1873
1769.
TO ALGERNON TAYLOR
[1873]
Dear Hajji—
The last time I saw Mr Gregson he expressed, without any suggestion from me, a very decided opinion that your marriage settlement, & the certificates of the securities in which the money is invested ought not, as a matter of business to be in the custody of one of the trustees, but shd be deposited in a solicitor’s office. I have felt some hesitation in proposing to you that this opinion shd be acted upon because the proposal might seem to imply a distrust which we certainly do not feel, in Mr Gurney; but in matters of business it is most right to act on business principles, such as experience has led people of business to adopt, as being on the whole, & in the long run best. It seems to me that the person who shd have the custody of the [deed ?] and securities is Mr Gregson himself, as the settlement was drawn up by him, as he is the solicitor of two of the three trustees, and also of yourself who stand first in order as cestui que trust; Pray let me know what you think of this. If you agree with me perhaps you would not mind communicating the opinion to Mr Gurney.
1770.
TO COSTANTINO BAER
A[vignon] Jan. 8. 1873
Monsieur—
J’ai attendu pour répondre à votre lettre du 26 Septembre, jusqu’à ce que j’aie eu le temps d’écrire un petit article sur “L’Avere et L’Imposta” dans lequel, en rendant compte du livre de manière à en faire ressortir ma haute appréciation, j’exprime mon dissentiment sur le point en discussion entre nous deux, mais en reduisant ce dissentiment à ses justes limites. Quand cet article aura paru dans le Fortnightly Review, (ce qui sera probablement au 1er février) je me donnerai le plaisir de vous en envoyer un exemplaire.
Les arguments que vous ajoutez dans votre dernière lettre à ceux qui se trouvent dans le livre, sont des argumenta ad hominem, se fondant sur une assimilation de l’impôt sur le capital à d’autres impôts que j’approuve, notamment aux impôts sur les landlords et à celui des successeurs. Il est vrai que j’approuve ces impôts-là mais en avouant qu’ils sont contraires au principe financier de l’égalité. Quant aux impôts sur la terre il me paraît juste (et je vois avec plaisir que vous êtes de la même opinion) de retenir pour l’état le tout ou une partie de l’acroissement de la rente qui a lieu par des causes naturelles ou sociales indépendantes du travail ou des frais du propriétaire tandis que l’intérêt du capital tend plutôt à baisser. Et quant aux successions, je ne reconnais aux héritiers mêmes directs aucun droit moral à hériter au delà d’une légitime suffisante pour leur donner de bonnes chances dans la vie. Donc si la société permet d’hériter par delà cette limite, elle a le droit d’y mettre les conditions qu’elle veut; et elle peut user de ce droit dans le but de modérer l’inégalité de richesses ce qui est moins permis lorsqu’il s’agit d’ôter aux travailleurs leurs propres gains. Par là vous verrez qu’au moins je ne suis pas en contradiction avec mes propres principles.
1771.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
Jan. 8. 1873
Dear Mr Cairnes
I thank you heartily for the way in which you have entered, in your last letter, into the two economical questions on which I asked your opinion. On that which relates to the lands of endowed institutions I am happy to find that we are entirely agreed, and am glad to hear also that Mr Courtney is on our side of the question. If you see the Examiner, you will find in it next week an article with my signature in which our opinion on this point, and the grounds of it, are fully entered into. Both my daughter and I are occasionally sending articles to the Examiner, having been much solicited thereto by the proprietor Mr Bourne, and having reason to think that he is really desirous of making the paper an organ of opinion allied to our own.
On the other question, that of a tax on capital, I have also been writing, in the form of a short review of Mr Baer’s book for the small print of the Fortnightly, of which I hope you will approve. I have urged against the proposed tax, the same objection which you make to it, though it is open to that objection in a somewhat less degree than you surmise: for, in the first place, Baer does propose that the plant and raw material of a manufacturer, in short all accumulated property whatever, should be subject to the tax. And to the objection that the professional classes would be spared, Baer would answer, that as a tax proportional to the value of every capital would only fall on that portion of the income from it which is pure interest, the capitalist would enjoy the same exemption as the professional man in so far as his situation is similar, that is, in virtue of as much of his income as is the result of his personal exertions and skill. The grand objection which remains unaffected is, that Savings would be taxed doubly and spendings only singly. I have condemned the tax as unjust, but have said that considering the very strong objections to an income tax, a country may possibly have at some time or other to make its election for a moderate tax on capital and land as being on the whole the course of least injustice. This is the only point on which I am not confident that you will agree with me.
I look forward to seeing you as soon as possible after we arrive in England, and I hope to find you, if not better, at least not worse than when you wrote.
My daughter begs to be kindly remembered to Mrs Cairnes, and sends her best wishes for the new year. I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1772.
TO LILIAS S. ASHWORTH
[After Jan. 27, 1873]
Dear Madam—
I beg to acknowledge your letter inviting me to attend & take part in the intended meeting at Bristol in favour of Women’s Suffrage & to express my regret that my engagements & occupations will not allow me to be present at the meeting.
1773.
TO JOSEPH BICKLEY
[After Feb. 4, 1873]
Dear Sir—
Owing to absence I did not receive your letter till now long after its date. I am glad that your club is so successful but it will not be in my power to deliver an address.
1774.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
Feb. 6. 1873
Dear Sir
I thank you for your further elucidations of the point on which we differ. You did not, however, as you seem to suppose, fail to convince me of the invariable convertibility of all categorical affirmative propositions into predications of existence. The suggestion was new to me, but I at once saw its truth when pointed out. It is not on that point that our difference hinges, as you will see by the remark I will now make on the new examples you have given.
In the first of the three, “A Centaur is a fiction of the poets,” the subject of the proposition when transformed in the manner you pointed out, is ex professo something merely imaginary; and therefore, as you justly observe, the proposition does not assert that under any conditions actually existing in Nature, it would be seen or felt. What this proves, however, is only that I, at least in terms, gave a too narrow definition of existence; expressing myself as if nothing existed but what is perceived by the external senses. You will not deny that a mere mental conception exists; and therefore a proposition which asserts that a fiction of the poets, answering to what we mean by a centaur, is, asserts this kind of existence. If no such mental conception had ever existed in the minds of poets, that is if a centaur, as a mental conception, had not existed, the proposition would have been false. Consequently the proposition does assert existence. And this holds, in whatever manner we define existence, provided we consider it to mean anything at all, and not to be (as Hegel says) identical with nothing.
Again, you instance the proposition “There are laws of nature,” or “Laws of nature are.” Laws of nature, you say, cannot be seen or felt. Certainly not as abstractions; but then, abstractions as such cannot be said to be, even in the mind. Law of nature is, as I understand it, simply an invariable order among phenomena: those phenomena can be seen and felt, either in external or internal consciousness: and if we see or feel the facts, we see or feel the order of the facts. When we see two facts succeed one another, we see their succession, which is as much as to say, we see them successively; for succession in any other sense than that, is nothing but a word.
You perceive, therefore, that you have not convinced me; but there is always instructiveness in such discussions, and I shall be very glad when I can see your idea worked out to its consequences in the improvement of the rules of syllogistic logic.
With many thanks for the kind and flattering expressions in your letter, and for the feelings of which they are the indication, I am
Dear Sir
very sincerely your
J. S. Mill
P.S. I am now on my way to London, where I expect to remain till about the 4th of April. My address there is
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- London
- S.W.
1775.
TO STUART COLMAN
Feb. 6. 1873
Understanding that there is no chance of your brother Henry remaining [illegible word] at Southampton I have undertaken to pay the cost of articling him to a surveyor in case it shd be decided that that would be the best thing for him in order that he may have another opportunity of a fair [start?] in life.
As to whether it would be best for you to take him into your employment & if so on what terms I can form no opinion whatever: & I consider that you are the best judge of whether that course would be either beneficial or fair to all concerned.
I understand that both his mother & himself would prefer his being with you but I think that you [are?] the only judge of whether that [would mean?] a favourable answer and to redeem my promise of articling him to a surveyor.
I hope that your school is making satisfactory progress & remain
Dear Mr S C
yours sincerely
29 [Clare?] Street Bristol
1776.
TO EDWIN RAY LANKESTER
Feb. 8. 1873
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of Jan. 8. I sympathize strongly with the desire to render the revenues of the Universities more conducive than they as yet are to the purposes for which Universities do or ought to exist, & I agree with you & your associates in thinking it a great defect in the mode of disposing of those revenues that no part of them is employed in making the Universities places for the advancement of knowledge while so very large a part is expended in giving incomes as rewards for the mere acquisition of knowledge unaccompanied with any obligation for extending it, for teaching it, or even for keeping it up. What would be the best system to adopt for the correction of this defect is a question which I am happy to see discussed & which will probably require much discussion, but in the meanwhile I see very strong objections to some of the proposals mentioned in your letter. The abolition of the competitive examination for fellowships seems to me the reverse of an improvement. I quite understand that the object of this proposal is to prevent the appointments from being obtained by cramming. But it is not beyond the capacity of the Universities to take sufficient security that success in the examinations shall not depend on cram; nor is it understood that the high honours at either Cambridge or Oxford are generally so obtained. On the other hand I have the greatest distrust of all schemes for disposing of high & well paid employments by a nominating body. Such bodies, having only a collective responsibility, are often even more addicted to abusing their patronage than single functionaries; the members are apt to job for one another, & vote for each other’s protégées. And even without the supposition of jobbing, a body like that which you have in view composed indeed of scientific persons but of persons whose position & reputation are already made, is not at all likely to look with favour on the striking out of new paths. Experience shows that Academies whether of literature or science generally prefer inoffensive mediocrities to men of original genius. Cuvier was no ordinary man but neither Geoffroy St-Hilaire nor Darwin would have had a chance of obtaining his vote for a professorship. As a precise knowledge of what is already known is now an indispensable requisite for carrying knowledge farther, it seems to me necessary to retain a very strict competitive examination as the first condition for a fellowship. This would be no hindrance to requiring as an additional condition that the candidate should shew or have shewn, by some original investigation, that he has powers which are worth securing either for teaching or for the advancement of science. Indeed even the nominating body, if it did its duty would I think be obliged to institute some kind of competitive examination in order to ensure the possession of a sufficient quantity of positive knowledge by young men who could not in the nature of things have given as yet any considerable public proof of high scientific capacity.
The terms of the circular, which indicate the object you have in view without committing you to any particular plan, I have no fault to find with; & I agree in the main with the Resolutions passed at the Freemasons’ Tavern, except that it appears to me desirable that the posts created for the prosecution of original research shd generally or always have some amount of teaching duties also annexed to them. But even if I were much more confident than I am that my views would be in accordance with those of the majority of the Association, I would rather not become a member, unless I were able, which I am not, to take part in the proceedings of which by joining the Association I should assume a share of the responsibility.
I am, dear Sir, yours very sincerely,
J. S. Mill
1777.
TO GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON
Feb. 8. 1873
Dear Mr Robertson
I have been delaying my reply to your last letter, expecting to have been in London before this, and to have been able to discuss the subject of it with you viva voce. I am still not sure when we shall be in London, but our arrival cannot now be very long delayed; and I think I shall be better able to form a judgment a little time hence, than at present. I think it very likely that it may be well for some sort of communication to be entered into with the Conservatives, but probably it may be better to do it, at least at first, through individuals, and not formally from the Committee. On these points we shall hope to be able to consult with you when we are in town.
If you should have occasion to write again before hearing from me, please address
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- London S.W.
I am Dear Mr Robertson
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1778.
TO SAVILLE, EDWARDS & CO.
[After Feb. 24. 1873]
Mr. Mill begs to inform Messrs. Saville & Edwards that he does not wish to make any alterations at present in the People’s Edition of Political Economy.
1779.
TO MARY MILL COLMAN
March 1. 1873
Dear Mary—
I will lend the money for Henry, but it must be on one condition—that I have clear evidence that Mr Willcox knows of Henry’s having taken money at Mr Hill’s. The evidence I shd require is either to have it in writing from Mr Willcox, or from Stuart that he himself has spoken of it to Mr Willcox. Of course to this I must add that the money must be repaid to Mr Hill, as even if he is willing that it shd not be, that would be a disgrace to the family. I think Mr Colman quite right in insisting that Stuart shd not take Henry, & I am very glad that he has done so.
Helen asks me to say how much we both feel for you, & Minnie & Stuart, in this second terrible blow falling on you.
1780.
TO SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
- 10, Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street, S.W.
March 9, 1873
Dear Sir Charles Dilke
We shall have much pleasure in dining with you and Lady Dilke on Saturday March 23.
I hardly know how to answer your very kind and flattering proposal regarding a portrait. I have hitherto disliked having my portrait taken, but I am unwilling to refuse the high compliment paid me by Mr Watts and yourself, and if sittings can be arranged within the limited time of my stay in London I shall be happy to make an appointment.
I inclose the cheques for our subscriptions for this year to the Radical Club, but we neither of us have any remembrance of having paid anything last year, nor indeed for 1871. If we have not, will you let me know how much we owe.
I am
Dear Sir Charles Dilke
yours very truly,
J. S. Mill
1781.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
- 10, Albert Mansions,
- Victoria Street.
- S.W.
March 9, 1873
Dear Mr Plummer
Can you and Mrs Plummer do us the pleasure of dining with us next Wednesday, March 12, at 7?
I think your idea of writing on the mode in which trades unions may be made the best use of, a very good one.
I am Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1782.
TO MONCURE D. CONWAY
March 13. 1873
Dear Mr. Conway
My daughter is better today, though still ailing. She promises herself the pleasure of calling on Mrs. Conway the first day she is well enough to leave the house. We should have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation, but we are engaged on the days you mention.
I could not find time to write the letter you suggest; but, in the manner and to the extent spoken of in your note, I should have no objection to your mentioning my name.
I am much obliged to you for the copy of your book, which I have already begun reading, and will do what I can to fulfill your wishes respecting it.
I am
Dear Mr. Conway
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1783.
TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD
March 14. 1873
Dear Sir—
Your letter to Avignon was sent on to us here. We are glad that there is a chance of our seeing you before you return to America & shall much regret if it miscarries. We shall be here in April but probably not beyond the first week, & as we propose seeing a little of Holland on our way to Avignon, we do not expect to be there till about the end of the month. Should your return be either early enough to find us here or late enough to join us at Avignon we shall be sincerely glad.
1784.
TO L. DE CHÉMENT
March 15. 1873
Monsieur—
J’ai eu l’honneur de recevoir votre lettre du 3 Mars.
Je crains bien que les articles tels que ceux dont il est question dans votre lettre, n’aient très peu de chances d’être acceptés par des revues anglaises quelquonques, soit scientifiques soit générales. Il y a bien un petit nombre des positivistes anglais, mais il n’y a pas de journal positiviste, et les revues sont généralement peu favorables au positivisme.
Je ne connais guère auxquelles cela vaudrait [?] la peine seulement d’offre des articles de philosophie positive comme cette philosophie a été introduite par M. Comte ou même par M. Littré.
1785.
TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES
- 10, Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street S.W.
March 16. 1873
Dear Mr Cairnes
Your MS. has arrived safely, and instead of being alarmed at its bulk, I am very glad that there is so much of it. I had previously received the volume of Essays, and have read a good deal of it, with a pleasant refreshment of my recollections.
I hope you have received the Political Portraits, which I have returned by Parcels Company and for which we are much obliged.
Helen has had an attack of neuralgia, which has confined her to her room for some days, and obliged her so to defer engagements that we do not know when we can promise to come down again for an evening before this day fortnight, March 30. But I hope one or both of us will be able to come down for an hour in the afternoon some day before that.
Helen sends her kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, and I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
1786.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
March 16. 1873
Dear Mr Fawcett
Can you and Mrs Fawcett dine with us on Friday the 28th at seven o’clock? I am
Dear Mr. Fawcett
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1787.
TO HERBERT SPENCER
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street, S.W.
March 16. 1873
Dear Mr. Spencer
Can you do us the pleasure of dining with us here on Tuesday, April 1, at seven o’clock?
I am
Dear Mr. Spencer
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1788.
TO HENRY FAWCETT
March 17, 1873
Dear Mr Fawcett
We shall have much pleasure in seeing you at dinner on Friday and shall be happy to dine with you and Mrs Fawcett on Wednesday April 2nd. I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1789.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- London S.W.
March 19. 1873
Dear Sir
I have just received your letter of March 15 containing the unexpected intelligence of your resignation of your Professorship. I hope that your powers as a teacher of philosophy are only to be transformed to a still more advantageous scene of action.
We expect to leave England about the 14th of April, and taking a circuitous course, not through Paris, to arrive at Avignon about the first week in May. If you are inclined to use a part of your interval of liberty in visiting that place, it will give us much pleasure to receive you there for two or three days if agreeable to you. Or if you are in England at any time before the 14th of April, we shall hope to see you there. I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1790.
TO DOUGLAS A. SPALDING
- 10, Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street, S.W.
March 19. 1873
Dear Mr Spalding
Can you dine with us here on Tuesday week, April 1st, at seven o’clock? I am
Dear Mr Spalding
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1791.
TO AUBERON HERBERT
[Before March 26, 1873]
Dear Mr Auberon Herbert—
We are here now & hope we may not miss seeing you as we have so often done before. Will you and Lady Florence Herbert do us the pleasure to dine with us on Wedy March 26 at 7.
1792.
TO SIR HENRY MAINE
[Before March 26, 1873]
Dear Sir Henry Maine—
Will you give us the pleasure of dining with us on Wedy March 26 at 7.
1793.
TO MARY MILL COLMAN
March 28. 1873
Dear Mary—
I inclose a cheque for £25, & a letter which has been forwarded from Avignon.
We have not heard either from you or from Stuart since we saw Stuart. I mention this in case of the loss of a letter, that you may not think I am writing to answer it.
We have made enquiries & find that according to general opinion the Bedford College is the most suitable place for our purpose. I will therefore arrange with Miss Thomas.
Messrs Dent inform me that the cost of putting your watch in order will be £4 or 5 & they wait for further instructions.
Helen sends her kind remembrances to you and Minnie.
J.S.M.
1794.
TO ALEXANDER IRVINE
March 30 [1873]
Dear Sir—
I am most happy that you feel equal to our projected excursion; but on the 10th of April I am unluckily engaged. I am disengaged on the 9th & if that day will suit you I will meet you at the Victoria Station at one as you propose.
1795.
TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN
[After April 4, 1873]
Dear Sir—
I shall be very happy to have my name included in Sir Fowell Buxton’s General Committee, on the assumption that this does not imply my participation in the active management of his election, for which it is impossible for me to have time.
1796.
TO EDWARD BARRINGTON DE FONBLANQUE
- 10, Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- S.W.
April 6. 1873
Dear Sir
I need hardly say that I wish all success to your undertaking, but to the best of my knowledge I do not possess a single letter of Mr Albany Fonblanque.
With regard to my own letters which you refer to, few of which, I should think, can be of either public or biographical interest, they were written so many years ago, that I should not be able to say, without seeing them, whether I should like them to be published or not. If you would kindly send me any of them which you would wish to make use of, with an indication of such parts of each letter as you propose to publish I will look through them without loss of time and give you an early answer. I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1797.
TO [WILLIAM HENRY DUIGNAN]
April 6, 1873
Dear Sir—
I thank you very much for the important particulars which you have been so good as to send me. I hope to make good use of them & will do so without giving any clue to the source from which they come.
1798.
TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
- Albert Mansions
- 10, Victoria Street, S.W.
April 6. 1873
Dear Sir
I have no information but what you are sure to possess on the early history of Cooperation. My father knew Robert Owen well, and had frequent oral discussions with him: of written ones I know nothing. Cooperation had then only been proposed in the form of Owen’s completely Communistic Associations. These my father thought could not succeed but he always said that they were entitled to a fair and complete trial. Cooperation in the Rochdale form he would, I have no doubt, have approved of and welcomed.
There is, I think, a paragraph on Mr Owen’s plans in my father’s “Elements of Political Economy.” I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
G. J. Holyoake Esq.
1799.
TO MARY MILL COLMAN
April 7. 1873
Dear Mary—
I will willingly pay to Stuart for articling Henry to him what I was willing to pay to Messrs Wilson & Willcox. I will send the £100 at such time & in such manner as Stuart may prefer.
We have seen Minnie who seems very well, & I hope soon to see Miss Thomas & make the necessary arrangements with her. Helen sends her kind remembrances.
1800.
TO FREDERIC HARRISON
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street, S.W.
April 13, 1873
Dear Mr. Harrison
I have been having some conversation with the Editor of the Examiner respecting a plan in which I am interested, which would be likely to give it a circulation among the working classes, as well as to give it a new character in some other respects. Your cooperation in this would be valuable, and if it were convenient to you, I should like much to have an opportunity of talking the matter over with you. Could you dine with me here on Wednesday next, at seven? If so I would ask the editor to meet you. I am
Dear Mr Harrison
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1801.
TO JOHN PLUMMER
- 10, Albert Mansions,
- Victoria Street.
- S.W.
April 13, 1873
Dear Mr Plummer
Since we heard from you last, I have been too much engaged to write, but I now congratulate you on your release from work that is uncongenial to you, and hope that you will find other employment more agreeable and tying less strictly to hours.
We shall hope to be more fortunate in having an opportunity of seeing you and Mrs Plummer when we are next in town. We leave for Avignon this week, but expect to be back again in the course of the summer. In the meantime please address to me at Avignon after the 16th of April.
My daughter begs to be kindly remembered to Mrs Plummer and I am
Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1802.
TO FRANZ BRENTANO
- 10 Albert Mansions
- Victoria Street
- London S.W.
April 14. 1873
Dear Sir
I do not think that my summer stay in Avignon will be long this year; and it will certainly be much interrupted by excursions into the neighbouring country: So that if you think of coming there I shall beg of you to let me know sometime beforehand, that I may not be away.
My present plans for the summer are as follows. From the first week in May to about the 15th of June I expect to be at Avignon; but shall often be away for many days at a time in the neighbouring mountains. From the 15th of June till the middle or end of July I expect to be in Switzerland; and I should much like, were it possible for me to manage it, to return to England through Germany so as to see you. In the middle or end of July I must be in England for some weeks. From the time of receiving this letter, I will beg of you to direct to me at Avignon, until you hear from me again. I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1803.
TO WILLIAM MORTON
- 10, Albert Mansions,
- Victoria Street
- S.W.
April 17. 1873
Dear Sir
I have read (and return by this post) your paper on the Social Position of Women, and I think it a good paper, and quite worthy of publication. But I hardly know what periodical to recommend its being offered to. It is difficult to get an article which demands complete justice for women into any review or magazine except the one or two which are already committed to the subject, and it is not there that such a paper is required; moreover those publications have generally their own writers, by whom they prefer to have such questions treated. I can only suggest watching for indications in periodicals of willingness to admit a free discussion of the subject, and when any such indications appear, to offer your article.
I am
Dear Sir
yours very sincerely,
J. S. Mill
Wm Morton Esq.
1804.
TO C. SHRIVES
April 25. 1873
Dear Sir—
I beg to acknowledge your letter of 16 April. The attempt to improve the condition of a most deserving body of public servants has my full sympathy but I regret that it will not be in my power to attend the proposed meeting.
1805.
TO JEAN HENRI FABRE
April 26. 1873
Cher Monsieur—
Me voici de retour, un peu plus tard que je ne m’y attendais, mais d’autant plus désireux de commencer des herborisations aux environs d’Orange sur les traces de vos explorations. Vous serait-il possible et agréable de fixer un jour où nous pourrions faire une course ensemble dans la matinée ou dans l’après-midi selon votre convenance. Au dernier cas je m’arrangerais de manière à rester à Orange jusqu’au lendemain; et dans l’un ou dans l’autre cas je vous prierais de me faire le plaisir de diner avec moi à l’hotel.
1806.
TO JEAN HENRI FABRE
April 30. 1873
Cher Monsieur
Merci de votre bonne lettre. S’il ne s’agissait que d’herbariser une seule fois à Orange il voudrait mieux certainement ne le faire qu’à quelque temps d’ici; mais il me reste, grace à vos découvertes, tant d’espèces précieuses à receuillir dans cette région qui toutes ne mûrissent pas en même temps, que j’ai envie d’y faire, ce printemps, plus d’une course dont le plaisir comme le fruit sera beaucoup plus grand pour moi s’il m’est permis de les faire avec vous. Je me propose donc de me rendre à Orange Samedi prochain par le train qui y arrive à 11.46 (heure du chemin de fer) et de revenir ici par le train qui passe par Orange à 5.40. Ne restant par la nuit je profiterais de votre aimable hospitalité en partageant si vous le voulez bien votre déjeuner.
Appendix I
ADDITIONAL EARLIER LETTERS
The following Letters have been located since the publication of Earlier Letters in 1963. They have been numbered with reference to that edition. No. 21.1 here, for instance, indicates that the Letter fits into sequence following Letter 21, to Benjamin Keen, in Earlier Letters. In a few instances letters which appeared in that edition only in excerpt are here published in full, or the omitted passages have been supplied; in such cases the original number has been retained.
21.1.
TO THOMAS WIRGMAN
5 June 1828
My dear Sir
I think that you have excelled yourself in this Essay, it conveys, to me at least, a clearer notion of what the System is, than I had before acquired; and, (what is a great advantage) you have expounded the Science analytically beginning with things as they appear, and proceeding gradually from the mental operations of which we are all conscious—to the discovery of those laws by which the philosopher finds them to be regulated. I think the part which treats of Sense to be executed in a very masterly manner; that of Understanding extremely good, though, not to my mind equally striking with the former. As to the Essay if my opinion is asked, I can only say that I think the execution extremely good.
23.1.
TO NASSAU SENIOR
5th January
[1829]
My dear Sir
This note will be delivered to you by Mr E. Chadwick, one of my most particular friends, who is desirous of contributing to the London Review, and who I am satisfied, would be on certain subjects a most valuable collaborateur. He has been a writer in the Westminster Review, but has seceded, like the rest of us, in consequence of the recent changes in that work. He had collected materials for an article on the London Police, a subject on which few people have thought more, or had greater opportunities of knowledge, and I believe that he would be glad to complete an article on that subject for the London Review if it be not preoccupied by some other contributor.
Believe me
yrs ever
J. S. Mill
24.1.
TO THOMAS WIRGMAN
[April, 1829?]
I have perused the “Account of the Philosophy of Kant”, in manuscript, several times with attention, and am very grateful for the very large stock of information which I have derived from it. All the more elementary principles of Kant’s Philosophy, so far as I am acquainted with them, appear to me very forcibly stated and aptly illustrated in this “Treatise.”—The exposition is less technical and more familiar than any of the writings of Kant’s followers which are known to me, and the arguments by which the various doctrines are supported are stated in this treatise in a manner not only likely to convince, but which, it seems to me, ought to convince, many of those who have been trained up in the existing Systems of Metaphysics. I have no hesitation in declaring my firm conviction, founded on no small degree of consideration and reflection,—That if the “Table of the Elements of the Mind” have no archetype in the impressions derived from our senses,—there is no point at which a consistent and consecutive thinker can stop—short of the “Kantesian Philosophy”. And this will I think, be more clearly perceived, in proportion as that philosophy is better known, and more carefully studied—to which end the publication of this little treatise would in my opinion greatly contribute.
39.1.
TO FRANCIS PLACE
Thursday
evening
[Spring, 1831]
Dear Mr Place
My father has been in town today—I have not seen him, but he left word that he did not wish the books to be moved this week, and that if the vans are not yet ordered or could be countermanded, he should be much obliged to you to put it off. As I did not see him I do not know his reasons, but I suppose one of them to be that I cannot be in town on Saturday—and another, because he would wish that there should first be some place ready in the house at Kensington to receive me and the woman who takes care of the house.
Yours ever truly
J. S. Mill
I will call tomorrow morning to know how you arrange it.
J.S.M.
49.1.
TO WILLIAM TAIT
23d May 1832
Sir
I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your communication of the 18th which (by the way) appears to have been written under the idea that my father and myself are one and the same person.
Since you have thought my article worthy of insertion it is very probable that I may place another or others at your disposal, though I cannot tell how soon, my other occupations seldom allowing me time for any contribution to a periodical work beyond the dimensions of a newspaper article. This will prevent me from undertaking to write either on the subject which you are so kind to suggest or on any other. I have written nothing in any review or magazine for the last four years, except the paper which you have done me the honour to insert.—Before that time I was a frequent contributor to the Westminster Review from its commencement.
I have heard with great pleasure from my friend Mr Roebuck, that your Magazine has met with great success, especially in the North.
I remain
Sir,
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
72.1.
TO WILLIAM CABELL
22d April
1833
My dear Sir
We cannot trace any Treaty with Cochin China, but I send you the inclosed which may perhaps be of use.
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill.
Wm Cabell Esq.
106.1.
TO WILLIAM TAIT
7th July 1834
My dear Sir
I have been very negligent in answering your letters, and I have not for a long time sent you any communications for your Magazine. The reason was that all my spare time has been taken up in writing various things for the Monthly Repository, which, though a work of much smaller circulation, seemed to me to need any assistance which I could give it, more than yours did. The two Magazines stand in each other’s way, however, for they are exactly of the same principles and each withdraws contributors from the other. I wish a junction were possible, but I do not see how it is to be effected.
In case I should have time to write something for you, what kind of article should you prefer?
I am going to take the liberty of sending a parcel of books to our friend Mr Nichol through you. I should have sent it by the packet to Montrose direct, but that it contains some books which I cannot easily replace.
The aspect of politics here is encouraging. Both the Ministry and the House have improved exceedingly in spirit since the late changes, & the decided breach with the Conservatives. This is not only my own opinion, but Roebuck’s, who has hitherto thought much worse of them than I have. The collision with the Lords will certainly come next year. Our object should be to hearten up the popular portion of the ministry to go through it confidently.
Yours ever
J. S. Mill
The Draft I had the pleasure of receiving from you was duly presented.
116.1.
TO HENRY LYTTON BULWER
[Dec. 1834?]
My dear Sir
allow me to introduce to you Monsieur Guilbert, one of the editors of “Le Bon Sens” who is desirous of your acquaintance & with whom you will I am sure have much pleasure in conversing
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
118.1.
TO MRS. [HENRY?] COLE
26th December
1834
Dear Mrs Cole
Allow me to offer to you the accompanying music. You are probably acquainted with other works of the same composer.
The March & August are the best, I think, in a high sense of the word. “July,” “October” & “November” are simpler, & extremely beautiful. “February” I admire exceedingly, & most of the others seem to me very good, each in its way.
Believe me
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
119.1.
TO FORTUNATO PRANDI
Saturday
[1835-39]
Dear Prandi
I am sorry to say the article will not, with any conceivable degree of alteration, do for us—but I should think it might do for the British & Foreign—Pray oblige me by giving the poor fellow the inclosed trifle—I wish I could serve him—& I wish I could give him more—but I have given, like other people, to refugees of various sorts, quite as much as I can afford.
Ever yours
J. S. Mill
127.1.
TO WILLIAM CABELL
20th March
1835
My dear Sir
Can you give me any idea of the time when the P[olitical] C[orrespondence] 1403 in answer to Political Letters of 9th May 1833 & other dates, from Bengal, is likely to be returned?
Unless it will be returned immediately, I would suggest the insertion of the concluding paragraph of it, in the P.C. just returned, relating to the Delhi Family; & if you should agree with me I should be much obliged by your returning the Collection to that paragraph.
Believe me
My dear Sir
Most truly yours
J. S. Mill
136.
TO JAMES MARTINEAU
May 26, 1835
Nothing could give the conductors of the “London Review” greater pleasure than that you should undertake all the subjects wh you have been so kind as to mention. The “2nd Travels” would best suit the present No. [ The article on “Young’s Lectures” in the first No he agrees with me in condemning as “paltry” in its attack on the “association metaphysics”, & not worth answering; it got in only through the imprudent promise of the editors to the writer. But a review of Young’s book on its merits, without notice of the article, wd give the opportunity of presenting the doctrine in its true light. For this] your paper on Priestley shows how eminently you are qualified. The last 2 pages of the concluding paper made an impression upon me which will never be effaced. In a subsequent paper of my own in the “Repository”, headed “the 2 kinds of poetry” (Oct. 1833) I attempted to follow out your speculation into some of those ulterior consequences wh you had rather indicated than stated. [J.S.M. expresses his agreement with me respecting a Church Establishment, for reasons which he proceeds to state. He is persuaded that the young clergy are quite prepared to go with Coleridge in his posthumous essay against the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible. If I review the “2nd Travels”, Mr White will probably undertake to review the “Remains of Knox” in his correspondence with Jebb, bishop of Limerick. J.S.M. is much gratified by my appreciation of his paper on Sedgwick in the first No; wh however presents only ½ of his view of the empirical metaphysics.]
136.1.
TO ARISTIDE GUILBERT
June 5, 1835
. . . I have become personally acquainted with M. de Tocqueville & like him exceedingly & I mean if possible to persuade him to write for the review.
169.1.
TO WILLIAM TAIT
6th April
1836
My dear Sir
The parties connected with the management of the London & Westminster Review are always glad to receive the freest remarks from all parties & especially from their subscribers. Mr Brown need be under no apprehension that such sentiments as those relating to Prayer in No 2 of the London Review will be promulgated in the London & Westminster. The writer, using the latitude given by the plan of the London Review, expressed his individual sentiments, not those of the conductors of the review, & if the author had not been a very important contributor whom it was necessary for the review to stretch a point for, the editors would have required the suppression of those passages. The plan of the review hereafter will be to avoid controversy on points of religious belief—one point excepted which may perhaps be considered such by some persons but which it is impossible for the conductors of the review to waive their solemn convictions—they cannot forbear to contend that man is not responsible for his belief, but only for using his best endeavours to arrive at a true one. This, & the principle that it is not the opinions arrived at, but the spirit in which these opinions are sought & held, which alone procures acquittal at the divine tribunal—these principles, which involve the condemnation of all exclusiveness & sectarianism in religion as well as in philosophy, the L. & W. Review will maintain with the utmost earnestness & energy—but it will avoid the expression of any opinion on points of doctrine, & it expects to draw its contributors from persons of every religious belief who hold that belief in a truly catholic spirit.
I hope these explanations will be satisfactory to Mr Brown, & you are at liberty to communicate their substance to any person who may entertain the same feelings with this gentleman. I have not been authorized by the editor to say this, but I speak from a perfect knowledge of his sentiments & those of the proprietor & you are aware that my own influence with the review is considerable.
I retain Mr Brown’s letter to shew to all whom it may concern.
Ever yours
J. S. Mill
171.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
26th April
1836
My dear Sir
It is intended to have in the next number of the London & Westminster Review, an article on the present state of affairs in the north of Spain—of a mixed character, political & military, or I may rather say, political & personal—discussing, first, the question of the foreign policy of our ministers, & the general question of interference in the cause of free institutions abroad—this, which requires only a few pages, I am going to write myself —but it is also extremely important that the prospects of the war itself, & the imputations which have been made upon the conduct of the Legion & of its commander, should be discussed, & for that purpose a good military critic is requisite. I need not say to whom, in such a case, I should most desire to address myself—but though I dare not go farther, in reference to yourself, than to say that nothing could exceed the service it would be to our review if you could be induced to undertake it—I venture to beg that if you cannot do so, you will be so kind as to favour us with your advice as to the quarter to which, next to yourself, it would be most desirable to apply—
Believe me
Yours most truly
J. S. Mill
173.1.
TO HORACE GRANT
Sunday
[May, 1836]
Dear Grant
I am certainly a good deal worse than I was three weeks ago—& do not seem to be getting better. How the place affects me I can scarcely tell, because I do not know how I might have been in London after my feverish attack. But it is clear this place if it does me any good does me very little. I shall give it another week’s trial, & if by that time I do not find myself getting better I shall come back. In the mean time of course I do not want to have any Collections sent.
My sisters say they & my father are surprised that they have seen nothing of you. If you cannot conveniently call on my father I wish you would write to him occasionally what passes at the India House—he seems to have been in wretched health ever since I saw him
Yours ever
J. S. Mill
173.2.
TO JAMES MARTINEAU
May 23, 1836
[J. S. Mill acknowledges a letter of mine, correcting, on the authority of Dr Channing, a statement about Dr Follen in an article on “German students” wh appeared in the previous No of the London Review. The writer (himself a German) was probably misled by rumour prevalent in Germany; & shall be enabled to rectify his statements. J.S.M. is not surprised that from the continued non-appearance of my paper I conclude that it is not cared for; but assures me that it is not so, but the omission arises merely from the need of consulting variety in the cast of the subjects in each No. It will appear in the next. If I like to deal (as I had suggested) with Phrenology the article will be sure of acceptance for the next No. Acknowledges my “Rationale,” —still unread, mainly in consequence of his father’s tedious & distressing illness.]
177.1.
TO HORACE GRANT
- Hotel Mirabeau
- Rue de la Paix
3 November 1836
Dear Grant—
I have just arrived here & found three letters from you, which are the only ones (except the one to Geneva & one from Naples) that I have received. The one to Geneva I found on my return from Italy, the post office having neglected to forward it according to my written instructions. Thanks for all the kindness of your letters & for the very great trouble you have had in a thousand and one ways about my affairs—you never think you can do enough for your friends. Those may think themselves very lucky whom you consider such for everything they would wish done is sure to be done for them with more zeal & energy than they would do it for themselves—& you never expect them to do anything for you in return—in addition to all this trouble you have lost your holidays which your own health so much needed, by my illness & absence—but it shall be repaid you twofold if ever I have the power.—As for my health, my head is much the same as before, that is, sometimes better sometimes worse; but there is hardly anything wrong now in my general health, & I am as strong as ever, so that it is evidently a mere local derangement, which may remain as it is for a long time, or may go off very soon—whatever it is, nothing I do seems to affect it, so there is no use in treating myself as an invalid & I do not mean to do so any longer. I shall live temperately, take a great deal of exercise, & avoid anything which I find by experience to be injurious—& so have it to itself. Pray give my best respects to the chairs—tell them I thank them most heartily for their kindness in prolonging my leave of absence but that in this severe weather I do not think any more travelling would be useful to me—rather the contrary. I should prefer returning to my work & if it does not make me worse I feel quite capable of performing it—before next spring the experiment will have been fairly tried & if either then or before it should be evidently better for me to take another interval of absence, I will ask for it. For the present I mean to stay a few days here as I am at liberty to do so & nothing appears urgently to require my presence—& perhaps by staying I may have better weather for crossing. Pray if you have time & you are not at last fairly tired out, write again—& if Falconer has not written (there is no letter from him here) ask him to write to me about the review. I shall see the number which has come out in my absence, tomorrow at Bennis’s. I did not get either of your letters which contained something from Falconer, nor what I regret much more, the little word from Carlyle, & the Naples people though they sent with my letters twice as many more which were not for me, did not send Graham’s, so I have had no letters at all except from you & from Kensington, but you have told me so fully what everybody is about, that I cannot have lost much. The only person you tell me nothing about is yourself—what are you doing? have you removed to Hickson’s yet? have you ever time to read or write or walk or do any one thing whatever that is pleasant? are you no better? well I am sorry to see you are not—& I should wonder if you were, being so overworked. Mr Peacock & Mr Hill too seem to have lost their holidays by my absence—but as Mr Peacock likes to take his at this season I hope he will still have them.
This journey will give us plenty to talk about in our winter walks—I have a store of pleasant things to tell of—but I cannot do it now—so good bye—
J. S. Mill
183.1.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
8th December 1836
Dear Molesworth—
I have no time to write at much length at present—but I will do all that you ask me to do. As to your question, what is the least that we should require of the Whigs; this I think is the least, & also the most: 1. that all the questions which interest the Radicals as Radicals, shall be open questions: the Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, Household Suffrage, Reform of the Lords, the Corn Laws, Church rates, Electoral districts, abolition of the qualification—perhaps you may be able to add others. 2. that umbrage shall not be taken at our opposing their measures when bad (as the English Church Bill) or moving radical amendments to them; e.g. the destruction of the Irish Church, in lieu of the appropriation clause. 3. that they shall support our candidates, as well as require us to support theirs; & specially that when a Whig & a Radical candidate or candidates come into competition, the one who has the stronger party or is most likely to succeed, (as far as that can be ascertained) shall be put forward & the other or others shall not only retire, but use their most strenuous exertions in his favour. Less than all this, ought not to satisfy us, & more we ought not to ask; because if all this be granted, we retain every advantage that we should have if unconnected with the Whigs, & as our support of them involves no sacrifice they are entitled to it at all events, so long as they are even a shade better than the Tories.
I take it as a great compliment that you modify what you write in compliance with my suggestions though you do not agree with them. With regard to Fonblanque, I have stuck in a note, complimenting him on his services & good intentions & gently remonstrating with him for quarrelling with us. You will see whether you are willing to father it or not. With respect to Howick —I know nothing of him personally, but various things in his public conduct have at different times made me think better of him than you do—his voting against the Corn laws &c. & I know positively, though I have never said it to any person but yourself (& it should not be repeated) that more than a year before he proposed in the Cabinet an organic reform in the Lords, & wrote a long paper on the subject. My informant is Senior, to whom he shewed the paper. Now I doubt if any other member of the Cabinet would have done this or if any one of them supported him in the proposition.—I have a great respect also for Parnell, & I believe he is moving heaven & earth to have the points of difference made open questions.
I have stolen in the last two days, time to begin a little article for the review & a day or two more will finish it.
Give my respects to Leader —an auspicious name in political partisanship.
Ever yours
J. S. Mill
184.1.
TO HENRY TAYLOR
Monday
[1837]
My dear Taylor
It has occurred to me since our conversation about Macaulay, that you might like to see a specimen of his statesmanship in India. I therefore send you a draft of a despatch to India, prepared by myself, on one of his measures. The authorities at this house went entirely with me, but Hobhouse would not: the thing dropped, & nothing has been written to India on the subject at all.
Do not think that a style so controversial as that of this paper is what I think desirable or what I generally practise in official correspondence; it is by no means so—but this paper was written in ill health, in the domestic distress of last year, & I may add, against time, having to be written before I could get away, to go abroad for my health: I left it in hands quite capable of moderating the tone, & altering what seems polemical in its character; & we often find it necessary to write our despatches first for effect here, upon the Directors & the India Board, & afterwards shape them into something more suitable to the dignity of official authority exercised over gentlemen by gentlemen.
In any case you will sympathize in the annoyance of one having for years, (contrary to the instincts of his own nature, which are all for rapid change) assisted in nurturing & raising up a system of cautious & deliberate measures for a great public end, & having been rewarded with a success quite beyond expectation, finds them upset in a week by a coxcombical dilettante litterateur who never did a thing for a practical object in his life.
Ever yours
J. S. Mill
200.1.
TO HENRY S. CHAPMAN
Tuesday
[March, 1837?]
Dear Chapman
I am very glad indeed that Revans is writing. I hope he will soon have the article ready, as we are sadly behind, & pressed for room.
I return the first copy you sent me, with some pencil marks.
Perhaps you will suggest to Revans or to me where you would like the case to be brought in.
Ever yours
J. S. Mill
201.1.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Wednesday
[After March 1837]
My dear Sir
I see there are numberless typographical errors in this proof but I send it to you at once, to save time. It may be returned either to this place or to Mr Hooper’s —directed either to Mr Robertson or to me.
I should not think of insisting on any of my emendations—& I hope you will consider them less as indicating the way in which I should like the passages to stand than as marking something in the original wording that seemed to require reconsideration.
ever yours
J. S. Mill
206.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
5th June 1837
My dear Sir
You might well be surprised at my not having acknowledged the receipt of your most interesting & valuable letter, your kindness in writing which in such circumstances as you did merited certainly the warmest thanks—& it was not from want of a proper sense of that kindness, that I put off from day to day writing to you, but from want of time, & wishing to say more than could be said in a hurry. I have been a mere drudge all this winter & spring—but am beginning to see land.
It was a fatal objection to Col. Shaw as the writer of the article we want, that he was about to publish a book, which would appear just at the same time, & of which the article could only be a repetition. But by the aid of your extreme kindness in giving us your opinion on the principal points in the conduct of the campaign—an opinion which we value much more than that of Col. Shaw or any one else—we are enabled to dispense with other military criticism & having selected the man who we thought could do the literary part best, we have given him your letter & he has incorporated all your views in his article. It is not yet quite finished—when it is so, we have an additional favour to ask—namely that you will, if time permits, allow us to send you the article in MS or in type, look through it, & strike out anything that appears to you erroneous or objectionable—if you would add anything, of course it would greatly enhance the obligation—the more recent events (for instance) may naturally suggest to you some remarks. It would be much to be regretted if an article which had the benefit of any suggestions of yours should go out of our hands with any silliness or crudity put in by somebody else
With renewed assurance of the sincerest thanks of all of us, believe me
yours (still in haste)
J. S. Mill
214.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
10th August
1837
My dear Sir
The London & Westminster Review ought to have a masterly article on the D. of Wellington’s Despatches, published by Colonel Gurwood. No one living could do such justice to the subject as yourself —& we could give you any latitude as to space & time—except that if possible it would be desirable to anticipate the Quarterly as to some portion or other of the book, in order that the extracts may be fresh. It would be a credit to the whole radical party to speak of Wellington in the review as you would speak of him, shewing ourselves at the same time capable of sitting in judgment on him—& the article would establish for us a reputation for first rate military articles
If your health be not a hindrance which I most fervently hope it will not—pray do it for us—& you will greatly oblige every person connected with the review & especially
Yours ever faithfully
J. S. Mill
216.1.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
29th August 1837
My dear Molesworth
It is impossible to be surprised, & quite out of the question to find any fault with your not being willing to go on year after year expending money on a concern which it was quite voluntary on your part to spend anything upon, & which has cost you, as you truly say, already much more than you at first intended. It has been a great satisfaction to me all along, & is especially so now, to reflect that I had no hand whatever in inducing you to start the London Review, except by not refusing a most unexpected offer when spontaneously made by you to me, & that though I did advise you to buy the Westr., I never advised you to pay so much for it. I should have been much mortified if I had induced you to stake so much money on your confidence in me, & then not succeeded—& the responsibility I have not incurred with you, I am determined never to incur with anyone else. I shall ask nobody to sink any more money in the Review.
I have now one question to ask, which I hope you will answer as frankly as I put it: Do you really wish to carry on the review till next April? I do not consider you at all bound to do so: neither I should think does Robertson: for as his plan has not yet had anything like a trial, he could sustain no injury in anybody’s opinion by its abandonment now. Therefore if you would prefer giving up the review now, that is immediately after the appearance of the forthcoming number (which Hooper, Dilke, & others advise us to announce for the end of October, not the 1st) it had better be done then.
But if you are disposed to try three more numbers, instead of one more, & so terminate Robertson’s year, what I intend to do is this. If by that time we can reduce the annual deficit sufficiently, to enable me with any prudence to carry on the review at my own expense, I will do so. In that case, I shall certainly not avail myself of your willingness to abandon what you have already expended, but shall consider you as a shareholder to the extent of the whole amount, & the only change I shall make is, to credit myself with £500 a year for my time & trouble (hitherto unremunerated) ever since the review was started, & prospectively too, as well as with all sums I may have to advance, & nearly £300 which I am already in advance. This I think will be fair if I take upon myself the future expenses.
If the sale should not in April have improved sufficiently to render this course on my part consistent with prudence I shall then offer the review to Dilke, or to whatever person will give you the greatest price for it, & guarantee its being carried on upon radical principles. So much we owe to the radical cause, which must not if we can help it suffer the discredit of being unable to support an old established organ. I shall in that case withdraw entirely from all connexion with the review. It will be commonplace radical, which is all that the bulk of the supporters of our review require; & our particular section of the radicals must in that case renounce the pretension it has had ever since the Westminster started, of being the leading section: a position which I do not think it has any right to, by its numbers, or even its talents, for there are not above half a dozen men of talent in it, but solely by its having definite principles, which no other section of radicals except the Owenites have.
I differ from most of the sentiments you express about the review, but I am not much surprised that you should express them. The good articles (except your own) in the last number were literary, not political or metaphysical, & literary articles are not to your taste, as you admit. I do not believe however that you will find anybody, except Grote & Roebuck, thinks the number destitute of merit. Such as it is, it is not (nor can any single number be) a specimen of the new system, for the principle of that is, above all, variety. We wished this number to be chiefly literary because the time of year was unfavorable to politics, & because it was desirable at first to overdo the change of character of the review, in order that people might see there was a change—which they never do unless it is perked in their faces. Those who liked us as we were before probably do not think this a good number, but I am persuaded that everybody else thinks it is a great improvement on our former ones. The next number, & perhaps the next after that will be much more political, as well as much more solid (though I hope equally readable) & may therefore be more to your taste. However that is a secondary question as you have such strong reasons, independent of the mode of management, for intending to give it up.
Neither do I agree with you in thinking the subject of the succession, & the King of Hanover, a bad one. It will be bad if badly treated, & if Robertson’s article is not good it shall not be inserted. If that subject is bad, your subject of Orange Lodges was bad. Both seem to me to be legitimate engines of party warfare. The editorial errors you speak of must be those (very bad to be sure) in a portion of the article on Spain, which I wrote myself. These errors remained uncorrected, or rather were miscorrected because the proof came to my house when I was out of town & so was printed off before I saw it. This was not Robertson’s fault, & I will take care it shall not happen again. Some such errors are inevitable when articles come in late, but I shall take care they do not happen frequently.
The elections proved to me nothing except the decline of enthusiasm, & the certain victory of the Tories at the next general election if we have not the ballot. But it is evident to me from all signs, that the people of England are moderate radical. There are a great many new radical members, but they are all of the moderate-radical kind; & it is evident to me that the reformers generally disapprove of attacks on the ministry. Whenever there is a vacancy, whom do they talk of bringing forward? Whether it is Kilkenny, Lambeth, or Dumfriesshire, it is Ewart, not Roebuck.—Ewart’s opinions are as strong as Roebuck’s, therefore it is not Roebuck’s opinions that are objected to, but his conduct. I have been much disappointed by the fact, but I see clearly that very few people are sorry for his being out of Parliament. The Spectator too is injuring itself: I have been asked by radicals whether the Spectator is going to imitate the Times—& one radical, a writer in our review, told me that four persons in his knowledge, himself being one, had just given it up. Rintoul will have to change his tack. As for Fonblanque he is utterly disgusting: not one word to induce the ministers to do anything, even at this critical time, but the old slang about Tory radicals! I have done with him. My advice to the radicals is to be active & stirring, but not to attack the ministry at all—unless for Canadian measures or something positively bad. But I shall not say so in the review, nor do I think it should be avowed as a principle at all. My article will be full of speculations on all possible events without predicting any & the principle of it will be that now is the time for radical men of business. Make haste & shew yourself one. The Transportation Committee is an excellent beginning. I shall shew that our present straits have arisen because neither whigs nor radicals were men of action. Both have shewn the most signal incapacity & inactivity.
I had nearly forgotten to tell you that your intentions about giving up the review next April were told to Robertson above a week before I received your letter, by the “Great Metropolis” man —& by this time it must be known to all the world. this is a great disadvantage added to the other difficulties we shall have to contend with between this & April—if the secret has oozed out through any of those who were so angry with Robertson on account of something which they supposed that man had heard through him, it will be curious enough.
ever yours my dear Molesworth
J. S. Mill.
217.1.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
22d September
1837
Dear Molesworth
I am going out of town for a few weeks & before I go I wish to tell you what has been doing about the review. This approaching number will I think be the best we ever had, & as far as one number can, will be a fair specimen of our present system. I have written two long articles myself, one on Carrel, involving incidentally the whole political & literary state of France; the other, a political manifesto, embracing the whole of the present position of the country, judging all parties, telling each what it has to do, & how far it has been wrong. The former article I know you will like, the latter I hope you will. Yourself, Buller, & Leader are the persons I am anxious to carry with me. If you would like to see the article before it is published, write to Robertson & he will send you a proof. It will not go to press quite yet, for I shall take it with me into the country in case something further should occur. Of our other articles, those to which I attach most consequence are two; one on the Dissenters, by Robertson, who knows them better than any other class, & better than any of us know [sic] them. I have seen a great deal of this article, & I think it extremely good, & well done, quite above anything Robertson ever wrote before: & without offending anybody, or compromising any of our own principles, I think it will give us for the first time a footing with the Dissenters: it will give us their ear, & be a beginning of making us their leaders instead of the whigs. The other article, which I consider the best literary article we ever had is on Italian literature since 1830, written by a refugee named Usiglio with the assistance of the celebrated Mazzini, the president of La Jeune Italie, & the most eminent conspirator & revolutionist now in Europe: the article is of the best school of continental criticism, the only good school of criticism now going; & is full, besides, of interesting novelties. We have put both Usiglio & Mazzini on our regular list, & we expect great help from them.
The paper on Carrel I have written con amore & those who have seen it think it the best thing I have yet done. I never admired any man as I did Carrel; he was to my mind the type of a philosophic radical man of action in this epoch. I have endeavoured to bring out this idea & many others & shall probably publish the article with my name hereafter. The leading ideas of the manifesto are 1. the necessity for ministers immediately to propose the ballot. 2. the necessity of keeping the Whings as our leaders if they will let us, on account of the inefficiency of the radical party; shewing incidentally how far Roebuck & the Spectator are right, how far wrong, & giving Fonblanque (without naming him) a kick for his attacks of [sic] the Spectator which he will never forgive me. 3. If the Whigs are to lead us, they must represent the average of our opinions. England is moderate-radical. Advice to the Whigs to throw themselves on the moderate-radicals. 4. Elaborate enforcement of the truth that bold policy is prudent policy, & that to undertake much is the way to succeed. The Whigs shewn to be rash from cowardice, & to have fought all their battles at the greatest possible disadvantage: what they ought to have done; what they ought now to do. 5. advice to our own radicals, to throw themselves on the working classes. 6. Appeal to the working classes in favour of the radicals, shewing them to be their only true friends. 7. Appeal to the people of property in favour of the radicals, as the only true conservatives: those who call themselves so being ready, as in the case of the Poor Law, to sell them for place. 8. Exhortation to Reformers to stand at their arms ready to act at a moment’s notice.
If Buller is still with you pray tell him that we shall have ample need of him: & if anything occurs to him that he would like to do, which would be timely about the end of next January, I hope he will write to Robertson.
I have written since last June nearly a whole volume of my Logic, have got over all the difficulties that had puzzled me, & see my way clearly to soon finishing the book. I am therefore in high spirits about my summer’s work.
I had nearly forgotten to mention the Hanover. I shall be in constant communication with Robertson while I am out of town, shall see everything before it is inserted, & if there is a word in the article which from my knowledge of your sentiments I think you would not like, it shall not go in without your seeing it.
I look forward with great hopes to your Report on Transportation. Lord John Russell’s official adoption of the Philadelphia system makes the whole question of secondary punishments plain sailing.
ever faithfully yours
J. S. Mill
If you could give us an article on Secondary punishments for January or April (as it may turn out) I should be exceedingly glad.
220.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
Saturday
[11 Nov. 1837]
My dear Sir
I have not been able to write to you sooner, as the crowd on Thursday forced me to direct my steps anywhere rather than to the Athenæum, & I had less time yesterday for reading your article than I expected. I have now finished reading it & I most heartily congratulate the review upon having such an article on such a subject as well as upon establishing so satisfactory a connexion between itself and you. The position you take up towards the Duke of Wellington is, I am satisfied, the just one, in every respect, & such as it is becoming for those radicals to assume, who desire as we do to recommend to admiration men of action instead of men of talk, & the qualities which fit men to be something instead of those which only enable them to seem. As friends of democracy which has no danger so much to apprehend as that of becoming quackocracy, we are most strongly interested in holding up such men as the Duke of Wellington as our models even when they are our enemies.
It is for this very reason that I am anxious we should state these views in such a way as to obtain most response from our own side—& as I have continually found in my own case that what I write from my own prompting may require a little modification to obviate chances of being misunderstood, so it occurs to me that the first few pages of your article, though not expressing one single idea or feeling but such as ought to be expressed, may expose us to misconstruction simply from the fact that they do not bear in their manner & tone sufficient evidence that it is a radical who is speaking—There is little difference between them & the very words which might be used by a Tory who was vindicating the D. of W. against the aspersions of radicals—& many radicals will take the censure to themselves, & combining this article with our attacks on the Whigs, will ask as I have heard asked about the Spectator, “are these people going to do like the Times”? If on reperusing those pages the same remark should not strike yourself, it would not create any difficulty about inserting the article, but it would oblige us to prefix to it an editorial note or introduction which would deprive the review of the credit it would derive from identifying itself with such an article, & deprive the article of that additional weight which even your writing like that of every one must in some degree however small, derive from being delivered as the sentiments not only of the writer but of a body who back him. It would be much more satisfactory to us if by the mere throwing in or taking out of a phrase here & there, you could give that slight turn to the introductory part which is all that is required. No other part seems to be liable to the same misconstruction—& the summing up near the end strikes me as quite perfect.
There are a few minor points which may be worth noticing in the proof, but not now—the only ones which occur to me at present are the following two: We have always hitherto avoid[ed] committing ourselves on the Russian question till we know more about it—& therefore are anxious if possible not to be committed [to] it by a side wind on an occasion when it [is] not absolutely called for. And secondly there are one or two sentences in which the East India Company are spoken of in a tone which might be very prejudicial to one in this house if they were printed in a review under my influence, & which I think more severe than is actually deserved.
I will read the article again very carefully & then put it into the hands of our editor, by con[ferring] with whom I may get some further suggestions, but I do not think they can affect anything in this letter.
Direct to me India House—
Ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
227.1.
TO JOHN HILL BURTON
9th December
1837
My dear Sir
In compliance with your request I have looked through the first two volumes of the Rationale, & all I wish to suppress in those volumes is the note at page 126 of the first volume. But I should wish my signature, at the end of the preface, & all mention of my name, to be omitted. I never intended to put my name to the book in any shape, & only did so because Mr Bentham insisted on it, & I feared that if I persisted in my refusal he would think I had done my work so ill as to be ashamed to avow it.
I should also wish a paragraph to the effect of that on the opposite page, to be added in brackets, at the end of the preface.
With thanks for the courtesy of your note
believe me
Your obedient Servant
J. S. Mill
You shall hear from me again as soon as I have looked thro’ the remaining volumes.
J. H. Burton Esq.
227.2.
TO JOHN HILL BURTON
15th December
1837
My dear Sir
I have looked through the remaining volumes of Bentham, & the following are the only alterations I think it worth while to make
vol. 3. p. 305. line 16, instead of “for a long time” read “at first.”
vol. 3. p. 307. line 13. omit “in my conception.”
vol. v. p. 104. line 3 of note. omit “the only sort of reason which a lawyer ever cares about”—& in line 5 of the same note, omit “pretended to be.”
vol. v. p. 576. last line, after “everybody” insert “perhaps.”
Omit the last paragraph of the concluding note “On the Belgic Code.”
Believe me
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
J. H. Burton Esq.
229.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
5th January
1837
[sic, recte 1838]
My dear Sir
After keeping you so long without your proof, it is with a bad grace that we ask you to return it quickly—but we are obliged to do so.
On reconsideration, I have resolved to ask your permission to revert to the plan you at one time were kind enough to consent to, of putting your signature in full to the article. The more I think of it the more I dislike to publish an article with a note controverting or criticising it, prefixed. This would be unnecessary if your name were annexed to the article; which would also add greatly to the weight of all the statements & sentiments it contains.
The article is full of most valuable thoughts, & most powerful writing, & I must in vindication of my own common sense, entreat you to believe, that all which is said of the D[uke] of W[ellington] I fully agree in, so far as I have any right to an opinion at all. My fears were, & are, only that the tone would be misinterpreted—common readers take their idea of what a writer says, entirely from the tone—they carry away an impression derived from that & do not remember, or worse than that, misrecollect from never having really observed, what was said.
However your name at the foot will prevent any misinterpretation.
On the Russian question I have nothing to say. On what is said of the E.I. Company my objection was not to anything affirmed as to the injustice & crime of many kinds by which their Indian empire was acquired, but to the apparent compliance with the popular prejudice which ascribes to the Company, & to their interest as a trading body, proceedings arising from the sinister interests (sometimes trading interests) of their servants in India, which they themselves partly from right feeling, partly from a view of those very interests of the Company as a trading body, steadily discountenanced. See my father’s history, passim. I believe the E.I.C. to have always been, & I know it to be now, what my father represented it, the government which of all others (except perhaps the U.S. of America) wishes to do, & does, most for the people under its sway, & the protector of the natives of India against the avarice & domineering spirit of rapacious European adventurers—
ever faithfully yours
J. S. Mill
229.2.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
Monday
[Jan. 8, 1838]
My dear Sir
I never had for a moment the idea of suggesting to you to make any alterations because they would suit my views or those of the review, unless you should also think that they would be not only consistent with your own, but would enable them to be stated with even more effect, because less liable to be misunderstood. The views themselves I should not have presumed, on such a subject, to object to, even if my own had been different—instead of being, as they are, exactly the same. I, also, wish all who do not do justice to the D[uke] of W[ellington] to be rebuked, whether they are radicals or not: only, as the review must not, & shall not, offend the great body of its supporters & injure or ruin its chances of success, not for the sake of telling wholesome truths but of telling them in a certain manner, without the explanations which that manner requires—it shall be my study to give those explanations in a note—which I would have preferred that the writer himself should have done—that is all. That the manner itself is either wrong, or in the least degree liable to misinterpretation if it were known to come from you, I neither said nor think.
Since I have not been able to induce you to enter into this view of the matter, I must do without: but I hope you do not think me so silly, if I wanted a “hired writer” to write what he did not think, as to apply to you for the purpose.
Ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
229.3.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
Tuesday
[Jan. 9, 1838]
My dear Sir
Nothing can be more satisfactory than your note. I do not think it will be needful to use the kind permission you give for publishing your name, but I will use so much of that permission as to indicate clearly in a note at the commencement, what quarter the article comes from—which being understood by the public, will remove all the difficulties I took the liberty of expressing to you—& there is no difficulty in letting the authorship of the article transpire without directly stating it.
Believe me
ever faithfully yours
J. S. Mill
229.4.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
11th Jany 1837
[sic, recte 1838]
My dear Sir
We accept your alternative of your initials & a note, if you will oblige us by leaving out the words “exempt from Editorial interference” which are a bad precedent, & allow it to run thus: “The following article is by agreement to be considered as the expression of the writer’s individual sentiments without involving the opinions of this review. Who the writer is may be easily discovered by the style, the sentiments, & the initials.”
Should you have any objection to add to the words “especially the Whigs” a note, stating just what you say in your letter, as explanatory of the tone? It might begin thus: “Some of our readers may not recollect the tone of the Whigs towards the D[uke] of W[ellington] some years ago”—then adding the passage from Perry’s article, &, (if it would be proper) the anecdote of Barry O’Meara. This would make a capital note, & by exciting indignation would put the reader into a fit state of mind for appreciating, & feeling with, your denunciation of such injustices.
This I think would put all perfectly right.
I quite agree in all you say in your letter concerning India.
ever yours faithfully
J. S. Mill
230.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
26th January 1837
[sic, recte 1838]
My dear Sir
I am exceedingly glad that the matter of the signature & note has been so satisfactorily arranged. We could not, of course, think of availing ourselves of your offer of your signature in full under the circumstances of the case—& I think it is altogether better as it is.
Mr Robertson, the editor, desires me to ask to whom he shall send a cheque? to Mr Bonne? or to any banker?
What should you think of Washington as a subject for an article? His correspondence is now all published.
Ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
239.1.
TO COL. WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER
23d March 1838
My dear Sir
I am afraid I have been inexcusably negligent towards you, for if you ever mentioned to me your wish for separate copies of the article on the Duke of Wellington, I entirely forgot that you had done so. As the best atonement in my power I send you four copies made up from the waste, & shall be happy to make others from the sheets of unstitched copies if there are any, or to send you copies of the review itself. Orders for which, from you, to any one to whom you may have desired to give copies, shall be attended to by the publisher.
Ever yours faithfully
J. S. Mill
248.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
19th October
1838
My dear Molesworth
On returning from the country I found your letter. You say nothing in it about your health but I hear from other quarters satisfactory accounts of it, to my very great contentment.
I shall be happy to give you any assistance in my power in preparing for your edition of Hobbes, but I am not aware that my father ever wrote anything respecting him except what is in the Fragment on Mackintosh. We will of course put in the prospectus for nothing. Tait’s £17 is on every account yours; the review has no claim to it; only if you get it let Woolcombe know, so that he may include it in his statement of your disbursements for the review which I am sorry to say it goes but a little way to liquidate.
Our last number has sold very well: there are only about 150 remaining out of 2000, & I hear from Hooper that many have gone to libraries, where there is good hope of its leading to the review’s being permanently taken. If it had not been for the cursed Canada business, which, I have now ascertained, reduced our then rapidly rising sale by full one fifth, it would have paid by this time. However I hope even this will profit us in the end, for the present turn in Canada affairs brings Lord Durham home incensed to the utmost (as Buller writes to me) with both Whigs & Tories, Whigs especially and in the best possible mood for setting up for himself, & if so the formation of an efficient party of moderate radicals, of which our review will be the organ, is certain—the Whigs will be kicked out never more to rise, & Lord D. will be head of the liberal party and ultimately prime minister. I am delighted with Buller; his letters to his father & mother & to me shew him in a nobler character than he ever appeared in before, & he & Wakefield seem to be acting completely as one man speaking to Lord D. with the utmost plainness, giving him the most courageous and judicious advice, which he receives both generously & wisely. He is the man for us, & we shall have him & make a man of him yet.
I was sure you would admire Comte’s book as I do myself, but it is rather too dry for the review yet. Have you seen the third volume, the philosophy of chemistry & physiology? I have been almost as much struck with it as with the others & have learnt as much from it, though there are more questionable things in the former two, but even on those he has shaken me. Pray read it.
I have received your 25 copies & will do all I can to circulate them where they will be useful. Pray bear the subject of Secondary Punishments in mind for our February or Easter number.
There is a great game for you to play in the next session of parliament. Buller has the best cards in the H. of C. & I think he will play them well, but yours are the next best. As for me this has awakened me out of a period of torpor about politics during which my logic has been advancing rapidly. This winter I think will see me through the whole of it except the rewriting.
yours most truly
J. S. Mill
248.1.
TO JOHN HILL BURTON
25th October
1838
My dear Sir
I have referred to the note which you mention —it is of very trifling importance, & so far as I am concerned I give my full consent to your omitting it or not as you may deem most for the interest of the work. I do not indeed feel the force of the objection to it—what is said about the incarceration of extraneous witnesses refers to the expediency, as a matter of principle, & I understand from you that my friend Doane’s note refers to the existing practice of which I do not find that I said anything in my note. Nor do I see the inconsistency between it & p. 232. However it is very probable that you & Doane who have considered the matter much more & more recently are in the right, & that I should think so if I saw his note—& therefore once more I leave the matter to your discretion—
I am glad you are in communication with Theobald, whom from what I have heard of him I should think fully competent—
ever yours truly
J. S. Mill
249.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
14 Nov. 1838
Dear Molesworth
What think you of all this rumpus in Canada? I find all the Whigs & moderates here blame Lord Durham for the Proclamation, & he has already the greater part of the real radicals against him for the Ordinance. But I think the liberal party in the country generally is with him. I mean to stand by him, as my letters from Buller, & Rintoul’s from Wakefield convince me that he was quite right in resigning & that he comes home fully prepared (if the damned pseudo-radicals do not get round him & talk him over) to set up for himself. For the purpose of acting at once upon him & upon the country in that sens, I have written an elaborate defence of him which will be published in the review next week, & will be in the newspapers before that. I hope exceedingly that you will approve of it for if this man really tries to put himself at the head of the liberals, your standing by him will do a world of good. What a pity Leader made such a damned fool of himself after you quitted town.
Write to me sometimes to say how you are. The Prospectus of Hobbes is very well done but I am sorry the price of the book is to be so high, as I fear few will give so much for it except for making libraries—not for bona fide reading.
By the bye Nichol who has been roaming about, finds that a letter to him franked by you, has miscarried, & he begs me to ask you whom you franked it for. I do not think it was for me, as he seems to have got all my letters.
When you write on Secondary Punishments which I hope will be soon, & for us, I must shew you the Report of a Committee at Calcutta on Prisons & Prison Discipline in India. It is full of good observations & the writer is up to the most advanced ideas on penal law. Though the subject is prisons, all the questions of secondary punishment are in fact included in it. I do not send you a copy, for only one has yet reached the India house.
ever yours
J. S. Mill
266.1.
TO GUSTAVE DE BEAUMONT
18th October
1839
My dear Beaumont
You have been made acquainted by my friend Grant with my absence from England at the time when your letter was received here, & the cause of it—I did not return here till July, it was some time longer before your book reached me, & as so much time had already elapsed I determined to delay writing to you until I should have thoroughly read & considered the book. I have only lately been able to do so, especially as the reading of such a book, the kind of book of all others the most delightful to me, an occupation which always, if I can, reserve for a moment, not only of leisure but of pleasurable leisure—a sort of intellectual luxury, to be enjoyed at ease.
I hardly know how to express to you the degree of my estimation of your book, in as measured terms as a sober man likes to use in expressing a deliberate judgment—but this I may say, in the confidence of being rather within than beside the mark—that the book not only displays a complete & easy mastery over all the social elements & agencies at work in Ireland, over the whole great [world?] of Irish history & Irish civilization; but th[at] it also manifests a degree of clear comprehension & accurate knowledge of the far more complicated & obscure phenomen[a] of English society, never before even approached by any foreigner whom I know of, & by very, very few Englishmen. Even those Englishmen who know their own country best, may learn much from the connected & enlarged mode of exhibiting what they know, which is characteristic of all good writers & thinkers of your country; & that benefit we were sure [to] receive, from the views of English affairs taken by a mind like yours; but what surprises me more, & contrasts more strikingly with the many gross blunders in matters of fact usual[ly] made by Frenchmen in writing about England, is, that in your two volumes I have not been able to detect one error of material importance in the statements [made] & very few indeed even of a trifling kind. To shew how few & how small they are I will just mention two of them, assuring you that they are quite the two greatest errors I have found in the book. The fictions of fine & recovery, so judiciously characterized by you, & which you say will not easily be abolished, have been abolished for the last two or three years by a bill emanating from the late Real Property Commission; carried through Parliament by the Attorney General; & by which owners of land are now empowered to do directly what formerly they could only do in that circuitous manner. The other mistake is, that the Whigs have abandoned the Ballot. The fact is notorious here that every year more & more of the Whigs are converted to the Ballot, & none have ever been converted from it. I suppose you must have been led into this opinion by the fact that Lord Althorp & one or two others connected with the Whig ministry had voted for the Ballot formerly but that was before the Reform Bill, & the reason that they [announced?] that change was, that the R. Bill had done so much for the democratic principle that a fair trial ought to be given to it without any fur[ther?] [—?] that they were precluded by an implied promise at [the] time when the Bill passed from proposing any further reform. I should add that in those days, when Lord Althorp voted for the ballot he was not considered a Whig, & so hostile to the ballot were all the Whigs that the Ballot was considered ultra-Radicalism, the very ne plus ultra of Democracy. A few rational persons like Lord Althorp alone saw that it was not so.
Your book on the whole gives an impression, perhaps, too favorable to the English aristocracy in England, & suggests the idea that the evils & abuses in England are less than I think them; but this was an inevitable consequence of representing England in contrast with Ireland, where all the natural evil tendencies of our institutions are so much aggravated by the causes you so well point out; all the distinctions which you draw, really exist, & you have, especially in the latter half of the second volume, guarded as much perhaps as it was possible to do against the kind of impression which was in some degree inevitable.
In your views of what the different parties in England can do or are likely to do for Ireland, I entirely agree; as well as in your views of what ought to be done; with one exception: I think that more might be done by emigration, than you appear to consider possible. You ha[ve] probably not [adverted?] to the improved principles of Colonization first promulgated by Mr Wakefield (the son of the Wakefield who wrote on Ireland) & now generally adopted both by political writers & practical statesmen among us. I was nearly the first proselyte whom he made to them. I have in my turn helped to convince others that by selling all new land in the colonies, for such a price as shall prevent the usual dispersion of settlers all over the country (so incompatible with the combination & division of labour) & appropriating the produce to paying the expenses of emigration you may raise out of the wealth actually created by emigration a fund increasing by geometrical progression, to pay the expenses of further emigration. If indeed the expense had to be born by the state, I should agree with you in despairing of the attainment, although I do not think the number of persons necessary to be removed, so great as you do. I think the only instance in which you seem to me to have overvalued any article of testimony is that of the Irish Poor Law Commission Reports. That Commission was entirely led by Dr. Whately, who went into the enquiry with a strong preconceived opinion against Poor Laws—the biassing effect of which is easily seen; & the Secretary of the Commission, Revans, has pointed out the fallacy by which they were led greatly to overrate the number of destitute persons in Ireland—they computed all the itinerant poor who passed through a particular district in a given time, & then multiplied that number in the ratio which all Ireland bore to the size of the particular district—forgetting that the beggars of Ireland ply all over Ireland, & that they would have met with the very same men successively in a great many places.
I have not a word more to say in dissent from any thing in the book; which goes to the very bottom of the subject it treats of, & must place you, in the mind of every competent judge, in a rank among European thinkers, which even the promise of your former writings excellent as they were, could scarcely have justified us in expecting. We have only now to hope that you may live long & write other such books.
ever yours faithfully
J. S. Mill
270.1.
TO JOHN HILL BURTON
15th Jany
1840
My dear Sir
I have referred to two copies of the Rationale of Evidence in my possession, & I find neither of them has any errata. I have no recollection whatever of any such circumstance, nor can I recal to mind anything connected with the subject. It is therefore pretty certain that the alterations were not suggested by Mr Bentham himself, to me at least, or I should have remembered something about it. He may have had a paper of Errata printed afterwards—or I may have done it myself—but in neither case can I account for the non appearance of the paper in most of the copies.
Unless Bowring can throw some light upon the subject, I fear it must remain in darkness.
It cannot I think be worth while to cancel anything on account of this oversight.
Robertson has read to me your letter on the Church quarrel, which interested me much—
ever truly yours
J. S. Mill
270.2.
TO JOHN HILL BURTON
23d Jany
1840
My dear Sir
From the nature & wording of your extract from the errata I should conjecture that they are Bentham’s own. If so, either Bowring or Doane, with both of whom you are in communication & I am not, are the only persons likely to be able to throw any light upon it. No doubt the errata were inserted after many of the copies were sold.
I purposely struck out of the opening chapter in the MS whatever was said about securing the forthcomingness of evidence, because there was nothing corresponding to it in the work itself. The author seemed to have intended to include that subject in the Treatise, but to have changed his views as he went on, & reserved it for Procedure—
ever yours
J. S. Mill
270.3.
TO JOHN STERLING
30th January
1840
My dear Sterling
This is to introduce to you my brother Henry, my mother, & my sister Clara, who are bound for Madeira on account of Henry’s health & for whom I know it is not necessary to solicit your kind offices.
Yours ever affectionately
J. S. Mill
298.
TO SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH
19th Novr 1840
My dear Molesworth
Your note of the 11th of last month was sent to me into the country & I should have written sooner to thank you for what you did in relation to the Lunatic Asylum if I had not wished to be able at the same time to give you a satisfactory answer to your enquiries about my Logic. I have been working at it in the country &, I am happy to say, have finished it—the first draft of it I mean for a great deal of it will require rewriting, & some parts of it, probably, recasting, in order that the earlier parts may have the benefit of the new lights struck out in the latter ones. Of course too there is much to do to it in the way of making it clearer & more popular—& perhaps some of the details require to be worked out more carefully, but I do not expect to have anything to add to the ideas. I hope this winter will enable me to do all that is necessary & that I may begin to print next summer.
I think very much as you do about Whewell’s book. His “History” was of great use to me, by bringing before me all that had been done & the manner in which it had been done. I have got nothing new from his “Philosophy” though I think it likely to be a useful book—his theory is much better than no theory—& his “ideas” are really the metaphysical premisses of the sciences the only contestable point being their a priori origin. I shall have to dwell more upon that point in rewriting my book, than I have done & it is a great advantage to have the floating doctrines of the enemy fixed in a book of authority, because then one cannot be required to do more than answer what is said in the book.
You ask me if anything good has lately come out, in answer to which enquiry I request your acceptance of something very good.
Your Leeds demonstration seems to me a very proper thing, done in the very best way—& I think that is the general impression about it. I cannot but think that it has done & will do good, both in France & here & I am sure it has had a good effect in raising your public character.
Fonblanque has been doing admirably on this war question. It is the first time that he has thrown off his ministerial livery. The Times also has been rendering good service of late.
I hope to hear from you now & then
ever yours
J. S. Mill
341.1.
TO WILLIAM LOVETT
15th Feby
1842
Dear Mr Lovett
I have been too long without sending an answer to your circular. I think it very desirable that a place of meeting should exist for the purposes which the Circular refers to & I shall be quite ready to contribute my mite towards providing it.
Yours ever
J. S. Mill
343.1.
TO [JOHN MURRAY]
Saty
[After Feb. 24, 1842]
My dear Sir
In returning my MS, you did not return to me the Preface & Table of Contents. Would you oblige me by letting me have them?
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
344.1.
TO WILLIAM HENRY SMITH
[March ? 1842]
I showed your play to the most superior woman I have ever known, and the most fastidious judge of poetry, and she writes to me about it: “I like the play very much. I think the subject an excellent one, and the mode of saying it natural, healthy, and quite free from the affectation of ‘old dramatists’, which is an affectation I, of all others, most nauseate. It is the only play, and almost the only poem, of the present time which I know without affected mannerism.”
I think it worth while telling you of this opinion, because, if you were acquainted with the writer, I am sure you would attach real value to her judgment, and especially to her approbation.—
Ever yours,
J. S. Mill
370.1.
TO FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
9th Sepr 1842.
My dear Maurice
Thank you very sincerely for your book, which I have just now finished reading. As a production of intellect I could say much in admiration of it; but that I know is not what you would most like to hear. It is very pleasant to find oneself so much in sympathy, both morally and intellectually, with a writer from whose fundamental principles and from many of whose practical conclusions one is obliged to dissent.
I have also just finished a second and more careful reading of your Moral Philosophy in the Enc Metr. This is still more interesting to me than the other and I can assent to more of history being a subject on which we have more principles in common. I agree to a much greater extent than you would perhaps suppose, in your view, even of the historical position of the Jews. I believe I was cured of many of my crude notions about them by the writings of Salvador, a Jew by race and by national feeling, a Frenchman by birth, and a rationalist of the school of Paulus by opinion, whose book on the Mosaic institutions and on the Jewish people though somewhat ludicrous in its adaptation of Moses to a Voltairian public and in its attempts to prove that the Jews were Constitutional Liberals and Utilitarians is yet so full of strong facts and even arguments that it made a great impression on me when I read it a year or two ago.
I shall have a book of my own to offer to you in a few months; though I am afraid you will not be able to look upon it or its tendency with any favour, as though I do not concern myself with ontological questions directly the whole effect of the book where it produces any, must be anti-ontological. However you will find in it if you read it, several opinions warmly contended for, which were perhaps never found before in writings of the school of Locke, and some which I believe I first learnt from yourself.
Ever yours
(whatever you may think of my philosophy)
J. S. Mill
377.1.
TO HENRY COLE
Tuesday
[Nov. 42]
Dear Cole
Can you help me to the enclosed information?
Yours truly
J. S. Mill
443.1.
TO JOHN WILLIAM PARKER
11th Novr 1844
Mr Mill presents his compliments to Mr Parker & requests him to have the goodness to send copies of the Political Economy Essays to Thomas Carlyle Esq. 5 Cheyne Row Chelsea, & William Tait Esq. Edinburgh.
455.1.
TO DR. WILLIAM B. CARPENTER
18th March 1845
Dear Dr Carpenter
My friend Bain, whom you have I believe met at my house, is thinking of becoming a candidate for the vacant Logic chair at St Andrews, & he tells me that one of the patrons is Dr Reid, the professor of Anatomy, who is much quoted by you. Are you acquainted with Dr Reid? & if so could you in any way help Bain with him? His qualifications (Bain’s I mean) for such a chair I should have no hesitation in vouching for—indeed there is no office requiring high speculative powers & knowledge of scientific methods, which he would not be entitled to aspire to—
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
479.1.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Wedy
[After Jan. 16, 1846]
My dear Chadwick
Thank you for sending me your paper on railway accidents &c. I quite go with you in every point & I hope you will send copies to the members of the General Committee on railways.
There is nobody like you for being practically useful.
Did you send the letter which you shewed me, or any similar one, to Morrison? or are you taking any steps to dispose of your Trust Company certificates? I should be much inclined to sell mine if I could get the terms you mentioned.
yours ever
J. S. Mill
495.1.
TO ARTHUR HELPS
[1847?]
My dear Sir—
When I began reading your proofs I intended after the first reading to go through them a second time carefully, annotating as I went on, but when I came to the last two essays the minute criticisms which I thought of making, rather because you asked me than because they seemed to me of much importance, became merged in a radical difference of opinion & sentiment. I think I can best express this difference by saying that your mode of thinking is grounded on the supposition that the present constitution both of social & of domestic life is essentially right, while I think that there is in them both, much that is fundamentally wrong. So great a difference must lead to all sorts of minor ones on such subjects as “the art of living with others” & “education”. In my estimation the art of living with others consists first & chiefly in treating & being treated by them as equals. Of course nothing can be more contrary to your doctrine that differences of judgment or inclination should be settled not by the force of sufficient reason but by “some authorized will”. From your description & from others I must suppose that a great portion of mankind are so full of miserable pettiness, so tracassière, annoying, illtempered, interfering & unreasonable as to be entirely unfit to live together: I have never known such people among those with whom I have been in intimate companionship, but if people find it difficult to live together without “hating”, having “a [quiet?] distaste for” one another, in the first place their continuing living together at all seems to me an [immorality?] & in the next place the remedy would rather be a great cultivation of high principle & amiableness than a “just sway”. This being my opinion it follows of course that I do not consider the living together of men & women to be an exception to it nor can I think that relation will ever be other than a comparative failure while instead of being an association between equals, it is grounded on “sway” on one side, dependence on the other, & the dependent is systematically educated for feebleness of mind. The “petting” which you speak of is a wretched substitute for reason & justice, but it is the least that can be done where those are withheld.
In the essay on “Education” again it is assumed that inequality is a thing which should be cultivated, that people should be educated with a view to a “just progression of nice distinctions of rank.” As I look upon inequality as in itself always an evil, I do not agree with any one who would use the machinery of society for the purpose of promoting it. As much inequality as necessarily arises from protecting all persons in the free use of their faculties of body & mind & in the enjoyment of what these can obtain for them, must be submitted to for the sake of a greater good: but I certainly see no necessity for artificially adding to it, while I see much for tempering it, impressing both on the laws & on the usages of mankind as far as possible the contrary tendency.
I regret much not having found time to consider & return the proofs sooner.
498.
TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE
India House
22nd Feb., 1847
Most people do not understand by morality a subject open to discussion as any other, and on which persons have different opinions, but think it a name for the set of opinions they have been accustomed to.
501.1.
TO GEORGE HENRY LEWES
Monday
[May 1847]
My dear Lewes
I ought to have written to you before about Ranthorpe but I can say nothing that you would much care to hear until I have at least looked through it a second time, & Grote’s two new volumes have come in the way & prevented that. I could say various minor things, but they are better said than written, & there is no hurry about them. However as you must be expecting to hear from me I will just say that I like the book on the whole decidedly better than I expected from your own account of it.
ever yours
J. S. Mill
Have you seen the eulogium in Blackwood of the Hist. of Philosophy? Is the article by Smith? N.D. I have not read it (the article) but the note caught my eye.
503.1.
TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN
10th May 1847
My dear Sir
I ought to have much sooner answered your note which accompanied a copy of your paper on the Syllogism. As soon as I was able to find time I read the paper through & have noted it for a second reading previously to any future reprint of what I have written on the same subject.
I have since received the pamphlet. I think the tone everything that could be wished for, & the substance I should call conclusive if it were ever safe to say so when one has not heard the last word of the other side. But I shall be much astonished if Sir W. H. is able to shake any part of what you have said.
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
508.1.
TO SIR THOMAS ERSKINE PERRY
24th June
1847
My dear Perry
We are just about to send out two schoolmasters. They are young men well recommended & neither of them Scotchmen. How they will be found to answer, experience will decide. One of them seems to me to have a tinge of cockneyism, not however in his language or accent.
These two are all that you have officially applied for, but as you unofficially apply for five or six, I recommend making the application official without delay, especially as I yesterday had an interview on the subject with Abp. Whately in consequence of your letter to him, & it appears you have applied to the right quarter, for (while his National Schools are the best possible school for what you want) he tells me that even the Inspectors, though some of them are graduates of Trin. Coll. have a smaller salary than what you give—& as he will make known your requirements & conditions to them, there is no doubt we shall have no lack of applications.
I shall be very glad if you obtain the leave of absence you have applied for but I cannot in anyway aid your application, nor can the Court, as they never consider themselves or are considered to have a voice in anything relating to the Judges of the Supreme Court.
Yours in haste
J. S. Mill
511.1.
TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN
13 Sept. 1847
My dear Sir
On coming to town today I find your note. I am very glad that you are prosecuting your speculations on the syllogism still further & I will postpone the reconsideration I intended giving to your ideas until the appearance of the book which I am glad to hear is so far advanced. In any case I was not likely to return to the subject for the next two or three months as I am myself also finishing a book for publication on a quite different subject.
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
511.2.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Friday. October 1, 1847
My dear Sir,
I much regret to find that you are suffering in health & I am sure you cannot too much abstain, while that is the case, from your really wearing occupation. Your question about the Essay on the Laws of Interchange is very natural, & it is one which I put to myself, with some doubt as to its result when I adopted my present opinions on Currency. But on carefully revising the ideas of the Essay I found in them nothing which clashed. You will observe that the speculations in that Essay do not relate to the effects of fluctuations but only of permanent changes in the amount of bullion in a country & those I imagine even Tooke would allow to have an effect on prices, governed as these changes must be by changes in the costs (not indeed of producing bullion at the mines—but) of purchasing & importing it into the country. Au reste I believe I have set all that matter in a clear light in the book I am now finishing & have adjusted the different segments of my opinions into one another with due attention to the fitting. There is a writer in the Chronicle who is a considerable master of good humoured raillery. He has written in today’s paper on the Anti-gold League.
Ever truly yours,
J. S. Mill
512.1.
TO JOHN WILLIAM PARKER
Monday
[? November, 1847]
My dear Sir
The title by which I should like the book to be announced, is, “Principles of Political Economy, with some of their applications to Social Philosophy.”
I may as well take this opportunity of saying that I should wish, if you have no objection, to be allowed 25 free copies of this book. This is the only difference I wish to make in our conditions from those relating to the Logic.
I should think this book likely to be much more generally read & bought than the former one.
Very truly yours
J. S. Mill
520.1.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
[1848]
My dear Chadwick
I give this note of introduction to Dr Beke whom you may know as the traveller in Abyssinia. He wishes to speak to you on certain matters connected with his father, who is or at least was Surveyor of Sewers in the Tower Hamlets District.
Yours ever
J. S. Mill
520.2.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Monday
[1848]
Dear Sir—
In the absence of Mr John Parker I address you direct to say that the second vol. of the Pol. Economy is now in such forwardness that if you should think fit to put that in hand immediately I could keep the printer supplied. Mr Harrison tells me that he could do it without inconvenience, & if you see no objection, we might in that way make up for lost time.
The printing is going on very well but I should like to see a sheet of the paper, as the specimen page is about half an inch shorter than the page of Strauss, which is exactly the size I prefer.
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
520.3.
TO MR. WARREN
21st Jany
1848
Dear Sir
I have now a copy of my father’s “Analysis” which I can lend to you without any inconvenience if you will inform me in what way to send it.
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
521.1.
TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
3d Feby 1848
Dear Sir
I hope the Auditors will excuse my declining the honour they propose conferring upon me—in the first place because any matter relating to the checking & controlling of accounts may easily be entrusted to a person much more qualified for it than myself—and secondly because my occupation at the India House during business hours would make it very difficult & inconvenient for me to fulfil any obligation which might require my attendance at the distance of University College.
Believe me
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
532.
TO JOHN JAY
Nov., 1848
I regret that accident should have prevented my meeting you on either of the times when you took the trouble to call on me at the India House. I should have been glad to have conversed with you on some of the topics in the Pol. Ec. as well as on others.
Appendix II
ADDITIONAL LATER LETTERS
The following letters were located too late to be included in the sequence of the foregoing volumes. They have been numbered here with reference to that sequence.
440A.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Feb. 7. 1860
Dear Chadwick
I am grieved to hear such an account of Miss Nightingale’s health. I shall certainly read her book at the first opportunity, not for any benefit to myself, for my ailments have never yet been of a kind to require nursing; but for the reasons you give as well as others that are obvious, I do not need it to enable me to share the admiration which is felt towards her more universally, I should think, than towards any other living person.
I am afraid I shall hardly be able, during the short time of my stay, to make out a visit to you. The ignorance and rawness of all ranks on the subject of representation are certainly amazing, and only equalled by their self-satisfied indifference to further knowledge. You will not get your inquiry, for everybody has made up his mind to do something this year without waiting either for knowledge or thought.
yours truly
J. S. Mill
467A.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Aug. 27, 1860
Dear Chadwick
I have had two notes from you which ought to have been answered, but what with occupation, and the weather which has been unfavourable to fixing beforehand any time for a walk, they have remained unanswered till now. I should have written directly if I could have told of anything that could be useful to you or Mr Bagehot on the subject treated of in your pamphlet. But I could only have referred you and him to the Socialist writers, particularly in France, who have laid great stress upon the same class of considerations which you have brought forward. I should like to have a talk with you on the question, and to explain where I do and do not agree with you; and I hope to be able to arrange a meeting and a walk, but I am unable to do so just at present.
I beg you to thank Miss Nightingale very particularly for the new edition of her Notes. I have read the additional matter, and think it quite equal to the preceding. But I confess I wish the sentence we talked of were omitted. There is nobody that I know of who deserves the stigma it conveys; while it gives the sanction of Miss Nightingale’s authority to the attempt to run down those who are contending that the only way in which either women or men can find out what they can and cannot do, is by being allowed to try; and that it is a gross injustice to women that men should pass sentence in the matter beforehand, by peremptorily excluding them from anything.
I am dear Chadwick
yrs very truly
J. S. Mill
850A.
TO [GEORGE HOWELL?]
July 22. 1865
Dear Sir
I have had the pleasure of receiving your note. A letter of mine to Mr Potter, which appeared in the newspapers about three months ago, and to which considerable attention was drawn by the Westminster contest, explained the differences of opinion which prevented, and still prevent me from becoming a member of the Reform League. But I do not the less confidently expect that I shall be found acting in general cooperation with the members of the League, as my opinions on Reform, though in some respects different, are fully as radical as theirs. I think that the general promotion of the Reform cause is the main point at present, and that advanced reformers, without suppressing their opinions on the points on which they may still differ, should act together as one man in the common cause
I am Dear Sir
yours very truly
J. S. Mill
862A.
TO EDWIN CHADWICK
Aug. 12. 1865.
Dear Chadwick
The position in which I am, and which is the cause of my not having answered your last two letters, is that of being obliged to postpone absolutely every political or parliamentary subject till the meeting of Parliament. A great many things have fallen on me at once, to which I was pledged before my election, and which can only be done in the present recess, and I am at my wit’s end to know how they are possibly to be got through. My attending any meeting is quite out of the question; almost as much so as my going to see schools or workhouses, or writing to the President of the Poor Law Board as you proposed. I cannot turn my thoughts to such things till next January.
In haste
yours ever
J. S. Mill
881A.
TO [GEORGE HOWELL?]
Oct. 30. 1865
Sir
Your letter of the 23d instant has been forwarded to me here. As I do not expect to be in England until the meeting of Parliament, there will be no opportunity for the interview proposed by the Executive Council. Neither is it probable that such an interview, if intended to invite my cooperation with the Reform League, would lead to any useful result. While I consider myself a fellow labourer with the League in the cause of democratic reform, considered generally, I have no former occasions stated the reasons why I cannot join in a movement for the special objects proposed by the League, manhood suffrage and the Ballot: both which questions, moreover have been so largely discussed, and have necessarily been so long under consideration both by the members of the Executive Council and by myself, that it is not likely our opinions can be modified or any new arguments of importance suggested on either side by a short conversation.
I am Sir
yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
911A.
TO [GEORGE HOWELL?]
Jan. 30. 1866
Dear Sir
I quite agree with those who think that the intended Reform Bill should include a lodger franchise, but if I were to suggest beforehand all the provisions of a more or less novel character which I think it ought to include, I should have many others to propose besides that particular one. I would, therefore, rather not take any part in a separate movement for a lodger franchise, though I shall gladly give my adhesion and support to such a proposal if made in the House of Commons
I am Dear Sir
yours very faithfully
J. S. Mill
1025A.
TO EDMOND BEALES
[Feb., 1867]
The Reform Movement has thus far been conducted with great energy and judgment, and I have no doubt that the demonstration on Monday will be a signal and most valuable success. I feel it, however, on several grounds, better that I should not personally take part in it. In the first place the same evening has been chosen by the Government for the announcement of their plans for Reform, and this is likely to lead to a debate, from which I ought not to be absent. (Cheers.) Independent of this I do not feel capable of doing work of a great public meeting and in the House too. (Hear.) I think it best that my taking part in public meetings should be confined to exceptional cases, and your former great meeting at the Agricultural Hall was an exceptional case, and you know what special reasons there were for the course I took on that occasion. (Cheers.) If at the present time there was the smallest probability of any attempt to interfere with your Demonstration, I would come at once, and take my share of whatever befell. (Loud cheers.)
1026A.
TO [GEORGE HOWELL?]
Feb. 6. 1867
Dear Sir
I received your letter this morning. I have written to Mr Beales, in answer to a letter I received from him at Manchester, explaining my reasons for not taking any personal part in the noble demonstration which is to take place on Monday next.
I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly
J. S. Mill
1087A.
TO LADY RUSSELL
May 26. 1867
Dear Lady Russell
The reputation of Lord Russell can need no aid from me to give it a lasting record, for what he has done would and must stand in history beyond the reach of dispute. Nor do I think that the country has forgotten what it owes to him, or that it will ever fail to pay him that respect which a nation—whatever may be the case with its upper classes—always feels towards honesty of purpose, whenever fortunate enough to find it in its statesmen. I think you will find that Lord Russell’s name usually occupies the place of honour in the resolutions moved in the Reform meetings throughout the country; and when it is not mentioned in them, it is because they have especial reference to the incidents of the debates in the House of Commons.
Accept, I beg, dear Lady Russell, my sincere thanks for the great compliment which I feel your letter pays me, however much I think you overestimate my ability, and believe me
very truly yours
J. S. Mill
1101A.
TO ARTHUR MARMADUKE HARDY
June 22. 1867
Dear Mr Hardy
I wrote to your uncle some two years ago, telling him that I should be happy to see you at a time which I named, when I had leisure to be able to do so, but I have received no reply to my letter. I should still be very happy to see you, but think it very probable that I may be otherwise engaged at the time you mention this year. I will, however, write if I should find myself disengaged at the time you wish to see me, and if I should not be so, and you continue to wish to see me next year, there would be a better chance of your doing so if you were to write in time for me to fix any portion of your holidays when I may be at leisure; because my time is too much occupied for you to be able to count on my being disengaged at any given moment.
Your cousin and myself desire to be kindly remembered to your father when you write to him.
I am
Dear Mr. Hardy
[signature cut off]
1265A.
TO GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN
London, July 2, 1868
Dear Sir—
Before asking the question you wished me to put in the House of Commons respecting Warren and Costello, I took measures to ascertain what was the answer I had to expect. I found it would be to this effect: That they were convicted not of words spoken in America, but of a political attempt to invade the United Kingdom, and that they had been selected from the crew of the Jackmel, for prosecution and punishment, not because the remainder had not incurred an equal liability to it, but because these two examples were deemed sufficient. When I heard this I thought that asking the question publicly would do the prisoners no good, and would only enable the government to claim and obtain credit for clemency.
If, with this explanation, you still wish the question asked, and if the prisoners wish it, I have not the smallest objection to ask it, but I cannot undertake to carry the matter any further, and, whatever may be my friendly feeling to America, I could not maintain that American citizens, any more than other people, ought to be allowed without punishment to carry on private war against a country with which the United States are at peace.—I am, dear Sir, &c.,
J. S. Mill
1267A.
TO GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN
Blackheath Park, Kent, July 8, 1868
Dear Sir—
As you still desire it, I will give notice of a question respecting Warren and Costello. But you are under a misapprehension in thinking that a discussion will be thereby produced. Discussion is not allowed in asking a question, and can only take place on a motion, and, for the reasons stated in my former note, I cannot undertake to bring forward any motion on the subject.—I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully,
J. S. Mill
G. F. Train, Esq.
1497A.
TO CATHERINE HELEN SPENCE
Avignon, November 28, 1869.
Dear Madam—
Your letter of August 16 has been sent to me here. The copy of my little book was intended for you, and I had much pleasure in offering it. The movement against women’s disabilities generally, and for the suffrage in particular, has made great progress in England since you were last there. It is likely, I think, to be successful in the colonies later than in England, because the want of equality in social advantages between women and men is less felt in the colonies owing, perhaps, to women’s having less need of other occupations than those of married life.
I am, dear Madam, yours very truly,
J. S. Mill
Titles (by Subject) 
