1872
1700.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Jan. 18. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
My opinion is most decidedly against making any appeal to the Society for their support against the seceders. It is not the part of the London Committee to display before the enemies of Women’s Suffrage the fact that its active supporters have fallen out among themselves; and with however much moderation and good taste it might be done, it would probably lead to altercations, recriminations, angry correspondence in newspapers, with names and personal details, which in this town would provoke and might even require replies, and no one can foresee how much the unseemly spectacle might be prolonged or how far it might extend. Hardly anything that could happen would tend so much to bring the cause into discredit; and nothing but a public attack by the other side, of which at present there are no signs, could in my opinion justify the London Committee in descending into the arena.
It must, however, be remembered that the next ordinary meeting of the Society, at whatever time it may be held, forms a limit beyond which the reserve which is so desirable on the subject of the dissensions cannot be prolonged; and it will therefore be a point for consideration whether, at some time between now and the next general meeting, the members of the Society should be invited by circular to give their votes upon a specific question or questions, in which no reference should be made to the past, but which should bring into direct issue the continued existence of the London Committee, and the willingness of the members to retain their connexion with it. There is no necessity for coming to an immediate decision either for or against this course. If you wish for an opinion from me on its advisability, I could not undertake to give one without some time for consideration.
I cannot come to the meeting of the Committee, but must continue to decline, as I have always done, taking any action as a member of the Executive. I may add that should a meeting be called, either public or of the Society, it will be impossible for me to be present at it in any capacity. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1701.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Jan. 19. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
I cannot help feeling that unless you have already secured beyond doubt Lord Romilly’s name for a Vice President, it would be better not to ask Mrs Grote for hers. At least I myself should not like to do so, or to be supposed by her to wish her to give it. She may consent out of kindness or personal feeling; and I myself should feel great scruple in inducing her to do so, unless I was certain of at least one other name besides my own with which she would like to have hers associated. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours.
J. S. Mill
Could you send me one or two copies of your circular?
1702.
TO [FRANCIS E. ABBOT?]
Jan. 29, 1872
Dear Sir
I am very much honoured by the request of the Free Religious Association. To see something of America and of its eminent men and women would in itself be very agreeable to me, but I have other engagements for the time you mention, and I moreover find it necessary to economize my time and energies for such useful work in the way of authorship as it may be in my power to do during what remains to me of life. With sincere acknowledgments to the Association, and thanks for the kind and flattering terms in which their wish is conveyed in your letter, I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1703.
TO WILLIAM B. CARPENTER
Jan. 29. 1872
Dear Dr Carpenter—
I am much obliged to you for sending me your two Lectures & the paper on Common Sense, all of which I have read with much interest.
I have long recognised as a fact that judgments really grounded on a long succession of small experiences mostly forgotten or perhaps never brought into very distinct consciousness, often grow into the likeness of intuitive perceptions. I believe this to be the explanation of the intuitive insight thought to be characteristic of women, & of that which is often found in experienced practical persons who have not attended much to theory nor been often called on to explain the grounds of their judgments. I explain in the same manner whatever truth there is in presentiments. And I shd agree with you that a mind which is fitted by constitution & habits to receive truly & retain well the impressions made by its passing experiences, will often be safer in relying on its intuitive judgments representative of the aggregate of its past experience, than on the inferences that can be drawn from such facts or reasonings as can be distinctly called to mind at the moment. Now you seem to think that judgment by what is called common sense is a faculty of this same kind: & so far as regards the genesis of it, I think you are right; but it seems to me that there is a very great practical difference. The reason why in the cases I have referred to the intuition is often more to be trusted than the reasoned judgment is precisely (I apprehend) because it is not an affair of common sense but of uncommon sense; the perceptions & experiences which have culminated in the intuitive judgment were peculiar to the individual & cannot be recovered. If these evidentiary matters could be recalled, the superiority of deliberate over hasty judgment would reassert itself. Now in the case of common sense the very words imply that the evidences which are the real justification of the judgments are familiar to all mankind; & if they are so I apprehend that enough of them can always be recovered & put into a distinct shape to admit of subjecting the point to a real scientific test. Now when this can be done, it always ought. For want of it, judgments by common sense are usually judgments by superficial appearances. Almost all false political economy, for instance, is made up of judgments by common sense.
On the physiological side of psychology your paper raises questions of great & increasing interest. When states of mind in no respect innate or instinctive, have been frequently repeated the mind acquires, as is proved by the power of habit, a greatly increased facility of passing into those states, & this increased facility must be owing to some change of a physical character in the organic action of the brain; whether in the organ itself we do not, I suppose, know. There is also considerable evidence that such acquired facilities of passing into certain modes of cerebral action can in many cases be transmitted more or less completely by inheritance. The limits of this power of transmission & the conditions on which it depends, are a subject now fairly under investigation by the scientific world & we shall doubtless in time know much more about them than we do now. But as far as my imperfect knowledge of the subject qualifies me to have an opinion I take much the same view of it that you do, at least in principle.
Your explanation of the self delusion of so called Spiritualists is no doubt in many cases a true one, but for my part I believe there is much more of absolute lying in their pretended experiences than people generally like to suppose. I am altogether incredulous as to any foundation of truth at all in it.
1704.
TO AUBERON HERBERT
Jan. 29. 1872
Dear Mr Auberon Herbert—
Your impression, as shown in your letter, of the mental state & tendencies of the working men, agrees very much with that which with probably fewer means of knowledge than you possess, has grown up in my own mind. From the little experience which I have had, which chiefly relates to the more advanced portion of them they seem to me to have but a narrow range of thought, but to be much more open than either the higher or middle classes to appeals made to them in the name of large ideas & high principles. I believe that they, less than any other class, turn away contemptuously from the supposition that life may be inspired by other objects than self interest in the lower sense of the term: that they have a good instinct for discovering who are those that are really single minded in their public professions & acts, & when they perceive this, will trust them not less but all the more for considerable differences of opinion on many matters. I also agree with you in the main as to the kind of cultivation which it is of so much importance, in a social & political point of view, to give to their moral nature. But it is not clear to me that this want can be supplied in the way that has presented itself to you. I am not sufficiently informed as to matters of fact, to know whether there is any considerable number of working people with active & inquiring minds who could be made to adopt as one of the great interests of life the learning & teaching of branches of knowledge unconnected with the political & social advancement of their class. My idea is (but I am open to correction) that for some time to come, politics & social & economical questions will be the absorbing subjects to most of those working men who have the aspirations & the mental activity to which the appeal would have to be made & that the moral lessons you wish them to learn can be most successfully inculcated through politics. You wish to make them feel the importance of the higher virtues: I think this can be most effectually done by pointing out to them how much those virtues are needed to enable a democracy & above all any approach to socialism to work in any satisfactory manner. Again they might perhaps be made ashamed of pursuing their political & economic objects from class selfishness instead of disinterested principle: they might for instance be shamed out of the exclusive regulations of many of the trades unions by inducing them to aim at the benefit of the entire labouring population instead of their own trade only; & it would be a vast moral improvement if this can be taught (for which the best of them I believe are now to a great degree prepared) to claim on principle for women all the rights which they demand for themselves. Then again the lesson of the great importance of other social functions than that of manual labour cannot be successfully impressed on them by any persons but those who enter into their own views of politics sufficiently to sympathize in the desire to get rid of any artificial privilege in favour of those social functions & of any institutions that tend to limiting the access to them to particular classes of mankind. Therefore without doubting that the kind of associations you desire to encourage would be very beneficial in proportion as they could be realized I shd have more hope from teaching the same lessons in & through politics & economics, & from the acquisition of political leadership of the working classes by persons who would make working class objects their main business in politics but who would pursue these on the strictest principles of justice & with reference solely to the general requisites of social well being & who would use all the influence they acquire with the working classes by advocating their cause to inculcate this as the only admissible mode of discussing & deciding social questions.
1705.
TO SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
- Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- S.W.
Feb. 14. 1872
My dear Sir Charles Dilke
I have quite recovered my health, but I shall not be able to be at the Radical Club next Sunday. My opinions on the essential points of a law against bribery will be found in the long series of amendments which I moved, and the greater number which I put on the notice paper, in the Committee on the Bill of 1868. The most essential of them all, in my opinion, is the prohibition of employing paid canvassers, or any paid agents at all except the one required by Act of Parliament.
Pray accept our congratulation on your marriage, of which we lately had the pleasure of hearing.
I am
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1706.
TO PASQUALE VILLARI
Feb. 28. 1872
My dear MR Villari—
You needed no apology for not writing oftener; & if you did, I should need it as much. But our feelings towards each other do not require letters to keep them alive, & when independently of other work, one has too many letters to write, one’s surest friends are the most likely to be put off.
You judged truly that the loss of Mr Grote leaves a great blank in my life. He was the oldest & by far the most valued of my few surviving old friends. And though he died at a ripe age, he seemed to bear his years so well that I hoped there might yet be a considerable prolongation of them. But if one lives to be old oneself one is certain of losing those whom nothing can replace, & I have had too sad experience of this to feel the shock of a fresh instance very acutely. It is just so much taken from the value of life to me. It is pleasant to hear from you that he was so much appreciated & is so much regretted in Italy. It is one of the signs which continually come unexpectedly of the hopeful course in which Italy is moving on. I fully appreciate the difficulties which you have so well pointed out. But it seems to me that there is a most encouraging mental activity among the (unfortunately too narrow) educated class in Italy, & there is as there has always been a foundation of practical common sense in the people, which is a safeguard against great & fatal errors such as, for instance, are so often committed by the French.
As you most truly say, the great problem is moral & intellectual more than political; & you are probably helping on the improvement of your country still more by devoting yourself to authorship, in addition to the work of a professor, than by any administrative employment even in the department of public instruction, in which you would be dependent on a superior (& what is worse, on a succession of superiors) for the power of carrying out your ideas. If you write what becomes the standard book on Machiavelli, you will do a service not merely to Italian but to European thought, & will help to train the thinkers of the time to come, which has become the chief thing that I also much care to do during such years of working power as remain to me. Mr Grote’s example is encouraging as to this hope, for he worked at Aristotle up to his last illness; & his book, which is now printing, will, though not complete, be, I have no doubt, a most valuable exposition & appreciation of the more abstruse parts of Aristotle’s philosophy. My own work lies rather among anticipations of the future than explanations of the past. I would gladly if I could contribute something in a more direct form than I have yet done towards rendering the great new questions which are rising up respecting life & society a little less difficult to our successors. But it is doubtful whether this can be done at present to much purpose (except in the negative way of dispelling actual error); for the impending transformation of society can only be tentative; the experience necessary for seeing far into it can only be obtained when the change is already in partial progress.
We shall be at Avignon now probably for a considerable time & I shall hope to hear from you there.
1707.
TO THOMAS SQUIRE BARRETT
March 4, 1872
Dear Sir—
Your book on Causation was duly received, but not having it with me here I can only refer in a very general manner to its contents. The impression it made on me was that I agreed with a great deal of it, but that where the view it took of the subject differed from my own, it did not make any change in my opinions. I reserved it however for further examination at a future time.
1708.
TO GEORG BRANDES
le 4 mars 1872
Monsieur
Je vous remercie de votre lettre du 9 janvier. Mon ignorance de la langue Danoise me fermant tout accès direct au développement intellectuel de votre intéressant pays, je vous en ai d’autant plus d’obligation lorsque vous voulez bien me fournir des renseignements. Ceux que vous me donnez sur le progrès des idées libérales sont très encourageants. Je me réjouis du grand succès de vos leçons à l’Université. Je ne m’étonne nullement de l’opposition des professeurs de la faculté philosophique à votre placement officiel. C’est la répugnance bien connue des vieilles idées contre les nouvelles.
Vous me demandez mon opinion sur l’Internationale. Je crois que cette Association renferme une foule très diverse de représentants de toutes les écoles socialistes, tant modérées que violentes. Les membres anglais dont je connais personnellement plusieurs des chefs, me paraissent en général des hommes raisonnables, visant surtout aux améliorations pratiques dans le sort des travailleurs, capables d’apprécier les obstacles, et peu haineux envers les classes dont ils veulent faire cesser la domination. Mais j’avoue que dans les débats de leur Congrès je n’ai guère trouvé quelque bon sens que chez les délégués anglais. C’est que mes compatriotes ont l’habitude d’attendre des améliorations plutôt de l’initiative individuelle et de l’association privée que de l’intervention directe de l’Etat. L’habitude contraire qui prévaut dans le Continent fait croire aux réformateurs qu’ils n’ont qu’à mettre la main sur les rênes du gouvernement pour arriver promptement à leur but; et non seulement les socialistes français, qui sont même peut-être plus modérés que beaucoup d’autres, mais plus encore ceux de la Belgique, de l’Allemagne, et même de la Suisse, sous la direction apparente de quelques théoriciens Russes, pensent qu’il n’y a qu’à exproprier tout le monde, et abattre tous les gouvernements existants, sans s’inquiéter, quant à présent, de ce qu’il faudrait mettre à leur place. Je ne les calomnie pas, je ne fais que répéter ce que j’ai lu dans leurs journaux. Je crois, par conséquent, que le bon côté de cette Association consiste principalement dans les craintes qu’elle excite. Elle fait penser les classes qui possèdent les biens de ce monde, au sort qui les attend peut-être dans l’avenir si elles n’arrivent à rendre l’état social beaucoup plus avantageux au grand nombre. Encore la peur est-elle une mauvaise conseillère, comme on voit aujourd’hui en France. Pourtant un temps viendra où le danger sera regardé avec sangfroid et où les problèmes sociaux seront mis à l’étude avec une volonté réelle de trouver une meilleure solution que celle d’à présent. Il faut que les hommes éclairés s’occupent en attendant de préparer les esprits et les caractères.
Vous me demandez encore si on a écrit quelque chose de bon sur la question des femmes, ainsi que sur l’utilitarisme. La question des femmes est entrée dans la discussion générale, mais ce qu’on écrit là-dessus depuis quelque temps n’a tout au plus qu’une valeur de circonstance. Quant à l’utilitarisme, on a publié dernièrement plusieurs articles contre mon livre, mais je n’y trouve jusqu’ici rien de neuf. Ce sont toujours les mêmes objections, à peine rajeunies par le langage. Je n’a jugé à propos de répondre à aucune de ces attaques: aux vieux arguments il suffit des vieilles réponses. Cette dispute pratique se vuidera avec la dispute théorique, entre la métaphysique de l’intuition et celle de l’expérience: et sur ce champ-là, le progrès scientifique assure la victoire à cette dernière. Cependant, si on publie soit sur l’utilitarisme, soit sur la cause des femmes, quelque chose digne de fixer votre attention, je vous en avertirai avec plaisir.
Recevez, cher Monsieur, mes salutations amicales.
J. S. Mill
1709.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
March 4. 1872
Dear Sir
I have received your kind and flattering letter, and am much interested by what it tells me of the general accordance of your philosophic views with my own before either of us was acquainted with any writings of the other.
I expect that your intended visit to England coincides with my own absence, as I shall not be in England during this month, nor for a considerable time afterwards. I hope however that some future and more favourable opportunity may present itself for our becoming personally acquainted.
I thank you for the present of your book, which will be forwarded to me from England.
My English address is now 10 Albert Mansions Victoria Street London S. W.
I am Dear Sir
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
1710.
TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
March 4. 1872
I shall regret if you sustain any pecuniary loss by the winding up of the Reasoner. I have however done my part in aid of it when such aid was still more needed than now, & as I require all my spare funds for other purposes I am not able to give further help nor do I know any one to whom I could now apply for the purpose.
1711.
TO JOHN BROADWOOD & SONS
March 8. 1872
Mr Mill has received Messrs Broadwood’s communication of the 21st & requests that the repairs of the piano may be put in hand & that when finished the piano may be sent to No 10 A[lbert] M[ansions] V[ictoria] Street.
1712.
TO ROBERT S. GREGSON
March 14. 1872
Dear Sir—
My daughter has received your letter of March 6 & will write to her brother for the information you think necessary respecting his marriage trust. Mrs. A. T. died in the year 1864 & the Rev. Mr. Gurney has left London for a country rectorship, so that the simplest plan appears to us to obtain the information we want from Mr. A[lgernon] T[aylor].
1713.
TO MR. SMITZIO
14 March 1872
Mr. J. Stuart Mill has safely received the weekly packets of letters forwarded to him by Mr. Smitzio but he requests Mr. S. to be good enough to address the letters only
J. S. Mill Esq
Avignon
France
nothing else being necessary & there being no house of Wheatley at Avignon.
It is the quarterly parcels which Mr. Mill requested Mr. S. to forward, not by post but through Messrs Wheatley & Co, Continental Parcels Express Office, 23 Regent St.
Mr. Mill wd be obliged if Mr. S. will now make up a strong paper parcel containing all such books, newspapers & printed matter as have arrived at V[ictoria] S[treet] by post since Mr. Mill left town. The postage covers shd be all taken off before the parcel is made up, & the parcel shd be addressed merely
J. S. Mill Esq
Avignon
France
& then taken to no 23 Regent St where directions shd be given to forward it to its address & the carriage will be paid on its arrival.
1714.
TO HARRIET GROTE
March 24. 1872
Dear Mrs Grote
I send to you in three packets (the present being one) 21 letters of Mr Grote, being 18 to myself and three to other people, which I have found by going carefully through my old letters. They are at your full disposal.
We hope that your health is better, and that you are enjoying the pure air and dry soil of Ridgeway. We have had delightful weather here till the last day or two, which have been both cold and wet.
Helen has been better than usual, and I am very well. I am
Dear Mrs Grote
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1715.
TO PASQUALE VILLARI
April 2. 1872
Dear M. Villari —
I shd feel much obliged if you could kindly inform me whether there is a Geological Map of Italy, & if there is, who is the publisher or where it can be bought.
We have left B[lackheath] P[ark] & our English address is now 10 A[lbert] M[ansions] but for the present we are here. I hope for a considerable time.
Few recent things have given me so much pleasure as the demonstrations of honour to the memory of Mazzini, even by his political opponents & opponents who had sometimes good cause of complaint against him. The honour was simple justice, but there is a magnanimity in feeling & doing unreserved justice in such a case, which it would be well if all nations were capable of. The Italians are said to be calculating & utilitarian, the French pride themselves on being impulsive: on which side is the superiority in generosity & highmindedness!
1716.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
April 6. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
I write to you rather because I have not written for a long time than because I have anything very interesting to communicate. But I know that you take a friendly interest in the facts of our daily life. We have gained nearly two additional months of spring by coming here so early, and though we have still occasional chilly weather, such as England so often has in May and even June, we have escaped the return of real winter that you have had in England and which you seem to be still enduring. We have varied our stay here by a week’s excursion in Southern Provence—Hyères, St Tropez &c. which has a still warmer climate than this and where we found hawthorns in flower and meadows white with narcissuses in the very middle of March. I have no report to make of work done: I have written nothing, but have occupied myself with bringing up arrears of general reading, correcting proofs for new editions of my Logic and Hamilton, and examining old letters, to make a clearance of those which are no longer worth keeping. In this last operation I have reread with much pleasure many old letters of yours, nearly all of which, both for the marks of friendship they are full of, and for the intrinsic worth of their contents, are much too valuable not to be still treasured up. I hope to receive many more of them before I die, and one very soon, to tell me that you are, if not better, at least not worse than when I last saw you.
My own health is good, and Helen though still in the same weak health, is on the whole better than she has been at some former times.
There is very little pleasant in the state of public affairs either here or in England; perhaps rather more in America, Italy, and Germany. But one mourns to see the persons of the highest worth, and who were individually centres of important influences, passing away one after another. The last few weeks has deprived the world of two such persons, Mazzini and Maurice. The best consolation is that the essential part of their work was done; and the influence of their lives will still be continued by their memory.
My daughter unites with me in desiring to be kindly remembered to Mrs Cairnes. I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1717.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
April 7. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
My daughter has been too unwell to write to you since she received your letter, and asks me to write now to say that you, or the Secretary, were very welcome to use her name in regard to the Vice Presidentship, because it was not for want of quite approving of the Committee that she prefers not to have her name on the list. As to the petition you inclosed I do not think it a very good idea to have a petition signed by only two or three names, and I do not quite understand whether you mean that Miss Nightingale has actually given her signature, and given it on the understanding that it is to be sent in with a petition to which are appended only her name and ours. If she has already given her signature on such an understanding, we will send ours too, but otherwise I should prefer not. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1717A.
TO JOHN VENN
April 14. 1872
Dear Sir
I willingly inclose an expression of opinion on your qualifications, such as my knowledge of your writings enables me to give. I am much aided in doing so by the pamphlet which I have had the pleasure of receiving from you, and which shews that you have applied the same clear and vigorous intellect to the subject of ethics which was conspicuous in your logical speculations. Whether your opinions and my own on that subject would altogether agree is in such cases a secondary consideration. I should not fear to defend Kant’s maxim against your criticisms: He could not mean, nor could Paley mean, that we should so act that the whole human race could with general benefit do exactly what we are doing; they meant that our conduct ought to be capable of being brought under a rule to which it would be for the general benefit that all should conform. This rule, in your example of taking orders, would not be that all mankind might with public advantage take orders, but that the choice of a profession should depend (under limitations which could be stated) on the aptitudes and convenience of the individual.
One more remark. I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by the natural consequences of the particular action, and not by those which would follow if every one did the same. But, for the most part, the consideration of what would happen if every one did the same, is the only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case. In your example from Austria, it is only by considering what would happen if everybody evaded his share of taxation, that we perceive the mischievous tendency of anybody’s doing so. And that this mischievous tendency overbalances (unless in very extreme cases) the private good obtained by the breach of a moral rule, is obvious if we take into consideration the importance, to the general good, of the feeling of security, or certainty; which is impaired, not only by every known actual violation of good rules, but by the belief that such violations ever occur.
I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. Stuart Mill
[Testimonial]
April 14, 1872.
From my knowledge of Mr Venn’s writings, I have been impressed, in an unusual degree, by the clearness, vigour, and precision of his intellect, as well as by his power of putting his clear ideas clearly and forcibly into words. These qualities are apparent as well in what he has written on ethical as on logical subjects: and on both he has shewn decided power of original thought. I am not sufficiently acquainted with his positive opinions in moral philosophy, to know how far I agree or differ with them; but in the case of a public teacher, his actual doctrines are of less importance than his influence in stimulating the exercise of thought in his pupils, and at the same time guarding them by an exact Method, from the evils of vagueness and looseness in thinking: and in both these respects I think it likely, judging from his writings, that Mr Venn would be a highly successful teacher.
J. S. Mill
1718.
TO M. MALTMAN BARRY
[after Apr. 20. 1872]
Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of April 20.
I sympathize strongly with many if not most of those who have been compelled to leave their country by the recent events in Paris. But I am unable to accept the Vice Chairmanship or any other office in your Society, because it is not in my power to give any time or attention to its business, & also because I am not willing to join in giving aid conformable to the Third Article, to persons of all political creeds & parties, without distinction. If those who stand in need of aid were Imperialists from France, Bourbonists from Spain or Naples, participants in the Slaveholders’ rebellion in America, I would leave their wants to be supplied by those who think the cause by the failure of which they had been reduced to necessity a worthy one.
1719.
TO LEONARD H. COURTNEY
April 21. 1872
Dear Mr Courtney
The case of the shareholders in the Bombay Bank, which was irretrievably ruined, mainly by the fault of the Government, is shortly to be brought before the House of Commons. I believe it is very generally felt, by those who are acquainted with the facts, that the conduct of the Bombay Government was inexcusable; but people think it dangerous to admit that a Government which by the breach of solemn duties causes the ruin of individuals ought to make them any reparation. If I could induce you to read a printed statement of the case, drawn up by Colonel Cowper of the Bombay Staff Corps, known to me for many years as one of the most careful and accurate staters of facts with whom I have ever been in official relation, you would be able to judge whether, if that statement cannot be answered, the misconduct of the Government, in reliance on whom the stockholders risked their money, was not such as to create a moral obligation of indemnifying them for a part at least, if not the whole of their loss. I am
Dear Mr Courtney
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1720.
TO COL. THOMAS ALEXANDER COWPER
Apr. 21. 1872
Dear Cowper,
I have no influence with the manager or editor of the Times, indeed I am inclined to think they would be disposed to thwart rather than promote anything in which I take an interest. Neither could I well ask an editor to publish a private letter of my own. But I am acquainted with one of the best writers in the Times, & if I could induce him to read & pay serious attention to your pamphlet, some good might be done. I therefore inclose a note to him which, if you think fit you may forward, & I advise you to post at the same time to the same address a copy of your pamphlet. I will see if there is anything I can do to induce any of the other London papers to attend to the subject. I suppose they have all received copies of the pamphlet; but it may be advisable to refresh their recollection by sending others.
With regard to the Land Tenure Assn my opinion has all along been that it is better not to have a general meeting in London this year and that we shd for the present content ourselves with spreading our roots in the provinces through public meetings there & the circulation of pamphlets. I expressed this opinion very decidedly the last time I saw Mr Evans, & I left England with no intention of returning soon enough to attend a meeting this season. Of course my opinion would be different if speakers were forthcoming sufficient to make the meeting a brilliant success: but a meeting unless better than the former one would seem worse, & we shd lose instead of gaining ground. About the Executive Committee, have we lost any of them except Mr Andrew Johnston? Is there likely to be opposition to the reelection of the present Committee with some other good name instead of his? Auberon Herbert or Lyulph Stanley or Somerset Beaumont would perhaps be willing to come into the Exve if they are not already members of it which I think they are not.
I return Mr Newman’s letter. The experience of the Bristol meeting if correctly interpreted by him, is against sending two persons from the Committee to speak at a provincial meeting. But this I believe has not been done by the work of the Committee, but at the express request of the local promoters of the meetings. Mr Newman thinks it better to send a lecturer than a speaker, & he may be right; though the local opinion shd in some degree be consulted on the point. I fear that it is easier to obtain two speakers than one lecturer. It is more necessary, too that a lecturer, than that a speaker, shd represent our intermediate standpoint. An authorised lecture which either went beyond that point or stopt short of it would expose us to injurious misconceptions. If Col. Ouvry would prepare & deliver a historical lecture from his own point of view, which has made so great an impression on Mr Newman, it would [tend] both to inform the public mind & to stir it up. Either a speech or a lecture by Mr Newman himself, grounded on the ideas in his letter, would also do good.
Mr Newman is under some misapprehension as to the opinions I have professed. I do not say that “all the land of the country ought to be national.” I think this a question of time, place, & circumstance, & I incline to Mr Newman’s opinion that people shd at any rate be allowed to own the houses they themselves live in, & even some space of ground, ornamental or other, adjoining. But his idea of aiming only at a maximum limit for landed property, though it might have been worth consideration in some former states of opinion would now merely make the working classes hostile instead of friendly to us. Nor do I see that much would be gained by merely cutting up the great landed properties into estates of 5000 acres each; Mr Newman’s plan with respect to suburban land is the same as ours, with the addition that the power of compulsory purchase should vest in the municipalities instead of the State; a question of detail which we have left open.
Messrs Longman’s bill seems right except that it calls the pamphlet “Mill on Irish Land Tenure”. They seem to have sold 331 copies to the public & 2100 to the Association. Whether that number of copies would have cost the Assn less if they had been their own publishers the experience they have since had in printing the report of the public meeting will probably have shewn.
1721.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
April 21. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
A short absence from home prevented us from receiving your note at once; but I inclose now the petition with our signatures, and hope it may not be too late. I am
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1722.
TO ARTHUR ARNOLD
April 22. 1872
Dear Mr Arnold—
I do not remember if the Echo has expressed any opinion on the affair of the Bombay Bank. It will shortly be brought before the H. of C. & the shareholders have what appears to me a conclusive case against the Bombay Govt, giving them the strongest moral claim to a partial if not total indemnification for losses for which several of the principal officers of the Govt are responsible as having been officially Directors of the Bank & the Govt itself as grossly neglecting the duty of superintendance & persevering in that neglect after all kinds of warnings. The history of the case has been written in a pamphlet by Col. Cowper, of whom I can say from many years experience that his statements of fact are the most implicitly to be relied on both for fairness & accuracy of any which came before me during my official life. The pamphlet has no doubt been sent or will be sent to you, & if you will read it I am much mistaken if you will not feel a desire to help the shareholders.
1723.
TO EDWIN ARNOLD
April 22. 1872
Dear Mr Arnold—
From your knowledge of Indian affairs you have probably paid some attention to the case of the Bombay Bank. It has always seemed to me that although the Bombay Govt was only a shareholder in the Bank, yet as high officers of the Govt were officially members of the Board of Directors which did all the mischief, & as the Govt itself not only neglected the duty of supervision but when repeatedly warned, even by the Govt at Calcutta, persisted in disregarding the warnings & even withheld from the Calcutta Govt the information it demanded at a time when the disaster might still have been prevented from being complete; the Bombay Govt is bound in morality & honour to indemnify partially if not wholly the shareholders, who undoubtedly risked their money in reliance on the supervision exercised by the Government through the official Directors. The case will shortly be brought before the H. of C. & a word from the Telegraph on the subject would be of great importance. Should you be disposed to say anything in favour of the shareholders you would find abundant material in the history of the case given in a pamphlet by Colonel Cowper, one of the ablest men in the Bombay Service, whose statements of fact I learnt by experience when in the India House that I could always rely on, both for honesty & carefulness.
1724.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
April 22. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
We are truly grieved to hear so poor an account of your health, and to learn that you have found it necessary to resign the Professorship. We both hope very earnestly that your new house may bring to you and those of your family who have been suffering, improved health. It seems to be in a much better position than the one you are leaving. It is we who have to apologize to you for the earnestness with which we ventured to press advice on you, which we only did from the feeling that you yourself could not estimate the chance of any improvement in your health as of so much public value, and therefore worth such energetic effort, as we do. We hope that the comfort of a settled home, and the freedom from the fatigue of your Professorship, will have a still better effect on you than any other change could have had. For ourselves, we rejoice that you are still so near London, that we shall hope to be able to see you often whenever we are in England.
Helen hopes that the Buckle, or at least all her part in it, will be completed some time in the course of May; after which we intend to take a holiday in Styria, so that if we are in England this year, it will not be till after our return from Styria.
I have seen M. Millet’s article which you mention, and was amused by it. One gets accustomed to strange things, but to find myself held up as an apostle of centralization was indeed something unexpected.
Please give our kindest remembrance to Mrs Cairnes, and believe me
Dear Mr Cairnes
most truly yours
J. S. Mill
1725.
TO COL. THOMAS ALEXANDER COWPER
April 22. 1872
Dear Cowper,
Since writing to you yesterday, I have written strongly respecting the Bombay Bank to Mr Arthur Arnold, the editor of the Echo, & to Mr Edwin Arnold, one of the editors & chief writers of the Daily Telegraph & have requested them to read your pamphlet which please post to each of them by name. If you address them at the offices (Echo, 11 Catherine Street Strand—D.T. 135 Fleet Street) write private on the outside. Their private addresses were, when I last heard (which was not very lately) Arthur Arnold 18 Stanley Gardens, Kensington Park, Edwin Arnold Kendall Cottage, Victoria Road, Kensington.
1726.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
April 29. 1872
Dear Sir
It will give me much pleasure to see you either in England or at Avignon. I leave here next month for a tour in Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol, and do not know as yet when I shall be in England, or whether I shall remain in the Alps all the summer. I shall, however, in either case, certainly be here in the month of September and October, and shall be very happy to see you if you should be passing at that time; unless, indeed, there is any chance of our paths crossing in the Austrian Alps during the summer months. Meanwhile I shall always be happy to hear from you. And I hope to be able shortly to write you on the subject of your book, which I received not long ago from England, and am now reading attentively. It came at a good time, as Mr. Grote’s posthumous work on Aristotle is on the point of publication, and my attention is therefore in an unusual degree invited to Aristotle.
If you direct to me here, your letter will be forwarded to me wherever I may be.
I am
Dear Sir
yours very sincerely
J. S. Mill
1727.
TO JOHN MORLEY
May 1. 1872
Dear Mr Morley—
It would always give me pleasure to express in any way my high opinion of you, & my belief in your competency for any office you are at all likely to apply for. But I had no idea that you had any thought of this Professorship, and I have already long before receiving your letter, given a testimonial & my [best ?] support to Leslie, who is a candidate, & who has very strong claims to this particular Professorship. I regret much that I shd be unable to help any enterprise of yours.
1728.
TO SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
May 2. 1872
Dear Sir Charles Dilke
I have no knowledge whatever of the extent of the common lands still remaining uninclosed, but I suppose the Inclosure Commissioners have access to the best knowledge that exists on the subject. The “public lands” spoken of at the Club as something additional to the Commons, can only, I suppose, be the Crown property. I am
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1729.
TO THOMAS SQUIRE BARRETT
May 6, 1872
Dear Sir—
I thank you for the copy of the 2d edit of your book on Causation. I quite agree in its leading doctrine, & have maintained the same in my System of Logic, viz. that there does not exist in nature any other necessity than the necessity of logical sequence, in other words the certainty that a conclusion is true if the premises are true. But this definition does not explain to people the necessity which they fancy they find in the relation of cause & effect, which they conceive, above all, not as a conditional but an unconditional, or absolute necessity.
I think this feeling of an imaginary necessity can be no otherwise explained than as I have explained it, namely by the law of inseparable association, but that explanation appears to me sufficient. You are probably, however, right in thinking that the notion of physical necessity is partly indebted for the particular shape it assumes in our minds to an assimilation of it with logical necessity.
I will add two criticisms on detached points:
At p. 118 your objection to my definition of cause seems to me to proceed from your not having sufficiently realized the full meaning of the word “unconditionally,” which, however I do not think I can explain more clearly than I have done in my Treatise.
At p. 174 you say that no definition of matter can be given except that it is that which gravitates. I apprehend the real definition of matter to be that which resists. That whatever resists gravitates is a fact of experience not involved in the concept.
1730.
TO EMILY DAVIES
May 6, 1872
Dear Madam—
I am glad to hear that the College has a class in Pol. Economy. I inclose a set of questions which I hope may suit your purpose, & shall be happy to report on the answers.
My daughter desires to be kindly remembered to you.
[The enclosed questions]
1. What is the distinction between Productive & Unproductive Labour, & between Productive & Unproductive Consumption?
2. Does all Productive labour tend to increase the permanent wealth of the country?
3. State any causes, in general operation, which tend to increase the productive power of labour, & any which tend to diminish it.
4. Explain in what sense the value of a commodity depends on supply & demand, & in what sense on cost of production.
5. What cost of production is it which determines the exchange value of the products of agriculture?
6. A state of free trade being supposed, can a country permanently import a commodity from a place where its cost of production is greater than that at which it could be produced at home?
7. What are the effects, first on the national wealth, & secondly, on the wages of labour, of a large government expenditure? & does it make any difference what the expenditure is upon?
8. In what respects are the interest of the labouring classes & that of the employers of labour identical? & in what respects, if in any, opposed?
9. What is the meaning of depreciation of the currency? & what are the principal consequences of such depreciation?
10. By what means can a currency be protected against depreciation?
11. What is meant by the term, a favourable & an unfavourable exchange? & is there any well grounded objection to that phraseology?
12. How far, & in what respects, is the discovery of new & rich deposits of the precious metals a benefit to the national wealth?
13. Mention the principal circumstances that tend to produce either a rise or a fall in the rent of land.
14. State what are the known modes in which the produce of land, or the proceeds of the sale of that produce, are shared among the different classes of persons connected with the land, & state briefly the advantages & disadvantages of each.
1731.
TO JOHN MORLEY
May 11. 1872
Dear Mr Morley—
If you shd decide not to stand for the Professorship I confess I shd be glad of your decision, because on the one hand the Professorship is likely to be of pecuniary importance to Mr Leslie & on the other I shd be afraid lest the undertaking of additional work might possibly affect either your health or the time you can give to the Fortnightly. I am very desirous that the F. shd continue, & increase rather than diminish in importance & I think you exercise a wider influence through it than you could do through the Professorship. My daughter & I shall hold ourselves ready to assist either pecuniarily or by writing or in both ways whenever you decide to recommence the fortnightly publication.
With regard to the Irish University question, my notion of a really national university for any country, but especially for a country divided between different religions, would be a university in which instead of only one professor of history, of ethics, or of metaphysics, there should be several of each, so that as long as there are subjects on which interested people differ, they might be taught from different points of view; & the pupils might either choose their professor, or attend more professors than one in order to choose their doctrine, examinations & prizes being made equally accessible to all. If Trinity College were reconstructed on this principle, there might be Catholic & Protestant & freethinking professors of all these subjects & in this way it seems to me that Catholics would obtain all that they can justly claim; for their only tenable ground for refusing to receive education along with Protestants is that Protestants & Catholics necessarily take different views of those subjects. Fawcett’s bill certainly does not provide for this; but this I think would be its ultimate result; & I shd be sorry to see any settlement of the question which would prevent this. Considering moreover how very noxious the higher instruction given by the Catholic prelates is sure to be, I think it right to avoid by every means consistent with principle the subsidising it in any shape or to any extent.
1732.
TO EDWIN ARNOLD
May 13. 1872
Dear Mr Arnold—
Your “answer” in the Telegraph was so excellent that no other was needed; it was rather I who shd have written sooner to thank you for it. If anything could have helped the injured shareholders your article would have done so, & it must have materially contributed to the impression made by their case, an impression which leaves some opening for future efforts.
The article inclosed in your letter (which was sure to be as you say it was, attacked and misrepresented) certainly does express a very general & most natural “longing” among those who have outgrown the old forms of religious belief. I myself have more sympathy with the aspiration, than hope to see it gratified, to the extent of any positive belief respecting the unseen world: but I am convinced that the cultivation of an imaginative hope is quite compatible with a reserve as to positive belief, & that whatever helps to keep before the mind the ideal of a perfect Being is of unspeakable value to human nature. Only it is essential, to prevent a perversion of the moral faculty, that this perfect Being, if regarded as the Creator of the world we live in, shd not be thought to be omnipotent.
1733.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
May 15. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
Thank you very much for your two letters. The improvement you report in your health, even though not extending to the rheumatic complaint, is still a change much for the better. Troublesome and disabling as the complaint is, it happily does not touch your mental powers, nor diminish your interest in the matters to which those powers are so usefully devoted.
I should like much to read what you have written on the two points you mention in the theory of value. You say that on one of them our difference is merely verbal; I suspect it is so on both, relating only to the most convenient or most scientific mode of expressing the same doctrine. The two modes, which you contrast with one another, of expressing cost of production, are, I imagine, both of them admissible, and both of them useful, as presenting different points of view. Of course, when we go down to the fundamentals of the matter, the cost to society, as a whole, of any production, consists in the labour and abstinence required for it. But, as concerns individuals and their mutual transactions, wages and profits are the measure of that labour and abstinence, and constitute the motives by which the exchange of commodities against one another is immediately determined. That, at least, is my present view of the matter.
The check which the Women’s Suffrage movement is now sustaining, is what we predicted last year, when it was permitted to be identified in London with the Bright and Becker set. The mixing up of the suffrage movement with that against the C.D. Acts, which instead of disclaiming, Mr Jacob Bright in his speech did his utmost to confirm, is but one example of the total want equally of good taste and good sense with which they conduct the proceedings.
Whoever may be elected to the University College Professorship, the loss of you will be severely felt. But it is satisfactory that there is no scarcity of more or less eligible candidates. You know better than I Mr Courtney’s special qualifications in Political Economy. I fear Morley’s constitution is delicate, he has already suffered from overwork, and if to this were added the labour either of teaching or of studying so large a subject, I should fear that his health would entirely give way unless he either gave up or neglected the Fortnightly which would be a great evil. Of all the candidates Leslie seems to me to have much the strongest claims in reference to this special subject; & I should rejoice if he were successful, because I esteem and value him, and because I know no one on whom a little worldly success would have a more beneficial effect.
Have you heard a rumour that the Government intend to extricate themselves from the Irish Education difficulty at the expense of the Queen’s Colleges, namely by disendowing them? If there be truth in this, it is very serious, as the device is not at all unlikely to succeed. The mischief to Ireland would be greater than even the endowment of a Catholic College would be.
Brace’s article does him great honour; and American feeling altogether is shewing itself in a manner most creditable to the nation. That, after all, is very much more important than the settlement of the particular dispute, even though this should for the present fail.
I am happy to say that Helen has now really come to an end with Buckle, and it will be published, probably, in two or three weeks from this time.
We think of starting for our tour in Styria in about a fortnight. Letters addressed here will be forwarded, and we hope to hear from you at least as often as we do now.
Helen joins me in kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, whose health, we hope, continues to improve, and we hope to hear good accounts of the rest of your family. I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1734.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
May 19. 1872
Dear Sir
I expect to leave here next week for my German tour, and shall go to Styria from here by way of Milan, Bozen, and Heiligenblut. I expect to be at Bozen very early in June, at Heiligenbluth about the 15th, and at Gloggnitz and Graz early in July: and you can write to me Poste Restante at any of these places.
I believe I shall be nearest to Munich at Bozen and Gloggnitz: unless, indeed, I have time at the end of my tour (at the end of July or beginning of August) to return by way of the Engadine, in which case I shall probably be at Innsbruck towards the end of July, and that will be my nearest point to Würzburg. If I hear from you at Heiligenblut, Gloggnitz, or Graz, I can write and let you know by that time whether I am likely to return by way of Innsbruck. Even if I do not return by Innsbruck, I am likely to be at Bozen again in August, on my return here.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1735.
TO CHARLES EDMUND MAURICE
Avignon, May 19, 1872
You are probably aware of your father’s connection with a short-lived periodical of considerable literary merit, founded, I think, about 1828, and called the “Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine.” It was there that he published the article on account of which a passage in the second of his Cambridge lectures shows him to have retained an abiding feeling of self-reproach. That he should have done so is proof of a tenderness of conscience which may even be called excessive, for the article, which was an extremely clever quiz of the style of Bentham’s “Book of Fallacies,” was in substance an attack, quite legitimate from his point of view, upon what he considered as fallacious in Bentham’s own modes of reasoning. I remember another article in the same periodical, which I am almost sure I understood at the time to be his; a powerful denunciation of ‘Blackwood’s Magazine.’ the most striking article, as I remember, which the publication contained during the short period of its existence.
You are probably aware of the striking articles which he wrote in some of the early numbers of the “Westminster Review.”
I particularly remember one on Montgomery’s “Pelican Island,” and one on Theobald Wolfe Tone’s “Memoirs;” and I mention them because, young as he then was, the powers of mind and range of thought and feeling shown in them on subjects not specially connected with theology would make them well worthy of being included in a republication of his minor writings, should such be contemplated.
I was a member of the London Debating Society; during about two years that your father was a member of it, he was not a very frequent speaker, but your uncle Sterling was, and together they formed a third intellectual party or nuance, opposed both to the Benthamite and to the Tory sections which used to fight their battles there. It was to that time that I owed the commencement of the strong and permanent friendship between Sterling and me, and the greatest part of the personal acquaintance I ever had with your father. He and I were never intimate, but we used to have long discussions together on philosophy, religion, and politics; from which, though I do not think either of us often convinced the other, I always carried away, along with a most lively impression of his mental powers and resources, ideas both new and invaluable to me. Indeed, his conversation and that of Sterling were almost my first introduction to a line of thought different from any I had previously known, and which, by itself and by its effects, contributed much to whatever mental progress I subsequently made.
It was during the same period that your father and Sterling wrote frequently in the “Athenaeum,” which, under their influence and that of their friends, sent forth many valuable thoughts, and maintained an elevation of character very uncommon, both then and now, in literary or any other periodicals. I had no knowledge of the authorship of the particular articles, on which you are probably much better informed.
After those years, your father’s path and my own, both in life and in speculation, were widely apart, and our direct intercourse was small and at considerable intervals; but I remained an assiduous reader of his writings, and was always a sympathising as well as admiring observer of his career.
1736.
TO PASQUALE VILLARI
May 19. 1872
Dear Mr Villari—
I am extremely obliged to you for the trouble you so kindly took respecting the Geological Map. Your information fully answered the purpose. I wrote to Audriveau-Goujon & obtained from him Collegno’s map.
When I received your letter I did not possess, at Avignon, a copy of the tract on Land Tenure which you expressed a wish to see. I have now obtained one, & send it to you by this post. If it had been anything like what the Revue des Deux Mondes represented it to be, I should not have failed to send it to you. But it is a very slight thing indeed—neither a manifesto of the Radical party nor the programme of a new party. It is simply a few pages in explanation of the objects of an Association founded for a special purpose, viz., to reclaim for the State whatever rights in the land it has not unconditionally parted with to private persons: including among other things the right to impose special taxation on landed property, to the extent of the increase of value which it is continually acquiring in a prosperous country from the mere growth of wealth & population, without any labour or outlay by the proprietors. There is a party among our working classes who go much further, demanding the resumption of all land by the State, with more or less of compensation to the landholders. A time may come for something of this sort, but what is proposed by the Society is as much as I think desirable (not to say attainable) for a considerable time to come. I am sorry that that little tract has been reviewed in the Deux Mondes by a person so ignorant of my opinions as to call me a partisan of extreme centralisation. It is about the last reproach I shd have expected. But a large class of French writers make assertions of facts with a levity almost incredible.
We are going very shortly to make a tour in Styria & other parts of the Austrian Alps, but letters addressed to me here will be forwarded. I hope to have a letter from you soon.
1737.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
May 23. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
Many thanks for your friendly attention to my recommendation on the subject of the Professorship. Mr Leslie has been very successful as a teacher, and I hear it is very likely that the Irish Professorships will cease to be subsidized by the Government, which would probably lead to his having to resign the one he holds.
With regard to the suffrage movement, it is not obvious what purpose would at present be answered by calling a meeting of the subscribers, or entering into communication with them by circular. What proposal have you to lay before the subscribers, or for what ostensible object would the appeal be made to them? Not, surely, for the sake of publicly denouncing the mismanagement of the other party, and exhorting the friends of the movement to adopt you as their leaders instead: It must therefore be to propose some active step: but what step is there to take except to go on propagandising in a quiet way, as you are already doing, by lectures and otherwise? Another public meeting, in competition with that of the other party, would only involve the London Committee in the same or a still greater fiasco. The public are tired of the subject, and their interest cannot be revived during the present session. The power of the London Committee to be of use to the movement depends on their keeping themselves absolutely free from the injudicious and undignified fussiness by which the other party have so much injured it: and of all things the most fatal to the cause for a long time to come, would be the spectacle of two sets of people publicly competing for the lead of it, with all the necessary consequences of such a rivalry. All this must be fully apparent to you, but you have not shewn how such a result could be avoided. It is to be feared that the movement will have to sink still lower than at present before it can rise again under new leadership. When the present leaders let the reins drop, disgusted with the failure they have caused, or when they have fallen into such discredit with their followers that they can make no serious resistance to being superseded, then the time of the London Committee will have come, if it has meanwhile kept itself clear of all similar discredit; but any public demonstration just now would be a humble adoption of the unsuccessful tactics of the other party. Their obtrusive activity requires even an exaggerated quietness and calmness on the part of those who wish to be distinguished from them. The policy of the London Committee is quietly to let the fruit ripen, while it continues itself ostentatiously inactive. Any action on its part now, will only expose it to sharing, in the eyes of the general public, the contempt and dislike which the other party have drawn down, for the present, on the subject. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1738.
TO COSTANTINO BAER
May 30. 1872
Monsieur—
Je vois avec regret et avec quelque surprise que depuis bientôt cinq mois j’ai reçu votre livre (L’Avere e l’Imposta) sans vous avoir encore remercié de ce don et sans avoir obtempéré au désir flatteur que vous avez exprimé de connaître mon opinion sur vos conclusions. C’est que je n’ai trouvé que tout récemment le temps de donner à cet ouvrage la lecture sérieuse qu’il merite. Aujourd’hui même je suis forcé d’abréger ce que j’aurais à dire sur votre livre.
D’abord en tant qu’ouvrage d’économie politique pure, je n’ai que des éloges à en faire. La seule critique que je crois pouvoir faire c’est qu’en traitant (p. 83) de la manière dont un impôt sur les profits industriels et commerciaux retomberait sur le consommateur vous ne semblez pas peutêtre distinguer suffisamment entre un impôt général sur les profits de tout capital productif et un impôt qui frappe seulement ceux de quelques branches de production. D’après les principes généraux de la politique la possibilité de faire retomber l’impôt sur les consommateurs me paraît manquer dès que l’impôt frappe toutes les industries sans distinction.
Comme ouvrage non pas d’économie politique abstraite mais de haute politique votre livre est plein de choses vraies et utiles; mais j’avoue je n’en trouve pas la conclusion suffisamment établie. Vous soutenez que la règle de la justice en matière d’impôt, savoir que chacun doit payer en raison de son avoir, exige qu’il y ait deux genres d’impôt, l’un sur les dépenses improductives, et l’autre sur le capital; et que le possesseur d’un capital, après vous payer comme les autres sa part de tous les impôts de consommateur, doit payer en dessus un impôt proportionné à son capital productif. Or je ne suis pas ennemi de l’impôt sur le capital; je trouve assez probable, qu’à cause de l’incertitude et de l’effet si démoralisateur de l’impôt direct sur les revenus on viendra à imposer le capital comme moyen d’en atteindre les profits. Mais je ne trouve pas que dans le système que vous proposez chacun payerait proportionnellement à son avoir réal. Votre opinion me paraît ressembler à celle de quelques Socialistes, qui, parceque les profits du capitaliste et son capital sont tous deux compris dans son avoir légal, oublient qu’il ne peut réellement jouir de tous les deux, mais bien de l’un ou de l’autre à son choix. Il n’obtient ses profits qu’à condition de faire consommer son capital par d’autres: s’il s’en sert pour sa propre jouissance il renonce à en tirer du profit. Or l’égalité dans l’impôt me paraît consister en ce que chacun paie à proportion de ce qu’il peut appliquer à la satisfaction de ses propres besoins. Tant que son capital reste productif il n’en tire pas plus d’avantage personnel que si ce capital lui avait été confié par l’état, sauf le privilège qu’il n’aurait pas alors de le gaspiller sans être responsable à personne.
P.S. Mon adresse à Londres est maintenant 10 A[lbert] M[ansions] &c mais des lettres addressées à Avignon me sont expédiées partout où je suis.
1739.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
June 22. 1872
Dear Sir
Your letter reached me at Heiligenblut. As soon as I am able to fix within a week or so the time when we shall be at Bozen or at Innsbruck, I will write to let you know.
Before leaving Avignon, I finished reading your book, which I think a work of great merit. I have not yet had an opportunity of comparing it with that of Mr. Grote.
I am no admirer of the English climate, which I think deserves the worst that I have ever heard said of it; but this year, cold and rain are universal, even in Provence, one of the driest climates in Europe. We have been greatly inconvenienced by the rain all this spring, and I hear the same reports whereever we pass. The weather here is rainy and would be very unfavourable for the ascension of the higher mountains, which, however, fortunately for me, I am not at present planning.
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1740.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Aug. 2. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
Your letter reached me a considerable time after its date, in the heart of the Styrian Alps, which we have found quite as beautiful and enjoyable as we expected; as we have also those of Carinthia, & Carniola. We had, however, a good deal of rainy weather up to the last fortnight, and since that ceased we have found the heat much greater than is pleasant.
I wish your letter had brought a better account of your health. I regret to have in that respect nothing to congratulate you upon, except the strength of mind with which you bear up against so serious a misfortune, retaining all your interest in the public, and seeking consolation in continuing to work for science & the general good. This, indeed, is only what might have been expected of you. I shall be very glad to see what you have written on the theory of value. Your decided opinion that the question between us is not chiefly verbal, or relating only to the best manner of setting forth the same truths, makes me think it likely that I have still something material to learn from you on the subject; and I think it very improbable that on a question of abstract political economy, after explanation, we should not agree.
What you say in your letter about the University College election in reference to myself is very kind and friendly. For reasons which I have already mentioned, I regret that the choice did not fall on Leslie: but your opinion of Mr Courtney’s qualifications for the Professorship is entitled to great weight, and has no doubt much helped his election; and if it is not to be Mr Leslie, I prefer it to be Mr Courtney.
Freeman belongs emphatically to what is called the historical school in politics and jurisprudence; he has the good qualities and the weaknesses of that school. Their error is, as is so often the case, a half truth giving itself out for the whole; for they are quite right in thinking that a good political institution is more likely to take a deep root when it has been called for by a felt want of the people, than when it has been set up by a king or a revolutionary leader on the strength of its general merits. But this truth is continually perverted into an attack on the use of reason in matters of politics and social arrangements; and Freeman does not sufficiently guard himself against this perversion.
Helen desires her kind remembrances to Mrs Cairnes and I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
1741.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
Aug. 3. 1872
Dear Sir
I fear the time is already past which I mentioned as probable for my return to Bozen, and I am more uncertain than ever as to when I shall be there. I fear, therefore, that we must defer our meeting till some more convenient opportunity, for I find the uncertainty caused by weather, health, and the various unexpected incidents of quite new country, is such that I cannot fix beforehand any date for my passing through Bozen. It may be in a fortnight, or it may not be for a month, and I may even possibly be detained so long as not to pass through it at all. I am
Dear Sir
your very truly
J. S. Mill
1742.
TO COSTANTINO BAER
Sept. 22. 1872
Monsieur—
Votre lettre m’est parvenue au milieu d’un voyage en Autriche et je n’ai pas pu lui donner une réponse immédiate. Je l’ai mise de côté avec le projet de vous écrire à mon premier loisir un examen détaillé de votre réponse à mes objections au sujet de l’impôt sur le capital. Cependant en relisant cette réponse il me semble que tout ce qu’elle contient avait été dit avec une grande clarté dans votre livre même et que ce que vous ajoutez dans votre lettre n’est qu’un résumé des mêmes arguments. En tout cas vous n’avez pas ébranlé mon objection fondamentale, savoir que le capital, tant qu’il reste capital productif, n’a d’autre valeur pour le capitaliste que celle du revenu qu’il donne et que par conséquent si on le fait payer sur le capital et aussi sur toutes ses dépenses il est en réalité imposé deux fois. J’accorde qu’on peut justement exiger de celui qui vit sans travailler sur le revenu de son capital ou de sa terre une plus grande contribution que de celui qui gagne un revenu équivalent en travaillant, aussi ai-je toujours demandé une réforme de l’income tax dans ce sens. Mais cela est principalement vrai pour ceux qui doivent leur fortune à l’héritage et non à leur propre travail antérieur; aussi c’est surtout par l’impôt sur les successions que je voudrais rétablir, en cette matière, la justice sociale.
Quant à publier un article sur votre livre ce serait un plaisir pour moi, mais il est incertain si je pourrai disposer du temps nécessaire. J’espère pourtant que je pourrai écrire une notice raisonnée en deux ou trois pages et la faire insérer dans une revue où j’écris quelquefois. Si cela a lieu je me donnerai le plaisir de vous envoyer le numéro.
1743.
TO SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
Sept. 22. 1872
Dear Sir Charles Dilke
Excuse the delay in answering your letter, which was caused by my receiving it in the midst of a tour in the Austrian Alps.
I quite agree with you as to the importance of making some movement to prevent the destruction of natural or artificial objects of general interest. France has set us the example, by making a register of all Monuments Historiques, none of which when so registered can lawfully be destroyed or injured by a proprietor, or by any local or merely departmental authority; though I have known a triumphal arch pulled down by the Ponts et Chaussées because it had not been entered in the Register.
The cry of confiscation may be met if the proposal is simply to make a list of all such interesting objects, Roman camps and Druidical circles included, and to provide by law that none of these may be destroyed or altered by the proprietor without his first giving the public the option of buying it from him for the equivalent of what it is worth to him in its existing state.
I perceive that Sir John Lubbock has given notice of a motion for next session for the preservation of historical monuments. It will be a great advantage to be able to act in concert with him; and if his contemplated motion does not go the whole length of what is desirable, he might perhaps be induced to enlarge its scope. I am
Dear Sir Charles Dilke
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1744.
TO GUILLAUMIN ET CIE.
le 22 septembre
1872
Messieurs
Je viens seulement de recevoir la première feuille de la troisième édition de la traduction de mes Principes d’Economie Politique avec prière de compléter la liste de mes écrits traduits en français.
Outre les quatre livres qui sont déjà dans votre liste, il y a des traductions françaises de trois autres de mes écrits: d’abord Utilitarianisme, dont la traduction faite par Mademoiselle de Peyronnet (aujourd’hui Lady Arthur Russell) paru d’abord dans la Revue Nationale et a dû être republiée dans un petit volume par Charpentier, éditeur de cette Revue.
Ensuite, un volume que j’ai publié sur Auguste Comte et le Positivisme, a été traduit par M. Clémenceau et publié, si je ne me trompe, par la maison Germer Baillière.
Enfin, mon ouvrage sur la Philosophie de Hamilton a été traduit par le traducteur de L’Assujetissement des Femmes, M. E. Cazelles, et publié par Germer Baillière.
Agréez, Messieurs, l’expression de ma considération toute particulière.
J. S. Mill
1745.
TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD
Sept. 22, 1872
Dear Sir
I have only just received your note of Aug. 27, and I regret that your visit to London has coincided with our absence. We have just concluded a tour in the Austrian Alps, and are now likely to remain for some time at the little place where we had formerly the pleasure of seeing you, and where you will be heartily welcome should your occasions again lead you to this part of the world. Meanwhile we shall be most happy to hear from you, and to know whether we can be of more use to you in England.
We have left Blackheath Park, and our present address in England is
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- Westminster
I am Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
R. G. Hazard Esq.
1746.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
Sept. 24. 1872
Dear Sir
We have now returned here, and shall be very glad to hear from you, and to see you at any time, either here, in England, or in Germany. I intend now to write a review of Mr. Grote’s Aristotle, in doing which I expect to be assisted by your work and to find occasion to mention its merits. I will send you what I have written, when it is published, and if I do not hear from you before then, will direct it to Aschaffenburg. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1747.
TO LEWIS SERGEANT
Oct. 2. 1872
Dear Sir—
I thank you for the three numbers of the Anti-Game-Law Circular, which I have read with much interest. No one has a worse opinion than I have of the present Game Laws & their administration & I would rather there were not a head of game left in England than that the existing injustice shd continue. But I do not find in the papers you sent, any clear & explicit statement of what, in the opinion of the League, the law on this subject ought to be. The opinions indicated are that there shd be no laws whatever respecting game as game, & that wild animals until taken or killed shd not be property, but when taken shd be the property of whoever takes them. In the former opinion I am inclined to agree but in the latter I am not satisfied. It seems to me just that wild animals shd belong to those at whose expense they have been fed; the nearest practical approach to which is that they shd belong to the occupier of the land on which they are taken or killed. Neither does it seem to me that the plan shadowed forth in the Circular would of itself terminate the evils arising from game-preserving. It is not, I suppose, intended to permit any one who pleases to kill game on other people’s land without their permission. But if not, then until the lavish preservation of game comes to be stamped by public opinion with the disapproval & contempt which it deserves, it is likely still to go on; nor for this purpose should there be need of a new law of trespass: the more rigid enforcement of the existing trespass laws would suffice. There would be still more shutting up of paths & other thoroughfares than there is at present. The fields & woods would be as carefully guarded against trespassers as they now are against poachers, & the highways & such paths as could not be stopped would be shut in between fences, to the great loss of all wayfarers & lovers of rural walks. I presume all these points will be fully discussed in the Circular as it proceeds but until I am satisfied respecting them I cannot, by joining the League, identify myself with the particular means by which they seek to attain our common object.
1748.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Oct. 4. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
We have now been here about three weeks since the conclusion of our tour, which was prolonged for two or three weeks more than we had expected. We have had an uninterrupted succession of beautiful scenery from the beginning to the end, and yet the result is to make us appreciate not less, but, if possible, more, the characteristic beauty of our own Vaucluse. In point of health the excursion has been beneficial to us both: me it has quite set up; it has not done so much for Helen, but though still very weak, she is materially better than in the spring.
We have had from Thornton very recent intelligence respecting both your health and your literary proceedings; the latter more agreeable than, to our sorrow, the former was. The two volumes of Essays, I suppose, are a republication of some of your contributions to periodicals, and well worthy they are of being so collected and preserved. I am more and more desirous of the completion of your other book. Your discussion of the question whether wages ought in any sense to be considered as cost of production, or whether that term should be exclusively predicated of labour and abstinence, was always likely to be scientifically instructive, but I now perceive that it will have a special value de circonstance. You must have been struck as I have been, by the thoroughly confused and erroneous ideas respecting the relation of wages to price, which have shewn themselves to be almost universal in the discussions about the recent strikes. The notion that a general rise of wages must produce a general rise of prices, is preached universally not only by the newspapers but by political economists, as a certain and admitted economical truth; and political economy has to bear the responsibility of a self-contradicting absurdity which it is one of the achievements of political economy to have exploded. It provokes one to see such ignorance of political economy in the whole body of its self-selected teachers. The Times joins in the chorus, notwithstanding Mr Courtney, who, I do hope, has no hand in the matter. Certainly no one who knows, even imperfectly, what the Ricardo political economy is, whether he agrees with it or not, can suppose this to be it. I hope you will come down upon it with all the weight of your clear scientific intellect, your remarkable power of exposition, and the authority of your name as a political economist.
I have done no work since our return but reading up arrears which had accumulated during our absence, but I am going to work immediately upon Mr Grote’s Aristotle for the Fortnightly. I have not yet seen the book, and cannot foresee how far I shall be able to produce a generally useful or interesting article upon it, but I mean to try.
Helen sends her kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, and I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
1749.
TO THOMAS SMITH
Oct. 4. 1872
Dear Sir—
I have to acknowledge your letter of August 27 & to express through you my thanks to the Nottingham branch of the International W.M.A. for the copies of their programme & of your able pamphlet which they have done me the favour to send.
In the principles of the Association as set forth in the Programme I find much that I warmly approve, & little, if anything from which I positively dissent though, from the generality with which those principles are laid down it is impossible for me to say to what extent I should concur in the practical measures which the association would propose in order to bring the principles into operation.
A remark however is suggested to me by some part of the phraseology both of the programme & of the pamphlet, which I shd think it wrong to withhold. What advantage is there in designating the doctrines of the Assn by such a title as “the principles of the political & social revolution”? “The Revolution” as a name for any set of principles or opinions, is not English. A Revolution is a change of government effected by force, whether it be by a popular revolt or by a military usurpation, and as “the man” in English always means some particular man, so “the Revolution” means some particular revolution, such as the French Revolution, or the English revolution of 1688.
The meaning intended to be conveyed by “the principles of the Revolution” can only be guessed at from a knowledge of French in which language it seems to mean the political ideal of any person of democratic opinions who happens to be using it. I cannot think that it is good to adopt this mode of speech from the French. It proceeds from an infirmity of the French mind which has been one main cause of the miscarriages of the French nation in its pursuit of liberty & progress; that of being led away by phrases & treating abstractions as if they were realities which have a will & exert active power. Hitherto the character of English thought has been different: it has required propositions that express definite facts not vague words which only seem to have a meaning. There is no real thing called “the Revolution”, nor any “principles of the Revolution.” There are maxims which your Assn, in my opinion rightly, consider to be essential to just government, and there is a tendency, increasing as mankind advance in intelligence & education, towards the adoption of the doctrines of just government. Those are all the facts there are in the case, & the more clearly & unambiguously these, & nothing but these are stated, the better people will understand one another & the more distinctly they will see what they are disputing about & what they are concerned to prove: When instead of this men range themselves under banners as friends & enemies of “the Revolution,” the only important question, what is just & useful, is kept out of sight, & measures are judged not by their real worth but by the analogy they seem to have to an irrelevant abstraction.
The otherwise very salutary intercourse which has grown up of late years between portions of the English & French working classes will be dearly paid for if it causes the advanced politicians of this country to abandon one of the best characteristics of the English mind & replace it by one of the worst of the French.
I cannot conclude without expressing the great pleasure with which I have seen the full & thoroughgoing recognition by your body of the claims of women to equal rights in every respect with men, & of minorities, proportionally to their numbers, with majorities; & its advocacy of the Federal principle for the security of this last. As a further means to the same end, promoting at the same time other ends no less valuable, I would invite the attention of your Association to the importance of Proportional Representation.
1750.
TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON
Oct. 5. 1872
Dear Thornton—
Your letter of Sept. 22 found us here after the conclusion of perhaps the most interesting & beautiful journey we ever made, the Greek journey alone excepted. The tamest part was the return home through Switzerland, from which you may imagine what the rest must have been. After leaving Udine from which I last wrote to you, we went right across the Dolomite country by the Ampezzo road, then round to Botzen taking the beautiful valley of the Eisack & the Luson Alp district by the way: from Botzen to the magnificent Stelvio pass, where we spent altogether six days, descending to Bormio on the Italian side & climbing to the summit of the Pressura mountain which surmounts the top of the pass. Helen I am happy to say was able to climb the pass on foot from Träfoi (low down on the Tyrol side) to the top & also to climb the Pressura without being worse for the exertion. We had the most splendid weather conceivable while near the Stelvio; but going on to the Arlberg pass we got into rainy weather & we staid five days in that neighbourhood, of which only two were fine. We then returned home across Switzerland & part of Savoy, taking the opportunity of seeing Annecy & its lake which were new to us. The journey has quite restored my health & has improved Helen’s though the improvement has not maintained itself at the height it seemed to have reached at the Stelvio.
We were sorry that your holiday had so unpleasant an interruption but glad that when resumed it was still pleasant.
I congratulate you on so nearly having finished your book. It is sure to interest me whether I agree with it or not. I have not yet begun to write on Mr Grote’s Aristotle, not having received the book, but I am expecting it daily. In what I said about Lewes’s book I was purposely guarded, having hardly any knowledge of my own respecting those works of Aristotle to which it relates. I did not think it likely that any book by Lewes would be profound either in philosophy or scholarship; but it seemed to me on the whole a meritorious work; & this opinion was confirmed by Mr Grote when I asked him what he thought of it. I cannot doubt therefore that if you wish to read respecting Aristotle’s physical writings, the book must be worth your reading.
I should like to have heard Louis Blanc expounding after his fashion the political state of France. We think with him that the French peasantry are becoming republican: but we do not think that it is in an unintelligent way. Helen attributes it, I believe with reason, to the great desire of the peasantry for thorough education, & their perceptions from experience that lay schoolmasters teach better than clerical. The Republicans being the only party who do not want to give education into the hands of the priests, this, more than anything else, is making the peasantry Republican.
1751.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Oct. 13. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
I have not received the letter you refer to, but have been surprised at not having heard from you any news of what has taken place in regard to the Committees. However I did not like to write to you to ask, because I thought you must be busy, and felt sure you would write in good time. I am afraid, now, I shall be obliged to give you the trouble of writing again, because your letter must have been lost somewhere in the Austrian Alps. There have been allusions in several other letters we have received to something having taken place in the Committee, but not enough to let us guess what it is. One letter spoke of “amalgamation” between you and the new “Central.” Of course I cannot judge what I should recommend until I know what has passed. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1752.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
Oct. 14. 1872
Dear Sir
Your letter addressed to Udine never reached me. But we should not have been able to arrange a meeting in Italy, for in three days from the time when I wrote to you from Udine, we left Italy by the Ampezzo road and returned into Austria. It was well that we did not appoint a rendezvous at Bozen, for the heat of that hot place was so great when we arrived, that we only remained there two hours.
I will write to let you know where we shall be in the early part of next year. At present we expect to be in England from about the middle of February to the middle of April.
I thank you for sending me your little book on Aristotle’s various meanings of ens. I find that it was well known to Mr. Grote, who refers to it several times. He calls it in one place an “able treatise”, in another an “instructive” one, and in a third he says that in your “valuable chapter” (ch. 2) “the meanings of τὸ συμβεβηκός in Aristotle are clearly set forth.” Unfortunately he did not live to reach that part of the subject which corresponds to your book on the νου̑ ς ποιητικός but I feel little doubt that he must have read it.
I shall be happy to hear from you on the philosophical questions which you mention, in your own language, (though you write most excellent English). But as I do not read the German cursive character with facility, I hope your German will be written, like your English, in the general character of Europe, in which your handwriting is one of the clearest and most agreeable to read of all my correspondents. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1753.
TO PRESCOTT, GROTE & CO.
Oct. 17. 1872
Dear Sirs—
I have just received your letter of Oct. 10. Will you kindly inform me what would be the effect of my executing a power of attorney, & whether any further formalities would be necessary in order that you may receive the money for me if I did so.
1754.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Oct. 23. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
We are glad to hear that there is no foundation for the rumours which had reached us of a reconciliation between the two Committees, effected at the general meeting of the members of the London Society.
I fully agree with you that it is most desirable that parliamentary action should at present be abstained from; and my daughter has from the first disapproved of the annual motion system, saying that it would infallibly lead to a falling off of numbers in the votes. But I should like to know what are the means by which you propose to “refuse to have anything more to do with the Bill during the present Parliament,” and “by abstaining bring” the Manchester people “to abstain from parliamentary action.” The end is excellent, and I have no doubt you will find good means of carrying it out, but I should like to know what they are.
At present, propagandism is all that can usefully be attempted, and for this purpose, lectures, if funds for the purpose can be obtained, are most desirable. We are glad to hear that a new lady lecturer of promise is available: who is she? It is a good plan to require a lecture to be drawn up for your judgment. What is the ground of your dissatisfaction with Mrs Ronniger?
Dr Bennett has great influence at Greenwich, and a reputation as a poet, I am told, among working men in general. He is not very zealous in the cause, and were he to lecture, the advantage would rather be his presenting the subject from the mild and commonplace point of view; which is some advantage. He was willing to have lectured when my daughter proposed it. Whether he would be willing now is another question: but we think there would be no harm, but rather good, in proposing it to him. [He was, we know privately, very much displeased with Mrs Taylor, Mrs Pennington, et hoc genus omne; thinking them unbusinesslike, fussy, rude, &c. &c. and being rather susceptible on the question of his own dignity.]
I will send the cheques for our annual subscriptions, if you will let me know in whose name they are to be drawn. I should recommend your sending round a printed form to subscribers, giving name and address for cheques and post office orders. If this is omitted it will account for a great falling off in the subscriptions. It would be as well perhaps to head it with the name of the Society, and mine as that of the President, in order that those who entered in any degree on my account may know that yours is the real Simon Pure.
I am Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1755.
TO PRESCOTT, GROTE & CO.
Oct. 29. 1872
Dear Sirs—
I return the Power of Attorney attested by Monsieur Bracchice, notary at Avignon. I have filled the blank with the address only, without any “quality”, but if any is necessary I should be obliged by your inserting what is usually said in the case of persons of no profession.
I send also, duly signed by the same notary, the necessary form. I understood from your letter that if I gave a power of attorney I shd receive a parcel of these forms which I have not yet done. I shd be glad if you would apply for it & forward it to me here: otherwise I see no advantage in the power of attorney.
1756.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Nov. 5. 1872.
Dear Mr Robertson
We quite agree with you and Mr Hunter that the state of things which seemed to us to counsel abstinence is greatly changed by the line taken in the Tory papers. It is evident that the word has been given by Disraeli, and we may now hope to see the bulk of the Tory party added to the voters for the bill. If this happens, it will compel Gladstone either to join too, or to bid for radical support by some other strong measure. If it is likely that Mr Ward Hunt or any Conservative of weight would be willing to undertake the bill, he should be invited to do so. It can probably be ascertained through Mr Eastwick or otherwise, by whom, either Conservative or Liberal, the Conservative leaders would prefer to have the bill introduced; and the vast importance of their cooperation will be so evident to all real friends of the cause, that there would probably be little difficulty in getting the subject into hands acceptable to them.
The time, moreover, is, I think now come when, at parliamentary elections, a Conservative who will vote for women’s suffrage should be, in general, preferred to a professed Liberal who will not. Of course there may be reasons in particular cases for not acting on this rule; but the bare fact of supporting Mr Gladstone in office, certainly does not now give a man a claim to preference over one who will vote for the most important of all political improvements now under public discussion. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1757.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Nov. 5. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
You seem to us to underrate the value of “a pretty face” in a lecturer on women’s rights. As my daughter says, it is not for the sake of effect on men that it is important, but for the influence it has on the younger women. It shews them that the championship of women’s cause is not confined to women who have no qualifications for success in the more beaten track, and that they would not, by joining in the movement, forfeit their chance of the ordinary objects of women’s ambition. This is an advantage which outweighs even some inferiority in lecturing powers. It is above all on the minds of women that we ought to work, for when the majority of them think the change right, it will come.
We have a strong impression that money is more usefully expended on lectures in the provinces than in and about London. In London and the suburbs nearly all who are likely to come to a lecture have at least heard of the subject, and are already either favourable or hostile: but in country places the lecturer often pierces into a quite fresh stratum of public opinion. It is often found that before any lecture had been delivered in a country town, nobody in the place had thought of the subject one way or the other, but that many are willing and ready to take the right view of it when presented to them. We should be sorry, therefore, to see provincial lectures neglected in favour of London ones. Indeed, our subscriptions to the former fund were made with the express view of lectures in the provinces. The general subscription arose out of my daughter’s offering £100 to Mrs Taylor for country lectures.
There is much to be said for your idea of addressing Mr Jacob Bright against the reintroduction of his bill next year; and I should much like to see the sort of address you would think of sending, if you would put it on paper in a rough way. It is important however not to include Mr Eastwick in the same application with Mr Jacob Bright. You may remember that Mr Eastwick said, last session, that he thought the parliamentary conduct of the question should be placed in other hands. Any address, public or private, should be made exclusively to Mr Jacob Bright. We think that the great motive, and it is a powerful one, for making some sort of an address to him, is in order that we may influence members who are favourable to the suffrage, openly to stay away in considerable numbers if Mr Jacob Bright insists on a division. This is the only way we can see of breaking the fall which is sure to come: and if Mr Jacob Bright knows that your Committee recommends this policy, it will be more likely than anything else to check his folly, if anything would.
The decline of the annual subscriptions from £350 to £217 is less than I should have expected, and not at all discouraging, when we consider, on the one hand the general tendency of subscriptions to fall off somewhat after the first year or two, through negligence or forgetfulness, and on the other, the subscriptions likely to have been drawn off by the rival Committee, and the general damp to the hopes of supporters by the unfavourable division last summer.
I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1758.
TO EMILE DE LAVELEYE
Nov. 17. 1872
Cher Monsieur—
J’ai lu vos articles dans la Revue des 2 Mondes des 1er juillet, 1er août et 1er septembre. Votre esquisse de l’histoire de la propriété territoriale, et votre description des différentes formes que cette institution a revêtues à différentes époques, et dont la plupart se conservent encore dans quelque endroit, me semblent très propres au but que vous avez en vue et que je poursuis aussi depuis longtemps, celui de faire voir que la propriété n’est pas chose fixe mais une institution multiforme, qui a subi de grandes modifications, et qui est susceptible d’en recevoir de nouvelles avec grand avantage. Vos trois articles appellent et font désirer une quatrième qui traiterait de l’application pratique de cette leçon à la société actuelle. C’est ce qu’on trouvera sans doute dans votre livre.
Quant à l’institution des Allmends, du moins comme elle existe à présent, vous en avez si peu dit dans vos articles que je ne la connais jusqu’ici que par votre lettre. Il faudrait en avoir bien étudié l’opération pour être en état de juger de son applicabilité à l’Angleterre. Mais je ne crois pas qu’on puisse nier que les réformes à faire dans l’institution de la propriété consistent surtout à organiser quelque mode de propriété collective, en concurrence avec la propriété individuelle. Reste le problème de la manière de gérer cette propriété collective, et on ne peut trouver de meilleure manière qu’en essayant celles qui se présentent ailleurs; peut-être même est-il à désirer que plusieurs de ces modes existent ensemble, afin d’obtenir les avantages de chacun et d’en compenser les désavantages. Il me semble donc qu’à titre d’ expérience, le système des Allmends constitué de la manière que vous proposez, pourrait être mis en pratique en Angleterre avec avantage. Jusqu’ici, les hommes politiques de la classe ouvrière anglaise ne se sont pas portés vers une pareille solution de la question: ils préfèrent que la propriété collective soit affermée, soit à des cultivateurs capitalistes, soit à des sociétés coopératives de travailleurs. Ce dernier mode a été essayé avec succès, et il jouit déjà d’une certaine faveur. La petite propriété, au contraire, n’a guère de partisans que quelques économistes et quelques philanthropes: la classe ouvrière paraît la repousser, comme une manière de multiplier le nombre de ceux qui seraient intéressés à s’opposer à une nouvelle constitution de la propriété territoriale. Pareil reproche ne peut guère s’adresser au système des Allmends, et j’espère que ce système sera pleinement exposé et discuté dans votre volume.
Je vois avec plaisir que vous prenez un peu l’habitude d’écrire pour l’Angleterre; vous y trouverez un public beaucoup mieux préparé qu’autrefois pour profiter de ce que vous avez à lui dire, et un penseur belge est dans une position de haute impartialité à l’égard des choses du continent d’Europe, qui le rend particulièrement propre à en donner de saines appréciations à des lecteurs qui sont souvent réduits à croire sur parole.
Agréez, cher Monsieur, l’expression de ma haute considération et de ma sincère amitié.
J. S. Mill
1759.
TO WILLIAM TRANT
Nov. 17. 1872
Dear Sir—
Your letter though dated Sept. 24 has only now reached me. My absence from England would in any case have prevented me from being present at your intended meeting, but even had I been in England, I differ too much from many of the doctrines of the Financial Reform Association to admit of my presiding at a meeting called for their promotion.
I am glad to hear that the gifts of my books through you to associations of working men have proved useful.
1760.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
November 21. 1872.
Dear Mr Robertson
Mrs Burbury’s objections to your proposal do not give me a high idea of her judgment. I quite agree with you that Mrs Fawcett is so far from being indispensable, that she is quite as detrimental as useful; and if the policy of the Committee is to be in any degree regulated by a reference to what she may do or think, I must at once retire from the Committee and withdraw my name. Mrs Fawcett is an excellent woman, with plenty of sense and energy but no experience, and a great deal of self confidence; a person, therefore, admirably calculated to fall headlong into mistakes. She never originated this movement, and is not likely to originate any. She has neither a speculative nor an organizing intelligence, and therefore, even supposing that she were twice her present age, she is quite unfit to be a leader, though an excellent guerilla partisan. You are, I believe, quite right in thinking that neither her husband’s nor her sister’s opinion would guide her in the least.
I also am of opinion that Mrs Burbury is mistaken in thinking that Mrs Fawcett brings or guides any subscribers to the Society. We know that she brought in none when the Society was founded, and have heard of no names since brought in by her. I am afraid that if I speak frankly, it may seem as though I overestimated my own influence, but I think, and I have reason to believe that you agree with me in thinking, that the Society which adheres to your Committee is kept together principally by my name, and that, rightly or wrongly, the majority of those who go with us in this matter, do so, in a great measure, in reliance on my opinion. I feel bound, therefore, to justify their confidence to the best of my ability, by not allowing my name to be used to back up anything I think foolish or mischievous, and cannot therefore give my name to the Society unless my judgment, in things to which I attach importance, is in some degree to be followed.
As regards the matter of addressing Mr Jacob Bright, I look upon it as depending wholly upon how good an address to him can be got up: so that I am very sorry you have not written down your idea to shew me. I recommend discussing the matter among your trusted intimates, and letting me see what you suggest, so as to have the address practically prepared before suggesting the matter at all at a Committee meeting.
I am Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1761.
TO LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
Nov. 22. 1872
Dear Sirs—
No 8 Upper Hamilton Terrace is the latest address I have of Dr. Ward. But his present address may be learnt from the London publishers of the Dublin Review, of which he is editor.
1762.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Nov. 30. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
Let me begin by expressing our sincere and hearty good wishes for the happiness of yourself and your intended wife, and for the fulfilment of all your hopes with regard to your married life.
I shall be happy to see your draft address to Mr Jacob Bright as soon as your other occupations allow of your preparing it, although I should recommend taking no steps in the matter, even in regard to the Committee, until after we have Mrs Fawcett’s scheme before us. Even if the parliamentary leadership were to pass into other hands, it might still be desirable to discourage any parliamentary action in the approaching session. With regard to Mrs Fawcett’s move, I think we should in no way connect ourselves with it; nor make any movement in that direction until we see what comes of Mrs Fawcett’s move, and until we know into what hands it is proposed to transfer the guidance.
We see no harm in your having consented to send a delegate to the Birmingham Conference, as Mr Hunter has always been judicious.
With regard to Miss Wedgwood’s proposed publication, the thing in itself would not be a bad thing, but all depends, in the first place on what Miss Wedgwood would say, and in the next place on where it is published: and it seems to me that supplying her with information should be conditional on being allowed to see what she has said before it is published, and on knowing where it is to be published.
I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1763.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
December 3. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
The address appears to us so good as quite to decide the question of the advisability of presenting it. But it seems to us more politic, and therefore more judicious, not to present it even to our own Committee until after Mrs Fawcett’s proposal has been made and discussed. Until that time it will be best to state that I think there should be no parliamentary action at all next year; and for the members of the Committee who agree with me to say that they think so too; but to listen to, and consider, Mrs Fawcett’s scheme and then adjourn before voting on Mrs Fawcett’s. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1764.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
Dec. 5. 1872
Dear Mr Plummer
We have been in England for a hurried visit of a few weeks on business since I last wrote to you, for my daughter has been suffering much from severe headaches (brought on I believe by overwork) and this year we spent the months we usually spend in England, in a town in the Austrian Alps. The long rest has had the good effect upon my daughter’s health which we hoped for, and we expect to be soon in England again, and hope to have the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs Plummer again, with our other English friends. But we will not be at Blackheath, for we have given up our house there, and have settled for the present in Victoria Street, Westminster, which we hope will not prove more inconvenient to you and Mrs Plummer than Blackheath was.
We are very glad to hear that both of you are in good health and that you are in good and pleasant employment. We both beg to be kindly remembered to Mrs Plummer and I am
Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1765.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Dec. 9. 1872
Dear Mr Cairnes
I am surprised to find how long it is since I last wrote to you, and even since I received a very interesting letter from you, which is still unacknowledged. The only excuse I can make, and it is a very insufficient one, is the temptation there is to put off letter writing whenever possible while one is occupied with other writing. I have now, I am glad to say, finished an article on Grote’s Aristotle for the Fortnightly; it is in the printer’s hands, and will appear in the January number. I hope you are not expecting too much from it. Mr Grote unfortunately, scarcely got further in his review of Aristotle than the logical writings; he just made a beginning with the metaphysical; and I have not touched, except in the most general way, upon any of Aristotle’s writings not treated of by Mr Grote. The Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric would furnish matter for more than one interesting article, which perhaps I might have been able to write after having once more read them carefully through, but such matters would have had no pertinence to the contents of Mr Grote’s book. The Physics, and for the most part the Metaphysics, I only know at second hand. You therefore will not find, what you seem to expect, a compendious account of all Aristotle, like that which I attempted to give of all Plato. I can only hope that I may have given a correct notion, as far as it goes, of what Aristotle did for Logic in its different branches.
There are two questions connected with the application of Political Economy, on which I should much like to compare notes with you. Have you ever turned your attention to the merits and demerits of a tax on property, i.e. land and capital, realized and unrealized, as a substitute for an income tax? The pros and cons are tolerably obvious, the pros consisting rather in the demerits of other direct taxes than in the recommendations of this. My attention has been drawn to the subject by an Italian correspondent of mine, Costantino Baer by name, a clever and sensible man, well versed in the best English political economy, and who has published a little book recommending, as the best system of taxation, a tax on land and capital, of a percentage on their pecuniary value, combined with taxes on such modes of expenditure as may be a fair test of a person’s general scale of unproductive expenses. I have written, for the small print of the Fortnightly, a short notice of this book, but I should much like to have your opinion on its main position.
The other subject is that which has given rise to a controversy between The Times and Fawcett, —the expediency of requiring corporations and endowed institutions to sell their lands and invest in the funds instead. I suppose we are both agreed that bodies which are constituted for the performance of other important duties, ought not to have their time and thoughts diverted from them to the management of landed estates. And it is perhaps not too soon to begin teaching this doctrine. But I confess I should be sorry that the teaching should soon be successful. It seems to me, that so long as it is certain that the lands, if brought onto the market, would be almost all bought up and added to the possessions of wealthy landed proprietors, or made the foundation of new large private estates, it is better that they should remain as they are; at least until the programme of the Land Tenure Reform Association, or something like it, has become the creed of the liberal party. Lands not yet appropriated by individuals should. I think, by no means be allowed to pass into private ownership but should be sacred to public purposes, and made a means of trying all promising modes of collective management, with a view of testing the practicability and the effects of these modes, and the capabilities of collective management in general. It is well that there is such a resource for experimental purposes without meddling at all with private property in land, until the advantage of doing so has been completely proved by sufficient trial.
I should like much to hear from you on these subjects, but only when it is consistent with your comfort and your occupations to write: and perhaps that may not be before I may have the pleasure of discussing them with you viva voce, for we expect to be in England in the early spring. I need hardly add that I should be glad to know how you are as to health—both you and your family. Our own report in that respect is a good one. Helen’s health seems to be steadily though slowly improving, and I am perfectly well. I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
1766.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Dec. 12. 1872
Dear Mr Robertson
I have only just received your letter.
As to a deputation, I have always disapproved of it, and disapproved of it still; but over and above my disapproval of it as a matter of judgment supposing it to proceed from any other Committee, I should wish to retire from the London Committee if it decides upon a deputation.
As to a private communication I think it a complete mistake to shew Gladstone our cards. I do not think this an occasion when a private communication with Mr Gladstone would be judicious, and even were it one I should not like to make a private communication with Mr Gladstone from a Committee of which I am the nominal head, unless through some members of the Committee itself.
I should disapprove of a deputation to Mr Disraeli less than of one to Mr Gladstone. Still I do not approve of it. I am
Dear Mr Robertson
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1767.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
Dec. 18. 1872.
Dear Sir
I am sorry to hear of your nervous headache, and of the troubles caused you by the attempt to raise a religious cry against you. Notwithstanding the progress of religious toleration, which even in my own country is surprisingly great, such appeals to prejudice are to be expected by any really free and rigorous [vigorous?] thinker; but when they do not prevent him from being listened to, nor cripple him in his means of subsistence, neither of which effects has fortunately been produced in your case, he has no need to mind them.
I am obliged to you for communicating to me in so clear a manner your new ideas on the mental operation of judgment. I have been much interested by them, and I think I can briefly express my opinion of them in three points, in two of which I agree with you, while in a third I differ.
1. I agree with you that Belief is the essential constituent in a Differentia of judgment, and that the putting together of two ideas is merely a prerequisite or antecedent condition.
2. I cannot, however, think that one idea is a sufficient prerequisite for a judgment. I cannot see how there can be Belief without both a subject and a predicate. If you say that the idea of an elephant suffices for belief in an elephant, belief in an elephant can only mean belief that there is such a thing as an elephant—that an elephant exists: or, in other words, that under some circumstances, and in some place known or unknown, I should perceive by my senses a thing answering the definition of an elephant. Now this, which is the truth really believed, is a fact, in two terms, not in one only. Existence, that is capacity, in some circumstances really to be found in Nature, of being seen or felt, is a real conception [or?] Idea and a real predicate. I therefore do not think that your modification of the received theory of judgment is sustainable. But,
3. Your practical alterations in the rules of the syllogism do not depend on that modification of the theory.
I have pointed out that propositions of all predicates, and of all quantities and qualities, may be transformed into exactly equivalent propositions, either affirmative or negative, with exist for their sole predicate. If this transformation (like the reductions, ostensive and per impossible, of the common logic) enables the syllogistic rules to be simplified, or further generalized, it is legitimate and desirable to do so; and though I doubt if the altered form and rules will or ought to supersede the old ones (the syllogistic logic being especially intended to guard against the fallacious use of the common forms of language) yet they may very usefully exist side by side with the old and afford an additional test of the correctness of reasoning, or more properly speaking, a different mode of applying the same test.
My article on Grote’s Aristotle is in the printer’s hands, and will be published in the Fortnightly Review on the 1st of next month. I have had an opportunity of making honourable mention of both the treatises which you did me the favour to send. If I do not hear from you to the contrary, I will address it to Aschaffenburg as usual.
I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1768.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Dec. 28. 1872
Dear Chadwick
Many thanks for your letter and for the Journal of the Society of Arts. I have read your Berlin paper with much interest, and am always glad to hear of anything you do. We are neither of us detained here by any reasons of health. My daughter is in improved health and I am quite well. We intend to be in London in time for the next meeting of the Political Economy Club, where I hope to meet you, and we shall hope to see you often during our stay in Victoria Street, where we shall be more easily accessible than we were at Blackheath.
Gladstone’s Liverpool speech seems to me very poor: the best things in it are but vague generalities. He does not, however, seem to mean that any one is morally responsible for his belief, but only for not taking pains to instruct himself.
I am
Dear Chadwick
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
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