester and Liverpool Exchanges were openly professing to sympathize with the South, they now mostly declare that they do not have any sympathies for either of the contending parties. I fancy that before long they will come round still more to the right side. As regards the working classes, I find that their opinions on the American question have not altered in the least, notwithstanding the enormous increase of the distress. It is even intended to hold a public meeting in the Free Trade Hall on the 31st of this month, the last day of slavery, in order to send an address of the working men of Lancashire to President Lincoln. The address and the resolutions are drawn up by Mr Francis Newman. It is not decided yet whether any M.P.’s will be allowed to join in this demonstration; or whether merely working men will be the speakers. At any rate the principal representatives of the operatives will be Hooson and Edwards, the President and Secretary of the Store in Great Ancoats Street, two very intelligent men and good speakers, and known as the leaders of the most advanced section of the Manchester working men.”
I know this will delight you as much as it does me.
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
566.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Dec. 20. 1862
Dear Sir
I write at once to say that I have no objection to be quoted in the manner you propose, as the writer of the article in the Westminster. I should think Dr Chapman would not object, especially as it must be through him that the authorship became so generally known as you tell me it is; but I should prefer that the application should come from yourself.
I have not yet seen the article in the Spectator, but will get it. I was extremely pleased with your Lecture, and glad to hear that there are several societies in different places anxious to circulate it. I hope the enlarged edition of your book will soon come out. I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
567.
TO GEORGE FINLAY
Dec. 24. 1862
Dear Mr. Finlay—
I am very much indebted to you for your most interesting letter & for the important memoir which accompanied it & which I hope I may shew as yours to any one who may be in a position to benefit by it. I suppose the copy which you gave to Mr Scarlett will have served for the information of the Government here; otherwise it might have been as well to send a copy to Gladstone & indeed it would be worth while doing so in any case. I have learnt very much from the paper & as far as I can judge there is only one point in it on which I have any doubt, viz. the preference you give to the abolition of the land tax over any change in the mode of levying it. The rent of land is in itself so fit an object of taxation that if there is any possible mode of rendering such a tax unoppressive it seems desirable to retain it. No doubt the money & valuation necessary for a great assessment would take too long and could not be trusted to the present race of officials, but would it not be possible to take a low average of what each landed property has actually paid for the last five or ten years & lay this as a fixed annual charge on the estate? I do not see that this would create any insuperable difficulties in the event of mutations. If the mutation takes place under the law of inheritance, the law when it decides the share of the estate due to each claimant, would impose on him the same share of the tax. If the case were one of bequest, sale, or gift, the owner might be allowed to charge the whole, or any part, or no part of the tax on the alienated portion as he pleased, provided always that if either the portion alienated or the portion retained were burthened beyond its total value, the remaining portion should be liable for the excess.
If it has been possible for Prince Alfred to accept. . . .
568.
TO MAX KYLLMANN
24th December 1862.
Dear Sir—
I thank you very sincerely for your two letters & for the important & most gratifying intelligence which they contain. Hardly anything could do more good at present than such a demonstration from the suffering operatives of Lancashire —while there is in the fact itself & in the state of mind which prompts it, a moral greatness which is at once a just rebuke to the mean feeling of so great a portion of the public on this momentous subject & a source of unqualified happiness to those whose hopes & fears for the great interests of humanity are as mine are, inseparably bound up in the moral & intellectual prospects of the working classes.
I am very well pleased with the Resolutions & Address. I applaud your endeavour to get the passage about the “rights of husbands” struck out but taken with the context it does not necessarily bear the objectionable meaning, though the phrase would not have been used by any writer who had a just feeling respecting the equal rights of the two sexes.
On the subject of the query you put to me I perfectly agree in your opinion as far as you have stated it. The improvement in the condition of the working classes through the success of cooperation could not be used up in increase of numbers in less than a generation, & in that time the moral & intellectual influences of cooperation which are of still greater value than the physical, will have had a considerable period in which to operate. If cooperation were universal the necessity of regulating population would be palpable to every one. And even a partial application contains important lessons of the same kind.
569.
TO JOSEPH NAPIER
B[lackheath] P[ark] Dec. 24. 1862.
Dear Sir—
I have had the honor of receiving your letter of Dec. 22nd.
I have not seen Bishop Fitzgerald’s publication, but you are quite right in supposing that what I wrote about Miracles had not the smallest reference to Butler, but only to the writers who professed to reply to Hume, & especially Campbell. It is many years since I read or looked into the Analogy & I cannot at present remember whether my remarks apply even partially to anything said by Butler. That in their main scope they are inapplicable to him is evident, since it appears from your letter that he fully recognized the distinction between improbability on the doctrine of chances & improbability in the only sense which constitutes incredibility.
My view of the general question is briefly this: That a miracle, considered merely as an extraordinary fact, is as susceptible of proof as other extraordinary facts: That as a miracle it cannot, in the strict sense, be proved, because there never can be conclusive proof of its miraculous nature; but that to any one who already believes in an intelligent creator & ruler of the universe the moral probability that a given extraordinary event (supposed to be fully proved) is a miracle, may greatly outweigh the probability of its being the result of some unknown natural cause.
570.
TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
Dec. 29. 1862
Dear Sir
I am glad to hear that Mr Coningham intends to recommend your son. The recommendation being to the parliamentary distributer of patronage, I do not know through what office or for what vacancy it will be available. But if Mr Stansfeld is intimate with Sir Charles Wood and is willing to speak to him in your son’s behalf, you probably could not have a better channel for promoting your wishes in relation to the India Office. I have myself no title to ask any favour of Sir Charles Wood, nor any reason to suppose that I have any influence with him; but neither on this nor on any other occasion have I any objection to be mentioned as one of those who would be glad of any good fortune which happened to a son of yours, and would applaud any one who would not be deterred by your opinions from giving your son a fair chance. I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
G. J. Holyoake Esq.
571.
TO MRS. HENRY HUTH
Dec. 30. 1862
Dear Madam
It would be very gratifying to me if I had it in my power to say anything which could be either useful or consoling to you. But even if I thought myself competent to give advice in such a matter as that on which you wish to consult me, I could not be qualified to advise concerning the education of those of whom I have no personal knowledge. Since, however, you say that the points on which you wish for my opinion are definite, and clearly before your own mind, I should be very happy to give you the best answers I can under the circumstances; but I should be able to do this much better, and should much prefer doing it, in a written form.
I am
Dear Madam
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Titles (by Subject) 
