1868
1170.
TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON
Jan. 8. 1868
Messieurs—
Par une lettre du 27 Novembre 1863 vous avez bien voulu me concéder la ceppe de 50 arbres sur le chemin vicinal No. 1 et voisin de ma propriété moyennant une redevance annuelle de 25 francs, soit 50 centimes pour chaque arbre. Depuis quelques jours les employés de votre administration ont coupé et enlevé sept de ces arbres, qu’ils disaient être morts. En conséquence, j’ai à vous proposer soit de diminuer dans la même proportion le paiement annuel soit de m’accorder d’autres arbres pour compléter le nombre primitif. Je préfèrerais que la concession fût modifiée de manière à la borne à 43 arbres ou même à 42 ce qui donnerait la pierre milliaire du premier kilomètre du chemin comme borne très commode de la concession. Mais si des difficultés administratives s’opposent à ce que vous m’accordiez cette modification je vous prierais alors, messieurs, de me concéder sept arbres de plus le long du chemin du côté de l’est, c’est à dire jusqu’au huitième arbre au delà de la pierre milliaire inclusivement.
1171.
TO THE REV. LEOPOLD JOHN BERNAYS
Jan. 8. 1868
Dear Sir
I thank you for the opportunity of reading the little pamphlet on education. All that the author says against centralizing the education of the country in the hands of government is very just, & I entertain the strongest objections to any plan which would give a practical monopoly to schools under government control. But I have never conceived compulsory education in that sense. What I understand by it is that all parents should be required to have their children taught certain things, being left free to select the teachers, but the sufficiency of the teaching being ensured by a government inspection of schools & by a real & searching examination of pupils. The actual provision of schools by a local rate would not necessarily be required if any schools already existed in the locality which were sufficient for the purpose or which could be made so by aid from the local funds & by inspection. Moreover, a mere consolidation of the already existing school endowments, now mostly jobbed or, at best, very inefficiently applied, would probably enable good instruction to be provided in all localities in which it is not already afforded by private exertions. Of course there must be a Government department to control the employment of these funds, but it does not follow that the teachers need be appointed or directly controlled by any public office. The control might rest in a school committee chosen from the locality itself, perhaps by a mixed system of election & nomination & entrusted with considerable latitude as to all details. These are all points for mature consideration; but a thorough system of instruction for the whole country we must have; & I do not see anything short of a legal obligation which will overcome the indifference, the greed, or the really urgent pecuniary interest of parents.
1172.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
Jan. 8. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I am very much obliged to you both for your letter and for sending me your pamphlet and the Bill. In order not to delay returning you the pamphlet (which goes by this post) I have copied out its list of recommendations. I think almost all of them excellent. Above all, you seem to me to be right in having everywhere one public officer who shall perform all the duties connected with elections, and who shall be specially responsible (as far as it is possible to make him so) for doing everything that can be done to keep them pure. You have also perceived the necessity of having an appeal from his decision; since otherwise he would acquire, in the cases not contested before him by the parties, & would carry into the others a habit of indulgence and laisser-aller which would make him as little to be relied on as the Poor Law Inspectors have come to be. But do you not think that the jurisdiction in appeal should be (as the Select Committee propose that the original jurisdiction should be) with one of the Judges, rather than with five M.P.’s named by the Speaker, and a legal Assessor? These M.P.’s would never be impartial. It could not be hoped that they would be better selected than the present Chairmen of Election Committees, and the evidence which you quote from the Corrupt Practices Report shews how confidently parties rely on the partiality of these.
I am acquainted with the Blue Book of 1860, having gone carefully through it some time ago. I am aware of the failure of the Election Auditors; but they were sure to be a failure like Railway Auditors, unless a great deal more was done to ensure their fidelity than was provided for by the Act which created them. I see that we quite agree on the subject, as you give all the powers of the Election Auditor to your Returning Officer, who, if your plan were adopted, would be a very different sort of person from the Election Auditors, and far more in the public eye. I am glad that you require all election expenses to pass through the Returning Officer. I would make him the direct dispenser even of all charities on the part of the member or candidate; otherwise these are sure to be so bestowed as to “keep up the . . . interest.”
The Bill, as altered by the Select Committee, has more good points than I expected. But the £1000 security is a bar to its making much practical improvement. Some such provision is perhaps necessary on Disraeli’s plan, to prevent frivolous petitions by men of straw who could not be made to pay costs. But all such necessity would be obviated by your plan of having an enquiry and scrutiny after every election, by a special officer whose business it would be to watch over elections.
The Bill provides a better system of penalties for bribery than I expected. It is perhaps better that the disqualifications (being so comprehensive and severe as they are) should be for seven years, as proposed, rather than for life; since if they were for life there would be much danger that opinion would be indulgent to every excuse for not inflicting them.
I am
Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
W. D. Christie Esq.
1173.
TO HENRY SOLLY
Avignon, Jan. 8, 1868
. . . I should be very happy to be of use to you in your new undertaking; but . . . there is very little that I can say in recommendation of you that is not already known to the public, and especially to the working men, of whose claims and interests you have so long been a consistent and zealous supporter . . . . My absence from England would in any case prevent me from being able to attend the meeting on the 15th. . . . Very truly yours,
J. S. Mill
1174.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Jan. 9. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I quite agree with you as to the inutility of the Cobden Club unless it makes itself an instrument for diffusing good opinions, and several members of the Club have already expressed to me the same feeling. Mr Potter who, I believe, is the real founder of the Club, has told me that he very much wishes to make it useful as a political organ. I think it very desirable that your suggestions should be brought before the managing Committee. This I could do, either by writing them a letter enclosing yours, or by attending a meeting of the Committee (for I am a member, though I have never acted as such) as soon as possible after my return to England, and bringing the subject regularly before them. I will do whichever of the two you prefer. Some good will be done if the Club can be prevailed on to take even a small step in the direction of your proposals. The largest measure you suggest, that of pressing for a Congress to reconsider the international law of Europe on the subject of the commencement of hostilities, has not the smallest chance of leading to anything practical, but the value of the demonstration might be considerable.
I think with you that Mr Leslie’s article on Military Systems is very important, and ought to be made widely known if possible.
I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1175.
TO WILLIAM LONGMAN
Jan. 9. 1868
Dear Sir—
I thank you for your letter. After consideration I have made up my mind not to print a cheap edition of the Logic at present, but to propose to you to publish a new edition in the same form & on the same terms as the last viz. £500 per an edition of 1500.
1176.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Jan. 9. 1868
Dear Sir
I am very sorry to say that I have no means of procuring any situation, but I shall most willingly recommend books to you, and after you have read Mr Bain’s treatises I should be glad to hear what sort of impression they make on you, as it would be some help to me in making further recommendations.
I am
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
1177.
TO SECRETARY, UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION
January 16, 1868
Dear Madam—
I have watched the progress of opinion in favor of the enfranchisement of women in America with deep interest, believing that your country is destined to lead the way in this great question, as it has already done in so many others. I learn with great pleasure the formation of your association at Washington, and feel much honored that you have included my name in your Consulting Committee. I inclose a credit of £2 on New York, not having been able to obtain one [on] Washington, being one from myself and the same amount from my step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, as subscriptions to your association, and should I have any likely opportunity I will not fail to mention your association among our friends in England, but the cause has in this country, as yet, so few supporters that those among us who are able to give pecuniary help find all their available means absorbed by the expenses necessary for diffusing the principles in our own country. You will hear with interest that a society has been formed in England for the same purpose.
I am, dear Madam, yours, very sincerely,
J. S. Mill
1178.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Jan. 17. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I have inclosed your two letters to Mr Potter with one from myself, pressing on him the consideration of them.
I have read the extracts from the Medical Mirror, and I quite feel with you against circulating among the electors, from you or your friends, a mere attack on Lowe. If one candidate puts forth a personal attack upon another (a thing it is seldom wise to do) it should be a weightier, and better considered one than this. But if any one in no way connected with your candidature chooses to circulate it, I do not think you need concern yourself about the matter.
I shall always be ready to put in a timely word for competitive examinations; but I do not know that the present is a particularly favourable time for a motion in Parliament to extend them, and it is still more uncertain whether I have not already quite as much on my hands as I can manage.
I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1179.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
Jan. 17. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
The same post which brought your letter, brought the proof from the Law Magazine. The article will do much good, and I wish it were circulated widely among the liberal members of Parliament. It does not, however, remove the few difficulties which your pamphlet had left in my mind. The Chairmen of Election Committees have been less grossly partial since they were a fixed body selected on the responsibility of the Speaker, but they are still believed and expected to lean to their own party. The corruption which was so flagrant as to cause the disfranchisement of Yarmouth, did not make void the seats of the Conservative members, for the Chairman of the Committee was a Conservative. At present what I prefer is the plan you propose, of an investigation after every election, parliamentary or municipal, by a special officer, with the addition of an appeal from that officer to one of the Judges. It is possible indeed, that to make the appeal be to a Committee of the House with legal assessors, might facilitate the passing of the measure. But it is our business to demand what is best, and not to propose a splitting of the difference, though we may accept it if forced.
Unfortunately none of the Members you mention as specially interesting themselves in this subject belong to the advanced Liberal section: unless Pollard Urquhart may be so regarded, and he does not carry weight. They may be made useful, but we shall need others. If you have an opportunity, I think you should try to stir up M’Cullagh Torrens. I mean to do so, but he should be attacked on more sides than one. He is clever, and I have found him dependable upon for things requiring work.
With regard to your personal grievance, I sympathize sincerely and heartily in your feelings respecting it, and it is painful to me to say anything which may look like indifference to the subject. But I think you will enter into the reasons which compelled me, on going into Parliament, to lay down a rule not to take up personal cases. My sole purpose in consenting to be elected, was to do what I could for my opinions on questions of a purely public nature and on which there is no one else in Parliament to speak: and for no object but this should I have thought myself justified in giving up time which was already usefully employed. Now it is quite impossible for me to give my time and labour to the many public questions which have a claim on me, unless I abstain from any other parliamentary business. To get up thoroughly a subject like that of your conduct of the Brazil negociations, so as to be invulnerable to criticism, and certain of not being unjust to any one, would be enough to occupy me almost a whole session. It would not, I think, be wise or right that I should postpone my own proper business in Parliament, for the sake of which alone I am there, in order to do what could be done as well by almost any member of parliament who would take the pains, and by many much better than by me. But I shall be truly glad if the subject is taken up in Parliament, and properly discussed and canvassed so as to bring out all the truth.
I am
Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1180.
TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON
Jan. 20. 1868
Messieurs—
Permettez-moi de vous exprimer mes sincères remerciments de l’accueil favorable que vous avez bien voulu donner à ma proposition au sujet des arbres en réduisant la redevance annuelle à 21 fr.50.
Il y a pourtant dans votre lettre un petit malentendu, que je dois probablément attribuer à l’insuffisance de mes explications. La concession primitive de 50 arbres ne s’arrêtait pas à la pierre milliaire mais comprenait le premier arbre au delà en sorte que la modification que vous m’avez accordie ne donnerait pas plus qu’auparavant comme borne la pierre milliaire. Pour faire de cette pierre la limite de la concession, ce que serait en effet fort commode, il faudrait comme je l’indiquai dans ma lettre du 8 janvier, réduire le nombre des arbres concédés à 42 au lieu de 43, ce qui entraînerait la réduction de la redevance à 21 fr. par an. Il est vrai que je n’ai tiré jusqu’ici aucun avantage de mon droit au dernier arbre, dont la ceppe a été exploitée par le concessionaire voisin, par suite de l’incertitude de la limite.
1181.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Jan. 27. 1868
Dear Chadwick
It would be a very good thing if you could get into Parliament for Bristol even for the present session, but one of the great evils of the present mode of election is that a local man is almost always the one preferred unless some one else is willing to pay a great deal more money. Even Radical Bradford elects a semi-Tory, because he is a local man, in preference to Miall.
I have written to Mr Gladstone expressing in strong terms my sense of the importance of your being in Parliament, with the reasons of it, and of the desirableness of your being on Mr Glyn’s list (Mr George Glyn, the younger of the Glyns, is Mr Brand’s successor as whip). I do not think Mr Gladstone is likely to take the suggestion amiss, and it will at any rate place the matter before his mind.
Can I anywhere find a summary of your recommendations for a legislative measure against corruption at elections? and if not, could you find time to send me one? This subject is to come on, the very day of the reassembling of Parliament.
Ever, my dear Chadwick
yours truly
J. S. Mill
1182.
TO AUGUST JOANNY CHAPÉ
Jan. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
I much regret to hear of the state of your health. But I hope you are not relying in any degree upon the pecuniary results of the paper you sent me. It is very creditable as the first essay of a beginner, but I believe it to have no chance of being accepted either by a bookseller or by the editor of any paying periodical. Its opinions alone would exclude it from almost every periodical which can afford to pay its contributors. And the opinions & arguments are presented rather as they would be written down for the writer’s own satisfaction, than in the manner of one who is trying to convince or persuade others. I am very sorry if this causes you any disappointment, but I am convinced that to attempt to derive pecuniary fruits from this first attempt would only add to disappointment the loss of time & trouble. Regretting that I have nothing more agreeable to communicate.
1183.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
Jan. 27. 1868
Dear Mr Gomperz—
It gave me very great pleasure to see your handwriting once more. But I greatly regret that you should have had the causes of unhappiness to which you allude & respecting which you hold out the hope that I shall hear something from Mr Wessel.
I am truly glad that your labours on the System of Logic will now produce fruits. I am just now revising the book for the seventh edition. There will not be many, nor very important alterations; but I shall be happy to send you the sheets of the new edition, with the alterations marked if it is possible for you to receive them in time.
With respect to the Inaugural Address, I have given permission to a young geologist, Dr Anton Dohrn, of Jena, to translate it into German, & perhaps Mr Grosser would be good enough to communicate with him.
A Dr Sattler has just written to me from Madeira to propose translating the essay on Comte. He refers to Gervinus as a voucher. I have referred him to Mr Grosser.
Dr Wille’s translation of “Considerations on Representative Govt” seemed to me when I looked through the first pages of it, to need a good deal of correction.
With respect to introductory matter I should prefer, on every account, that anything of the sort should be written by you. It would be sure to be both valuable in itself and much more fitted to explain and recommend the series of Works to the German public, than anything I could write.
I am unable to give any opinion as to including the “Essays on Unsettled Questions of P. E.” but if a new ed. of them were called for here I should alter the first Essay considerably. It is probably prudent to keep back the book on Hamilton for the present.
I have written a few lines to Mr Grosser in answer to his letter, & have referred him for particulars to you.
I have to thank you for your publications of & respecting the Herculanean MSS which are always very interesting to me.
[P.S.]
I shall be at Blackheath on & after the 12th of February.
1184.
TO JULIUS GROSSER
Jan. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
Excuse my writing to you in my own language on account of my want of practice in writing German. It gives me much pleasure to hear of your proposed publication & to know that a person so eminently qualified as my friend Mr Gomperz will furnish some of the translations & exercise a general superintendance over others. I have written to Mr. Gomperz on a few minor particulars for which I beg to refer you to him.
1185.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
Jan. 27. 1868
Dear Sir
I thank you for your note, and the very satisfactory intelligence it contains respecting your prospects. I wish I had known sooner that the articles in the Daily News on East London distress were written by you, as I should then have been much more particular in reading them. I am glad the Blue Books have been useful. I have no doubt that your Lectures will be instructive to the working men on the points which most concern them. When you feel in doubt on any point of principle on which it is necessary for you to touch, I should at any time with pleasure give you any assistance I could in clearing it up. We shall arrive at Blackheath only just in time for the reassembling of Parliament. Pray give our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer.
I am Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1186.
TO MARY CARPENTER
Feb. 3, 1868
Dear Madam—
I am glad to find that the letter I sent in answer to yours on the question of Women’s suffrage is thought likely to have a useful influence on the minds of those who read it, and I should be glad to see it printed, as well as more from the same hand, but I should not like to be a party to its being printed with my name, because it was written (as is the case with no inconsiderable portion of my correspondence) by my step-daughter Miss Helen Taylor. Without this help it would be impossible for me to carry on so very voluminous a correspondence as I am at present able to do: and we are so completely one in our opinions and feelings, that it makes hardly any difference which of us puts them into words. It is often with regret that I see attributed to myself work which I think good and which is chiefly hers. In this case (by no means a solitary one) it happened to be entirely hers; what she wrote expressed so perfectly all I could have wished to say, that I transcribed it unaltered. I am sure therefore that you will appreciate the dislike I feel to consenting that it should be published or even printed under my name. If everything said in a private letter is the real opinion or feeling of the person who signs it, it is indifferent whether it is written by him or for him, especially if it is as well done as he could do it. But anything printed comes into the class of literary performances, and I should feel (only in a less degree) as if I were to publish a book written by my daughter with my own name instead of hers prefixed to it.
I am &c
J. S. Mill
1186A.
TO JOHN VENN
Feb. 4. 1868
Dear Sir
I am late in acknowledging the gift of your very valuable work “The Logic of Chance.” As I perceived at once, as well as heard from others who read it, that it well deserved consecutive study, for which pressing occupations left me at the moment no leisure, I laid it by till the time should come when I must necessarily take up the subject in revising my System of Logic for another edition. This time has only recently arrived, and I have availed myself of your criticisms to make several alterations in the corresponding chapters of the book, which alterations however are rather in the mode of expression than in the substance of the opinions expressed.
I think your book very important, both as a contribution to the theory of the subject, and as a corrective to prevalent errors. Your general mode of viewing this class of questions is by far the best and most philosophical I have met with; and while there is evidence of a great agreement between us in our mode of regarding the great problems of inductive philosophy, you have, on this particular subject, thrown light upon many more points than space and time had allowed me to enter into. Your book is one of the highest compliments which could have been paid to mine; for I have scarcely met with any thinker who seems to have so completely assimilated the best thoughts and principles of my book, thereby affording strong indication that your own thoughts had flowed in much the same direction, independently of any external suggestion.
There are, however, some points on which we differ, and on which your book has not convinced me. For one thing, you seem to go farther in rejecting the doctrines of mathematicians on the subject than even I do. If I understand you rightly, you attach little value to the rule for determining the probability by which of several causes a known event has been produced, which rule seems to me to rest on solid grounds, and to be quite reconcileable with the principle that all evaluation of probabilities must depend on appropriate statistics. But our chief difference (not unconnected with this last) consists in your not recognising what I regard as one of the fundamental distinctions in philosophy, that between causal and empirical laws. The root of this difference seems to be the opinion you express that the entire sum of the circumstances which make up the unconditionally invariable antecedent of any effect, is hardly ever repeated. This seems to me, if I may be allowed to say so, a less well-considered opinion than most of yours. If the exact combination of antecedents that is connected with the effect, did not reappear, neither would the effect itself ever reappear, except so far as it might be an effect which had several independent modes of production.
If I had time to enter fully into the subject I should perhaps trouble you with a detailed examination of the arguments in your chapter on Causation. But, from the general evidence of your book, I shall be surprised if you do not end by agreeing with me on this point, by the progress of your own thoughts. On my side, I promise myself that when I have more time to devote to the subject, I shall have still more to learn from your book than I have yet learnt from it, and that at some future time it may help me to expand and improve materially those parts of my Logic.
Again thanking you for the pleasure and instruction you have given me, I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
John Venn Esq
1187.
TO CHARLES HAYES
Feb. 15. 1868.
Dear Sir—
I shd be happy to support almost any feasible plan which would ensure the regular appropriation of a surplus revenue to the reduction of the national debt. The mode you propose of effecting this is strongly recommended by the close connexion of the subject with the limitation of our coal supply, & plans similar to it have sometimes been suggested. For my own part I am unable to see the force of the strong objection which many public men entertain to any tax on coals. As for the iron manufacturers, Mr Plimsoll has shewn in his letters in the Times that the coal they waste amounts to as great a quantity as their Belgian rivals consume altogether & it would do good instead of harm to compel them by a tax to be more economical. No plan for reducing the debt has a better claim to consideration than yours, but until it has been more discussed it is impossible to come to a positive opinion in favour of it.
1188.
TO WILLIAM TALLACK
Feb. 15. 1868
Sir
In reply to your communication I beg to say that I would rather not sign the form recommending the Address of the Howard Association “to the consideration of influential persons,” because the form, though not expressly declaring, would be understood to imply, an adhesion, not only to the opinions expressed in the Address, but to the objects of the Association, some of which I highly approve, but from others of which, I dissent.
I am Sir
yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
William Tallack Esq
1189.
TO DAVID MASSON
Feb. 16. 1868
Dear Mr Masson
I must apologize for giving you further trouble on the subject of my daughter’s article which you were so kind as to forward to Mr Macmillan, but as she has no other copy, and as we observe that Mr Macmillan does not undertake to return articles unless the name and address are written on them, a condition which was not complied with in this instance, we hope you will excuse our having recourse to your good offices to obtain the return of the article, if it should not be found to suit the Magazine.
I hope that your anxiety about Mrs Masson’s health is now over. I am
Dear Mr Masson
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1190.
TO THOMAS JOSEPH HASLAM
Feb. 19. 1868
Dear Sir
I am very happy to hear of so decided an improvement in your state of health, and of the progress of the movement for women’s suffrage in Dublin.
I thank you for your pamphlet. Nothing can be more important than the question to which it relates, nor more laudable than the purpose it has in view. About the expediency of putting it into circulation, in however quiet a manner, you are the best judge. My opinion is that the morality of the matter lies wholly between married people themselves, and that such facts as those which the pamphlet communicates ought to be made known to them by their medical advisers. But we are very far from that point at present, and in the meanwhile every one must act according to his own judgment of what is prudent and right. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
T. J. Haslam Esq.
1191.
TO WILLIAM WOOD
Feb. 19. 1868
Dear Sir
I have received your two letters (under one cover) and have read them with the same pleasure which all your former letters have given me. On all the subjects on which you have yet given me the benefit of an expression of your opinions, they appear to me not only sound and rational, but comprehensive; and what you call your “besetting weakness”, that of always referring questions to first principles, and treating them as wholes, or in other words looking at all the cases together which fall under the same or similar principles, seems to me to be the source of your strength.
I hope that you will continue to favour me with similar communications at your leisure, and that you will let me know when there is anything I can do to help you. I might be sometimes useful in lending you books that you may not have access to at Hanley. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Mr William Wood.
1192.
TO LINDSEY MIDDLETON ASPLAND
Feb. 23. 1868
Dear Sir—
I am sorry that the resolution adopted by the Jamaica Committee shd deprive them of the benefit of your cooperation. But the fact that it does so reveals a fundamental difference of opinion between you & the majority of the Cee as to the mode in which a struggle like that which they have undertaken, shd be carried on. This is not like a contest for some political improvement, in which the only question is whether it shall be obtained a little sooner or a little later. Ours is, morally, a protest against a series of atrocious crimes, & politically an assertion of the authority of the criminal law over public delinquents. This protest & vindication must be made now or never: & to relinquish the effort while a single unexhausted chance remains would be, in my estimation, to make ourselves to some extent participants in the crime. Suppose it to be certain that we shall fail in bringing the criminal to justice, still there will be a portion of the nation that will have held out to the last & refused to condone the guilt, & it is better for the future that even one person should have done this than that the national judgment shd go in favour of the criminal with universal, at least passive acquiescence. You talk of leaving Eyre to contempt. What he would be left to is boastful triumph, followed by the fruits of victory in the shape of lucrative Government employment, probably with power to do again what he has done, & with undiminished if not increased disposition to do it. He has, after years of skulking, come over & defied us doubtless for this express purpose, & were we not to accept his challenge we shd be justly reproached for our past conduct toward him since we shd shrink from meeting him before the tribunal which we have been invoking as the proper judge of his guilt or innocence.
1193.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Feb. 23. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I have received the inclosed note from Louis Blanc. Can you give his friend —who is a man of some distinction—any help in the matter?
After I wrote to you the other day, the inclosed slip of paper was handed to me from Mr Gladstone. I suppose you are by this time in communication with Mr Glyn.
ever yrs truly
J. S. Mill
1194.
TO LORD HOBART
Feb. 23. 1868
My dear Lord
There are few persons whose complete adhesion to the opinions expressed in my pamphlet could have given me more pleasure and encouragement than yours. I am truly glad to find the deep sense I entertain of the necessity of a radical change in the relations of the people of Ireland to the soil and the formidable and growing danger of the attempts to palter with the subject by measures which scarcely touch the evil, confirmed by an equally strong conviction on your part. Though every day shews more and more the incapacity of our governing classes to use their minds to any purpose on the subject, there is a hopeful change taking place in the minds of some other portions of the public; and if the Reform Act, when it comes into operation, fulfils in other respects the hopes that have been founded on it, we may hope that it will lead to a less prejudiced consideration of the measures necessary for Ireland. If not, I agree with you in thinking that the ultimate issue (after a period of great suffering, crime, and national disaster) will be separation.
I am my dear Lord
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
The Lord Hobart.
1195.
TO GEORGE WALKER
Feb. 26. 1868
Dear Sir
Sir Robert Collier’s application for a warrant against Mr Eyre will be made tomorrow (Thursday) as the case has never yet been brought before the public in a manner satisfactory to those who consider Eyre as a great public criminal, it is of great importance that Sir Robert Collier’s speech should be correctly and fully reported. The Jamaica Committee will therefore employ a short hand writer to take it down, and a copy of the report, corrected by Mr Shaen and with mere surplusage cut out, will be sent to the Daily News in the course of the evening. I hope that you will think it desirable and find it practicable to insert the report in your paper. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
George Walker Esq.
1196.
TO LOUIS BLANC
le 29 février
1868
Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc
Je me suis addressé à celui de mes amis qui est le plus au courant du personnel de l’éducation militaire, à M. Chadwick, pour avoir des renseignements sur le Conseil, et j’ai reçu de lui la réponse ci-jointe. Comme lui, je crois qu’il y a peu à espérer pour votre ami d’une recommandation libérale quelconque. Celle des autorités de Sandhurst College pourrait être plus efficace, en supposant qu’il n’y a pas de parti pris de nommer quelqu’un par faveur, ou par intérêt politique.
votre tout dévoué
J. S. Mill.
1197.
TO M. E. GRANT DUFF
Feb. 29 [1868]
Dear Sir
I have just received an answer from Heligoland which I have the pleasure of forwarding to you.
The long adjournment of the House seems to be a mere expedient of the the Government to gain time. It will help towards making the present session of Parliament a useless one. I am
Dear Sir
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
M. E. Grant Duff Esq. M.P.
1198.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
March 1. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
I was disappointed that your letter did not report a further progress in the improvement of your health. It is something, however, that your letter is in your own handwriting, which it was a great pleasure again to see.
I thank you for Mr Nesbitt’s paper, which I was very glad to have an opportunity of reading. My opinion on the Education question is exactly what it was, namely, entirely with you, up to the limits of practicability. What either Disraeli or Gladstone intend or desire on that subject will probably appear in the debate on the state of Ireland, which has been, probably with set purpose, staved off till next week by the adjournment of the House. The question is now getting involved with that of the endowment or disendowment of the churches, and it is impossible to foresee what may be proposed. But I fear that whatever is done, the change will be for the worse.
I hope you received a pamphlet of mine on the land question, with the practical conclusions of which I am afraid you will not agree. But all the public signs, and all the authentic private information I have access to, tend to shew that nothing short of what I propose would now tranquillize Ireland, or reconcile the Irish people to the Union. And I am sure that nothing less than some very startling proposal would have any chance of whipping up the languid interest of English public men in the subject, and making them feel the critical nature of the situation, or exert their minds to understand it. On the whole I have met with more approbation, and not more abuse, than I expected.
About our relations with the United States, there seems less cause of uneasiness than there was some time ago. The principal newspapers on both sides have grown, in comparison, conciliatory, and I do not despair of a quiet settlement both of the Alabama claims and of the naturalization question.
Ever, my dear Mr Cairnes
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1199.
TO WILLIAM WOOD
March 5. 1868
Dear Sir
Your letter of the 2nd inst. gave me the pleasure your letters always do. Were I to enter into the subjects on which it touches, there would be much to be said; but it is not necessary to do so in order to express my agreement with the opinions stated in your letter, which appear to me thoroughly sound and enlightened.
I am, unfortunately, very poor in recent treatises on practical science, of which I hardly possess one. In regard to works of general literature, you would oblige me by mentioning those which you say you would like to possess. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
Mr William Wood
1200.
TO WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
March 8, 1868
Dear Sir—
I duly received the copy of Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland, and the pressure of occupations alone prevented me from thanking you for it. I had read all of it previously as it came out in Fraser’s Magazine, and was much pleased with its spirit and tendency.
I hope there may be a chance that the same ability and the same principles may be employed in a prose discussion of the remedies for Irish evils.
I am Dear Sir,
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
W. Allingham, Esq.
1201.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
March 8. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
Thanks for your explanations. I inclose a recommendation in the form of a letter to you, which I hope may answer your purpose.
I said nothing on the second reading of the Bribery Bill, as the House were evidently unwilling to discuss the subject until they see the promised alterations. But the going into Committee pro forma next Thursday, or more seriously on a later day, may afford a better occasion; and we shall, I hope, have had our meeting before that time. I am
Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1202.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
March 8. [1868]
Dear Mr. Christie,—
I am extremely glad that you intend to present yourself as a candidate to the electors of the Stirling Burghs. The Scotch burghs have long supplied the House with some of the best and most to be depended on of the advanced Liberals, and I believe that you, if elected, would be worthy of a place among the number. There would, moreover, be a peculiar propriety in your return to Parliament by a constituency so free from electoral corruption as those of Scotland have proved themselves to be; since you have thought to greater purpose on the means of preventing electoral corruption, and are likely to be of more service in passing measures for that vitally important end than any other person whom I could name. Your diplomatic experience, and your knowledge of the mode in which our foreign affairs are conducted, would be of great value in Parliament, acquired as that knowledge was in the course of an honourable service, of the rewards of which you have been deprived for no obvious reason but that an interested clamour was raised against some parts of your official conduct, the authors of which, by general admission, failed to make good any imputation against you, unless it be an imputation to have made yourself disagreeable to those who were endeavouring to evade the fulfilment of their national obligations.—I am, dear Mr. Christie, very truly yours,
J. S. Mill
W. D. Christie, Esq.
1203.
TO THOMAS HARE
March 8. 1868
Dear Mr. Hare
I send you a paper I have received from Mr. Boyd Kinnear. He seems a good deal shaken in his opposition. And he is a person well worth gaining over to the plan, if possible.
The article in Tuesday’s Times (I suppose by Mr. Courtney) will give the question a new and much more advanced position than it has yet had. Your proposal for a Conference is producing splendid fruits. The perfectly intelligent adhesion of so many leaders of the working men at the meeting, is most encouraging.
ever yrs truly
J. S. Mill
1204.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
March 10. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
The pamphlet may have missed you through being directed Poste Restante, as I did not then know your address at Nice. I send another copy by this post. You will not find in it much argument, of a nature to remove any difficulties which you are likely to feel. The object was to strike hard, and compel people to listen to the largest possible proposal. This has been accomplished, and now the time is come for discussing in detail the manner in which the plan, if adopted, would work. I do not share your hopes that anything much short of what I have proposed, would give peace or prosperity to Ireland in union with England: but if there is any intermediate course which would do so, its adoption is likely to be very much promoted by frightening the Government and the landlords with something more revolutionary; as even the Saturday Review admits.
The great Irish debate begins tonight, and in the course of it I shall probably have an opportunity of answering the practical objections to my proposal.
I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1205.
TO MARY SOMERVILLE
March 11, 1868
Dear Madam
I must beg of you to excuse my addressing you, which I do on account of the very great interest I take in the matter on which I write, and the earnest desire I feel that you may accede to the request I am commissioned to make to you.
I believe you have already heard that a Society was formed last year for endeavouring to extend the franchise to women, and in this Society I take a warm interest, and have been glad to see many of my friends join it.
Looking upon your own justly honoured name as the one which, before all others, the Society would be proud to include among its members, I was much gratified when, some months ago, I heard that you had consented to join it. But I am now informed by Mrs Taylor, the Secretary of the Society (to whose disinterested zeal and energy we are all much indebted) that on enquiring of Miss Cobbe, from whom she received the notification of your willingness to join us, whether she should put down your name and those of your daughters as members of the General Committee, or as members of the Society, she finds some uncertainty on this matter, and that Miss Cobbe hesitates to say more than that she is certain of your “approval.” In this uncertainty, I am commissioned by Mrs Taylor to express to you her deep regret if unwittingly your name has been made use of without your own full sanction; and at the same time, to beg of you to permit your name and those of Miss Somerville and Miss M. Somerville to be placed on the General Committee. I greatly regret if there has been any misunderstanding, but Mrs Taylor tells me that she was under the impression that you had received copies of the Circular of the Society, and had given your consent to become a member after having seen them: and it is only when printing a list of the subscribers that she finds her friend unwilling to define in which list your name is to be inserted, though quite certain of your approval of the aims of the Society.
You will see by the papers I inclose, that the Society consists, besides the Executive Committee: Firstly, of a General Committee, consisting of annual subscribers of one guinea, who are not responsible for the management; who, in giving their names, are considered to give in an adhesion only to the specific object of the Society, the extension of the franchise to women. Secondly, of ordinary members, consisting of all subscribers of one shilling or upwards, less than one guinea. Some of our most valued members belong to this latter portion, and I beg that you will allow your name to be included in one of the two: certain as I am that in doing so you will give the weight and dignity of the living name to which English-women justly look up with the greatest pride, to help a movement better calculated than any other to enable women in general to attain a position more worthy of them than that which they now hold, and one better fitted to make them of use to the world.
I am Dear Madam with the greatest respect
Yours sincerely
J. S. Mill
1206.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
March 18. 1868
My dear Mr Gomperz—
I hope you received the sheets of the First Book of the new edition of the “System of Logic.” There were no alterations in it that were at all worth being attended to by a translator, except a correction (suggested by Mr Grote) in the statement in the chapter on Verbal & Real Questions regarding a passage of Porphyry.
I have directed the printer to send you immediately the remaining sheets of the first volume & I now inclose the only pages of the old edition (as far as the printer has yet reached) which contain any alterations worth attending to. They are, as you will see, mostly of little importance. I will make sure that the sheets of vol. 2 are sent to you without any avoidable delay.
1207.
TO NICHOLAS KILBURN
March 18. 1868.
Dear Sir—
I have to thank you for your enclosure & inquiry. It is the first time I have ever heard that I was a believer in Spiritualism, & I am not sorry to be able to suppose that some of the other names I have seen mentioned as believers in it are no more so than myself.
For my own part I not only have never seen any evidence that I think of the slightest weight in favour of Spiritualism but I shd also find it very difficult to believe any of it on any evidence whatever: And I am in the habit of expressing my opinion to that effect very openly whenever the subject is mentioned in my presence.
You are at liberty to make any use you please of this letter.
1208.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
March 18, 1868
Dear Sir
It is a worthy act on the part of the New England Loyal Publication Society, to resume its operations for the purpose of contending against the deplorable doctrines now afloat in the United States about currency and the obligation of contracts. A breach of faith with the national creditor by the people of the United States, under whatever disguise, would be, in my estimation, the most unfortunate event for the morality of the world, and for the reputation and progress of free institutions, which at the present time could possibly happen; and of all modes of defrauding the public creditor, that of cancelling the debt by handing over to him a vast quantity of paper depreciated to worthlessness by excessive issue, would be, in its practical operation, the worst. If, as you do me the honour of thinking, anything that I could write on the subject could in the smallest degree aid your exertions to ward off this calamity from your country and from mankind, I should feel bound in duty to what little I can for the purpose. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to write anything requiring care and concentration of thought during the session of parliament. But to the extent of a letter, or a short article adapted for a newspaper, I could promise: and if you would kindly let me know the form and mode of publication which you would prefer I will do my best to meet your wishes. I am Dear Sir
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
Charles Eliot Norton Esq.
1208A.
TO JOHN VENN
March 18. 1868
Dear Sir
I thank you very sincerely for your further remarks in illustration of the matters treated in your book. I shall keep them by me for a fuller and more deliberate consideration than it is in my power to give them during the session of Parliament. I will merely, at present, say a few words on a single point; the flaw which seems to you to exist in the theory of the predictability of human history, from the influence which the foresight itself may have in modifying the facts foreseen. This influence is real, but does not seem to me to affect the theory; for the self-consciousness of mankind, and their foresight of their own future, is itself a foreseeable and calculable element. It might have been predicted by a superior being that at such and such an epoch in the development of the human mind, mankind would begin to perceive the law of their own future, and that their perception would modify the future in such and such a way.
There is an inconsistency though only a verbal one, between the two passages which you cite from my Political Economy.
Your examination papers in Political Economy are very thorough and searching.
You are most welcome to use any part of my letter as a testimonial, provided it is so used as to shew that it was not written with a view to the present vacancy in the Examinership in Logic; as, with regard to that vacancy any influence it is in my power to exercise is preengaged in favour of another highly qualified candidate.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
J. Venn Esq
1209.
TO FLORENCE MAY
[after March 22, 1868]
Dear Madam—
I am much interested by the observations in your letter & by the evidence it affords of how very deeply you feel the consequences of the subordination of women although you have not been in the habit of tracing them to their cause. Women of every age & of every position in life with very few exceptions suffer from some one or other of the evils that are the natural results of political subordination. There are some few women who can scarcely be said to suffer personally from these evils, & who are even so fortunate that their intellect itself is freed by happy accident from the numbing effects of the education & position of women. But that indignation & fervent desire of redress which these few do not feel on their own account, they will be likely to feel all the more deeply for the sake of others; and suffering themselves from no one particular grievance, may be perhaps the better qualified to see what is the common root of the many grievances from which others are suffering.
Those two which you particularly mention, the want of education & the want of a career, are probably those most deeply & pressingly felt at present in our own country among educated women of the class of ladies. And although I think it would be easy to trace the still more sad & bitter sufferings of married women & women among the poor to a political cause, still these two are among the evils which are most evidently the consequence of political defranchisement [. . . ?] would be most speedily & easily removed by opening the suffrage to women.
How very quickly public attention to the education of a class follows upon opening the franchise to that class we have all of us seen within the last year in the sudden & universal interest in the education of the poor which has followed upon our new Reform Bill. It is not going too far to say that six months have done more with the aid of the Reform Bill to ripen public opinion in the matter of popular education than 20 years with the aid of all the most enlightened thinkers & writers among us. On the other side we see how very little extensive endowments will do if those for whose benefit they have been made have not the power of insuring their application; since there is scarcely one if one of all the educational endowments in the country, most of which were originally made for poor boys & girls, which have not been long ago appropriated to the boys of those classes which possess political influence. And I am persuaded that if women in this country urged by a strong feeling of the importance of the education of women to found magnificent institutions for that object, and to train women without any votes, a century or two hence would see them all silently lapsed into the hands of those who possess by the vote the power of attending to their own interests. It is not by accident that this has happened hitherto with all our endowments, nor is it by any extraordinary perversity or wickedness. It is by the steady & invariable pressure of self interest in all human affairs, for make what regulations you will, somebody must enforce them; they will not enforce themselves; & those among the persons affected who have the power to enforce them will be active in enforcing what concerns themselves, & will by mere forgetfulness & negligence, if from nothing worse, let what does not, lapse into the oblivion & neglect which have been the fate of the regulations concerning the poorer scholars in almost all our magnificent endowments for education. Give to women a vote & it will be worth while to educate them, as it is now thought worth while to educate the working classes. Give to women a vote & they will begin to ask what has become of the funds for the education of girls in our existing endowments & when a voter asks a candidate a question, the question will not be pooh poohed as feminine talk. Give to women a vote, & new institutions arising from the new sense of the importance of women in the world will not be turned aside from the objects for which they were intended.
The closing of all careers to women is still more obviously the consequence of their political insignificance. A lady who takes much interest in this subject has taken some pains to point out the many ways in which the mere fact of having no vote causes women applicants for employment to be passed over. The daughters & widows of farmers have the greatest difficulty in inducing, & only can induce a few philanthropic landlords to permit them to retain the farms of their fathers & husbands because a woman has no vote & the landlord likes all his tenants to vote for his own candidates. Postmistresses & other little functionaries are disappearing to the level at which voters begin because all these little places are given through the influence of members of Parlt, who naturally give them to voters. In France some years ago many hundred women were employed as clerks in telegraph offices; since the lowering of the suffrage in that country to all the men, no fresh women clerks have been appointed. I need scarcely point out to you how all these things throw hundreds of women upon such few means of earning their bread as men cannot keep for themselves, & make the pressure of competition greater & the chance of success less even in these few. But it is evident that these same principles are at work in all those departments of life which might furnish what may properly be called a career as distinguished from a mere living. Parliament decides the rules by which entry into all professions is governed & a parlt consisting of men elected by men only, either expressly excludes women or more often leaves the drawing up of those rules to a body of professional men who shut out women with all the jealousy of rivals. Thus it is that the medical profession threatens to be closed against women as well as all public employments.
But I feel sure that as you come to reflect on these subjects you will be peculiarly able to see the working of several principles, & I will do myself the pleasure of forwarding some of the papers & publications of the Society for Women’s Suffrage.
1210.
TO JOHN A. ELLIOTT
24 March, 1868
If my circumstances permitted me to help all who want aid, or even all authors who want aid, and if I had the pleasure of knowing anything of yourself otherwise than through your writings, the repugnance I feel to the opinions expressed in those writings would very likely be no bar to sympathy and interest in your individual self. But as my own motive for writing has always been the desire to defend and to excite sympathy for that which I hold to be the highest of all causes, that liberty against which the system of Slavery is the deepest outrage, I can never see any attempt to hold up Slaveholders to sympathy without deep regret.
1211.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
March 29, 1868
Dear Mr Christie
You will have seen that in Thursday’s debate I broke ground on the subject of the two or three most important of your suggestions respecting a bribery bill. I think my doing so has done some good. There seems so much difficulty in bringing the various MP’s who have been spoken to on the subject to meet together, that I have determined to act without reference to any meeting, and have therefore given notice of an amendment for the prohibition of paid canvassers, and have suggested several other amendments which I am endeavouring to induce suitable members to move. I am told that I may expect a good deal of support even from Tories on the subject of paid canvassers.
I am sorry that you found no opening at Stirling, but since you think my letter calculated to be of use, I am glad it was published, since it helps to make you generally known as a candidate. I am Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1212.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
March 31. [1868]
Dear Chadwick
To write a paper on the education question, or to open a debate on it, are more than I can at present undertake; but when the day is fixed for renewing the discussion, I will attend, and probably speak.
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1213.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
March 31. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I much regret that I have given my order for Friday—and could have given many others if I had had them to give. The demand for orders this week is the greatest I have known.
Mr Torrens has undertaken one of the amendments, and I am in communication with other members. In drawing up my clause prohibiting paid canvassers, I shall include another important suggestion of yours, the limitation to one paid agent. Otherwise, as has been well remarked to me, the canvassers would simply be retained as agents.
I shall put the clause or clauses on the paper on Friday, and should be very glad of any suggestions from you in the meantime as to the wording of it. I suppose I must take some lawyer into counsel.
I will either ask, or get some one to ask, the question you suggest about Municipal Elections.
I at once set down the very useful article in the Pall Mall Gazette to you. I wish it had been some one else, as any one else would probably have mentioned your pamphlet as the source from which my proposals were taken. I am
Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1214.
TO MARY SOMERVILLE
March 31, 1868
Dear Madam
Your letter gave me very great pleasure, both personally, and for the sake of the cause in which I am glad to know from yourself that your interest is already of old date. I now write to ask of you a further service to that cause—a service the value of which will probably be less in your own eyes, than in those of any other person connected with the movement. Petitions in considerable numbers are coming in; a dozen or more have already been presented, and many others are in the hands of members, from various places, great and small; but there will be one, promoted by the London Branch of the Society, to be presented by myself in May signed both by women and men which far exceeds in number of signatures all hitherto presented. It has already nearly 14000 signatures, many of them names of great weight, and many more are expected. Now it would not only be felt a great honour by the promoters, but would also be of great value to the cause, if you would allow the first signature to this petition to bear your name.
In the hope that you will not refuse us this favour, I inclose what will, in that case, be the first sheet of the voluminous document, and I beg you to return it to me at the address which heads this letter. I am
Dear Madam
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
Mrs Somerville
1215.
TO WILLIAM WOOD
April 2. 1868
Dear Sir
Your letter dated March 16 was like all your letters, very interesting to me. It is a real pleasure to receive them.
I do not happen to have in my possession spare copies of any of the books in your list but I have little doubt of being able to procure some of them. Milton’s Prose Works however are not easy to be met with. Some of the books you mention are French: is it translations that you wish for, or have you been enabled to learn to read French books in the original?
The Mr De Morgan who died lately is, I am sorry to say, a son of the eminent mathematician with whom you have corresponded.
I inclose a petition which is in course of signature, and as I know you agree with its sentiments, should be glad if you would sign it or get it signed by men or women who agree with it and send it back to me. It has already been signed by 14,000 persons, and it is found that working women are very often willing to sign it. I am Dear Sir
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
Mr William Wood
1216.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
April 3. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
Many thanks for your very valuable cautions. I shall not finally draw up my clauses until I receive your further suggestions. It is only too clear that we have plenty of time.
Mr Disraeli’s answer to my question was civil but in no degree satisfactory. In fact the enquiring into municipal corruption in any effectual manner seems to depend on the creation of the permanent officers proposed by you which is inconsistent with the general plan of his Bill. I am afraid this main principle of your plan will have to wait for the rejection of the Government Bill, or for the failure of it in practice if adopted. Perhaps you can suggest some mode of bringing it before the House by way of amendment. I am quite ready to do so if you think it expedient.
Mr Hibbert, who is rather clever as well as careful in framing amendments will probably propose at least one amendment carrying out one of your proposals. Mr Fawcett is willing, if wanted, to propose other amendments besides those of which he has given notice, & I have other members in view. So that, among us, we have the subject well in hand and shall be able to force on a series of discussions.
Dear Mr Christie
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
[P.S.] Serjeant Pulling has sent me his two articles from the Law Review. His plans seem to agree very much in principle with yours.
1217.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
le 7 avril 1868
Mademoiselle
Je n’avais pas fait tirer à part des exemplaires de mon discours sur l’Irlande, mais puisque vous me faites l’honneur d’en désirer un, je l’ai commandé exprès pour le Journal des Economistes, qui, je l’espère, le recevra prochainement.
Quant à la traduction, je n’ai pas pu faire un erratum en temps convenable pour le Journal. Du reste, je ne tenais à faire des corrections à la traduction que dans le cas où par hasard on aurait l’intention de la publier séparément.
Ma fille me charge, Mademoiselle, de vous transmettre ses salutations amicales, et je vous prie d’agréer l’hommage de mes sentiments de haute estime et d’amitié.
J. S. Mill
1218.
TO LUCY STONE
April 14, 1868
Dear Madam
I have had the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 23rd ult. I beg to express not only my earnest wishes, but my confident hopes for the success of the efforts which the American Association for Equal Rights is carrying on to obtain the full rights of citizenship for every subject of the United States, and especially for that moiety of the nation who, though the imaginary disqualification of difference of race and blood cannot be alleged in their case, are denied a voice in those public interests which concern them in the same manner and in the same degree as the other moiety. In this country the political enfranchisement of women is gaining ground rapidly in public opinion, and if the cause is thus prospering in the old country, which has never yet professed to ground its political institutions on principles of equal justice, but chiefly on historical precedent, how much more ought it to prosper in the United States, the very foundation of whose institutions is the equality of all human beings in the eye of the law and of the constitution, and who proclaimed that great devotion in the memorable document by which they first attested their existence as a nation. There is no true democracy where large classes of the community are denied equality of political rights. Every Government which permanently divides its people into a governing part and a governed part is an aristocratic Government, by whatever name it may be called, and I am convinced that the people of the United States of both political parties are capable of seeing this, and, attached as they both are to the general principles of democratic government, only need a persevering appeal to their reason and good feelings to induce them to free their constitution from the remains of the old system of privileged orders and arbitrary disqualifications.—I am, dear Madam, sincerely and respectfully yours,
J. S. Mill
Mrs. Lucy Stone
1219.
TO LYON PLAYFAIR
April 16. 1868
Dear Sir
I shall certainly oppose the attempt to reduce the four Scottish universities to one representative in Parliament when Trinity College, Dublin, has two.
Scotland owes much more to her universities than either England or Ireland to theirs, and they have been far greater diffusers of a Liberal education. To treat the people’s universities so much worse than the universities of the higher ranks is quite according to custom, but ought to be resisted to the utmost.
In the same spirit, the present Irish Reform Bill gives no representation at all to the Queen’s University. I am
Dear Sir
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
Prof. Lyon Playfair
1220.
TO PROFESSOR CARL ADOLF BUCHHEIM
April 20, 1868
Mr Mill presents his compliments to Professor Buchheim, and feels honoured by the request made in his note of the 18th inst. If the extracts were voluminous, the consent of the publishers, Messrs Longmans and Co, would be necessary, as well as that of Mr Mill, which he would be most willing to give: but for extracting “a short passage”, it is a proof of delicacy of feeling on Professor Buchheim’s part that he should have deemed any permission to be required.
1221.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
April 20. 1868
Dear Mr Christie—
The Bribery Bill stands for Thursday, after the Budget; and as the Budget is not likely to afford much matter for discussion, it may leave time for beginning the passage of the Bribery Bill through Committee. This, however, it will be hardly possible to know till the time comes. I will endeavour to learn what the Government intend or expect, but I do not believe they will be willing, or probably able, to tell me. Unless they do, I can hardly avoid putting my clauses on the paper before Thursday. But they can be altered or enlarged afterwards, a thing continually done.
I should be sorry if I thought we really differed about extradition treaties. I am quite in favour of extradition of real criminals, but I hold strongly the necessity of so defining the crimes for which it can be demanded, that offences really political may not be included, under cover of the names of ordinary crimes: e.g. Louis Napoleon’s shooting the sentinel at Boulogne under the crime of murder. I would adopt a proviso to except cases in which the offence formed part of an armed insurrection, or of an attempt to excite an armed insurrection for the purpose of effecting changes in the government. The preliminary enquiry previous to extradition must of course go fully into this question. I am
Dear Mr Christie
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
W. D. Christie Esq.
1222.
TO WILLIAM LONGMAN
April 20. 1868
Dear Sir—
It is a very difficult thing to find a person competent to edit Hume’s Philosophical Works as the editor ought to be highly instructed both in the deepest philosophical speculations & in their history & capable besides of original thinking & writing of a high order of philosophy. This applies even to the Essays, apart from the Treatise on Human Nature. But, with a little more time to think about it I may be able to suggest some one who could perform the work at least not discreditably.
I am much obliged by your answer to my question about my father’s copyrights. The “Elements of Political Economy” were first published at the end of 1821 or beginning of 1822: the third edition, (considerably altered & enlarged) came out in 1826. The “Analysis” was published in 1829 & the “Fragment on Mackintosh” in 1835.
Can there be any unauthorized publication of selections from my writings, to which the order you have received has reference? or what can be the nature of the misunderstanding?
I have had an application, which will probably be made to you, for permission to reprint some chapters or parts of chapters of the P. of P. Econ to be used in Victoria against the Protectionists. I have answered that I myself shd be very happy, but it cannot be done without your consent.
1223.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
April 22. 1868
Dear Mr Christie—
I have ascertained that the Bribery Bill will certainly not be brought on this week.
Hibbert has undertaken to move an amendment providing that all payments shall be made through the returning officer.
1224.
TO PETER DEML
April 22, 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 14th inst.
Your purpose of endeavouring to improve the popular discussion of the remedies for poverty, by substituting reason & science for vague declamation, is most laudable & commands my strongest sympathy. You will render a great service by diverting the attention of thinkers & of the working classes to the close connexion between the rate of wages & the ratio of population to the means of subsistence & employment. At the same time you doubtless agree with me in thinking that this is only one of several causes which conspire to determine the good or bad material condition of the labourer. It would not be a correct view of my opinions to suppose that I think everything wrong in the doctrines of Socialism; on the contrary I think that there are many elements of truth in them, & that much good may be done in that direction, especially by the progress of the Cooperative movement, now so successfully commenced in most of the leading countries of Europe. Since you do me the honour to be a reader of my writings, I may be permitted to refer you, on this subject, to the chapter of my “Principles of P.E.” entitled “The Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,” which expresses in a sufficiently distinct manner the position I take up with regard to this class of questions.
1225.
TO JAMES TRASK
April 22. 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 20th inst. & its inclosures.
Even labourers who have the means of saving from their wages, (which cannot be said of the first person mentioned in your letter) must if they have not done so, be relieved at times of temporary inability to work; but there ought to be legal means of recovering the amount from their wages as soon as they are again able to earn. By the poor law of 1834 power was I believe, given to guardians to grant temporary loans to persons in distress: certainly this power was given in the original bill & I am not aware of its having been struck out though I am surprised at never having heard of its being used.
I do not think it beyond the competence of a government to compel all its subjects to insure against the various evils of life—which is the principle of your proposed National Friendly Society. But I think it much better simply to afford them facilities for doing so without employing compulsion, and I do not believe that a compulsory measure would be carried unless long & thorough previous discussion had led the working classes themselves to demand it. Neither, I think, would it ever be felt to be just to take compulsory measures against the improvidence of the labouring classes, leaving that of all other classes free.
1226.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
April 23. 1868
Dear Sir
My daughter desires me to say, that she would be most happy to be in any way of use to the Review, but that she is at present too much occupied to be able to undertake the work you propose, and that moreover she has not sufficient knowledge of the subject to feel competent to it. She thinks that a more capable person for the work, if she would consent to undertake it, would be Mrs Fawcett.
The inclosures in your note are very interesting. I hope your professional prospects continue to improve. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
Dr Chapman
1227.
TO THEODOR GOMPERZ
April 23, 1868
My dear Mr Gomperz—
Many thanks for your letter. All that you have done and are doing in respect to the edition of my writings seems to me highly judicious. I am most happy in accepting Mr Wessel’s offer to translate the Dissertations & Discussions & to retranslate the Representative Govt. It is a rare good fortune to find a translator with such a union of eminent qualifications certified by such a witness as you. And it is the greater satisfaction to me on account of his intimacy with yourself, & of the sincere esteem which I conceived for him personally during the short period of our intercourse.
In the case of Dr Sattler I hope I did not omit to mention that I know nothing of his qualifications except that he referred to Gervinus as an authority for them. I am therefore very glad that you intend to make corrections if they shd be needed. I hope Dr Soetbeer has brought up his translation of the Pol. Econ. to the latest edition.
With respect to the Inaugural Address assuming that Dr Dohrn who holds my written authority for translating it, waives that authority, I gladly place it at your discretion as well as the “Utilitarianism” & I inclose on a separate piece of paper an authority for the translation by any person whom you select. With regard to the passage you mention in the Utilitarianism I have not had time regularly to rewrite the book, & it had escaped my memory that you thought that argument apparently though not really fallacious which proves to me the necessity of, at least, further explanation & development. I beg that in the translation you will kindly reserve that passage to yourself, & will remove the stumbling block, by expressing the real argument in such terms as you think will express it best.
I am very curious to know your answer to Mr Grote’s arguments about the Platonic Canon & I hope you will have time to write it out & communicate it to himself. I am certain of being very much interested by your researches on the state of Egypt under the Ptolemies as I was by your “Traumdeutung und Zauberei.” I learnt with great pleasure from Mr Wessel the favourable reception of your labours, the growth of your reputation & the prospect of your obtaining increased means of usefulness by being appointed to a Professorship, to which in the present state of opinion you cannot long remain ineligible while I most truly sympathize with you on the heavy blows which have fallen on your family & especially on the lady to whom we had so much pleasure in being introduced at Vienna in 1862. She has indeed suffered two of the greatest calamities with which human life, full of suffering as it is, can strike anyone & we can only hope that one of these calamities may not be lasting & irreparable, as unhappily the other is.
I inclose a few lines to Mr Wessel. With kindest regards,
ever yours truly
[Added, at the end of the MS draft:]
Dear Mr Gomperz I hereby give my fullest consent to the translation of my “Inaugural Address” and “Utilitarianism” by any person authorized by you. I am
1228.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
April 25. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
The Notice paper distributed today omits to give the amendments to the Bribery Bill referring for them to former papers. Of these I send you the only one I can now recover, along with a copy of the Bill. Probably you have later information than this paper gives. I will write to you more fully tomorrow. I am Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1229.
TO GEORGE HOWELL
April 26, 1868
Dear Sir
I think the plan of the Club a very good one and beg to be put down as a member. I enclose the subscription of 2/6d and a contribution of £1 for the purpose mentioned in your note, and I have directed my publishers to send copies of my writings for the Library.
I am
Dear Sir
Yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
1230.
TO JAMES TRASK
April 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 25th.
No doubt houserents & some of the necessaries of life are cheaper in the country than in large towns; but clothing, & in most country districts in the S. of England food, are distressingly dearer; the working people being completely at the mercy of the tradespeople, a thraldom from which only co-operative stores can relieve them. Would not this be a still more important movement to help forward in the rural districts, than for a National Friendly Society? I am glad that you do not propose making subscription to the Society compulsory. I have no objection to any use you may like to make of my letter.
1231.
TO MARY SOMERVILLE
May 2, 1868.
Dear Madam
By a negligence I do not know how to account for, I find that I sent you a printed copy of the petition to which you so kindly gave your signature, whereas it ought to have been in writing. We are therefore constrained either to lose the honour and advantage of having your signature first, or else once again to trouble you, after you have already shewn so much kindness.
I am
Dear Madam
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
Mrs Somerville
1232.
TO HERBERT SPENCER
May 2. 1868.
Dear Sir
From the interest you took in the Reader, and again last year in another proposal for founding a weekly paper, I infer that you agree with me in thinking that some good might be done by a thoroughly liberal well written paper. I have now been applied to by Mr Boyd Kinnear, who is very earnestly desirous of establishing something of the sort, a prospectus of which I inclose. He tells me that although the contributions, being signed by the writers, will be allowed considerable latitude in the expression of opinion, and place is to be given in “Correspondence” for opinions contrary to those of the paper, yet the general tendency of the paper is “not to be extreme—only pretty much mine (J. S. Mill) in politics and philosophy.” It is with some surprise that I hear I am a model moderate man, but I have no objection to accept the position, if all my opinions are to be accepted as moderate too. From what I see it appears to me that Mr Boyd Kinnear and his proposed associates have much more definite ideas on politics than on any of the other topics that interest us; and I have told them that I think the paper, to be successful either among thinking working men or really liberal thinkers in any class, must include good writing with advanced opinions on science and philosophy. He demurred a little at first to this, apparently disliking to give up much space to anything but politics, because he proposes that the paper should be small, about half the size of the Saturday Review, with good print and paper, and costing only a penny. He seems to propose the pay of contributors to average about £2 a page. He has got a considerable staff of young men—such as those who wrote the two volumes of Essays on Reform last year —to whom he looks for regular contributions. But he wishes to have articles from writers of high standing, one or two every week, and to be able to give their names as regular contributors. He proposes to be editor himself, but does not make a point of this: but I should prefer his being so, because I think it would ensure the thing not being carried on merely as a money speculation. I have recommended to him to apply to yourself and Mr Huxley and Sir John Lubbock, and he has asked me to do so. Do you think the plan promises well, and that you yourself, and those of your friends who were thinking of some such scheme last year, would be disposed to amalgamate with Mr Boyd Kinnear? For myself, I will do my best, which is not very much, to help the scheme, if I can see persons like yourself connected with it, who are likely to keep it in a good school in philosophical matters: but I do not feel inclined to do so if it is likely to be, like some of the daily papers, pretty good in politics, but altogether gone-by in other matters. Among the persons Mr Boyd Kinnear has mentioned to me as having promised to write are Mr Roundell, the two Trollopes, Dean Alford (!) Lord Amberley, Baynes and Masson.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1233.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
May 5, 1868
Dear Mr Plummer
The writer of the article signed L. is as profoundly ignorant of everything that belongs to his subject, as it is possible for a person who reads newspapers and can write English to be. Being the dupe of all the most exploded nonsense of the old Mercantile System, he is not one of those who can have been misled by the passage he quotes from my book or who could be influenced by any further disclaimer on my part of the conclusions drawn from it. One of the curious absurdities in his letter is, that he says he wants protection only for articles which can be produced cheaper than they can be imported, that is, only for things which do not need protection. It is a bad sign of the political backwardness of New South Wales if arguments like his need answering; but, as it appears they do, I applaud your intention of refuting him.
I am very glad you find the parliamentary papers useful. It will be very disgraceful if Mr Hughes is not reelected. His determination not to spend money ought of itself to give him the warm support of every honest Radical.
I am
Dear Mr Plummer
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1234.
TO STUART GRACE
May 6, 1868
Dear Sir
I beg to acknowledge your communication of the 4th instant, and to say that it will not be in my power to attend the University Court. I am unacquainted with the particular circumstances of Dr Cook’s case, except as stated in his letter, but the grant of retiring allowances as a means of facilitating the retirement of aged professors appears to me highly beneficial.
I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Stuart Grace Esq.
1235.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
[Before May 8, 1868]
I am very happy to hear that you have formed at Birmingham a branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, and I wish you most cordially all success in your important work. There is no movement to which I should be more happy to devote my time and labour than to this one, the consequences of which are likely to be so momentous and so beneficial to both sexes. The pressure of my occupations will, however, make it impossible for me to be present at the meeting to which you do me the honour to invite me.
1236.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 8. 1868
Dear Mr Christie—
I have put on the notice paper the whole of the amendments which you wrote on the margin of the Govt Bill; & also my own amendment, forbidding paid canvassers, & solicitors’ agents or subagents other than the one recognized by the Act of 1854. This clause has been revised for me by Serjeant Pulling.
On Monday I shall probably put on the paper other clauses.
The Bribery Bill is not to be proceeded with, I understand, until after the Boundary Bill & the Scotch & Irish Reform Bills; but I shall do what little I can to prevent its being put off to another Parliament.
1237.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 11. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I thank you for your letter. Not being a member of a Club, I may have some difficulty in referring to the Pall Mall Gazette of April 24 but if you would kindly suggest what you consider an unexceptionable wording for the passage in my amendment, there is plenty of time to alter it.
I will keep in view what you suggest respecting questions to Disraeli. I expect that every possible question will be put to him about his intentions, every member of the House being interested in knowing them: but the intentional vagueness of his answers makes the extorting of clear information very difficult. I am
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
W. D. Christie Esq.
1238.
TO HERBERT SPENCER
May 14, 1868.
Dear Mr Spencer
I thank you very much for your kind attention to my note. Greatly as your personal cooperation would have increased the chances of usefulness for the proposed publication, I can only regret the very sufficient reasons which compel you to withhold it. Any cooperation whatever from Mr Huxley and Mr Tyndall will be of great value, even though they be unable to promise so much of it as would help to determine the philosophical character of the periodical.
It is to be hoped that Sir John Lubbock may be disposed to join.
I duly received the second edition of “First Principles” and have only delayed thanking you because I have as yet been obliged to exercise the self denial of postponing the study of it. It will however be one of the first things I do after the end of the Session.
I am
Dear Mr Spencer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill.
1239.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 17, 1868
Dear Mr. Christie,
I thank you much for the two numbers of the Pall Mall Gazette, which I will keep for the present and return to you. The latter of them I had seen.
I find by the annual return of expiring acts of Parliament, that the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act (1854) expires this very summer. Does this circumstance affect any of our amendments?
I found it would be entirely useless to suggest the abandonment of the Boundary Bill.
I am,
Dear Mr. Christie,
Yours very truly,
J. S. Mill.
1240.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 20. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
The “Register of Temporary laws now in force” just distributed states the duration of the 26 & 27 Vict. c. 29 to be until the 8th June 1868 and the “end of the next session”; which I understand to mean the session (if any) then pending.
I yesterday put on the paper Serjeant Pulling’s clauses providing for a scrutiny of all elections before the return of the writ, and extending that scrutiny to municipal elections, and likewise two of your clauses (but by some mistake the clerk has omitted one) allowing Election Committees to inquire into corruption committed at municipal elections within the two years previous. After consideration I thought this better than moving an instruction to the Committee. It brings the subject in a practical way before the consideration of members, which is all we can hope to do this year on a proposal which deviates so far from the system of the Government Bill. Next year we must have a Bill of our own, drawn up on your principles. These particular amendments will serve this year as a peg for discussion, but our previous efforts had better, I think, be reserved for the anti-canvassing clauses, which there is no likelihood of arriving at tomorrow, and on which I shall be very happy to receive your further suggestions. I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1241.
TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE
May 20, 1868
Dear Sir
The project which you have heard of is not mine, but Mr Boyd Kinnear’s; but I think sufficiently well of it to be desirous of giving it what help I can. I will tell you more about it when we meet. If it goes forward, your aid as a contributor will be very valuable.
Yours is the first report which has reached me of the Conference last Saturday at the Working Men’s College. I was myself invited to attend it, but was not able. We saw with great pleasure your presence at the Birmingham meeting, and your general activity in the cause.
I seldom see the Express and have not seen the articles you mention, but I saw your leaders in the Daily News.
I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
W. F. Rae Esq.
1242.
TO JULES SIMON
May 20th 1868
Monsieur
J’ose espérer que vous voudrez bien ne pas trouver déplacée la liberté que je prends en vous recommandant le nom de mon ami M. Chadwick pour le fauteuil d’Associé Étranger à l’Académie des [sciences morales et] Pol. vacant par la mort de Lord Brougham. Vous n’ignorez pas les rares qualités de M. Chadwick, & les services importants qu’il ne cesse de rendre à quelques-uns des intérêts les plus importants et jusqu’à lui les plus négligés de l’humanité.
On peut dire avec vérité que sa vie est consacrée au progrès de l’administration publique, et qu’il apporte à presque toutes les branches de cette étude si négligée parmi nous, des pensées aussi vraies, et fécondes qu’originales. Lié avec lui depuis le commencement de sa carrière publique, je sais mieux que personne l’ardeur désintéressée qui l’a de tout temps caractérisé et le rôle qu’il a joué dans la préparation de tous les importants progrès administratifs qui se sont réalisés de nos temps en Angleterre, sans parler de ceux encore plus nombreux qui restent encore à réaliser. Vous savez M[onsieur] les contributions que M. Chadwick a faites aux travaux de l’Académie depuis qu’il a l’honneur d’en être un des correspondants, contributions qui seraient déjà un titre à l’honneur encore plus grand auquel il aspire actuellement. Si l’Académie le jugeait digne d’une marque si éclatante de son estime, pour lui cette haute appréciation de la part d’un corps si illustre ne pourrait manquer d’accroître encore la considération dont il jouait déjà, parmi ses compatriotes les plus éclairés, et par là d’augmenter ses moyens de rendre service à son pays et au monde, à quoi il tient beaucoup plus qu’à toute distinction personnelle quelque honorable qu’elle soit.
1243.
TO JULES SIMON
May 21st 1868
Cher Monsieur
Il me serait difficile d’exprimer combien je me sens reconnaissant de votre lettre. Je vous avoue qu’ordinairement je suis très indifférent aux honneurs et dignités de toute espèce. Mais je suis déjà fier du titre de Correspondant de l’Académie, et je le serais encore plus de l’honneur que vous et vos amis m’avez destiné, et cela pour une excellente raison, puisque cet honneur aurait été conféré par des hommes que je respecte [et] s’il n’y avait aucune chance pour mon ami M. Chadwick, je regrettrais d’avoir perdu l’honneur d’être même proposé par la partie de l’Académie qui selon moi consiste des hommes les plus distingués. Mais s’il y a quelque chance pour mon ami je préférais de lui céder la place. M. Chadwick est un homme très désintéressé et pas assez apprécié, et cet honneur en ajoutant à son influence serait encore une récompense pour ses travaux, la dignité d’associé de l’Académie étant comme de raison, très hautement appréciée chez nous. Ce serait donc pour moi un grand plaisir que de la voir obtenir par M. Chadwick, et aussi d’avoir été pour quelque chose là dedans. Et il me serait de l’autre côté très pénible d’être moi-même l’obstacle même apparent à son succès.
Sachant d’ailleurs que mes opinions philosophiques sont mal reçues par une grande partie de l’Académie j’ai cru que peut-être M. Chadwick pourrait obtenir beaucoup de suffrages qui ne me seraient pas donnés, et qu’en ajoutant à ceux-là les suffrages que j’aurais pu obtenir, il aurait d’excellentes chances de réussir. Permettez-moi de vous remercier de tout mon coeur de l’extrème bonté que vous montrez pour moi. Il n’y a que peu de personnes dont l’estime me serait aussi précieuse. Pardonnez-moi aussi que je ne réponds pas d’une manière plus [illegible word] à votre lettre. Je crois de vous avoir suffisamment exprimé le mélange de sentiments que j’éprouve.
1244.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 22. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
You will have seen the debate on the first amendment, which however is a good deal abridged in the report. The minority of 74 is not discouraging, as Whitbread, Melly, and (I believe) many others who voted against the amendment will vote for it when it is moved in a separate clause. The bill cannot well be brought on again before next Thursday, and in the meantime if you would draw up a clause embodying the purpose of the rejected amendment, I will put it on the paper. I ask you to take this trouble because you would do it much better than I can myself.
I send you the full list of amendments as it now stands. I have never had a spare copy before. Hibbert’s is not yet among them, but he intends to give it in. I shall this evening substitute the clauses you last sent (with one or two slight verbal changes) for my original notice on the subject of paid canvassers.
The feeling of the House is better than I expected. Many, especially of the advanced liberals, seem really to take up the subject seriously. I am
Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1245.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
May 25. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I propose to bring up the new clause in Committee. As the new clauses are not discussed until after the bill has been gone through, we are still a long way from them.
It is probable however that the Government will bring up a new clause providing for an easier and prompter enquiry into complaints of general corruption. But they object to having this done by their tribunal, viz. the Judges. There can be no similar objection to its being done by our tribunal: and the reason why we cannot come to an agreement with them, is that our plan fits into our general system, but does not fit into theirs.
Many voted against the amendment for the reason which you mention in the case of Grant Duff: some of them moved by the fact that Ayrton (who, they think, wants to defeat the Bill) supported the amendment. But Ayrton means to propose an amendment of his own, for the same general purpose as your and Serjeant Pulling’s plans, though differing from them in its machinery.
Bain promises to do all he can for your candidature. I will take the first opportunity of speaking to Mr Morrison.
I am Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1246.
TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON
May 27, 1868
. . . . Mr. Garvie’s chronological classification of the executions will be very useful . . . to those of us who may have to speak on the subject. . . .
1247.
TO GOLDWIN SMITH
May 28, 1868
My dear Goldwin Smith—
Many thanks for your valuable suggestion. There will probably be an opportunity of using it on Friday evening, as a West India proprietor of the name of Lamont means to move a resolution that Eyre’s expenses ought to be borne by the public.
It would be difficult to find any one less likely to be discomposed by the abuse heaped upon him than myself, or, I believe, than Taylor. The worst of all this is the indication which it gives of the spirit of our higher classes & of a considerable portion of the public.
A propos, I receive abusive letters, at the rate of three or four a week, & the other day I received one threatening me with assassination. They are all anonymous, and as ineffably stupid as one might expect.
It is almost superfluous to thank you for the last part of your letter. It is like yourself.
1248.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
May 29. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
Before receiving your most welcome letter, I had seen the Queen’s University delegates (of whom Professor Nesbitt was not one) and had promised them all the help I could give to their application for a representative in Parliament.
Fawcett has put off his motion from tonight to this day fortnight, there being no hope of a good discussion when people were eager to get away for the holidays. McKenna, the Tory Irishman, has given notice of an amendment which would turn the debate into one between the Catholic project and Fawcett’s; a thing which Monsell was anxious to avoid. But this issue must be faced if need be. A greater practical difficulty is this: As both Monsell and Pim remark, the parallel case to Maynooth is not the Irish Church, but Trinity College: and there will not be complete religious equality if Maynooth is abolished, and any Divinity School at all kept up for the Anglican Church, however Trinity College may be freed from denominationalism in every other respect. Now it is doubtful if the public are yet prepared to support a proposal for abolishing the Divinity School altogether at Trinity College, any more than at Oxford and Cambridge: and they certainly would refuse to admit a Catholic Divinity School by the side of it.
You will have heard of, if not seen Provost Lloyd’s pamphlet. The movement in Trinity College itself against his proposal and in favour of Fawcett’s is very auspicious.
I am glad you at last got my pamphlet. Bright’s land plan would, like any plan for creating a class of peasant proprietors in Ireland, do a certain quantity of good: but I do not believe it would get over the main difficulty since it would give no security to the actual tenantry of Ireland.
Laveleye has sent me his book on Holland for the sake of an interesting account it contains of a system of landlords with tenants under them at a fixed rent, which obtains in the province of Groningen. It appears to work well there; but the recent rise of general prices is now enabling the tenants to sublet at a profit to tenants who will not enjoy the same advantages. This is provided against in my plan.
The cause of women is indeed making progress, and is now, probably, past all danger of retrogression.
I most earnestly hope that you will derive benefit from the mud baths. If you pass through London, pray let me know beforehand if possible, that I may not miss the chance of seeing you.
I am Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1249.
TO GEORGE W. JULIAN
May 29. 1868.
Dear Sir
I have read your speech on the Land question with great interest. I have no doubt that you are right in endeavouring to prevent the sale of the public lands to mere speculators who buy to resell at a profit: but it seems to me that the land in the hands of its actual cultivators is a perfectly legitimate source of revenues. I often think that it would be much better if a new country retained all its lands as state property, giving, as we do in India, leases renewable for ever at rents guaranteed against any augmentation except by a general measure. But perhaps jacta est alea, and the people of the United States would not take land except on the same terms of absolute property on which it has been hitherto acquired. According to my own notions, absolute property in land, even when owned by the cultivators, is a prejudice and an abuse. I am
Dear Sir
Yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
Hon. Geo. W. Julian.
1250.
TO GEORGE CAPEL
June 6, 1868
Dear Sir—
I have already made use of your testimony (though without naming you) in a note to the new edition of my Logic just published.
I do not feel the confidence you appear to do in Messrs. Longmans’ willingness to publish the Common Place books, (at least at their own risk): but if published they would doubtless be very valuable & I will sound Messrs. Longmans on the subject.
1251.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
June 6. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I have been delayed in answering your letters by absence from town.
The paragraphs in the Daily News on the two occasions you mention are certainly ominous, and there was another (I forget whether in the Daily News or in some other paper) which appeared while you were at Aberdeen and stated that Sir James Clark’s son was expected to stand for the second seat.
I will take an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gladstone, when he is a little less occupied with the Irish Church contest and its incidents than he is at present.
I will send you the Extradition Evidence in a day or two.
I am afraid the Radicals do not care enough about a Bribery Bill to agitate out of doors for it, placing their reliance wholly on the Ballot, which whatever it might do against intimidation, would, I am convinced, do little or nothing against Bribery.
I am
Dear Mr Christie
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
1252.
TO MISS NICHOLSON
June 8. 1868
Madam—
I have the pleasure of enclosing the papers of the Nat. Soc. for Women’s Suffrage, & of being able to inform you that on application to the Hon. Secretary Mrs P. A. Taylor, A[ubrey] H[ouse] N[otting] H[ill] London she will supply you with all the information which I am happy to hear you desire with reference to the suffrage.
Miss Nicholson
- [Thelwall Lawn?]
- Southport.
1253.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
June 9. 1868
Dear Mr Plummer
The Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market Bill has passed the second reading, has been once committed pro forma for Government amendments, and is to be discussed in Committee next Monday the 15th, if the Irish Reform Bill, which stands before it allows time.
Many thanks for “The Oak.”
In haste
yours truly
J. S. Mill
1254.
TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN
June 9, 1868.
Dear Sir—
I regret deeply that any one who has ever done me the honour to vote for me can disapprove of the course I thought it my duty to take in regard to Mr Eyre’s proceedings in Jamaica, because I have never in the whole course of my life felt myself called upon to take practical action on any matter on which I felt more clear as to the course indicated by the principles which I hold & have always endeavoured to promulgate. In regard to Mr Eyre personally my feelings towards him, so far as I can be said to have had any, before I knew of his conduct in Jamaica, were favourable, inasmuch as I knew of him only as a traveller whose narrative I had read with interest. Neither has anything ever occurred directly or indirectly in the whole course of my life to arouse the smallest personal feeling of any sort in me towards Mr Eyre as a private man. But I cannot say that it is possible to me as a man to regard Mr Eyre’s conduct in Jamaica without the deepest indignation, or as an Englishman without a sentiment of humiliation: nor can I pretend that I can regard without abhorrence & contempt the man who knowing himself to be guilty in the eyes of many disinterested persons, of the wanton torture & death of many hundred men & women, can be content to shelter himself under any shield whatever against a judicial examination & does not eagerly challenge and earnestly invite the closest possible scrutiny into whatever justification he thinks he can urge. To me it appears that the conduct of Mr Eyre since his return to England shews a callousness to human suffering & a contempt for his fellow men which alone go far to shew his total unfitness for any station of authority over them.
Yet if all human sympathies could be cast aside altogether, the importance of instituting a judicial enquiry into the proceedings in Jamaica would still be paramount in the eyes of all thinking persons who look upon law & justice as the foundation of order & civilisation. If the majority of any nation were willing to allow such events to pass unquestioned I have no hesitation in saying that all the ties of civil society would in that nation be at the mercy of accident. There would be no principle in the minds of men to bind civilized society together. Happily I am fully convinced that the great majority of the English nation does desire judicial enquiry into these events. Were I not so convinced I shd be ashamed of my country. Nevertheless even if I were not convinced of this I shd think it my duty to express in the clearest, the most public & the most practical way in my power my opinion of the importance of checking the lawlessness of which Mr Eyre’s conduct in Jamaica appears to my humble judgment a flagrant example. I believe from a perfectly calm & disinterested examination of the subject that Mr Eyre has either been guilty of, or has tolerated under his authority, crimes of violence & cruelty which no man of even ordinarily tender conscience or good heart could be capable of. The detestation of the right judging among his fellow creatures might however in some circumstances be a sufficient punishment for this. At all events, while the world is as full of crime as it is, I do not suppose that however strong my feelings about it, I shd have considered myself as peculiarly called upon to interfere against him. But I do consider myself as an Englishman called upon to protest against what I believe to be an infringement of the laws of England; against acts of violence committed by Englishmen in authority, calculated to lower the character of England in the eyes of all foreign lovers of liberty; against a precedent that could justly inflame against us the people of our dependencies; & against an example calculated to brutalize our own fellow countrymen. Nor would any amount of declamation, public or private, political or literary, have been to my mind a proper mode of chastising what I believe to be the offence committed, so long as it was uncertain whether the laws of England are not competent to restrain such lawless proceedings for the future, or punish them in the past. The humblest & obscurest English man or woman, animated with that respect for law & love of liberty on which the greatness of England has been founded in past times & depends in the future, ought in my opinion to contribute his part towards calm & legal settlement of this question. And it is at once amazing & humiliating to me that anyone who has done me the honour to read, much less to approve, of any of my writings could for one instant doubt that I shd think so. I can understand that anyone might doubt what might be my opinion of Mr Eyre’s conduct. I can understand that those who have not examined it as carefully as I have done might expect me to approve of it. But I cannot understand that anyone shd expect me not to desire an examination of it, conducted in the fairest & most open manner that could be attained. That the real or supposed crimes of men in authority should be subject to judicial examination, is the most important guarantee of English liberty, & I am not aware that any reason has ever yet been brought forward why Mr Eyre shd be the sole & solitary exception to this liability.
In regard to the petition concerning which you ask my opinion (that of one of the Foreign Affairs Committees against the Abyssinian war) I did not present it because I agreed in it but because I think members of parlt shd extend as widely as possible the limits within which they accept petitions to present. The power of petitioning is very important, especially to all unrepresented citizens & as it can only be exercised through members of parlt, I think they shd throw as few obstacles as possible in the way. Those who approve of my little book on Liberty can scarcely think me inconsistent in this opinion.
I have always thought & often said that this country was bound to recover its envoy even by war if necessary & the manner in which the war has been carried on by Sir R. Napier does honour to him & to our country. Its success is probably owing in great measure to the spirit of law & order which reduced the sufferings of war to the lowest possible point amongst the people in whose country it was carried on. The continuance of hostilities after the prisoners had been surrendered is the one point which requires, & which will probably receive, explanation.
1255.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
June 10. [1868]
Dear Chadwick
As soon as I received your message, I sent a telegram to the office saying that I should be at home this afternoon but to my surprise was told that telegrams could not be sent to Richmond at nine on Saturday evening. If it is so it is a strong argument for the radical reform you want in the management of telegraphs. I am disappointed, for I have so much on my hands this week that I can fix no time for seeing you (unless at the House) till next Sunday; but if you can come on that forenoon, I will be at home. Could you manage to come by the 10.10 train from Charing Cross, as I have an engagement at half past two?
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1256.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
June 10. 1868
Dear Madam—
Your petition and its supplementary signatures reached me in time and I had the great satisfaction of presenting them on Tuesday. The Bill passed the second reading today, (after an interesting debate of which all the honours were on our side) by the casting vote of the Speaker, & is to be referred to a Select Committee.
1257.
TO HENRY JONES
June 13. 1868
Dear Sir,—
I shd be most happy were it in my power to further your wishes in regard to independent employment in which I most heartily sympathize: but there are few persons less able than myself to do so, & although I can sincerely say that I shall not forget your name shd any occasion offer itself to me, yet I cannot hold out any hope that I am likely to meet with one.
In regard to the points on which you say that the convictions in which you were brought up have been shaken I fully agree with you that it would not be right for you to attempt to inclucate those convictions. I think, however, that you will find them, at least as stated in your letter, as difficult to disprove as to prove: Except indeed in the case of prayer. I think you have omitted to mention one effect that prayer may reasonably be said to have on the mind, & which may be granted to it by those who doubt as well as by those who admit divine interposition in answer to it: I mean the effect produced on the mind of the person praying, not by the belief that it will be granted but by the elevating influence of an endeavour to commune & to become in harmony with the highest spiritual ideal that he is capable in elevated moments of conceiving. This effect may be very powerful in clearing the moral perceptions & intensifying the moral earnestness. It may be so powerful as to leave it open to question whether it is produced solely by the internal action of human nature itself or by a supernatural influence, & this question will have to be resolved by each individual from his personal experience. I know of no proof sufficient to entitle psychologists to assert it as certain that the whole of this influence is reducible to the known elements of human nature, however highly probable they may think it. As to the other two points, the existence of a Deity & the immortality of the soul, it would be still less possible to bring negative proof to bear upon such questions that would be conclusive to all minds. You might perhaps find much to interest you on these matters in Mr Herbert Spencer’s First Principles & in Mr Grote’s work on Plato.
As to the sentence you quote from my “Utilitarianism”; when I said that the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons I did not mean that every human being’s happiness is a good to every other human being; though I think, in a good state of society & education it would be so. I merely meant in this particular sentence to argue that since A’s happiness is a good, B’s a good, C’s a good, &c., the sum of all these goods must be a good.
1258.
TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN
June 13, 1868
Dear Sir—
I did not receive your former letter until late on Tuesday night & my reply to it therefore was written very hurriedly as well as without any view to publication. There are consequently in it one or two expressions which although I think them perfectly warrantable in a private communication, I shd not wish to make use of in print, however I think too great care cannot be taken to avoid what might be felt as violent language in all public discussions. If however you would kindly erase the words “abhorrence & contempt” & substitute “profound disapprobation” for them in one sentence & in another further on would substitute “the moral condemnation of the right judging among his fellow creatures” for “the detestation of &c” I could have no objection to the publication of the letter, provided you would state that it was not written with a view to publication, but in answer to a letter from one of my constituents.
1259.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
June 13. 1868
Dear Sir—
The report you kindly sent had been sent to me already by (I believe) Mr G. Jenkinson & I had read your speech with interest & pleasure. Such enlightened views as it expressed are not common among agriculturists but I think they are in a way rapidly to become so, & the Farmer’s Clubs are a very valuable means of diffusing them.
1260.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
June 16. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
I could not see Alderman Lusk yesterday till too late for the mail. But he promised me to send the letter to you at the Tontine today, and I presume you will receive it at the same time with this. I found he had written to his brother by Saturday’s post in recommendation of you, and he seems disposed to give you all the help he can.
In haste
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1261.
TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON
June 19, 1868
. . . it is much better that Disraeli be reduced to do it in this sort of underhand way, than that the House should be committed more deeply. . . . If the money is not paid to Eyre before Mr Goldwin Smith’s address. . . . [induce] our friends in the provinces to write to their representatives. . . .
1262.
TO LOUIS BLANC
le 20 juin 1868
Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc
Merci de votre lettre, et de l’article de l’Etoile Belge. C’est triste à dire, mais je n’ai jamais espéré, dans cette affaire un meilleur résultat. On ne trouve un sentiment honnête et energique sur des crimes de cet ordre que dans la classe ouvrière. Cependant la protestation n’a pas été inutile. Elle est un obstacle à ce qu’on réintègre M. Eyre dans les fonctions publiques. Et les journaux Eyristes se plaignent que les gouverneurs n’oseront plus “sauver une colonie” de la même manière.
Autant que je comptais sur votre sympathie entière dans l’affaire Eyre, autant j’étais sûr de votre dissentiment sur la peine de mort. Heureusement c’est une différence qui peut exister entre amis. Nos principes sont les mêmes, et nous ne différons que sur leur application.
votre bien dévoué
J. S. Mill
1263.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
June 28. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
From what I hear from Mr Nesbitt and from Fawcett, I am in hopes that you are by this time arrived or arriving in London and I write to ask you to give me a line saying when it will best suit you to allow me the great pleasure of calling on you. Any time when the House is not sitting I would make convenient, but the most convenient time would be in the hour or two before the House meets. There are now morning sittings on all Tuesdays, and sometimes on Fridays. I most earnestly hope that I shall find a material improvement in your health. I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
every yours truly
J. S. Mill
1264.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
June 28. 1868
Dear Mr Fawcett
My daughter has read Mrs Fawcett’s article, and is extremely pleased with it. She says, the two chief feelings that it arouses in her are, pleasure that so good a new woman writer has arisen, so fundamentally right in opinions, so judicious in their exposition, and so efficient in style; and desire that she should be induced to write as much as possible. I have also read the article myself, and quite concur in Helen’s opinion, and we therefore hope that you will take all possible steps to get it published. I do not suppose that I am likely to have influence when you have not, for this purpose, but if you think so you have only to let me know, and I shall be glad to use it whereever I can.
I do not feel quite sure whether there may not be a distinct use in a College for the study of midwifery only (which function might be filled by Dr Edmunds’ College) supposing that there really is a need, as he asserts, for keeping this branch of practice apart from others. If this is really the case, it might perhaps be worth while to insert some sentence into the article, to the effect that “space will not allow of entering into the question whether there should exist a College for midwifery distinct from other branches of medical science, which may perhaps prove a useful innovation on established practice; but in that case the title Female Medical College would be a misnomer, as the purpose of the College would be to qualify practitioners for one branch only of medical practice.” I do not suggest these words, but I merely put them to indicate in what direction I think, so far as I am at present informed, a concession might be made to Dr Edmunds (that is, to Dr Chapman) without departing from the principles so ably advocated in the article and which we so thoroughly agree in; for it is not inconsistent with these to think that midwifery ought to be a special branch of medical science, and that facilities ought to be created for enabling women to study it by itself. I do not know whether Mrs Fawcett takes this view: if she does, it is perhaps possible that a qualification of this sort introduced into the article might meet Dr Chapman’s wishes: and if Mrs Fawcett does take this view, it would perhaps be fair to Dr Edmunds to say something of the sort, and repay him good for evil.
I return Cairnes’ very interesting letter. I am happy that he speaks hopefully of some improvement in his health: and if there is some improvement, we may hope that there will be more. I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1265.
TO ENOCH C. WINES
June 28. 1868
Dear Sir
Allow me to express the high sense I entertain of the honour conferred on me by being appointed a Corresponding Member of the Prison Association of New York. My occupations are not likely to allow of my contributing, like several others of your Corresponding Members, important papers to your Transactions; but, as far as I can judge from such attention as I have been able to give to the Annual Report of which you have favoured me with a copy, the objects and principles of the Association are worthy of all approbation: and all experience shews the value of such organizations in preventing or checking the growth of abuse in the management of prisons, reformatories, or workhouses.
I have the honour to be, Dear Sir,
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
Rev. Dr Wines.
1266.
TO GEORGE KENYON HOLDEN
July 5. 1868
Dear Sir—
I hope you will pardon me for the delay in acknowledging your letter dated as long ago as February. Parliamentary business is so exacting & I receive such a multitude of letters which require an immediate answer that I am often obliged to put aside for a time those which admit of delay.
Your impression is quite correct that I was applied to from Victoria in consequence of the use made by Protectionists of the passage in my Pol Econ which speaks of the occasional benefit in a young country of aiding the naturalization of an industry suited to its circumstances. I did, at that time, return an answer, which was published in a Victoria newspaper, to the effect that if this encouragement took the form of a protecting duty, it should be strictly limited to a moderate number of years & not continued beyond. I have not altered the opinion that such encouragement is sometimes useful & that in many cases the most just mode in which it could be given is that of a temporary protecting duty, on condition that it should be known & declared to be merely temporary, & of no very long duration. But I confess that I almost despair of this general understanding being ever practically established. I find that in Australia, protection is not advocated in this form or for this purpose, but that the vulgarest & most exploded fallacies are revived in its support. As far as I can perceive, those who contend for protection in Australia mean it to be as permanent as any other legislative arrangements & hold to all the false theories on the subject, of which Europe is rapidly ridding itself & which are declining even in America. In such a state of opinion as this I shd resist, with my utmost strength, any protection whatever, because it is far easier to withstand these false & pernicious doctrines before they have been carried into practice to any serious extent, than after powerful protected interests have been allowed to grow up under their influence.
Allow me to express my high sense of the ability & effectiveness of your letter, signed H., on this question. Such clear expositions of the principles of the subject are what can alone be trusted to for combating any natural prejudices in a free & popularly governed country.
I well remember your exertions for the adoption of Mr Hare’s system in the election of the Legislative Council & the very valuable report in which you discussed the subject. The debates in the British Parlt which have since occurred may well have struck you by the amount of ignorance they disclosed; but great & daily progress is making in the correction of that ignorance, & many political men, including some of the most active & intelligent leaders of the working classes, are now converted to Mr Hare’s system, in principle at least, & frequently even in its detail. The doctrine of personal representation is making the same rapid progress among thinking minds on the Continent & in America. But as you are probably in correspondence with Mr Hare you have access to the best source of information on this subject.
1267.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
July 7. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
The papers you have from time to time sent me, have given me a good view of the situation, and the highest hopes for your success. The Scotch constituencies are keeping up their high character for political honesty.
When you read the Bribery debate of last night, do not suppose that I have abandoned, even temporarily, the advocacy of our plan of a jurisdiction. I told the House (though this is not reported) that I should bring that forward before clause 10 is disposed of: and it will come on at the beginning of the next discussion.
I will attend to your wish about referring only to the article in the Law Magazine. I did mention the pamphlet (though your name was not put to it) because it is so much fuller and more explanatory than the article.
I am Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1268.
TO JOHN NICHOL
July 10, 1868
Dear Sir
My friend Mr Edwin Chadwick who is looking out for a seat in the House of Commons, and who would be one of the greatest acquisitions to the new Parliament that it could possibly receive has been told there might be a chance for the third seat at Glasgow to a candidate who could appeal as he can to great services rendered to the working classes (as the author of the first Factory Acts, a most efficient worker for Short Time, the great promoter of sanitary measures etc.) and at the same time might be less obnoxious to the higher classes of electors than a firmly working class candidate. Mr Chadwick presided at the Health section of the Social Sciences Association when it met at Glasgow and delivered an address there, which may have made him in some degree locally known. There is no person living whom I am so anxious to be in Parliament as Mr Chadwick, and I know not any one at Glasgow so likely as yourself to be able to give an impartial opinion as to the possibilities of the case. It is of no use taking the opinion of the usual party leaders as to what are the opinions of the working men; but you, perhaps, have the means of knowing something about them from the working men themselves. If you have, I should feel it a personal favour as well as a public service if you would give Mr Chadwick the benefit of your knowledge, and of your help if he should resolve to stand.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
Professor Nichol Litt. D.
1269.
TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT
July 14, 1868
Dear Sir
I am most happy to hear that the proposal to elect Mr Gladstone, which does so much honour to the constituency of Greenwich, meets with so much success there. I thank you much for your kind invitation to be present at your meeting, tomorrow night, but as I am not an elector of Greenwich and as the spontaneity of this movement among the electors themselves is one of its marked characteristics, I will not, on this occasion at least, avail myself of the invitation.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
W.C. Bennett Esq.
1270.
TO JOHN NICHOL
July 16 1868
Dear Mr Nichol
I am making enquiries about the Bombay Directorship of Education, and will write to you as soon as I have received the information I have asked for.
I thank you very much for your letter. Bouverie is a very doubtful liberal; he was reckoned an Adullamite in 1866, and made a speech early this session attacking the liberal party and its leaders and reproaching Disraeli for not having coalesced with the backward Whigs. Chadwick would have no scruple about standing against him if he were invited by a sufficient number of electors. Should you be able and willing to sound any of your friends in the Kilmarnock boroughs as to the possibility of a requisition? No words I could use would overstate the value of a thoughtful and contriving administrative mind like that of Chadwick in the new Parliament, which seems likely to contain few new men of much originality or value. The papers I enclose containing information respecting what he has done, may be shewn to anybody at your discretion.
I am Dear Mr Nichol
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1271.
TO JOHN COLAM
July 26, 1868
Dear Sir
I am much honoured by the wish of the President and Committee of your Society to include me in the list of its Vice Presidents; but though I think the Society very useful, and have been for many years one of its members and subscribers, I do not feel it consistent with my principles of action to identify myself to any greater extent with the management, while it is thought necessary or advisable to limit the Society’s operations to the offences committed by the uninfluential classes of society. So long as such scenes as the pigeon shooting exhibitions lately commented upon in the newspapers, take place under the patronage and in the presence of the supposed élite of the higher classes, male and female, without attracting the notice of your Society, this respect of persons, though it may be prudent, is too foreign to my opinions and feelings, to allow of my sharing in any even indirect responsibility for it. I can not help thinking that anything of the sort is peculiarly to be regretted, because the Society really includes so many of the upper classes (and does them so much honour) that an attack upon the cruelty of the less enlightened among themselves would come with the best possible grace from them, who cannot be accused of class feeling.
I am
Dear Sir
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
John Colam Esq
1272.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
July 26. 1868
Dear Mr Plummer
You are too well aware how much I am occupied to have been surprised at my not answering the interesting notes I have repeatedly received from you. The same pressure of occupations is also alone responsible for our not having asked you and Mrs Plummer to come down here and tell us more fully of your proceedings and prospects. What your notes tell of them is very pleasant and satisfactory. We were very glad to find you an established contributor to the Daily News and to observe that you are active in the Committee of the Social Science Association on the Labour Question. I have also to thank you for your very interesting biography of a remarkable man. I am very glad that the Parliamentary papers continue to be useful.
With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am
Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1273.
TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE
July 27. 1868
Dear Mr Christie
From the papers you have sent, I have had a good notion of what was going on at Greenock, and am very glad that your prospects there are so good.
You will have seen that after many days and nights of hard fighting, all our efforts to improve the Bribery Bill have been defeated, even Fawcett’s clause being at last negatived. Good however has been done by the discussion, and a foundation laid for future success, as even the Saturday Review acknowledges. The Bill has, as you see, been extended to Scotland and Ireland. But its good effects, as it stands at present, will not be very great
I am Dear Mr Christie
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1274.
TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
July 27. 1868
Dear Sir
I always look through the Social Economist and had been struck with the great improvement in its quality.
There is nothing I desire more than that attention should be drawn to my opinions on the Ballot (or on any other important subject) whether it be by attack or defence. I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
G. J. Holyoake Esq.
1275.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
July 28, 1868
Dear Chadwick
It is very lucky that you have family connexions at Dumfries. The chance seems better there than anywhere else that we have heard of. Scotch electors, besides that they have more intelligence, are not open to bribes, and in the present electioneering, are shewing in many places a strong feeling against canvassing and election expenses. But I would suggest to you whether you had not better go down yourself at once. Already chances which you might have had in constituencies, have been intercepted by some one else merely by his being beforehand, and the same thing has happened to other excellent candidates within my knowledge. For this reason, and because I doubt if the Secretary of the Reform League at Glasgow would be able to go about to the different boroughs of the district, I return your cheque; but if you wish it, I will send £10 to Professor Nichol to be expended at his discretion.
If there is a subscription, the £50 I formerly promised is at your service; as well as a letter of the strongest recommendation.
Noel’s probable best card against you is not his money, but his evangelicalism, he being the son of Baptist Noel.
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
The correct and complete report of my speech at St James’s Hall is that of the Star.
1276.
TO WILLIAM WOOD
July 28, 1868
Dear Sir
I was not aware that any letter of yours had remained unacknowledged. On reference, however, to my papers, I have found one; and I now remember that I put it aside, in hopes that when I answered it I might be able to send you some of the books on your list. For want, however, of time to look out, I have not yet succeeded in procuring any of them. I have seen more than one in booksellers’ catalogues, but on enquiring at the shops, found they were already sold.
I have read your letter with the pleasure your letters always give me, and I am very glad to hear that you are so justly appreciated by your fellow workmen as to have been put on the Council for the selection of candidates. There is some probability that real working men will be in some places elected to the House. In your own county, at Stafford, Mr Odger, one of the very best leaders of the London working men, has started, with, I am told, very good prospects of success.
The signatures you obtained for Women’s Suffrage formed an important addition to the very numerously signed petition which I presented soon after I received them. The signatures to the different petitions for Women’s Suffrage this year have nearly reached 50,000, of whom probably more than one half were from women. The cause is prospering beyond all hope, and will prosper more and more if taken up by the enlightened among the working men. I am
Dear Sir
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
Mr William Wood.
1277.
TO JOHN NICHOL
July 29 1868
Dear Sir
Mr Chadwick thinks it possible that your correspondent whose letter you kindly sent to me (and which I forwarded to Mr Chadwick) might be willing to go to Dumfries, and, if he judges well, also to Kilmarnock, and take whatever steps he thinks might be favourable to Mr Chadwick, or at least to get a clear notion of the chances at either place, if his expenses were paid. As Mr Chadwick is very desirous of this being done, he has asked me to beg you to suggest this, and has also asked me to inclose £10 to be expended in this manner, or, if you should not judge this feasible, at your discretion or at that of your correspondent, in his behalf.
I do not know whether this will be asking too much of your correspondent (I have forwarded his letter to Mr Chadwick and cannot call his name to mind) and I fear that perhaps I may be trespassing on you in asking so much of yourself. But I know you are willing to take much trouble for a public object, and you know how much value I attach to Mr Chadwick’s possible services in Parliament.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Professor Nichol
1277A.
TO ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY
July 29. [1868]
My dear Sir
I am sorry I was engaged when you called. Possibly you wished to speak to me concerning the Memorial in favour of Dr. Tulloch, which I did not see till this afternoon (having only just returned home) but which I have already sent off to Mrs. Tulloch. If however there is any other subject on which you wish to speak to me, and you will let me know in time, I can call at your house either on Saturday morning between 11 and 12 or at any time before 5 on Monday or Tuesday.
I am
My dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
The Very Reverend
The Dean of Westminster
1278.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Aug. 1. 1868
Dear Chadwick
The inclosed came this morning from Prof. Nichol. Perhaps what it communicates about Kilmarnock may compensate for your correspondent’s unfavourable report from Dumfries.
Mr Beales having returned to town, I called on him yesterday. He was quite aware of the strength of your claims to a seat in Parliament, and expressed his desire to help you. He does not think it necessary that you should join the League. He would like to have some conversation with you, if you could call on him any day at his Chambers, Stone Buildings Lincoln’s Inn, between 10 and 4. I think he wishes to know how far your opinions on specially radical points are such as would be satisfactory to the working men. At his desire I told him of what your views have been in regard to the London University, Kilmarnock, and Dumfries, and he said there would probably be places in England where the League could help you.
We leave this evening for Avignon, where letters will find us.
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1279.
TO J. BAILEY AND H. ARMISTEAD
August 8th [1868]
Gentlemen—
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution passed at the meeting of the St Anne’s Electoral Association on the 4th inst. I entirely agree with the Association in their condemnation of the law by which the goods of the lodger who has paid his rent to his immediate landlord may be seized to meet the claims of the head landlord. It is discreditable to Parliament that the unjust state of the law should have continued so long, and I would advise that petitions for its repeal should be signed by the numerous class who are aggrieved by it, and presented to the new Parliament as soon as possible after it meets. The grievances which are the most petitioned against are likely to be the soonest redressed.
I am, Gentlemen,
very sincerely yours
John S. Mill
Mr. J. Bailey & Mr H. Armistead
1280.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Aug. 12. 1868
Dear Sir
I regret that your note was not received until I had left England, otherwise I should have been happy to confer with you on any matter you might wish to consult me upon; and I shall with great pleasure give you my opinion in writing on the matter in question, if you think it worth while to write to me respecting it. I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
Dr Chapman
1281.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Aug. 22. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I have written a rather full letter to Mr Henderson, with liberty to make any use he pleases of it. I need not say how much I hope that you have found a favourable passport. In haste
Yours ever
J. S. Mill
1282.
TO JAMES HENDERSON
Aug. 22. 1868
Dear Sir
I have heard with much gratification that it is under the consideration of some of the advanced Liberals to put forward my old friend Mr Chadwick for one of the districts of Scottish boroughs; for not only do I deem Mr Chadwick eminently qualified for a seat in the House of Commons, both for the work he would himself do, & for that which he would be the cause of in others, but I should consider his absence from the next Parliament as a public misfortune. Any constituency that returns him to Parliament will in my opinion be doing a public service of great value & would do itself still further honour if he were to be returned free of expense.
I have known Mr Chadwick with considerable intimacy from the time when both of us were very young men. He was then quite unknown to the public, but was already active in a quiet way in standing up against jobbing & oppression; & it is within my knowledge (for I was aware of every step in the proceedings) that within a very short interval he had the principal share in defeating two different attempts to commit great public and private wrong. He had even then bestowed much thought & study on the details of administration, & some papers which he wrote on administrative subjects attracted the notice of Mr Senior, who appointed him an Assistant Commissioner under the original Commission of Poor Law Inquiry, in which capacity he displayed such superior ability that he was made a member of the Commission itself, for the express purpose of assisting in drawing up the New Poor Law. No one, except Mr Senior, had so great a share as Mr Chadwick in originating all that was best in the Poor Law of 1834; & had his counsel been taken in all respects as it was in some, had his clauses respecting the education of Pauper Children not been rejected in the House of Lords—had his plans been accepted for the separation of the sick, the lunatic, the old, & the young from one another & from the able-bodied, & their distribution in different houses with a view to totally different modes of treatment, not only would the vast expense of constructing the Union Workhouses have been in a great measure saved, but the greatest blots upon our present Poor Law Administration would have been effectually provided against.
The next of Mr Chadwick’s great public services was as a member of the Factory Commission which proposed & carried the limitation of the labours of children in factories to six hours. From that time Mr Chadwick has never ceased to occupy himself with the improvement of the condition of factory operatives. He was the proposer, & has been the indefatigable apostle of the half time school system by which the education of the children of the operative classes has been made compatible with the necessities of the family. He proposed but did not succeed in carrying a measure for the protection of the operatives, by making masters pecuniarily responsible for accidents. He has been, from the beginning, the leading mind of the sanitary movement, which has done so much, & will do so much more to improve not only the health but the moral & economical condition of the working population generally & especially of its most neglected portions. Almost as much of his time & thoughts has been employed upon the great question of public education in its most difficult department, its business details, & I know of no one capable of being of so much use to our future ministers and legislators in forming an organized plan by which the most efficient education can be given to the whole people at the smallest sacrifice either to the public or to individuals. I have touched only on main points; for, to go through all the minor, but still important matters of public interest which he has helped forward, would take up far too much time & space. I may say in brief, that he is one of the organizing & contriving minds of the age; a class of minds of which there are very few, & still fewer who apply those qualities to the practical business of government. He is, moreover, one of the few persons who have a passion for the public good; and nearly the whole of his time is devoted to it, in one form or another.
With respect to political questions in the narrower sense of the word, I may say that Mr Chadwick was highly esteemed by Mr Bentham, the father of enlightened Radicalism; that throughout life I have seldom had occasion to differ from him on subjects of that nature; & should we be returned to Parliament there are few whose vote I should expect oftener to agree with mine on all subjects involving the principles of popular government.
You are at liberty to make any use you think well, of this letter
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
James Henderson Esq.
1283.
TO AUSTIN HOLYOAKE
Avignon, August 28, 1868
Dear Sir,—
I enclose a subscription of £10 to the fund for defraying the expenses of Mr Bradlaugh’s election to the House of Commons. I do so in the confidence that Mr Bradlaugh would not contest any place where by so doing he would risk the return of a Tory in the room of a supporter of Mr Gladstone, and of the disendowment of the Irish Church.—
I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
1284.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Sept. 11, 1868
Dear Sir
I regret that your arrival in England should have taken place just after I had left for the Continent with no prospect of returning until the eve of the general election. Should you still be in the neighbourhood of London at that time, I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing and conversing with you.
The changes in the opinions and feelings of large bodies of Englishmen and Englishwomen even within the last few years, are as striking to me as they are to you. The old fetters of prejudice and routine seem to be giving way on all sides, and what is wanted now is clear and well considered positive opinions. All the great subjects, political, social, and religious, are brought into question; and there is a preparation going on in England, as there is in the United States, for a much better settlement of them than the world has yet had: but, naturally, the evidences of this are not so obvious on the surface as are those of the breaking up of old doctrines.
You probably think that I have forgotten my promise to write a letter on the Repudiation question, for publication in America. I have always kept it in mind; but as long as the session lasted, I never found time, nor was able to turn my mind to the subject with sufficient steadiness. Since I have been here, I have written the draft of a letter which now only requires revision, and when it is finished I will forward it to you, to be made use of in any manner which in your judgment it may be fitted for. Will you kindly let me know if it should be sent to your present, or to what other, address?
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
C. Elliot [sic] Norton Esq.
1285.
TO CHARLES GILPIN
Sept. 12. 1868.
Dear Sir—
I shd be sorry indeed if your election could be perilled, but I do not think it can be. I understood from Mr Bradlaugh not only that he had no intention of standing against you, but that he considered your election certain: & I hope you will not allow yourself to be persuaded that one of the mere rank & file Liberals can be as valuable in the H of C. as yourself. But (although for totally different reasons) I think Mr B. also would be a very valuable member of Parlt. He also holds opinions not cut after the pattern of some 300 or so other liberal members of Pt, & I think him able to sustain them with ability which would give them effect. This is what we want in the H of C., & while it is most important to uphold honest & honorable men, faithful supporters of our own party, like Lord Henley against Tories & lukewarm Liberals, I do not think that their claims ought to be allowed to prevail against the claims of exceptional men. Where there are two men to sustain one opinion & only one man to sustain another, the one is a more valuable man than either of the two: & after all, the men willing to vote against the Irish Church are at least 200 to one as against men holding original opinions of their own like yourself & Mr Bradlaugh. Moreover, the good average liberal, especially if he is a man of rank, is likely to have a better chance for a larger number of constituencies than such a man as Mr Bradlaugh: you will see that I urged upon Mr B. the importance of not allowing a Tory to step in, & this seems to me the only important consideration in the matter. You will perhaps let me add that I could scarcely forbear smiling at the modesty which could let you suppose that you were the candidate against whom Mr B’s efforts are likely to have the greatest effect, even if he did oppose you, which I sincerely believe he would not do.
1286.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Sept. 13. 1868
Dear Chadwick
As I have not heard from you since your letter of Aug. 28, and as I see that another candidate is in the field against Bouverie, I suppose you are now at Richmond. I am a good deal disappointed that nothing came of your visit to Scotland. In your place, I think I should have run the chance. I should have tried whether, by holding meetings, without spending much money, a sufficient impression might not have been made, to obtain the warm support of the working classes: Nichol’s opinion is worth more than twenty discouragements from members or candidates or their middle class partisans, who are sure to be against disturbing any member, who is nominally of their party, in his seat. The main consideration is, whether you are likely to find any better opening elsewhere. If so, it will be either through Glyn or Beales, Beales the more likely of the two. There is still time before you, but not much more than enough, as all the constituencies are getting fitted with candidates. Your best chance is in the recalcitrancy of the new electors against the wealthy nobodies who are imposed on them by the old party managers. But you need to be ready to seize these opportunities at once, before some unwealthy or popularity-hunting nobody has got the start. Many an opportunity has been missed by good candidates in this general election already, for want of promptitude.
Let me know when there is anything I can do. My letter can be used with a few verbal changes in the first sentence, for any opening that presents itself. As soon as a subscription list is open, I will send mine. I am
Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1287.
TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN
Sept. 13. 1868
Dear Sir
I am much obliged to you for your letter, which I shall place among the papers to be referred to at the next revision of my Logic. I was not aware of the antiquity of the phrase ars artium as applied to Logic. I had marked the humourous doggrel from Molière to be quoted correctly, instead of incorrectly, as I had done on the authority of Whewell. The words I used in p. 71 were probably also quoted at secondhand from some writer who retained the pith of the satire without remembering its words. I may have followed many modern authorities in speaking of occult causes when I ought to have spoken of occult qualities. Who was the introducer of the former phrase? Was it Descartes?
Probably I had better substitute some other phrase for “second intention” in my illustration of no meaning. I know the meaning, indeed more than one meaning, of “second intention,” and it is best not to stumble against possible sense when one wants to exemplify nonsense.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
A. De Morgan Esq.
Virtus Dormitiva
In the article ‘Physique’ of the Dict. de Phil. Schol. of the Abbé Migne’s collection, after noting the virtutes and essentiae as scholastic faults, which is only true of their abuses, the author proceeds thus:—
‘Arnauld lui-même, Arnauld le Cartésien, pratiquait les vieux erremens de la scholastique, lorsqu’il disait à Malebranche, “Il est insensé de se demander pourquoi l’âme humaine pense à l’infini et au nécessaire. Elle y pense parce que c’est dans son essence d’y penser.”
‘Aujourd’hui encore l’école écossaise et l’école éclectique expliquent exclusivement les phénomènes psychologiques par des facultés qu’on multiplie et qu’on distingue parfois avec une ridicule subtilité; et on s’imagine qu’en plaçant ainsi sous les faits intimes des facultés que la conscience n’a jamais perçues on a fait de la science.
‘L’école rationaliste commet la même erreur dans la question de l’origine du langage. L’homme parle parce qu’il a la faculté, donc il a pu inventer la parole.’
The Schoolmen never generalised a quality until they had at least two instances. As long as there was only A which had a certain virtus, they said nothing about it; it was occult, i.e. unknown. But when B was found to have the same they had such knowledge as comes of classification, being almost all they had.
The moderns invented a name upon one instance, and made it a cause. They said that magnetism was the explanation of the magnet. The Schoolmen would have waited until the amber showed its quality, and then the distinction of magnetism and electricity would have been specific knowledge, the genus being virtus attractiva. It is something to know two phenomena with a generic agreement and a specific difference.
If the medical candidate had known the mind of those who classed, he would have said, I do not know why except in that I can refer the phenomenon to a class. We note agreements and differences and arrange them. Arnauld, &c., might have a similar answer made for them, but not for those who inferred power of invention of languages from possession.
1288.
TO J. R. WARE
Sept. 13. 1868
Dear Sir
The numbers of the Illustrated Weekly News which you were so kind as to send, were only quite recently forwarded to me here. The articles on Trade Unions to which you call my attention seem to me very sensible, and I agree in all essentials with them. I am quite of opinion that the various forms of Cooperation (among which the one most widely applicable at present to production, as distinguished from distribution, is what you term the system of small percentage partnerships) are the real and only thorough means of healing the feud between capitalists and labourers; and, while tending eventually to supersede trade unions, are meanwhile a natural and gradually increasing corrective of their operation.
I look also with hope to the ultimate working of the foreign competition, on the effects of which you dwell in the first of the two articles. The operatives are now fully alive to this part of the case, and are beginning to try how far the combination principle among labourers for wages, admits of becoming international, as it has already become national instead of only local, and general instead of being confined to each trade without help from other trades. The final experiment has thus commenced, the result of which will fix the limits of what the trade union principle can do. And the larger view of questions which these considerations open up, and which is already visibly enlightening the minds of the more advanced workpeople, will dispose them more and more to look for the just improvement of their condition rather in becoming their own capitalists, or allying themselves on fair conditions with the owners of capital, than in their present uncomfortable, and often disastrous, relations with them. I am
Dear Sir
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
J. R. Ware Esq.
1289.
TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT
Sept. 14. 1868
Dear Sir
Mr Dickson, whom I understand to be the Secretary for Deptford, wrote to me during your absence, asking me either to attend or to write a letter; and as I was unable to attend, I sent him a letter for the purpose of being read at the meeting, the receipt of which he has acknowledged. It would be too late now for me to write to Mr Bright with a view to the meeting of the 16th, even if I felt entitled to indicate to him the course I should think best, which I am not sure that I do. I am very glad to hear of the powerful support which has been promised for the meeting. The success of the movement seems certain, and will do lasting honour to the borough of Greenwich. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
W.C. Bennett Esq.
1290.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Sept. 22 1868
Dear Chadwick
The question of standing against Mr Bouverie is, of course, entirely for your own consideration. But, after Mr. Bouverie’s attack on Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party in the early part of last session, he certainly cannot be counted on for allegiance to the party, and can only be considered as aiming at the character of an independent member.
The question, therefore, is solely between your opinions and public services, and Mr Bouverie’s: and I am not aware of any such services rendered by him to the public, and to the cause of improvement, as need give you the smallest scruple in asking any Liberal Constituency to give you the preference. I am
Dear Chadwick
very truly yours
(Signed) J. S. Mill
Edwin Chadwick Esq
1291.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Sept. 24, 1868
Dear Sir
Along with this, I send you the letter which I have written for publication. I have, on consideration, thought it best not to address it to an American newspaper, which would be too like arrogating to myself the right of lecturing the American people. I have given it the form of an answer to a private friend who has asked my opinion on the question. If you will honour me so far as to be that private friend, please fill up the blank at the beginning with your own name. In any other case, three stars must stand for a name.
Should there be any mistake of fact, or anything that seems to you injudicious, or otherwise objectionable in the letter, you would do me a favour by pointing it out. It is unnecessary in that case to send the letter back, as I have kept a copy.
There is no doubt that the feeling of the mass of the working classes in England is very much alienated from the propertied classes. They are very strongly imbued with a sense of the opposition of interest between the receivers of wages and the payers of them. But I do not think that this feeling has reached the point of personal hatred between classes. I think that the operatives have confidence in the good will towards them of many persons in the higher and middle ranks, and that experience has taught them to expect that the others will be brought round gradually by the joint influence of conviction, persuasion, and prudence. The intelligent, who are the politically active part of the working classes, are not impatient; they have a sincere dread of the mass of brutal ignorance behind them, and have consequently set themselves to demand very vigorously a real national education. This they will soon obtain, & it will alter, in an incalculable degree, all the bad elements of the existing state of things. Already the aspirations of the workmen to the improvement of their physical condition are pointing not so much to anything to be done directly by the State, as to what they can do for themselves by cooperation. Revolution and civil war will not come from their side of the question; for, when their minds are sufficiently made up, the existing political institutions are sufficient to carry into execution their will. The political enfranchisement of women, whenever it takes place, will further strengthen the influences opposed to violence and bloodshed. The only question which may possibly become dangerous is that of the land. There are signs of a rapidly growing conviction in the operative classes that the land ought not to be private property but should belong to the State. This opinion, which has always seemed to me fundamentally just, may perhaps come to maturity before the landholding classes are prepared even to listen to it; & in that case there will be bad blood and violent class animosities: but even then, as far as I am able to anticipate the future, it seems to me that the probabilities are in favour of the settlement of the question by a succession of compromises without coming to blows. I am
Dear Sir
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill.
C. Elliot [sic] Norton Esq.
1292.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Sept. 24, 1868.
Dear Mr . . .
You ask me what I think of the controversy now going on in the United States respecting the rightfulness of paying off a portion of the national debt contracted in cash, in a depreciated paper currency, and of taxing, in violation of an express compact, the interest of the national bonds. It is painful, even to have to answer such a question. It is already a great calamity that two such proposals should have been inscribed in the electoral programme of a great political party, and not unanimously rejected even by its opponents. The success of either proposal would, in my estimation, be one of the heaviest blows that could be given to the reputation of popular governments, and to the morality and civilization of the human race.
This is one of those vital questions which send us back to the first principles of social existence, and compel us to ask ourselves what are the conditions which enable mankind to dwell together in nations and communities, to work together in joint undertakings, and exchange the privations of the savage for the blessings of civilized life. The very first and most essential of these conditions is, that they should be able to trust one another’s engagements. Even savage life could not be carried on unless the savages frequently helped one another: in civilized life every human being depends for comfort, for security, often for life itself, upon things done for him by other people. If he could not rely upon other people for doing what they undertake; if his experience taught him that a man who makes a promise, does so with the intention of only keeping the promise if it happens to be quite convenient; he would have to look to himself alone for all protection, and for the supply of all his wants. He would be below the condition of most savages. If we cannot trust each other’s word (was the saying of an eminent man) we may as well go back to the woods.
But if there is one case more than another in which it is indispensable that men should keep their promises—should do what they pledge themselves to do—it is the case of money contracts. All the complex fabric of our civilization rests upon the paying and receiving of money; every one’s plans of life, and almost every one’s assurance of living at all, are built upon the expectation of receiving, at the appointed time, the money or money’s worth due to him from others. If any one buys a thing, and then does not pay for it; or sells a thing, and then does not deliver it; if any one hires services, and does not pay the wages agreed on, or receives wages, and does not perform the service; if any one borrows money or money’s worth, and, though able, does not repay it at the time agreed on, or withholds the equivalent which he had bargained to give for its use; the defaulter not only proves himself a dishonourable and dishonest man, he not only inflicts an injury, which may be serious, which may be even irreparable, upon the individual who has trusted him, but he does what lies in him to dissolve and put an end to that trust in one another, without which there would be no exchange of commodities, no separation of employments, and no man would have any satisfaction for his wants except what his own labour or craft could directly provide. The impossibility of carrying on human society, even in an almost rudimentary state, without holding men to the fulfilment of their engagements, has always been so obvious that there is not a single known community, past or present, in which provision has not been made for enforcing those engagements, by laws and tribunals, supported either by a public force set apart for the purpose, or, in ruder societies, by the collective strength of the community.
Can any reason be given why the obligation of good faith, which holds between one man and another, is not equally binding between the entire community and any person who has trusted them? Is a promise made by the whole people through their authorized agents less sacred than a promise made by a private person, which also may have been made through his agents? Ought the fact that there is a tribunal which can compel individuals to keep their contracts, and no tribunal which can coerce a nation—ought the fact, that the debt of a nation is a debt of honour; ought the fact that a nation can be a swindler and a knave if it chooses—ought this to make any civilized people think that it can dispense in its own favour, with the duty which its own tribunals enforce against its citizens? Unless it be a sufficient license for committing a crime, that it can be committed without any immediate penalty except the disgrace, there is no other difference between the two cases but such as makes the criminality greater, of a nation which robs its creditors, than of an individual. For, in the first place, a nation always can pay its creditors if it chooses; which cannot always be said of an individual. And, in the next place, a breach of faith by a whole people involves everybody in the guilt, except such as with their whole heart and strength denounce and protest against it. It is an example of fraud displayed in the sight of mankind, and penetrating into every family in the country. It is a direct sanction of the like dishonesty to every citizen in his private transactions. Let any one be really persuaded that a whole people may break its word, and refuse to pay in full the money it has borrowed—is he likely to think that he himself is culpable for doing the same in his own private affairs, if he can manage to evade the legal punishment which is the only real distinction between the two cases?
The detractors of democratic government on this side of the Atlantic have been accustomed to say that however specious may be the arguments for it, in its actual working it would turn out to be a retrogradation towards barbarism. Until now, the example of the great American Republic, notwithstanding the dishonourable conduct of several of the States (mostly—would that I could say always—among those which had been demoralized by slavery) has generally been deemed a practical refutation of these sinister prophecies. But the charge against democracy of being a return to barbarism would be made out, if its effect were to be the public repudiation of pecuniary engagements. It is a remarkable fact, that what the people of the United States are now urged to do with respect to the five-twenty bonds —urged by the programme of a political party (happily not by every member even of that party) bears an almost exact likeness to some of the most disgraceful misdeeds of the European despots in the middle ages. Read the history of the most profligate Kings of France and other European countries, not excepting England, and see who were those whose conduct excited the greatest public indignation during their lives, and left the deepest stain on their memory when dead. They were those who debased the coin. What was their motive for debasing it? To put off their creditors with the same nominal sum of money, but a less quantity of the precious metal. Even the despots were so conscious and so much afraid of the infamy of this fraud, that they generally endeavoured to commit it secretly and in silence. They made it a capital offence to betray the secret. Would they have been less guilty if they had impudently brazened it out? Living in a rude age, the only means at their disposal for committing the fraud was the coarse expedient of altering the coin. Their ingenuity had not reached the contrivance of putting forth pieces of paper which pretended to be money and were not, inducing people to take them by a promise printed on the paper to give for it on demand real money of the same nominal value, and then breaking that promise and issuing them in such numbers as to be only worth half the money which they purported to represent. But this roundabout way, and the direct way, have the self-same purpose; to get rid of debts, by paying, instead of what one has engaged to pay, what is called the same sum of money, but is really a much smaller sum. And this example, set by the despots of barbarous ages, the people of the United States, in the ninety-second year of their national freedom, are invited by many of their active politicians to imitate!
Observe, too, that none of the apologies, poor and weak as they are, which have been suggested to the nations of Europe by the same sort of bad advisers, have any applicability to the case of the United States. The Democracy of European countries have sometimes been told that they are not bound to pay their national debts, because the money was borrowed by Kings and aristocracies who did not represent the people, and was expended in keeping the people in subjection or in carrying on foreign wars which the people had not authorized. None of these lame excuses can be alleged by the American repudiators. The most audacious pleader for dishonesty cannot deny that the money was borrowed by a Congress and a President elected by, and fully responsible to, the people—borrowed for the service of the American Republic in its utmost need, for a war which was emphatically a war of the people, and in which the stake involved was the preservation of their collective existence as a nation. The only persons in whose mouths any other doctrine can possibly be sincere, are the ex-rebels and their favourers. To all but them, it is impossible even to conceive a case in which the obligation to pay the debt, principal and interest, to the full extent of the contract, could be more binding.
A plea which imposes upon some people, who would shrink from anything which they themselves regarded as repudiation, is this: Greenbacks, however they may be depreciated, are legal tender—are the lawful currency of the United States: other persons are obliged to receive this currency in payment of all their dues, and why should the public creditor be an exception? This seems to have been the argument which prevailed with the upright, but not always clearsighted or discerning mind of the late Thaddeus Stevens. But the answers to it are manifold. The first is, that almost all persons except the public creditor have the remedy in their own hands. Those who have goods to sell can and do demand a higher price; those who sell their services can and do require a higher remuneration. Even in loan transactions that are yet to come, the lenders know the chances they are exposed to—are aware that the medium they are to be paid in is of uncertain value, and can and will require a rate of interest sufficient in their estimation to cover their risks. To all these persons the uncertainty of the measure of value is a source of great inconvenience, but to none of them is it an injustice. Injustice is done to those who had lent their money, or had otherwise become entitled to fixed annual incomes, before specie payments were suspended. Among these are the old creditors of many of the States. All persons thus situated are grievously injured, by being paid their interest in depreciated greenbacks, and would be still further defrauded if the principal were repaid to them in a similar medium. But at least the nation collectively had incurred no obligation to those persons, beyond the general obligation of good government. It had not specifically pledged the national honour to them. Even the separate States never, I believe, pledged their faith to their creditors that they should not suffer this particular injury; however binding the obligation ought to have been felt in honour and conscience. That pledge has been given to the creditors of the United States. I make no distinction between payment of the interest, and repayment of the principal. The bonds themselves, it is not denied, stipulate expressly that the interest shall be paid in cash, but are silent as to the principal. That the obligation, however, applied to principal as well as interest, was universally understood; was expressly declared by the authorized agents of the nation whenever the question was asked; was not then gainsaid by any of those who are now attempting to shake off the obligation, and was only not declared in expressed terms because nobody thought that such a declaration was necessary, or could add any strength to the pledge. In consequence of this understanding the loans were obtained at rates of interest very low under the circumstances; far lower than would otherwise have been possible. Governments which pay their creditors in inconvertible paper always borrow, if able to borrow at all, on much more onerous terms than other Governments. If those who lent their savings to the United States had been told at the time, that every thousand dollars they lent should be repaid to them in greenbacks which might then be worth not more than a thousand cents (the depreciation of the French assignats amounted to that and more) nobody, unless he could afford to make the nation a present of his money, would have parted with it unless at a rate of interest sufficient to ensure him against this extreme risk. The United States obtained these great sums of money in their extreme necessity, at an interest (all things considered) not very much exceeding what the high value of capital in a new country compels them to pay in ordinary times; and after having reaped the benefit—having by that indispensable help, saved their national existence, they are now exhorted to withhold the price, at the cost of the national honour.
The same reasons of justice and good faith apply still more obviously to the condition, expressly stipulated by the lenders, that the interest on the bonds should not be subject to direct taxation. Some people imagine that the breach of this stipulation would not be robbery provided that the bonds are not taxed at a higher rate than other property. Now I find it stated as a known fact, that they are already subject to the same direct taxation as other property; that the income they yield is subject to income tax. But even if they were not, of what consequence would it be if exemption from all direct taxation were a condition of the contract? An exemption expressly stipulated for, is not an unjust advantage conceded to them over other people, since for every advantage so obtained, value has been given by those who enjoy it, in the shape of a diminished interest. The only difference in respect of taxation between them and the rest of the public is, that they have paid down their taxes in advance, while other people wait for the visit of the tax-gatherer. To make them pay over again, under pretence that they had not already paid, would be one of the most flagrant forms of the iniquity of breaking a contract and keeping the pecuniary consideration received for it.
But there is little danger that these immoral counsels will prevail. It has been shewn by many examples in the recent history of the United States, that an agitation for something wrong and mischievous may go on for a certain length of time without visibly stirring up the good sense and honesty of the country to resist it; and many such agitations commence, culminate and decay, without disturbing public tranquillity, or leaving any permanent traces of their existence: but that when one of these agitations attains a sufficient height to begin to be dangerous, a mass of opinion which ordinarily remains quiescent rouses itself into activity, puts down the wrong thing with a vigorous hand, and peremptorily demands the right thing instead. So, I doubt not, it will be with this pernicious and discreditable, but, as I firmly believe, chiefly factitious movement, set up by political adventurers for the chance of gaining the few stray votes which, in the present state of the parties, might suffice to turn the balance of many an election.
I am
Dear Mr.
very sincerely yours
J. S. Mill
1293.
TO THOMAS BEGGS
Sept. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
I am exceedingly sorry that you should have had any trouble or annoyance in consequence of my subscription for the election of Mr Bradlaugh. When, some time ago, I was asked to allow my name to be put on Mr B.’s Commee I declined, giving as my reason that I thought myself bound to consider the possible wishes of my friends in W[estminste]r. But when it came to a question of refusing any support whatever to Mr B. to whom I shd certainly have given some had I never been put forward for W, it appeared to me that it would be inconsistent with the footing on which I stand with the constituency, as well as not altogether open on my part, were I to act otherwise as member for W. than I shd have done before W. did me the honour to choose me. In giving this aid to Mr B. I did not take at all into consideration his religious opinions, with which as practical politicians we have nothing whatever to do. Though, like yourself I know his career only by report, I have understood that he was formerly violent & intemperate in his language, a defect which it is to be hoped may disappear with time but which if it does not he will share with some of the best known men in the H. of Commons, for there are several members of Parlt whom few working men at all events would be disposed to consider models of temperance in speech, yet whom all parties are willing to see in the House because they are forcible exponents of a particular point of view. It may be said for Mr B. in palliation that persecution naturally provokes violence, & at the time when he commenced men were still put in prison for expressing his opinions, indeed, if I remember right, he himself has been imprisoned for them.
But with regard to Mr B’s political opinions & conduct all that I know is greatly in his favour, No one who is active in politics on the radical side seems to me less open than he is to the much lavished accusations of being a demagogue or a panderer to popular prejudice. He seems to me a thinking man, who forms his opinions for himself, & defends them with equal ardour whether they attract or alienate those whom he seeks to influence. I may mention as one example, that he is a strenuous supporter of representation of minorities which whether right or wrong (a thing I do not now discuss) at least proves him to be no friend to the despotism of the greater number; & as a second example his earnest Malthusianism which places him in opposition to a vast mass of popular prejudice, supposed to be particularly rife among the radicals of the working classes. If the capability of taking & the courage of maintaining such views as these is not a recommendation, to impartial persons, of an extreme radical politician, what is?
With regard to his standing against Liberals, or rather against a Liberal, for to my excellent friend Mr Gilpin he disclaims all opposition, I am extremely desirous that you should fully understand my opinion on that subject. Undoubtedly the point of first importance at the present juncture, is to return to Parlt supporters of Mr Gladstone & of the disendowment of the Irish Church. This object ought not to be sacrificed to any other & a member whose vote can be relied on for this purpose ought not to be opposed at any risk of bringing in a Tory. You are aware that I have cautioned Mr B. on this point as I do everyone to whom I give any advice about the approaching elections. But the importance of the immediate struggle ought not to make us forget that the Parlt we are going to elect has much other work to do besides this—that we are looking to it for a general revision of our institutions & for making a commencement of effort against the many remediable evils which infest the existing state of society. Already the too exclusive attention to one great question has caused it to be generally remarked, by friends & enemies, that there will be very little new blood in the future Parlt, that the new H of C will be entirely composed of the same men, or the same kind of men, as the old one. Now I do not hesitate to say that this is not what ought to happen. We want, in the first place, representatives of the classes, now first admitted to the representation. And in the next place we want men of understanding whose minds can admit ideas not included in the conventional creed of Liberals or of Radicals, & men also of ardent zeal, even if not always according to discretion, for it will all be wanted to make every impression against the force of at least negative resistance of those who are satisfied with their own position in life, & without meaning any harm are careless of evils because they do not feel them. Were Mr B in Parlt, his zeal and ability would be of great use & his violence, if he were still violent, could do no harm except to himself: & he is a much less able man than I take him for if he ever again repeats such errors of violence as those he is accused of.
These are the reasons why I shd be glad to see Mr B in the H. of C. & why, though I shd have preferred to see him displace a Tory, I still desire his success even against Lord Henley; who, moreover, would probably have much less difficulty than Mr B. in obtaining another seat. I can say most sincerely that no one more thoroughly disapproves than I do any conduct or expressions needlessly offensive to the reverential feelings of any one even if I had less sympathy of feeling with him than I have with many pious minds.
1294.
TO GEORGE THATCHER
Sept. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
The works which contain most matter adapted to your purpose in a small compass are a pamphlet entitled “Enfranchisement of Women” reprinted from the W[estminster] R[eview], another pamphlet by Miss Helen Taylor entitled The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage, & my own speech on the subject in the H. of C. All these are published by Messrs. Trübner 60 P[aternoster] R[ow]. There are a few pages devoted to the question in Mr. S. Bailey’s Rationale of Representation & in my own “Consid on Repr. Govt” of which there is a People’s Edition.
1295.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Sept. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
I thank you for your proposal to translate my writings into French. All of them, however, with the exception of a collection of essays in periodicals entitled “Dissertations & Discussions” have either been already translated & published in the French language, or are in course of being translated at the present time, with my concurrence & sanction: & I am therefore precluded from closing with your gratifying offer.
With many thanks for the kind & flattering expressions in your letter, I am
1296.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Sept. 28. 1868
Dear Sir—
I am much obliged to you for your book which I expect to read with interest & instruction when leisure permits. I thank you also for your kind invitation but am unable to avail myself of it having no other time than the recess of parlt for many important occupations.
1297.
TO SAMUEL WARREN BURTON
Avignon, Oct. 1, 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your communication of the 23rd ult.
I have subscribed to the fund for the election of Mr. Bradlaugh, because, in my opinion, the change which has been made in the constitution of Parliament will be a comparative failure unless the opinions and feelings of the working classes are represented in it; and because the persons representing those opinions and feelings who seem likely to obtain seats in the new Parliament are far less numerous than I think it desirable they should be.
We are looking to the new House of Commons, not solely for putting the Liberal party in office and disestablishing the Irish Church, but for making a commencement of measures calculated to improve the material and social condition of the mass of the people. This cannot be expected unless the suffering as well as the prosperous classes are represented in the House, and represented by men who are capable of making their voices heard.—I am, dear sir, yours very faithfully,
J. S. Mill
S. W. Burton, Esq
1298.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Oct. 1. 1868
Dear Sir—
I have had the honour of receiving your letter of the 15th ulto respecting the Marylebone Penny Readings. It gives me sincere pleasure that so useful a work as these readings should be so successful. I am, however, as a general rule, averse to connecting my name with any undertaking to which my occupations prevent me from giving any portion of my time & attention; & the many distinguished names already on the list of patrons & which are more than sufficient to give the Readings every advantage that can be obtained by that mode of adhesion, render the addition of my name quite superfluous.
1299.
TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE
Oct. 4. 1868
Dear Mr Bouverie
It is of so much importance to the public good that the very best man each party possesses should be sent to represent it in the House of Commons, that it is much to be desired that every constituency should consider, not merely whether a man will do to represent it, but whether he is the best man to be had; and that every candidate should consider first, not his own claims and wishes, but the public interest. For my own part I can fairly disclaim acting ungenerously towards yourself when I warmly support the candidature of Mr Chadwick, because I would very gladly put him in my own place if I saw a probability of success. I consider Mr Chadwick to be an altogether exceptional man, to whom it would be an honour to any other man to give way; because, however superior he may consider himself, or might actually be, to Mr Chadwick in some things, there are others (of extreme importance in Parliament) in which Mr Chadwick has not his equal in England, nor, so far as I know, in Europe.
In regard to the matter of sowing dissensions among the Liberal party, I could say a great deal, which I am sure would meet with sympathy in the advanced portion of it at least, and would shew to all portions that I am not acting without very cogent reasons. I need not enter into these at present, because, as you will see from what I have already said, there exist reasons enough peculiar to Mr Chadwick, to decide my line of conduct towards him, even without reference to more general considerations. I am
My dear Sir
Yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
The Right Honourable
E. P. Bouverie M.P.
1300.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Oct. 4, 1868
Dear Sir
I am truly glad that you are pleased with the letter, and that you think its publication will be of service. On the matter of fact as to the liability of the bonds to income tax, my original impression was what I now learn to be the correct one; but I found the contrary so positively stated in articles and letters in newspapers, that I supposed I had been mistaken, and altered my first draft accordingly. The rectification you have been so kind as to make will perfectly meet the case.
I should have been glad if your name could have appeared in the first line, but on that point your judgment and feelings must decide.
I have no uneasiness as to the future of England from the two points in its condition which you mention in your letter. Those “who would work if they could find work to do,” will, I think, find their field of employment greatly widened by the rapid progress of industrial improvement, and such of them as the growth of the national wealth does not provide employment for, will be more and more taken off by emigration. “Those who would not work even if work were abundant and wages fair” are a comparatively limited class of the lowest of the population, and whatever they make it necessary to do in order to keep them in obedience to law will have the fullest support from the respectable working people. “The ignorance and hopelessness of the mass of the agricultural labourers” are in a fair way to be removed. The movement will soon be irresistible for a national education which will include them; and as soon as they have intelligence to know that better wages are to be had in the manufacturing towns, or in the United States or the Colonies, they will flock thither. Emigration, already so great an element in the social economy of Ireland, is only beginning to reach the agricultural districts of England. It will be the great safety valve, and will, I think, prevent the stir that is sure to take place in the minds of the agricultural labourers from having any other than a wholesome effect.
In the United States, ever since the North shook off the yoke of the South, the most favourable prophecies are always those which are verified. Allow me to say with what pleasure and instruction, always increasing, I read the North American Review. The July number is perhaps the best I have yet read. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
C. Eliot Norton Esq.
1301.
TO EDMOND BEALES
Oct. 9. 1868
Dear Sir—
You are no doubt aware that Mr Chadwick has gone down to the Kilmarnock burghs, that he has been very successful, has been generally accepted by the working men as their candidate & that they are very confident of being able to return him as their member. I hear from Mr C. that in the opinion of his supporters, the only thing which gives Mr Bouverie a chance is the candidature of Mr McDonald, who is Secretary to the Miners Union & is expected to carry with him the miners of one of the five burghs, Rutherglen, which is a mining place, but who, it seems, has very little support in the other four burghs, & though he has an encouraging letter from Professor Beesly, is not thought to have any chance of success, but may perhaps take from Mr C. a sufficient number of votes to turn the scale in favour of Mr Bouverie if the Whigs & Tories unite as they probably will. Both Whigs & Tories prefer any one of the old set of backward politicians to any man with troublesome new ideas. The inclosed report from the Glasgow Herald shews the complete failure of Mr McDonald at Kilmarnock. At Mr Chadwick’s meeting at K it was estimated that he had more than a thousand workmen for him, but his supporters, not to offend the miners, & to let them do the best they could, did not move an amendment at Mr McD’s meeting. It would be a great triumph of advanced opinion if Mr C. were elected & it will be a great pity if McD’s candidature shd prevent it. Mr C. was put forward before Mr McD. was known to be in the field, & he would be more listened to in the House even on the subject of the miners, than Mr McD; having paid special attention to their condition, as was shewn in his report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population in 1842 as well as on subsequent occasions. I write this to you because if you are able to bring any influence to bear on Mr McD. either directly or through Prof Beesly that might induce him to retire you may perhaps think it desirable to do so. No one man that I know is likely to do so much in the House for the interests of the working people as Mr C. & now when he seems to have a good chance it would be sad indeed that such a hindrance as this shd defeat it.
You are yourself encumbered by an obstacle of a similar kind, though from a much more considerable person, Mr Newton. I earnestly hope he may be induced to postpone his candidature or to try his chance with some other constituency. No radical or working class candidate ought to place himself in competition with you though it was of course quite right & no more than was to be expected from your public spirit that you should as you did set an example of willingness to be governed by any [illegible word] like a division of the liberal electors.
1302.
TO P. CALLERALL
Oct. 9. 1868
Dear Sir—
The letter of which you enclose a copy was written by me. I believe there can be no doubt that Mr Bradlaugh is a very fair representative of the opinions of a very large & important portion of the working men of England. I, who have always maintained that the working classes do not form a homogeneous mass all exactly like one another, as we have been often told they do by their opponents, of course admit most readily that Mr B. is no fair representative of other large & important sections of the working class. But as there are in the H. of C. & ought to be, representatives of the Quakers, the R. Catholics, many of the various Dissenters as well as of the C. of England, & the Jews, so I do not see why the working classes may not have one representative of opinions which are indisputably extremely rife among many of them however distasteful these opinions may be to many others.
I say all this as regards what if I understand rightly is the main objection to Mr B. because I would fully face the most serious difficulty: & I do not hesitate to say that if Mr B. chooses to take his stand upon what are called secularist principles in religion, & can succeed nevertheless in inducing any constituency to send him to Parlt, he ought not to be prevented from doing so by want of funds: for in that case it is plain that he must represent a class of opinions sufficiently considerable to have a right to be represented. But I am not aware that Mr B. does take his stand upon these principles. I understand him to come forward as a representative of purely political opinions & in that case I do not think that any one is entitled to object to him on the ground of religious opinions: for to do so is contrary to the principles we follow when Jews &c. are admitted to Parlt. If Mr B. were a rich man, I shd not have taken any steps to forward his election; had he been a rich man, I think no one would have blamed me if I had taken any such steps. As a matter of fact I have done nothing whatever to forward Mr B.’s election except to help to remove in a very small degree whatever obstacle poverty may be to his chances. I pronounce no opinion upon his merits but leave them to be judged by those who are better qualified to judge them than I can profess to be myself.
1303.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Oct. 9. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I have received your two letters of Sept. 30 and Oct. 4. We are, as you may well imagine, highly delighted at your excellent prospects. For the purpose of getting Mr McDonald out of your way, I should have more faith in the influences of the constituency itself than in any others, for it is only local opinion that will make him think he has no chance of success. I have, however, written a long letter to Beales on the subject. Mr Beesly, though I believe I was once introduced to him, I hardly know even by sight, and have no reason to think that I have any influence with him. For aught I know, he might even be disposed to go against any recommendation of mine. Beesly belongs, I fancy, to one of the advanced Comtist sets, and they, you know, do not at all go along with me. Mr Beales may have influence with him or with McDonald, and may be willing to exert it; it is, however, just possible that McDonald represents the Potter section of the Trades Unionists, and I rather believe there is a split between that and the League. I am not, however, quite sure of this, and so I have written to Beales.
Some days ago I received a mild expostulation from Mr Bouverie. I wrote to him in reply, saying, among other things, that I must be acquitted of acting ungenerously towards him in supporting your candidature, because I would gladly give up my own seat to you, if I thought I were able to do it: and I told him that any man might be proud to give way to you, and hinted pretty plainly that public spirit called upon him to do so. I thought it best, however, not to open upon any of my personal grievances against him (e.g. his attack upon Gladstone, and Adullamite proclivities) to himself. I am rather surprised at his writing to me, and cannot think what his motive was; but I do not think he is likely to make use of my letter, because it was the most glowing eulogium of you that I could well get into the space.
There is nothing that I can do, beyond what I have done, in the matter of the election for the Institute. It would be hopeless to attempt to influence the time of the election.
I think it is a mistake to suppose that my support of Bradlaugh at all diminishes my weight. The sort of people with whom it does so have had to put up with my Women’s Suffrage, Jamaica Committee, representation of minorities, and other “crotchets”, and probably have long ago given me up, or more properly speaking, have never taken me up at all. You know that my Malthusian and religious heresies, and my accusing the working people of not speaking the truth, were all brought up against me at the Westminster election, and all increased my popularity. I am quite convinced that nothing more increases a man’s influence than his having decided opinions of his own, and sticking to them, provided he has got good reasons to give for them. No doubt, this will give handle to his enemies to laugh at him, attack him, or abuse him, as the case may be. But people’s enemies will always have something to say against them; and those who side with you in some things are delighted to see that you have the pluck to stand to your colours even when they do not altogether agree with you. See how great has been the influence of mere pluck, even in such a case as Roebuck’s; surely this should be a lesson to men not to be afraid when they are sure they are in the right. Working men, in particular, hate hesitation, and anything approaching to smoothing away differences, and have so much of it from Tories and Whigs that nothing makes them more sure that a man is what they think “of the right sort” than his speaking and acting plainly and decidedly with them when he is with them, and against them when he is against them. I doubt whether my opposition to the ballot will cost a single vote at Westminster, and I believe that what I have done in the matter of Bradlaugh is likely to gain quite as many as it will lose; although this had nothing whatever to do with my doing it. I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1304.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Oct. 14. 1868
. . . but the landlord has now no motive for allowing him to do this, & generally does not allow it.
For any further information I would suggest your applying to some English member who took an active part in the discussion of the rate paying clauses; Mr Hibbert, for example, or Mr Hodgkinson.
1305.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Oct. 16. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I hope you received my telegram. I must beg you not to take any public notice of my correspondence with Bouverie, as, being private, though on a public subject, I do not think it right to give publicity to it, or to anything contained in it, without the consent of the other party concerned. I am still in correspondence with him.
I do not remember anything done by Bouverie to obstruct the Reform Bill of 1866.
I have read all your speeches in the papers you sent and I think them very telling. I am
Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1306.
TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE
Avignon, Oct. 19, 1868
Dear Mr Bouverie
Though a great deal surprised I am far from dissatisfied at seeing our correspondence up to this point in the papers, as I had not thought myself at liberty to publish it without your previous consent.
Your observation that choosing the best man to be had “would be fatal to the mutual confidence between represented & representative” is a misanthropical sentiment which I shd scarcely have expected to hear from you, since I can see no meaning in it unless it be that the constituencies so seldom get a good man that they can scarcely ever be expected to be faithful to the man they have got: I do not look upon the matter from so cynical a point of view. It seems to me that in this as in other matters in life the more particular people are in choosing, the less likely they are to change their minds after they have chosen. In the particular case also in which you deprecate inconstancy it would appear that the constituency of K[ilmarnock] has been constant for the last five & twenty years, from whence one may fairly infer that they made a very good choice 5 & 20 years ago. But 5 & 20 years & a new Reform Act make a great change in men & in politics, & if the constituency of K makes as judicious a choice now as it did when it last changed its representative, I sincerely hope it will be 5 & 20 years before it changes again. Still, with the fullest regard to the consideration due to past services, one must admit that there ought to be some limit to it. You would not, I presume, maintain that a seat in Parlt ought to be a seat for life, unless the member has given some violent offence to the constituency. The urgency of an infusion of new blood is as good a reason for making a new choice, as dissatisfaction with an existing representative: & there is no time at which giving the preference to a new candidate is so little of a reflection on the former member as when a change has been made in the Constitution, admitting new electors often much more numerous than the old.
I am sorry that the occasions on which people have asked my advice or help in their electioneering affairs should have caused me so often to incur your disapprobation by expressing opinions so very different from yours as to the sort of men that would be of most use in the H of C. But I do not see that the fear of being disagreeable to one class of candidates ought to prevent me from giving my opinion, when asked, in favour of another class or that there is anything presumptuous either in answering questions that are addressed to me, or in giving testimony which I am told will be of use to those in whose favour it is given, & which, if as you say it has no weight, will at least be innocuous to their rivals.
I have no objection to receiving the advice you tender in the last sentence of your letter, although I did not invite it by opening up any communications between us. For my part I never presumed to give you any advice, nor did I “incite” you to retire in Mr C[hadwick]’s favour, because I had no idea that you were in the least likely to do so; I merely, in reply to a communication from yourself, shewed how very public spirited a proceeding I shd consider it if you did. I shd not however have troubled you with this opinion if you had not been the first to write to me.
Writing to yourself, what at the time I wrote it, I supposed was to be a private letter, I did not think it necessary to raise the question how far the present member for K. is entitled to claim the support of liberals on the ground of fidelity to the liberal party. But to the public or to the constituency I have no hesitation in saying that no untried man can be looked upon as less a member of the liberal party than the man who at the beginning of this present year, called the liberal party a rabble & declared that their leader was incapable of leading. I do not know that any one is likely to do more than this to sow dissension among the liberal party nor do I see what possible claim this gentleman can have upon party fidelity, or what pledge he can give his constituents that he will not at a critical moment turn round again upon this same “leader who cannot lead” & shew himself even more a conspicuous example of a “follower who will not follow.” Whatsoever claims he may have upon his constituency can only be those of his own individual personal merits; he is the last man who has a right to the sympathy of his whilom party or who can appeal against me on the ground of his high sense of the claims of party organisation.
Even in the most ordinary circumstances, the efficiency of representatives can only be kept up by a keen rivalry, & a probability that if they fall below the standard they have ever attained, their constituents will look out for new men who come up to it. But we are not now in ordinary times. There are not only new electors to be represented, but new questions to be decided, requiring men deeply impressed with the wants of the country, & who have exercised their minds on the means of remedying the most pressing existing evils. The liberal electors have a right to a choice between their present members & any others who may seem to them better qualified in this respect & such choice is denied them if it is regarded as treason against liberalism for a new liberal candidate to offer himself in competition with an old member.
I am keenly sensible of the importance of not dividing the liberal party: but it is not a very hopeful way of keeping the party united, for the representatives of the old electors to engross all the representation, leaving none for the new: & if a reasonable number of men of advanced opinions, or possessing the confidence of the working classes, are not to be included among the recognised candidates of the party, they cannot be blamed if they sometimes stand against those who are. Just as we are often told that to secure the unity of a married couple what is the man’s is his own, & what is the woman’s is the man’s, so now we are being told every day that to secure the unity of the liberal party which is threatened by a division between the old men & the new, the old men should be represented by themselves, & the new men by the old. With the solitary exception of the advice which you supposed me to give to yourself, I have not heard of any instance in which it has not been proposed to resolve the difficulty by the new men retiring, & the old men magnanimously accepting their retirement. And this in many cases is very naïvely put upon the ground that as the old men will not consider the public interest & retire, for fear of letting in a Tory, the new men must.
The real danger, in my opinion, of the liberal party, is not what you consider it to be. It is in the renewal of the tactics which made the last H of C a spectacle of dissension & want of principle, shewing us representatives trying to slip out of the engagements their constituents conceived them to be bound by, & others yielding a shameful obedience when called to order by the dread of losing their seats, while in cases where this powerful motive was not in operation, men elected under the same banner proved by their conduct that there was as irreconcilable a variance in their intentions & political feelings as if they had sat on opposite sides of the House. What gave this deplorable character to the last H of C was that its so called Liberal members were rallied under the cry of supporting Palmerston, as we are now told they ought to be rallied under the cry of disestablishing the Irish Church. Now, I am not one of those who think that the political progress of England has but one step more to make before reaching its summit, where it may rest & be thankful, & that if a man is ready to vote for the disestablishment of the Irish Church he is ready to do all that the staunchest liberalism can demand of him. But I would remind those who differ with me as to the all-sufficiency of this particular step, that our power to make even that step next session may depend upon our getting men into the H. of C. who are not merely certain to vote for that step, but who will follow their leaders loyally through all the parliamentary tactics with which our skilful opponent will try to impede the way. Days, weeks, & months may be lost if Mr Gladstone’s majority is composed of men who will keep their word in voting for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, but will thwart & embarrass their leader in every previous step by which that desirable consummation may have to be led up to. It was not the Tories but the Adullamites, who weakened the liberal party in the last parliament; & if a similar result should befall it in the next there will be cause for bitter regret that the liberal party did not fight out its battles at the polling booths rather than in the lobby of the H. of C. There does not appear to be any danger that Mr G[ladstone]’s nominal majority will not be greater than in the last Parlt. What the country has to look to is that his majority shall be more steadfast to genuine liberal principles. We do not want men who cast reluctant looks back to the old order of things, nor men whose liberalism consists chiefly in a warm adherence to all the liberal measures already passed, but men whose heart & soul are in the cause of progress, & who are animated by that ardour which in politics as in war kindles the commander to his highest achievements & makes the army at his command worth twice its numbers; men whose zeal will encourage their leader to attempt what their fidelity will give him strength to do. It would be poor statesmanship to gain a seeming victory at the poll by returning a majority numerically large but composed of the same incompatible elements as the last; even if we put political principle aside & look at nothing but the exigencies of the fight we are going to sustain against a politician renowned for his skill in availing himself of the disunion of his opponents.
I am yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
1307.
TO CHARLES STEWART WALTHER
Avignon, Oct. 25, 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 22nd inst. in behalf of Mr. Howell’s London provisional committee, asking my opinion respecting his candidature. It would give me much pleasure to see Mr. Howell returned to Parliament. I look upon it as of great importance that the working classes should be represented in the new House of Commons by persons possessing their confidence, and that some of those persons should be themselves working men; and, though my knowledge of Mr. Howell personally is not great, what I have seen of his public conduct has made me look upon him as one who, in point of opinions and abilities would be a valuable representative of the working classes in Parliament.
I am
dear Sir,
yours very sincerely,
J. S. Mill
1308.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Oct. 29. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
It seems a long time since I heard from you, as well as since I wrote, but Fawcett sent me some weeks ago a letter of yours to him. The report of your health, though in some respects satisfactory, shewed less improvement in the local complaint than your friends, and I suppose your medical men, had hoped for. I shall be very much interested in having later intelligence.
How weary and sick you must be of the Irish Church and all that belongs to it! The subject is sickening even to me, who have not been living in the atmosphere of the abominable passions which self interest and bigotry combined have kindled in those who will be losers in one way or another when justice is done. I am impatient to see that worn out subject dead and buried, that the public may get to the practical interests of Ireland—landed tenure, and education. On both these, there will be great battles to fight, and on the first, if not on both, they will be long battles. The delay of the contest on Education has, I think, thus far, been favourable to the right. There is a growing feeling against Denominationalism in State education, by which Ireland will benefit. I am glad to see the number of students in the Queen’s Colleges has not fallen off as was expected. The abolition of Maynooth will greatly strengthen the argument for opening Trinity College. The Catholics are quite right in saying that Maynooth is the counterpart of that, and not of the Church Establishment.
The election prospects look very favourable, as far as regards the largeness of Gladstone’s majority. You will have seen that I have brought the newspapers upon me by doing my little possible in favour of getting into that majority a small infusion of more useful elements. How impossible this is, on the old plan of leaving everything to the party managers, is shewn by the double failure of Mr Courtney’s candidature at St Ives. I am much more attacked for helping Chadwick against Bouverie (unfaithful as Bouverie has been to the Liberal party) than even for subscribing to Bradlaugh; though the latter proceeding is the more likely of the two to alienate voters in Westminster. All the opinions I hear from my supporters about the prospects there, are favourable, but their tone is not so confident as their words, and they have thought it necessary to summon me, very much against my will, to spend the fortnight before the elections in speaking at meetings. I shall therefore be in England at the very beginning of November.
You will be as indignant as I am at the attempt to turn out Fawcett. The only points on which he is attacked by Coningham and Coningham’s supporters, are among his positive merits; his not jobbing for the people of Brighton; his supporting the minority clause; and Coningham actually reproached him with wanting to punish severely an elector who is bribed!
I hope some day to talk over with you the reasons pro and con about abolishing Marriage Settlements. I have been reading Mr McDonnell’s paper which you recommended to Fawcett. I quite agree with Mr McDonnell about the bad consequences of making the eldest son sure of succeeding independently of the will of the parents. But property might be settled so that it could not be squandered, and yet the power of bequest retained. In settlements on a wife and her children it is already common to give her the power of distributing the property among the children by will, and I do not see why property should not be settled on a person for life, with power of bequest, but not of alienation inter vivos. The great argument, however, for marriage settlements is the protection of the wife. Mr McDonnell is willing that the wife’s own property should be secured to her by settlement so long as the present law respecting the property of married women is maintained. But the alteration required would be much greater than merely not to deprive her of her ownership. As long as she is at all in the husband’s power, she is liable to be forced to surrender her rights. It would be necessary that she should not be compellable to live with him; and that anything done by him which would be unlawful if done to any other person, should be unlawful when done to her. And there must be some just arrangement about the children in case of separation. Until all this is accomplished I think it would be a great aggravation of the dependent position of women to put an end to settlements.
I hope all is now safe in America, as far as relates to the continuance of the Republican party at the head of affairs, and without any diminution of vigour in their councils. Since the ex-slaveholders are incorrigible, it is a good thing that they cannot help shewing themselves to be incorrigible. The danger of tampering with the rights of the public creditor seems also to be blowing over. It certainly was thought, at one time, to be serious. I was asked to write something on Repudiation, in the form of a letter that could be published in the Nation, and afterwards circulated in the broad sheets of the Loyal Publication Society. I have done so, and it has just come back from America, and is reprinted in last Wednesday’s Morning Star (October 28). I hope if you see it you will approve of it, as I know you will of its sentiments.
I should be delighted to hear from you. It will be best to write to Blackheath until the election is over, after which, whether I am elected or not, I shall return here.
I hope Mrs Cairnes’ health continues to improve.
I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1309.
TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN
Oct. 29. 1868
Dear Sir
I have endeavoured, with such scanty means as are within my reach, to obtain information on the matter on which you wrote to me on the 20th of September. I have been unable to learn anything about the abbés Blanchard and Dumas, but the Abbé Pézenas was a mathematician and astronomer of distinction and professor of hyd[r]ography for the navy at Marseilles, whence, when age obliged him to relinquish his professorship, he returned to Avignon, his native place, and died there in 1775. The only public library at Avignon contains an early work of his, “Histoire critique de la découverte de la longitude.” The Logarithmic Tables are not in that library, but there is a Monsieur Bourges at Avignon who well remembers to have had them in his possession. M. Bourges has a large collection of books in an unarranged and confused state, but he has promised a friend of mine to search among them for the work in question, which perhaps may still be found there. There is a biographical notice of M. Pézenas in a dictionary in M. Bourges’ possession, but it does not say anything of the Logarithmic Tables, to which, as you mention, the editors did not put their names. M. Pézenas also published a translation of a treatise on Fluxions written in English by a mathematician with a French name, but I have not been able to learn if it was Desclozeaux, or who else: probably you will know what book it must have been.
Avignon, at the time mentioned, was a place of publication (or at least printing) for all sorts of books which were published in France, licentious books, &c. which were printed in cellars and secret places, generally with extreme incorrectness: and a thing which stamped in M. Bourges’ memory the recollection of the Tables, was the singularity of the circumstance that a work requiring such punctilious exactness should have been printed in such a place.
When I obtain any further information, I shall write to you again.
I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Augustus De Morgan Esq.
1310.
TO CHARLES FRIEND
Oct. 29. 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 26th inst.
Your difficulties & anxieties are such as the extreme imperfection of our public arrangements for education (though I am happy to say they are at last showing some signs of improvement) imposes on all parents who are at once thoughtful & conscientious, especially when, as is the case with the greater number, circumstances compel them to rely on others than themselves for a great part of the education of their children.
In regard to religion, I do not think it right either oneself to teach, or to allow any one else to teach one’s children, authoritatively, anything whatever that one does not from the bottom of one’s heart & by the clearest light of one’s reason, believe to be true. It seems to me that to act otherwise on any pretext whatever, is little if at all short of a crime against one’s children, against one’s fellow creatures in general, & against abstract truth in whatever form it appears most sacred to one’s eyes. One has most assuredly no right to incumber the reason & entangle the conscience of one’s children, one has no right to send citizens out into the world to play their various parts for or against their fellow creatures furnished with anything less than the most honest truth that one can give them. Nor can I see that the plea of worldly interest is the smallest valid excuse, although I am well aware how many people think it so. But in the first place he would be a wise man indeed who can foresee the state of society 15 or 20 years hence. In the second place the clear intellect & the sturdy conscience which are acquired in a household where truth is reverenced above all things are as valuable to men & women pushing their way in the world as any supposed conformity with popular prejudice. In the third place, if there is one thing to which we all ought to give our allegiance irrespective of consequence it is truth, & here I look upon the ancient Christian teaching as the highest the world has yet known, & shd regard it as a misfortune indeed if this noble spirit were to die out with the prejudices which have overlaid it. But I do not believe it will, & the immense value attached to worldly prosperity by the bulk of so-called Xtians is to me the best proof that their doctrine is hollow & effete.
But I do not think that there shd be any authoritative teaching at all on such subjects. I think parents ought to point out to their children when the children begin to question them, or to make observations of their own, the various opinions on such subjects, & what the parents themselves think the most powerful reasons for & against. Then, if the parents show a strong feeling of the importance of truth, & also of the difficulty of attaining it, it seems to me that young people’s minds will be sufficiently prepared to regard popular opinion or the opinions of those about them with respectful tolerance, & may be safely left to form definite conclusions in the course of mature life.
There is one other point in which a mother may I believe be of immense use to her children, which is apt to be too much overlooked in my opinion in modern education, but on which there is a great deal of good sense in Miss Edgeworth’s stories for children, in Sandford & Merton, & in Miss Martineau’s Household Education: & this is, teaching children (more especially if they are not going to be rich) to respect, to enjoy, & habitually to practise manual and domestic labour. The love of this, & the sense of moral dignity in doing it, are, next to the love of truth, the very most valuable possessions with which to begin life, whether we consider happiness or the power of getting on.
To cultivate the intelligence, nothing perhaps is of so much value as a love of reading: & to secure this, it is essential to let young people read whatever they may come across & are disposed to read. Moreover, if careful selections are to be made for them, it becomes a most embarrassing question at what age are they to begin to be allowed to know any of the realities of life? & in many respects such knowledge is likely to be more mischievous if it comes startlingly upon them when they are of an age to understand it than if it is taken for granted in what they read when it has no particular interest for their childish minds.
I know of no schools so good as the Birkbeck schools & if there is one within reach I should think both boys & girls could receive an excellent education at it. I do not know precisely up to what point the education is carried on at them, nor what amount of education you contemplate giving to your children. I imagine that some of the best education to be had now, of a more advanced sort, at no great expense, is to be had by following the classes at the Working Men’s College, or at one of the Scotch universities. Either of these however are of course not for children, but I believe that the Birkbeck school would be a fit preparation for either of these. You are no doubt quite aware that I think it a duty to give girls as solid an education as boys, & doubly so if they are likely to have to earn their own living: & the progress now making in the education of girls is so considerable that it is not likely that 20 years hence any young woman will be able to earn by teaching who has not some solid instruction herself.
1311.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Oct. 30. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I am much obliged to you for your bulletins of progress. It is a thousand pities that your path should be crossed by a mad parson; and that there should be another working men’s candidate in the field, with power to take away votes from you, though without any chance for himself. If he can be induced to withdraw, it must be by the influence of working class opinion in the boroughs themselves. I wrote very strongly to Beales from whom I have had no answer: but the London chiefs of the League have probably little influence in the localities.
By publishing the correspondence, Bouverie did me a favour which he did not intend, by compelling me to do what would have been an impertinence if I had done it uncompelled—to put forth a manifesto on the necessity of bringing in new men in the place of some of the old. The reply appears to have produced a considerable effect, and seems likely to act on the electors even more than on the talking and writing public. The Times, though obliged to take notice of it, got off with the fewest words it could; and most spiteful words they were. The spite of the newspaper writers is partly against you, for getting more praise than they like you to have; partly (as the Daily News remarked ) against me, because they are angry at finding that my words have influence. One would suppose that giving a recommendatory letter to a candidate had never been heard of before, instead of being quite in the common course. The Glasgow paper you sent, mentioned Disraeli’s recommendatory letters to Wycombe. It might have added that Roebuck in 1832 went to Bath with a recommendation from Hume. How else are new men to make themselves known? This sort of cant is intended to keep all influence a monopoly in the hands of residents.
I have just received a letter from a surgeon in West Cornwall, saying that a candidate is very much wanted for that division of the county, that he would undertake within ten days to get up a numerously signed requisition to any man of mark, asking whether I can prevail upon you to go down, and saying “There would not be any doubt about his” (your) “return if he came among us. Those already in the field are of no account whatever.”
I sent you by yesterday’s post a number of Le Temps, containing a letter by Louis Blanc on the Bouverie correspondence, where you will see in what high terms he speaks of you.
I have to be in London for a meeting of electors next Monday evening, Nov. 2.
I am
Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1312.
TO FLORENCE MAY
[Before November? 1868]
Dear Madam—
I am very glad to find that you enjoy Buckle’s History, & I suppose from what you say, that you would like to enter into a course of reading that would be a good preparation for historical & social philosophy.
Something must depend in this course on the number of hours you can give to reading every day, & on the quickness with which you are in the habit of reading. But in any case I would strongly recommend three things. First, to read every book (with few & special exceptions) straight through from the title page to the last word. 2. To read a fixed number of pages of such reading as is taken for work, every day. I do not recommend hours, but 20, 50, or 100 pages. To read the working reading of the day as early as circumstances will admit in the day: but never, unless on some very rare exceptions, to go to sleep without having read it. 3. To fix so small a quantity of reading for work, as shall never be a burden, nor weary the mind, nor interfere inconveniently with other occupations; & to fill in the many gaps of time which will be left unoccupied by this rule, with light reading, amusing & agreeable, which has the advantage of being attractive when you are tired, of being able to put aside for days together when you are otherwise occupied, & which at the same time if well chosen may end by filling the mind with a fund of valuable knowledge as to the habits & ideas of past times & foreign countries.
I recommend, therefore, dividing your reading into four courses, which shd be carried on simultaneously: the first two of them to consist of books, some small portion of which shd be read invariably every day, & every word of which shd be read steadily through. The third course shd consist of books from which you can select portions if you like, which are comparatively light reading, but which shd be read because they are standard books the knowledge of which is necessary to any thorough knowledge of the progress of the human mind & of the history of manners. These need not be read every day if time is wanting, yet it might be a good rule to read some of them every day whenever there is time before taking up the still lighter or more exciting literature of the 4th course.
The fourth course shd consist of those chefs d’œuvre of literature which are sure to be interesting, as well as of whatever modern books you find tempting & agreeable without fatiguing the mind. For I think it of great value to acquire a habit of constant reading in order to acquire in time the power of reading quickly, & I am convinced that this cannot be done with safety to the health of those who eschew light literature. To those who mean to spend their life in study, light literature is a necessary relief, while as I have already said, it is by no means without good results. I think that in it newspapers magazines & reviews may be very usefully included, if you find them agreeable reading; but even the most valuable articles in periodical publications ought to be read for pleasure, & not as part of the work of the day, because they do not fit in to a steady course of reading.
I inclose a list of books for the four courses, which I have put in the order in which I think it would be good to read them. The first course shd have the freshest part of the day, as it requires thought; & the two first courses shd if possible be read in the order in which I have put them down. The last two need not necessarily be read in this order, but it is very desirable that in reading them you shd ascertain & [note in?] your own mind while reading, the date at which they were written, so as to observe as you read the changes of ideas & manners.
I have not put down any books in any foreign language, because unless there is any foreign language you read with as much pleasure & fluency as English, I think it waste of time at present to read its literature. But if there is any such language, it would be well to let me know, because in that case I could perhaps point out useful books in each course to read in it, supplying some want which cannot be supplied in English.
I
Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge
Berkeley’s Three Dialogues
Berkeley’s Essay on Vision
Hume’s Essays concerning Human Understanding
Brown’s Lectures on the Human Mind
Mill’s System of Logic
James Mill’s Analysis of the Human Mind
Bain’s Senses and the Intellect
Bain’s Emotions and the Will
Bain’s Study of Character
H. Spencer’s Principles of Psychology
II
Grote’s History of Greece
Hooke’s Roman History
Plutarch’s Lives
Merivale’s History of the Roman Empire
Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
Hume’s History of England
Hallam’s Middle Ages
Macaulay’s History of England
[James] Stephen’s Lectures on the History of France
Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella
Robertson’s Charles V
Robertson’s America
Motley’s United Netherlands
Schiller’s Thirty Years War translated
III
Spenser’s Poems
Massinger’s Plays
Bacon’s Essays
Milton Paradise Lost, Comus, Lycidas, L’Allegro, Penseroso, Sonnets
Dryden’s Poems—Æneid
Pope’s Poems—Iliad & Odyssey
Spectator
Clarissa Harlowe
Sir Charles Grandison
Rasselas
Rambler
Goldsmith’s Poems
Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World
Gray’s Poems
Cowper’s Poems
Ellis’s Early English Prose Romances
Sydney’s Arcadia
Coleridge
Wordsworth
Shelley
Keats
IV
Shakespeare
Don Quixote
Gil Blas
Fielding’s Novels
Vicar of Wakefield
Sterne’s Sentimental Journey
Percy’s Reliques of Early English Poetry
Lamb’s Selections from the Dramatists
Mrs Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho
Mrs Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest
Miss Austen’s Novels—Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice &c.
Scott’s Poems
Scott’s Novels
1313.
TO HELEN TAYLOR
Wedy 3 oclock
[November 1868]
Since I closed (& stamped) my letter, this has come from Miss Cobbe. I am on the whole inclined to think she had better not vote, since she believes there was an actual mistake in the name —which makes her case different from that of the Ashford and other ladies who I think should vote. But whatever you think, I have no doubt your reasons will be such as I should agree with. The polling day will probably be Tuesday.
ever affectionately
J.S.M.
1314.
TO J. S. BIRD
Nov. 3. 1968
Dear Sir—
The grounds of the claim for the admission of women to the Suffrage are stated in small compass in a paper reprinted from the W. R. under the title “Enfranchisement of Women”, in a pamphlet by Miss Helen Taylor, “The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage” & in my own speech in the H. of C. all published by Trubner, 60 Paternoster Row. The right of women to the suffrage under the existing law, is maintained & defended in Mr Chisholm Anstey’s work on Representation & in a pamphlet published by him. The Secretary to the National Socy for Women’s Suffrage is Mrs. P. A. Taylor, Aubrey House, Notting Hill.
1315.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 4. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I have written at once to my correspondent, Geo. Gill Esq. Zion House, Marazion, with whom you will no doubt wish to correspond directly. It will be best to say nothing of the matter in any public manner for the present, so that the initiative may come entirely from the Cornish constituency. I hardly think that in a county, a requisition could be obtained from anything approaching to a majority of the electors; at all events not without great expense and loss of time. But of this you will judge better after further communication with Mr Gill. Meanwhile I send you his letter, that you may know what are the opinions which he himself wishes the member for West Cornwall to hold on matters interesting to the locality. Some of them are not the most enlightened; but the main points are such as you could take up and work with great effect. It is the cause of working miners against mine-owners.
ever yrs truly
J. S. Mill
1316.
TO JAMES EDWARDS
Nov. 5. 1868.
Dear Sir—
As a good opportunity did not present itself at the meeting yesterday evening for answering your questions, I now answer them by letter.
The first question you ask raises a difficulty which will exist at whatever sum we fix the limit to the Income Tax: for whether the tax begins at £100 at £200 or at £500, that sum will represent a larger real means of support in some places than in others. But I am very much disposed to think that the limit of £100 is too low; and that it would be an improvement to make the income tax begin at £150 (as it did at first), if not higher. If all taxation were direct, it ought to come down to the limit of income just sufficient for the necessaries of life, & everyone ought to pay in proportion to the surplus of the income he possesses beyond those mere necessaries. But so long as the larger part of our revenue is raised by indirect taxation on articles of almost universal consumption, & of which the poor consume more, in proportion to their small means than the rich, so long I think that the incomes between £50 and £150 or £200 pay more than their fair share of indirect taxation, & this requires to be made up to them by levying a tax on the higher incomes, from which they should be exempt.
In answer to your second question, my opinion is that in justice the same amount of income should pay the same amount of tax, whether it be a fixed annual income or a variable sum paid weekly. But it would be extremely difficult to check fraudulent concealment of income in the latter case.
1317.
TO J. H. FLETCHER
Nov. 5. 1868.
Dear Sir—
In answer to your letter dated yesterday, I beg to say that Mr Gilpin is a distinguished and valuable member of the advanced Liberal party, no opposition to whom I shd for a moment countenance, & that Lord Henley has always been faithful, & I have no reason whatever to doubt that he will remain faithful to the party & to Mr. Gladstone. In subscribing, therefore, towards the expenses of another candidate, I was not influenced by any hostility to either of the present members. The motive by which I was actuated was a strong sense, that the working classes have a just claim to a fair number of the men of their choice in the reformed H. of Commons, which fair share, I regret to say, there is from present appearances extremely little prospect of their obtaining. I am also of opinion, & in this I hope you will agree with me that the Liberal electors have a right to be allowed to decide which among any number of candidates who are willing to offer themselves, they prefer to be represented by. After they have had time to weigh the pretensions of the various candidates & to make up their minds whom they intend to support then if a Tory has offered himself, & the division among Liberals renders at all probable his return, my opinion is, that some means should be adopted of deciding which two of the Liberal candidates are the strongest, & that the remainder should withdraw. I may add that Mr. Bradlaugh is aware that this is my opinion.
1318.
TO RICHARD MARSHALL
Nov. 5. 1868
Dear Sir—
When I was first proposed as a candidate for the representation of Westminster, an attempt was made to raise the same religious cry against me, which you inform me, is now being repeated. But I publicly announced my determination, on principle, to answer no questions respecting my religious belief, because I would not give any encouragement to a practice the effect of which would be that when no objection could be made to a candidate either on the ground of character or of political opinions, his opponents would endeavour to extract from himself materials for raising a religious prejudice against him. You will, I hope, pardon me for adhering to the resolution I then declared. But if there really are persons who, in good faith & honesty, conclude me to be an atheist because I subscribed to the fund for the election of Mr Bradlaugh, such persons merely shew that they are ignorant or regardless of the principles I have openly proclaimed especially in my book on Liberty, viz that atheists as well as the professors of any, even the worst religions, may be & often are, good men, estimable & valuable in all the relations of life, & are entitled like all other persons to be judged by their actions (“By their fruits ye shall know them” are the words of Christ) & not by their speculative opinions. My subscription was not given for Mr B as an atheist but for Mr B as a politician; just as we may presume that the working men of Northampton selected him as their candidate, & the Reform League as a member of its Council not as an atheist, but as a politician.
P.S. You are at liberty to make any use you please of this letter.
1319.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
Nov. 5. 1868
Dear Mr Plummer
I am truly glad of the improvement in your hearing. That is indeed a gain. I sometimes think I recognise you in the Daily News.
About the expense of elections and the difficulty of getting working men’s candidates into Parliament, I said a good deal at the meeting yesterday, but it was not reported. I take every opportunity I can of dwelling on this great evil, both in speaking and in my correspondence. The Liberal party will have cause to repent of not having adopted the best leaders of the working men and helped them to seats. But the old school of politicians only learn wisdom when it is too late.
With kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am
Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1320.
TO J. DAWSON BURNS
Blackheath Park, Kent, Nov. 7. 1868
Dear Sir,—
It is quite true that my answer to the question, about the Permissive Bill was very inadequate, but it did not pretend to be adequate; it was only intended to give a general notion of the kind of objection I have to the Bill—viz., that the use or non use of alcoholic liquors is a subject on which every sane and grown-up person ought to judge for himself under his own responsibility, and that interference with that private responsibility from known good motives, and with however much apparent justification is not, in my eyes, made allowable by the fact of its being sanctioned by the vote of the majority.
My reason for not accepting the proposal of an interview was merely that, each side being already well aware of what the other side has to say, it was probable that any oral discussion would be lost time. For the same reason I hope you will excuse me from replying to the arguments in your letter. But I will not conclude without saying that a much better licensing system might easily be had than that of leaving all to the discretion of the magistrates, and that I should not necessarily be opposed to any proposal on the subject because it might involve ‘a reduction in the number of drinking-shops.’ This, of course, does not affect my opposition to a Bill for allowing a two-thirds majority in a locality the power of prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors.
Allow me, at the same time, to say that I have never expressed myself otherwise than most respectfully concerning the intentions of those who support the Bill, and the great moral value of the end they pursue.
I am, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
J. S. Mill
1321.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 7. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I send you another letter from Mr Gill, which, as you will see is most encouraging, except as to the shortness of the time. He writes like the kind of man to make such a thing succeed. And it is very pleasant to find that, among the attacks on you and the pretences of ignoring you, proofs of the high opinion entertained of you start up in such unexpected quarters.
I had already addressed one of my meetings on election expenses, and in compliance with your suggestion I did so again last evening. But the papers have given only the most trumpery reports of any of my speeches except the first, which was comparatively commonplace; and of that, the only good report that I saw was in the Telegraph. All have been immensely successful.
Pratten, one of my local chairmen, says it is all nonsense employing paid agents for election purposes, and that the whole thing is much better managed by the local committees. Even at the registration, he says, the thing would have been boshed if it had been left to the agents; it was only by the exertions of the Committees that they got on a greater number of lodgers than have been got on in almost any other place.
I am Dear Chadwick
ever yrs truly
J. S. Mill
1322.
TO HELEN TAYLOR
[? November 7, 1868]
Dear—
I send a note from Miss Shirreff which is important.
I saw what seemed a superior custom house officer, who said that nothing whatever is necessary but to sign a declaration, when bringing the plate from the Continent, that I have not received any drawback upon it: and that the form of declaration is kept at the Charing Cross custom house. I told him what the officer there had told us the last time: he said he still did not understand how that can have been said but that I may absolutely depend on nothing being necessary but to sign the declaration, & that no paper from the Custom House is required nor any steps to be taken before taking the plate out of England.
I had a short shower or two in going through the City but a fine walk across the heath afterwards and it is now very fine as I hope it will remain as long as you need it.
Your ever affectionate
J.S.M.
1323.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
Nov. 8. 1868
Dear Mr Fawcett
During our short conversation the other evening, I had not time to speak to you about the Wolverhampton Plate Lock Cooperative Association. The Secretary of the Association wrote to me at Avignon that they were in difficulties, which threatened their existence, but that the state of their affairs was such as would justify the friends of cooperation in making advances to them, and that they had placed a statement in your hands. I told them in reply that I would when I had an opportunity, consult with you on the subject. I know how your time must be filled up, between your Lectures and your election work, but if at any casual moment you could briefly give me your opinion as to the state of their affairs, and as to whether anything can be done, or should be done, to help them, it would enable me to give them an answer. It is but little that I could in any case do to aid them, but even a little is sometimes useful: it is however an unthrifty mode of using one’s means of doing good, to bolster up particular experiments of social improvement, if they have not in themselves the conditions of success.
I return Cairnes’ letter which you kindly sent to Avignon. It formed the ground of a long letter which I afterwards wrote to him, but which I do not know if he ever received. Perhaps you can tell me whether he has yet gone to Nice, and some more recent news of his health.
With kind regards to Mrs Fawcett I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1324.
TO FREDERICK BATES
Nov. 9, 1868
Dear Sir—
I suppose the persons who call me an Atheist are the same who are impudently asserting that Mr Gladstone is a Roman Catholic. I shd think my friends in W[estminster] must by this time be aware that Tories, in election times, stick at nothing. An attempt was made to raise the same cry against me at my first election, & the defence which I did not choose to make for myself was made for me by several eminent dignitaries of the C[hurch] of England. At that time I declared my deliberate determination, on principle, not to answer any questions whatever respecting my religious creed, because I acknowledge no right in any one to ask them, and because I owe it to future candidates & to the interest of future constituencies not to encourage a practice, the effect of which would be that when no objection can be found to a candidate’s character or political opinions, attempts would be made to extract from himself materials for raising a religious prejudice against him, which is often easiest stirred up against the best men. I think I shall act most rightly, & most in conformity to my principles by adhering to this declaration. If any one again tells you that I am an atheist, I would advise you to ask him, how he knows and in what page of my numerous writings he finds anything to bear out the assertion. You will find that he has nothing at all to say. If he talks about my subscription for Mr Bradlaugh, he shd be asked whether he thinks that the working men of Northampton who adopted Mr B. as their candidate, or the members of the Reform League who elected him one of their Council, are all atheists. You are free to make any use you please of this letter.
I am, dear sir,
Yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
1325.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 10. 1868
Dear Chadwick
Your prospects at Kilmarnock seem brightening. The newspapers have not reported what I said about election expenses and I have no note of it.
Meanwhile Mr Gill is very confident of returning you for West Cornwall. I inclose two letters from him. I have told him that you alone can judge between the two modes of proceeding which he has in view, and I hope you will write to him direct on the subject. I fear he is not a person of much influence, or he need not have asked for the loan of two or three pounds for travelling expenses. I have risked £5 on the venture. In haste
yrs ever
J. S. Mill
1326.
TO WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER
Nov. 10. 1968
Dear Mr Cremer—
I greatly regret that the onerous engagements connected with my own contest for W[estminster] as well as work relating to other elections nearer at hand, & not less important to the public interest than even yours put it out of my power to go down to Warwick & give you my personal assistance there.
I have long felt, & I expressed the feeling on the second reading of Mr Gladstone’s reform bill in 1866, that one of the most desirable consequences of parly reform would be the presence in the H. of C. of some of the élite of the working classes. It is not for the sake of class interests that I desire this. Class legislation for the working classes is as much to be deprecated as class legislation for any other class. But the most numerous of all classes ought not to be without, what every other class has—representatives in Parlt who can speak from their own knowledge of the wants, the grievances, and the modes of thought & feeling of their class—of all which, Parliament ought to be fully informed, to enable it to legislate wisely and justly not for class interests but for the general interest; & no other persons however deservedly trusted by the working classes can speak on these subjects with either the same knowledge or the same authority as those who, being in other respects qualified, are themselves working men. I regret that so few working men have offered themselves as candidates at the present general election; & that one of the ablest & worthiest of them has had to retire from Chelsea in order not to risk the return of the Tory candidate. I am the more desirous on that account that a man like yourself, who possesses, & as I believe, fully deserves the confidence of a large & intelligent portion of the working classes, should succeed in his candidature. The importance of the contest is still further increased by the fact that your competitor is a Tory, who will vote against Mr Gladstone & in support of that great & old standing iniquity, the Irish Church Establishment.
1327.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Nov. 15, 1868
Dear Sir
I received your letter when on the point of setting out for England on account of the elections; with which I have been fully occupied ever since. I regretted much to hear of your illness, from which I hope you have, long ere this, completely recovered.
We may congratulate ourselves and each other on the political prospect in both our countries. The election of Grant and Colfax will, to all appearance, be followed by the return to Parliament of a large majority to support a Gladstone government. Your anticipations have proved true as to Butler, but that is of very minor consequence.
I return to Avignon in a few days, and I fear I shall not be able within that time to pay my respects to you at Keston; but if you are passing anywhere near Blackheath and can find time to look in upon me, it would give me much pleasure to see and converse with you. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
C. Eliot Norton Esq.
1328.
TO LOUIS BLANC
le 19 Novembre 1868
Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc
Ne nous décourageons pas. La Réforme Parlementaire a donné à beaucoup d’ouvriers des droits électoraux, mais ils ne sont pas encore organisés, ni unis entr’eux. Aucun de leurs candidats n’a été nommé. Et comme je suis maintenant regardé comme voué à leur cause, tandis qu’à ma première élection en 1865, quelques-uns, je crois, espéraient de moi autre chose, j’ai succombé comme tout d’autres.
M. Gladstone aura une très grande majorité, et pour le moment c’est là l’essentiel. Quant à moi, je n’attendrais probablement pas longtemps une autre occasion, si j’en voulais une: en deux jours j’ai déjà reçu trois invitations; dont deux pour des comtés. Mais je serai probablement aussi utile, et certainement plus heureux, en écrivant au coin de mon feu.
J’ai lu avec grand plaisir ce que vous avez écrit au sujet de Chadwick. On a traduit et imprimé votre article à Kilmarnock. Mais Chadwick n’a pas eu plus de succès que moi, et c’est un malheur, car il eût été très utile à la Chambre.
votre tout dévoué
J. S. Mill
1329.
TO CHARLES BRADLAUGH
Nov. 19, 1868
Dear Sir—
I may have lost some votes by my subscription for you, but neither that nor any one thing is the cause of my losing the election. Many things have contributed to it, & I shd very likely have been defeated if my name had never been coupled with yours. In any case it was a right thing to do & I do not regret it.
I am very sorry that you, as well as all other candidates who would have especially represented the working classes, have been unsuccessful. But their time will come. Your perseverance at N[orthampton] is fully justified by the result as notwithstanding the large number who voted for you have not, as was predicted, brought in a Tory.
1330.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 19. 1868
Dear Chadwick
When your telegrams arrived, I was at the Declaration of the Poll, where I was detained longer than I expected. When I got back it was past five, and I thought you would be at Glasgow and telegraphed there. I do not suppose it made any difference. I am not surprised at your defeat. The new candidates of advanced opinions have been defeated everywhere. Not one working men’s candidate (whether a working man himself or not) and not one of the University Liberals has been returned. The only new men worth anything whom I have heard of that have succeeded, are Brewer, Pochin, and (some say) Dilke. I am extremely sorry for the money it has cost you. I should much like to see you member for Greenwich—far rather than myself. But I suspect neither of us could get in there without spending a considerable sum of money. After subscribing for Gladstone, people will not like to put their hands in their pockets immediately for somebody else. When Gill heard of my defeat, he telegraphed to ask if they might put me up for West Cornwall, but I answered “Chadwick if anybody.” I have just had an earnest entreaty to stand for Buckinghamshire. It would be funny to meet Disraeli on the hustings. But I am not tempted by it.
I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1331.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Nov. 19. 1868
Dear Sir
I thank you for the spine bag (I had never yet seen one) though my cold has got so much better that I shall not have occasion to make use of it this time.
The persons to be spoken to about cases of bribery are Mr Beal or Mr Malleson. I believe they have information of some already. I cannot do anything myself in the matter.
If it suits you to call here on Saturday or Sunday, at any time before 3 or 4 in the afternoon, you are pretty sure to find me. If I know beforehand, I will remain at home.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Dr Chapman
1332.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 21. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I am sorry to hear of your cold (I too have had a bad one) and the more so because it will prevent my seeing you, as I start for Avignon on Monday.
There is no opening at Greenwich for either of us. I had a numerous deputation here, which I supposed had come to ask me to stand, in which case I should have declined, and, if I saw any chance should have recommended you. But they came to ask me not to stand, inasmuch as Baxter Langley’s supporters will not suffer him to retire, as he had voluntarily said he would if either Bright or I needed the seat. They were so bent on having Langley and only Langley, that it would have been waste of breath to have talked to them of any one else. You are quite in error if you think Tories would not oppose you. The Kilmarnock affair has classed you along with me as an extreme radical. A Tory is considered certain to start, and will probably come in, as there are expected to be three Liberals in the field: Langley as a radical, General Codrington as a mild Whig, and a Mr Soames, a local man, who has already started as a liberal unattached. I am
Dear Chadwick
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1333.
TO JOHN BUCKLE
Nov. 27. 1868
Dear Sir
I and my daughter (who as you know has undertaken the task for which I myself had not time, of preparing Mr Henry Buckle’s papers for publication) are very desirous to obtain materials by the aid of which Miss Emily Shirreff would be able to draw up some account of the life of Mr Buckle. I should be greatly obliged to you if you would assist me in this object, both by confiding to my care any papers in your possession that you think would be of use, and by using your influence with Mrs Allatt to induce her to do the same. Letters, and his journal, would of course be invaluable: and as Mrs Allatt would doubtless be able to furnish some reminiscences of her own, I should be also much obliged if you would kindly let me have her present address, that I may write requesting her help.
Mr Longman is willing to publish a volume containing Mr Henry Buckle’s fragments, along with something of the sort I suggest. I hope that Mr Longman’s arrangements with the family respecting the fragments already published in Fraser’s Magazine, have been satisfactory.
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
John Buckle Esq.
1334.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Nov. 27. 1868
Dear Chadwick
I inclose a cheque as my subscription for your contest at Kilmarnock. No defeat grieved me so much; but of course all feeling about individual defeats is lost in that we have about the result of the elections as a whole: And after all, in your case as well as in mine, there is plenty of work to be done outside the House of Commons, and therefore there is not so much cause for regret as in the case of those whose work lies only within it. Still I should have been glad if you, like myself, had had the opportunity of propounding some of your principal Heresies in the face of the House itself, and making it listen to them. I do not doubt but that, in that case, you, like myself, would have been very glad after a year or two to be dismissed from the work. I am
Dear Chadwick
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1335.
TO MRS. RACHEL CHADWICK
Nov. 27 1868
Dear Mrs Chadwick—
I have been unable earlier to acknowledge your reproachful & you must excuse me for saying, I think unreasonable letter. You appear to consider me as the adviser & instigator, & sole cause of Mr Chadwick’s offering himself as a candidate for the H. of Commons. I however have been aware that to be elected to Parlt. has been a strong desire of his for a great number of years, & one which he was almost certain to act upon, believing as he does on very good grounds that his public usefulness would be in an extraordinary degree increased by a seat in Parlt. Being in the habit of considering Mr C. to be a competent judge of his own affairs I by no means thought myself called on to dissuade him from the attempt, & when he had undertaken it of himself, & not by any advice of mine, I felt it my duty to give him all the help that could be given by my strongest testimony in his favour.
I regret to find that you do not support Mr C in a matter in which I am sure your encouragement would give him so much pleasure. One of the grounds of my high respect for Mr C has always been his willingness to [postpone?] private interests to public; & sympathy in his own home in such a willingness is the best source of repose & strength that a man can find. Of course you are a better judge than I am of what may or not be prudent in Mr C. to do in the matter of expense; but for this very reason I shd never dream of presuming to give him advice on such a subject, & I hope you will excuse me if I continue to say to yourself that the more you shew him that you sympathize in his public interests, the more insight will he be likely to attach to your advice on those private concerns on which you are the best judge except himself.
1336.
TO MRS. ELIZABETH LAMBERT
Nov. 28. 1868.
Dear Madam—
Mr Bradlaugh is a man who has been guilty of the very great fault of using insulting language towards those who differ from him in religious opinions: a fault which he appears to share with your friend the clergyman who calls Mr B “the prince of scoundrels” in a country abounding in murderers, thieves, &c., &c. I am not aware that any accusations are made against Mr B’s moral character while I am quite certain that no such accusations could be substantiated, as if they could they would have been brought forward against him in the bitterness of the recently contested elections. The violence of the language which has been made use of by Mr B has been very greatly exaggerated by his opponents, & I believe that it was in his younger days that he made use of it but at the same time I have no excuse to offer for that. I myself know nothing of him except that he has put himself very boldly forward to advocate with considerable ability a great number of unpopular opinions; some of them unpopular among the upper classes, such as religious scepticism & democracy, others unpopular among working men, such as representation of minorities & the equality of women. If you will do me the honour to read my little book on Liberty, you will at once understand why I think such men as Mr B ought to be allowed to say what they have got to say, & not be abused for their opinions so long as they do nothing wrong.
I cannot easily express to you, & I will not take the trouble to try to express, the contempt I feel for a man who calling himself a Xtian can call another man the prince of scoundrels because of differences on religious opinion. If Mr B is wrong, a clergyman ought to be the first to pity him, the first also to recognise with humility that men with such opinions as Mr B can behave honourably & uprightly while men who call themselves Xtians are daily guilty of any crime against the laws of their country, of religion, & of the human conscience. Let such clergymen apply themselves to the improvement of their own flocks, & they will have neither time nor energy to spare for abusive language.
1337.
TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
Nov. 28, 1868
Dear Mr Norton
If you do not leave England early in the spring, we may still have an opportunity of meeting, as, although I shall not hurry away from here as I have been obliged to do when in Parliament, while the weather is still wintry in England, I shall be at Blackheath, most likely, in the course of the month of March. My absence from the House of Commons is personally a very great relief to me, and therefore I have declined the invitations I have received to stand elsewhere. I accepted the invitation made to me three years ago, partly because of the reproach which has often been made against the literary men of America, that they would not enter into political life; a reproach, however, which I do not think well founded. Moreover, there were at that time some points which I thought could be usefully brought before the public through the House of Commons. Nor were the relations of America and England so settled then as now. At present I am very glad to be free from parliamentary work, much of which is a great waste of time, more especially during the height of the violent party contest on such a point as the Irish Church, the final result of which does not admit of a doubt, and yet which will cause a deplorable waste of time and energy. There are always periods of this sort in the practical working of politics, when those whose taste or talent lies rather in principles than in details can be of more use in literary than in political life.
I regret the defeat of the radical party throughout the country. It seems to have been owing to the want of organisation on their side, and to the great expenditure of money on that of our opponents. It remains to be seen, and I cannot venture to predict, how far our friends will be discouraged by the result. Those with whom I am myself in communication seem to be stimulated rather to more efforts; but perhaps they may be the most energetic among us. It is in any case satisfactory to find that if these elections have been carried by money, there is at all events so much money on the moderate liberal side; since after all, as a question between Gladstone and Disraeli, Gladstone is triumphant. When we consider how slow the English mind is to move, we must look upon this as a success, and trust to the Press to prepare the way for more progress hereafter. I am
Dear Mr Norton
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
C. Eliot Norton Esq.
1338.
TO LORD AMBERLEY
Nov. 30. 1868
Dear Lord Amberley
I regret exceedingly to hear today by the papers I have just received, that your contest has been unsuccessful. Had you been in the House this session, you would have been one of the exceedingly few men there in whom I should have felt thorough confidence; and there are some points, such as that of religious liberty, which you alone are willing to work. Your conduct on this matter has been so brave and generous that it will infallibly bear good fruit in the future. I see that the Times (model of piety!) snarls at you, as the Daily News did at me! but these snarls are the best testimony that one is doing work which really requires to be done, and which all the world is not ready to do.
I deferred writing, in the hope, growing slighter however from day to day as I saw how persistently the elections continued in one direction, that I might be able to congratulate you on a success at the same time that I thanked you for your kind letter on my defeat. I should myself be so far from willing to accept your kind suggestion [? as to say] that you are the candidate whom I should like to see for Westminster. If you have family influence there, I am sure the present state of affairs might remove all scruple in using it: and you are certainly the only man who could have, who would be really welcome to the advanced Liberals. I am recommending to them to make up their minds about their next candidate and set things in hand at once; I confess that though not mortified at present, I should be mortified if a Tory continues to represent Westminster, unless indeed it should turn out that the Tories have a fair and genuine majority there, which I do not expect.
The result of the elections seems to justify the opinion of those who said that these elections would go by money. It is satisfactory, from this point of view, that there is so much money in the country read to stand by Gladstone. In some respects your defeat is, like my own, less a subject of regret to me than some others, because you have it in your power to use influences in other ways, and do not, I believe, personally find pleasure in the life of the House of Commons. Some of the reasons which made me most wish to see Mr Chadwick in the House do not apply to us. Mr Chadwick’s age and health do not give good promise for the future; he does not do justice to his ideas by the pen; and I believe he would personally like to be in the House.
I have no idea whatever of taking advantage of any opportunities that might present themselves of going into the House this session. I expect that it will be so much given up to the Irish Church debates that to me it would be particularly wearisome, for I do not think that anything I could say on the subject would have the slightest effect, since any one who would be amenable to any reasoning of mine must have made up his mind long ago. I hope I may not think it necessary to accept any future invitations to enter the House—I feel tolerably sure I shall not, until the time has come for pushing forward more advanced topics than are on the tapis there for the present. I am glad to have been in for the little time I was, as some of the questions I most wish to see discussed out of the House have been in some measure popularized by what I was able to do in it.
With our kind regards to Lady Amberley
I am Dear Lord Amberley
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1339.
TO ALPHONSE ESQUIROS
[December, 1868]
Cher Monsieur,—
Je crois que les causes de mon insuccès à Westminster se réduisent principalement à trois:—1o, une grande supériorité d’organisation et d’habilité dans le parti opposé, les opérations dirigées par un homme d’affaires dans son propre intérêt étant ordinairement mieux conduites que celles qui dépendent d’un comité d’amateurs; 2o, une très grande abondance d’argent du côté opposé, tandis que du nôtre il y avait à peine le strict nécessaire; 3o, l’hostilité de presque tous les vestrymen et autres notabilités locales qui sont les chefs ordinaires de l’action politique dans les localités, et à qui j’ai fortement déplu par la proposition que j’ai faite d’une meilleure constitution municipale.
Plusieurs autres circonstances sont venues se joindre à celles-là, mais je crois que celles que j’ai signalées sont les seules réellement importantes, et qu’elles auraient suffi pour empêcher ma réélection. Du reste, sauf l’échec porté par ma défaite au parti libéral avancé, qui d’ailleurs a tant souffert dans ces élections-ci, je n’ai rien à regretter. J’espère exercer en faveur de mes opinions une activité tout aussi grande, et beaucoup plus agréable pour moi, comme écrivain que comme député au parlement.
L’échec essuyé par notre parti (l’extrême gauche pour ainsi dire de l’Angleterre—le parti radical) est beaucoup plus à regretter et moins facile à expliquer, que le mien. Cependant il a été prévu comme vous le savez, par notre ami M. John Morley; et lui, avec beaucoup d’autres personnes qui sont dans le cas d’en bien juger, semble croire que c’est tout simplement affaie d’argent. Vous savez qu’un million a été retiré de la Banque dans la semaine avant les élections; et la prédominance des hommes d’argent a été tellement remarquable que le Standard même a fait l’observation que peut-être l’insuccès des hommes de talent et des jeunes hommes est dû tout simplement à ce que ni les uns ni les autres ne sont ordinairement des hommes riches.
Non seulement l’argent a été employé pour la corruption sur une echelle déplorable, mais encore, dans un pays comme le nôtre, tellement porté à respecter la fortune et la position sociale, l’influence qu’on peut appeler légitime de la fortune est extrêmement grande. Plus encore que tout cela, il y a une raison qui explique la grande importance de l’argent dans les élections chez nous, et surtout dans ces dernières élections, et cela est la lenteur de l’intelligence britannique qui a grand besoin d’être aiguillonnée par tous les moyens possibles avant qu’elle se décide à se mouvoir. Ces moyens tels que le canvass d’une maison à l’autre, les circulaires imprimées, les comités dans chaque paroisse, les dépenses de la registration même, et aussi des réunions publiques, demandent beaucoup d’argent. Plus il y a d’argent et mieux tout cela est organisé. Les classes ouvrières n’ont pas encore des organisations électorales assez importantes. Il n’y a pas encore eu le temps. La Reform League a fait son possible, et cela a été bien peu. L’expérience apprendra aux hommes d’élite de la classe ouvrière ce qu’il y a à faire, et tôt ou tard on le fera.
Puis on a regardé ces élections un peu comme un duel entre M. Gladstone et M. Disraeli: et beaucoup ont cru qu’il suffisait d’envoyer au parlement un fidèle adhérent du premier et que cela était de la première urgence. Vous savez combien le peuple est souvent sujet à se laisser prendre par une seule idée; idée juste au fond, mais à laquelle on donne plus d’importance relative que peut-être elle ne mérite.
Ces dernières raisons ne s’appliquent pas à ma défaite, qui a été au profit d’un Tory. Mais celle-là je crois, comme je l’ai dit, était plutôt une question d’argent que de toute autre chose. . . . Je n’ai que trop à me louer de zèle et de l’enthousiasme avec lesquels j’ai été appuyé; mais, pas plus en Angleterre qu’ailleurs, le zèle et l’enthousiasme ne peuvent toujours lutter victorieusement contre l’intérêt. En fin de compte, nous pouvons nous réjouir que dans une lutte d’argent comme les dernières élections, il se soit trouvé assez d’argent et d’intérêts matériels prêts de se ranger du côté de la raison et de la justice pour donner la victoire à Mr. Gladstone et à l’abolition des privilèges de l’église protestante en Irlande. C’est déjà beaucoup, et bien fait pour nous encourager, quoique notre progrès soit lent.
Agréez, cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments de respect et d’amitié.
J. S. Mill
1340.
TO JOHN MORLEY
[December, 1868]
[“He (JSM) told one who was speaking of Condorcet’s Life of Turgot, that in his younger days whenever he was inclined to be discouraged, he was in the habit of turning to this book, and that he never did so without recovering possession of himself. (Cf. also Autobiog., chap. iv.) To the same friend (Morley), who had printed something in this Review (“The Chamber of Mediocrity”, n.s. IV [Dec. 1, 1868], 681-94) comparing Mr. Mill’s repulse at Westminster with the dismissal of the great minister of Lewis XVI, he wrote:]
I never received so gratifying a compliment as the comparison of me to Turgot; it is indeed an honour to me that such an assimilation should have occurred to you.
1341.
TO THOMAS DYKE ACLAND
Dec.1. 1868
Dear Mr Acland—
There are few if any of my friends in the H. of C. from whom such an expression of good opinion and of kind & friendly feeling as your letter contains, would have given me greater pleasure. I have been in strong sympathy with you on most or all of the subjects in which you have shewn a special interest during the time I was in the House, & I am heartily glad that you are still there to continue working for them.
Among those subjects, that of the most just & fair mode of raising taxes for local purposes is one of the most difficult & puzzling. It is quite true that Lopes was playing, to a great extent, a landlord’s game, & in my speech on his motion I contended that the peculiar pressure of the local rates on the rent of land was, as to a considerable part of it, just. At the same time, I believe we (you & I) agree in thinking that money is wanted for important local purposes now neglected or insufficiently provided for; that the difficulty of putting further pressure on the ratepayers is at present a serious obstacle to important public objects; & that the pecuniary resources required will have to be sought, entirely or partially, at the expense of kinds of property & income which now, in the main, escape from local rates. Your suggestion of transferring the assessed Taxes wholly or partially to local purposes, amounts in fact to allowing taxes on male servants, & on horses and carriages in aid of local rates; for the house tax falls entirely on the present ratepayers & the minor assessed taxes are not worth taking into account. I do not think that taxes on male servants or on horses & carriages not employed in business, are at all objectionable on grounds of political economy. They are fair taxes on luxuries, & the luxuries of all classes are fit objects of taxation. E contra, I would not tax any kind of public conveyance: post-horses, stage coaches, railways, &c, nor horses or carts used in trades; nor perhaps the carriage of a medical man; & even a private carriage is, to many persons in weak health, a luxury so nearly amounting to a necessary, that I would tax the first carriage much more lightly than the second or any greater number. And the same reason applies in some circumstances to the first man-servant. It must be remembered in abatement from the efficacy of such taxes, in affording relief to the rates, that they would be, in a large proportion, paid by the same persons. But falling impartially on all who expend large incomes in the ordinary way, they would be in themselves a mode of raising money unobjectionable as to fairness.
What you say about the growing intelligence of the yeomen & the younger tenant farmers is one of the most gratifying things I have heard for a long time. If that improvement is general in the rural districts, political & social progress are safe even where the obstacles to them are strongest.
What you say of the possibility of reaction arising from religious feeling is very true, & it has long been a subject of grief to me that those feelings of religion which belong to the best parts of human nature shd not only be turned to mischief by their association with dogmas confusing to the intellect & very often, I am sorry to say, perverting the moral sense, but that also they shd actually be themselves the cause of dissension between the very persons who are most deeply imbued with them; those who feel them most strongly disliking most just those who also feel them most strongly, with whom they ought to be the firmest allies. Thus the most genuinely pious among the Catholics are often the most bitter against the Protestants, those among the C[hurch] of E[ngland] against Dissenters, those among the Dissenters against Deists &c &c. This is comparatively speaking an old evil, & one which it is comparatively difficult to remove, because when people hold very strongly particular dogmas it is natural that they shd specially dislike those who hold with equal intensity to other dogmas specifically contradictory to their own.
But I have long thought that what we now want in the present stage of the world is a union among all those men (& women) who are deeply impressed with the fundamental essence of religion, in so far as religion affects this world. To you I need scarcely point out that the special characteristic of Xtianity as opposed to most other religions is that it insists that religion does affect this world; making charity to our fellow-creatures & good actions the criterion of a good man. Now this is also the fundamental doctrine of those who are called Atheists as well as of those whose religious opinions are founded on individual convictions & are not therefore altogether in accordance with any of the sects. Honesty, self sacrifice, love of our fellow-creatures, & the desire to be of use in the world, constitute the true point of resemblance between those whose religion however overlaid with dogmas is genuine, & those who are genuinely religious without any dogmas at all. I have often been amazed that there are not more Xtians who perceive that Xtianity (I do not myself think however that any Xtian sect comes up to this ideal) forms a point of union for all men in this point of view. Now if those men who from any peculiarities of mental constitution—whether superiority or inferiority to the general average—find themselves unable to accept any dogmatic religion whatever, not even the dogmas of natural religion, are to continue to wrap up their doubts in mystery, to be afraid to speak out, & to be the object of abuse whenever they do, a strong premium is put upon dishonesty on their part, & those among them who have a great deal of natural energy of character are drawn into a violence of language which hurts the feelings of other people & arouses in themselves something of that very intolerance from which they are sufferers. They are led to speak without respect & without tolerance of the religious convictions they do not share. In doing so they excite just resentment on the part of genuinely religious people, who would be the best qualified to sympathise in their honesty & disinterestedness, & those who really profit by the result are the hypocrites of all parties. Those who make religion a matter of worldly success & profit take care to draw the moral from all this that if a man once gives up the formal dogmas there can be no unison of feeling between him & pious men; those who have not a trace of religious feeling or religious conviction of any kind whatever but who have not the smallest wish to sacrifice a particle of worldly consequence & success are confirmed in the opinion that if they allowed the world in general to know the true state of their mind on religious matters they would become objects of opprobrium & deep seated dislike such as they see the outspoken men of their own opinions to be.
Now you will see how all this applies to Bradlaugh. Few people feel more dislike than I do to anybody who can use insulting expressions to that which excites the respect of their fellow creatures, or who treats with ingratitude those influences to which the world owes so much. A tender respect for every worthy & pious feeling, & a pious tenderness towards the past, constitute to my mind important elements of the religious character without which no character can be complete or altogether worthy of respect. But a courageous willingness to face opprobrium, an urgent need to speak the truth, a kind of necessity to fight against all falsehood & hypocrisy, are no less important elements of true religion. Some men will excel in some of these elements, some in others. “A diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.” I do not doubt in my own mind that many Ritualists who are or who fancy themselves ready to go to the stake for the cause of smart dresses in Church; Dissenters who will go to prison rather than pay Church rates; C[hurch] of E[ngland] missionaries who distribute Bibles among the Chinese, are the true brothers in spirit of Mr Bradlaugh. Like him they rush to excess in following out their opinions, but like him they act upon the principle that there are other things in this world better worth exertion than this world’s goods. I myself know very little of Mr B. but I do happen to know that he has taken up several points of opinion which it is to be supposed are obnoxious to the working classes, although it is from the working classes alone that he can look for support & influence. I know that he offends the upper classes by his democracy, the middle classes by his atheism, & the working classes by Malthusianism, not to speak of the representation of minorities & of women—not very popular ideas either of them. How far Mr B. supports any of these opinions in the same manner or on the same grounds that I shd do myself I have not watched his career sufficiently closely to know. I do know that he supports some of them very differently from the way I think right. But I do not see how one can escape from the conviction that he is a brave man: & nobody can have heard him speak without believing him to be a clever one; so that he could probably push his way by more commonplace means if he chose to give up his opinions. I cannot say that I volunteered to support him as I did Odger (the only man I have volunteered to support) but when I was asked to do so, it seemed to me that it would have been fundamentally irreligious, because fundamentally cowardly & self-interested, to shrink back. We want now to establish a bond of union—public spirit & practical good deeds—between all disinterested men. They ought all to stand by one another, whatever their opinions, on this ground, & on this ground alone. Again & again, since this doctrine was taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan & in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, the battle has had to be fought for it; it is not half so bitter a struggle now as it was in former times, but there is a good deal of bitterness left, most of which bitterness however is imported into it by the hypocrites, who use it as a weapon for their own purposes.
1342.
TO GEORGE GROTE
Dec. 1. 1868
My dear Grote
I am extremely obliged to you for your kindness about the note on Aristotle’s theory of Universals, to which I look forward with great pleasure, and which will be a contribution to the value of the book such as no one but yourself could give. I am very grateful also for the kind things you say about my defeat in Westminster. Except as a part of the general rout of men of brains or of strong opinions at these elections, I doubt if my rejection is to be regretted even on public grounds, and on private it is most heartily to be rejoiced at. I do not gather from my friends in Westminster any very clear accounts of the cause of my defeat, but I put it down myself mainly to three causes: the inferiority of the organisation directed by a Committee to that which is pushed by one individual; the immense influence of money; and the dislike of the Vestries to the Metropolitan Bill. With such good causes as these, every little helps to swell the general result, and with Disraeli for a leader the Tories are better fitted to take advantage of every possible chance than they have been for a long time. Of course, if my own rashness cost the seat, I should not the less have done what I have done, for after all Gladstone can better afford to lose one vote than I and those who care for me can afford that I should not act up to my principles. But, as a matter of fact, I greatly doubt whether Bradlaugh, Bouverie, &c. are at all accountable for my defeat.
Helen thanks you very much for your kind mention of her in your letter. But she feels the relief if possible with even more pleasure than I do. Her health suffers very much from the English climate, and she is very deeply imbued with the conviction that one true principle set afloat in the world does more for progress than a hundred points of practical detail. I am not sure whether she did not dislike my being in Parliament more than I did myself, as she certainly suffered more from it in health: but she would not give in, and made it a point of pride to encourage me to stay at the post as long as there seemed any chance of my doing anything at it. On the whole, we both feel that circumstances have decided well for us. We think I was able to do some good work while I was in the House, and we look forward with delight to being able now to work in a much pleasanter manner. I shall soon have the Analysis ready for the press and have other projects in view.
With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, whose health we hope continues to improve, I am
My dear Grote
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
George Grote Esq.
1343.
TO S. ALFRED STEINTHAL
Avignon, 1st December 1868.
Dear Mr Steinthal,—
The result of the new elections, now that they are complete, appears to be on the whole unfavourable to the cause of women’s suffrage. The new members in favour of it are but few, and there have been losses among both its Tory and Liberal supporters. It appears therefore improbable that any efficient stand can be made on this subject in the House of Commons this session; and I have long been of opinion, and expressed myself strongly to that effect last year, that it would be injurious to the cause if a division should take place leaving us with smaller numbers than in the former division. It would be doubly injurious, first by seeming to show a reaction in public opinion against us, and secondly, by depriving us, as it very probably would, of the prestige of Mr John Bright’s name, which at present we are able to boast.
Shortly before the late elections I received (and I suppose other expected Members of Parliament received also) a circular which I enclose, which was addressed to me in a blank cover. The announcement it contained seemed singularly injudicious at a moment when it was quite unknown what would be the character of the new House, and the question ill timed, being addressed to men who might not be, and some of whom have not proved to be, in it. I cannot help thinking that you will agree with me that the most judicious way of bringing the subject before the House of Commons is by petition, and if possible, by a petition on a far greater scale than has been yet attempted. A really extensively signed petition on the part of the women of the kingdom, with those men who desire with them an alteration of the law in their favour, is the proper reply to the authoritative decision that the law is now against them. Indeed, if it were a good occasion for bringing forward a Bill in the House of Commons, and if all promised favourably for an influential increase of the votes on our side, it would still be most desirable to show that out of the House as well as in it, and among women as well as men, there exists a strong desire for their representation. And while the feeling is still fresh among those women who have been disappointed of the power to vote, is the time for asking them to petition. It would show but little perseverance in women if they cannot go on year after year asking for this change of the law, when we remember with what patience these sorts of petitions are continually renewed for the various political objects which men desire. If we compare the amount of petitioning that women have yet had patience for, with the numbers sent up year after year on the comparatively small grievance of Church rates, it would almost seem to justify the assertions of those who say that women are not yet fit for political rights if they are already wearied out. The desire to produce éclat and great results with small means, and effects that should tell at once rather than that should prepare the way silently for the future, are indeed what we have to fear from inexperienced politicians. It seems very advisable to show women that they have a means in their own hands of quietly and steadily pressing their claims upon the legislature, and encourage them to begin that great lesson of steady, silent, persevering effort by which every class and nation has to be fitted for freedom.
1344.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
Dec. 2. 1868
Dear Mr Plummer
I thank you for your kind letter of Nov. 18. It is a great gratification to me that so many of my friends thought me sufficiently useful in the House of Commons to regret my absence from it. But, with the command I now have of my time I hope to be of more use by writing than I had any prospect of being in the Parliament just elected.
With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am
Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1345.
TO HERBERT SPENCER
Dec. 2. 1868.
Dear Mr Spencer
I had the pleasure of seeing your friend Dr Youmans before leaving England. I have told him that your letter, combined with his Prospectus, made me look upon his projected publication as one which I should be very glad to aid, and that I may be able to send an occasional contribution, but that, even when out of Parliament, I have so little time for periodical writing, that I cannot hold out any definite expectation. Dr Youmans expressed a desire to make arrangements for the publication in America, simultaneously with England, of any future books I may publish, and in this respect it is probable that I may be able to meet his wishes.
I have been wanting to write to you ever since I read carefully through the new edition of your First Principles and the whole of your Biology, which formed a very interesting part of my occupations during the last recess. But I had to get to other work, and meanwhile many things which I had it in my mind to say to you have escaped my memory. If worth saying they will again occur to me when I refer to your books, which are not of a kind to make one rest contented with a single reading. This I may say, that I have seldom been more strongly impressed by any scientific treatise than by your Biology; that it has greatly enhanced my sense of the importance of your philosophical enterprise as a whole; and that, altogether apart from the consideration of what portion of your conclusions, or indeed of your scientific premises, have yet been brought into the domain of proved truth, the time had exactly come when one of the greatest services that could be rendered to knowledge was to start from those premises, simply as a matter of hypothesis, and see how far they will go to form a possible explanation of the concrete parts of organization and life. That they should go so far as they do, fills me with wonder; and I do not doubt that your book, like Darwin’s, will form an era in thought in its particular subject, whatever be the scientific verdict ultimately pronounced on its conclusions; of which my knowledge of the subject matter does not qualify me to judge.
I look forward with great delight to occupations for myself, more allied to yours than those to which so much of my time has been devoted for the last three years; and I share your doubt whether the quieter mode of usefulness which is so much more agreeable to myself, is not also, in my case, the most efficacious. I am on the point of sending to press a new edition of my father’s Analysis of the Mind, with copious notes and additions by Bain and myself, which, bringing up the doctrines of the book to the present level, will give one more classical work to the Experience Psychology. I am
Dear Mr Spencer
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Herbert Spencer Esq.
1346.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Dec. 4. 1868
Dear Mr Cairnes
I had the great pleasure of receiving your letter of Nov. 9 while I was in England for the elections, and I afterwards saw a letter from you to Thornton written on the news of my defeat. From this last I learnt that your health was somewhat better since your return to Nice. It is very pleasant that the climate of Nice seems to suit you, and to be at least not unfavourable to Mrs Cairnes, of whose improvement in health you report so satisfactorily.
I am very grateful for the kind interest you shew in my health and feelings, but for neither need you feel the smallest anxiety. It must be remembered that I am not alone to do my work, and that it is the work not of one but of two persons. The cold I had when on the hustings soon abated, and is now, I may say, gone; leaving me in every respect in my usual health. And I really have much difficulty in feeling as I ought to do about what is a real defeat to advanced Liberal opinions, so great and fresh is the pleasure of the feeling of freedom, and the return to the only occupations which agree with my tastes and habits. I hope to be quite as active for my opinions out of the House as I was in it, and more usefully so than I probably should have been during the next Session (if not Sessions) during which the Irish Church will engross nearly all the activity of Parliamentary men. You are the only person who seems to me to feel about the Irish Church exactly as we do.
There is discouragement in the general rejection by the constituencies, of candidates whose claims were either those of culture or of democracy. But when one looks into the circumstances, the case is not so bad as it seems. Things had so fallen out, through management or neglect of management, that almost all the new University Liberals, and almost all the working class candidates were sent to the forlorn hopes. How could a Liberal expect to carry Woodstock, or Chippenham, or even Abingdon? and how could a working man come in for Warwick, or the hundreds of Aylesbury? When one adds to this that the new electors were not likely to get into organised concert until they were sure that they were on the register, which numbers of them were not till the very eve of the dissolution, there is nothing in this part of the results so ominous of the future as it at first appears. On the other hand, the unanimity of Scotland, and the great Liberal gains in Ulster, are of excellent augury, as shewing that a large portion of the Presbyterians, even in the North of Ireland, are going in for disestablishment. The lukewarmness on the subject which you observed in the Catholic priests, makes the greatness of the gains in the Irish elections more remarkable, since it must be ascribed mainly to the laity.
I quite agree with you that the best chance of resisting the retrograde step of making Irish education denominational, lies in delay. If two or three years can be gained, we may hope that England will have entered so decidedly into undenominationalizing education, that it will be difficult to make a change in Ireland the reverse way. This is the one question on which it seems to me that I might perhaps have been of some use in this Parliament; because mischief may be done, which might be at least mitigated by any one person’s raising his voice against it, or even sometimes by mere lobby work among the members. However, we must look to Lowe.
I regret very much the rejection of Chadwick who seemed latterly to have a good chance of success, and who would have been a more valuable acquisition to the House than any one man I can think of. Bradlaugh is, as you say, not a working man: but if he had been repudiated generally by the artisan class, he could hardly have obtained upwards of 1000 votes. I feel an interest in him not merely because of the religious cry raised against him, but because he is as willing to stand up for opinions disliked by the working classes, as for those by which he might hope to recommend himself to them: witness his earnest Malthusianism, his support of women’s suffrage, and his intelligent and thorough advocacy of Hare’s system.
I shall be very glad to see any further remarks of Mr McDonnell on the subject of [his] essay. The difficulty of establishing a d[emocratic?] government in the Southern States is, no doubt, considerable, the white population being what it is. But every month’s experience makes me feel more and more, what an evil it would have been to have left a nucleus of legal and recognised slavery even in the smallest corner of the Union.
Helen is in at least her usual health, and is likely to get much better now, for the relief to her from our return to more healthy circumstances is such as any one would hardly believe possible. She bore up most heroically and wished me to remain in harness while it seemed a duty to do so, but it was at the cost of gradually drying up her springs of life.
With our kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
J. E. Cairnes Esq.
1347.
TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN
Decr 4. 1868
My dear Mrs Kyllmann
I have just received yours of the 2nd which must have crossed my answer to your former letter and from which I learn with regret that my delay in answering was mistakenly attributed by you to reluctance to enter on the subject. My delay was caused by my wish to shew your letter to Mr Mill before I answered it, by his absence in England at the time I received it & by the press of other business causing one or two days delay after his return.
I am sure no one could think your letter other than most delicate, & the request in it most reasonable. Had we known at the time I answered it that you felt as strongly as from your last letter we see you do, in which feeling we most fully sympathize, I shd not have hesitated myself to enter more fully into the subject.
The letter I mentioned to you in my last was very far from the first of the same sort I have received, & if I may judge by the apparently studied discourtesy which has been shewn to us, of the habitual manner in which friends & subscribers are treated by the Manchester branch of the National Society, I believe that exceedingly few persons but ourselves would have continued in spite of it to be as liberal as we have been. That such habits must have the effect of alienating friends from the cause I have long felt with regret. I was not aware, of course, until I heard from you, that the urgent requests for money by which the M. Committee has been distinguished from all the other branches of the Society, were not authorized by the Committee meetings. However much offended & pained we have felt by many things we did not choose to withdraw altogether our pecuniary support when we supposed it was urgently needed: but we did, by insisting that the larger part of it shd be given entirely in your name, endeavour to secure its application to the purposes we desired.
We were greatly pleased to find that you are again Treasurer, as we had hoped to be able to communicate with you occasionally on these matters in future, & our last subscn to the M. Comee would have been considerably smaller in amount had we not wished to secure you against loss. We never for a moment supposed that you were cognizant of any of the letters we received unless when they had been directed to be written by the Comee. How far this last was the case we were of course unable to judge, but we supposed that although the particular terms were not dictated by the Cee, the request was made by its directions. We certainly thought that as our subscns had been made for two trials & only one came on, there would have been more delicacy shewn if some part had been returned, or some statement of the expenses incurred had been forwarded to us. Our experience however did not lead us to expect anything of the sort.
It is with very great sorrow I find that my unfortunate delay shd have caused you to think that we in any degree attributed any of all this to you. We have often deeply regretted the loss of our friend & his invaluable services in this as in every other good cause & that it should have brought with it what seemed the very natural consequence that your own health shd keep you out of the active part of the Cee. I am sure you will understand that we cannot for a moment think of accepting your generous inclosure. We have felt from the first moment of seeing your name in the newspapers that in giving your name & being willing to take the responsibility of expense if need be you have done fully your part. I therefore beg of you to allow us to share with you as we wished to do in the enterprise, & if your share of the expenses of the appeal have amounted to £50, we shd wish to pay it all. Moreover I do not understand what complications may have arisen with the M. Cee and we are most anxious that you shd not be involved in any misunderstandings in the matter. If the funds we subscribed for the expenses of your appeal have been applied to any other purpose, we will not consent to your making it good to us. If we consented to this, our purpose would be doubly thwarted. Money would have been applied to objects for which we had no intention of advancing it & the final result of the whole transaction would be that you are a loser.
There is so much that is unsatisfactory for some time past about the management of the M Cee that we feel we had better not be concerned in it for the present. For while we feel that we have ourselves been the objects of marked rudeness, we feel that as long as our names are connected with it we might be held responsible in some measure for rudeness of the same sort towards other people. But as it appears to us most desirable for the interests of the cause that there should be no dissensions among its supporters, we have not chosen to express our feelings to the Cee as a body, even shd we wish to withdraw our help when it is engaged in doing useful work which we alone are willing to help effectually. For this reason it is that we have gone on subscribing & have asked no questions about the application of our last subscriptions.
But if you judge that by the Committee or any of its members being aware of our feelings any good purpose could be served we are quite willing that anything I have said shd be made use of for the purpose.
H. Taylor
1348.
TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN
Dec 4 1868
My dear Mrs Kyllmann
May I ask you to inform your Committee that it is my own and Miss Taylor’s desire to withdraw our names from the Manchester So[ciety] for W[omen] S[uffrage]
J. S. Mill
Mrs Max Kyllmann
1349.
TO JOHN CANDLISH
A[vignon] Dec. 7, 1868
Dear Mr Candlish—
A thousand thanks for your kind & warm hearted letter. It is not altogether a selfish pleasure to be glad to be so regretted; for the assurance that friends like you think after trial that my presence was really useful in the H. of Commons is an evidence I could ill spare that I did not commit an error of judgment when I exchanged another mode of usefulness for the far less congenial one of a seat in Parlt. In returning to my older & more natural mode of activity I shall not lose the feeling which my three years in Parlt have given me, of brotherhood in arms with those who are still there fighting the battles of advanced liberalism, & I shall always be happy & proud to cooperate with them out of the House, either by my pen or otherwise.
1350.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
Dec. 7. 1868
Dear Mr Fawcett
You will, I am sure, understand that my not having acknowledged your letter of Nov. 20 until I have nearly brought up the arrears of my correspondence, was not because I felt little, but because you do not need any fresh assurances to know how much I do feel. I am not the less touched at the regrets of my friends because I myself have no need of consolation. On the contrary, we are in the first flush of enjoyment of our recovered freedom, and in better cue than we have been a long while for working hard and efficiently for our opinions. The elections, though so unfavourable to candidates of advanced opinions, have given us a House capable of the immediate work it had to do, viz. to make Gladstone minister, and disestablish the Irish Church. Between this and the next General Election, the working classes will have time to organize their political action, and to insist upon having an equal share of influence in the choice of candidates: and it is then, and not before, that Chadwicks will prevail over Bouveries and Odgers over Henry Hoares. Meanwhile it is a great satisfaction to me that you are still in the House to assert great principles, and that you are as unlikely a man as any one there to be easily discouraged. I need hardly say that I am always at your command for any help I can give you out of the House, and that not meeting you there, I shall hope to see you oftener at Blackheath.
Mrs Fawcett’s article has given us as much pleasure in the Fortnightly as it did when we first had the opportunity of reading it. Pray give her Helen’s and my kind regards. I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
Henry Fawcett Esq. M.P.
1351.
TO HENRY G. MACKSON
Dec. 7. 1868
Dear Sir
Your letter of the 29th ulto has just reached me.
The “Analysis of the Mind” has long been out of print, but a new edition will shortly be published with notes and additions by myself and others. I am not aware that the History of British India is out of print, and I should suppose that the edition which was published with a continuation by the late Professor Wilson, could be procured from Allen in Leadenhall Street, formerly bookseller to the East India Company. The publisher of the edition, Mr Madden, has, I am almost sure, given up business, but I do not know into whose hands his copyrights passed.
I thank you sincerely for your kind condolences on my defeat at Westminster; which was, I believe, mainly due to superior organisation and lavish expenditure of money on the other side, and only in a very minor degree to any prejudice against myself, religious or other. To me the recovery of my freedom, and return to more congenial and I hope quite as useful occupation, is wholly a good. I am
Dear Sir
yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
H. G. Mackson Esq
1352.
TO R. C. MADGE
Dec. 7. 1868
Dear Sir—
The earnest & kindly letter which I have just received from the Committee of the Chelsea Working Men’s Parliamentary Electoral Association gives me very great pleasure. That the élite of the working classes should think so kindly of me & should attach so much importance to my political services, I feel to be a subject of just pride, since it has been given to me not in spite of, but, as I believe partly in consequence of, my having made no sacrifices of my honest convictions to obtain it. It is because I have never concealed from the working classes, any more than from any other class, my differences of opinion with them, & my determination not to be the organ in parliament of any opinions not my own, that they have had confidence in my sincerity when I professed to agree with them, & have never failed to give me a patient, a respectful, & even a sympathetic hearing on the points on which we differed.
If the electors of the working classes continue to guide themselves in the choice & treatment of their representatives by the same principles & feelings which have governed their conduct towards me, the progress of democracy will soon cease to give uneasiness to any sincere & reasonable minds.
There is much which is gratifying & something which is disappointing in the results of the General Election. It has decided, thoroughly & irrevocably, the question of religious equality in Ireland, in the only way which could be tolerated in the present age, the impartial disendowment of all sects: & has to that extent lightened the burthen of the reparation due to the people of that ill-treated country for centuries of misrule. It has also raised to the place of highest power the one English minister of past or present times who has best deserved, & has obtained in largest measure, the confidence of the labouring classes. On the other hand, those classes, though to their votes the liberal party principally owes its victory, are far from having had their just influence in the selection of the members who represent the party in the new H. of Commons. No working man has been a successful candidate; even so distinguished a member of the working class as Mr Odger, the ignorant attacks on whom have only served to bring forth from all sides additional tributes to his worth has found, even in your metropolitan borough, that the zeal of his supporters could not compete with the greater wealth & superior organization of other candidates & when this was ascertained, he honourably consented to withdraw. Those new candidates who though not working men, possessed the special confidence of the working classes, or who combined high education & culture with advanced opinions, have in general been equally unsuccessful.
It was not to be expected that there could be much organisation & concert among voters who, when the election took place, had only just been put on the electoral roll. But if these things happen a second time, the new electors will have chiefly themselves to blame.
Public opinion will in time demand the only complete remedy, the adoption of Personal Representation, by which the electors would be enabled to group themselves as they pleased, & any electors who chose to combine could be represented, in exact proportion to their numbers, by men of their own personal choice. But as this great improvement in representative Govt is not yet ripe for adoption, what should be done now is that the working classes should assert their right to an equal voice with the Liberals of the higher & middle classes in the choice of Liberal candidates. Where a place returns two members, one of these should be a candidate specially acceptable to the working classes: where there is but one, he shd be selected in concert by both sections of liberals. Thus much the working classes are fairly entitled to, & thus much if they insist, they will obtain; for liberal candidates can in most places no more be elected without their cooperation, than elected by them alone, without the cooperation of others.
There is one thing more which demands the immediate & most strenuous efforts of the working classes & of all who wish the recent change in our representative institutions to be more than nominal. The real cause of the failure of working class candidates & of so many other advanced liberals in the late contests, is the inordinate expense of elections. In a great majority of these cases, if money had had no influence, or if the expenditure of it had been equal on both sides, the popular candidate would in all probability have succeeded. If the working classes ever wish to be more genuinely represented than they are, they should make a united & energetic appeal to Parlt to clear away this obstacle to their representation. They should demand that the necessary expenses of elections be made a public charge, & that the useless & noxious expenses be made illegal & punishable. Some of their best friends vainly exerted themselves to extort measures for this purpose from the last Parliament, but Tories & lukewarm Liberals were too strong for them. Mr. Gladstone however made known both by speech & vote his approbation of the attempt; & we may feel confident that if properly supported by the people he will be no reluctant leader in the accomplishment of this, one of the most urgent as well as essential of remaining Parliamentary reforms. But when there is so great a mass of interested or timid resistance to be encountered, a reform is not properly supported unless it is strenuously urged.
Once more thanking your Committee for their gratifying expression of feeling towards me, I am, &c
J. S. Mill
1353.
TO ARCHIBALD MICHIE
Dec. 7. 1868
Dear Sir
I am much honoured by your thinking it worth while to write so long and interesting a letter for the purpose of convincing me that the people of Victoria are not so far gone in Protectionism as they are thought to be. I have never laid stress on anything contained in the article in the Westr Review, which did not, to my judgment, look like a fair representation. I need not say how glad I should be to believe that the Victoria Protectionists are Protectionists only within the limits of my excepted case, i.e. that they only wish for temporary protection to try the experiment of naturalizing foreign branches of industry. Unfortunately, the writings I have seen on their side of the question (I admit that they are not numerous) make no reservation of the kind, but advocate the general theory of Protection, on the old ignorant grounds, support it by the old stock fallacies, and refer to the stupidest authorities, British, American, and Continental, as a sanction for it. All this is very natural. The Protectionist theory appears plain common sense to persons thoroughly ignorant of the subject; and industries artificially fostered, even though it be professedly for a time only, raise up private interests which combine, as they have done in the United States but too effectually, to convert what was intended as a temporary expedient into a permanent institution; (though the thick end of the wedge seldom follows the thin end at so short an interval as three years). These considerations have greatly shaken the opinion I expressed in my book; and though I still think that the introduction of a foreign industry is often worth a sacrifice, and that a temporary protecting duty if it was sure to remain temporary, would probably be the best shape in which that sacrifice can be made, I am inclined to believe that it is safer to make it by an annual grant from the public treasury, which is not nearly so likely to be continued indefinitely to prop up an industry which has not so thriven as to be able to dispense with it.
I can readily believe that the Free Trade party in Victoria is swelled by the private self interest of importing merchants; but a cause seldom triumphs unless somebody’s personal interest is bound up with it. It would have been long before the corn laws would have been abolished in Great Britain if, besides the public interests concerned, those laws had not been contrary to the private interests of nearly the whole of the manufacturing and mercantile classes.
It gives me extreme pleasure that you approve of what I have said and done to promote the admission of women to the political franchise. If your important and rising community could be induced to adopt this great social improvement (if I am rightly informed, it is adopted already at your municipal elections) it would not be the first time that a colony has outstripped the mother country in the introduction of improved principles of legislation.
With many thanks for your [offer] of information which it may be a great advantage to me to be able to obtain from so good a source, I am
Dear Sir
yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
Hon. Arch. Michie.
1354.
TO ALEXANDER T. TEETGEN
Dec. 7. 1868
Dear Sir
Though your poetry had been equal to Shelley’s, it probably would not have covered the original sin of your opinions in the eyes of such critics as the one in the London Review.
Even he, however, gives you credit for “some poetic ability.” But I am inclined to think that at the present period of the world, ability (except perhaps in the case of the very highest order of poetic genius) is thrown away when it addresses itself to the world by means of verse. The time for poetic composition may come round again; but it will be a quieter time, after several great battles have been fought and won. Both the instruction and the exhortation necessary for winning them, is much more effectually given in prose.
With respect to your wish that I should review your poem, I can only say, as before, that I have not time; nor is poetic criticism in the line of my pursuits. I am
Dear Sir
yrs very faithfully
J. S. Mill
A. T. Teetgen Esq
1355.
TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS
Dec. 9. 1868
Dear Sir
I have communicated to my publishers, Messrs Longmans, that I had received a proposal from an American house to take moulds from the types of the forthcoming new edition of my father’s Analysis of the Mind with a view to the simultaneous publication of an edition in America; & they have consented to my reserving this right. Should you therefore still be of the same mind on this subject I shall be very glad to hear further from you in relation to it.
1356.
TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS
Dec. 10. 1868
Dear Sir—
Since I wrote to you I have received a more definite letter from Mr Longman, in which he says “with regard to the stipulation as to the American publisher of the Analysis, we are quite ready to supply them with stereotype plates, but I think they ought to pay something more than the mere cost of casting. It would be fair that they should also pay a proportion of the cost of setting the type. About 15 per cent on this cost would probably be sufficient. It is to be remembered that the cost of setting the types of a book intended to be stereotyped is greater than when this is not the case.”
It is for you to consider whether you regard Mr Longman’s proposal as acceptable.
1357.
TO THOMAS BEGGS
Dec. 11. 1868
Dear Sir—
Pray excuse my long delay in answering your letter. I have no doubt that as you say our defeat in W[estminster] is owing to the good organisation & discipline of the Tories, to their lavish expenditure, much of which according to your account must have come within the legal penalties of treating, & to their having on their side a large number of practised electioneers, & perhaps some of them vestrymen, offended by the municipal bills. It is of great importance that W[estminster] shd redeem itself, & I heartily wish you success in your endeavours. At the same time, if we take a large view of the subject, it appears to me that it is more conducive to the growth of high political principle in the electors & consequently to the permanent political progress of the nation, that the liberal party in any constituency shd occasionally suffer defeat from the scrupulous purity of the means it employs, than that it shd practise tactics unworthy of a good cause & thereby win a seeming success by means subversive of the principles to which the party owes its life. It is very painful to all true liberals to see their own constituency represented by a Tory in Parlt. Yet I think that this sometimes may be a wholesome humiliation if it stimulates them to redoubled efforts to arouse the political energies of the constituency by all morally legitimate & honorable means. The true humiliation is when honorable men become in the words of the Psalm, “emulous of evil doers,” & despairing of serving a good cause by good means, fancy that a temporary discomfiture is a permanent defeat & have recourse to methods of achieving success which are quite as humiliating as, & infinitely more mischievous than, defeat itself. It is much to be hoped that the advanced liberal party which has to a certain extent, owing partly to its want of organisation & partly to the results of its scrupulous adherence to perfectly honourable means, sustained a comparative defeat all over the country, will not despair of future success by such means, but will remember that so great & so important a reform as purity of election cannot be won at once nor until after having sustained many partial reverses.
I must take this opportunity of thanking you & the other kind friends who supported me in W. for their zealous support & for the thorough manner in which they carried out the principles on which I stood: & I can assure you that although I had not personally any desire to be in the H. of C. I did not on that account neglect anything that I thought it right for me to do or not to do for the purpose of securing my election. I can sincerely say (& it is due to the electors of W. that it shd have been so) that I acted in all things as I shd have done had my career been dependent upon my success. Whatever I did that might seem to have perilled my return, I did not do because I was indifferent to my return, for as an honorable politician I could never be indifferent to the return of any liberal candidate, & as candidate for W. I was doubly bound in honor to exert myself for the liberal representation of the constituency: which motive I am sure you will do me the justice to believe, was fully as strong in my mind as the desire to be in Parlt could be in the mind of any ambitious young politician. If, therefore, I felt myself obliged to do some things which it is very likely. . . .
1358.
TO EDWARD WILLIAM STAFFORD
Dec. 11. 1868
Dear Sir—
When I had the honour of receiving your letter of Sept. 4 my time was so fully occupied with our great electoral struggle & other things, that I have been obliged to defer answering it till now.
I have had a rather extensive correspondence with various persons in Australia respecting the sanction supposed to be given by the passage which you quote from my Pol. Econ. to the Protectionist doctrines there afloat. One of my most recent explanatory letters which was addressed to Mr Holden, Member of the Legislative Council of N. S. Wales, has been printed in the newspapers of that Colony, & it is not unlikely that since writing your letter you may have seen it.
The Protecting Duties which I thought might sometimes be advisable in a young country for the purpose of ascertaining by experiment the suitability of its circumstances for the naturalisation of foreign branches of industry, are duties expressly imposed for a limited time, not exceeding a few years (say from five to twelve or thereabouts according to the case) & to cease peremptorily at the end of the period unless it could be conclusively shewn that the facilities given by the duties had been fairly used, but required some further & still more strictly limited time to make the experiment a fair one.
Some Australians have assured me that the Australian Protectionists do not carry their Protectionist proclivities beyond this point. I observe however that the protectionist interests which are fostered by the protecting duties, are raising up as they have always done elsewhere, protectionist theories of the old type & that the most exploded fallacies of the mercantile system are revived, with a simple ignorance of all that has been written & proved against them, which is strange to minds accustomed to the subject as usually discussed in Europe.
There is great danger that the duties even if imposed ostensibly for a time only, would at the expiration of the time, or before it, have been made permanent: that they were not, I believe, in any case, imposed as temporary duties but were as permanent as any Acts of the Colonial Parliaments.
I am now much shaken in the opinion, which has so often been quoted for purposes which it did not warrant; & I am disposed to think that when it is advisable, as it may sometimes be, to subsidize a new industry in its commencement, this had better be done by a direct annual grant, which is far less likely to be continued after the conditions which alone justified it have ceased to exist.
1359.
TO PRISCILLA McLAREN
Dec. 12. 1868
Dear Madam—
Few things could be more gratifying to me than the letter with which I have been honoured by you and your Committee, & I beg you to accept & to convey to the Cee my warmest acknowledgments.
Of all my recollections connected with the H of C that of my having had the honour of being the first to make the claim of women to the suffrage a parliamentary question, is the most gratifying as I believe it to have been the most important public service that circumstances made it in my power to render. This is now a thing accomplished & the cause has a sufficient number of supporters among the best men in the H of C. to carry on as much of the contest as can be conducted there. It remains for the intelligent women of the country to give their moral support to the men who are engaged in urging their claims, & to open the minds of the less intelligent to the fact that political freedom is the only effectual remedy for the evils from which most women are conscious that women suffer. Whatever power I may have to promote this cause outside the H of C I shall not fail to exert to my utmost.
Your expressions of sympathy with my feelings & approbation of my conduct on the subject of the Jamaica atrocities are peculiarly grateful to me, for it has been with especial sorrow that I have seen so many women cold & unmoved at the recital of sufferings which it might have been supposed would at least have aroused some womanly pity, & generous indignation against the perpetrators. It is peculiarly among women who are not aware that it is their duty to use their intelligence on matters of politics, that the severest condemnation of Mr Eyre & his instruments shd have been found, for if such women had possessed the warmth of heart which all women ought to have, their feelings would have been revolted at the tortures inflicted, & they would have considered the reasonings by which they were attempted to be palliated as beyond their province. As it is, the conduct of so many among them has afforded one more evidence that the renunciation of masculine intelligence gives no security for womanly kindness.
1360.
TO JOHN HAYWARD
Dec. 13. 1868
Dear Sir—
I beg to say that in the first place to wish for a man’s success as a parly candidate is not to identify oneself with him: if it were, how could a Catholic vote for a Protestant, a Churchman for a Dissenter, or a Xtian for a Jew? In the second place I did not go out of my way to subscribe to Mr Bradlaugh’s expenses (expenses for which had my own & Mr Fawcett’s amendments to the Bribery Bill been carried last session no subscription would have been needed) but I did not consider myself justified in refusing when asked to lighten the iniquitous expenses which would have prevented an otherwise eligible man from even taking the sense of the electors of Northampton concerning him, merely because either I or other people did not approve of his being, as I have been told he has been, as insolent towards Xtians in general as excellent Xtians have often been towards one another. If you think that the man who will vote for the perpetuation of the oppression of one sect of Xtians by another, as Mr Smith will do, represents you better than I could have done, you did your duty. If not, you must excuse my saying that you appear to me to have allowed an unreflecting displeasure at an unpractical evil to overcome your sense of what as an elector you owe not only to your own country but to a nation which your countrymen have long oppressed.
If Mr B is only generally known for blasphemy, it must be because the facts concerning him are not generally known. I who do not know that he has stood forward as the advocate of many other opinions, the advocating of which must be contrary to his interests, was bound to act upon my better knowledge, and if a long-established character is worth anything, those who have done me the honour to approve of my general line of conduct & my published writings for 30 years & more, might fairly be expected to suppose that I was not likely to support any man for no other reason than that he had made himself remarkable by blasphemy.
The fact that you approved my conduct in the proceedings against Mr Eyre makes me hope that, on further reflection you will see that I was not so much to blame as you imagine about Mr B.
1361.
TO JAMES BEAL
Dec. 14. 1868
Dear Sir
I have not gone deeply into the subject of the treatment of prisoners, tickets of leave, &c. but from all that I have seen & heard upon it I am under the impression that I shd place great reliance upon the opinion of Sir Walter Crofton.
There are, however, some points respecting criminals & the police, on which I have formed a decided opinion of my own, which in each case, were it necessary, I think I could support by a very wide induction. I will not go at length into any of these, but I will just note them down.
1. I observed with satisfaction that one point was judiciously insisted on by Mr Edwin Hill at the meeting at which you attended. It is that there shd be a great increase of efforts to root out the receivers of stolen goods. The receivers are the solid support & foundation of all professional theft, & without them a criminal class, as a class, could not exist. If there were no receivers there could be no professional or habitual thieves; but only casual acts of theft from necessity or temptation, with which it is comparatively easy to deal. Receivers being persons of some pecuniary means, & permanent habitation, it is possible to make them accountable. I am not in a condition to say what means shd be adopted for making receivers of stolen goods more amenable to justice: it requires some one more familiar than I am with the criminal law & with the practice of the criminal courts to say at what point the failure now takes place, but I am satisfied that this is a direction in which the law requires either to be strengthened or to be more vigorously enforced.
2. A great effect in checking crime would be produced by simply abrogating the rule of our criminal procedure which forbids putting questions to the prisoner. I doubt if public opinion is yet prepared for abolishing this rule: yet it might be done without any danger of introducing the evils of the French criminal procedure, which mainly arise from making the judge instead of the counsel the interrogator of the prisoner & witnesses.
3. I am clearly of opinion that the attempt to place criminals who have worked out their sentences under the permanent surveillance of the police, is wrong in principle, & would not work well in practice, necessarily carrying along with it a number of abuses which it would be impossible efficiently to control, besides involving the decision of some other large questions for the decision of which the time is not yet ripe. The difficulty of dealing with those who pick up a livelihood by odd jobs; & with those whose employers know their antecedents but whose fellow workmen do not; would be in its own nature very great, while it would give great scope either for connivance or for oppression by the police. It would be necessary to decide what are lawful means of livelihood & the law would either have to recognise prostitution as a legitimate profession, or to put it down by force. I believe many of those who wish for the permanent surveillance of criminals are desirous also of establishing prostitution on a legitimate basis. I think them completely wrong in principle, & mistaken as to the practical benefits which seem to arise from such a plan; but whether or no, the one change cannot be made without the other, & I believe that a more efficient police force, greater rigour against receivers, greater certainty of conviction & greater steadiness & uniformity in the treatment of convicts, would be much more efficient in reducing crime than any surveillance that it is humanly possible to practise over criminals.
4. The first, the most obvious, & the most important condition of an efficient police is an exceedingly simple one, which while it recommends itself at first sight to every impartial person, has been of late years totally neglected among ourselves, although the insisting upon it alone, without any other reform, would I believe do more to improve the character of the force than all the other measures put together.
This condition is, that no person in the police force be permitted to receive money or gifts of any sort whatever from any private individual. This rule shd be absolute & inflexibly applied. No services of any sort, whether within or without the routine of regular duty, shd be permitted to receive any reward, either honorary or pecuniary, openly or privately, from individuals or from public bodies, except from the superior authorities of the force itself, & then in the way only of avowed promotion & increase of pay. Also the mere acceptance of food or drink or shelter while on duty from any person whatever shd be ipso facto sufficient to ensure expulsion from the force.
It is obvious that employing policemen for private purposes must draw off their time, their attention & their interest, from their public duty. It is a mere sophism to say for instance that if you give a man whose duty it is to watch over the safety of a whole street a few pounds a year to watch more peculiarly over the safety of a few houses in it, it only quickens his zeal for them without diminishing his zeal for the rest. The work for which he receives no extra pay is certain to be considered of minor importance, & to be neglected in favour of that for which he expects special remuneration.
The insidious working of the system of perquisites is even more mischievous than its direct & obvious effects. It may be laid down as a rule of pol. economy that what people get by way of gifts connected with their profession or mode of earning their living, comes in the end to be counted as part of their earnings. Hence, however little they themselves may desire such a result, perquisites invariably have the effect of lowering men’s legitimate & regular pay. This has been found both in higher & lower examples than that of the police force. The working of this rule is well known to all political economists with regard to the agricultural labourers under the old poor law system; it is well known to all reforming politicians with regard to the perquisites of public servants of the highest ranks. I believe it to have acted injuriously upon the moral character of the police force. The fall in the value of money which should be met by increase of pay, is apt to be, I believe has actually been, chiefly met by the increased urgency & ingenuity of the men in eking out their pay by perquisites. This is a natural tendency which can only be combated by liberality in pay on the part of the employers, accompanied by inflexible severity in putting down the perquisite system. This combined liberality & severity is essential precisely in proportion to the responsibility of any employment, and the importance of honesty in it. When the perquisite system is allowed to prevail the best men get the fewest gifts: for they neither are so impudent in putting themselves in the way of gifts, nor so willing to neglect their proper duty for the sake of them. Hence the best men get the worst pay, are disgusted with the force, gladly take other places when they can get them, & leave only the worst men behind. The same reasons apply of course to the enlistment of new men: & step by step the men get worse & worse, carry on the system of favour more openly & impudently year by year, until the disgraceful state of things of the Haymarket is arrived at, while the increasing difficulty of the superiors in finding trustworthy men to replace the untrustworthy causes them to go on tolerating abuses, the toleration of which in its turn makes the men more encroaching, & creates a vicious circle which nothing but a complete change of system can break through.
I am glad to hear the Tory is not to sit for Westr without at least an attempt to protest against it, & I hope the attempt will result in opening the way for a liberal. I can say this the more freely as I am no longer a party concerned.
1362.
TO GEORGE GROTE
Dec. 15. 1868
My dear Grote
I thank you most heartily for your very valuable contribution to the new edition of the Analysis. It is not a particle too long. The strictures it contains on the substantive doctrine of the chapters on Classification and Abstraction, coincide generally with, though they are not in the least superseded by, my own remarks on those chapters; and it is not only very pleasant but a great advantage, to have views substantially similar expressed in a decidedly different manner and propounded under the sanction of your name.
The feeling you have in making dissentient criticisms on the Analysis, I fully share. I have had to express difference of opinion on a number of points, some of them important; and so great a part of my notes is taken up with justifying the dissent that I have an uncomfortable feeling as if I should appear too much in the character of an assailant. I have endeavoured to obviate this by the Preface (or Introduction). I think I ought to quote from it a passage in which I have mentioned your name, which if it meets otherwise with your approbation, you will see may conduce to the same purpose with regard to yourself:
“Such was the effect of his conversation, and of the tone of his character, on those who were within reach of its influence, that many, then young, who have since made themselves honoured in the world by a valuable career, look back to their intercourse with him as having had a considerable share in deciding their course through life. The most distinguished of them all, Mr Grote, has put on record, in a recent publication, his sense of these obligations, in terms equally honourable to both.”
I have entered fully into the distinction between my father’s use of the term cannote and my own, and into the reasons for preferring mine; but there will be no need to cancel more than a few words (if any) of your note in consequence.
I will give orders that a proof be sent to you.
I have always felt the same doubt which you express as to my comparative power of usefulness in and out of the House of Commons. But it was worth giving three years of life to bring the question of Women’s Suffrage to the point it has now reached.
We are delighted to hear so good an account of Mrs Grote’s improved health. Pray give her our kindest regards.
May I request your acceptance of the inclosed cheque, not however as any return for your kindness in turning aside from your work to help in this, for which I am very much indebted to you. I am
My dear Grote
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
George Grote Esq.
1363.
TO [PRINCESS MARIE STCHERBATOV AND ASSOCIATES]
Avignon, Dec. 18, 1868
Mesdames:
I have learned with pleasure, mingled with admiration, that there are found in Russia, women sufficiently enlightened and courageous to demand for their sex a participation in the various branches of higher historical, philological and scientific education, including the practical art of medicine, and to gain for this cause important support from the scientific world. That is what the most enlightened persons are asking, without having yet attained it, in the other countries of Europe. Thanks to you, Mesdames, Russia is perhaps about to surpass them in speed; it would be a proof that civilization relatively recent, sometimes accepts before the older civilizations great ideas of amelioration. The equal advent of both sexes to intellectual culture is important not only to women, which is assuredly a sufficient recommendation, but also to universal civilization. I am profoundly convinced that the moral and intellectual progress of the male sex runs a great risk of stopping, if not receding, as long as that of the women remains behind, and that, not only because nothing can replace the mother for the education of children, but also because the influence upon man himself of the character and ideas of the companions of his life cannot be insignificant; woman must either push him forward or hold him back. I applaud with all my heart your efforts and those of the enlightened men who support them, and I reckon upon the perseverence of which you have already shewn proof, as a guarantee that you will not become discouraged, and that you will assert by every means the justice of your cause, which, in an enlightened age, bids fair to meet in a short time an assured success.
Pray receive, Mesdames, the sincere expression of my high esteem and lively sympathy.
J. Stuart Mill
1364.
TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS
Dec. 20. 1868
Dear Sir—
Owing to the peculiar sensitiveness which both of us are aware of in Mr Spencer, it is to be feared that he would be displeased at anything that would look like an advertisement or a testimonial; & it would be well if the purpose you have in view & which I greatly wish to promote, could be attained by something written ostensibly for a different purpose. Your suggestion of putting something quotable into the book I am now editing, is of this nature, & there are already passages in it respecting Mr Spencer that would serve for quotation; but they refer to the Psychology, not to the First Principles or the Biology, & it would be difficult to find a good occasion for referring to either of these in a book exclusively psychological. There is in the 13th chapter of my Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy the following sentence: “This last extract is from Mr Herbert Spencer whose Principles of Psychology in spite of some doctrines which he holds in common with the intuitive school, are on the whole one of the finest examples we possess of the Psychological Method in its full power.” Mr Spencer is mentioned with honour in several other parts of the same work. If none of these passages will serve the purpose, or if you think it desirable in addition to have something from me, in which the First Principles & Biology are spoken of to the same effect as in my letter to Mr Spencer, I think the best way would be for you, or some one else, to write me a letter asking my opinion on those works, as if for private satisfaction.
From the date of your letter I am afraid you must have left England before receiving two letters which I wrote to you from Avignon on the 9th & 10th, respecting the conditions in which Messrs Longmans were willing to consent to the proposal you made for taking moulds from the type of the new edition of the “Analysis of the Human Mind.” If you have returned to America there will not now be time to make any such arrangement for the present book as it is now partly in the printer’s hands & I wish to bring it out as soon as possible. But as the same question may occur again, & as my letters may not have been forwarded to you from the Langham hotel, I will quote Mr Longman’s words
“With regard &c
I did not mention your name to Mr Longman but only spoke of “an American house.”
1365.
TO WILLIAM T. MALLESON
Avignon, 25th December 1868.
Dear Sir,—
When I received your letter I was on the point of writing to you to say that when I wrote to M. Esquiros I had not the remotest idea that my letter would be published; for had I intended it for publication, as perhaps you supposed I did from the manner in which it was inserted in the Star, I should not have omitted to make honourable mention of your name. I was greatly surprised to see it, and still more to see the manner in which it was inserted in the Star. I do not know how my friend M. Esquiros came to consent to its publication, for I am sure he would not have done so had he known my feeling against the publication of private letters without the permission of the writer. I certainly did infer from your published letter that you thought me wrong, not in the things I did, but in doing them without sufficient consideration for my constituents. I am therefore very glad to hear from yourself that that was not your feeling.
Although I think it is to be regretted that you thought it necessary to give publicity to any difference of opinion between us, I might have been tempted to reply publicly to your letter myself, but I think it better to abstain than to give a handle for those who would be delighted to see anything like apparent dissension.
If I have not written to you before now, thanking you for your exertions in the election, it has been from the tendency to say least to those in whom one feels the fullest confidence. I felt so sure of your public spirit that I have thought you could not possibly doubt my esteem nor care for any expressions of gratitude from me for services to the cause in which we are fellow-workers.
I had occasion some little time ago to write to Mr Beggs in reply to a letter from him, and in doing so I said what I would have been far more willing to see published than anything else I have written on the subject, inasmuch as I assured him that I had omitted nothing that conscience and sense of public duty would allow me to do to secure my return for Westminster. However little I personally wished to be returned, I felt that I owed it to my constituents to do all that lay in my power to succeed; but I did not feel that I owed it either to them or to myself to go against the very principles upon which I was standing. Those for whose sake I most cared to succeed, among the foremost of whom was yourself, would not have had a true representative in me if I had after all succumbed to that temptation to time-serving, the very prevalence of which, and my protests against which, were their original reason for choosing me. It is better to have a man who has never made any pretence of disliking it, than one who, after having protested strongly against it, has finally fallen a victim to the many temptations to practise it. In fine, I thought that my constituents as well as myself would rather have Mr Smith as he is, than myself false to my professions. It is, of course, a subject of regret to all who feel as you and I do that absolute purity of principle in electioneering, and perfect independence on the part of candidates, cannot be made to succeed better than it generally does at present, yet I think I have done more to draw attention to the need of it by my failure than I could have done if I had allowed it to be possible to reproach me with the smallest tergiversation. The slightest example of anything of the kind would of course have been eagerly seized by our opponents, and nothing that they can say now can be so mortifying to you or myself as such accusations would have been had they had a shadow of foundation. Could it have been said that I turned my back upon old friends or shrunk from any associations that were not likely to be popular with the mass of my constituents, neither society nor the press would have failed to say it.
P.S.—As I have very unexpectedly seen so many of my letters lately in print, may I beg you to consider my letters as not intended for the public. Pray excuse my making this request to you, with whom I have every reason to believe it unnecessary.
1366.
TO PHILIP HENRY RATHBONE
Dec. 26. 1868
(Private)
Dear Sir—
I am much honoured by the renewal of the invitation from the Philomathic Socy, & could I be sure of any definite result, more particularly of any definite political result, that could be obtained by my acceding to it, I would not hesitate to come to England for the purpose & to undertake the labour of preparing something for the occasion, although to do so would require me to put aside avocations in which I am now engaged & which I expect will fully occupy my time for some months to come so that my present plan is not to be in England until the beginning of March. But I am very distrustful of the good that can be effected or at all events of my own power to effect much good, by merely social means, or even by eliciting sympathies chiefly literary or scientific: Knowing as I do how many of the slaveholders approved of & admired my writings, I know how little any practical political results need necessarily follow from this sort of approval: & although I am aware that the enthusiasm produced by oratory is among many, perhaps among the majority of men, warmer than that felt for any literary works, still I doubt whether it is more lasting & I am quite sure that it is not within my own power to excite so much of it. Could I within the compass of an after dinner speech carefully calculated to touch upon no points which could hurt the feelings of any who differ from us most radically both in principles & in their applications, produce any appreciable effect in reuniting & stimulating the liberal political opinions of Liverpool? Were you proposing to discuss any especial political topics (for example such as the representation of minorities) which I have made the object of study, the case might be different, for it might then be in my power to advance arguments & to put them in a point of view not usual. But from what you say I imagine that you think politics shd be eschewed & even the political aspect of such subjects as education avoided. Nor am I quite sure whether just at present my views on personal representation, on the applications of endowments, on the land laws, on trades unions, & other topics partly politico-economical & partly political, might not be somewhat too startling for those who shrink even from the disendowment of the Irish Church.
Thanking you for your kind offer of hospitality I am
1367.
TO JOHN CHAPMAN
Dec. 27. 1868
Dear Sir
I am very glad to hear that you found so much disposition at Manchester and Liverpool to support the Review: though the fact of there being now a deficit of between 1100 and 1200 pounds, shews a deterioration in its position in the last two years which is discouraging as to its prospects.
I inclose, in the form of a letter to yourself, a statement such as you expressed a wish to have; which you are at liberty to shew, but which I do not wish to be published.
The widow of my friend the late Mr. Max Kyllmann is warmly interested in all the subjects in which her late husband exerted himself, and I will write to ask her whether it would be possible to furnish a list of those from whom he obtained subscriptions for the Review. I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
Dr Chapman
1368.
TO GEORGE GROTE
Dec. 27. 1868
My dear Grote
I am particularly obliged to you for the further matter you have been so kind as to send.
Your last note coincides in its general purport with a short one I had written on the same passage. But mine will stand very well with yours as a brief summary of the philosophical portion of it, apart from the historical.
If anything else, either great or small, occurs to you which you feel disposed to put down and send, I shall be only too glad to have it, and I hope you will not be deterred by thinking it unnecessary. Even if it is to the same effect as something written by Bain or me (Findlater’s notes are mainly philological) it will be more or less from a different point of view, and will not be a repetition, but valuable as a confirmation.
I am glad you approve of the passage in the Preface. I think, when you see the remainder, you will regard the historical and philosophical place assigned in it to the Analysis as the right one. The new edition will now be a monument collectively raised to the memory of the author by the principal inheritors of his philosophy, while it will also authenticate, and in part exhibit, the progress since made in the paths which he opened up.
With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, I am
My dear Grote
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
George Grote Esq.
1369.
TO GEORGE HOWELL
Dec. 27. 1868
Dear Sir—
I cannot leave unacknowledged the concluding sentence of your letter of the 19th inst. If you had been returned for Aylesbury & had made the public spirited offer of retiring in my favour I could not possibly have accepted it. I attach far too much importance to the representation of the working classes, in some cases at least, by the elite of themselves, to have consented to put myself in the place of one of them if he had fortunately been elected. The defeat of all the working class candidates & of most of those of any other class in whom the working classes took special interest, would have made my presence in the H of C of far less use than it might perhaps have been if I had been one of a phalanx of men of advanced opinions. I hope the working classes will learn from their present failure a lesson of organisation, & as the liberal party can never succeed at a general election without their active support, will henceforth make such support conditional on being allowed an equal voice in the selection of the liberal candidates, so that, whenever a constituency returns two members one of these may be a man designated by, & specially acceptable to, the liberals of the working classes.
- Mihi a docto doctore.
- Domandatur causam et rationem quare
- Opium facit dormire.
- A quoi respondeo
- Quia est in eo
- Virtus dormitiva,
- Cuius est natura
- Sensus assoupire.
Titles (by Subject) 
