MB 
 
 in 
 
 I 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
UNTFORM LIBRARY EDTTToy OF THE Ml .OCS 
 
 WOBKS 01 ET MILL. 
 
 I an<l laid paper, 8vo, $2.25 pvr vol. (except vol on Comta. 
 The Autobiography. 1 
 Dissertations and Discussions. 4 vols. 
 Considerations on Representative Government. 1 vol. 
 Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. 
 
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 On Liberty ; The Subjection of Women. Both in 1 voL 
 Comte's Positive Philosophy. 1 vol., $1.50. 
 
 Representative Government. 12mo, plain, $ I 
 On Liberty. 16mo, plain, $1 2 
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 o 
 
 Ml *TB. 
 
 John Stuart Mill: H Mid Works. 
 
 - 
 v 
 
 1! 
 
 x? &» a Practical 
 
 uaopber, bj .er. lo/no, 
 
 HENHY HOLT A CO., Publishers, N. Y. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 ■v 
 
 ?* 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HENET HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1874. 
 

 PUBLISHED BY ARRANOBMSNT UY777 THE AUi HOB 8 
 
 EXECUTOR. 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 1806—1819. 
 Childhood and Early Education, 1. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1813—1821. 
 
 Moral Influences in Early Youth, 38. My Father's Character and 
 Opinions, 46. 
 
 CHAPTER IH. 
 1821—1823. 
 Last Stage of Education and first of Self-Education, 62. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1823—1828. 
 
 Youthful Propagandism, 87, 113. Westminster Review, 91, 129. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1826—1832. 
 A Crisis in my Mental History, 132. One Stage Onward, 111. 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 1830— 1840. 
 
 Commencement of the most valuable Friendship of my Life, 184, 
 
 My Father's Death, 202. Writings and other Pj gp up 
 
 to 1840, 20G. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "—1870. 
 
 General View of the Remainder <rf nr BOS :— 
 
 Completion <>f the System of L< 
 Principles of Political 1 , 884. 
 
 tirement from ti ie, 248. Publication of" I 
 
 251 .Con- i on & .tive G 
 
 Civil War in A 
 
 Hamilton's Philoeo] hy, 273. 1' • 
 m Hinder of my J.. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 I T seems proper that I should prefix to the following 
 biographical sketch, some mention of the reasons 
 which have made me think it desirable that I should 
 leave behind me such a memorial ot so uneventful a 
 life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that 
 any part of what I have to relate, can be interesting 
 to the public as a narrative, or as being connected 
 with myself But I have thought that in an age in 
 which education, and its improvement, are the subject 
 of more, if not of profounder study than at any 
 former period of English history, it may be useful 
 that there should be some record of an education 
 which was unusual and remarkable, and which, 
 whatever else it may have done, has proved how 
 much more than is commonly supposed may be 
 taught, and well taught, in those early years which, 
 in the common modes of what is called instruc- 
 tion, are little better than wasted. It has also 
 seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, 
 there may be somewhat both of interest and of 
 benefit in noting* the successive phases of any mind 
 
2 CHILDHOOD AND EABLY EDUCATION. 
 
 which was always pressing forward, equally ready to 
 learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or 
 from those of others. But a motive which \ 
 more with me than either of these, is a desire to 
 make acknowledgment of the debts which my 
 intellectual and moral development owes to otl. 
 persons ; some of them of recognised eminence, 
 others less known than they deserve to be, and the 
 one to wdiom most of all is due, one whom * rid 
 
 had no opportunity of knowing. The reader whom 
 these things do not interest, lias only 1 to 
 
 blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any 
 other indulgence from him than that of 1 in 
 
 mind, that for him I not written, 
 
 I was born in London, on I ', 1806, 
 
 and was the eldest son of James Mill, I 
 the History of British India. My r, the son 
 
 of a petty tradesman and (I believe) small E 
 Northwater Bridge, in the county of i 
 when a boy, recommended by his abilities to the 
 notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercaim, one of t 
 Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, and was, in 
 consequence, sent to the University of Edinbui| 
 the expense of a fund established by Lady Jane 
 Stuart (the wife of Sir John Stuart) and B< 
 ladies for educating young men i 
 Church. He there went through t" 
 of study, and was licensed as a Preach . 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EAKLY EDUCATION. 3 
 
 followed the profession ; having satisfied himself that 
 he could not believe the doctrines of that or any ^ 
 other Church. For a few years he was a private tutor 
 in various families in Scotland, among others that 
 of the Marquis of Tweeddale, but ended by taking 
 up his residence in London, and devoting himself to 
 authorship. Nor had he any other means of support 
 until 1819, when he obtained an appointment in the 
 India House. 
 
 In this period of my father's life there are two 
 things which it is impossible not to be struck with : 
 one of them unfortunately a very common circum- 
 stance, the other a most uncommon one. The first 
 is, that in his position, with no resource but the 
 precarious one of writing in periodicals, he married 
 and had a large family ; conduct than which nothing 
 could be more opposed, both as a matter of good 
 sense and of duty, to the opinions which, at least at 
 a later period of life, he strenuously upheld. The 
 other circumstance, is the extraordinary energy which 
 was required to lead the life he led, with the disad- 
 vantages under which he laboured from the first, and 
 with those which he brought upon himself by his 
 marriage. It would have been no small thing, had 
 he done no more than to support himself and his 
 family during so many years by writing, without 
 ever being in debt, or in any pecuniary difficulty ; 
 holding, as he did, opinions, both in politics and in 
 
 *> 2 
 
4 CHILDHOOD AND EAKLY EDUCATION, 
 
 religion, which were more odious to all persons of 
 influence, and to the common run of prosperous 
 Englishmen in that generation than either before or 
 Bince ; and being not only a man whom nothing 
 would have induced to write against his convic- 
 tions, but one who invariably threw into everything 
 he wrote, as much of his convictions as he thought 
 the circumstances would in any way permit : being, 
 it must also be said, one who never did anything 
 negligently ; never undertook any task, literary or 
 other, on which he did not conscientiously bestow all 
 the labour necessary for performing it adequately. 
 But he, with these burdens on him, planned, com- 
 menced, and completed, the History of India ; and 
 this in the course of about ten years, a shorter 
 time than has been occupied (even by writers who 
 had no other employment) in the production of almost 
 any other historical work of equal bulk, and of any- 
 thing approaching to the same amount of reading 
 and research. And to this is to be added, that during 
 the whole period, a considerable part of almost every 
 day was employed in the instruction of his children : 
 in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an 
 amount of labour, care, and perseverance rarely, if 
 ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavour- 
 ing to give, according to his own conception, the 
 highest order of intellectual education. 
 
 A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 5 
 
 acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely 
 to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his 
 pupil I have no remembrance of the time when I 
 began to learn Greek, I have been told that it was 
 when I was three years old. My earliest recollection 
 on the subject, is that of committing to memory what 
 my father termed vocables, being lists of common 
 Greek words, with their signification in English, 
 which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, 
 until some years later, I learnt no more than the 
 inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course 
 of vocables, proceeded at once to translation ; and I 
 faintly remember going through ^Esop's Fables, 
 the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, 
 which I remember better, was the second. I learnt 
 no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had 
 read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek 
 prose authors, among whom I remember the whole 
 of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropaedia and 
 Memorials of Socrates ; some of the lives of the 
 philosophers by Diogenes Laertius ; part of Lucian, 
 and Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I 
 also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the 
 common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron 
 to the Theoctetus inclusive : which last dialogue, I 
 venture to think, would have been better omitted, 
 as it was totally impossible I should understand it. 
 But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me 
 
6 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 not only the utmost that I could do, but-much that I 
 could by no possibility have done. What he was 
 himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruc- 
 tion, may be judged from the fact, that I went through 
 the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in 
 the same room and at the same table at which he 
 was writing : and as in those days Greek and English 
 lexicons were not, and I could make no more use 
 of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made 
 without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was 
 forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of 
 every word which I did not know. This incessant 
 interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, 
 submitted to, and wrote under that interruption 
 several volumes of his History and all else that he 
 had to write during those years. 
 
 The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a 
 lesson in this part of my childhood, was arithmetic : 
 this also my father taught me : it was the task of 
 the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeable- 
 ness. But the lessons were only a part of the daily 
 instruction I received. Much of it consisted in the 
 books I read by myself, and my father s discourses to 
 me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end 
 of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an 
 almost rustic neighbourhood. My father's health 
 required considerable and constant exercise, and he 
 walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EAULY EDUCATION. 7 
 
 green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always 
 accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections 
 of green fields and wild flowers, is mingled that of 
 the account I gave him daily of what I had read 
 the day before. To the best of my remembrance, 
 this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exer- 
 cise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, 
 and from these in the morning walks, I told the story 
 to him ; for the books were chiefly histories, of which 
 I read in this manner a great number : Robertson's 
 histories, Hume, Gibbon ; but my greatest delight, 
 then and for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip 
 the Second and Third. The heroic defence of the 
 Knights of Malta against the Turks, and of the 
 revolted Provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, 
 excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next 
 to Watson, my favourite historical reading was 
 Hooke's History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen 
 at that time no regular history, except school abridg- 
 ments and the last two or three volumes of a trans- 
 lation of Rollin's Ancient History, beginning 
 with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great 
 delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In 
 English history, beyond the time at which Hume 
 leaves off, I remember reading Burnet's History of 
 his Own Time, though I caxed little for anything in 
 it except the wars and battles ; and the historical 
 part of the " Annual Register," from the beginning 
 
8 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION'. 
 
 to about 1788, where the volumes my father b 
 
 rowed for me from Mr. Bentham left off I felt a 
 
 lively interest in Frederic of Prussia durii. 
 
 difficulties, and in Paoli, the I 
 
 when I came to the American war, I took I 
 
 part, like a child as I was (until set right by my 
 
 father) on the wrong side, because it was called the 
 
 English side. In these frequent I about the 
 
 books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give 
 
 me explanations and ideas respect 
 
 government, morality, mental cultii which ho 
 
 required me afterwards to te to him in my own 
 
 words. He also made d, and him a 
 
 verbal account of, many 1" oks which w< 
 
 interested me sufficiently to induce me to read th 
 
 of myself : among others, Millar's Hisi 
 
 of the English Government, a book of gr 
 
 for its time, and which he highly valued ; Moshei 
 
 Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of .1 
 
 Knox, and even Sewell and Hatty's II; 
 
 the Quakers. He was fond ot pi 
 
 hands books which exhibited men of 
 
 resource in unusual circumstances, struggli] 
 
 difficulties and overcoming them: of such works 
 
 I remember Beavers African Mem 
 
 Collins s Account of the First Settlement oi \ 
 
 South Wales. Two books which I never v 
 
 of reading were Anson's Voyages, — deligl ul bo 
 
>D USD EARLY BDTCATKEf. 9 
 
 roost your sons, and a collection (Hawkes- 
 
 th's, I )ofVoy; ound the World, in 
 
 ■ volumes, beginningwith D «*h 
 
 I ,k and Bougainville. Of child* 8, any 
 
 more than of playthings, 1 had » any. except 
 
 , f r om a i r acquaintance : 
 
 1 had, I Crusoe was pre- 
 
 eill i .id oonti] i delist me through all 
 
 : lioyhood. It was no however, of my fether's 
 
 dude books of amusement, though he 
 .,,,,1 them very sparintfy. Of such books he 
 
 hut he borrowed 
 
 which 1 remember arc the 
 
 bian • , Arabian Tales, Don 
 
 Popular Tales, and a 
 k of some reputation in i a $<*& 
 
 of I 
 ],, „,. I ed learning Latin, 
 
 in conjunction with a younger to whom I 
 
 ,„,. and who afterwards repeated 
 
 .. to my 1-: and from this time, other 
 
 and brothers being successively add.-,] 
 
 sonsiderabl day's work consisted 
 
 of this preparatory teaching. II partwhichl 
 
 ,ily disliked ; the more bo, as 1 was held respon- 
 
 ,ns of my pupils, in almost as lull a 
 
 sense as for my own : I, however, derived from this 
 
 discipline the great advantage, of learning more 
 
( 
 
 10 CHILDHOOD AND EAULY EDUCATION. 
 
 thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the tilings 
 
 which I was set to teach : perhaps, too, the pra 
 
 it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may 
 
 even at that age have been usefuL In other r 
 
 the experience of my boyhood is not favourable to 
 
 the plan of teaching children by means of one [ 
 
 another. The teaching, I am sure ry inefficient I 
 
 as teaching, and I well know that the rel 
 
 tween teacher and taught is not I moral 
 
 discipline to either. I went in this manner thn 
 
 the Latin grammar, and a consider: 
 
 Cornelius Nepos and Ca Commi 3, but 
 
 afterwards added to the SU] so 
 
 lessons, much longer ones of my o\\ n. 
 
 In the same year in which I began Latin, I 
 my first commencement in the Gi be 
 
 Iliad. After I had made some progress in thi 
 father put Popes translation into my hands. It v 
 the first English verse I had cared to read it 
 
 became one of the books in which for many 
 I most delighted : I think I must have read it fi 
 twenty to thirty times through. I should not ha 
 thought it worth while to mention a tas; 
 so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, ' 
 observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant 
 specimen of narrative and versification is 
 universal with boys, as I should haw 
 a priori and from my individual expel 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 11 
 
 aftei this time I commenced Euclid, and somewhat 
 
 t, Algebra, still under my fathers tuition. 
 
 From my eighth to my twelfth year, the Latin 
 
 books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics 
 
 of Virgil, and the first six books of the ^Eneid ; all 
 
 Horace, except the Epodes ; the Fables of Phaedrus ; 
 
 the first five of Livy (to which from my love 
 
 of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of 
 
 ure, the remainder of the first decade) ; allSallust ; 
 
 a oo able part of Ovid'fl Metamorphoses; some 
 
 f Terence or three books of Lucretius; 
 
 of the < ►rations of Cioero, and of his writings 
 
 on i his 1 to Atticus, my father 
 
 taking the trouble to translate to me from the 
 
 nch the historic planations in Mingaults 
 
 la Greek 1 read the Iliad and Odyssey 
 
 through ; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, 
 
 and Aristophanes, tl by these I profited little ; 
 
 all Thucydides; the Hellenics of Xenophon ; a 
 
 it part of 1 )( in liines, and Lysias ; 
 
 Theocritus; A <u; part of the Anthology; a little 
 
 of I us ; several books of Polybius ; and lastly 
 
 Aristotle's Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly 
 
 itise on any moral or psychological 
 
 subject which I h 1, and containing many of the 
 
 vations of the ancients on human nature 
 
 and life, my father made me study with peculiar 
 
 care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic 
 
12 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 
 
 tables. During the same years I learnt elementary 
 geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential 
 calculus, and other portions of the higher mathe- 
 matics far from thoroughly : for my father, not 
 having kept up this part of his early acquired know- 
 ledge, could not spare time to qualify himself foi 
 removing my difficulties, and left me to deal with 
 them, with little other aid than that of books : while 
 I was continually incurring his displeasure by my in- 
 ability to solve difficult problems for which he did not 
 see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge. 
 As to my private reading, I can only speak 01 what 
 I remember. History continued to be my strongest 
 predilection, and most of all ancient history. Mitford's 
 Greece I read continually ; my father had put me on 
 my guard against the Tory prejudices of this writer, 
 and his perversions of facts for the whitewashing of 
 despots, and blackening of popular institutions. 
 These points he discoursed on, exemplifying them 
 from the Greek orators and historians, with such 
 effect that in reading Mitford my sympatliies were 
 always on the contrary side to those of the author, 
 and I could, to some extent, have argued the point 
 against him : yet this did not diminish the ever new 
 pleasure with which I read the book. Roman 
 history, both in my old favourite, Hooke, and in 
 Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, 
 in spite of what is called the dryness of its style, 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 13 
 
 I took great pleasure in, was the Ancient Universal 
 History, through the incessant reading of which, I 
 had my head fall of historical details concerning 
 the obscurest ancient people, while about modern 
 history, except detached passages, such as the 
 Dutch War of Independence, I knew and cared 
 comparatively little. A voluntary exercise, to which 
 throughout my boyhood I was much addicted, was 
 what I called writing histories. I successively com- 
 posed a Roroan History, picked out of Hooke ; an 
 Abridgment of the Ancient Universal History ; a 
 History of Holland, from my favourite Watson and 
 from an anonymous compilation ; and in my eleventh 
 and twelfth year I occupied myself with writing 
 what I flattered myself was something serious. This 
 was no less than a History of the Roman Government, 
 compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy 
 and Dionysius : of which I wrote as much as would 
 have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch 
 of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of 
 the struggles between the patricians and plebeians, 
 which now engrossed all the interest in my mind 
 which I had previously felt in the mere wars and 
 conquests of the Romans. I discussed all the con- 
 stitutional points as they arose : though quite igno- 
 rant of Niebuhr's researches, I, by such lights as my 
 father had given me, vindicated the Agrarian Laws 
 on the evidence of Livy, and upheld, to the best of 
 
14 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 my ability, the Roman Democratic party. A few 
 years later, in my contempt of my childish efforts, I 
 destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating that I 
 could ever feel any curiosity about my first attempts 
 writing and reasoning. My father enco me in 
 
 this useful amusement, though, as I think ju< lv, 
 
 he never asked to see what I wrote ; so that I did not 
 feel that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor 
 had the chilling sensation of being under a critical < 
 But though these exercises in history were nn 
 a compulsory lesson, there was another kind of com- 
 position which was so, name! 
 it was one of the mo.-t disag Le of my 
 
 Greek and Latin verses I did not wrii 
 prosody of those languages, My I 
 not worth the time it required, contented himf 
 with making me read aloud to him, and correct] 
 false quantities. I never composed at all in Grei 
 even in prose, and but little in Latin. Not that my 
 father could be indifferent to the value of this j >r 
 in giving a thorough knowledge of these 1 
 but because there really was not time for it. T 
 verses I was required to write were English. When 
 I first read Pope's Homer, I ambitiously attem] 
 compose something of the same kind, and achieved aa 
 much as one book of a continuation of the Hi; 
 There, probably, the spontaneous promptings of my 
 poetical ambition would have stopped; but the 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 15 
 
 exercise, begun from choice, was continued by com- 
 mand. Conformably to my fathers usual practice of ex- 
 plaining to me, as far as possible, the reasons for what 
 he required me to do, he gave me, for this, as I well 
 remember, two reasons highly characteristic of him : 
 one was, that some things could be expressed better 
 and more forcibly in verse than in prose : this, he 
 said, was a real advantage. The other was, that 
 people in general attached more value to verse than 
 it deserved, and the power of writing it, was, on this 
 account, worth acquiring. lie generally left me to 
 choose my own subjects, which, as far as I remember, 
 were mostly addresses to some my t liological personage 
 or allegorical abstraction; but he made me translate 
 into 1 Snglish verse many of Horace's shorter poems : 
 I also remember his giving me Thomsons " Winter' 
 to read, and aft erwards making me attempt (without 
 book) to write something myself on the same subject. 
 The s I wrote were, of course, the merest rubbish, 
 
 nor did I ever attain any facility of versification, but 
 the practice may have been useful in making it easier 
 for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of ex- 
 pression.* I had read, up to this time, very little 
 
 * In a subsequent stage of boyhood, when these exercises had 
 •ompulsory, like most youthful writers I wrote tragedies ; 
 under the inspiration not so much of Shakspeare as of Joanna Baillie, 
 whose " Constantine Paleologus" in particular appeared to me one of 
 the most glorious of human compositions. I still think it one of the 
 best dramas of the last two centuries. 
 
16 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 English poetry. Shakspeare my father liacl put into 
 my hands, chiefly for the sake of the historical pi. 
 from which, however, I went on to the others. My 
 father never was a great admirer of Shaks] lie 
 
 English idolatry of whom lie used to attack with 
 some severity. He cared little for ;my English poetry 
 except Milton (for whom ha had the highest admira- 
 tion), Goldsmith, Burns, and I Bard, which lie 
 preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cow] 
 andBeattie. He hadsoin valur iorSpen 
 member his reading to me (unlike his usual ] 
 of making me read to him), tl. book of bl 
 Fairie Queene ; but I took little pleasure in it. The 
 poetry of the present century he saw Iv any 
 merit in, and I haqdly became acquainted wit! 
 of it till I was grown up to manhood 
 metrical romances of Walter Soott, which 1 r 
 his recommendation and was intensely delighl 
 with ; as I always was with animated narrative. 
 Dryden's Poems were amoni; my father's books, 
 many of these he made me read, but I never 
 for any of them except Alexander's Feast, which, 
 well as many of the songs in Walter 
 sing internally, to a music of my own: to some of the 
 latter, indeed, I went so far as to compos which 
 I still remember. Cowper's short poems 1 d id with 
 some pleasure, but never got far into the Loll 
 and nothing in the two volumes interested me like 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 17 
 
 the prose account of his three hares. In my thirteenth 
 year I met with Campbells poems, among which 
 Lochiel, Hohenlinden, The Exile of Erin, and 
 some othe e me sensations I had never before 
 
 experienced from poetry. Here, too, I made nothing 
 of the longer s, except the striking opening of 
 
 Gertrude of Wyoming, which long kept its place 
 in my feelings as the perfection of pathos. 
 
 Daring this part of my childhood, one of my greatest 
 amusemei perimental science; in the theo- 
 
 icalj however, not the pract i<*al s mse of tla k word ; 
 not trying experimente -a kind of discipline which I 
 have often regretted not having bad —nor even seeing, 
 l>ut merely reading about them. I never rememher 
 beii up in any book, as I was in Joyce's 
 
 ientific Dialogues; and I was rather recalcitrant 
 to my father's criticisms of the bad reasoning respect- 
 ing the tirst principles of physics, which abounds in the 
 
 lv part of that work. I devoured treatises on 
 Chemistry, especially thai of my father's early friend 
 and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I 
 attended a lecture or saw an experiment. 
 
 From about the age of twelve, I entered into another 
 and more advanced stage in my course of instruction ; 
 in which the main object was no longer the aids and 
 appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves. 
 This commenced with Logic, in which I began at once 
 with the Organon, and read it to the Analytics 
 
 c 
 
18 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION, 
 
 inclusive, but profited little by the Posterior Ana- 
 lytics, which, belong to a branch of speculation 1 
 was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the 
 Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts 
 of several of the Latin t s on the - 
 
 logic; giving each day to him, in om a minul 
 
 account of what I had read, and a bis nu- 
 
 merous and searching qua this, I 
 
 in a similar manner, through the "Oomputatio give 
 Logica" of Hobbes, a work ofa much higher order of 
 thought than the books of the school 1 
 which he estimated very highly ; in my ownopini 
 beyond its merits, great as th< It n in- 
 
 variable practice, whatever studi< 
 me, to make me as far as p 
 feel the utility of them : and this he <!• 
 peculiarly fitting in th< of the 
 
 the usefulness of which had been impugned by 
 many writers of authority. I well rei 
 and in what particular walk, in the n< ur- 
 
 hood of Bagshot Heath (where we 
 to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the Matl - 
 matical Professors at Sandhurst) he firs 
 by questions to make me think on the 1 
 
 frame some conception of what constituted the 
 of the syllogistic logic, and when I had failed in this, 
 make me understand it by explanations. Theexpla 
 tions did not make the matter at all clear to I 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 19 
 
 time ; but they were not therefore useless; they re- 
 mained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections 
 to crystallize upon; the import of Lis general remarks 
 being interpreted to me, by the particular instant 
 whirl i came under m\ fterwards. My own 
 
 conscio i and exp • ultimately led me to 
 
 ■ quite as highly as he did, the value of an 
 J familiarity with the school logic. I 
 know of nothing, in my education, to which I think 
 myself move in I for whatever capacity of 
 
 thinkmg I lr The first intellectual 
 
 ion in which I arrived at any proficiency, was 
 ing a had argument, and finding in what \ 
 fallacy lay: and thoqgh whatever capacity of 
 this s<>rt I attained, was duo to the fact that it 
 
 in which I was mosl 
 perseveringly drilled by my father, yei it is also true 
 that tf id tlio mental habits acquired 
 
 in studying it. were among the principal instruments 
 of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in 
 n, tends so much, when properly 
 d, to fara I thinkers, who attach a precise 
 
 ining to words and propositions, and are not mi- 
 ll by i loose, or ambiguous terms. The 
 i influence of mathematical studios is nothing 
 to it ; for in mathematical pro none of the real 
 difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a 
 study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 education of philosophical students, since ik does not 
 presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience 
 and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They 
 may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of 
 confused and self-contradictory thought, before their 
 own thinking faculties are much advanced ; a power 
 which, for want of some such discipline, many other- 
 wise able men altogether lack ; and when they have 
 to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such argu- 
 ments as they can command, to support the opposite 
 conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the 
 reasonings of their antagonists ; and, therefore, at the 
 utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on 
 argument, a balanced one. 
 
 During this time, the Latin and Greek books which 
 I continued to read with my father were chiefly such 
 as were worth studying, not for the language merely, 
 but also for the thoughts. This included much of 
 the orators, and especially Demosthenes, some of 
 whose principal orations I read several times over, 
 and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full analysis of 
 them. My father's comments on these orations when 
 I read them to him were very instructive to me. He 
 not only drew my attention to the insight they 
 afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles 
 of legislation and government which they often 
 illustrated, but pointed out the skill and art of the 
 orator — how everything important to his purpose 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 21 
 
 was said at the exact moment when he had brought 
 the minds of his audience into the state most fitted 
 to receive it ; how he made steal into their minds, 
 gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if 
 expressed in a more direct manner would have roused 
 their opposition. Most of these reflections were 
 beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the 
 time ; but they left seed behind, which germinated in 
 due season. At this time I also read the whole of 
 Tacitus, Juvenal, and Quintilian. The latter, owing to 
 his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which 
 many parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, 
 and seldom sufficiently appreciated. His book is a 
 kind of encyclopaedia of the thoughts of the ancients 
 on the whole field of education and culture ; and I 
 have retained through life many valuable ideas which 
 I can distinctly trace to my reading of him, even at 
 that early age. It was at this period that I read, for 
 the first time, some of the most important dialogues 
 of Plato, in particular the Gorgias, the Protagoras, 
 and the Republic. There is no author to whom my 
 father thought himself more indebted for his own 
 mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more 
 frequently recommended to young students. I can 
 bear similar testimony in regard to myself. The 
 Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are 
 the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for 
 correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions 
 
22 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 incident to the intellectus sibi pernrissus^the under- 
 standing which has made up all its bundles of asso- 
 ciations under the guidance of popular phraseology. 
 The close, searching elenchus by which the man of 
 vague generalities is constrained either to express his 
 meaning to himself in definite terms, or to conl 
 that he does not know what he is talking about ; 
 the perpetual testing of all general statements by 
 particular instances ; th in form which is 1 id 
 
 to the meaning of large abe by fbri 
 
 upon some still larger class-name which includ< 
 and more, and dividing down to the thi fht — 
 
 marking out its limits and definition by a 
 accurately drawn distinctions between Li &ch of 
 
 the cognate objects which are successively parted 
 from it — all this, as an education I thinkii 
 
 is inestimable, and all this, even at tl 
 such hold of me that it became part of my own mi 
 I have felt ever since that the title of PL 
 belongs by far better right to those who hav< 
 nourished in, and have endeavoured to pr 
 Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are 
 distinguished only by the adoption of c 
 dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the le 
 intelligible of his works, and which the chn 
 his mind and writings makes it uncertain w he 
 
 himself regarded as anything more than 
 fancies, or philosophic conjectures. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 23 
 
 In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I 
 could now read these authors, as far as the language 
 was concerned, with perfect ease, I was not required 
 to construe them sentence by sentence, but to read 
 them aloud to my father, answering questions when 
 
 :ed : but the particular attention which he paid to 
 elocution (in winch his own excellence was remark- 
 able) made this reading aloud to him a most painful 
 task. Of all tilings which he required me to do, 
 there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in 
 which he so perpetually lost his temper with me. 
 He had thought much on the principles of the art of 
 reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the 
 inflections of the voice, or modulation as writers on 
 elocution call it (in contrast with articulation on the 
 one side, and expi on the other), and had reduced 
 
 it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a sen- 
 tence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, 
 and took me severely to task for every violation of 
 them : but I even then remarked (though I did not 
 venture to make the remark to him) that though he 
 reproached me when I read a sentence ill, and told 
 me how I ought to have read it, he never, by reading 
 it himself, showed me how it ought to be read. A 
 defect running through his otherwise admirable 
 modes of instruction, as it did through all his modes 
 of thought, was that of trusting too much to the in- 
 telligibleness of the abstract, when not embodied in 
 
24 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 the concrete. It was at a much later period of my 
 youth, when practising elocution by myself, or with 
 companions of my own age, that I for the first time 
 understood the object of his rules, and saw the 
 psychological grounds of them. At that time I and 
 others followed out the subject into its ran 
 and could have composed a very 
 grounded on my father's principles, lie himself 1 
 those principles and rules unwritten. I regret that 
 when my mind was full of the subj< 
 tematic practice, I did Dot put them, and our u 
 provements of them, into a forma] 
 
 A book which cut ributed largi ly t<> my 
 in the best sense of tin 
 
 History of India. It was published in t: /in- 
 
 ning of 1818. During the year previous, while it was 
 passing through the press, I u the pi 
 
 sheets to him; or rather, I read the manuscript 
 him while he corrected the proofs. The number 
 new ideas which I received froc 
 and the impulse and stimulus as well 
 given to my thoughts by its criticisms and disquisi- 
 tions on society and civilization in the Hindoo 
 on institutions and the acts vf governments in the 
 English part, made my early familiarity with it 
 eminently useful to my subsequent pr And 
 
 though I can perceive deficiencies in it new s u- 
 pared with a perfect standard, I still think it, if m t 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 25 
 
 the most, one of the most instructive histories ever 
 written, and one of the books from which most 
 benefit may be derived by a mind in the course of 
 making up its opinions. 
 
 The Preface, among the most characteristic of my 
 father's writii well as the richest in materials of 
 
 thought, gives a picture which may be entirely de- 
 pended on, of the sentiments and expectations with 
 which he wrote the History. Saturated as the book 
 is with the Opinions and modes of judgment of a 
 democratic radicalism then regarded as extreme; 
 and treating with a severity, at that time most 
 unusual, the English Constitution! the English law, 
 
 and all parties and elasses who possessed any con- 
 siderable influence in the country ; he may have 
 expeeted reputation, but certainly not advancement 
 in life, from its publication ; nor could he have sup- 
 posed that it would raise up anything but enemies 
 for him in powerful quarters; least of all could he 
 have expected favour from the East India Company, 
 to whose commercial privileges he was unqualifiedly 
 hostile, and on the acts of whose government he had 
 made so many severe comments : though, in various 
 parts of his book, he bore a testimony in their favour, 
 which he felt to be their just due, namely, that no 
 Government had on the whole given so much proof, 
 to the extent of its lights, of good intention towards 
 its subjects ; and that if the acts of any other Govern- 
 
26 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 ment had the light of publicity as completely let in 
 upon them, they would, in all probability, still L. 
 bear scrutiny. 
 
 On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about 
 a year after the publication of the History, that the 
 East India Directors desired to strengthen the part 
 of their home establishment which v. in 
 
 carrying on the correspondence with India, my £atl 
 declared himself a candidate for that empL ymei 
 to the credit of the Directors, successfully. 1 1 
 appointed one of the Assistants of the Examiner of 
 India Correspondence ; officers v, uty it was to 
 
 prepared raits of despot India, for considei 
 
 by the Directors, in the principal depart] coad- 
 
 ministration. In this office, and iii that of Examiner, 
 which he subsequently attained, the influence which 
 his talents, his reputation, and his dee" 
 meter gave him, with superiors who really desu 
 the good government of India, enabled him I 
 extent to throw into his drafts of despatch I to 
 
 carry through the ordeal of the Court of Directors 
 and Board of Control, without having their 
 much weakened, his real opinions on Ind 
 In his History he had set forth, for 1 1 
 many of the true principles of Indian admb 
 t ration: and his despatches, following his History, 
 did more than had ever been done before to pro- 
 mote the improvement of India, and teach Indi 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 27 
 
 officials to understand their business. If a selec- 
 tion of them were published, they would, I am 
 convinced, place his character as a practical states- 
 man fully on a level with his eminence as a specula- 
 tive writer. 
 
 This new employment of his time caused no relaxa- 
 tion in his attention to my education. It was in this 
 same year, 1819, that he took me through a complete 
 course of political economy. His loved and intimate 
 friend, Ricardo, had shortly before published the book 
 which formed so great an epoch in political economy ; 
 a book which never would have been published 
 or written, but for the entreaty and strong encourage- 
 ment of my father; for Ricardo, the most modest of 
 men, though firmly convinced of the truth of his 
 doctrines, deemed himself so little capable of doing 
 them justice in exposition and expression, that he 
 shrank from the idea of publicity. The same friendly 
 encouragement induced Ricardo, a year or two later, 
 to become a member of the House of Commons ; 
 where, during the few remaining years of his life, un- 
 happily cut short in the full vigour of his intellect, he 
 rendered so much service to his and my fathers opinions 
 both on political economy and on other subjects. 
 
 Though Ricardo's great work was already in print, 
 no didactic treatise embodying its doctrines, in a 
 manner fit for learners, had yet appeared. My father, 
 therefore, commenced instructing me in the science 
 
28 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION-. 
 
 by a sort of lectures, which he delivered to me in 
 our walks. He expounded each day a portion of the 
 subject, and I gave him next day a written account 
 of it, which he made me rewrite over a: 
 until it was clear, pn ad tolerably 
 
 In this manner I went through the whole of 
 
 the science; and the writt line of it whi 
 
 suited from my daily CO d him 
 
 wards as notes from which to write his EL of 
 
 Political Economy. After this I read Ricardo, 
 
 an account daily of what I D in 
 
 the best manner I could, the 
 offered themselves in our pi 
 
 On Money, as them the subj 
 
 he made me read in the same mam ad- 
 
 mirable pamphlets, written during whi 
 the Bullion controversy ; - an 
 
 Smith ; and in this reading 
 main objects to make me apply to Smith's 
 superficial view of political econoi 
 lights of Ricardo, and detect w] in 
 
 Smith's arguments, us in ai lu- 
 
 siona Such a mode of instruction 
 
 calculated to form a tliiuker ; but it r 
 worked bv a thinker, 
 
 lather. The path was a thorny one. - im f 
 
 aad I am sure it w \ me, notwithstandi 
 
 >ng interest 1 took in the subject He was 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 29 
 
 and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in 
 r»,ases where success could not have been expected ; but 
 in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. 
 I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was 
 more thorough, or better fitted for training the 
 faculties, than the mode in which logic and political 
 economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, 
 even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the 
 activity of my faculties, by making me find out 
 everything for myself, he gave Lis explanations not 
 before, but after, I had felt the full force of the 
 difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate 
 knowledge of th( subjects, as far as they 
 
 were then undei . but made me a thinker on 
 
 both. 1 tl for myself almost from the first, and 
 
 occasionally thought differently from him, though lor 
 a long time only on minor points, and making his 
 opinion the ultimate standard At a later period I even 
 occasionally convinced hini, and altered his opinion on 
 some points of detail : which I state to his honour, 
 not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect can- 
 dour, and the real worth of his method of teaching. 
 
 At this point concluded what can properly be 
 called my lessons : when I was about fourteen I left 
 England for more than a year ; and after my return, 
 though my studies went on under my father's general 
 direction, he was no longer my schoolmaster. I shall 
 therefore pause here, and turn buck to matters of a 
 
30 CHILDHOOD AXD EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 more general nature connected with the part of my 
 life and education included in the preceding reminis- 
 cences. 
 
 In the course of instruction which I have par- 
 tially retraced, the point most superficially ap- 
 parent is the great effort to give, during the 
 of childhood an amount of knowledge in what . 
 considered the higher branches of education, which is 
 seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the 
 manhood. The result of the experiment shows the 
 ease with which this may be doi in a 
 
 strong light the wretched \ \ many precious 
 
 years as aiv spent in acquiring til tin 
 
 and Greek commonly taught I : a wa 
 
 which has led so many educational reformers to 
 entertain the ill-judged proposal of disc 
 languages altogether from general edu If I 
 
 had been by nature extremely quick ofappr >n, 
 
 or had possessed a very are;; Ive 
 
 memory, or were of a remarkal >ly act ive and tic 
 
 character, the trial would not he conclusive ; but in all 
 these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; 
 what I could do, could assuredly be done 1 
 boy or girl of average capacity and heal al ; 
 
 constitution: and if 1 have accomplished ai ;. I 
 
 owe it, among other fortunate circuu the 
 
 fact that through the early training 1 me 
 
 by my father, 1 started, I may fairly Bay, with an 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 31 
 
 advantage of a quarter of a century over my con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 There was one cardinal point in tliis training, of 
 which I have already given some indication, and 
 which, more than anything else, was the cause 
 of whatever good it effected. Most boys or youths 
 who have had much knowledge drilled into them, 
 have their mental capacities not strengthened, 
 but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere 
 facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other 
 people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the 
 power to form opinions of their own : and thus the 
 sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in 
 their education, so often grow up mere parroters of 
 what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds 
 except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, how- 
 ever, was not an education of cram. My father 
 never permitted anything which I learnt to de- 
 generate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove 
 to make the understanding not only go along with 
 i every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. 
 ; Anything which could be found out by thinking I 
 ! never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to 
 find it out for myself. As far as I can trust my 
 remembrance, I acquitted myself very lamely in this 
 department ; my recollection of such matters is 
 almost wholly of failures, hardly ever of success. It 
 is true the failures were often in things in which 
 
32 CHILDHOOD AXD EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 success in so early a stage of my progress, was 
 almost impossible. I remember at some time in my 
 thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word 
 idea, he asked me what an idea was ; and e 
 some displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to define 
 the word: I recollect also his indigm it my 
 
 using the common expression that something v> 
 true in theory but required correction in practice; 
 and how, after making me vainly strive to define the 
 word theory, he explained its meaning, and showed 
 the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had 
 used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being 
 unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in 
 speaking of it as something which might be at 
 variance with practice, I had shown unparalleled 
 ignorance. In this he seems, and perha ry 
 
 unreasonable; but I think, only in bei at 
 
 my failure. A pupil from whom not] 3 ever 
 
 demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can. 
 
 One of the evils most liable to 
 of earl j proficiency, and which often fatally blighta 
 its promise, my father most anxiously guarded 
 against. Tins was self-conceit. He kept rue, with 
 extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearii self 
 
 praised, or of being led to make self-flattering 
 parisons between myself and others. From his 
 intercourse with me I could derive none but a very 
 humble opinion of myself; and the standard 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION 38 
 
 parison he always held up to me, was not what other 
 people did, but what a man could and uttglit to do. 
 He completely succeeded in preserving me from the 
 sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at 
 all aware that my attainments were anything un- 
 usual at my age. If I accidentally had my attention 
 drawn to the fact that some other boy knew less 
 than myself — which happened less often than might 
 be imagined — I concluded, not that I knew much, but 
 that he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that 
 his knowledge was of a different kind from mine. 
 My state of mind was not humility, but neither was 
 it arrogance. I never thought of saying to myself, 
 I am, or I can do, so and so. I neither estimated 
 myself highly nor lowly : I did not estimate myself 
 at all. If I thought anything about myself, it 
 was that I was rather backward in my studies, 
 since I always found myself so, in comparison 
 with what my father expected from me. I assert 
 this with confidence, though it was not the impression 
 of various persons who saw me in my childhood. 
 They, as I have since found, thought me greatly 
 and disagreeably self-conceited ; probably because 
 I was disputatious, and did not scruple to give 
 direct contradictions to things which I heard said. 
 I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having 
 been encouraged in an unusual degree to talk on 
 matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, 
 
 D 
 
34 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 while I never had inculcated on me the vteual respect 
 for them. My father did not correct this ill-breeding 
 and impertinence, probably from not being aware of 
 it, for I was always too much in awe of him to be 
 otherwise than extremely subdued and quiet in his 
 presence. Yet with all this I had no notion of any 
 superiority in myself; and well was it for me that I 
 had hot. I remember the very place in Hyde Park 
 where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of 1 
 my fathers house for a long . la* told me that 
 
 I should find, as [got acquainted with new people, 
 that I had been taught many things which youths of 
 my age did n<>t commonly know; and t] 
 persons would be disposed to I of thi 
 
 in compliment mo upon it. AVI er things lie 
 
 said on tliis topic T remember very imperfectly ; hut 
 he wound uj> by saying, that whatever I 
 than others, could not be ascribed t<> any merit in 
 me, hut to the very unusual advantage which had 
 fallen to my lot, of having a father who 
 to teach me, and willing to give the i ry trouble 
 
 and time ; that it was no matter ot' \ if I 
 
 knew more than those who had not had a similar ad- 
 vantage, hut the deepest disgrace to mo it' I did net. I 
 have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion tl 
 for the first time made to me, that I knew more than 
 other youths who were considered well educated, wj - 
 to me a piece of Information, to which, as to all other 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 35 
 
 things which my father told me, I gave implicit 
 credence, but which did not at all impress me as a 
 personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify 
 myself upon the circumstance that there were other 
 persons who did not know what I knew ; nor had I 
 ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever 
 they might be, were any merit of mine : but, now 
 when my attention was called to the subject, I felt 
 that what my father had said respecting my peculiar 
 advantages was exactly the truth and common sense 
 of the matter, and it fixed my opinion and feeling 
 from that time forward. 
 
 It is evident that this, among many other of the pur- 
 poses of my fathers scheme of education, could not 
 have been accomplished if he had not carefully kept 
 me from having any great amount of intercourse with 
 other boys. He was earnestly bent upon my escaping 
 not only the corrupting influence which boys exercise 
 over boys, but the contagion of vulgar modes of 
 thought and feeling ; and for this he was willing 
 that I should pay the price of inferiority in the 
 accomplishments w r hich schoolboys in all countries 
 chiefly cultivate. The deficiencies in my education 
 were principally in the* things which boys learn from 
 being turned out to shift for themselves, and from 
 being brought together in large numbers. From 
 temperance and much walking, I grew up healthy 
 and hardy, though not muscular ; but I could do no 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 feats of skill or physical strength, and knew none i f 
 
 the ordinary bodily exercises. It wa that pi 
 
 or time for it, was refused rne. Though no h< 
 
 were allowed, lest the habit of v should l>e 
 
 broken, and a taste for idle quired, I had am] 
 
 leisure in every day to amuse myself; 1 
 
 no boy companions, and the animal I 
 
 activity was satisfied by walking, my ami. ts, 
 
 which were mostly solitary, of a qui 
 
 if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimuli 
 
 other kind even of mental ai than that which v. 
 
 already called i <»rtl i by my studies: I consequently 
 
 remained long, and in a 1< 
 
 remained, inexpert in an; 
 
 dexterity ; my mind, as well as my hands, did 
 
 work very lamely when it was appli ght to 
 
 have been applied, to the al detail- which, 
 
 they are the chief i life to the majority of 
 
 men, are also the things in which whatever menl 
 
 capacity they have, chiefly 1 v 
 
 constantly meriting reproof by inatl 
 
 vance, and general slackness of mind b 
 
 daily life. My lather was the extreme in 
 
 these particulars : his 
 
 were always on the alert; he carried 
 
 energy of character in his whole mann< 
 
 every action of life : and this 
 
 tributed to the strong impression which he al 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 37 
 
 made upon those with whom he came into personal 
 contact. But the children of energetic parents, fre- 
 quently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on 
 their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. 
 The education which my father gave me, was in 
 itself much more fitted for training me to know than 
 to do. Not that he was unaware of my deficiencies ; 
 both as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly 
 smarting under his severe admonitions on the 
 subject. There was anything but insensibility or 
 tolerance on his part towards such shortcomings : 
 but, while he saved me from the demoralizing effects 
 of school life, he made no effort to provide me with 
 any sufficient substitute for its practicalizing in- 
 fluences. Whatever qualities he himself, probably, 
 had acquired without difficulty or special training, 
 he seems to have supposed that I ought to acquire 
 as easily. He had not, I think, bestowed the same 
 amount of thought and attention on this, as on most 
 other branches of education ; and here, as well in 
 some other points of my tuition, he seems to have 
 expected i Beets without causes. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MORAL INFLUENCES IX EABLY FOUTtt MY FATli. 
 CHARACTER AND OPINIO 
 
 /" 
 
 TN my education, as in tliat of everyone, the moral 
 influences, which are bo much more important 
 than all others, are also the mod complicated, and the 
 most difficult to specify with anj approach I 
 pleteness. Withoul attempting the hope] 
 detailing the crircuinstanees by whieh, in tl 
 my early character may hai d, I Bhafl 
 
 confine myself to a few leading points, which t'^mi an 
 
 indispensable part of any true account of my educa- 
 tion, 
 
 I was brought up from the first without any re- 
 ligious belief, in the ordinary acc< 
 My father, educated in the creed of Scotch V 
 byterianism, had by his own studies and reflect] 
 been early led to reject not only the belief in I 
 lation, but the foundations of what iscommoi led 
 
 Natural Religion. 1 have heard him say. that i 
 turning point of his mind on the subject was read] 
 Butler's Analogy. That work, of which he alwi 
 continued to speak with respect, kept him, as he 
 
MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. 39 
 
 said, for some considerable time, a believer in the 
 divine authority of Christianity ; by proving to him, 
 that whatever are the difficulties in believing that 
 the Old and New Testaments proceed from, or record 
 the acts of, a perfectly wise and good being, the same 
 and still greater difficulties stand in the way of the 
 belief, that a beingr of such a character can have been 
 the Maker of the universe. He considered Butler's 
 argument as conclusive against the only opponents 
 for whom it was intended. Those who admit an 
 omnipotent as well as perfectly just and benevolent 
 maker and ruler of such a world as this, can say 
 little against Christianity but what can, with at least 
 equal force, be retorted against themselves. Finding, 
 therefore, no halting place in Deism, he remained in 
 a state of perplexity, until, doubtless after many 
 struggles, he yielded to the conviction, that, concern- 
 ing the origin of things nothing whatever can be 
 known. This is the only correct statement of his 
 opinion ; for dogmatic atheism he looked upon as 
 absurd ; as most of those, whom the world has con- 
 sidered Atheists, have always done. These parti- 
 culars are important, because they show that my 
 fathers rejection of all that is called religious belief, 
 was not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter 
 of logic and evidence : the grounds of it were moral, 
 still more than intellectual. He found it impossible 
 to believe that a world so full of evil was the work 
 
40 MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. 
 
 of an Author combining infinite power with perfect 
 goodness and righteousness. His intellect spurned 
 the subtleties by which men attempt to blind them- 
 selves to this open contradiction- The Babe 
 Manichsean theory of a Good and an Evil Principle, 
 struggling against each other for the governm 
 the universe, he would not have equally condemn* 
 and I have heard him ex] uprise, thai no one 
 
 revived it in our time He would have regarded it 
 as a mere hypothesis ; but he would have a 
 ; it no depraving influence. As H was, his a 
 to religion, in I he sense usually a1 I to the term, 
 
 was of the same kind wii h th 
 regarded it with the feelings dm to a n 
 
 mental delusion, but I l evil, lb- 
 
 looked upon it as tin- :ny of morale 
 
 first, by setting up tietitious e\e< T. l"u*t" in 
 
 creeds, devotional feelings, and oearemoi 
 
 nected with the good of human-kind, and c 
 
 those to be accepted ubetitutes foi 
 
 virtues: but above all. by radically vita the 
 
 standard of morals j making it consist in doing the 
 
 will of a being, on whom it lavish* [ all the 
 
 phrases of adulation, but whom b r truth it 
 
 depicts as eminently hateful. 1 have a hundred 
 
 times heard him say, that all 
 
 have represented their gods as wieked. in I 
 
 Bt&ntly increasing pi cm, that mankind I 
 
MORAL INFLUENCES IN EABLY YOUTH. 41 
 
 gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the 
 most perfect conception of wickedness which the 
 human mind can devise, and have called this God, 
 and prostrated themselves before it. This ne plus 
 ultra of wickedness he considered to be embodied in 
 what is commonly presented to mankind as the 
 creed of Christianity. Think (he used to say) of a 
 being who would make a Hell — who would create 
 the human race with the infallible foreknowledge, 
 and therefore with the intention, that the great 
 majority of them were to be consigned to horrible 
 and everlasting torment. The time, I believe, is 
 drawing near when this dreadful conception of an 
 object of worship will be no longer identified with 
 Christianity; and when all persons, with any sense 
 of moral good and evil, will look upon it with 
 the same indignation with which my father regarded 
 it. My father \ wall aware as any one that 
 
 Christians do not, in general, undergo the demora- 
 lizing consequences which seem inherent in such a 
 creed, in the manner or to the extent which might 
 have been expected from it. The same slovenliness 
 of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, 
 wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a 
 theory involving a contradiction in terms, prevents 
 them from perceiving the logical consequences of the 
 theory. Such is the facility with which mankind 
 believe at one and the same time tilings inconsistent 
 
42 MORAL INFLUENCES IX EARLY YOVTH. 
 
 with one another, and so few are * draw 
 
 from what they receive as truths, any i 
 
 but those recommended to them by t 
 
 that multitudes have held the undoubting belief 
 
 an Omnipotent Author of Hell, and 1 
 
 identified that being with the b d they 
 
 were able to form < ► t * j » « - 1 1; - . - r -• h 
 
 was not paid to the demon which such a Beii _r as 
 they Imagined would really be, bu1 to their own id< 1 
 of excellence. The evil is, tJ belief keeps 
 
 the ideal wretchedly low; and op] mo6t 
 
 obstinate resistance to all thought whi - a 
 
 tendency to raise it 1)' >ra 
 
 every (rain of ideas \\hi<h would I a 
 
 clear conception and i rd of i 
 
 eellelire, Uvause tl V do I 
 
 distinctly hat such a si 
 
 with many oi % the (lisp. 
 
 much of what they are 1 to o as the 
 
 Christian creed. And thus morality 
 matter oi' blind tradition, with princi] 
 
 nor even anv consistent feeling, to guide it. 
 It would have been wholly U 
 
 father's ideas of duty, to allow quire : - 
 
 pressions contrary to his oonvicti i 
 respecting religion : and he impressed upon i 
 
 the first, that the manner in whieh the w me 
 
 into existence was a sulyect on which nothi] 
 
MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. 43 
 
 known : that the question, " Who made me ?" cannot 
 be answered, because we have no experience or 
 authentic information from which to answer it ; and 
 that any answer only throws the difficulty a step 
 further hack, since the question immediately presents 
 If. "Who made God ?' He, at the same time, took 
 care that I should 1"' 8 quainted with what had been 
 thought by mankind ou these impenetrable problems. 
 I have mentioned at how early an age la* made me a 
 
 iderofeocl >ryj and he taught me to 
 
 take the b in the Reformation, as the 
 
 tnd decisive cunt* inst priestly tyranny for 
 
 liberty of thought. 
 
 I am thus one of the very few examples, in this 
 
 country, of one who Ins. not thrown off religious 
 
 belief, but never had it: I grew up in a negative 
 
 1 to it. I looked upon the modern 
 
 ictly as I did upon the ancient religion, as some- 
 thing which in no way concerned me. It did not 
 seem to me more strange that English people should 
 believe what I did not, than that the men I read of 
 in Berodotus should have done so. History had 
 made the variety of opinions among mankind a fact 
 familiar to me, and this was but a prolongation of 
 that fact This point in my early education had, 
 however, incidentally one bad consequence deserving 
 notice. In giving me an opinion contrary to that of 
 the world, my father thought it necessary to give it 
 
44 MORAL INFLUENCES IX EAIiLY YOUTH. 
 
 as one which could not prudently be av to the 
 
 world. This lesson of keeping my th 
 
 myself, at that early age, was al :ne 
 
 mora] disadvantages; though my limited b .rse 
 
 with straj cially e 
 
 to me on religion, pi I in 
 
 the alternal ii -il or 1. 1 rememl 
 
 two occasions iii my boyhood, on which I felt i 
 
 in this altci i and in both Cases I 
 
 disbelief and defended it. liy oj 
 
 considerably older than myself: one of them I 
 
 certainly E 
 
 never renewed b was si 
 
 prised and . did 
 
 convince me for some time, wi1 
 
 The greal advance in 
 is one of the mosl important differs aces 
 present time and my childhood, has grea' 
 
 altered the moralil ' this qu< ink 
 
 that few men ^[' my father's intelf I public spirit, 
 
 holding with such intensity of mora] d as lie 
 
 did, unpopular opinions on i 
 
 (A 1 the great subjects of thought, woul I 
 
 practise or inculcate the Withholding of them from 
 
 the world, unless in th< 
 
 day, in which frankness on these subj< idd 
 
 either risk the loss of i dd 
 
 amount to exclusion from sphere 
 
MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. 45 
 
 peculiarly suitable to the capacities of the individual. 
 On religion in particular the time appears to me to 
 have come, when it is the duty of all who being 
 qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature con- 
 sideration themselves that the current 
 opinion- are not only false but hurtful, to make their 
 sent known; at least, if they are among those 
 who tion or reputation, gives their opinion a 
 chance of bein Lded to. Such an avowal would 
 put an end, i and for ever, to the vulgar 
 prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, 
 unbelief, is connected with any bad qualities either 
 of mind or h The world would be astonished if 
 it knew ho proportion of its brightest orna- 
 ments— of those mod distinguished even in popular 
 for wisdom and virtue— are complete 
 
 BOeptics in religion; many of them refraining from 
 
 avowal, less from personal considerations, than from 
 a conscientious, though now in my opinion a most 
 mistaken apprehension, lesi by speaking out what 
 
 would tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by con- 
 sequence (as they suppose) existing restraints, they 
 should do harm instead of good. 
 
 Of unbelii 90 called) as well as of believers, 
 
 there are many 8] including almost every variety 
 
 of moral type. But the best among them, as no one 
 who has had opportunities of really knowing them 
 will hesitate to affirm, are more genuinely religious, 
 
46 MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS, 
 
 in the best sense of the word religion, than th 
 who exclusively arrogate to themselves the til 
 The liberality of the age, or in other words the 
 weakening of the obstinate prejudice which mal 
 men unable to see what is before their eyes b* 
 it is contrary to their expectations, has caused it to 
 very commonly admitted that a Dei-t may be 
 truly religious: bu< if n-l;_ or any graces 
 
 of character and nol for mere d assert] 
 
 may equally ho made of many whose belief is far 
 short <>f Deism. Th<>n;_;h they may think the pi 
 incomplete thai the universe is a work of design, 
 and though they assuredly disbeli <t it c 
 
 have an Am hor and ( nor who is 
 
 as wvll as perfed in goodness, they have that which 
 constitutes the principal worth of all re] 
 ever, an ideal conception of a I which 
 
 they habitually refer as the guide of th< ' 
 and this ideal ofGood is usually tar nearer to perfec- 
 tion than the objective Deity of those, who think 
 themselves obliged to find absolul 
 author oi f a world so crowded with 6 • aid 
 
 so deformed by injustice as 0UI8. 
 
 My father's moral convictions, wholly diss 
 from religion, were very much of tl 
 those of the Creek philosopher* delivei 
 
 with the force and decision which C 
 that came from him. Even at the very early age at 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 47 
 
 which I read with him the Memorabilia of Xenophon, 
 I imbibed from that work and from his comments a 
 deep respect for the character of Socrates ; who stood 
 in my mind as a model of ideal excellence : and I 
 well remember how my father at that time impressed 
 upon me the lesson of the " Choice of Hercules." 
 At a somewhat later period the lofty moral standard 
 exhibited in the writings of Plato operated upon me 
 with great force. My father's moral inculcations 
 were at all times mainly those of the "Soeratici^ 
 viri ;" justice, temperance (to which he gave a very 
 extended application erance, readiness 
 
 to encounter pain and especially labour ; regard for 
 the public good ; estimation of persons according to 
 their merits, and of tilings according to their intrinsic 
 usefulness; a life of exertion in contradiction to one 
 of self-indulgent rase and sloth. These and other 
 moralities he conveyed in brief sentences, uttered as 
 occasion arose, of grave exhortation, or stern repro- 
 bation and contempt. 
 
 But though direct mora] teaching does much, in- 
 direct does more; and the effect my father produced 
 on my character, did not depend solely on what he 
 said or did with that direct object, but also, and still 
 more, on what manner of man he was. 
 
 In his views of life he partook of the character of 
 the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Cynic, not in the 
 modern but the ancient sense of the word. In his 
 
48 my father's character and OPI v 
 
 personal qualities the Stoic predominated I 
 
 indard of morals was Epicurean, inasmuch as it 
 was utilitarian, taking as I Jit 
 
 and wrong, 1 1 produce p] 
 
 or pain. Bi had (and this 
 
 elemeni ) scarcely any I 
 bis later years, of which alone, • 
 speak confidently. I [e was able to] res; 
 
 bat he deemed very few of worth the pri 
 
 which, ' inthepresei ofsck: be 
 
 paid for thcin. The • of miscarriaL 
 
 In life, he considered to 1"' a1 ible to 
 
 valuing of | < i s. Acoor in 
 
 the lar aded bj I k philoe 
 
 stopping short point of in >n in 
 
 indulg is with him, its wi- 
 
 the centra] poinl id- 
 
 eations of this virtue till ■ large pla hildish 
 
 rememfaranoea He thought bun a poor thi 
 
 at best , after the Breshness <»f \vmh . 
 curiosity had gone by. This was a on whi 
 
 he did not often speak, lly, it : 
 
 in the presence ol youi \ : but when I 
 
 it was with an ai d and proi 
 
 1 [e would Bometim* i - hat if life 
 it might be,bj ment and good 
 
 would be worth having: but h< 
 thing like enth n of tl He 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 49 
 
 never varied in rating intellectual enjoyments above 
 
 all others, even in value as pleasures, independently of 
 
 their ulterior benefits. The pleasures of the benevolent 
 
 >ns he placed high in the scale ; and used to 
 
 say, that he had never known a happy old man, 
 
 except those who were able to live over again in the 
 
 pleasures of the young. For passionate emotions of 
 
 all.- tnd for everything which has been said or 
 
 written in exaltation of them, he professed the 
 
 • nipt. He regarded them as a form of 
 
 madness. "The infc - with him a bye-word 
 
 of scornful disapprobation. He regarded as an 
 
 tration of the moral standard of modern times, 
 
 avd with i indents, the great stress 
 
 laid upon I ■ 2 Such, he considered 
 
 to 1 - of pi r blame. Right 
 
 and w : good and had, he regarded as qualities 
 
 solely of conduct— ol tnd omissions; there being 
 
 no feeling which may not lead, and does not fre- 
 quently lead, either to good <>r to had actions: 
 cor self, tl re to act right, often » 
 
 leading peop] t wrong. C *ntly carrying 
 
 out the doctrine, that the object of praise and blame 
 should be the difi ent of wrong conduct and 
 
 the encouragement lit, he refused to let his 
 
 praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the 
 agent, lie bkm severely what he thought a 
 
 bad action, when the motive was a feeling of duty ; 
 
 E 
 
50 MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINION'S. 
 
 // as if the agents had been consciously evil rl.^rs. He 
 would not h;> 
 
 inquisitors, that they sincerely 1- bun ' 
 
 heretics to be an obligation of ;t 
 
 though be did n<»t allow hi of pur] 
 
 his disapprobation oi full efl 
 
 his estimation of characters. No one pri 
 scientiousness and rectitude of intention more ] 
 or was more incapable of \ a] ting in 
 
 whom he did i 1 assi of it. Bui he 
 
 disliked people quite as mu< 
 deficiency, provided he I b illy li k 
 
 make them ad ill. Se di i 
 
 fanatic in any h d i or more than i 
 
 who adopted the Bame 
 
 because he thought him be 
 
 practically mi I thus, his a-. 
 
 many intellectiial errors, or wh 
 such, partook, in a oeri aio e he cha] 
 
 moral feeling. All this is nn . in 
 
 a degree once common, bui now very unusual, tlir 
 his feelings into his opi which ti 
 
 difficull to understand how am 
 much of both, can fail to do, IS 
 who do not care about opinions, will 
 this with intolerance. Those, who 
 which they hold to be inn: :, and 
 
 their contraries to be prodi ly luirtful, ha 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OriXIOXS. 51 
 
 any deep regard for the general good, Avill necessarily 
 dislike, as a class and in the abstract, those who 
 think wrong what they think right, and right what 
 they think v, h they need not therefore 
 
 he, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in 
 an opponent, n< ed in their estimation of 
 
 individuals by one general presumption, instead ox 
 by the whole of their character. I --rant that an 
 r person, being no more infallible than other 
 
 Iraen, is li people on account of opinions 
 
 which do not merit dislike; but if he neither himself 
 es them any ill ollice, - at its being 
 
 doi, Ltoleiant : and the for- 
 
 bearance whi oscientioufl sense of 
 
 the iin: ;* the equal freedom of 
 
 all opinions, is the only tol which is com- 
 
 mendable, or, to the highest moral order of minds, 
 'Me. 
 
 It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, 
 and the char scribed, was likely to 
 
 leave i mural impression on any mind 
 
 principally formed by him, and that his moral 
 teaching to err on the side of laxity 
 
 or indulgence. The element which was chiefly 
 deficient in his moral relation to his children was 
 that of tenderness. I do not believe that this 
 deficiency lay in his own nature. I believe him to 
 have had much more feeling than he habitually 
 
 E 2 
 
 
52 my father's character and opinio: 
 
 showed, and much greater capacities of feeling tl 
 
 were ever developed. He resembled most E 
 
 I! men in being ashamed of t 1 f feeling, and by 
 
 the absence of demonstration, starving the 1 
 
 themselves. If we consider further that I 3 in 
 
 the trying position of sol< 1 add to i 
 
 that his temper was constitutionally irritabL 
 
 impossible not to feel true pity for a who did, 
 
 and strove to do, so much for his children, i uld 
 
 have so valued their affection, jei who mue 
 
 been constant! y feeling thai i him was dryi 
 
 it up at its s<»uree. This was no ie case 
 
 later in life, and with Ins younger childrea T 
 
 loved him tenderly : and if I cann< 
 
 myself, 1 was always loyally d< to him- A< 
 
 regards my own education, I h< 
 
 whether I was more a loser or gainer by Ins 
 
 severity, It was not such as to prevent m< 
 
 having a happy childhood And 1 do not beli< 
 
 that hoys can he indueed to apply themselves with 
 
 vigour, and what i^> so much more difficult, p 
 
 ranee, to dry and irksome studies, by the boL 
 
 of persuasion and Boft words, Much musl 
 
 and much must ho learnt, by children, for which ri 
 
 ... 
 discipline, and known liability to punishment, 
 
 indispensable as means. It i-, no doul 
 
 laudable effort, in modern teaching 
 
 much as possible of what the young are required to 
 
MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 53 
 
 learn, easy and interesting to them. But when this 
 principle is pushed to the length of not requiring 
 them to learn anything but what has been made easy 
 and interesting, one of the chief objects of education 
 is sacrificed. I rejoice in the decline of the old 
 brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which, 
 however, did succeed in enforcing habits of applica- 
 tion ; but the new, as it seems to me, is training up 
 a race of men who will be incapable of doing any- 
 thing which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then, 
 believe that fear, as an element in education, can be 
 dispensed with ; but I am sure that it ought not to 
 be the main element ; and when it predominates so 
 much as to preclude iovie and confidence on the part 
 of the child to those who should be the unreservedly 
 trusted advisers of years, and perhaps to seal 
 
 up the fountains of frank and spontaneous communi- 
 cativeness in the child's nature, it is an evil for which 
 a large abatement must be made from the benefits, 
 moral and intellectual, which may flow from any 
 other part of the education. 
 
 During this first period of my life, the habitual 
 frequenters of my fathers house were limited to a 
 very few persons, most of them little known to the 
 world, but whom personal worth, and more or less of 
 congeniality with at least his political opinions (not 
 so frequently to be met with then as since) inclined 
 him to cultivate ; and his conversations with them I 
 
54 my father's character and opinions, 
 
 listened to with interest and instruction. My be* 
 
 an habitual inmate of my fathers study me 
 
 acquainted with the i of his fri 
 
 Jticardo, who by his 
 
 kindliness of manner, was y. to yoi 
 
 persons, and who I te a s of 
 
 political economy, invited me to his house i 
 
 walk with him in order to c • on the subj( 
 
 I was a more freqn L8 17 or 
 
 181 s) to Mr, 1 lun: m in tl of 
 
 Scotland as my I 
 
 think, b j d of 
 
 his, had on returning tV I ith- 
 
 ful acquaintance, and \ 
 
 greatly unde I ice of i 
 
 and energy oi 
 
 influen go into Pa 
 
 line of conduct which n hon< 
 
 place in the history of his i 
 
 I saw much more, owing to ; timacy which 
 
 existed between him and my father. 1 know* 
 
 how soon after my fa: 
 
 they became acquainted But my was the 
 
 earliest Englishman rk, wl 
 
 thoroughly understood, and in the main 
 Bentham's general view b 
 
 law : and this was a natural foundati 
 
 between them, and made them lamiliar com] 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 55 
 
 in a period of Bentham's life during which he ad- 
 mitted much fewer visitors than was the case 
 subsequently. At this time Mr. Bentham passed 
 some part of every year at Barrow Green House, in 
 a beautiful part of the Surrey Hills, a few miles from 
 Godstone, and there I each summer accompanied my 
 father in a long visit. In 1813 Mr. Bentham, my 
 father, and I made an excursion, which included 
 Oxford, Bath and Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and 
 Portsmouth- In this journey I saw many things 
 which were instructive to me, and acquired my first 
 taste for natural scenery, in the elementary form of 
 fondness for a k> \i< . In the succeeding winter we 
 moved into a house very near Mr. Bentham's, which 
 my father rented from him, in Queen Square, 
 Westminster. From 1814 to 1817 Mr. Bentham lived 
 during half of each year at Ford Abbey, in Somerset- 
 shire (or rather in a part of Devonshire surrounded 
 by Somersetshire), which intervals I had the advantage 
 of passing at thai place. This sojourn was, I think, 
 an important circumstance in my education. Nothing 
 contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments 
 in a people, than the large and free character of their 
 habitations. The middle-age architecture, the baronia 1 
 hall, and the spacious and lofty rooms, of this fine old 
 place, so unlike the mean and cramped externals cf 
 English middle class life, gave the sentiment of a 
 larger and freer existence, and were to me a sort of 
 
56 my father's character and opr 
 
 poetic cultivation, aided also by the chai 
 
 grounds in which the Ahb- ■ 1: which 
 
 and secluded, umbr \ and full of I of 
 
 falling waters. 
 
 I owed another of tl - in 
 
 my education, a rice in V: Mr. 
 
 Bentham's brother, General 811 Samuel I 
 
 had seen Sir Samuel Bentt 
 house near Gosport in the 
 mentioned (he ben d Superu 
 
 Dockyard at Portsmouth), and du 
 days which they m :d Abl 
 
 the peace, befon to liv< 
 
 i B20 they in\ Lted me I 
 
 in the South of Fi which their kii 
 
 ultimately pr 1 to m 
 
 Samuel Bentham, though of a i 
 different from that of his ill- 
 man of \nv considerable 
 
 powers, with a decided genii 
 
 His wife, a daughter of tl mist, I 
 
 Fordyce, was a woman ol 
 
 character, much general knowledg 
 
 ticaJ good sense of the Edgeworth kind : she was the 
 
 ruling spirit of the household 
 
 was well qualified, to be T ne 
 
 son (the eminent botanist) and thre< the 
 
 youngest about I I 
 
MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 57 
 
 to them for much and various instruction, and for an 
 almost parental interest in my welfare. When I first 
 joined them, in May 1820, they occupied the Chateau 
 of Pompignan (still belonging to a descendant of 
 Voltaire's enemy) on the heights overlooking the 
 plain of the Garonne between Montauban and 
 Toulouse. I accompanied them in an excursion to 
 the Pyrenees, including a stay of some duration at 
 Bagn&res de Bigorre, a journey to Pan, Bayonne, and 
 
 .meres de Luchon, and an ascent of the Pic du 
 Midi de Bigorre. 
 
 This first introduction to the highest order of 
 mountain Bceneiy made the deepest impression on 
 me, and gave a colour to my tastes through life. 
 In October we proceeded by the beautiful mountain 
 route of Castres and St. Pons, from Toulouse to Mont- 
 pellier, in which last neighbourhood Sir Samuel had 
 just bought tlit 1 of Restincli&re, near the foot 
 
 of the singular mountain of St. Loup. During this 
 residence in France I acquired a familiar knowledge 
 of the French language, and acquaintance with the 
 ordinary French literature ; I took lessons in 
 various bodily exercises, in none of which however I 
 made any proficiency ; and at Montpellier I attended 
 the excellent winter courses of lectures at the Faculte 
 des Sciences, those of M. Anglada on chemistry, 
 of M. Provencal on zoology, and of a very ac- 
 complished representative of the eighteenth century 
 
58 my father's character And opinions. 
 
 metaphysics, M. Gergonne, on logic, under the name 
 
 of Philosophy of the Sciencea I also went jh a 
 
 course of the higher mathem r the priv; 
 
 tuition of M. Lenth&ic, a prof BSOI 
 
 Montpellier. But the grej 
 
 advantages which I owed to I 
 
 education, \\;is that of having bn I for a wh 
 
 year, the free and g( i IaJ i 
 
 life. This advai I thou 
 
 I could not then estimi 
 
 feel it. I l.i\ ing bo lit i le i 
 
 and the few people Ik' 
 
 public objects, <•!" a 1 ; lly disi 
 
 kind, at hrarl , I \ 
 
 what , in England, is called the hal 
 
 indeed professing, but t. 
 
 ofimplication, that oond ■■ alwaj 
 
 towards low and petty obj 
 
 feelings which manifests itself bj 
 
 tion iA' all demons^ - of th 
 
 abstinence p< among a - 
 
 iigionists) from profi i princi 
 
 at all, except in those preoi in whic 
 
 profession is put on as part of t 
 
 malities of the n. I could not then hi 
 
 ov estimate the 
 
 existence, and that i ch, wh 
 
 faults, if equally w 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 59 
 
 among whom sentiments, which by comparison at 
 least may be called elevated, are the current coin of 
 human intercourse, both in books and in private life ; 
 and though often evaporating in profession, are yet 
 kept alive in the nation at large by constant exercise, 
 and stimulated by sympathy, so as to form a living 
 and active part of the existence of great numbers of 
 persons, and to be recognised and understood by all. 
 Neither could I then appreciate the general culture of 
 the understanding, which results from the habitual 
 
 rcise of the feelings, and is thus carried down into 
 the mosi uneducated classes of several countries on 
 the Continent, in a degree not equalled in England 
 among the so-called educated, except where an 
 unusual tenderness of conscience loads to a habitual 
 
 rcise of the intellect on questions of right and 
 wrong. I did not know the way in which, among the 
 ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of 
 an unselfish kind, i occasionally in a special 
 
 thing here and there, and the habit of not speaking 
 to others, nor much even to themselves/ about the 
 things in which they do feel interest, causes both their 
 feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain unde- 
 veloped, or to develope themselves only in some single 
 and very limited direction ; reducing them, considered 
 as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence. 
 All these things I did not perceive till long after- 
 wards ; but I even then felt, though without stating 
 
60 MY FATHEK'8 CHARACTER AND OPE 
 
 it clearly to myself, the contra the fra 
 
 sociability and amiability of i 
 
 course, arid the English m in which 
 
 everybody acts as it* everybody els 
 
 no exceptions) was either an enemy or a 1 
 
 France, it is true, the 1 well i »od 
 
 points, both of individual and of national i 
 
 coino more to the surface, and bn it mon 
 
 lessly in ordinary intercourse, than in 1. I : l»ut 
 
 the general hahit «.f the people ifl BUB w«-ll OS 
 
 to expect, friendly feeling in e wards 
 
 other, where ver there is not some p< ise for 
 
 the opposite In England it is only of the beet bi 
 people, in the upp 
 anj t bing like this ran 1 
 
 In my way through I ' im* 
 
 Ulg, 1 passed BOme time in the h M. S 
 
 eminent political e< who was a friend i 
 
 correspondent of my father, having be ;io- 
 
 quainted with him on a visit or 
 
 two after the peace. He v 
 
 period of the French 1 1 Ion, a I 
 
 the best kind of French Republican, < 
 
 had never bent the knee to B 
 
 courted by him to d a truly upright, 1 
 
 enlightened man. He lived a qui 
 
 lite, made happy by warm a, publi 
 
 private. He was piainted with mai.\ 
 
MY FATHERS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 61 
 
 chiefs of the Liberal party, and I saw various note- 
 worthy persons while staying at his house ; among 
 whom I have pleasure in the recollection of having 
 once seen Saint-Simon, not yet the founder either of 
 a philosophy or a religion, and considered only as a 
 clever original. The chief fruit which I carried away 
 from the society I saw, was a strong and permanent 
 interest in Continental Liberalism, of which I ever 
 afterwards kept myself au courant, as much as of 
 English politics : a thing not at all usual in those days 
 with Englishmen, and whieh had a very salutary in- 
 fluence on my development, keeping me free from the 
 error always prevalent in England, and from which even 
 in \ father with all hid superiority to prejudice was not 
 ■mpt, of judging universal questions by a merely 
 English standard After passing a few weeks at 
 Caen with an old friend of my father's, I returned to 
 England in July 1821 ; and my education resumed 
 its ordinary course. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, AND II i 
 BELF-BD1 CATION. 
 
 l^OPt the first year or two after my vifiii bo I 
 
 I continued my old Btudies, with the additi 
 of some new ones. When [ rei 
 just finishing foi al 
 
 Economy, and he made me | on 
 
 the manuscript , \\ hich Mr. i •• all 
 
 his own writings, maki] 
 
 contents ;" a Bhorl 
 
 enable the writer more easily t I impro 
 
 the order of the idea-, and the _ I he 
 
 exposition. Seen after, my father put ii. 
 Condillac's Traits des Sensati 
 metaphysical volumes of his ( Sours dTEtud 
 (notwithstanding the superficial resembL 
 Condillac's psychological system a 
 quite as much for a warning as for an example. I am 
 not sure whether it was in this winter or th 
 thai I first read a history of the French Revoluti 
 
 ] learnt with astonishment, that the princi] 
 democracy, then apparently in so U 
 
LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION. 63 
 
 hopeless a minority everywhere in Europe, had borne 
 all before them in France thirty years earlier, and had 
 been the creed of the nation. As may be supposed 
 from this, I had previously a very vague idea of that 
 great commotion. I knew only that the French had 
 thrown off the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. 
 and XV., had put the King and Queen to death, 
 guillotined many persons, one of whom was Lavoisier, 
 and had ultimately fallen under the despotism of 
 Bonaparte. From this time, as was natural, the 
 Bubjecl took an immense hold of my feelings. It 
 allied itself with all my juvenile aspirations to the 
 character of a democratic champion. What had 
 happened so lately, Beemed as if it might easily happen 
 again : and the most transcendent glory I was capable 
 of conceiving, was that of figuring, successful or un- 
 successful, as a Girondist in an English Convention. 
 
 During tho winter of 1821-2, Mr. John Austin, with 
 whom at the time of my visit to France my father 
 had but lately become acquainted, kindly allowed me 
 to read I toman law with him. My father, notwith- 
 standing his abhorrence of the chaos of barbarism 
 called English Law, had turned his thoughts towards 
 the bar as on the whole less ineligible for me than 
 any other profession : and these readings with Mr. 
 Austin, who had made Bentham's best ideas his own, 
 and added much to them from other sources and from 
 his own mind, were not only a valuable introduction to 
 
G4 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 legal studies, but an important portion of general 
 education. With Mr. Austin I read Heineccius on 
 the Institutes, his Roman Antiquities, and part of 
 his exposition of the Pandects ; to which was added 
 a considerable portion of Blackstone. It was at the 
 commencement of these studies that my father, as a 
 needful accompaniment to them, put into my hands 
 Bentham's principal speculations, as interpreted to 
 the Continent, and indeed to all the world, by 
 Dumont, in the Traite de Legislation. The reading ■ .of 
 this book was an epoch in my life ; one of the 
 turning points in my mental history. 
 
 My previous education had been, in a certain 
 sense, already a course of Benthamism. The Ben- 
 thamic standard of " the greatest happiness " was 
 that which I had always been taught to apply; I 
 was even familiar with an abstract discussion of it, 
 forming an episode in an unpublished dialogue on 
 Government, written by my father on the Platonic 
 model. Yet in the first pages of Bentham it burst 
 upon me with all the force of novelty. What thus 
 impressed me was the chapter in which Bentham 
 passed judgment on the common modes of reasoning 
 in morals and legislation, deduced from 2}hrases like 
 "law of nature," " right reason," " the moral sense," 
 " natural rectitude," and the like, and characterized 
 them as dogmatism in disguise, imposing its senti- 
 ments upon others under cover of sounding expressions 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 65 
 
 which convey no reason for the sentiment, but set 
 up the sentiment as its own reason. It had not 
 struck me before, that Bentham s principle put an 
 end to all this. The feeling rushed upon me, that 
 all previous moralists were superseded, and that 
 here indeed was the commencement of a new era in 
 thought. This impression was strengthened by the 
 manner in which Bentham put into scientific form 
 the application of the happiness principle to the 
 morality of actions, by analysing the various classes 
 and orders of their consequences. But what struck 
 me at that time most of all, was the Classification 
 of Offences, which is much more clear, compact 
 and imposing in Dumont's redaction than in the 
 original work of Bentham from which it was taken. 
 Logic and the dialectics of Plato, which had formed 
 so large a part of my previous training, had given me 
 a strong relish for accurate classification. This taste 
 had been strengthened and enlightened by the study 
 of botany, on the principles of what is called the 
 Natural Method, which I had taken up with great 
 zeal, though only as an amusement, during my stay 
 in France ; and when I found scientific classification 
 applied to the great and complex subject of Punish- 
 able Acts, under the guidance of the ethical principle 
 of Pleasurable and Painful Consequences, followed 
 out in the method of detail introduced into these 
 subjects by Bentham, I felt taken up to an eminence 
 
 F 
 
66 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 from which I could survey a vast mental domain, and 
 see stretching out into the distance in1 
 results beyond all computation. As I proc 
 further, there seemed to be added to this intell 
 clearness, the most inspiring pr a of pr 
 
 improvement in human affaira T<» B _ r.tl 
 
 view of the construction of a body of law I * 
 altogether a stranger, bavins read with att 
 that admirable compendium, my fathers art i 
 Jurisprudence: but I had read it with little pr 
 and scarcely any Interest, no doubt from i* 
 tremely general and absl 
 because it concerned the form more than ( 
 substance of , the logic rather th 
 
 the ethics of law, Bui Bentham'fl ' 
 
 lation, of which Jurisprudence is only the 
 and at every page he seemed t<> 
 broader conception of what human opii 
 institutions ought to be, how they mig 
 what they ought to be, and how tar removi i it 
 
 they now are. When I laid down the 
 of the Traite, I had become a different 
 The Cf principle of utility" understood as Bentb 
 understood it, and applied in the manner in which 
 he applied it through these three volumes, fell 
 exactly into its plaee as the keystone which 1, 
 together the detached and fragmentary com] 
 parts of my knowledge and beliefs. It gave un 
 
AND FIUST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 67 
 
 to my conceptions of things. I now had opinions ; a 
 creed, a doctrine, a philosophy ; in one among the 
 best senses of the word, a religion ; the inculcation 
 and diffusion of which could be made the principal 
 outward purpose of a life. And I had a grand concep- 
 tion laid before me of changes to be effected in the 
 condition of mankind through that doctrine. The 
 Traite de Legislation wound up with what was to 
 me a most impressive picture of human life as it 
 would be made by such opinions and such laws as 
 were recommended in the treatise. The anticipa- 
 tions of practicable improvement were studiously 
 moderate, deprecating and discountenancing as 
 reverie- of vague enthusiasm many things which will 
 one day seem so natural to human beings, that in- 
 justice will probably be done to those who once 
 thought them chimerical ]>ut, in my state of mind, 
 this appearance of superiority to illusion added to 
 the effect which Bentham's doctrines produced on 
 me, by heightening the impression of mental power, 
 and the vista of improvement which he did open 
 was sufficiently large and brilliant to light up my 
 life, as well as to give a definite shajoe to my aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 After this I read, from time to time, the most im- 
 portant of the other works of Bentham which had 
 then seen the light, either as written by himself or 
 as edited by Dumont. This was my private reading : 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 while, under my father's direction, my studies wi 
 
 carried into the higher brand 
 
 logy. I now read Locke's Est 
 
 account of it, consisting of a com] 
 
 every chapter, with such n me: 
 
 which was read by, or(] think) to, my fal 
 
 cussed throughout I p rform< it K 
 
 Helvetiusde L'Esprit, which I read of my own 
 
 This prepared ion of abe 
 
 censorship, was of greal service to me, bycompelli 
 
 precision in conceiving and expn 
 
 duct rines, whei her a I as I nil 
 
 as the opinion of <>t I r I [< 1 my fat! 
 
 made me s< udy w hat I really n 
 
 production in the philosophy of mh 
 
 Observations on M;m. This book, though it did i 
 
 like the Traitd de \j jisl to 
 
 my existence, made a very similar imj me in 
 
 regard to its immediate subject Haiti- 
 
 tion, incomplete as in many poini . of the more 
 
 complex mental phenomena by the law i 
 
 commended itself to me at once as a real analys 
 
 and made me feel by contrast the insuffi of the 
 
 merely verbal generahb f Condilla 
 
 the instructive gropings and feelings abo 
 
 logical explanations, ol Locke. It was at this 
 
 thai my father commenced writing his Anah 
 
 the Mind, which carried Hartley's mo 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 69 
 
 the mental phenomena to so mucli greater length and 
 depth. He could only command the concentration of 
 thought necessary for this work, during the complete 
 leisure of his holiday of a month or six weeks 
 annually : and he commenced it in the summer of 
 1822, in the first holiday he passed at Dorking; in 
 which neighbourhood, from that time to the end of his 
 life, with the exception of two years, he lived, as far 
 as his official duties permitted, for six months of every 
 year. He worked at the Analysis during several 
 successive vacations, up to the year L829 when it was 
 published, and allowed me to read the manuscript, 
 portion by portion, as it advanced. The other prin- 
 cipal Engli-h writers on mental philosophy I read as I 
 felt inclined, particularly Berkeley, Humes Essays, 
 Reid, Dugald Stewart and Brown on Cause and 
 Effect. Browns Lectures 1 did not read until two or 
 three years later, nor at that time had my father 
 himself read them. 
 
 Among the works lead in the course of this year, 
 which contributed materially to my development, I 
 ought to mention a book (written on the foundation 
 of some of Bentham's manuscripts and published 
 under the pseudonyme of Philip Beauchamp) entitled 
 " Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on 
 the Temporal Happiness of Mankind." This was an 
 examination not of the truth, but of the usefulness 
 of religious belief, in the most general sense, apart 
 
70 LAST STAGE 09 EDUCATK I 
 
 from the pecnliair :iaJ I'' n; 
 
 which, of all the parts of n concerning 
 
 religion, is the mosi important in thi in which 
 
 -1 belief in any relig • La feeble • 
 
 I recarious, bu( the opinion 
 
 and Bocial purposes almost uni and \\i 
 
 those who tion, very generally take 
 
 refuge in ip of the 
 
 order of Na( ore, and the suppose 
 denoe, at Least as foil of oonl i 
 
 j to the moral Bert ' y of tin 
 
 Christianity, if only it is as completely realized ^ 
 v ery I'm le, * im to a philosophy 
 
 ha> bern writtm I 
 
 of t his form of belief I me 
 
 of Philip Beanchamp had thi 
 Saving been shown I 
 
 v as put int.* my hands by hi 1 I d 
 
 marginal analysis -t' it as I had 
 of Political Economy, de 
 
 Legislation, it v he 
 
 searching oharacter of i -he 
 
 i' I upon ni( 
 
 berval of manj :he 
 
 11 a- the n 
 thought, and to in, as I my 
 
 wc.ik arguments, hut with a g 
 r >und ones, and much ^<><>d n 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 7l 
 
 completely philosophic and conclusive treatment of 
 the subject. 
 
 I have now, I believe, mentioned all the books 
 which had an; iderable effect on my early mental 
 
 dev it. From this point I began to carry on 
 
 my intellectual cultivation by writing still more than 
 by reading. In the summer of L822 I wrote my 
 first argumei] I remember very littla 
 
 about it, that it was an attack on what I 
 
 regarded as the aii bio prejudice, that the rich 
 
 were, or were likely to be, Superior in moral qualities 
 to the pour. My performance was entirely argumenta- 
 tive, without any of the declamation which the 
 subject would admit <>f, and might be expected to 
 to a young writer. In that department 
 however I was, and remained, very inapt. Dry 
 argument was the only thing I OOuld manage, or 
 
 (willingly attempted ; though passively I was very 
 susr f all composition, whether 
 
 in the form of poetry or oratory, which appealed to 
 the feelings on any basis of reason. My father, who 
 knew nothing of thi f until it was finished, was 
 
 well satisfied, and as I learnt from others, even 
 pleased with it; but, perhaps from a desire to 
 - promote the e e of other mental faculties than 
 
 the purely logical, he advised me to make my next 
 exercise in composition one of the oratorical kind : 
 on which suggestion, availing myself of my familiarity 
 
72 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 with Greek history and ideas and with the Athenian 
 orators, I wrote two speeches, one an accusation, 
 the other a defence of Pericles, on a supposed im- 
 peachment for not marching out to fight the Lacede- 
 monians on their invasion of Attica. After this I 
 continued to write papers on subjects often very 
 much beyond my capacity, but with great benefit 
 both from the exercise itself, and from the discussions 
 which it led to with my father. 
 
 I had now also begun to converse, on gen 
 subjects, with the instructed men witli whom I came 
 in contact: and the opportunities of such conti 
 naturally became more numerous. The two friends 
 of my father from whom I derived most, and with 
 whom I most associated, were Mr, Grote and Mr. 
 John Austin. The acquaintance of both with my 
 father was recent, but had ripened rapidly ii 
 intimacy. Mr. Grote was introduced to my father 
 by Mr. Ricardo, I think in 1819, (being then about 
 twenty-five years old), and sought assiduously his 
 society and conversation. Already a highly instructed 
 man, he was yet, by the side of my father, a tyro in 
 the great subjects of human opinion; but he rapidly 
 seized on my fathers best ideas; and in the depart- 
 ment of political opinion he made himself known 
 early as J 820, by a pamphlet in defence of Radical 
 Ileform, in reply to a celebrated article by Sir ■ 
 Macintosh, then lately published in the Edinburgh 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 73 
 
 Review. Mr. Grote's father, the banker, was, I 
 believe, a thorough Tory, and his mother intensely 
 Evangelical ; so that for his liberal opinions he was in 
 no way indebted to home influences. But, unlike 
 most persons who have the prospect of being rich by 
 inheritance, he had, though actively engaged in the 
 business of banking, devoted a great portion of time 
 to philosophic studies ; and his intimacy with my 
 father did much to decide the character of the next 
 stage in his mental progress. Him I often visited, 
 and my conversations with him on political, moral, 
 and philosophical subjects gave me, in addition 
 to much valuable instruction, all the pleasure and 
 benefit of sympathetic communion with a man 
 of the high intellectual and moral eminence which 
 his life and writings have since manifested to the 
 world. 
 
 Mr. Austin, who was four or five years older than 
 Mr. Grote, was the eldest son of a retired miller in 
 Suffolk, who had made money by contracts during 
 the war, and who must have been a man of remark- 
 able qualities, as I infer from the fact that all his 
 sons were of more than common ability and all 
 eminently gentlemen. The one with whom we are 
 now concerned, and whose writings on jurisprudence 
 have made him celebrated, was for some time in the 
 army, and served in Sicily under Lord William 
 Bentinck. After the peace he sold his commission and 
 
74 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 studied for the bar, to which he had been called foi 
 some time before my father knew him. He w; 
 like Mr. Grote, to any extent, a pupil of my fath< 
 but he had attained, by reading and thought, a 
 considerable number of th< e opinions, modifi 
 
 by his own very decided individuality of characl 
 He was a man of great intellectual ; which in 
 
 conversation appeared at their very best ; from I 
 vigour and richness of ex] d with which, under 
 
 the excitement of discussion, he was a I to 
 
 maintain some \ Lew or other of m eral >u : 
 
 and from an appearance of not only 
 deliberate and collected will; mixed with a 
 bitterness, partly derived G 
 partly from the genera] _s and 
 
 reflections. The dissatisfaction with life and the world, 
 felt more or less in the present state - 
 intellect by every digAmming and highly 
 mind, gave inhiscasea ratlin- melanch J 
 character, very natural to tli 
 
 susceptibilities are more than proportioned to their 
 active energies. For it must be said, that I 
 strength of will of which his 
 give such strong assuranc aided 
 
 pally in manner. With great zeal for im- 
 
 provement, a 
 
 acquirements the extent of which is d by 
 
 writings he has left, he hardly i 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF- EDUCATION. 75 
 
 intellectual task of magnitude. He had so high a 
 standard of what ought to be done, so exaggerated a 
 sense of deficiencies in his own performances, and 
 was so unable to content himself with the amount of 
 elaboration sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, 
 that he not only spoilt much of his work for ordinary 
 use by overlabouring it, but spent so much time and 
 exertion in superfluous study and thought, that when 
 his task ought to have been completed, he had 
 generally worked himself into an illness, without 
 having half finished what he undertook. From this 
 mental infirmity (of which lie is not the sole example 
 among the accomplished and able men whom I have 
 known), combined with liability to frequent attacks 
 of disabling though not dangerous ill-health, he 
 accomplished, through life, little in comparison with 
 what he seemed capable of; but what he did produce 
 is held in the very highest estimation by the most 
 competent judges ; and, like Coleridge, he might plead 
 as a set-off that he had been to many persons, 
 through his conversation, a source not only of much 
 instruction but of great elevation of character. On 
 me his influence was most salutary. It was moral 
 in the best sense. He took a sincere and kind 
 interest in me, far beyond what could have been 
 expected towards a mere youth from a man of his 
 age, standing, and what seemed austerity of character. 
 There was in his conversation and demeanour a tone 
 
76 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 *. 
 
 of higdimindedness which did not show itself so much, 
 if the quality existed as much, in any of the otl 
 persons with whom at that time I « ted My 
 
 intercourse with him was the more beneficial, owi 
 to his being of a different mental type from all 
 intellectual men whom 1 frequented, and Ik 1 from I 
 first set himself decidedly against the prejudices and 
 narrownesses which arc almost sure to be found in 
 a young man formed by a particular mode of thought 
 or a particular social circle, 
 
 His younger brother, Charles i, of whom at 
 
 this time and for the iK'\t year or two 1 Baw much, 
 had also a great effect on me, though of a 
 different description. He was but a trv. a older 
 
 than myself, and liad then jusi Lefl the University, 
 where he had Bhone with greal a man of 
 
 intellect and a brilliant orator and converses The 
 effect he produced on his Cambridge cont< i 
 deserves to be accounted an historical event; for 
 it may in part be traced the u 
 Liberalism in general, and the Benthamic 
 politico-economic form of it in particular, which 
 showed itself in a portion of the more acth 
 young men of the higher classes from this 
 1830, The Union Debating Society, at thai ti 
 the height of its reputation, WJ 
 what were then thought extreme o\\ in politi - 
 
 and philosophy, were weeklj ted, fan 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF- EDUCATION. 77 
 
 with their opposites, before audiences consisting of 
 the elite of the Cambridge youth : and though many 
 persons afterwards of more or less note, (of whom 
 Lord Macaulay is the most celebrated), gained their 
 first oratorical laurels in those debates, the really 
 influential mind among these intellectual gladiators 
 was Charles Austin. He continued, after leaving 
 the University, to be, by his conversation and per- 
 sonal ascendancy, a leader among the same class of 
 young men who had been his associates there ; and he 
 attached me among others to his car. Through him 
 I became acquainted with Macaulay, Hyde and 
 Charles Villiera, Strutt (now Lord Belper), Romilly 
 (now Lord Romilly and Master of the Rolls), and 
 various others who subsequently figured in literature 
 or politics, and among whom I heard discussions on 
 many topics, as yet to a certain degree new to me. 
 The influence of Charles Austin over me differed 
 from that of the persons I have hitherto mentioned, 
 in being not the influence of a man over a boy, but 
 that of an elder contemporary. It was through him 
 that I first felt myself, not a pupil under teachers, 
 but a man among men. He was the first person of 
 intellect whom I met on a ground of equality, 
 though as yet much his inferior on that common 
 ground. He was a man who never failed to impress 
 greatly those with whom he came in contact, even 
 when their opinions were the very reverse of his. 
 
78 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 The impression he gave was that of bound] 
 strength, together with talents which, combin 
 with such apparent force of will and c 
 
 lncd capable of dominating the world. Th 
 who knew him, whether friendly to him or n 
 always anticipated that he would play a co 
 part in public life, It is seldom that men produ 
 bo great an immedis t by - unless th< 
 
 in some degree, lay themselves out for it ; and lie 
 did this in no ordiri I [e loved I 
 
 and even to startle Il< knew that decision is the 
 greatest element of 1 he uttered his 
 
 opinions with all the . a Ik* could throw into 
 
 them, never SO Well plea>< d 
 anv one by their i ■ unlike his bi 
 
 who made war M the narrower H 
 
 tions and appli f the principles I 
 
 professed, he. on the ry, pn I the 
 
 Benthamio doctrines in the mosl Btartling 
 
 of which they were - ng 
 
 everything in them which tended t^ i 
 
 offensive to any one's ]-; d feeli All 
 
 which, he defended with such verve and viv !id 
 
 carried ofl by a manner - le as w< V. as I rcil 
 
 that he always either came off vi r divided I 
 
 honours ofthe field It is my belief that much of the 
 
 notion popularly I ained of the tei 
 
 timentsof what are called Benthamites or Utilil 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 79 
 
 had its origin in paradoxes thrown out by Charles 
 Austin. It must be said, however, that his example 
 was followed, hand j^ssibus cequis, by younger pro- 
 selytes, and that to o litre r whatever was by anybody 
 considered offensive in the doctrines and maxims of 
 Benthamism, became at one time the badge of a 
 small coterie of youths. All of these who had any- 
 thing in them, myself among others, quickly outgrew 
 this boyish vanity ; and those who had not, became 
 tired of differing from other people, and gave up both 
 the good and the bad part of the heterodox opinions 
 they had for some time professed. 
 
 It was in the winter of 1822-3 that I formed the 
 \ plan of a little society, to be composed of young men 
 agreeing in fundamental principles — acknowledging 
 Utility as their standard in ethics and politics, and a 
 certain number of the principal corollaries drawn from 
 it in the philosophy I had accepted — and meeting 
 once a fortnight to read essays and discuss questions 
 conformably to the premises thus agreed on. The 
 fact would hardly be worth mentioning, but for the 
 circumstance, that the name I gave to the society I 
 had planned was the Utilitarian Society. It was 
 the first time that any one had taken the title of 
 Utilitarian ; and the term made its way into the 
 language, from this humble source. I did not invent 
 the word, but found it in one of Gait's novels, the 
 4 'Annals of the Parish/ 1 in which the Scotch clergy- 
 
80 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 man, of whom the book is a supposed autobio- 
 graphy, is represented as warning Lis pa 
 not to leave the Gospel and become utilit 
 With a boys fondness for a name and a I 
 
 seized on the word, and for some 
 and others by it as a sectarian app I it 
 
 came to be occasionally used by some ol ing 
 
 the opinions which it wi -1 to i 
 
 As those opinions attracted more i rm 
 
 was repeated by si a and op] 
 
 into rather common use just aboul I h 
 those who had original] 1 down that 
 
 along with other 
 
 Society so called ooi first of no more t 1 
 
 three members, one of whom, being Mr. I 
 amanuensi lined for us j to hold our 
 
 meetings in his house. T\ . I thii 
 
 reached ten, and the in 
 
 L826. It had thus an i 
 vears and a half The chief I 
 
 myself, over and above the t of pi in 
 
 oral discussion, WES that of 1 
 contact with several you] 
 advanced than myself, I 
 professed the same opinions, 1 v 
 sort of leader, and Ik 
 their mental prog 
 who tell in my 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 81 
 
 incompatible with those of the Society, I endeavoured 
 to press into its service ; and some others I probably 
 should never have known, had they not joined it. 
 Those of the members who became my intimate 
 companions — no one of whom was in any sense of the 
 word a disciple, but all of them independent thinkers 
 on their own basis — were William Eyton Tooke, son 
 : of the eminent political economist, a young man of 
 singular worth both moral and intellectual, lost to 
 the world by an early death ; his friend William 
 Ellis, an original thinker in the field of political 
 economy, now honourably known by his apostolic 
 exertions for the improvement of education ; George 
 Graham, afterwards official assignee of the Bank- 
 ruptcy Court, a thinker of originality and power on 
 almost all abstract subjects ; and (from the time when 
 he came first to England to study for the bar in 1824 
 or 1825) a man who has made considerably more 
 noise in the world than any of these, John Arthur 
 Roebuck. 
 
 In May, 1823, my professional occupation and 
 status for the next thirty-five years of my life, were 
 decided by my father's obtaining for me an appoint- 
 ment from the East India Company, in the office of 
 the Examiner of India Correspondence, immediately 
 under himself. I was appointed in the usual manner, 
 at the bottom of the list of clerks, to rise, at least 
 in the first instance, by seniority ; but with the 
 
 G 
 
82 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 understanding that I should be employed from the 
 
 beginning in preparing drafts of despatches, and be 
 
 thus trained up as a successor to those who then 
 
 filled the higher departments of the office. My 
 
 drafts of course required, for some time, much 
 
 revision from my immediate superiors, but I soon 
 
 became well acquainted with the I 
 
 fathers instructions and the _ I growth of i 
 
 own powers, I was in a il-v. 
 
 practically was, the chief conductor of t 1 
 
 deuce with India in one of the leading de] 
 
 that of the Native ued to be i 
 
 official duty until I was appointed Examiner, oi 
 
 two years before the time wi. 
 
 East India Company as a political I ed 
 
 my retirement I do not know any one of the oc 
 
 t ions by which a subsistence cannow 
 
 suitable than such as this to any one who, no \ in 
 
 independent circume -. desires to 
 
 the twenty-four hours to private intellectual pu 
 
 Writing for the piv>s, cannot be recommei 
 
 permanent resource to any one qualifii 
 
 anything in the higher departments of literature r 
 
 thought : not only on account of the ui ,ty 
 
 of this means of livelihood, especially it' the wril 
 
 has a conscience, and will not 
 
 opinions except his own: hut als the 
 
 writings by which one can live. 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 83 
 
 which themselves live, and are never those in which 
 the writer does his best. Books destined to form 
 future thinkers take too much time to write, 
 and when written come, in general, too slowly into 
 notice and repute, to be relied on for subsistence. 
 Those who have to support themselves by their pen 
 must depend on literary drudgery, or at best on 
 writings addressed to the multitude ; and can employ 
 in the pursuits of their own choice, only such time as 
 they can spare from those of necessity ; which is 
 generally less than the leisure allowed by office occu- 
 pations, while the effect on the mind is far more 
 enervating and fatiguing. For my own part I have, 
 through life, found office duties an actual rest from the 
 other mental occupations which I have carried on 
 simultaneously with them. They were sufficiently 
 intellectual not to be a distasteful drudgery, without 
 being such as to cause any strain upon the mental 
 powers of a person used to abstract thought, or to 
 the labour of careful literary composition. The draw- 
 backs, for every mode of life has its drawbacks, 
 were not, however, unfelt by me. I cared little for the 
 loss of the chances of riches and honours held out by 
 some of the professions, particularly the bar, which 
 had been, as I have already said, the profession 
 thought of for me. But I was not indifferent to ex- 
 clusion from Parliament, and public life : and I felt 
 very sensibly the more immediate unpleasantness of 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 confinement to London; the holiday allowed by 
 India-House practice not i a month in the 
 
 year, while my taste v rog for a 
 
 and my sojourn in Prance had left behind it 
 ardent desire oftrav* lling. But * 
 could not be freely indulged, they v. I no tii 
 
 entirely sacrificed I passed D _h- 
 
 out the year, in the country, taking long rural wa] 
 on that day even when i in L 
 
 months holiday was, fur a \\-\, :>><d , 
 
 father's house in the country: attn-wards a or 
 
 the whole wn in tours, i ith 
 
 some one or more of the 3 
 chosen companions ; and, at a law r period, in 
 journeys or excursi tie or with other fri 
 
 Prance, Belgium, and Elhenish I were within 
 
 easy reach of the animal holiday: and two 
 absences, one of three, the of six 
 
 under medical advice, added Swit: 
 and Italy to my list Fortunately, also, both th< 
 journeys occurred rather early, so 
 benefit and charm of the remembn bo a hi 
 portion of lite. 
 
 T am disposed to agree with what 1 sur- 
 
 mised by others, that the opporti 
 official position gave me of learning 1»\ 
 observation the neoessary conditi 
 conduct of public affairs, has been of 
 
AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION. 85 
 
 value to me as a theoretical reformer of the opinions 
 and institutions of my time. Not, indeed, that public 
 business transacted on paper, to take effect on the 
 other side of the globe, was of itself calculated to give 
 much practical knowledge of life. But the occupation 
 accustomed me to see and hear the difficulties of every 
 course, and the means of obviating them, stated and 
 discussed deliberately with a view to execution ; it 
 gave me opportunities of perceiving when public 
 measures, and other political facts, did not produce 
 the effects which had been expected of them, and 
 from what causes ; above all, it was valuable to me by 
 making me, in this portion of my activity, merely one 
 wheel in a machine, the whole of which had to work 
 together. As a speculative writer, I should have had 
 no one to consult but myself, and should have en- 
 countered in my speculations none of the obstacles 
 which would have started up whenever they came to 
 be applied to practice. But as a Secretary con- 
 ducting political correspondence, I could not issue an 
 order or express an opinion, without satisfying various 
 persons very unlike myself, that the thing was fit to 
 be done. I was thus in a good position for finding 
 out by practice the mode of putting a thought which 
 gives it easiest admittance into minds not prepared 
 for it by habit ; while I became practically conversant 
 with the difficulties of moving bodies of men, the 
 necessities of compromise, the art of sacrificing the 
 
86 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, ETC. 
 
 non-essential to preserve the essential. I learnt h 
 
 obtain the best I could, when I could d 
 everything ; i 
 because I could n 
 to be pleased and • 
 smallest pari of n ; and w. 
 to bear wit h c [uanimi 
 
 altogether. I have found, 
 quisitions to l.r <>! 1 li<- 
 for persona] happic od they ai 
 
 necessary condition for 
 theorist or as | 
 amount of go . 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISTS. THE WESTMINSTER 
 
 REVIEW. 
 
 T^HE occupation of so much of my time by office 
 work did not relax my attention to my own 
 pursuits, which were never carried on more vigorously. 
 It was about this time that I began to write in 
 newspapers. The first writings of mine which got 
 into print were two letters published towards the 
 end of 1822, in the Traveller evening newspaper. 
 The Traveller (which afterwards grew into the " Globe 
 and Traveller/ ' by the purchase and incorporation of 
 the Globe) was then the property of the well-known 
 political economist, Colonel Torrens, and under the 
 editorship of an able man, Mr. Walter Coulson (who, 
 after being an amanuensis of Mr. Bentham, became 
 a reporter, then an editor, next a barrister and con- 
 veyancer, and died Counsel to the Home Office), it 
 had become one of the most important newspaper 
 organs of Liberal politics. Colonel Torrens himself 
 wrote much of the political economy of his paper ; 
 and had at this time made an attack upon some 
 opinion of Eicardo and my father, to which, at my 
 
88 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE 
 
 fathers instigation, I attempted an answer, and 
 
 Coulson, out of consideration for my father and 
 
 goodwill to me, inserted it. There \ re pty by 
 
 Torrens, to which I again n I soon 
 
 attempted something rably more ambi 
 
 The prosecutions of Richard Carlfle and hia wife and 
 
 sister for publications hoc Chrifi 
 
 then exciting much attention, and nowh( >re 
 
 than among the people I frequented Freedom of 
 
 discussion even in poll 
 
 was at that time far from d in theory, bl 
 
 conceded point which it al o be no 
 
 and the holders of obnoxious opini 
 
 always ready to argue the liberty of 
 
 expressing them. I * i of five 1 
 
 under (lie signature oi Wickliff 
 
 whole length and breadth <>t" t : 
 
 publication of all opinions en religionj and 
 
 them to the Morning Chronicle. Three of them v • 
 
 published in January and February, 
 
 two, containing thin. 
 
 never appeared at all Bui a paper which I 
 
 BOOH after on the same sul 
 
 in the House of Commons, was inserted as a 1 
 
 article; and during the whole of i 
 
 a considerable number of i 
 
 printed in the Chronicle and Traveller 
 
 notices of hooks but oftener lot: g on 
 
YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM. 89 
 
 some nonsense talked in Parliament, or some defect 
 of the law, or misdoings of the magistracy or the 
 courts of justice. In this last department the 
 Chronicle was now rendering signal service. After 
 the death of Mr. Perry, the editorship and manage- 
 ment of the paper had devolved on Mr. John Black, 
 long a reporter on its establishment ; a man of most 
 extensive reading and information, great honesty and 
 simplicity of mind ; a particular friend of my father, 
 imbued with many of his and Bentham's ideas, which 
 he reproduced in his articles, among other valuable 
 thoughts, with great facility and skill. From this 
 time the Chronicle ceased to be the merely Whig 
 organ it was before, and during the next ten years 
 became to a considerable extent a vehicle of the 
 opinions of the Utilitarian Ptadicals. This was 
 mainly by what Black himself wrote, with some 
 assistance from Fonblanque, who first showed his 
 eminent qualities as a writer by articles and jeux 
 d* esprit in the Chronicle. The defects of the law, and 
 of the administration of justice, were the subject on 
 which that paper rendered most service to improve- 
 ment. Up to that time hardly a word had been said, 
 except by Bentham and my father, against that most 
 peccant part of English institutions and of their ad- 
 ministration. It was the almost universal creed of 
 Englishmen, that the law of England, the judica- 
 ture of England, the unpaid magistracy of England, 
 
90 YOUTHFUL PBOPAGANDBM. 
 
 were models of excellence. I do not go beyond the 
 
 mark in saying, that after Bentham, who bi 
 
 the principal materials, the gn share of t 
 
 merit of breaking down this wretched bion 
 
 belongs to Black, as editor of the Morni _ I 
 
 He kept up an incessaj 
 
 absurdities and vices of the law and tl 
 
 justice, paid and unpaid, until he 1 some sei 
 
 of them into people's minds, On man] 
 
 tions he became the of < ► j » 1 1 1 1 < ich in 
 
 advance of any which had ewr before 
 
 regular advocacy in I 
 
 was a fn quenl \ isitor d Mr. I 
 
 used t<> saj t hat he alwaA s km 
 morning's arl tele, whether 1 >L 
 fa1 ber on the Sunday, Black 
 influential of the many channels t! 
 my father's conversation and j 1 influei 
 
 his opinions tell on the w arid : co-op g with the 
 
 effect of bis writings in making him a power in I 
 country, suchas it bas rarely been the loi erf an indi- 
 vidual in a private station to be, through the m< 
 force oi intellect and character: and a power which 
 was often acting the most efficiently where it v. - 
 
 least Been and suspected. I have ahvad;. 
 
 how much of what was done by Ricardo, 1 1 1 1 t i 
 Grote, was the result, in part, of his prompti 
 and persuasion. He was bhi y the 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 91 
 
 side of Brougham in most of what he did for the 
 public, either on education, law reform, or any other 
 subject. And his influence flowed in minor streams 
 too numerous to be specified. This influence was 
 now about to receive a great extension by the 
 foundation of the Westminster Review. 
 
 Contrary to what may have been supposed, my 
 father was in no degree a party to setting up the 
 Westminster Review. The need of a Radical organ 
 to make head against the Edinburgh and Quarterly 
 (then in the period of their greatest reputation and 
 influence), had been a topic of conversation between 
 him and Mr. Bentham many years earlier, and it had 
 been a part of their Chateau en Espagne that my 
 father should be the editor ; but the idea had never 
 assumed any practical shape. In 1823, however, 
 Mr. Bentham determined to establish the Review 
 at his own cost, and offered the editorship to my 
 father, who declined it as incompatible with his India 
 House appointment. It was then entrusted to Mr. 
 (now Sir John) Bowring, at that time a merchant in 
 the City. Mr. Bowring had been for two or three 
 years previous an assiduous frequenter of Mr. 
 Bentham, to whom he was recommended by many 
 personal good qualities, by an ardent admiration for 
 Bentham, a zealous adoption of many, though not 
 all of his opinions, and, not least, by an extensive 
 acquaintanceship and correspondence with Liberals 
 
92 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 of all countries, which bm to qualify him for 
 
 being a powerful agent in 
 
 fame and d< .'ill < 
 
 world My father 
 
 knew enough of him to 
 
 opinio] 
 
 type from what my i 
 
 conducting a poll 
 
 he augured bo ill of tl 
 
 it altogether, feeling Mr. 
 
 Bentham would 
 
 would probal 
 
 Ee oould Mr. I 
 
 }\r 001 I tO ' 
 
 QUmtx i\ Afl 
 
 Bcheme form 
 
 should be 
 
 tins article "1" my fath 
 
 cism ofthe Edinburgh I; 
 
 Before writ ing it he m h all * 
 
 volumes of t : 
 
 of any importance (which \ 
 
 in I B23 as it would I 
 
 him of the hich I 
 
 bo examine, ( 
 
 bad qualities 
 
 chief cause of the - 
 
 Review produced a, 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 93 
 
 in conception and in execution, one of the most 
 striking of all his writings. He began by an 
 analysis of the tendencies of periodical literature 
 in general ; pointing out, that it cannot, like books, 
 wait for success, but must succeed immediately, or 
 not at all, and is hence almost certain to profess and 
 inculcate the opinions already held by the public 
 to which it addresses itself, instead of attempting 
 to rectify or improve those opinions. He next, to 
 characterize the position of the Edinburgh Review as 
 a political organ, entered into a complete analysis, 
 from the Radical point of view, of the British Con- 
 stitution, lie held up to notice its thoroughly 
 aristocratic character : the nomination of a majority 
 of the House of Commons by a few hundred families; 
 the entire identification of the more independent 
 portion, the county members, with the great land- 
 holders ; the different classes whom this narrow 
 oligarchy was induced, for convenience, to admit to 
 a share of power ; and finally, what he called its 
 two props, the Church, and the legal profession. 
 He pointed out the natural tendency of an aris- 
 tocratic body of this composition, to group itself into 
 two parties, one of them in possession of the execu- 
 tive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former 
 and become the predominant section by the aid of 
 public opinion, without any essential sacrifice of the 
 aristocratical predominance. He described the course 
 
94 THK WESTMIN81 EB W. 
 
 likely to ho pursued, and I I oc u- 
 
 pied, by an aristocratic party In 
 
 with popular principL i of popular 
 
 support. 1 [e ed how this i< sed in 
 
 the conduct of the Whig 
 
 Review - chief . I !«■ 
 
 their mail] chara 
 
 writing all ly on 
 
 which touched the | 
 
 rl;i tmetimes in di in 
 
 dilU'ivni 
 
 Lis position by 
 an attack oi Whig j 
 
 M mad 
 ruck, in this country, I 
 I believe, ai y i : 
 article, except r.* 
 
 In the meantime t hi 
 junction * ith another pr f a pu 
 
 periodical, to be edited by Mr. I 
 afterwards a diplomatic 
 3sioa The I 
 \ divide the editorship, 
 
 8 
 
 second nnml 
 
 . in whicl J 
 
 I 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 95 
 
 Review was to have been published by Longman, and 
 that firm, though part proprietors of the Edinburgh, 
 re willing to be the publishers of the new journal. 
 But when all the an uents had been made, and 
 
 the pi OS] s sent out, the Longmans saw my 
 
 fathers attack on the Edinburgh, and drew back. 
 My father was now appealed to for his interest with 
 his own publisher, Baldwin, which was exerted with a 
 successful result. And so, in April, 1824, amidst 
 anything but hope on my lather's part, and that of 
 most of those who afterwards aided in carrying on 
 the Review, the first number made its appearance. 
 That number was an agreeable surprise to most of us. 
 The average of the articles was of much better quality 
 than had been expected The literary and artistic 
 department had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a 
 barrister (subsequently a police magistrate), who had 
 been for some years a frequenter of Bentham, was a 
 friend of both the Austins, and had adopted with 
 great ardour Mr. Bentham's philosophical opinions. 
 Partly from accident, there were hi the first number 
 as many as five articles by Bingham ; and we were 
 extremely pleased with them. I well remember the 
 mixed feeling I myself had about the Review ; the 
 joy at finding, what we did not at all expect, that it was 
 sufficiently good to be capable of being made a 
 creditable organ of those who held the opinions it 
 professed ; and extreme vexation, since it was so good 
 
96 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 on the whole, at what we thought the blemishes of it. 
 When, however, in addition to our generally favour- 
 able opinion of it, we learned that it had an extra- 
 ordinary large Bale for a first number, and found that 
 t he appearance of a Radical Etevi 
 equal to those of the established i 
 had excited much attention, there could be no 
 for hesitation, and we all became eager b 
 thing we could I and improve it. 
 
 My father continued to write <• 
 The Quarterly Review n 
 
 to that of the Edinburgh I [bu- 
 
 ttons, the mos( important v. 
 
 Book of tlie Church, in the fifth numb I a 
 
 political article in the twelfth- Mr. 
 tributed one paper, but one i 
 argument against primogeniture, in replj 
 then lately published in the Edinburgh 1 by 
 
 M'Culloch. Grote also was 
 
 all the time he could spare up 
 
 with his History of Greeoa The arti 
 
 was on his own subject, and was a \ 
 
 posure and castigation of Mitford 1 
 
 Charles Austin continued to wri 
 
 Fonblanque was a foequi atribui m the 
 
 third number. Of my particular i 
 
 a regular writer up to the ninth nunitx i 
 
 the time when ho Left off, otl ' the sot beg; 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 97 
 
 Ejton Tooke, Graham, and Roebuck. I was myself 
 the most frequent writer of all, having contributed, 
 from the second number to the eighteenth, thirteen 
 articles ; reviews of books on history and political 
 economy, or discussions on special political topics, as 
 corn laws, game laws, law of libel. Occasional 
 articles of merit came in from other acquaintances of 
 my father's, and, in time, of mine ; and some of 
 Mr. Bowling's writers turned out welL On the 
 whole, however, the conduct of the Review was never 
 satisfactory to any of the persons strongly in- 
 terested in its principles, with whom I came in 
 contact. Hardly ever did a number come out with- 
 out containing several tilings extremely offensive 
 to us, either in point of opinion, of taste, or by mere 
 want of ability. The unfavourable judgments passed 
 by my father, Grote, the two Austins, and others, 
 were re-echoed with exaggeration by us younger 
 people ; and as our youthful zeal rendered us by no 
 means backward in making complaints, we led the two 
 editors a sad life. From my knowledge of what I then 
 was, I have no doubt that we were at least as often wrong 
 as right; and I am very certain that if the Review 
 had been carried on according to our notions (I mean 
 those of the juniors), it would have been no better, 
 perhaps not even so good as it was. But it is worth 
 noting as a fact in the history of Benthamism, that 
 the periodical organ, by which it was best known, was 
 
 H 
 
98 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 from the first extremely ui ctoryto those wfc 
 
 [nions on all subjects it wa to 
 
 resent. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the R 
 1( i i • in the world, 
 
 in the arena of opinion and d 
 
 thamic type of Badi I of all pro] 
 
 number of its adherents, and to tin 
 
 I abiliti * hat time, of most of I could 
 
 be reckoned among them. I v .n, 
 
 of rapidly rising Liberalism. Wh* 
 
 animositi r with France I 
 
 been brought to an I 
 
 place in their I t >r ham 
 
 began to sei towards n E arm. X 
 
 sion of the Continent by the i 
 
 countenance apparei 
 
 ment to the oonspiran ailed the 
 
 Holy Alliance, and the enonn t of t 
 
 national debt and 
 
 and costly a war, rendered I 
 
 ment very unpopular. Radic Rsi 
 
 ship of the Burdetts and I 1 i 
 
 character and importance w 
 Administration: and their alarm 
 
 temporarily i by th< 
 
 when the trial of Qu 
 
 •ad^. deeper feeling of hatred T .rd 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 99 
 
 signs of this hatred passed away with its exciting 
 cause, there arose on all sides a spirit which had 
 never shown itself before, of opposition to abuses in 
 detail. Mr. Humes persevering scrutiny of the public 
 expenditure, forcing the House of Commons to a 
 division on every objectionable item in the estimates, 
 had begun to tell with great force on public opinion, 
 and had extorted many minor retrenchments from 
 an unwilling admin! si. Political economy had 
 
 asserted it» If with great vigour in public affairs, by 
 the petition of the merchants of London for free 
 trade, drawn up iii L820 by Mr, Tooke and presented 
 by Mr. Alexander Baring ; and by the noble exertions 
 of Ricardo during the 1' \m of his parliamentary 
 
 life. His writings, following up the impulse given by 
 the Bullion controversy, and followed up in their turn 
 by the expositions and comments of my father and 
 M'Culloch (whose writings in the Edinburgh Review 
 during those were most valuable), had drawn 
 
 general attention to the subject, making at least 
 partial converts in the Cabinet itself ; and Huskisson, 
 supported by Canning, had commenced that gradual 
 demolition of the protective system, which one of their 
 colleagues virtually completed in 1846, though the 
 last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone 
 in 1860. Mr. Peel, then Home Secretary, was enter- 
 ing cautiously into the untrodden and peculiarly 
 Benthamic path of Law Reform. At this period, when 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 Liberalism seemed to be becoming the tone of the 
 time, when improvement of institute i d 
 
 from the highest places, and a complete change of the 
 constitution of Parliament was loudly demanded in 
 the lowest, it is not strange that attention should hi 
 been roused by the regular appearance in contr 
 of what seemed a new school of wril y to 
 
 be the legislators and tl. bs of tl 
 
 dency. The air of strong conviction with which tl 
 wrote, when scarcely any our else seemed to h 
 an equally strong faith in as definite u d ; the 
 
 boldness with which they tilted against the very 
 front of both the existing political parti >ir un- 
 
 compromising profession of opposition to many of 1 
 generally received opinions, and the suspicion t 1 
 lay under of holding otl ill more I 
 
 than they professed ; the talent and verve of a1 
 
 my father's articles, and the app fa coi 
 
 behind him sufficient to cany on a Review ; and 
 finally, the fact that the Review v. ml 
 
 read, made the so-called Bentham school in phi] 
 sophy and politics iill a greater place in the public 
 mind than it had held before, or hafi 
 held since other equally earn 
 have arisen in England, As I was in the h< 
 quarters oi* it, knew of what it was composed, and 
 as one of the most active of its ven I numl 
 
 might say without undue assumption, quorum pan 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 101 
 
 magna fui, it belongs to me more than to most others, 
 to give some account of it. 
 
 This supposed school, then, had no other existence 
 than what was constituted by the fact, that my 
 father's writings and conversation drew round him 
 a certain number of young men who had already 
 imbibed, or who imbibed from him, a greater or 
 smaller portion of his very decided political and 
 philosophical opinions. The notion that Bentham 
 was surrounded by a band of disciples who received 
 their opinions from his lips, is a fable to which my 
 father did justice in his " Fragment on Mackintosh," 
 and which, to all who knew Mr. Bentham' s habits of 
 life and manner of conversation, is simply ridicu- 
 lous. The influence which Bentham exercised was 
 by his writings. Through them he has produced, 
 and is producing, effects on the condition of man- 
 kind, wider and deeper, no doubt, than any which 
 can be attributed to my father. He is a much 
 greater name in history. But my father exercised 
 a far greater personal ascendancy. He was sought 
 for the vigour and instructiveness of his conversa- 
 tion, and did use it largely as an instrument for the 
 diffusion of his opinions. I have never known any 
 man who could do such ample justice to his best 
 thoughts in colloquial discussion. His perfect com- 
 mand over his great mental resources, the terseness 
 and expressiveness of his language and the moral 
 
102 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 earnestness as well as intellectual force of his 
 delivery, made him one of the most striking of all arg 
 mentative conversers : and he was full of am 
 a hearty laugher, and, when with people whom he 
 liked, a most lively and amusing companion. It 
 was not solely, or even chiefly, in diffusing his 
 merely intellectual convictions that his power 
 showed itself: it was still more through the influence 
 of a quality, of which I have only since learnt to 
 appreciate tlie extreme rarity: thai >1 public 
 
 spirit, and regard above all tlii' 
 
 the whole, which warmed into lit"' and activity 
 germ of similar virtue thai '1 in the mil 
 
 he came in contact with: tin e he made them 
 
 feel for his approbation, the sh ip- 
 
 prova] ; the moral support which his com n and 
 
 his very existence gave t<> those who were aimi 
 the same objects, and the encouragement h< 
 to the fainthearted or desponding among them, by 
 the firm confidence which (though the reverse of 
 sanguine as to the results to he expected in any- 
 one particular case) he always felt in the power of 
 reason, the general progress of improvement, 
 the good which individuals could do by judici< 
 effort. 
 
 It was my fathers opinions which gave 
 distinguishing character to the luaithanii 
 utilitarian propagandist*] of that time. They tell 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 103 
 
 singly, scattered from him, in many directions, but 
 they flowed from him in a continued stream 
 principally in three channels. One was through 
 me, the only mind directly formed by his instruc- 
 tions, and through whom considerable influence was 
 exercised over various young men, who became, 
 in their turn, propagandists. A second was through 
 some of the Cambridge contemporaries of Charles 
 Austin, who, either initiated by him or under the 
 general mental impulse which he gave, had adopted 
 many opinions allied to those of my father, and some 
 of the more considerable of whom afterwards sought 
 my father s acquaintance and frequented his house. 
 Among these may be mentioned Strutt, afterwards 
 Lord Belper, and the present Lord Romilly, with 
 whose eminent father, Sir Samuel, my father had of 
 old been on terms of friendship. The third channel 
 was that of a younger generation of Cambridge 
 undergraduates, contemporary, not with Austin, but 
 with Eyton Tooke, who were drawn to that estimable 
 person by affinity of opinions, and introduced by 
 him to my father : the most notable of these was 
 Charles Buller. Various other persons individually 
 received and transmitted a considerable amount of 
 my fathers influence : for example, Black (as before 
 mentioned) and Fonblanque : most of these, how- 
 ever, we accounted only partial allies ; Fonblanque, 
 for instance, was always divergent from us on many 
 
104 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 important points. But indeed there was by no means 
 complete unanimity among any portion of us, nor 
 had any of us adopted implicitly all my fathers 
 opinions. For example, although his Essay qq 
 Government was regarded probably by all of us as a 
 masterpiece of political wisdom, oui sion by no 
 
 means extended to the paragraph of it, in which lie 
 maintains that women m >ntly with good 
 
 government, be excluded from the suffrage, 1) 
 their interest is the Baine with that of m< 
 From this doctrine, I, and all those who formed * 
 chosen associates, most positively di 1. It is 
 
 due to my father to say that he denied I 
 intended to affirm that women 6 
 any more than men under the age of i' >n- 
 
 cerning whom he maintained, in th< next 
 
 paragraph, an exactly similar thesis. 11 w 
 he truly said, not discussing whether 
 had better be restricted, but only (assuming 
 it is to be restricted) what is the utmost limit 
 of restriction, which docs not n< ily involve a 
 
 sacrifice of the securities i I government l>ut 
 
 I thought then, as I have always thought sine 
 the opinion which he acknowledged, I 
 that which he disclaimed, is as great an er 
 of those against which the Essay w 
 the interest of women is included in 
 exactly as much and no more, as the intei 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 105 
 
 subjects is included in that of kings ; and that every 
 reason which exists for giving the suffrage to any- 
 body, demands that it should not be withheld from 
 women. This was also the general opinion of the 
 younger proselytes ; and it is pleasant to be able to 
 say that Mr. Bentham, on this important point, was 
 wholly on our side. 
 
 But though none of us, probably, agreed in every 
 respect with my father, his opinions, as I said before, 
 were the principal element which gave its colour and 
 character to the little group of young men who were 
 the first propagators of what was afterwards called 
 "Philosophic Radicalism." Their mode of thinking 
 was not characterized by Benthamism in any sense 
 which has relation to Bentham as a chief or guide, 
 but rather by a combination of Bentham's point 
 of view with that of the modern political eco- 
 nomy, and with the Hartleian metaphysics. Mal- 
 thus's population principle was quite as much a 
 banner, and point of union among us, as any opinion 
 specially belonging to Bentham. This great doc- 
 trine, originally brought forward as an argument 
 against the indefinite unprovability of human affairs, 
 we took up with ardent zeal in the contrary sense, 
 as indicating the sole means of realizing that un- 
 provability by securing full employment at high wages 
 to the whole labouring population through a volun- 
 tary restriction of the increase of their numbers. The 
 
106 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 other leading chafad creed, wh] 
 
 in common with my . may 1"* b : 
 
 In politics, an almost unbounded con 
 efficacy of two things r, nt, 
 
 and complete freedom of di a So 
 
 my fat her's reliance on I he in£ 
 
 t he minds of mankind, \ 
 
 i hem, that he fell as if all would 
 
 whole populal ion were if all - 
 
 opinions were allowed to be add 
 
 word and iii \n riting, and if bj 
 
 t hoy could nominate a 1 
 
 opinions I hej adopted He I hou w hen the 
 
 legislal ure no long r r* 
 
 would aim at the general i d « ith 
 
 adequate \\ isdom ; sin 
 
 cicni ly under the guide 
 
 to make in general I 
 
 sent them, and having done so, 
 
 whom they had i a liberal - a A • rd- 
 
 ingly aristocratic rule, the government of th< 
 
 in any of its shapes, being in >nly thi 
 
 which stood between mankind q admii 
 
 of their affairs ly the b 
 
 them, was the object of his sternest die 
 
 iiud a democratic 
 
 political creed, not on the ground of li 
 
 Man, or any oi' the phrases, D I 3S - \ 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 107 
 
 by which, up to that time, democracy had usually 
 been defended, but as the most essential of " se- 
 curities for good government. " In this, too, he held 
 fist only to what he deemed essentials ; he was 
 comparatively indifferent to monarchical or republican 
 forms — far more so than Bentham, to whom a king, 
 in the character of " corrupter-general," appeared 
 necessarily very noxious. Next to aristocracy, an 
 established church, or corporation of priests, as being 
 by position the great depravers of religion, and 
 interested in opposing the progress of the human 
 mind, was the object of his greatest detestation; 
 though lie disliked no clergyman personally who did 
 not deserve it. and was on terms of sincere friendship 
 witl raL In ethics, his moral feelings were 
 
 ene and rigid on all points which he deemed 
 
 important to human weU being, while he was 
 supremely indifferent in opinion (though his indiffe- 
 rence did not show itself in personal conduct) to all 
 those doctrines of the common morality, which he 
 thought had n« i C ^nidation but in asceticism and priest- 
 craft. He looked forward, for example, to a consider- 
 able increase of freedom in the relations between the 
 sexes, though without pretending to define exactly 
 what would be, or ought to be, the precise conditions 
 of that freedom. This opinion was connected in him 
 with no sensuality either of a theoretical or of a 
 practical kind. He anticipated, on the contrary, as 
 
108 THE WESTltlX&TEB REVIEW, 
 
 one of the beneficial effects of ina m, 
 
 that the imagination would no loi well upon the 
 
 ph)^sical relation and its adjuncts, and swell I 
 
 into one of the principal i 
 
 of the imagination and feelings, which he re 
 
 one of the deepec d and most ] vilsin 
 
 the human mind. In psychology, bis fundament 
 
 doctrine was the formation of all human character by 
 
 circumstances, through t lie universal Principle of 
 
 Association, and the consequent unlimited possibili 
 
 of improving the moral and intellectual condil 
 
 mankind by education Of all bis d< 
 
 Mas more important than this, or needs more to be 
 
 insisted on : unfortunately tin which i 
 
 Contradictory to the pivvailiii. ila- 
 
 tion, both in his time and ain 
 
 These various opinions wen i on with youth- 
 
 ful fanaticism by the little knot of young i of 
 whom I was one ; and we put into them a 
 
 spirit, from which, in inu ation at Least, inv 
 
 wholly free. What we (or rather a phantom 
 
 tuted in the place of us) 
 
 exaggeration, called by others, oao 
 
 some of us for a time really boped and 
 
 be. The French nth 
 
 century were the example we - iniitaJ 
 
 we hoped to accomplish no less results. N 
 
 the set went to so great e\ - in this ai- 
 
THE WESTMINSTER KEVIEW. 109 
 
 bition as I did ; which might be shown by many parti- 
 culars, were it not an useless waste of space and time. 
 
 All this, however, is properly only the outside of 
 our existence ; or, at least, the intellectual part 
 alone, and no more than one side of that. In 
 attempting to penetrate inward, and give any indi- 
 cation of what we were as human beings, I must be 
 understood as speaking only of myself, of whom alone 
 I can speak from sufficient knowledge ; and I do not 
 believe that the picture would suit any of my com- 
 panions without many and great modifications. 
 
 I conceive that the description so often given of a 
 Benthamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though ex- 
 tremely inapplicable to most of those who have been 
 designated by that title, was during two or three years 
 of my life not altogether untrue of me. It was 
 perhaps as applicable to me as it can well be to any one 
 just entering into life, to whom the common objects of 
 desire must in general have at least the attraction of 
 novelty. There is nothing very extraordinary in this 
 fact : no youth of the age I then was, can be expected 
 to be more than one thing, and this was the thing I 
 happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction, 
 I had in abundance ; and zeal for what I thought the 
 good of mankind was my strongest sentiment, mixing 
 with and colouring all others. But my zeal was as yet 
 little else, at that period of my life, than zeal for 
 speculative opinions. It had not its root in genuine 
 
I 1 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 benevolence, or sympathy with mankind; f 
 those qualities held their due place in my 
 
 andard Nor was ii bed with any hi 
 
 enthusiasm for ideal aoblenesa Yet o£\ 3 1 
 
 was imaginai n 1 ly very - 
 nt that t ime an in; 
 
 poetical culture, while th< b a superabuj 
 
 of the discipline antagonistic to r 
 and analysia Add to this thai , as already 1 
 my tin bar <-d to the undervalui 
 
 feeling. It 1 I thai he was bio 
 
 or insensible ; I believe it v. from the o 
 
 quality ; be thought t 
 itself ; thai thai 1 
 were properly oared 
 with which, in el tnd phi] eophi 
 
 feeling is made the ultimate reaaon and 
 of conduct, instead of U led on for a 
 
 justification, while, in prac 
 which on human happin 
 as being required by feeling, and tin 
 person of I 
 thought only due 
 of attributing pr 
 
 sparing reference to it, c in tl 
 
 persona or in the di a of tl 
 
 to the influence which I • in bin 
 
 on me and other.-, \\ 1 all the opini which 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. Ill 
 
 we attached most importance, constantly attacked on 
 the ground of feeling. Utility was denounced as 
 cold calculation ; political economy as hard-hearted ; 
 anti-population doctrines as repulsive to the natural 
 feelings of mankind. We retorted by the word 
 "sentimentality," which, along with " declamation" 
 and " vague generalities/' served us as common terms 
 of opprobrium. Although we were generally in the 
 right, as against those who were opposed to us, the 
 effect was that the cultivation of feeling (except the 
 feelings of public and private duty), was not in much 
 eem among us, and had very little place in the 
 thoughts of most of us, myself in particular. What 
 we principally thought of, was to alter people's 
 opinions ; to make them believe according to evidence, 
 and know whai was their real interest, which when 
 they once knew, they would, we thought, by the 
 instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one 
 another. While fully recognising the superior ex- 
 cellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, 
 we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from 
 any direct action on those sentiments, but from the 
 effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish 
 feelings. Although this last is prodigiously im- 
 portant as a means of improvement in the hands of 
 those who are themselves impelled by nobler principles 
 of action, I do not believe that any one of the sur- 
 vivors of the Benthamites or Utilitarians of that day, 
 
112 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 now relies mainly upon it for the general amendment 
 of human conduct. 
 
 From this neglect both in theory and in pn 
 the cultivation of feeling, naturally resulted, am< 
 other things, an undervaluing of po< and of 
 
 Imagination generally, as an element of hum 
 nature. It is, or\v;i<. part of the popular notion of Ben- 
 thamites, that they are enemies of poetry : thi 
 partly true of Bentham himself; he used to Bay that 
 " all poetry is misrepresents ion :" but in the sense in 
 which he said it, the Bame might have been said of 
 all impressive speech ; of all representation or incul- 
 cation more oratorical in its character than a sum in 
 arithmetic. An article of Bingham's in th< 
 number of the Westminster Review, in which he 
 offered as an explanation of something which 1 
 liked in Moore, that M Bir. Moore is a md the] 
 
 lore is not a reaSOner did a crood deal t« 
 
 notion of hating poetry to the writer- in the Review, 
 Bui the truth was that many of us w< 2 t read< 
 of poetry ; Bingham himself had been a writer of it, 
 while as regards me (and the might 
 
 said of my father), the correct statement would I 
 not that I disliked poetry, but thai 1 lly 
 
 indifferent io it. 1 disliked any sentiments in | 
 which 1 should have disliked in pro* in- 
 
 cluded a great deal. And 1 was wholly blind 
 place in human culture, as a meai duoating the 
 
YOUTHFUL PKOPAGANDISM. 113 
 
 feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible 
 to some kinds of it. In the most sectarian period 
 of my Benthamism, I happened to look into Pope's 
 Essay on Man, and though every opinion in it was 
 contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it 
 acted on my imagination. Perhaps at that time 
 poetical composition of any higher type than eloquent 
 discussion in verse, might not have produced a similar 
 effect me : at all events I seldom gave it an oppor- 
 tunity. This, however, was a mere passive state. 
 Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree, 
 the basis of my intellectual creed, I had obtained in 
 the natural course of my mental progress, poetic 
 culture of the most valuable kind, by means of 
 reverential admiration for the lives and characters of 
 heroic persons ; especially the heroes of philosophy. 
 The same inspiring effect which so many of the bene- 
 factors of mankind have left on record that they had 
 experienced from Plutarch's Lives, was produced on 
 me by Plato's pictures of Socrates, and by some 
 modern biographies, above all by Condorcet's Life of 
 Turgot ; a book well calculated to rouse the best sort 
 of enthusiasm, since it contains one of the wisest and 
 noblest of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and 
 noblest of men. The heroic virtue of these glorious 
 representatives of the opinions with which I sympa- 
 thized, deeply affected me, and I perpetually recurred 
 to them as others do to a favourite poet, when need- 
 
 I 
 
114 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE. 
 
 ing to be carried up into the more elevated regions 
 of feeling and thought. I may observe by the 
 that this book cured me of my ian folliea J 
 
 two or three pages beginning "II regardait toe 
 secte comme nuisible,* and explaining why Target 
 always kept himself perfectly distin* . - 
 
 cyclopedists, sank deeply into my mind I left off 
 designating myself and oth Utilitarians, and bj 
 
 the pronoun " we" or any other coiled ive designat ion, 
 I ceased to afficher sectarianism. My real inward 
 
 sectarianism 1 did no< gel rid of till later, and much 
 mere gradually. 
 
 About the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, Mr. 
 Bentham, having lately got back his Evi- 
 
 dence fromM.Dumont (whose Traits d Pn di- 
 
 ciaires, grounded on them, was t! amplei 
 
 and published) resolved to have them printed in the 
 original, and bethought himself of m< of 
 
 preparing them lor the press ; in tl. 
 as his Book of Fallacies had been recently edited 
 by BinghattL I gladly undertook this I it 
 
 occupied nearly all my leisure for about a 
 
 elusive of the time afterwards spent in seeing the 
 
 five large volumes through the press. Mr. 1 
 
 had begun this treatise three th 
 
 intervals, each time in a different manner. 
 
 time without reference to the preceding : two of the 
 
 three times he had gone over nearly the whole sub- 
 
YOUTHFUL PHOPAGANDISM. 115 
 
 ject. These three masses of manuscript it was my 
 business to condense into a single treatise ; adopting 
 the one last written as the groundwork, and incor- 
 porating with it as much of the two others as it had 
 not completely superseded. I had also to unroll such 
 of Bentham's involved and parenthetical sentences, as 
 seemed to overpass by their complexity the measure 
 of what readers were likely to take the pains to 
 understand. It was further Mr. Benthams parti- 
 cular desire that I should, from myself, endeavour 
 to supply any lacuncc which he had left ; and at his 
 instance I read, for this purpose, the most authorita- 
 tive treatises on the English Law of Evidence, and 
 commented on a few of the objectionable points of 
 the English rules, which had escaped Benthams 
 notice. I also replied to the objections which had 
 been made to some of his doctrines by reviewers of 
 Dumo.t's book, and added a few supplementary 
 remarks on some of the more abstract parts of the 
 subject, such as the theory of improbability and im- 
 possibility. The controversial part of these editorial 
 additions was written in a more assuming tone than 
 became one so young and inexperienced as I was : 
 but indeed I had never contemplated coining forward 
 in my own person ; and as an anonymous editor of 
 Bentham, I fell into the tone of my author, not think- 
 ing it unsuitable to him or to the subject, however 
 it might be so to me. My name as editor was put 
 
 I 2 
 
116 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE 
 
 to the book after it was printed, at Mr. Bentham's 
 positive desire, which I in vain attempted to per- 
 suade him to forego. 
 
 The time occupied in this rial work was ex- 
 
 tremely well employed In respect to my own improve- 
 ment. The "Rationale of Judicial Evidence 91 ifl one 
 of the richest in matter of all Bentham'a produ 
 The theory ol evidence being in P one of the 
 
 most important of his sal and ramifying b 
 
 most of the others, the book c fully 
 
 developed, a greal proportion of all hi 
 while, among more special things, it eomj the 
 
 most elaborate exposure of the \ 
 English law, as it tl ud in 
 
 his works; not confined to the law ut 
 
 Including, by way of illusl 
 procedure or practice of Westminster Hall. 
 direct knowledge, therefore, which 1 I from 
 
 the book, and which was imprinted upon me much 
 more thoroughly than it could have hern 1»\ 
 reading, was itself no small ation, 
 
 occupation did lor me what 
 expected ; it gave a great start to my | 
 composition. Everything which 1 wp 
 to this editorial employment, 
 to anything that 1 had written before it. B 
 
 later Style, as the world knows, w VJ and 
 
 bersome, from the excess of a good quality. 
 
YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISING 117 
 
 of precision, which made him introduce clause within 
 clause into the heart of every sentence, that the 
 reader might receive into his mind all the modifica- 
 tions and qualifications simultaneously with the main 
 proposition : and the habit grew on him until his 
 sentences became, to those not accustomed to them, 
 most laborious reading. But his earlier style, that 
 of the Fragment on Government, Plan of a Judicial 
 Establishment, &c, is a model of liveliness and 
 ease combined with fulness of matter, scarcely ever 
 surpassed : and of this earlier style there were many 
 striking specimens in the manuscripts on Evidence, 
 all of which I endeavoured to preserve. So long a 
 course of this admirable writing had a considerable 
 effect upon my own ; and I added to it by the 
 assiduous reading of other writers, both French and 
 English, who combined, in a remarkable degree, ease 
 with force, such as Goldsmith, Fielding, Pascal, Vol- 
 taire, and Courier. Through these influences my 
 writing lost the jejuneness of my early compositions ; 
 the bones and cartilages began to clothe themselves 
 with flesh, and the style became, at times, lively and 
 almost light. 
 
 This improvement was first exhibited in a new 
 field. Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, father of the present 
 generation of Marshalls, the same who was brought 
 into Parliament for Yorkshire, when the representa- 
 tion forfeited by Grampound was transferred to it, 
 
118 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDIST. 
 
 an earnest Parliamentary reformer, and a man of 
 
 large fortune, of which lie made a libera] use, had 
 
 been much struck with Bentham's Book of Falls - : 
 
 and the thought had occurred to him that it would 
 
 ho useful to publish annually the Parli ary 
 
 Debates, not in the chronological order of Hansard, 
 
 but classified according to fl ted 
 
 by a commentary pointing out the fall 
 
 speakers. With this intention, he very naturally 
 
 addressed himself to the editor of I of 
 
 Fallacies; and Bingham, with the 
 
 Charles Austin, undertook the i bipi T 
 
 work was called " Parliai 
 
 Review." Its sale was not a t to keep it in 
 
 existence, and it only lasted thn 
 however, some attention aim 
 
 political people, The bee ogth < party 
 
 was put forth in it; and itfl ition did them mi 
 
 more credit than that of the Westminster Review 
 had ever done. Bingham and Charles Austin wr 
 much in it ; as did Strutt, Romilly, and several otl 
 Liberal lawyera Mv father v. 
 host style: the elder Austin 
 wrote one oi l great merit. It tell to my 1,.; to 1 
 oil the first number by an article on the pri 
 topic of the I of I lie 
 
 Association and the Catholic Disabilities, In the 
 second number I wrote an elaborate E n the 
 
 Commercial Crisis of' 1825 and theCurrencv IV 
 
YOUTHFUL propagandise:. 119 
 
 In the third I had two articles, one on a minor 
 subject, the other on the Reciprocity principle in 
 commerce, apropos of a celebrated diplomatic corre- 
 spondence between Canning and Gallatin. These 
 writings were no longer mere reproductions and 
 applications of the doctrines I had been taught ; they 
 were original thinking, as far as that name can be 
 applied to old ideas in new forms and connexions : 
 and I do not exceed the truth in saying that there 
 was a maturity, and a well-digested character about 
 them, which there had not been in any of my 
 previous performances. In execution, therefore, they 
 were not at all juvenile ; but their subjects have either 
 gone by, or have been so much better treated since, 
 that they are entirely superseded, and should remain 
 buried in the same oblivion with my contributions 
 to the first dynasty of the Westminster Review. 
 
 While thus engaged in writing for the public, I 
 did not neglect other modes of self-cultivation. It 
 was at this time that I learnt German; beginning it 
 on the Hamiltonian method, for which purpose I and 
 several of my companions formed a class. For 
 several years from this period, our social studies 
 assumed a shape which contributed very much to 
 my mental progress. The idea occurred to us of 
 carrying on, by reading and conversation, a joint 
 study of several of the branches of science which 
 we wished to be masters of. We assembled to the 
 number of a dozen or more. Mr. Grote lent a room 
 
120 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE 
 
 of his house in Threadneedle Street for the purpose, 
 and his partner, Prescott, one of the three original 
 members of the Utilitarian Society, made one ami 
 us. We met two mornings in eveiy week, from 
 half-past eight till ten, at which hour must of 
 us were called off to our daily occupations. Our 
 first subject was Political Economy, We chose some 
 systematic treat our text-book ; my lath- 
 
 " Elements" being our first choice. One of Ufl 
 aloud a chapter, or some smaller portion of the book. 
 The discus-ion was then opened, and any one v 
 had an objection, or other remark to make, made it 
 ( hir rule was to discuss thoroughly ei eiy point raised, 
 whether great or small, prolonging the disc 
 until all who took part w( ed with the con- 
 
 clusion they had individually arrived at ; and to 
 follow up every topic of collateral Bpeculationwhich the 
 chapter or the conversation suggested, never lea> ing it 
 
 until we had untied every knot which wefound W 
 
 repeatedly kept up the discussion of some one point 
 
 for several weeks, thinking intently on it during the 
 
 intervals of our meetings, and contrivj 
 
 of the new difficulties which had risen up in the 1 
 
 morning's discussion. When we had finished in tl 
 
 way my father's Elements, we went in the 
 
 manner through Ricardo's Principles of P 
 
 Economy, and Bailey's Dissertation ^n Yah. 
 
 close and vigorous discussions were not :u- 
 
YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM. 121 
 
 proving in a high degree to those who took part in 
 them, but brought out new views of some topics 
 of abstract Political Economy. The theory of Inter- 
 national Values which I afterwards published, 
 emanated from these conversations, as did also the 
 modified form of Ricardo s theory of Profits, laid 
 down in my Essay on Profits and Interest. Those 
 among us with whom new speculations chiefly origi- 
 nated, were Ellis, Graham, and I ; though others 
 gave valuable aid to the discussions, especially 
 Prescott and Roebuck, the one by his knowledge, 
 the other by his dialectical acuteness. The theories of 
 International Values and of Profits were excogitated 
 and worked out in about equal proportions by myself 
 and Graham : and if our original project had been 
 executed, my " Essays on Some Unsettled Questions 
 of Political Economy" would have been brought 
 out along with some papers of his, under our joint 
 names. But when my exposition came to be written, 
 I found that I had so much over-estimated my agree- 
 ment with him, and he dissented so much from the 
 most original of the two Essays, that on Inter- 
 national Values, that I was obliged to consider the 
 theory as now exclusively mine, and it came out as 
 such when published many years later. I may mention 
 that among the alterations which my father made in 
 revising his Elements for the third edition, several 
 were founded on criticisms elicited by these conver- 
 
122 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE. 
 
 sations ; and in particular he modified his opinions 
 
 (though not to the extent of our n< 
 
 on both the points to which T have adverted 
 
 When we had enough litica] • we 
 
 took up the syllogistic logic in the same n. 
 Grote now joining as. Our first b 
 Aldrich, but being disgusted with i 
 we reprinted one of the most finished amoi 
 many manuals of the school which my * 
 
 a great collector of such books, \ 
 ductio ad Logicam of the Jesuil Du Triea 
 finishing tins, we t ••«.]< uj) AVlntrly's Logic, tJ 
 first republished firom the I dia M< 
 
 Litana, and finally the k- Com] 
 J [obbea These books, d( ith in cur d 
 
 afforded a wide range for original metaphysical - 
 dilation : and most of what has been done in ' 
 First Book of my System of I 
 and correct the principles and distil] 
 school logicians, and to improve the the* 
 Import of Propositions, had its origin in I 
 cussions ; ( fraham and I i 
 novelties, while ( rrote and 
 lent tribunal or test From this tim 1 
 project of writing a 1 
 much humbler scale than th< 1 ultim 
 
 outed 
 
 1 raving done with Logic, we launched 
 
YOUTHFUL PHOPAGANDISM. 123 
 
 Psychology, and having chosen Hartley for our text- 
 book, we raised Priestley's edition to an extravagant 
 price by searching through London to furnish each 
 of us with a copy. When we had finished Hartley, 
 we suspended our meetings ; but my fathers Ana- 
 lysis of the Mind being published soon after, we 
 reassembled for the purpose of reading it. With 
 this our exercises ended. I have always dated from 
 these conversations my own real inauguration as an 
 original and independent thinker. It was also 
 through them that I acquired, or very much 
 strengthened, a mental habit to which I attribute 
 all that I have ever done, or ever shall do, in specula- 
 tion ; that of never accepting half-solutions of diffi- 
 culties as complete ; never abandoning a puzzle, but 
 again and again returning to it until it was cleared 
 up ; never allowing obscure corners of a subject to 
 remain unexplored, because they did not appear im- 
 portant ; never thinking that I perfectly understood 
 any part of a subject until I understood the whole. 
 
 Our doings from 1825 to 1830 in the way of public 
 speaking, tilled a considerable place in my life daring 
 those years, and as they had important effects on my 
 development, something ought to be said of them. 
 
 There was for some time in existence a society of 
 Owenites, called the Co-operation Society, which 
 met for weekly public discussions in Chancery Lane. 
 In the early part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck 
 
124 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE 
 
 in contact with several of its members, and led tc 
 his attending one or two of the meet ad taking 
 
 part in the debate in opposition to Owenism. 
 one of us started the notion of going there in a 
 and having a general battle : and ( lharles Austin . 
 some of his friends who did not usually take part in 
 our joint exercises, entered into the project. It v 
 carried out by concert with the principal members 
 of the Society, themsel ves nothing loth, as they 
 naturally preferred a controversy with op] -to 
 
 a tame discussion among their own body The qu< 
 tion of population was proposed as the subject of 
 debate : Charles Austin led the < ith 
 
 a brilliant speech, and the up by 
 
 adjournment through five or she weekly m< 
 before crowded auditories, including alone: with the 
 members of the Society and their fiien my 
 
 hearers and seme speakers from the Inns of Court 
 
 When this debate was ended, another was com- 
 menced on the genera] merits of I ►wen's system : and 
 the contest altogether lasted about three d 
 It was a luttc carps A corj preen Owenito 
 
 political economists, whom the Owenites 
 their most inveterate opponents: but it was a | 
 fectly friendly dispute. We who reprei d poli- 
 tical economy, had the same objects in view as tl 
 had, and took pains to show it ; and the principal 
 tfhampion on their side was a verv estimable 
 
YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM. 125 
 
 with whom I was well acquainted, Mr. William 
 Thompson, of Cork, author of a book on the Distri- 
 bution of Wealth, and of an " Appeal " in behalf of 
 women against the passage relating to them in my 
 father s Essay on Government. Ellis, Roebuck, and 
 I took an active part in the debate, and among those 
 from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I remember 
 Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on 
 the population question, very efficient support from 
 without. The well-known Gale Jones, then an elderly 
 man, made one of his florid speeches ; but the speaker 
 with whom I was most struck, though I dissented 
 from nearly every word he said, was Thirlwall, the 
 historian, since Bishop of St. David's, then a Chan- 
 cery barrister, unknown except by a high reputation 
 for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union 
 before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech 
 was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered 
 ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I 
 had ever heard, and I have never since heard any one 
 whom I placed above him. 
 
 The great interest of these debates predisposed 
 some of those who took part in them, to catch at 
 a suggestion thrown out by M'Culloch, the political 
 economist, that a Society was wanted in London 
 similar to the Speculative Society at Edinburgh, in 
 which Brougham, Horner, and others first cultivated 
 public speaking. Our experience at the Co-opera- 
 
126 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE 
 
 tive Society seemed to give cause for being sanguine 
 as to the sort of men who micrht be brought 
 in London for such a purpose. M'Culloch d 
 the matter to several young men of influence, to wh< m 
 lv was then giving private 1 in political 
 
 Some of these entered warmly into the j 
 particularly George Villiers, afterwards Earl of 
 Clarendon. He and his broth( re, Hyde 
 Romilly, Charles Austin and I, with some o 
 met and agreed on a plan. AW* determined to m< 
 once a fortnight firom November to June, at the 
 Freemasons 1 Tavern, and we had soon a fine list 
 of members, containing, along with several m< ml 
 of Parliament, nearly all the mosi no1 
 of the Cambridge Union and of the Oxford Unii 
 Debating Society. It is curiously ive of 1 
 
 tendencies of the time, thai our principal di | in 
 
 recruiting for the Society was to find a sufficient 
 number of Tory speakers. Almost all whom we 
 could press into the service were Liberal* 
 orders and degrees. Besides those already named, 
 wo had Macaulay, Thirlwall, Praed, Lord Bowick, 
 Samuel Wilberforce (afterwards Bishop of Oi 
 Charles Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord B 
 ham), Edward and EenryLytton Bulwer, Fonblanque, 
 and many others whom I cannot now recoiled 
 who made themselves afterwards more or Less con- 
 spicuous in public or literary lite. Nothing could seem 
 
YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM. 127 
 
 more promising. But when the time for action drew 
 near, and it was necessary to fix on a President, and 
 find somebody to open the first debate, none of our 
 celebrities would consent to perform either office. Of 
 the many who were pressed on the subject, the only 
 one who could be prevailed on was a man of whom I 
 knew very little, but who had taken high honours at 
 Oxford and was said to have acquired a great ora- 
 torical reputation there ; who some time afterwards 
 became a Tory member of Parliament. He accord- 
 ingly was fixed on, both for filling the President's 
 chair and for making the first speech. The impor- 
 tant day arrived ; the benches were crowded ; all our 
 great speakers were present, to judge of, but not to 
 help our efforts. The Oxford orator's speech was a 
 complete failure. This threw a damp on the whole 
 concern : the speakers who followed were few, and 
 none of them did their best : the affair was a com- 
 plete fiasco ; and the oratorical celebrities we had 
 counted on went away never to return, giving to 
 me at least a lesson in knowledge of the world. 
 This unexpected breakdown altered my whole relation 
 to the project. I had not anticipated taking a promi- 
 nent part, or speaking much or often, particularly 
 at first, but I now saw that the success of the scheme 
 depended on the new men, and I put my shoulder to 
 the wheel. I opened the second question, and from 
 that time spoke in nearly every debate. It was very 
 
128 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISE. 
 
 uphill work for some time. The three Villiers and 
 Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the 
 patience of all the founders of the Society was at I 
 exhausted, except me and Roebuck. In the sea- 
 following, 1826-7, things began to mend We fa 
 acquired two excellent Tory speakers,, Hayward and 
 Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee) : the Radical side 
 was reinforced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and 
 others of the second generation of Cambridge Ben- 
 thamites ; and with their and other OC 1 aid, 
 and the two Tories as well as Roebuck and me for 
 regular speakers, almost every d< ittts 
 rangie between the "philosophic Radicals' 1 and the 
 Tory lawyers; until our conflicts were talk 
 several persons of note and consideration 
 
 us. This happened still more in the Bub 
 1828 and 1829, when the Coleridgians, in the | 
 of Maurice and Sterling, made their appearance in 
 the Society as a second Liberal and even Radi 
 party, on totally different grounds from Benthamis 
 and vehemently opposed to it; brii 
 discussions the general doctrines and mode$of thought 
 of the European reaction against the philosophy of I 
 eighteenth century; and adding a third and very im- 
 portant belligerent party to our a 9, which w< 
 now no bad exponent of the movement of ( 
 among the most cultivated part of the 
 tion. Our debates were verv different from those of 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 129 
 
 common debating societies, for they habitually con- 
 sisted of the strongest arguments and most philosophic 
 principles which either side was able to produce, 
 thrown often into close and serve confutations of one 
 another. The practice was necessarily very useful to 
 us, and eminently so to me. I never, indeed, acquired 
 real fluency, and had always a bad and ungraceful 
 delivery ; but I could make myself listened to : and 
 as I always wrote my speeches when, from the 
 feelings involved, or the nature of the ideas to be 
 developed, expression seemed important, I greatly 
 increased my power of effective writing ; acquiring 
 not only an ear for smoothness and rhythm, but a 
 practical sense for telling sentences, and an immediate 
 criterion of their telling property, by their effect on 
 a mixed audience. 
 
 The Society, and the preparation for it, together 
 with the preparation for the morning conversations 
 which were going on simultaneously, occupied the 
 greater part of my leisure ; and made me feel it a 
 relief when, in the spring of 1828, I ceased to write 
 for the Westminster. The Review had fallen into 
 difficulties. Though the sale of the first number 
 had been very encouraging, the permanent sale had 
 never, I believe, been sufficient to pay the expenses, 
 on the scale on which the Review was carried on. 
 Those expenses had been considerably, but not suffi- 
 ciently, reduced. One of the editors, Southern, had 
 
 K 
 
130 THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 resigned ; and several of the writers, incli my 
 
 father and me, who had been paid like other con- 
 tributors for our earlier articles, had latterly writ! 
 without payment. Nevertheless, the o funds 
 
 were nearly or quite exhausted, and if the Revi 
 was to be continued Bomi 
 
 affairs had become indispensable. Myfath 1 I 
 
 had several conferences with Bowling on tl. 
 We were willing to do our utmost foi 
 the Review as an organ of our opinions, but i 
 under Bowling's editorship : while the impossibility 
 of its any Longer support!] rded a 
 
 ground On which, without 
 
 propose to dispense with hi We and - 
 
 of our Mends were prepai 
 
 as unpaid writers, eit her findi] 
 
 unpaid editor, or sharing 
 
 But while this n< ' <n was ; 
 
 Bowring's apparent acquiescence, he was carrying on 
 
 another in a different quarter (with ( I Perp 
 
 Thompson), of which we received th 
 
 in a letter from Bowling as edit 
 merely that an arrangement had heen D 
 proposing to us to write for the next number, wi 
 promise of payment. We did not di 
 right to bring about, if he could, an an 
 more favourable to himself than the 
 
 proposed; but we thought the oo ich ho 
 
 
THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 131 
 
 had practised towards us, while seemingly entering 
 into our own project, an affront : and even had we not 
 thought so, we were indisposed to expend any more 
 of our time and trouble in attempting to write up 
 the Review under his management. Accordingly 
 my father excused himself from writing ; though two 
 or three years later, on great pressure, he did write 
 one more political article. As for me, I positively 
 refused. And thus ended my connexion with the 
 original Westminster. The last article which I 
 wrote in it had cost me more labour than any pre- 
 vious ; but it was a labour of love, being a defence 
 of the early French Revolutionists against the Tory 
 misrepresentations of Sir Walter Scott, in the intro- 
 duction to his Life of Napoleon. The number of 
 books which I read for tins purpose, making notes 
 and extracts — even the number I had to buy (for in 
 those days there was no public or subscription library 
 from which books of reference could be taken home), 
 far exceeded the worth of the immediate object; but 
 I had at that time a half-formed intention of writing 
 a History of the French Revolution ; and though I 
 never executed it, my collections afterwards were 
 very useful to Carlyle for a similar purpose. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. ONE STAGE 
 ONWARD. 
 
 T?OR some years after tins time I wrote very lit' 
 
 and nothing regularly, for publication: 
 great were the advantages which I derived from I 
 intermission. It was of do common imp to 
 
 me, at this period, fco be able to dig d matu 
 
 my thoughts for my own mind only, withoul 
 immediate eall forgiving them out in print, Had I 
 
 gone on writing, it would have much disturbed I 
 important transformation in my opinio 
 racter, which took place during those yeaia i 
 origin of this transformation, or at least the | 
 by which I was prepared for it, can only be explaii 
 by turning some distance back. 
 
 From the winter of 1821, when I first I 
 Bentham, and especially firom the comm 
 the Westminster Review, I had what might truly be 
 called an object in life ; to be a i 
 world. My conception ot* my own hi 
 entirely identified with this objt 
 sympathies I wished for were these of tell w 
 
A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 133 
 
 in this enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up as 
 many flowers as I could by the way ; but as a serious 
 and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon, 
 my whole reliance was placed on this ; and I was 
 accustomed to felicitate myself on the certainty of a 
 happy life which I enjoyed, through placing my hap- 
 piness in something durable and distant, in which 
 some progress might be always making, while it 
 could never be exhausted by complete attainment. 
 This did very well for several years, during which 
 the general improvement going on in the world and 
 the idea of myself as engaged with others in strug- 
 gling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an 
 interesting and animated existence. But the time 
 came when I awakened from this as from a dream. 
 It was in the autumn of 1826. I was in a dull state 
 of nerves, such as everybody is occasionally liable 
 to ; unsusceptible to enjoyment or pleasurable excite- 
 ment ; one of those moods when what is pleasure at 
 other times, becomes insipid or indifferent ; the state, 
 I should think, in which converts to Methodism 
 usually are, when smitten by their first " conviction 
 of sin." In this frame of mind it occurred to me to 
 put the question directly to myself : " Suppose that 
 all your objects in life were realized; that all the 
 changes in institutions and opinions which you are 
 looking forward to, could be completely effected a.t 
 this very instant : would this be a great joy and 
 
134 A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 
 
 happiness to you V And an irrepressible self-con- 
 sciousness distinctly answered, "No! M At tl 
 heart sank within me: the whole foundation on 
 which my life was constructed wul AM 
 
 happiness was to have been found in I 
 pursuit of this end. The end had i 
 and how could there ever again be any interest in 
 the means ? I seemed to have nothing left to 
 live for. 
 
 At first I hoped that the cloud would | 
 of itself; but it did not. A 
 reign remedy for I be smaller \ 
 effect on it. I awoke to a ren< wed 
 the woful fact, I carried it wil all 
 
 companies, into all occu] Baldly 
 
 had power to cause me even a few min 
 
 of it. For some months the cloud E 
 
 thicker and thicker. The linos in Colerid 
 
 "Dejection" — I was not then acquainted with them — 
 
 exactly describe my case : 
 
 " A grief without a p 
 / A drowr . unimpas 
 
 ^ Which liiuls do Hat m 
 
 In word, or tear.* 1 
 
 In vain T sought relief from my Jav< 
 those memorials o^ past nobleness and r 
 from which 1 had always hitherto drawn strength 
 and animation. I read them now without ieelii 
 
A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 135 
 
 or with the accustomed feeling minus all its charm ; 
 and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, 
 and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself 
 out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of 
 what I felt. If I had loved any one sufficiently to 
 make confiding my griefs a necessity, I should not 
 have been in the condition I was. I felt, too, that 
 mine was not an interesting, or in any way respect- 
 able distress. There was nothing in it to attract 
 sympathy. Advice, if I had known where to seek 
 it, would have been most precious. The words of 
 Macbeth to the physician often occurred to my 
 thoughts. But there was no one on whom I could 
 build the faintest hope of such assistance. My 
 father, to whom it would have been natural to me 
 to have recourse in any practical difficulties, was the 
 last person to whom, in such a case as this, I looked 
 for help. Everything convinced me that he had no 
 knowledge of any such mental state as I was suffering 
 from, and that even if he could be made to under- 
 stand it, he was not the physician who could heal it. 
 My education, which was wholly his work, had been 
 conducted without any regard to the possibility of 
 its ending in this result ; and I saw no use in giving 
 him the pain of thinking that his plans had failed, 
 when the failure was probably irremediable, and, at 
 all events, beyond the power of his remedies. Of 
 other friends, I had at that time none to whom I had 
 
13G A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. , 
 
 any hope of making my condition intelligible It 
 was however abundantly intelligible to myself; and 
 the more I dwelt upon it, the more hopeless it ap- 
 peared. 
 
 My course of study had led me to believe, that all 
 mental and moral feelings and qualities, whether of a 
 good or of a bad kind, were the resull 
 tion ; that we love one tiling, and hate another, take 
 pleasure in one sort of action or mplation, i 
 
 pain in another sort, through the clinging of pleasur- 
 able or painful ideas 1<> those things, from the effect of 
 education or of experience, A< a corollary from 
 this, 1 had always heard it maintained by i 
 and was myself convinced, thai the i of edu 
 
 tion should be to form the strong Na- 
 
 tions of the salutary rlass J associations of pi 
 
 with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of 
 
 pain with all things hurtful to it. This doctrine 
 appeared inexpugnable; but it now seemed to me, 
 on retrospect, that my teachers had occupied them- 
 selves but superficially with the means of forming 
 and keeping up these salutary 
 seemed to have trusted altogether to the old famili 
 instruments, praise and blame, reward and punish- 
 ment. Now, I did not doubt thai by thee 
 begun early, and applied unremittingly, intense 
 sociations of pain and pleasure, especially o( pain, 
 might be created, and might produoe desires and 
 
A CRISIS EN" MY MENTAL HISTORY. 137 
 
 aversions capable of lasting undiminished to the end 
 of life. But there must always be something artifi- 
 cial and casual in associations thus produced. The 
 pains and pleasures thus forcibly associated with 
 things, are not connected with them by any natural 
 tie ; and it is therefore, I thought, essential to the 
 durability of these associations, that they should 
 have become so intense and inveterate as to be prac- 
 tically indissoluble, before the habitual exercise of 
 the power of analysis had commenced. For I now 
 saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before 
 received with incredulity — that the habit of analysis 
 has a tendency to wear away the feelings : as indeed 
 it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and 
 the analysing spirit remains without its natural com- 
 plements and correctives. The very excellence of 
 analysis (I argued) is that it tends to weaken and 
 undermine whatever is the result of prejudice ; that 
 it enables us mentally to separate ideas which have 
 only casually clung together : and no associations 
 whatever could ultimately resist this dissolving force, 
 were it not that we owe to analysis our clearest 
 knowledge of the permanent sequences in nature; 
 the real connexions between Things, not dependent 
 on our will and feelings ; natural laws, by virtue of 
 which, in many cases, one thing is inseparable from 
 another in fact ; which laws, in proportion as they 
 are clearly perceived and imaginatively realized, cause 
 
138 A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 
 
 our ideas of things which, are always joined together 
 in Nature, to cohere more and more closely in our 
 thoughts. Analytic habits may thus even strengthen 
 the associations between causes and effects, me;: 
 and ends, but tend altogether to v Q those which 
 
 are, to speak familiarly, a mere matter of feeli 
 They are therefore (I thought) favourable to prudence 
 and clear-sightedness, but a perpetual worm at : 
 root both of the }», and of the virtues ; ai 
 
 above all, fearfully undermine all - od all 
 
 pleasures, which are the effects of ition, thai is 
 
 according to the theory I held, all except the purely 
 physical and organic; of the entire in of 
 
 which to make life desirable, no one hadac n- 
 
 viction than I had T of human 
 
 nature, by which, as i • d to me, I had b 
 
 brought to my present All t q I 
 
 looked up, were of opinion thai the pleasin m- 
 
 pathy with human beings, and the js which in- 
 
 the good of others, and especially of mankind on a 
 large scale, the object of existence, wire th< 
 and surest sources of happiness. I >f the truth of this I 
 was convinced, but to know that a I 
 make me happy if I had it, did not 
 feeling. My education, I thought, had failed 
 create these feelings in sufficient 
 the dissolving influence of analysis, while the wh 
 course of my intellectual cultivation had made pit 
 
A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 139 
 
 cious and premature analysis the inveterate habit of 
 my mind. I was thus, as I said to myself, left 
 stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with 
 a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail ; 
 without any real desire for the ends which I had 
 been so carefully fitted out to work for : no delight in 
 virtue, or the general good, but also just as little in 
 anything else. The fountains of vanity and ambi- 
 tion seemed to have dried up within me, as completely 
 as those of benevolence. I had had (as I reflected) 
 some gratification of vanity at too early an age : I 
 had obtained some distinction, and felt myself of 
 some importance, before the desire of distinction and 
 of importance had grown into a passion : and little 
 as it was which I had attained, yet having been 
 attained too early, like all pleasures enjoyed too soon, 
 it had made me blase and indifferent to the pursuit. 
 Thus neither selfish nor unselfish pleasures were 
 pleasures to me. And there seemed no power in 
 nature sufficient to begin the formation of my 
 character anew, and create in a mind now irre- 
 trievably analytic, fresh associations of pleasure with 
 any of the objects of human desire. 
 
 These were the thoughts which mingled with the 
 dry heavy dejection of the melancholy winter of 
 182G-7. During this time I was not incapable of my 
 usual occupations. I went on with them mechani- 
 cally, by the mere force of habit. I had been so 
 
140 A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY. 
 
 drilled in a certain sort of mental exercise, that 1 
 could still carry it on when all the spirit ne 
 
 out of it. I even composed and spoke several 
 speeches at the debatii . how. or with what 
 
 degree of success, I know not. Of lour years con? 
 tinual speaking at that society, this onlyy< 
 
 of which I remember next to nothing. Tv 
 Coleridge, in whom alone of all writers I have fou 
 a true description of what I felt, were often in i 
 thoughts, not at this time (for I had never n 
 them), but in a later period of th te mental 
 
 malady : 
 
 " W<»rk wit licit f% 
 
 In all probability m\ 
 
 liar as I fancied it , and I doubt not I 
 
 have passed through a similar state; but the idi - 
 
 syncrasies of my education bad given to th 
 
 phenomenon a special character, which made it seem 
 
 the natural effect of causes that it was hardly possible 
 
 for time to remove. I frequently asked myself, it' I 
 
 could, or if 1 was bound to go on living, when life 
 
 must be passed in this manner. I generally answ< 
 
 to myself, that 1 did not think i could possibly 1 
 
 it beyond a year. When, however, not mare t" 
 
 half that duration of time bad elapsed, a small ra\ 
 
 light broke in upon my gloom. [ was 
 
 dentally, MarmonteTfl "Memoires," and came to I 
 
ONE STAGE ONWAED. 141 
 
 passage which relates his fathers death, the dis- 
 tressed position of the family, and the sudden inspi- 
 ration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made 
 them feel that he would be everything to them — 
 would supply the place of all that they had lost. 
 A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came 
 over me, and I was moved to tears. From this 
 moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression 
 of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, 
 was gone. I was no longer hopeless : I was not a 
 stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the 
 material out of which all worth of character, and all 
 capacity for happiness, are made. Believed from my 
 ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness, I 
 gradually found that the ordinary incidents of life 
 could again give me some pleasure ; that I could 
 again find enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for 
 cheerfulness, in sunshine and sky, in books, in con- 
 versation, in public affairs ; and that there was, once 
 more, excitement, though of a moderate kind, in 
 exerting myself for my opinions, and for the public 
 good. Thus the cloud gradually drew off, and I 
 again enjoyed life : and though I had several relapses, 
 some of which lasted many months, I never again 
 was as miserable as I had been. 
 
 The experiences of this period had two very 
 marked effects on my opinions and character. In 
 the first place, they led me to adopt a theory of life, 
 
142 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 very unlike that on which I had before acted, and 
 having much in common with what at that time I 
 certainly had never heard of, the anti-self-con- 
 ness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, wavered in 
 the conviction that happiness is I f all ru] 
 
 of conduct, and the end of life, But I now thought 
 that this end was only to be attained by not maki 
 it the direct end Those only are happy (I thought) 
 who have their minds fixed on some 
 than their own happiness ; on the happiness of others, 
 on the improvement of mankind, even <■: I or 
 
 pursuit, followed not as a i 
 ideal end. Aiming thus al something else, they fi 
 happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such 
 was now my theory) are sufficienl I a 
 
 pleasant thing, when they are taken . with- 
 
 out being made a principal object, I >noe d 
 so, and they are immediately felt to K 
 They will not hoar a scrutinizing examination* A 
 yourself whethe* you are happy, and you cease to be 
 SO. The only ehance is to treat, not happint B8, I 
 some end external to it, as the pur; 
 your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, \ 
 interrogation, exhaust themselves on that ; 
 otherwise fortunately crrcuftistanoed you wi 
 happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelli 
 on it or thinking about it, without either fi 
 it in imagination, or putting it to flight bj 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 143 
 
 questioning. This theory now became the basis of 
 my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the 
 best theory for all those who have but a moderate 
 degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment, 
 t is, for the great majority of mankind. 
 The other important change which my opinions at 
 this time underwent, was that I, for the first time, 
 gave its proper place, among the prime necessities 
 of human well-being, to the internal culture of the 
 individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive 
 importance to the ordering of outward circumstances, 
 and the training of the human being for speculation 
 and for action. 
 
 I had now learnt by experience that the passive 
 susceptibilities needed to be cultivated as well as 
 the active capacities, and required to be nourished 
 and enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an 
 instant, lose sight of, or undervalue, that part of the 
 truth which I had seen before ; I never turned re- 
 creant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the 
 power and practice of analysis as an essential condi- 
 tion both of individual and of social improvement. But 
 I thought that it had consequences which required 
 to be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation 
 with it. The maintenance of a due balance among 
 the faculties, now seemed to me of primary impor- 
 tance. The cultivation of the feelings became one of 
 the cardinal- points in my ethical and philosophical 
 
144 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 creed. And my thoughts and inclinations turned in 
 an increasing degree towards whatever seemed capable 
 of being instrumental to that object. 
 
 I now began to find meaning in the things wl 
 I had read or heard about the importance of poetry 
 and art as instruments of human culture. But it 
 was some time longer before I began to know this 
 by personal experience. The only one of the ima 
 native arts in which I had from childhood taken 
 pleasure, was music ; the beerf effect of which (and in 
 this it surpasses perhaps every other art) c i in 
 
 exciting enthusiasm ; in winding up to a high pitch 
 those feelings of an elevated kind which an 
 in the character, but td which tl. 
 aglow and a fervour, which, though transitory at 
 utmost height, is precious for sustaining them at 
 other times. This effect of music 1 had ex- 
 
 perienced ; but like all my pleasurabl ptibilil 
 
 it was suspended during the gloomy period. I I 
 sought relief again and again from this quarter, hut 
 found none. After the tide had turned, and I \ 
 in process of recovery, I had been helped forward by 
 music, but in a much less elevated manner. I at this 
 time first became acquainted withWeber's Obei 
 and the extreme pleasure which I drew 
 delicious melodies did me good, by 
 a source of pleasure to which I was as sus 
 as ever. The good, however, was much i] 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 145 
 
 by the thought, that the pleasure of music (as is quite 
 true of such pleasure as this was, that of mere 
 tune) fades with familiarity, and requires either to be 
 revived by intermittence, qr fed by continual novelty. 
 And it is very characteristic both of my then state, 
 and of the general tone of my mind at this period of 
 my life, that I was seriously tormented by the 
 thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations. 
 The octave consists only of five tones and two semi- 
 tones, which can be put together in only a limited 
 number of ways, of which but a small proportion are 
 beautiful : most of these, it seemed to me, must have 
 been already discovered, and there could not be room 
 for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to 
 strike out, as these had done, entirely new and sur- 
 passingly rich veins of musical beauty. This source of 
 anxiety may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that uf 
 the philosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun 
 should be burnt out. It was, however, connected 
 with the best feature in my character, and the only 
 good point to be found in my very unromantic and 
 in no way honourable distress. For though my de- 
 jection, honestly looked at, could not be called other 
 than egotistical, produced by the ruin, as I thought, 
 of my fabric of happiness, yet the destiny of man- 
 kind in general was ever in my thoughts, and could 
 not be separated from my own. I felt that the flaw 
 in my life, must be a flaw in life itself ; that the 
 
 L 
 
146 OXE STAGE OXWARJX 
 
 question was, whether, if the reformers of society and 
 government could succeed in their objects, and every 
 person in the community were free and in 
 physical comfort, the }>1< of lif no 
 
 longer kept up by strug 
 
 to be pleasures. And I felt that unless I c rcdd - • my 
 way to some better hope than this for human happi- 
 ness in general, my dejection must continue ; but that 
 if I could see such an outlet .1 - raid then look on the 
 world with pleasure; cont> ■".: ■.■ - I 
 
 concerned, with any lair share of the 
 
 This state of my tl the 
 
 fact of my reading Wordsworth for I 
 the autumn of L 828), an important i in my li 
 
 I took up the collection of his poems from curi 
 with no expectation of mental n 
 I had before resorted to poetry with that hope. In 
 the worst period of my depression, I had n 
 through the whole of Byron (then new to me), to try 
 whether a poet, whose peculiar depaitmi sup- 
 
 posed to be that of the intenser feelings, could rou 
 any feeling in me. As might be exj 
 good from this reading, but the reverse, T 
 state of mind * i like I he 
 
 lament of a man who had worn out all pleasure* 
 who seemed to think that life, to all wh 
 the good things of it, must n< ily be the vapid, 
 
 uninteresting thingwhich I lound it. His Harold 
 
 a 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 147 
 
 and Manfred had the same burden on them which I 
 had ; and I was not in a frame of mind to desire any 
 comfort from the vehement sensual passion of his 
 Giaours, or the sullenness of his Laras. But while 
 Byron was exactly what did not suit my condition, 
 Wordsworth was exactly what did. I had looked 
 into the Excursion two or three years before, and 
 found little in it ; and I should probably have found 
 as little, had I read it at this time. But the miscel- 
 laneous poems, in the two-volume edition of 1815 
 (to which little of value was added in the latter part 
 of the author s life), proved to be the precise tiling 
 for my mental wants at that particular juncture. 
 
 In the first place, these poems addressed them- 
 selves powerfully to one of the strongest of my 
 pleasurable susceptibilities, the love of rural objects 
 and natural scenery ; to which I had been indebted 
 not only for much of the pleasure of my life, but 
 quite recently for relief from one of my longest re- 
 lapses into depression. In this power of rural beauty 
 over me, there was a foundation laid for taking plea- 
 sure in Wordsworth's poetry ; the more so, as his 
 scenery lies mostly among mountains, which, owing 
 to my early Pyrenean excursion, were my ideal of 
 natural beauty. But Wordsworth would never have 
 had any great effect on me, if he had merely placed 
 before me beautiful pictures of natural scenery. 
 Scott does this still better than Wordsworth, and 
 
 L 2 
 
143 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 a very second-rate landscape does it more ef- 
 fectually than any poet. What made Woi 
 worth's poems a medicine for my state of mind, 
 that they expressed, not mere outward 1 
 but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by 
 feeling, under the excitement of beauty. Tl 
 seemed to be the very culture of the i< which 
 
 I was in quest of. In them I ed to draw from 
 
 a source of inward joy, of Bympatheti 
 ginative pleasure, which could be shared in by all 
 human beings ; which had no connexion with strng 
 or imperfection, bul would be mi rry 
 
 improvement in the physical or social condition of 
 mankind. From them I seemed to Learn what 
 be the perennial Bourcea of happiness, when all * 
 greater evils of life shall have been 
 I felt myself at once better and happii . as 1 i mo 
 under their influence, There have certainly been, 
 even in our own age, greater poets than Wordsworth ; 
 but poetry of deeper and loftier feelh 
 have done for me at that time what his did. I 
 needed to be made to feel that there was real, per- 
 manent happiness in tranquil contemplation. V> 
 worth taught me this, not only without turni 
 away from, but with a greatly increased h in 
 
 the common feelings and common destiny of hun 
 beinga And the delight which these poems gave n . 
 proved that with culture of this sert. there v. 
 nothing to dread from tinned habit 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 149 
 
 analysis. At the conclusion of the Poems came the 
 famous Ode, falsely called Platonic, " Intimations of 
 Immortality :" in which, along with more than his 
 usual sweetness of melody and rhythm, and along 
 with the two passages of grand imagery but bad 
 philosophy so often quoted, I found that he too had 
 had similar experience to mine ; that he also had felt 
 that the first freshness of youthful enjoyment of life 
 was not lasting ; but that he had sought for compen- 
 sation, and found it, in the way in which he was 
 now teaching me to find it. The result was that I 
 gradually, but completely, emerged from my habitual 
 depression, and was never again subject to it. I long 
 continued to value Wordsworth less according to his 
 intrinsic merits, than by the measure of what he had 
 done for me. Compared with the greatest poets, he 
 may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, 
 possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But un- 
 poetical natures are precisely those which require 
 poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is 
 much more fitted to give, than poets who are in- 
 trinsically far more poets than he. 
 
 It so fell out that the merits of Wordsworth were 
 the occasion of my first public declaration of my new 
 way of thinking, and separation from those of my 
 habitual companions who had not undergone a similar 
 change. The person with whom at that time I was 
 most in the habit of comparing notes on such subjects 
 was Roebuck, and I induced him to read Woixb- 
 
150 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 worth, in whom he also at first seemed to find much 
 to admire : but I, like most Wordsworthians, threw 
 myself into strong antagonism to Byron, both as a poet 
 and as to his influence on the character. Roebuck, 
 all whose instincts were those of action and st i 
 had, on the contrary, a str lish and great admi- 
 
 ration of Byron, whose writings he regarded as the 
 poetry of human life, while Wordsworth's, accord: 
 to him, was that of il<> We 
 
 agreed to have the fight out at our Debating S 
 where we accordingly discussed for two evenings the 
 comparative merits of Byron and Wordsworth, pro- 
 pounding and illustrating by long p 
 respective theories of poetry: Sterling in a 
 
 brilliant speech, putting forward his particular 
 theory. This was the first deb any v. 
 
 subject in which Roebuck and I had beenonopposi 
 sides. The schism between us widened from this 
 time more and more, though we continued for some 
 years longer to be companions. In the beginnj 
 our cliief divergence related to the cultivation of 
 the feelings. Roebuck was in many i - very 
 
 different from the vulgar notion of a Benthamite 
 Utilitarian. He was a lover of poetry and of m 
 of the line arts. He took great pleasure in music, in 
 dramatic performances, ially in painting 
 
 himself drew and designed landscapes with 
 facility and beaut v. But he never could be made 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 151 
 
 see that these things have any value as aids in the 
 formation of character. Personally, instead of being, 
 as Benthamites are supposed to be, void of feeling, 
 he had very quick and strong sensibilities. But, like 
 most Englishmen who have feelings, he found his 
 feelings stand very much in his way. He was much 
 more susceptible to the painful sympathies than to 
 the pleasurable, and looking for his happiness else- 
 where, he wished that his feelings should be deadened 
 rather than quickened. And, in truth, the English 
 character, and English social circumstances, make it 
 so seldom possible to derive happiness from the exer- 
 cise of the sympathies, that it is not wonderful if 
 they count for little in an Englishman's scheme of 
 life. In most other countries the paramount impor- 
 tance of the sympathies as a constituent of individual 
 happiness is an axiom, taken for granted rather than 
 needing any formal statement ; but most English 
 thinkers almost seem to regard them as necessary 
 evils, required for keeping mens actions benevolent 
 and compassionate. Roebuck was, or appeared to be, 
 this kind of Englishman. He saw little good in any 
 cultivation of the feelings, and none at all in culti- 
 vating them through the imagination, which he 
 thought was only cultivating illusions. It was in 
 vain I urged on him that the imaginative emotion 
 which an idea, when vividly conceived, excites 
 in us, is not an illusion but a fact, as real as any 
 
152 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 of the other qualities of objects ; and far from 
 implying anything erroneous and delusive in our 
 mental apprehension of the object, is quite c nt 
 
 with the most accurate knowledge and most peril 
 practical recognition of all its phye -1 intellectual 
 
 laws and relations. The intent ag of the 
 
 beauty of a cloud lighted by th< no 
 
 hindrance to my knowing that the cloud >ur 
 
 of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a 
 state of suspension ; and \ am just as li! 
 for, and act on, these physical laws 
 occasion to do so, as if I I pableof] 
 
 ceiving any distinction bei ween 1 
 
 While my intimacy with K diminished, I 
 
 fell more and more into friendly intercourse with our 
 Coleridgian adversaries in the 8 ick 
 
 .Maurice and John Sterling 3 both I SO 
 
 well known, the former by his wiitinge 
 through the biographies by Bare and Carlyle. I tf 
 these two friends, Maurice was the thii 
 the orator, and impassioned ex] 
 which, at this period, were al: /uvlv formed 
 
 hini by Maurice. 
 
 With Maurice T had for some time been acquail 
 through ECyton Tooke, who had known hill 
 bridge, and although my dis ith him w< 
 
 almost always disputes, 1 had carried away fi 
 them much that helped to build up my 
 
OXE STAGE ONWARD, 153 
 
 thought, in the same way as I was deriving much 
 from Coleridge, and from the writings of Goethe and 
 other German authors which I read during these 
 years. I have so deep a respect for Maurices character 
 and purposes, as well as for his great mental gifts, 
 that it is with some unwillingness I say anything 
 which may seem to place him on a less high eminence 
 than I would gladly be able to accord to him. But 
 I have always thought that there was more intellec- 
 tual power wasted in Maurice than in any other of 
 my contemporaries. Few of them certainly have had 
 so much to waste. Great powers of generalization, 
 rare ingenuity and subtlety, and a wide perception 
 of important and unobvious truths, served him not 
 for putting something better into the place of the 
 worthless heap of received opinions on the great sub- 
 jects of thought, but for proving to his own mind that 
 the Church of England had known everything from 
 the first, and that all the truths on the ground of 
 which the Church and orthodoxy have been attacked 
 (many of which he saw as clearly as any one) are not 
 only consistent with the Thirty-nine Articles, but are 
 better understood and expressed in those Articles 
 than by any one who rejects them. I have never 
 been able to find any other explanation of this, than by 
 attributing it to that timidity of conscience, combined 
 with original sensitiveness of temperament, which 
 has so often driven highly gifted men into Romanism 
 
154 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 from the need of a firmer support than they can find 
 
 in the independent conclusions of their own judgment, 
 
 Any more vulgar kind of timidity no one who knew 
 
 Maurice would ever think of imputing to him, even 
 
 if he had not given public proof of his freedom from 
 
 it, by his ultimate collision with some of the opini 
 
 commonly regarded as orthodox, and by I 
 
 origination of the Christ i.n list movement. T 
 
 nearest parallel to him, in a moral point of view, 
 
 Coleridge, to whom, in merely intellectual power, 
 
 apart from poetical genius, I think him i Uy 
 
 superior. At this time, h 
 
 described as a disciple ofColeridg - a 
 
 disciple of Coleridge and of him. T ona 
 
 which were taking place in my old opi] 
 
 some points of contact with h Mam ' 
 
 and Stirling were of CO] my d( 
 
 ment. With Sterling 1 soon becam 
 
 and was more attached to him than 1 ha en 
 
 to any other man. He was indeed 
 
 loveable of men. His frank, cordial, i nd 
 
 expansive character ; a love of truth alike ecu n ' 
 
 in the highest things and the humblest : 8 
 
 and ardent nature which threw Itself with 
 
 into the opinions it adopted, but - s 
 
 justice to the doctrines and the men it was 
 
 to, as to make war on what ii 
 
 and an equal devotion to the two cardi t 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 155 
 
 Liberty and Duty, formed a combination of qualities 
 as attractive to me, as to all others who knew him as 
 well as I did. With his open mind and heart, he found 
 no difficulty in joining hands with me across the gulf 
 which as yet divided our opinions. He told me how 
 he and others had looked upon me (from hearsay in- 
 formation), asa a made " or manufactured man, having 
 had a certain impress of opinion stamped on me which 
 I could only reproduce ; and what a change took place 
 in his feelings when he found, in the discussion on 
 Wordsworth and Byron, that Wordsworth, and all 
 which that name implies, " belonged " to me as much 
 as to him and his friends. The failure of his health 
 soon scattered all his plans of life, and compelled him 
 to live at a distance from London, so that after the 
 first year or two of our acquaintance, we only saw each 
 other at distant intervals. But (as he said himself in 
 one of his letters to Carlyle) when we did meet it 
 was like brothers. Though he was never, in the full 
 sense of the word, a profound thinker, his openness of 
 mind, and the moral courage in which he greatly 
 surpassed Maurice, made him outgrow the dominion 
 which Maurice and Coleridge had once exercised 
 over his intellect ; though he retained to the last a 
 great but discriminating admiration of both, and 
 towards Maurice a warm affection. Except in that 
 short and transitory phasis of his life, during which 
 he made the mistake of becoming a clergyman, his 
 
156 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 mind was ever progressive : and the advance lie 
 
 always seemed to have made when I saw him af* 
 
 an interval, made me apply to him what ( ■ 
 
 of Schiller, "er hatte eine furchtliche Fortschri 
 
 tung." He and I started from 
 
 almost as wide apart a but tli 
 
 between us was always diminishing : if 1 m 
 
 towards some of his opinions, he, duri 
 
 was constantly approximati] j e and more to several 
 
 of mine: and if he had lived, and had health e 
 
 vigour to prosecute his ever assidu If-cultti 
 
 there is no knowing how much further thissponl 
 
 neous assimilation might have pn oeeded. 
 
 After L829 I withdrew fi 
 Debating Society. I had h 
 
 making, and was glad to cany Ml my pa 
 
 and meditations without any immediate rail for »»ut- 
 
 ward assertion of their resulta I found the fabric 
 
 my old and taught opini ny 
 
 fresh places, and 1 never allowed it to fall to | 
 
 but was incessantly occupied in weaving I 
 
 never, in the course vi 1 my to 
 
 remain, for ever rt a tin 
 
 tied. When I had taken in 
 
 not rest till 1 had adju> 
 
 opinions, and ascertained exactly 1 
 
 ought to extend in modifying or sup< 
 
 The oonflicts which 1 had so often had a in 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 157 
 
 defending the theory of government laid down in 
 Bentham's and my fathers writings, and the ac- 
 quaintance I had obtained with other schools of 
 political thinking, made me aware of many things 
 which that doctrine, professing to be a theory of 
 government in general, ought to have made room for, 
 and did not. But these things, as yet, remained with 
 me rather as corrections to be made in applying the 
 theory to practice, than as defects in the theory. I 
 felt that politics could not be a science of specific 
 experience ; and that the accusations against the 
 Benthamic theory of being a theory, of proceeding a 
 priori by way of general reasoning, instead of Baconian 
 experiment, showed complete ignorance of Bacons 
 principles, and of the necessary conditions of experi- 
 mental investigation. At this juncture appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Pieview, Macaulay s famous attack on 
 my father s Essay on Government. This gave me 
 much to think about. I saw that Macaulay 's con- 
 ception of the logic of politics was erroneous ; that 
 he stood up for the empirical mode of treating poli- 
 tical phenomena, against the philosophical ; that even 
 in physical science his notions of philosophizing 
 might have recognised Kepler, but would have ex- 
 cluded Newton and Laplace. But I could not help 
 feeling, that though the tone was unbecoming (an 
 error for which the writer, at a later period, made the 
 most ample and honourable amends), there was truth 
 
158 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 in several of his strictures on my father's treatment 
 of the subject; that my fathers premis - lly 
 
 too narrow, and included but a small nun. 
 the general truths, on which, in p 
 consequences depend. Identity of intei 
 the governing body and the community at 
 not, in any practical sense which can be at1 I to 
 
 it, the only thing on which good go 
 depends ; neither can this identity of it. be 
 
 secured by the mere conditions of i el I v. 
 
 not at all satisfied with the mode in which my fat] 
 met the criticisms of Macaulay. Be did a I 
 
 thought he ought t<> have done, justify himself by 
 Baying, "I was n<»t writing a scientific I on 
 
 polities, I was writing an argument fi)f parliam 
 
 tary reform/' lie treated Macanla 
 
 simply irrational; an attack upon t 
 
 faculty; an example of the Baying of Hobbes, t. 
 
 when reason is against a man, a man will ! 
 
 reason. This made me think that i 
 
 really something mere fundamentally 
 
 my fathers conception of philosop] 
 
 applicable to polities, than 1 had bil 
 
 there was. But I did n< 
 
 the error might be. At last n flashed upon me all 
 
 once in the course of other studies. In the early 
 
 part of 1830 I had begun to put en paper the id 
 
 on bogie (chiefly on the distinctions amoi 
 
'one stage onward. 159 
 
 and the import of Propositions) which had been sug- 
 gested and in part worked out in the morning con- 
 versations already spoken of. Having secured these 
 thoughts from being lost, I pushed on into the other 
 parts of the subject, to try whether I could do any- 
 thing further towards clearing up the theory of logic 
 generally. I grappled at once with the problem of 
 Induction, postponing that of Reasoning, on the 
 ground that it is necessary to obtain premises before 
 we can reason from them. Now, Induction is mainly 
 a process for finding the causes of effects : and in 
 attempting to fathom the mode of tracing causes and 
 effects in physical science, I soon saw that in the 
 more perfect of the sciences, we ascend, by generaliza- 
 tion from particulars, to the tendencies of causes 
 considered singly, and then reason downward from 
 those separate tendencies, to the effect of the same 
 causes when combined. I then asked myself, what 
 is the ultimate analysis of this deductive process ; 
 the common theory of the syllogism evidently throw- 
 ing no light upon it. My practice (learnt from 
 Hobbes and my father) being to study abstract prin- 
 ciples by means of the best concrete instances I could 
 find, the Composition of Forces, in dynamics, occurred 
 to me as the most complete example of the logical 
 process I was investigating. On examining, accord- 
 ingly, what the mind does when it applies the prin- 
 ciple of the Composition of Forces, I found that it 
 
160 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 performs a simple act of addition. It adds the sepa- 
 rate effect of the one force to the separate effect of 
 the other, and puts down the sum of these separate 
 effects as the joint effect. But La this a legitime 
 process ? In dynamics, and in all the mat lieu 
 branches of physics, it is ; but in some ol . as 
 
 in chemistry, it is not ; and I then recollected ii. 
 something not unlike this was '1 out as one of 
 
 the distinctions between chei 1 mechanic 
 
 phenomena, in t lie introduction to that favourite of 
 my boyhood, Thompson's System of Chemistry. 
 
 Tliis distinction at once made my mind clear as to 
 
 what was perplexing me b 
 
 of politics. I now saw. the 
 
 live or experimental, according as, in the p 
 
 deals with, the effects of c 
 
 or are not the sums of the i which the same 
 
 causes produce when separa' It followed that 
 
 politics must be a deductive science. It tic 
 
 peared, that both Macaulay and my father w< 
 
 wrong ; the one in assimilating the method of philoe 
 
 phizing in politics to the purely experimental d 
 
 of chemistry; while the other, though right in 
 
 a deductive method, had made a w 
 
 one, having taken as the type of deduction, not the 
 
 appropriate process, that of the deduct 
 
 of natural philosophy, but the inap] 
 
 pure geometry, which, not being a - 
 
 tion at all. does uot require or admit y sum- 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 161 
 
 ming-up of effects. A foundation was thus laid in 
 my thoughts for the principal chapters of what 1 
 afterwards published on the Logic of the Moral 
 Sciences ; and my new position in respect to my old 
 political creed, now became perfectly definite. 
 
 If I am asked, what system of political philosophy 
 I substituted for that which, as a philosophy, I had 
 abandoned, I answer, No system : only a conviction 
 that the true system was something much more com- 
 plex and many-sided than I had previously had any 
 idea of, and that its office was to supply, not a set oi 
 model institutions, but principles from which the in- 
 stitutions suitable to any given circumstances might be 
 deduced. The influences of European, that is to say, 
 Continental, thought, and especially those of the 
 reaction of the nineteenth century against the 
 eighteenth, were now streaming in upon me. They 
 came from various quarters : from the writings of Cole- 
 ridge, which I had begun to read with interest even 
 before the change in my opinions ; from theColeridgians 
 with whom I was in personal intercourse ; from what I 
 had read of Goethe ; from Carlyle's early articles in 
 the Edinburgh and Foreign Reviews, though for a 
 long time I saw nothing in these (as my father saw 
 nothing in them to the last) but insane rhapsody. 
 From these sources, and from the acquaintance I kept 
 up with the French literature of the time, I derived, 
 among other ideas which the general turning upside 
 
 M 
 
1G2 OXE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 down of the opinions of European thinkers had 
 brought uppermost, these in particular: That the 
 human mind has a certain order of possible progn 
 in which some things must precede others, an or. 
 which governments and public ins ra can mod 
 
 to some, but not to an unlimited extent : that allqn 
 tions of political institutions are relative, not al- 
 and that different stages of human ] nly 
 will have, but ought to have, different institutioi 
 that government is always rather in the hands, ot 
 passing into the band-, of whl 
 power in society, and that what this power i 
 not depend on institutions, but institutions on it: 
 that any general theory or philosophy of | 
 supposes a previous theory of human j 
 that this is the same thing with a philosophy 
 history. These opinions, true in the main, were held 
 in an exaggerated and violent manner by th< 
 with whom I was now most accustomed to 
 notes, and who, as usual with a reaction, ed 
 that half of the truth which the thh 
 eighteenth century saw. But though, at one peri 
 of my progress, I for some time undervalued tl 
 great century, I never joined in the 
 it, but kept as firm hold of one side of the truth as I 
 took of the other. The fight between tl tli 
 centuty and the eighteenth always reminded I 
 the battle about the shield, one Bide of which v. ite 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 163 
 
 and the other black. I marvelled at the blind rage 
 with which the combatants rushed against one another. 
 I applied to them, and to Coleridge himself, many of 
 Coleridge's sayings about half truths ; and Goethe's 
 device, " many-sidedness," was one which I would 
 most willingly, at this period, have taken for mine. 
 
 The writers by whom, more than by any others, a 
 new mode of political thinking was brought home to 
 me, were those of the St. Simonian school in 
 France. In 1829 and 1830 I became acquainted 
 with some of their writings. They were then only 
 in the earlier stages of their speculations. They had 
 not yet dressed out their philosophy as a religion, 
 nor had they organized their scheme of Socialism. 
 They were just beginning to question the principle 
 of hereditary property. I was by no means prepared 
 to go with them even this length ; but I was greatly 
 struck with the connected view which they for the 
 first time presented to me, of the natural order of 
 human progress ; and especially with their division of 
 all history into organic periods and critical periods. 
 During the organic periods (they said) mankind 
 accept with firm conviction some positive creed, claim- 
 ing jurisdiction over all their actions, and containing 
 more or less of truth and adaptation to the needs of 
 humanity. Under its influence they make all the 
 progress compatible with the creed, and finally out- 
 grow it ; when a period follows of criticism and nega- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 tion, in which mankind lose their old convictions 
 without acquiring any new ones, of a general or 
 authoritative character, except the conviction that 
 the old are false. The period of Greek and 1 
 polytheism, so long as really b in 1 y instructed 
 
 Greeks and Romans, was an organic : . suc- 
 
 ceeded by the critical or s< f the 
 
 Greek philosophers. Another organic period came 
 in with Christianity. The correspond] itical 
 
 period began with the II- format] 
 since, still lasts, and cannot i until a 
 
 new organic period hi 1 by I 
 
 triumph of a yet more ad\ 1. Tl 
 
 I knew, were not peculiar to the s; on 
 
 the contrary, they were tl. 
 Europe, or at Least of ( I 
 had never, to my knowledge, been b 
 systematized as by these writ* 
 
 ing characteristics of a critical | illy 
 
 set forth ; fori was not then acquainted with Fichl a 
 Lectures on ''The Characte of the Pi 
 
 Age/' In Carlyle, indeed, I found 
 tions of an " age of unbelief,' 1 and of 
 as such, which [, like most people a: 
 posed to be passionate pn I ste : :. fav< or 
 modes of belief But all tli - true in 
 
 denunciations, 1 thought that I found more call 
 and philosophically staled by the St S 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 165 
 
 Among tlieir publications, too, there was one which 
 seemed to me far superior to the rest ; in which the 
 general idea was matured into something much more 
 definite and instructive. This was an early work of 
 Auguste Comte, who then called himself, and ev r en 
 announced himself in the title-page as, a pupil of 
 Saint Simon. In this tract M. Comte first put forth 
 the doctrine, which he afterwards so copiously illus- 
 trated, of the natural succession of three stages in 
 every department of human knowledge : first, the 
 theological, next the metaphysical, and lastly, the 
 positive stage ; and contended, that social science 
 must be subject to the same law; that the feudal 
 and Catholic system was the concluding phasis of the 
 theological state of the social science, Protestantism 
 the commencement, and the doctrines of the French 
 Revolution the consummation, of the metaphysical ; 
 and that its positive state was yet to come. This 
 doctrine harmonized well with my existing notions, 
 to which it seemed to give a scientific shape. I 
 already regarded the methods of physical science as 
 the proper models for political. But the chief benefit 
 which I derived at this time from the trains of 
 thou glit suggested by the St. Simonians and by 
 Comte, was, that I obtained a clearer conception 
 than ever before of the peculiarities of an era of 
 transition in oj3inion, and ceased to mistake the 
 moral and intellectual characteristics of such an era, 
 
166 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 for the normal attributes of humanity. I looked 
 forward, through the present age of loud disputes 
 bat generally weak convictions, to a future which 
 shall unite the best qualities of the critical with the 
 best qualities of the organic | ; unchecked 
 
 liberty of thought, unbounded fo of individual 
 
 action in all modes not hurtful to others; hut a] 
 convictions as to what is righl and wron il and 
 
 pernicious, deeply engraven on the feelings by early 
 education and general unanimity of Bentao 
 so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exi- 
 gencies of lit*', thai they shall not, like all form* 
 present creeds, religious, ethical, and political, require 
 to be periodically tin-own off and replaced by otfo 
 
 M. Comte soon left the St. Sim< I I lost 
 
 sight of him and his writings for a number of 
 But the St. Simonians [continued to cultivate, 1 
 kept au courant of their pr by one of their m 
 
 enthusiastic disciples, M. Gustave d'Eichthal, ? 
 about that time passed a considerable interval in 
 England I was introduced to their chiefs, Bazard b 
 En Ian tin, in 1 830; and as long as their public teachi 
 and proselytism continued, 1 
 they wrote. Their criticisms on ti. 
 of Liberalism seemed to me full of imp 
 and it was partly by their writings that 
 were opened to the very limited and ten !ue 
 
 of the old political economy, which assuuM 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 167 
 
 property and inheritance as indefeasible facts, and 
 freedom of production and exchange as the dernier 
 mot of social improvement. The scheme gradually 
 unfolded by the St. Simonians, under which the 
 labour and capital of society would be managed for the 
 general account of the community, every individual 
 being required to take a share oi labour, either as 
 thinker, teacher, artist, or producer, all being classed 
 according to their capacity, and remunerated according 
 to their work, appeared to me a far superior descrip- 
 tion of Socialism to Owen's. Their aim seemed to me 
 desirable and rational, however their means might 
 be inefficacious ; and though I neither believed in the 
 practicability, nor in the beneficial operation of their 
 social machinery, I felt that the proclamation of 
 such an ideal of human society could not but tend to 
 give a beneficial direction to the efforts of others to 
 bring society, as at present constituted, nearer to some 
 ideal standard. I honoured them most of all for what 
 they have been most cried down for — the boldness and 
 freedom from prejudice with which they treated the 
 subject of family, the most important of any, and 
 needing more fundamental alterations than remain to 
 be made in any other great social institution, but on 
 which scarcely any reformer has the courage to touch. 
 In proclaiming the perfect equality of men and women, 
 and an entirely new order of things in regard to their 
 relations with one another, the St. Simonians, in 
 
168 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 common with Owen and Fourier, Lave entitled 
 themselves to the grateful remembrance of future 
 generations. 
 
 In giving an account of this period of my life, I 
 have only specified such of my new imp] 
 appeared to me, both at th< and since, to be a 
 
 kind of turning points, markii inite ] - in 
 
 my mode of thought But these fe^ 
 give a very insufficient Idea of the quart it v of think- 
 ing which 1 carried on respecting a host oi 
 during these yeana of transition. Much of this 
 true, consisted in rediscovering thing! all 
 
 the world, which 1 had previously disbelieved, or 
 disregarded But the rediscovery was to ri 
 discovery, giving me [denary p 
 not as traditional platitudes, but fresh from tl 
 source: audit seldom failed to place them in >«»me 
 new light, by which they were reconciled with, b 
 seemed to confirm while they modified, the un- 
 less generally known which lay in my early oj : 
 and in no essential part of which I at any time 
 wavered. All my now think 
 
 dation of these more deeply and . while 
 
 often removed misapprehension and confusion of 
 ideas which had perverted their effect I tmple, 
 
 during the later returns of my dejection, th< 
 ol' what is called Philosophical NV 
 my existence like an incubus. I felt as if 1 i 
 
ONE STAGE ONWAKD. 1G9 
 
 scientifically proved to be the helpless slave of ante- 
 cedent circumstances ; as if my character and that of 
 all others had been formed for us by agencies beyond 
 our control, and was wholly out of our own power. I 
 often said to myself, what a relief it would be if I 
 could disbelieve the doctrine of the formation of 
 character by circumstances ; and remembering the 
 wish of Fox respecting the doctrine of resistance to 
 governments, that it might never be forgotten by kings, 
 nor remembered by subjects, I said that it would be a 
 blessing if the doctrine of necessity could be believed 
 by all quoad the characters of others, and disbelieved 
 in regard to their own. I pondered painfully on the 
 subject, till gradually I saw light through it. I 
 perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the 
 doctrine of Cause and Effect applied to human action, 
 carried with it a misleading association ; and that 
 this association was the operative force in the depress- 
 ing and paralysing influence which I had experienced : 
 I saw that though our character is formed by circum- 
 stances, our own desires can do much to shape those 
 circumstances ; and that what is really inspiriting and 
 ennobling in the doctrine of freewill, is the conviction 
 that we have real power over the formation of our 
 own character ; that our will, by influencing some of 
 our circumstances, can modify our future habits or 
 capabilities of willing. All this was entirely con- 
 sistent with the doctrine of circumstances, or rather, 
 
170 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 was that doctrine itself, properly understood. From 
 
 that time I drew in my own mind, a clear di ion 
 
 between the doctrine of circui disco ; 
 
 discarding altogether the mi \ word N 
 
 The theory, which I now for th< itly 
 
 apprehended, ceased altogether to b 
 
 and besides the relief to my spirits, I no long 
 
 suffered under the burden, so heavy to one v. 
 
 aims at being a reformer in opini thinking one 
 
 doctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally 
 
 beneficial The train erf though! * hich b 
 
 me from this dilemma, Beemed to me, b 
 
 fitted to render a similar service to others; audit 
 
 now fonns the chapter on Liberty and v . in 
 
 the concluding Book of my System of L 
 
 Again, in politics, though 1 no loi 
 doctrine of the Essay on Government i 
 theory; though I ceased to consider i 
 democracy as an absolute principle, and n 
 as a question of time, place, and circuinsi 
 I now looked upon the choice of political instituti 
 as a moral and educational qi than i 
 
 of material interests, thinking that it 
 decided mainly by the consideration, w] 
 provement in life and cultu c in ord 
 
 the people concerned, as the condition d 
 further prcgress, and what institutioi 
 likely to promote that; licverthch ss, this change in 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. . 171 
 
 the premises of my political philosophy did not alter 
 my practical political creed as to the requirements of 
 my own time and country. I was as much as ever a 
 Radical and Democrat for Europe, and especially for 
 England. I thought the predominance of the aris- 
 tocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English 
 constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; 
 not on account of taxes, or any such comparatively 
 small inconvenience, but as the great demoralizing 
 agency in the country. Demoralizing, first, because 
 it made the conduct of the Government an example 
 of gross public immorality, through the predominance 
 of private over public interests in the State, and the 
 abuse of the powers of legislation for the advantage 
 of classes. Secondly, and in a still greater degree," 
 because the respect of the multitude always attaching 
 itself principally to that which, in the existing state 
 of society, is the chief passport to power ; and under 
 English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, 
 being the almost exclusive source of political im- 
 portance ; riches, and the signs of riches, were almost 
 the only things really respected, and the life of the 
 people was mainly devoted to the pursuit of them. 
 I thought, that while the higher and richer classes 
 held the power of government, the instruction 
 and improvement of the mass of the people were 
 contrary to the self-interest of those classes, because 
 tending to render the people more powerful for 
 
172 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 throwing off the yoke : but if the democracy obtained 
 a large, and perhaps the principal share, in the 
 governing power, it would become the interest of I 
 opulent classes to promote their education, in ord 
 to ward off really mischievous errors, and i lv 
 
 those which would lead to unjust violations of 
 property. On these grounds I was not only as 
 ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but 
 earnestly hoped that Owenite, St Simonian, ; 
 all other anti-property doctris bt spread wid< 
 
 among the poorer cl Dot that 1 thought th< 
 
 doctrines true, or desired thai tJ >uld be acted 
 
 on. but in order that the high 
 made to see that they had more b from the] 
 
 when uneducated, than when educated 
 
 In this frame of mind the F Revo! 
 
 July found me. It roused my utmost enthusi 
 gave me, as it were, a new existence. 1 went at 0] 
 to Paris, was introduced to Lafayette, and laid the 
 groundwork of the intercourse I afterwards kept up 
 with several of the active chiefs of the ex 
 popular party. Alter my return I enter* 
 a writer, into the political difiCUSi : 
 
 which soon became still mare exciting, 1 
 in of Lord (-ivy's Ministry, and the pr 
 Reform Bill. For the next few years I wi 
 copiously in newspapers. It waa about this time 
 that Fonblanque, who had for some time written the 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 173 
 
 political articles in the Examiner, became tlie pro- 
 prietor and editor of the paper. It is not forgotten 
 with what verve and talent, as well as fine wit, he 
 carried it on, during the whole period of Lord Grey's 
 Ministry, and what importance it assumed as the 
 principal representative, in the newspaper press, of 
 Radical opinions. The distinguishing character of 
 the paper was given to it entirely by his own articles, 
 which formed at least three-fourths of all the original 
 writing: contained in it : but of the remaining fourth 
 I contributed during those years a much larger share 
 than any one else. I wrote nearly all the articles on 
 French subjects, including a weekly summary of 
 French politics, often extending to considerable 
 length ; together with many leading articles on 
 general politics, commercial and financial legislation, 
 and any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt in- 
 terested, and which were suitable to the paper, 
 including occasional reviews of books. Mere news- 
 paper articles on the occurrences or questions of the 
 moment, gave no opportunity for the development of 
 any general mode of thought ; but I attempted, in 
 the beginning of 1831, to embody in a series of 
 articles, headed " The Spirit of the Age/' some of 
 my new opinions, and especially to point out in the 
 character of the present age, the anomalies and 
 evils characteristic of the transition from a system 
 of opinions which had worn out, to another only in 
 
174 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 process of being formed. These articles were, I fancy, 
 
 lumbering in style, and not lively or striking ei 
 
 to be. at any time, ace- 
 
 but had they been far more 8 U, at that 
 
 particular moment, when 
 
 were impending, and ei .ill minn 
 
 (Missions were ill-timed, and mk 
 
 The only effect which I know to hav< 
 
 by them, was thai ( larlyle, then livii 
 
 part of Scotland, read th( m in hi 
 
 saying to himself " 1 1< i 
 
 a new Mysi ic," inquired on i 
 
 autumn respecting their inqui 
 
 which was the imm< dial e f our 
 
 personally acquainted 
 
 I have already menl ion< d ( larl) h 
 as one ol' the channels through which 1 
 influences which enlarged my early narrow 
 but 1 do not think that those writings, b; 
 would ever have had any effed on mj 
 Whai truths they contained, though 
 which I was already receiving 1; 
 were presented in a form and vesture 1< se 
 than any other to give then) a 
 as mine had been. Ti tned a hi 
 
 and German metaphysics, in which aim 
 clear thine- was a s; rong ani 
 opinions which were the ba& y mode of thougl 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 175 
 
 religious scepticism, utilitarianism, the doctrine of 
 circumstances, and the attaching any importance to 
 democracy, logic, or political economy. Instead of 
 my having been taught anything, in the first instance, 
 by Carlyle, it was only in proportion as I came to see 
 the same truths through media more suited to my 
 mental constitution, that I recognised them in his 
 writings. Then, indeed, the wonderful power with 
 which he put them forth made a deep impression 
 upon me, and I was during a long period one of his 
 most fervent admirers ; but the good his writings did 
 me, was not as philosophy to instruct, but as poetry 
 to animate. Even at the time when our acquaintance 
 commenced, I was not sufficiently advanced in my 
 new modes of thought, to appreciate him fully ; a 
 proof of which is, that on his showing me the manu- 
 script of Sartor Resartus, his best and greatest work, 
 which he had just then finished, I made little of it ; 
 though when it came out about two years afterwards 
 in Fraser's Magazine I read it with enthusiastic 
 admiration and the keenest delight. I did not seek 
 and cultivate Carlyle less on account of the funda- 
 mental differences in our philosphy. He soon found 
 out that I was not " another mystic, " and when for 
 the sake of my own integrity I wrote to him a 
 distinct profession of all those of my opinions which 
 I knew he most disliked, he replied that the chief 
 difference between us was that I " was as yet con- 
 
176 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 sciously nothing of a mystic." I do not know at what 
 
 period he gave up the expectation that I was d- 
 
 to become one ; but though both his and my opini 
 
 underwent in subsequent y 
 
 we never approached much I li oth 
 
 modes of thought than we 
 
 our acquaintance. I did not, however, dn m myself a 
 
 competent judge of Carlyla I felt - a 
 
 p6et, and that I was not; that he 
 
 intuition, which I was not ; and thai 
 
 only saw many things ! me, which i 
 
 only when they were pointed oul to 
 
 and prove, but thai it was highly pr 
 
 see many things which were not visil 
 
 after they werd pointed out I knew thai [< >uld 
 
 not see round him, and could never b I 
 
 saw over him; and I neverpresuo 
 
 with any definiteness, until h< 
 
 by one greatly the superior of us both— who was 
 
 a poet than he, and more a thinker than I — whose <- 
 
 mind and nature included his, and infinitely 
 
 Among the persons of intellect whom I 1 
 of old, the one with whom I had 
 agreement was the elder Austin- I : 
 that he always set himself in i 
 sectarianism ; and lat w 
 under new influenc Having been 
 
 Professor of Jurisprudence in the London Unii 
 
OXE STAGE ONWARD. 177 
 
 (now University College), he had lived for some time 
 at Bonn to study for his Lectures ; and the influences 
 of German literature and of the German character 
 and state of society had made a very perceptible 
 change in his views of life. His personal disposition 
 was much softened ; he was less militant and polemic ; 
 his tastes had begun to turn themselves towards the 
 poetic and contemplative. He attached much less 
 importance than formerly to outward changes ; unless 
 accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward 
 nature. He had a strong distaste for the general 
 meanness of English life, the absence of enlarged 
 thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on 
 which the faculties of all classes of the English are 
 intent. Even the kind of public interests which 
 Englishmen care for, he held in very little esteem. 
 He thought that there was more practical good 
 government, and (which is true enough) infinitely 
 more care for the education and mental improvement 
 of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian 
 monarchy, than under the English representative 
 government : and he held, with the French Econo- 
 mises, that the real security for good government is 
 " un peuple eclaire," which is not always the fruit of 
 popular institutions, and which if it could be had 
 without them, would do their work better than they. 
 Though he approved of the Reform Bill, he predicted, 
 what in fact occurred, that it would not produce the 
 
 N 
 
178 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 great immediate improvements in government, which 
 
 many expected from it. The men, he said, who 
 
 could do these great things, did not exist in the 
 
 country. There were many points of b hy 
 
 between him and me, Loth in the new 0] he 
 
 had adopted and in the old ores whi 
 
 Like me, he never an utilit 
 
 with all Lis love of t 
 
 of their literal are, never be 
 
 degree reconciled to the innate-pi ' 
 
 lie cultivated more and m< 
 
 religion, a n ! ad feeli , if 
 
 anything, of pos ii i\ . in J'*- 1 
 
 here it was that I DQ I with 
 
 an indifference, b 
 
 progress of popular institu 
 
 in that of Socialism, as th 
 
 compelling the p< e the j 
 
 and to impress on them the only real m 
 
 manently improving their material 
 
 limitation of their numl 
 
 time, fundamentally opposed to E 
 
 an ultimate result of im] nt. I 
 
 great disrespect for what he called " the uni 
 
 principles of human nature of the j 
 
 and insisted on the evidence which history 
 
 experience afford of the 
 
 human nature" (a phrase which 1 haw 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 179 
 
 borrowed from him) ; nor did he think it possible to 
 set any positive bounds to the moral capabilities 
 which might unfold themselves in mankind, under an 
 enlightened direction of social and educational in- 
 fluences. Whether he retained all these opinions to 
 the end of life I know not. Certainly the modes oi 
 thinking of his later years, and especially of his last 
 publication, were much more Tory in their general 
 character than those which he held at this time. 
 
 My fathers tone of thought and feeling, I now 
 felt myself at a great distance from : greater, indeed, 
 than a full and calm explanation and reconsideration 
 on both sides, might have shown to exist in reality. 
 But my father was not one with whom calm and full 
 explanations on fundamental points of doctrine could 
 be expected, at least with one whom he might con- 
 sider as, in some sort, a deserter from his standard. 
 Fortunately we were almost always in strong agree- 
 ment on the political questions of the day, which 
 engrossed a large part of his interest and of his 
 conversation. On those matters of opinion on which 
 we differed, we talked little. He knew that the 
 habit of thinking for myself, which his mode of 
 education had fostered, sometimes led me to opinions 
 different from his, and he perceived from time to 
 time that I did not always tell him how different. 
 I expected no good, but only pain to both of us, from 
 discussing our differences : and I never expressed them 
 
 N 2 
 
180 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 but when he gave utterance to some opinion or feeling 
 repugnant to mine, in a manner which would have 
 made it disingenuousness on my part to remain silent. 
 
 It remains to speak of what I wrote during tl 
 years, which, independently of my contributi 
 newspapers, was considerable. In 1830 and 1831 I 
 wrote the five Essays since published under tJ 
 of "Essays on some Unsettled Questions of P 
 Economy," almost as they now stand, except that 
 in 1833 I partially rewrote the fifth Essay T : 
 were written wit li no immediate purpose of publica- 
 tion; and when, some years later, I ! them 
 a publisher, he declined them. They wei 
 printed in 1844, after the Buccess of the "S 
 Logic." I also resumed my speculations on t 1 
 subject, and puzzled myself, like others before i 
 with the groat paradox of the discovery of i 
 truths by general reasoning. As to the fact, tl 
 could be no doubt. As little could it be doubl 
 that all reasoning is resolvable into syllogisms, and 
 that in every syllogism the conclusion is actually 
 contained and implied in the premises. How, 
 so contained and implied, it could be new truth, i 
 how the theorems of geometry, so different in ap- 
 pearance from the definitions and axi< 
 all contained in these, was a difficulty which n 
 I thought, had sufficiently felt, and which, at 
 events, no one had succeeded in clearing up. ] 
 
ONE STAGE ONWARD. 181 
 
 explanations offered by Whately and others, though 
 
 they might give a temporary satisfaction, always, in 
 
 my mind, left a mist still hanging over the subject. 
 
 At last, when reading a second or third time the 
 
 chapters on Reasoning in the second volume of 
 
 Dugald Stewart, interrogating myself on every 
 
 point, and following out, as far as I knew how, every 
 
 topic of thought which the book suggested, I came 
 
 upon an idea of his respecting the use of axioms in 
 
 ratiocination, which I did not remember to have 
 
 before noticed, but which now, in meditating on it, 
 
 seemed to me not only true of axioms, but of all 
 
 general propositions whatever, and to be the key of 
 
 the whole perplexity. From this germ grew the 
 
 theory of the Syllogism propounded in the Second 
 
 Book of the Logic ; which I immediately fixed by 
 
 writing it out. And now, with greatly increased 
 
 hope of being able to produce a work on Logic, of 
 
 some originality and value, I proceeded to write the 
 
 First Book, from the rough and imperfect draft I had 
 
 already made. What I now wrote became the basis 
 
 of that part of the subsequent Treatise ; except that 
 
 it did not contain the Theory of Kinds, which was a 
 
 later addition, suggested by otherwise inextricable 
 
 difficulties which met me in my first attempt to 
 
 work out the subject of some of the concluding 
 
 chapters of the Third Book. At the point which I 
 
 had now reached I made a halt, which lasted five 
 
182 ONE STAGE ONWARD. 
 
 years. I had come to the end of my tether ; I could 
 
 make nothing satisfactory of Induction, at this tii 
 
 I continued to read any book which to 
 
 promise light on the subject, and i 
 
 as well as I could, the results; but for a I 
 
 I found nothing which seemed to open to mu any 
 
 very important vein of meditation. 
 
 In 1832 I wrote 
 of Tait's Magazine, and one for a quarterly period] 
 called the Jurist, which had been founded, and for a 
 short time carried on, by a set of friends, all lawy< 
 and law reformers, with several of whom I v. 
 acquainted The paper in qu 
 rights and duties of the State re 
 and Church Propei 
 collected u Dissertal tana and I >isc 
 of my articles in "Taii/ 1 "The Curre le," 
 
 also appears. In the whole mac what I wrote 
 
 previous to these, there b nothing of 
 permanent value to justify reprinting. Th in 
 
 the Jurist, which I still think a wry i 
 cussion of the rights of the State o\ 
 showed both sides of my opinions, 
 as [ should have done at any time, tl 
 all endowments are national property, which I 
 government may and ought to control ; bui - 1 
 
 should once have done, condemning endowments in 
 themselves, and proposing that they should 
 
ONE STAGE ONWAKD. 183 
 
 taken to pay oi?the national debt. On the contrary, 
 I urged strenuously the importance of having a 
 provision for education, not dependent on the mere 
 demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge 
 and discernment of average parents, but calculated 
 to establish and keep up a higher standard of 
 instruction than is likely to be spontaneously 
 demanded by the buyers of the article. All these 
 opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by 
 the whole course of my subsequent reflections. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP 
 OF MY LIFE. MY FATHER'S DEATH. WBJTDt 
 AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS UP 10 1840. 
 
 IT was at the period of my mental pr which I 
 
 have now reached thai I formed the I (hip 
 
 which has been the honour and chief bl my 
 
 existence, as well as the source of a great part of all 
 that I have attempted to do, or ho] here- 
 
 after, for human improvement. My first introduction 
 to the lady who, after a friendship of twenty 
 consented to become my wife, was in 1830, when I 
 was in my twenty-fifth and she in her twenty-third 
 year. With her husband's family it was the renewal 
 of an old acquaintanceship. His grandfather lived 
 in the next house to my father's in Newington 
 Green, and I had, sometimes when a hoy, b 
 invited to play in the old gentleman's garden. He 
 was a fine specimen of the old Scotch Turn rn, 
 
 severe, and powerful, but very kind to childn 
 whom such men make a lasting impression. Al- 
 though it was years after my introduction 
 Taylor before my acquaintance with her becai 
 
THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 185 
 
 all intimate or confidential, I very soon felt her to be 
 the most admirable person I had ever known. It is 
 not to be supposed that she was, or that any one, at 
 the age at which I first saw her, could be, all that 
 she afterwards became. Least of all could this be true 
 of her, with whom self-improvement, progress in the 
 highest and in all senses, was a law of her nature ; 
 a necessity equally from the ardour with which she 
 sought it, and from the spontaneous tendency of 
 faculties which could not receive an impression or an 
 experience without making it the source or the 
 occasion of an accession of wisdom. Up to the time 
 when I first saw her, her rich and powerful nature 
 had chiefly unfolded itself according to the received 
 type of feminine genius. To her outer circle she was 
 a beauty and a wit, with an air of natural distinction, 
 felt by all who approached her : to the inner, a 
 woman of deep and strong feeling, of penetrating and 
 intuitive intelligence, and of an eminently meditative 
 and poetic nature. Married at an early age, to a 
 most upright, brave, and honourable man, of liberal 
 oj:>inions and good education, but without the 
 intellectual or artistic tastes which would have 
 made him a companion for her, though a steady and 
 affectionate friend, for whom she had true esteem 
 and the strongest affection through life, and whom 
 she most deeply lamented when dead ; shut out by 
 the social disabilities of women from any adequate 
 
18G COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST " 
 
 exercise of her highest faculties in action on the 
 world without ; her life was one of inward me 
 tion, varied by familiar intercourse with a small 
 circle of friends, of whom one only (long sine 
 ceased) was a person of l or of i a of 
 
 feeling or intellect kindred with her own, but all 
 had more or less of alliance with her in sentimei 
 and opinions. Into this i 1 had the good f 
 
 tune to be admitted, and 1 soon perceived that she 
 possessed in combination, the qualities which in all 
 other persons'whom I had known I had been oi 
 too happy to find singly. In her, com] 
 pation from every kind of tition | 
 
 that which attributes a pretended perfection to the 
 order of nature and the universe)! and an ean 
 protest against many things which i 
 the established constitution i resulted not 
 
 from the hard intellect, but from strength of noble 
 and elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly 
 reverential nature. In general spiritual o 
 teristicSj as well as in temperament and oiganL 
 I have often compared her, as she was at this til 
 to Shelley: but in thought and intellect, Shelley, 
 far as his powers were developed in I 
 was but a child compared with what she uhr 
 became. Alike in the highest « 
 and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, I 
 mind was the same perfect instrument, p. 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 187 
 
 the very heart and marrow of the matter; always 
 seizing the essential idea or principle. The same 
 exactness and raj)idity of operation, pervading as it 
 did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, 
 would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have 
 fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery 
 and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would 
 certainly have made her a great orator, and her pro- 
 found knowledge of human nature and discernment 
 and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times 
 when such a carriere was open to women, have made 
 her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her in- 
 tellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character 
 at once the noblest and the best balanced which I 
 have e\ er met with in life. Her unselfishness was 
 not that of "a taught system of duties, but of a heart 
 which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of 
 others, and often went to excess in consideration for 
 them by imaginatively investing their feelings with 
 the intensity of its own. The passion of justice 
 might have been thought to be her strongest feeling, 
 but for her boundless generosity, and a lovingness 
 ever ready to pour itself forth upon any or all 
 human beings who were capable of giving the 
 smallest feeling in return. The rest of her moral 
 characteristics were such as naturally accompany 
 these qualities of mind and heart : the most 
 genuine modesty combined with the loftiest pride ; 
 
188 COM^IEXCEMEXT OF THE MOST S 
 
 a simplicity and sincerity which were absolute, 
 towards all who were fit to receive tliem ; the 
 utmost scorn of whatever was mean and c y, 
 
 and a burning indignation at everythi car 
 
 tyrannical, faithless or dishonourable in conduc 
 character, while mnlring the broadest distinction 
 between mala in se and mere fii — ■ 
 
 between acts giving evidence of intrinsic b in 
 
 feeling and character, and those whi 
 violations of conventions either good or 1 la- 
 
 tions which whether in themseh hi orwroi 
 
 are capable of being committed by | 3 in every 
 
 otlier respect loveable or admirab] 
 
 To be admitted into a of mental b 
 
 course with a being of th< 
 
 have a most beneficial influence on pay development ; 
 though the effect was only gradual, and m 
 elapsed before her mental pi and mine w< 
 
 forward in the complete companionship th 
 
 attained. The benefit I iveei\ 
 
 any which I could hope to give; th • her, who 
 
 had at first reached her opinions by the m< ral intui- 
 tion of a character o( strong feeling, I 
 doubtless help as well ; 
 
 derived from one who bad arrived at : : lie 
 
 same results by study and reasoning: and in 
 rapidity of her intellectual growth, hi 1 
 
 activity, which converted everything 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 189 
 
 doubtless drew from me, as it did from other sources, 
 many of its materials. What I owe, even intel- 
 lectually, to her, is in its detail, almost infinite ; of 
 its general character a few words will give some, 
 though a very imperfect, idea. 
 
 With those who, like all the best and wisest of 
 mankind, are dissatisfied with human life as it is, and 
 whose feelings are wholly identified with its radical 
 amendment, there are two main regions of thought. 
 One is the region of ultimate aims ; the constituent 
 elements of the highest realizable ideal of human life. 
 The other is that of the immediately useful and prac- 
 tically attainable. In both these departments, I have 
 acquired more from her teaching, than from all other 
 sources taken together. And, to say truth, it is in these 
 two extremes principally, that real certainty lies. My 
 own strength lay wholly in the uncertain and slippery 
 intermediate region, that of theory, or moral and poli- 
 tical science : respecting the conclusions of which, in 
 any of the forms in which I have received or originated 
 them, whether as political economy, analytic psy- 
 chology, logic, philosophy of history, or anything else, 
 it is not the least of my intellectual obligations to 
 her that I have derived from her a wise scepticism, 
 which, while it has not hindered me from following 
 out the honest exercise of my thinking faculties to 
 whatever conclusions might result from it, has put 
 me on my guard against holding or announcing these 
 
190 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST' 
 
 conclusions with a degree of confidence which, the 
 nature of such speculations does not warrant, and has 
 kept my mind not only open to admit, but prompt to 
 welcome and eager to seek, even on the questions on 
 which I have most meditated, any prospect of clearer 
 perceptions and better evidence. I have often 
 received praise, which in my own right I only 
 partially deserve, for the greater practicality which 
 is supposed to be found in my writings, compared 
 with those of most thinkers who have been equally 
 addicted to large generalizations. The writings in 
 which this quality has been observed, were not the 
 work of one mind, but of the fusion of two, one of 
 them as pre-eminently practical in its judgments and 
 perceptions of things present, as it was high and 
 bold in its anticipations for a remote futurity. 
 
 At the present period, however, this influence a 
 only one among many which were helping to shape 
 the character of my future development : and even 
 after it became, I may truly say, the presid: 
 principle of my mental pr it did not alter the 
 
 path, but only made me move forward more boldly, 
 and, at the same time, more cautiously, in the same 
 course. The only actual revolution which has ever 
 taken place in my modes of thinking, was already 
 complete. My new tendencies had to be i d 
 
 in some respects, moderated in others : but tin 
 substantial changes of opinion that wt 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 191 
 
 related to politics, and consisted, on one hand, in a 
 greater approximation, so far as regards the ultimate 
 prospects of humanity, to a qualified Socialism, and 
 on the other, a shifting of my political ideal from 
 pure democracy, as commonly understood by its 
 partizans, to the modified form of it, which is set 
 forth in my " Considerations on Representative 
 Government." 
 
 This last change, which took place very gradually, 
 dates its commencement from my reading, or rather 
 study, of M. de Tocqueville's " Democracy in America/' 
 which fell into my hands immediately after its first 
 appearance. In that remarkable work, the excel- 
 lences of democracy were pointed out in a more 
 conclusive, because a more specific manner than I 
 had ever known them to be, even by the most 
 enthusiastic democrats ; while the specific dangers 
 which beset democracy, considered as the govern- 
 ment of the numerical majority, were brought into 
 equally strong light, and subjected to a masterly 
 analysis, not as reasons for resisting what the author 
 considered as an inevitable result of human progress, 
 but as indications of the weak points of popular 
 government, the defences by which it needs to be 
 guarded, and the correctives which must be added 
 to it in order that while full play is given to its 
 beneficial tendencies, those which are of a different 
 nature may be neutralized or mitigated. I was now 
 
192 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST; 
 
 well prepared for speculations of this character, and 
 from this time onward my own thought* .»re 
 
 and more in the same channel, though the oonsequi 
 modifications in my p 1 political creed m 
 
 spread over many . as would he shown by 
 
 comparing my fir- riew of u Dem< in 
 
 America," written and published in 1835, with the 
 one in 1840 (reprinted in the "Dissertati 
 this last, with tl. lerations on Repn 
 
 Government/ 1 
 
 A collateral Bubject on which also I 
 benefit from the study of T ille, was the 
 
 fundamental question i I werfiil 
 
 philosophic analysis which he applied 
 and to French i . led him to attach * 
 
 utmost importance to the perforn 
 the collective business of - so 
 
 performed, by the people themseh 
 intervention of the executive government, eitl 
 supersede their agency, or to dictate tl. 
 its exercise. He viewed this practical politic 
 activity o( the individual citi 
 the most effectual means 
 feelings and practical intelligence of the | 
 important in themselves and so ; 
 good government, but 
 active to some of the 
 democracy, and a nea its 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 193 
 
 degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the 
 modern world, there is real danger — the absolute rule 
 of the head of the executive over a congregation of 
 isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves. There 
 was, indeed, no immediate peril from this source on 
 the British side of the channel, where nine-tenths of 
 the internal business which elsewhere devolves on 
 the government, was transacted by agencies inde- 
 pendent of it ; where centralization was, and is, the 
 subject not only of rational disapprobation, but of 
 unreasoning prejudice ; where jealousy of government 
 interference was a blind feeling preventing or re- 
 sisting even the most beneficial exertion of legislative 
 authority to correct the abuses of what pretends to 
 be local self-government, but is, too often, selfish 
 mismanagement of local interests, by a jobbing and 
 borne local oligarchy. But the more certain the public 
 were to go wrong on the side opposed to centraliza- 
 tion, the greater danger was there lest philosophic 
 reformers should fall into the contrary error, and 
 overlook the mischiefs of which they had been spared 
 the painful experience. I was myself, at this very 
 time, actively engaged in defending important 
 measures, such as the great Poor Law Reform of 
 1834, against an irrational clamour grounded on the 
 anti-centralization prejudice : and had it not been 
 for the lessons of Toequeville, I do not know that I 
 might not, like many reformers before .me, have been 
 
 o 
 
ID 4 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST 
 
 hurried into the excess opposite to that, which, being 
 the one prevalent in my own country, it was generally 
 in v business to combat. As it is, I have steered care- 
 fully between the two errors, and whether I have or 
 have not drawn the line between them exactly in the 
 right place, I have at least insisted with equal em- 
 phasis upon the evils on both sides, and have made 
 the means of reconciling the advantages of both, a 
 subject of serious study. 
 
 In the meanwhile had taken place the election of 
 the first Reformed Parliament, which included several 
 of the most notable of my Radical friends and 
 acquaintances — Grote, Roebuck, Buller, Sir William 
 Molesw r orth, John and Edward Romilly, and several 
 more ; besides Warburton, Strutt, and others, who 
 were in Parliament already. Those who thought 
 themselves, and were called by their friends, the 
 philosophic Radicals, had now, it seemed, a fair 
 opportunity, in a more advantageous position than 
 they had ever before occupied, for showing what was 
 in them ; and I, as well as my father, founded great 
 hopes on them. These hopes were destined to be 
 disappointed. The men were honest, and faithful to 
 their opinions, as far as votes were concerned ; often 
 in spite of much discouragement. When measures 
 were proposed, flagrantly at variance with their 
 principles, su'ch as the Irish Coercion Bill, or the 
 Canada Coercion in 1837, they came forward manfully, 
 
 ; 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 195 
 
 and braved any amount of hostility and prejudice 
 rather than desert the right. But on the whole 
 they did very little to promote any opinions ; they 
 had little enterprise, little activity : they left the lead 
 of the Radical portion of the House to the old hands, 
 to Hume and O'Connell. A partial exception must 
 be made in favour of one or two of the younger men ; 
 and in the case of Roebuck, it is his title to per- 
 manent remembrance, that in the very first year 
 during which he sat in Parliament, he originated (or 
 re- originated after the unsuccessful attempt of 
 Mr. Brougham) the parliamentary movement for 
 National Education ; and that he was the first to 
 commence, and for years carried on almost alone, the 
 contest for the self-government of the Colonies. 
 Nothing, on the whole equal to these two things, 
 was done by any other individual, even of those from 
 whom most w T as expected. And now, on a calm 
 retrospect, I can perceive that the men were less in 
 fault than we supposed, and that we had expected 
 too much from them. They were in unfavourable 
 circumstances. Their lot was cast in the ten years 
 of inevitable reaction, when, the Reform excitement 
 being over, and the few legislative improvements 
 which the public really called for having been rapidly 
 effected, power gravitated back in its natural 
 direction, to those who were for keeping things as 
 they were ; when the public mind desired rest, and 
 
 o 2 
 
196 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST 
 
 was less disposed than at any other period since the 
 peace, to let itself be moved by attempts to work up 
 the Reform feeling into fresh activity in favour of new 
 things. It would have required a great political 
 leader, which no one is to be blamed for not being, 
 to have effected really great things by parliamentary 
 discussion when the nation was in this mood. My 
 father and I had hoped that some competent leader 
 might arise ; some man of philosophic attainments 
 and popular talents, who could have put heart into the 
 many younger or less distinguished men that would 
 have been ready to join him — could have made them 
 available, to the extent of their talents, in bringing 
 advanced ideas before the public — could have used 
 the House of Commons as a rostra or a teacher's 
 chair for instructing and impelling the public mind ; 
 and would either have forced the Whigs to receive 
 their measures from him, or have taken the lead of 
 the Reform party out of their hands. Such a leader 
 there would have been, if my father had been in 
 Parliament. For want of such a man 5 the instructed 
 Radicals sank into a mere Cote Gauche of the Whig 
 party. With a keen, and as I now think, an exag- 
 gerated sense of the possibilities which were open to 
 the Radicals if they made even ordinary exertion for 
 I their opinions, I laboured from this time till 1839, both 
 by personal influence with some of them, and by 
 writings, to put ideas into their heads, and purpose 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OP MY LIFE. 197 
 
 into their hearts. I did some good with Charles 
 Buller, and some with Sir William Molesworth ; both 
 of whom did valuable service, but were unhappily 
 cut off almost in the beginning of their usefulness. 
 On the whole, however, my attempt was vain. To 
 have had a chance of succeeding in it, required a 
 different position from mine. It was a task only for 
 one who, being himself in Parliament, could have 
 mixed with the Radical members in daily consulta- 
 tion, could himself have taken the initiative, and 
 instead of urging others to lead, could have summoned 
 them to follow. 
 
 What I could do by writing, I did. During the 
 year 1833 I continued working in the Examiner with 
 Fonblanque, who at that time was zealous in keeping 
 up the fight for Radicalism against the Whig ministry. 
 During the session of 1834 I wrote comments on 
 passing events, of the nature of newspaper articles 
 (under the title of " Notes on the Newspapers"), in 
 | the Monthly Repository, a magazine conducted by 
 Mr. Fox, well known as a preacher and political 
 I orator, and subsequently as member of Parliament 
 : for Oldham ; with whom I had lately become ac- 
 l quainted, and for whose sake chiefly I wrote in his 
 I magazine. I contributed several other articles to 
 this periodical, the most considerable of which (on 
 i the theory of Poetry), is reprinted in the " Disserta- 
 tions." Altogether, the writings (independently of 
 
193 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST 
 
 those in newspapers) which I published-from 1832 to 
 1834, amount to a large volume. This, however, 
 includes abstracts of several of Plato's Dialogues, 
 with introductory remarks, which, though not jmb- 
 lished until 1834, had been written several years 
 earlier ; and which I afterwards, on various occasions, 
 found to have been read, and their authorship known, 
 by more people than were aware of anything else 
 which I had written, up to that time. To complete 
 the tale of my writings at this period, I may add 
 that in 1833, at the request of Bulwer, who was just 
 then completing his " England and the English' ' (a 
 work, at that time, greatly in advance of the public 
 mind), I wrote for him a critical account of Bentham's 
 philosophy, a small part of which he incorporated in 
 his text, and printed the rest (with an honourable 
 acknowledgment), as an appendix. In this, along 
 with the favourable, a part also of the unfavourable 
 side of my estimation of Bentham's doctrines, con- 
 sidered as a complete philosophy, was for the first 
 time put into print. 
 
 But an opportunity soon offered, by which, as it 
 seemed, I might have it in my power to give 
 more effectual aid, and, at the same time, stimulus, 
 to the " philosophic Radical" party, than I had 
 done hitherto. One of the projects occasionally 
 talked of between my father and me, and some 
 of the parliamentary and other Radicals who 
 frequented his house, was the foundation of a 
 
 ■ 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 199 
 
 periodical organ of philosophic radicalism, to take 
 the place which the Westminster Review had been 
 intended to fill : and the scheme had gone so far as 
 to bring under discussion the pecuniary contributions 
 which could be looked for, and the choice of an 
 editor. Nothing, however, came of it for some time : 
 but in the summer of 1834 Sir William Molesworth, 
 himself a laborious student, and a precise and meta- 
 physical thinker, capable of aiding the cause by his 
 pen as well as by his purse, spontaneously proposed 
 to establish a Review, provided I would consent to 
 be the real, if I could not be the ostensible, editor. 
 Such a proposal was not to be refused ; and the 
 Review was founded, at first under the title of the 
 London Review, and afterwards under that of 
 the London and Westminster, Molesworth having 
 bought the Westminster from its proprietor, General 
 Thompson, and merged the two into one. In the 
 years between 1834 and 1840 the conduct of this 
 Review occupied the greater part of my spare time. 
 In the beginning, it did not, as a whole, by any 
 means represent my opinions. I was under the 
 necessity of conceding much to my inevitable asso- 
 ciates. The Review was established to be the repre- 
 sentative of the " philosophic Radicals," with most 
 of whom I was now at issue on many essential points, 
 and among whom I could not even claim to be the 
 most important individual. My father s co-operation 
 as a writer we all deemed indispensable, and he wrote 
 
200 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST 
 
 largely in it until prevented by his la£fc illness. 
 The subjects of his articles, and the strength and 
 decision with which his opinions were expressed in 
 them, made the Review at first derive its tone and 
 colouring from him much more than from any 
 of the other writers. I could not exercise editorial 
 control over his articles, and I was sometimes obliged 
 to sacrifice to him portions of my own. The old 
 Westminster Review doctrines, but little modified, 
 thus formed the staple of the Review ; but I hoped, 
 by the side of these, to introduce other ideas 
 and another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of 
 opinion a fair representation, along with those of 
 other members of the party. With this end chiefly 
 in view, I made it one of the peculiarities of the 
 work that every article should bear an initial, or some 
 other signature, and be held to express the opinions 
 solely of the individual writer ; the editor being only 
 responsible for its being worth publishing, and not in 
 conflict with the objects for which the Review was set 
 on foot. I had an opportunity of putting in practice 
 my scheme of conciliation between the old and the 
 new " philosophic radicalism," by the choice of a sub- 
 ject for my own first contribution. Professor Sedg- 
 wick, a man of eminence in a particular walk of 
 natural science, but who should not have trespassed 
 into philosophy, had lately published his Discourse 
 on the Studies of Cambridge, which had as its most 
 
VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. 201 
 
 prominent feature an intemperate assault on analytic 
 psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of an 
 attack on Locke and Paley. This had excited great 
 indignation in my father and others, which I thought 
 it fully deserved. And here, I imagined, was an 
 opportunity of at the same time repelling an unjust 
 attack, and inserting into my defence of Hartleianism 
 and Utilitarianism a number of the opinions which 
 constituted my view of those subjects, as distinguished 
 from that of my old associates. In this I partially 
 succeeded, though my relation to my father would 
 have made it painful to me in any case, and impos- 
 sible in a Review for which he wrote, to speak out 
 my whole mind on the subject at this time. 
 
 I am, however, inclined to think that my father 
 was not so much opposed as he seemed, to the modes 
 of thought in which I believed myself to differ from 
 him ; that he did injustice to his own opinions by 
 the unconscious exaggerations of an intellect em- 
 phatically polemical ; and that when thinking with- 
 out an adversary in view, he was willing to make 
 room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to 
 deny. I have frequently observed that he made 
 large allowance in practice for considerations which 
 seemed to have no place in his theory. His " Frag- 
 ment on Mackintosh," which he wrote and published 
 about this time, although I greatly admired some 
 parts of it, I read as a whole with more pain than 
 
202 My father's deatA. 
 
 pleasure ; yet on reading it again, long after, I found 
 little in the opinions it contains, but what I think in 
 the main just ; and I can even sympathize in his 
 disgust at the verbiage of Mackintosh, though his 
 asperity towards it went not only beyond what was 
 judicious, but beyond what was even fair. One 
 thing, which I thought, at the time, of good augury, 
 was the very favourable reception he gave to 
 Tocquevilles "Democracy in America." It is true, 
 he said and thought much more about what Tocque- 
 ville said in favour of democracy, than about what 
 he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high appre- 
 ciation of a book which was at any rate an example 
 of a mode of treating the question of government 
 almost the reverse of his — wholly inductive and 
 analytical, instead of purely ratiocinative — gave me 
 great encouragement. He also approved of an article 
 which I published in the first number following the 
 junction of the two reviews, the essay reprinted in 
 the " Dissertations," under the title " Civilization ;" 
 into which I threw many of my new opinions, and 
 criticised rather emphatically the mental and moral 
 tendencies of the time, on grounds and in a manner 
 which I certainly had not learnt from him. 
 
 All speculation, however, on the possible future 
 developments of my father's opinions, and on the 
 probabilities of permanent co-operation between him 
 and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was 
 
my father's death. 203 
 
 doomed to be cut short. During the whole of 1835 
 his health had been declining : his symptoms became 
 unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and 
 after lingering to the last stage of debility, he died 
 on the 23rd of June, 1836. Until the last few days 
 of his life there was no apparent abatement of intel- 
 lectual vigour ; his interest in all things and persons 
 that had interested him through life was un- 
 diminished, nor did the approach of death cause 
 the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm a 
 mind it was impossible that it should) in his con- 
 victions on the subject of religion. His principal 
 satisfaction, after he knew that his end was near, 
 seemed to be the thought of what he had done to 
 make the world better than he found it ; and his 
 chief regret in not living longer, that he had not had 
 time to do more. 
 
 His place is an eminent one in the literary, and 
 even in the political history of his country ; and it 
 is far from honourable to the generation which has 
 benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom men- 
 tioned, and, compared with men far his inferiors, 
 so little remembered. This is probably to be ascribed 
 mainly to two causes. In the first place, the thought 
 of him merges too much in the deservedly superior 
 fame of Bentham. Yet he was anything but Ben- 
 tham s mere follower or disciple. Precisely because 
 he was himself one of the most original thinkers of 
 
204 my father's death. 
 
 his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and 
 adopt the most important mass of original thought 
 which had been produced by the generation pre- 
 ceding him. His mind and Bentham's were essen- 
 tially of different construction. He had not all 
 Bentham's high qualities, but neither had Bentham 
 all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to claim for 
 him the praise of having accomplished for mankind 
 such splendid services as Bentham's. He did not 
 revolutionize, or rather create, one of the great 
 departments of human thought. But, leaving out 
 of the reckoning all that portion of his labours in 
 which he benefited by what Bentham had done, and 
 counting only what he achieved in a province in 
 which Bentham had done nothing, that of analytic 
 psychology, he will be known to posterity as one of 
 the greatest names in that most important branch 
 of speculation, on which all the moral and political 
 sciences ultimately rest, and will mark one of the 
 essential stages in its progress. The other reason 
 which has made his fame less than he deserved, 
 is that notwithstanding the great number of his 
 opinions which, partly through his own efforts, have 
 now been generally adopted, there was, on the 
 whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and 
 that of the present time. As Brutus was called the 
 last of the Romans, so was he the last of the 
 eighteenth century : he continued its tone of 
 
MY FATHERS DEATH. 205 
 
 thought and sentiment into the nineteenth (though 
 not unmodified nor unimproved), partaking neither 
 in the good nor in the bad influences of the reaction 
 against the eighteenth century, which was the great 
 characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. 
 The eighteenth century was a great age, an age of 
 strong and brave men, and he was a fit companion 
 for its strongest and bravest. By his writings and 
 his personal influence he was a great centre of light 
 to his generation. During his later years he was 
 quite as much the head and leader of the intellec- 
 tual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the 
 pldlosophes of France. It is only one of his minor 
 merits, that he was the originator of all sound states- 
 manship in regard to the subject of his largest 
 work, India. lie wrote on no subject which he did 
 not enrich with valuable thought, and excepting 
 the " Elements of Political Economy," a very useful 
 book when first written, but which has now for 
 some time finished its work, it will be long before 
 any of his books will be wholly superseded, or will 
 cease to be instructive reading to students of their 
 subjects. In the power of influencing by mere force 
 of mind and character, the convictions and purposes 
 of others, and in the strenuous exertion of that 
 power to promote freedom and progress, he left, as 
 my knowledge extends, no equal among men, and 
 but one among women. 
 
206 WRITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in 
 the qualities by which he acquired his persona] 
 ascendancy, I had now to try what it might be pos- 
 sible for me to accomplish without him : and the 
 Review was the instrument on which I built my 
 chief hopes of establishing a useful influence over 
 the liberal and democratic section of the public 
 mind. Deprived of my father's aid, I was also 
 exempted from the restraints and reticences by 
 which that aid had been purchased. I did not feel 
 that there was any other radical writer or politician 
 to whom I was bound to defer, further than con- 
 sisted with my own opinions : and having the com- 
 plete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved henceforth 
 to give full scope to my own opinions and modes of 
 thought, and to open the Heview widely to all writer* 
 who were in sympathy with Progress as I understood 
 it, even though I should lose by it the support of 
 my former associates. Carlyle, consequently, became 
 from this time a frequent writer in the Review J 
 Sterling, soon after, an occasional one ; and though 
 each individual article continued to be the expression 
 of the private sentiments of its writer, the general 
 tone conformed in some tolerable degree to my 
 opinions. For the conduct of the Review, under, 
 and in conjunction with me, I associated with myself 
 a young Scotchman of the name of Robertson, who 
 had some ability and information, much industry, 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 207 
 
 and an active scheming head, full of devices for 
 making the Review more saleable, and on whose 
 capacities in that direction I founded a good deal of 
 hope : insomuch, that when Molesworth, in the 
 beginning of 1837, became tired of carrying on the 
 Review at a loss, and desirous of getting rid of it 
 (he had done his part honourably, and at no small 
 pecuniary cost,) I, very imprudently for my own 
 pecuniary interest, and very much from reliance on 
 Robertsons devices, determined to continue it at my 
 own risk, until his plans should have had a fair trial. 
 The devices were good, and I never had any reason 
 to change my opinion of them. But I do not believe 
 that any devices would have made a radical and 
 democratic review defray its expenses, including a 
 paid editor or sub-editor, and a liberal payment to 
 writers. I myself and several frequent contributors 
 gave our labour gratuitously, as we had done for 
 Molesworth ; but the paid contributors continued to 
 be remunerated on the usual scale of the Edinburgh 
 and Quarterly Reviews ; and this could not be done 
 from the proceeds of the sale. 
 
 In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these 
 occupations, I resumed the Logic. I had not touched 
 my pen on the subject for five years, having been 
 stopped and brought to a halt on the threshold of 
 Induction. I had gradually discovered that what- 
 was mainly wanting, to overcome the difficulties of 
 
208 WHITINGS AND OTHEH 
 
 that branch of the subject, was a comprehensive, 
 and, at the same time, accurate view of the whole 
 circle of physical science, which I feared it would 
 take me a long course of study to acquire ; since I 
 knew not of any book, or other guide, that would 
 spread out before me the generalities and processes 
 of the sciences, and I apprehended that I should have 
 no choice but to extract them for myself, as I best 
 could, from the details. Happily for me, Dr. Whewell, 
 early in this year, published his History of the 
 Inductive Sciences. I read it with eagerness, and 
 found in it a considerable approximation to what I 
 wanted. Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the 
 work appeared open to objection ; but the materials 
 were there, for my own thoughts to work upon : and 
 the author had given to those materials that first 
 degree of elaboration, which so greatly facilitates and 
 abridges the subsequent labour. I had now obtained 
 what I had been waiting for. Under the impulse 
 given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, 
 I read again Sir J. Herschel's discourse on the 
 Study of Natural Philosophy : and I was able 
 to measure the progress my mind had made, by the 
 great help I now found in this work — though I had 
 read and even reviewed it several years before with 
 little profit. I now set myself vigorously to work 
 out the subject in thought and in "writing. The 
 time I bestowed on this had to be stolen from occu- 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 209 
 
 pations more urgent. I had just two months to 
 spare, at this period, in the intervals of writing for 
 the Review. In these two months I completed the 
 first draft of about a third, the most difficult third, of 
 the book. What I had before written, I estimate at 
 another third, so that only one-third remained, 
 What I wrote at this time consisted of the remainder 
 of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of Trains 
 of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and the 
 greater part of the Book on Induction. When this 
 was done, I had, as it seemed to me, untied all the 
 really hard knots, and the completion of the book 
 had become only a question of time. Having got 
 thus far, I had to leave off in order to write two 
 articles for the next number of the Review. When 
 these were written, I returned to the subject, and 
 now for the first time fell in with Comte's Cour de 
 Philosophic Positive, or rather with the two volumes 
 of it which were all that had at that time been 
 published. 
 
 My theory of Induction was substantially com- 
 pleted before I knew of Comte's book ; and it is 
 perhaps well that I came to it by a different road 
 from his, since the consequence has been that my 
 treatise contains, what his certainly does not, a 
 reduction of the inductive process to strict rules and 
 to a scientific test, such as the syllogism is for ratio- 
 cination. Comte is always precise and profound on 
 
 p 
 
210 WRITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 the method of investigation, but he does * not even 
 attempt any exact definition of the conditions of 
 proof: and his writings show that he never attained 
 a just conception of them. This, however, was 
 specifically the problem which, in treating of Induc- 
 tion, I had proposed to myself. Nevertheless, I 
 gained much from Comte, with which to enrich my 
 chapters in the subsequent rewriting : and his book 
 was of essential service to me in some of the parts 
 which still remained to be thought out. As his sub- 
 sequent volumes successively made their appearance, 
 I read them with avidity, but, when he reached the 
 subject of Social Science, with varying feelings. 
 The fourth volume disappointed me : it contained 
 those of his opinions on social subjects with which I 
 most disagree. But the fifth, containing the con- 
 nected view of history, rekindled all my enthusiasm ; 
 which the sixth (or concluding) volume did not mate- 
 rially abate. In a merely logical point of view, the 
 only leading conception for which I am indebted to 
 him is that of the Inverse Deductive Method, as the 
 one chiefly applicable to the complicated subjects of 
 History and Statistics : a process differing from the 
 more common form of the deductive method in 
 this — that instead of arriving at its conclusions by 
 general reasoning, and verifying them by specific 
 experience (as is the natural order in the deductive 
 branches of physical science), it obtains its generali- 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 211 
 
 zations by a collation of specific experience, and 
 verifies them by ascertaining whether they are such 
 as would follow from known general principles. 
 This was an idea entirely new to me when I found 
 it in Comte : and but for him I might not soon (if 
 ever) have arrived at it. 
 
 I had been long an ardent admirer of Comtes 
 writings before I had any communication with him- 
 self; nor did I ever, to the last, see him in the body. 
 But for some years we were frequent correspondents, 
 until our correspondence became controversial, and 
 our zeal cooled. I was the first to slacken corre- 
 spondence ; he was the first to drop it. I found, and 
 he probably found likewise, that I could do no good 
 to his mind, and that all the good he could do to 
 mine, he did by his books. This would never have 
 led to discontinuance of intercourse, if the differences 
 between us had been on matters of simple doctiine. 
 But they were chiefly on those points of opinion 
 which blended in both of us with our strongest 
 feelings, and determined the entire direction of our 
 aspirations. I had fully agreed with him when he 
 maintained that the mass of mankind, including 
 even their rulers in all the practical departments of 
 life, must, from the necessity of the case, accept most 
 of their opinions on political and social matters, as 
 they do on physical, from the authority of those who 
 have bestowed more study on those subjects than 
 
 P 2 
 
212 WRITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 they generally have it in their power £o do. This 
 lesson had been strongly impressed on me by the 
 early work of Comte, to which I have adverted. 
 And there was nothing in his great Treatise which I 
 admired more than his remarkable exposition of the 
 benefits which the nations of modern Europe have 
 historically derived from the separation, during the 
 Middle Ages, of temporal and spiritual power, and 
 the distinct organization of the latter. I agreed 
 with him that the moral and intellectual ascendancy, 
 once exercised by priests, must in time pass into the 
 hands of philosophers, and will naturally do so when 
 they become sufficiently unanimous, and in other 
 respects worthy to possess it. But when he exagge- 
 rated this line of thought into a practical system, in 
 which philosophers were to be organized into a kind 
 of corporate hierarchy, invested with almost the same 
 spiritual supremacy (though without any secular 
 power) once possessed by the Catholic Church ; when 
 I found him relying on this spiritual authority as the 
 only security for good government, the sole bulwark 
 against practical oppression, and expecting that by 
 it a system of despotism in the state and despotism 
 in the family would be rendered innocuous and bene- 
 ficial ; it is not surprising, that while as logicians we 
 were nearly at one, as sociologists we could travel 
 together no further. M. Comte lived to cany out 
 these doctrines to their extremest consequences, by 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 213 
 
 planning, in his last work, the " Systeme de Politique 
 Positive," the completest system of spiritual and 
 temporal despotism which ever yet emanated from a 
 human brain, unless possibly that of Ignatius Loyola : 
 a system by winch the yoke of general opinion, 
 wielded by an organized body of spiritual teachers 
 and rulers, would be made supreme over every action, 
 and as far as is in human possibility, every thought, 
 of every member of the community, as well in the 
 things which regard only himself, as in those which 
 concern the interests of others. It is but just to 
 say that this work is a considerable improvement, in 
 many points of feeling, over Comte's previous 
 writings on the same subjects : but as an accession 
 to social philosophy, the only value it seems to me 
 to possess, consists in putting an end to the notion 
 that no effectual moral authority can be maintained 
 over society without the aid of religious belief; 
 for Comte's work recognises no religion except that 
 of Humanity, yet it leaves an irresistible convic- 
 tion that any moral beliefs concurred in by the 
 community generally, may be brought to bear upon 
 the whole conduct and lives of its individual 
 members, with an energy and potency truly alarm- 
 ing to think of. The book stands a monumental 
 warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what 
 happens when once men lose sight in their specula- 
 tions, of the value of Liberty and of Individuality. 
 
214 WRITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 To return to myself. The Review engrossed, for 
 some time longer, nearly all the time I could devote 
 to authorship, or to thinking with authorship in 
 view. The articles from the London and Westmin- 
 ster Review which are reprinted in the " Disserta- 
 tions," are scarcely a fourth part of those I wrote. 
 In the conduct of the Review I had two principal 
 objects. One was to free philosophic radicalism from 
 the reproach of sectarian Benthamism. I desired, 
 while retaining the precision of expression, the 
 definiteness of meaning, the contempt of declama- 
 tory phrases and vague generalities, which were so 
 honourably characteristic both of Bentham and of my 
 father, to give a wider basis and a more free and 
 genial character to Radical speculations ; to show 
 that there was a Radical philosophy, better and more 
 complete than Bentham's, while recognising and in- 
 corporating all of Bentham's which is permanently 
 valuable. In this first object I, to a certain extent, 
 succeeded. The other thing I attempted, was to 
 stir up the educated Radicals, in and out of Par- 
 liament, to exertion, and induce them to make them- 
 selves, what I thought by using the proper means 
 they might become — a powerful party capable of 
 taking the government of the country, or at least of 
 dictating the terms on which they should share it 
 with the Whigs. This attempt was from the first 
 chimerical : partly because the time was unpropitious, 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 215 
 
 the Reform fervour being in its period of ebb, and 
 the Tory influences powerfully rallying ; but still 
 more, because, as Austin so truly said, "the country 
 did not contain the men." Among the Radicals in 
 Parliament there were several qualified to be useful 
 members of an enlightened Radical party, but none 
 capable of forming and leading such a party. The 
 exhortations I addressed to them found no response. 
 One occasion did present itself when there seemed 
 to be room for a bold and successful stroke for 
 Radicalism. Lord Durham had left the Ministry, 
 by reason, as was thought, of their not being suffi- 
 ciently Liberal ; he afterwards accepted from them 
 the task of ascertaining and removing the causes of 
 the Canadian rebellion ; he had shown a disposition 
 to surround himself at the outset with Radical 
 advisers ; one of his earliest measures, a good 
 measure both in intention and in effect, having been 
 disapproved and reversed by the Government at 
 home, he had resigned his post, and placed himself 
 openly in a position of quarrel with the Ministers. 
 Here was a possible chief for a Radical party in the 
 person of a man of importance, who was hated by 
 the Tories and had just been injured by the Whigs. 
 Any one who had the most elementary notions of 
 party tactics, must have attempted to make some- 
 thing of such an opportunity. Lord Durham was 
 bitterly attacked from all sides, inveighed against by 
 
216 WRITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 enemies, given up by timid friends ; while those who 
 would willingly have defended him did not know 
 what to say. He appeared to be returning a de- 
 feated and discredited man. I had followed the 
 Canadian events from the beginning; I had been 
 one of the prompters of his prompters ; his policy 
 was almost exactly what mine would have been, 
 and I was in a position to defend it. I wrote and 
 published a manifesto in the Review, in which I took 
 the very highest ground in his behalf, claiming for 
 him not mere acquittal, but praise and honour. In- 
 stantly a number of other writers took up the tone : 
 I believe there was a portion of truth in what Lord 
 Durham, soon after, with polite exaggeration, said to 
 me — that to this article might be ascribed the 
 almost triumphal reception which he met with on 
 his arrival in England. I believe it to have been 
 the word in season, which, at a critical moment, 
 does much to decide the result ; the touch which 
 determines whether a stone, set in motion at the top 
 of an eminence, shall roll down on one side or on the j 
 other. All hopes connected with Lord Durham as 
 a politician soon vanished; but with regard to 
 Canadian, and generally to colonial policy, the cause 
 was gained : Lord Durham's report, written by 
 Charles Buller, partly under the inspiration of 
 Wakefield, began a new era; its recommendations, 
 extending to complete internal self-government, 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 217 
 
 were in full operation in Canada within two or 
 three years, and have been since extended to nearly 
 all the other colonies, of European race, which have 
 any claim to the character of important communi- 
 ties. And I may say that in successfully upholding 
 the reputation of Lord Durham and his advisers at 
 the most important moment, I contributed materially 
 to this result. 
 
 One other case occurred during my conduct of the 
 Review, which similarly illustrated the effect of taking 
 a prompt initiative. I believe that the early success 
 and reputation of Carlyle's French Revolution, were 
 considerably accelerated by what I wrote about it in 
 the Review. Immediately on its publication, and before 
 the commonplace critics, all whose rules and modes of 
 judgment it set at defiance, had time to pre-occupy the 
 public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and pub- 
 lished a review of the book, hailing it as one of those 
 productions of genius which are above all rules, and 
 are a law to themselves. Neither in this case nor in 
 that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the impression, 
 which I think was produced by what I wrote, to any 
 particular merit of execution : indeed, in at least one 
 of the cases (the article on Carlyle) I do not think 
 the execution was good. And in both instances, I 
 am persuaded that anybody, in a position to be read, 
 who had expressed the same opinion at the same 
 precise time, and had made any tolerable statement 
 
218 WHITINGS AND OTHER 
 
 of the just grounds for it, would have produced the 
 same effect. But, after the complete failure of my 
 hopes of putting a new life into Radical politics by- 
 means of the Review, I am glad to look back on these 
 two instances of success in an honest attempt to do 
 immediate service to things and persons that de- 
 served it. 
 
 After the last hope of the formation of a Radical 
 party had disappeared, it was time for me to stop 
 the heavy expenditure of time and money which the 
 Review cost me. It had to some extent answered my 
 personal purpose as a vehicle for my opinions. It had 
 enabled me to express in print much of my altered 
 mode of thought, and to separate myself in a marked 
 manner from the narrower Benthamism of my early 
 writings. This was done by the general tone of all 
 I wrote, including various purely literary articles, 
 but especially by the two papers (reprinted in 
 the Dissertations) which attempted a philosophical 
 estimate of Bentham and of Coleridge. In the first of 
 these, while doing full justice to the merits of 
 Bentham, I pointed out what I thought the errors 
 and deficiencies of his philosophy. The substance of 
 this criticism I still think perfectly just ; but I have 
 sometimes doubted whether it was right to publish 
 it at that time. I have often felt that Bentham's 
 philosophy, as an instrument of progress, has been to 
 some extent discredited before it had done its work, 
 
PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840. 219 
 
 and that to lend a hand towards lowering its reputa- 
 tion was doing more harm than service to improve- 
 ment. Now, however, when a counter-reaction 
 appears to be setting in towards what is good in 
 Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on 
 this criticism of its defects, especially as I have 
 , myself balanced it by vindications of the fundamental 
 principles of Benthams philosophy, which are re- 
 printed along with it in the same collection. In the 
 essay on Coleridge I attempted to characterize the 
 European reaction against the negative philosophy of 
 the eighteenth century : and here, if the effect only 
 of this one paper were to be considered, I might be 
 thought to have erred by giving undue prominence 
 to the favourable side, as I had done in the case of 
 Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the 
 impetus with which I had detached myself from 
 what was untenable in the doctrines of Bentham and 
 of the eighteenth century, may have carried me, 
 though in appearance rather than in reality, too 
 far on the contrary side. But as far as relates to the 
 article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was writing 
 for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to 
 dwell most on that, in writers of a different school, 
 from the knowledge of which, they might derive most 
 improvement. 
 
 The number of the Review which contained the 
 paper on Coleridge, was the last which was published 
 
220 WRITINGS, ETC., UP TO 1840. 
 
 during my proprietorship. In the spring of 1840 I 
 made over the Review to Mr, Hickson, who had 
 been a frequent and very useful unpaid contributor 
 under my management: only stipulating that the 
 change should be marked by a resumption of the old 
 name, that of Westminster Review. Under that 
 name Mr. Hickson conducted it for ten years, on the 
 plan of dividing among contributors only .the net 
 proceeds of the Review, giving his own labour as 
 writer and editor gratuitously. Under the difficulty 
 in obtaining writers, which arose from this low scale 
 of payment, it is highly creditable to him that he 
 was able to maintain, in some tolerable degree, the 
 character of the Review as an organ of radicalism 
 and progress. I did not cease altogether to write 
 for the Review, but continued to send it occasional 
 contributions, not, however, exclusively ; for the 
 greater circulation of the Edinburgh Review induced 
 me from this time to offer articles to it also when I 
 had anything to say for which it appeared to be a 
 suitable vehicle. And the concluding volumes of 
 " Democracy in America," having just then come out, 
 I inaugurated myself as a contributor to the Edin- 
 burgh, by the article on that work, which heads the 
 second volume of the " Dissertations." 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 
 
 T^ROM this time, what is worth relating of my life 
 will come into a very small compass ; for I have 
 no farther mental changes to tell of, but only, as I 
 hope, a continued mental progress ; which does not 
 admit of a consecutive history, and the results of 
 which, if real, will be best found in my writings. I 
 shall, therefore, greatly abridge the chronicle of my 
 subsequent years. 
 
 The first use I made of the leisure which I gained 
 by disconnecting myself from the lieview, was to 
 finish the Logic. In July and August 1838, I had 
 found an interval in which to execute what was still 
 undone of the original draft of the Third Book. In 
 working out the logical theory of those laws of 
 nature which are not laws of Causation, nor corollaries 
 from such laws, I was led to recognise kinds as 
 realities in nature, and not mere distinctions for con- 
 venience ; a light which I had not obtained when the 
 First Book was written, and which made it necessary 
 for me to modify and enlarge several chapters of 
 that Book. The Book on Language and Classification, 
 
222 COMPLETION OF THE 
 
 and the chapter on the Classification of Fallacies, were 
 drafted in the autumn of the same year ; the re- 
 mainder of the work, in the summer and autumn of 
 1840. From April following, to the end of 1841, my 
 spare time was devoted to a complete re- writing of 
 the book from its commencement. It is in this way 
 that all my books have been composed. They were 
 always written at least twice over ; a first draft of 
 the entire work was completed to the very end of 
 the subject, then the whole begun again de novo ; 
 but incorporating, in the second writing, all sentences 
 and parts of sentences of the old draft, which ap- 
 peared as suitable to my purpose as anything which 
 I could write in lieu of them. I have found great 
 advantages in this system of double redaction. It 
 combines, better than any other mode of composition, 
 the freshness and vigour of the first conception, with 
 the superior precision and completeness resulting [ 
 from prolonged thought. In my own case, moreover, 
 I have found that the patience necessary for a 
 careful elaboration of the details of composition and 
 expression, costs much less effort after the entire 
 subject has been once gone through, and the 
 substance of all that I find to say has in some 
 manner, however imperfect, been got upon paper. 
 The only thing which I am careful, in the first draft, 
 to make as perfect as I am able, is the arrangement. 
 If that is bad, the whole thread on which the ideas 
 
SYSTEM OF LOGIC. 223 
 
 string themselves becomes twisted ; thoughts placed 
 in a wrong connexion are not expounded in a manner 
 that suits the right, and a first draft with this 
 original vice is next to useless as a foundation for 
 the final treatment. 
 
 During the re-writing of the Logic, Dr. WhewelTs 
 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences made its 
 appearance ; a circumstance fortunate for me, as it 
 gave me what I greatly desired, a full treatment of 
 the subject by an antagonist, and enabled me to 
 present my ideas with greater clearness and emphasis 
 as well as fuller and more varied development, in 
 defending them against definite objections, or con- 
 fronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. 
 The controversies with Dr. Whewell, as well as much 
 matter derived from Comte, were first introduced 
 into the book in the course of the re-writing. 
 
 At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the 
 press, I offered it to Murray, who kept it until too 
 late for publication that season, and then refused it, 
 for reasons which could just as well have been given 
 at first. But I have had no cause to regret a rejection 
 which led to my offering it to Mr. Parker, by whom it 
 was published in the spring of 1843. My original ex- 
 pectations of success were extremely limited. Arch- 
 bishop Whately had, indeed, rehabilitated the name 
 of Logic, and the study of the forms, rules, and 
 fallacies of Ratiocination ; and Dr. WhewelTs 
 
224 COMPLETION OF THE 
 
 writings had begun to excite an interest in the 
 other part of my subject, the theory of Induction. 
 A treatise, however, on a matter so abstract, could 
 not be expected to be popular ; it could only be a 
 book for students, and students on such subjects 
 were not only (at least in England) few, but ad- 
 dicted chiefly to the opposite school of metaphysics, 
 the ontological and " innate principles " school. I 
 therefore did not expect that the book would have 
 many readers, or approvers ; and looked for little 
 practical effect from it, save that of keeping the 
 tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philo- 
 sophy. What hopes I had of exciting any im- 
 mediate attention, were mainly grounded on the 
 polemical propensities of Dr. Whewell ; who, I 
 thought, from observation of his conduct in other 
 cases, would probably do something to bring the 
 book into notice, by replying, and that promptly, to 
 the attack on his opinions. He did reply, but not 
 till 1850, just in time for me to answer him in the 
 third edition. How the book came to have, for a < 
 work of the kind, so much success, and what sort of 
 persons compose the bulk of those who have bought, 
 I will not venture to say read, it, I have never i 
 thoroughly understood. But taken in conjunction 
 with the many proofs which have since been given 
 of a revival of speculation, speculation too of a free 
 kind, in many quarters, and above all (where at one 
 
 •i 
 
SYSTEM OF LOGIC* 225 
 
 ! time I should have least expected it) in the Uni- 
 versities, the fact becomes partially intelligible. I 
 | have never indulged the illusion that the book had 
 I made any considerable impression on philosophical 
 ■ opinion. The German, or a priori view of human 
 : knowledge, and of the knowing faculties, is likely for 
 : some time longer (though it may be hoped in a 
 is diminishing degree) to predominate among those who 
 occupy themselves with such inquiries, both here and 
 on the Continent. But the " System of Logic " 
 supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the 
 opposite doctrine — that which derives all knowledge 
 from experience, and all moral and intellectual 
 qualities principally from the direction given to the 
 associations. I make as humble an estimate as any- 
 body of what either an analysis of logical processes, 
 or any possible canons of evidence, can do by them- 
 selves, towards guiding or rectifying the operations 
 of the understanding. Combined with other re- 
 quisites, I certainly do think them of great use ; 
 but whatever may be the practical value of a true 
 philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to 
 exaggerate the mischiefs of a false one. The 
 notion that truths external to the mind may be 
 known by intuition or consciousness, independently 
 of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in 
 these times, the great intellectual support of false 
 doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this 
 
 Q 
 
226 COMPLETION OF THE 
 
 theory, every inveterate belief and every intense 
 feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is 
 enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying 
 itself by reason, and is erected into its own all- 
 sufficient voucher and justification. There never 
 was such an instrument devised for consecrating all 
 deep-seated prejudices. And the chief strength of 
 this false philosophy in morals, politics, and religion, 
 lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to 
 the evidence of mathematics and of the cognate 
 branches of physical science. To expel rfc from these, 
 is to drive it from its stronghold : and because this 
 had never been effectually done, the intuitive school, 
 even after what my father had written in his Analysis 
 of the Mind, had in appearance, and as far as 
 published writings were concerned, on the w^hole the 
 best of the argument. In attempting to clear up the 
 real nature of the evidence of mathematical and 
 physical truths, the " System of Logic " met the 
 intuitive philosophers on ground on which they had 
 previously been deemed unassailable ; and gave its 
 own explanation, from experience and association, 
 of that peculiar character of what are called necessary 
 truths, which is adduced as proof that their evidence 
 must come from a deeper source than experience. 
 Whether this has been done effectually, is still sub 
 judice ; and even then, to deprive a mode of thought so 
 strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities, 
 
SYSTEM OF LOGIC. 227 
 
 of its mere speculative support, goes but a very little 
 
 way towards overcoming it ; but though only a step, 
 
 it is a quite indispensable one ; for since, after all, 
 
 prejudice can only be successfully combated by 
 
 philosophy, no way can really be made against it 
 
 ■ permanently until it has been shown not to have 
 
 | philosophy on its side. 
 
 Being now released from any active concern in 
 
 temporary politics, and from any literary occupation 
 
 , involving personal communication with contributors 
 
 I and others, I was enabled to indulge the inclination, 
 
 i natural to thinking persons when the age of boyish 
 
 vanity is once past, for limiting my own society to 
 
 a very few persons. General society, as now carried 
 i 
 ; on in England, is so insipid an affair, even to the 
 
 I persons who make it what it is, that it is kept up 
 | for any reason rather than the pleasure it affords. 
 All serious discussion on matters on which opinions 
 differ, being considered ill-bred, and the national 
 deficiency in liveliness and sociability having pre- 
 vented the cultivation of the art of talking agreeably 
 on trifles, in which the French of the last century so 
 much excelled, the sole attraction of what is called 
 society to those who are not at the top of the tree, is 
 the hope of being aided to climb a little higher in it; 
 while to those who are already at the top, it is chiefly 
 a compliance with custom, and with the supposed 
 requirements of their station. To a person of any 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 but a very common order in thought of feeling, such 
 society, unless he has personal objects to serve by it, 
 must be supremely unattractive : and most people, 
 in the present day, of any really high class of in- 
 tellect, make their contact with it so slight, and at 
 such long intervals, as to be almost considered as 
 retiring from it altogether. Those persons of any 
 mental superiority who do otherwise, are, almost 
 without exception, greatly deteriorated by it. Not 
 to mention loss of time, the tone of their feelings is 
 lowered : they become less in earnest about those of 
 their opinions respecting which they must remain 
 silent in the society they frequent : they come to 
 look upon their most elevated objects as unpractical, 
 or, at least, too remote from realization to be more 
 than a vision, or a theory ; and if, more fortunate 
 than most, they retain their higher principles unim- 
 paired, yet with respect to the persons and affairs of 
 their own day they insensibly adopt the modes of 
 feeling and judgment in which they can hope for 
 sympathy from the company they keep. A person 
 of high intellect should never go into unintellectual 
 I society unless he can enter it as an apostle ; yet he 
 is the only person with high objects who can safely 
 enter it at all. Persons even of intellectual aspira- 
 tions had much better, if they can, make their 
 habitual associates of at least their equals, and, as 
 far as possible, their superiors, in knowledge, intel- 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 229 
 
 lect, and elevation of sentiment. Moreover, if the 
 character is formed, and the mind made up, on the 
 few cardinal points of human opinion, agreement of 
 conviction and feeling on these, has been felt in all 
 times to be an essential requisite of anything 
 worthy the name of friendship, in a really earnest 
 mind. All these circumstances united, made the 
 number very small of those whose society, and 
 still more whose intimacy, I now voluntarily 
 sought. 
 
 Among these, the principal was the incomparable 
 friend of whom I have already spoken. At this 
 period she lived mostly with one young daughter, 
 in a quiet part of the country, and only occasionally 
 in town, with her first husband, Mr. Taylor. I 
 visited her equally in both places ; and was greatly 
 indebted to the strength of character which enabled 
 her to disregard the false interpretations liable to be 
 put on the frequency of my visits to her while living 
 generally apart from Mr. Taylor, and on our occa- 
 sionally travelling together, though in all other 
 respects our conduct during those years gave not 
 the slightest ground for any other supposition than 
 the true one, that our relation to each other at that 
 time was one of strong affection and confidential 
 intimacy only. For though we did not consider the 
 ordinances of society binding on a subject so entirely 
 personal, we did feel bound that our conduct should 
 
230 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 be such as in no degree to bring discredit on her 
 husband, nor therefore on herself. 
 
 In this third period (as it may be termed) of my 
 mental progress, which now went hand in hand with 
 hers, my opinions gained equally in breadth and 
 depth, I understood more things, and those which I 
 had understood before, I now understood more 
 thoroughly. I had now completely turned back 
 from what there had been of excess in my reaction 
 against Benthamism. I had, at the height of that 
 reaction, certainly become much more indulgent to 
 the common opinions of society and the world, and 
 more willing to be content with seconding the super- 
 ficial improvement which had begun to take place 
 in those common opinions, than became one whose 
 convictions, on so many points, differed fundamentally 
 from them. I was much more inclined, than I can 
 now approve, to put in abeyance the more decidedly 
 heretical part of my opinions, which I now look upon 
 as almost the only ones, the assertion of which tends 
 in any way to regenerate society. But in addition 
 to this, our opinions were far more heretical than 
 mine had been in the days of my most extreme 
 Benthamism. In those days I had seen little further 
 than the old school of political economists into the 
 possibilities of fundamental improvement in social 
 arrangements. Private property, as now understood, 
 and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 231 
 
 dernier mot of legislation : and I looked no further 
 than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on 
 these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture 
 and entails. The notion that it was possible to go 
 further than this in removing the injustice — for in- 
 justice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy 
 or not — involved in the fact that some are born 
 to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then 
 reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by uni- 
 versal education, leading to voluntary restraint on 
 population, the portion of the poor might be made 
 more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but 
 not the least of a Socialist. We were now much 
 less democrats than I had been, because so long as 
 education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, 
 we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfish- 
 ness and brutality of the mass : but our ideal of ulti- 
 mate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and 
 would class us decidedly under the general designation 
 of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest 
 energy that tyranny of society over the individual 
 which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, 
 we yet looked forward to a time when society will no 
 longer be divided into the idle and the industrious ; 
 when the rule that they who do not work shall not 
 eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impar- 
 tially to all ; when the division of the produce of 
 labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree 
 
232 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by 
 concert on an acknowledged principle of justice ; 
 and when it will no longer either be, or be thought 
 to be, impossible for human beings to exert them- 
 selves strenuously in procuring benefits which are 
 not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared 
 with the society they belong to. The social problem 
 of the future we considered to be, how to unite the 
 greatest individual liberty of action, with a common 
 ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an 
 equal participation of all in the benefits of combined 
 labour. We had not the presumption to suppose 
 tha,t we could already foresee, by what precise form 
 of institutions these objects could most effectually be 
 attained, or at how near or how distant a period 
 they would become practicable. We saw clearly 
 that to render any such social transformation either 
 possible or desirable, an equivalent change of 
 character must take place both in the uncultivated 
 herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in 
 the immense majority of their employers. Both these 
 classes must learn by practice to labour and combine 
 for generous, or at all events for public and social 
 purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly 
 interested ones. But the capacity to do this lias 
 always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever 
 likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the culti- 
 vation of the sentiments, will make a common man 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 233 
 
 dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for 
 his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, 
 and a system of culture prolonged through successive 
 generations, that men in general can be brought up 
 to this point. But the hindrance is not in the 
 essential constitution of human nature. Interest in 
 the common good is at present so weak a motive in 
 the generality, not because it can never be other- 
 wise, but because the mind is not accustomed to 
 dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on 
 things which tend only to personal advantage. When 
 called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the 
 daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the 
 love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable 
 of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous 
 exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The 
 deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general 
 character of the existing state of society, is so deeply 
 rooted, only because the whole course of existing 
 institutions tends to foster it ; and modern institutions 
 in some respects more than ancient, since the occa- 
 sion on which the individual is called on to do any- 
 thing for the public without receiving its pay, are 
 far less frequent in modern life, than in the smaller 
 commonwealths of antiquity. These considerations 
 did not make us overlook the folly of premature 
 attempts to dispense with the inducements of pri- 
 vate interest in social affairs, while no substitute for 
 
234 PUBLICATION OF THE 
 
 them has been or can be provided : but we regarded 
 all existing institutions and social arrangements as 
 being (in a phrase I once heard from Austin) " merely 
 provisional," and we welcomed with the greatest . 
 pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by 
 select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), 
 which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not 
 but operate as a most useful education of those who 
 took part in them, by cultivating their capacity 
 of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general 
 good, or making them aware of the defects which 
 render them and others incapable of doing so. 
 
 In the " Principles of Political Economy/' these 
 opinions were promulgated, less clearly and fully in 
 the first edition, rather more so in the second, and 
 quite unequivocally in the third. The difference 
 arose partly from the change of times, the first edition 
 having been written and sent to press before the 
 French Revolution of 1848, after which the public 
 mind became more open to the reception of novelties 
 in opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate which 
 would have been thought very startling a short time 
 before. In the first edition the difficulties of 
 socialism were stated so strongly, that the tone was 
 on the whole that of opposition to it. In the year or 
 two which followed, much time was given to the 
 study of the best Socialistic writers on the Continent, 
 and to meditation and discussion on the whole range 
 
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 235 
 
 of topics involved in the controversy : and the result 
 was that most of what had been written on the 
 subject in the first edition was cancelled, and replaced 
 by arguments and reflections which represent a more 
 advanced opinion. 
 
 The Political Economy was far more rapidly 
 executed than the Logic, or indeed than anything 
 of importance which I had previously written. It 
 was commenced in the autumn of 1845, and was 
 ready for the press before the end of 1847. In this 
 period of little more than two years there was an 
 interval of six months during which the work was 
 laid aside, while I was writing articles in the Morning 
 Chronicle (which unexpectedly entered warmly into 
 my purpose) urging the formation of peasant proper- 
 ties on the waste lands of Ireland. This was during 
 the period of the Famine, the winter of 1846-47, 
 when the stern necessities of the time seemed to 
 afford a chance of gaining attention for what appeared 
 to me the only mode of combining relief to immediate 
 destitution with permanent improvement of the 
 social . and economical condition of the Irish people. 
 But the idea was new and strange : there was no 
 English precedent for such a proceeding : and the 
 profound ignorance of English politicians and the 
 English public concerning all social phenomena not 
 generally met with in England (however common 
 elsewhere), made my endeavours an entire failure- 
 
236 PUBLICATION OF THE 
 
 Instead of a great operation on the waste lands, and 
 the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Parliament 
 passed a Poor Law for maintaining them as paupers : 
 and if the nation has not since found itself in inex- 
 tricable difficulties from the joint operation of the 
 old evils and the quack remedy, it is indebted for its 
 deliverance to that most unexpected and surprising 
 fact, the depopulation of Ireland, commenced by 
 famine, and continued by emigration. 
 
 The rapid success of the Political Economy showed 
 that the public wanted, and were prepared for such 
 a book. Published early in 1848, an edition of a 
 thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another 
 similar edition was published in the spring of 1849 ; 
 and a third, of 1250 copies, early in 1852. It was, 
 from the first, continually cited and referred to as 
 an authority, because it was not a book merely of 
 abstract science, but also of application, and treated 
 Political Economy not as a thing by itself, but as a 
 fragment of a greater whole ; a branch of Social 
 Philosophy, so interlinked with all the other 
 branches, that its conclusions, even in its own pecu- 
 liar province, are only true conditionally, subject to 
 interference and counteraction from causes not 
 directly within its scope : while to the character of 
 a practical guide it has no pretension, apart from 
 other classes of considerations. Political Economy, 
 in truth, has never pretended to give advice to 
 
PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. 237 
 
 mankind with no lights but its own ; though people 
 who knew nothing but political economy (and there- 
 fore knew that ill) have taken upon themselves to 
 advise, and could only do so by such lights as they 
 had. Bat the numerous sentimental enemies of 
 political economy, and its still more numerous in- 
 terested enemies in sentimental guise, have been 
 very successful in gaining belief for this among other 
 unmerited imputations against it, and the " Princi- 
 ples" having, in spite of the freedom of many of its 
 opinions, become for the present the most popular 
 treatise on the subject, has helped to disarm, the 
 enemies of so important a study. The amount of its 
 worth as an exposition of the science, and the value 
 of the different applications which it suggests, others 
 of course must judge. 
 
 For a considerable time after this, I published no 
 work of magnitude ; though I still occasionally wrote 
 in periodicals, and my correspondence (much of it 
 with persons quite unknown to me), on subjects of 
 public interest, swelled to a considerable bulk. 
 During these years I wrote or commenced various 
 Essays, for eventual publication, on some of the fun- 
 damental questions of human and social life, with 
 regard to several of which I have already much 
 exceeded the severity of the Horatian precept. I 
 continued to watch with keen interest the progress 
 of public events. But it was not, on the whole, 
 
238 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 very encouraging to me. The European reaction 
 after 1848, and the success of an unprincipled 
 usurper in December, 1851, put an end, as it seemed, 
 to all present hope of freedom or social improvement 
 in France and the Continent. In England, I had 
 seen and continued to see many of the opinions of 
 my youth obtain general recognition, and many of 
 the reforms in institutions, for which I had through 
 life contended, either effected or in course of being 
 so. But these changes had been attended with 
 much less benefit to human well-being than I should 
 formerly have anticipated, because they had produced 
 very little improvement in that which all real amelio- 
 ration in the lot of mankind depends on, their 
 intellectual and moral state : and it might even be 
 questioned if the various causes of deterioration 
 which had been at work in the meanwhile, had not 
 more than counterbalanced the tendencies to improve- 
 ment. I had learnt from experience that many false 
 opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in 
 the least altering the habits of mind of which false 
 opinions are the result. The English public, for 
 example, are quite as raw and undiscernnig on 
 subjects of political economy since the nation has 
 been converted to free-trade, as they were before ; 
 and are still further from having acquired better 
 habits of thought or feeling, or being in any way 
 better fortified against error, on subjects of a more 
 elevated character. For, though they have thrown 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 239 
 
 off certain errors, the general discipline of their 
 minds, intellectually and morally, is not altered. I 
 am now convinced, that no great improvements in 
 the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change 
 takes place in the fundamental constitution of their 
 modes of thought. The old opinions in religion, 
 morals, and politics, are so much discredited in the 
 more intellectual minds as to have lost the greater 
 part of their efficacy for good, while they have still 
 life enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to the 
 growing up of any better opinions on those subjects. 
 When the philosophic minds of the world can no 
 longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with 
 modifications amounting to an essential change of its 
 character, a transitional period commences, of weak 
 convictions, paralysed intellects, and growing laxity 
 of principle, which cannot terminate until a renova- 
 tion has been effected in the basis of their belief, 
 leading to the evolution of some faith, whether 
 religious or merely human, which they can really 
 believe : and when things are in this state, all think- 
 ing or writing which does not tend to promote such 
 a renovation, is of very little value beyond the 
 moment. Since there was little in the apparent 
 condition of the public mind, indicative of any ten- 
 dency in this direction, my view of the immediate 
 prospects of human improvement was not sanguine. 
 More recently a spirit of free speculation has sprung 
 up, giving a more encouraging prospect of the gradual 
 
240 MARRIAGE. 
 
 mental emancipation of England ; and concurring with 
 tlie renewal under better auspices, of the movement 
 for political freedom in the rest of Europe, has given 
 to the present condition of human affairs a more 
 hopeful aspect.* 
 
 Between the time of which I have now spoken, 
 and the present, took place the most important 
 events of my private life. The first of these was my 
 marriage, in April, 1851, to the lady whose incom- 
 parable worth had made her friendship the greatest 
 source to me both of happiness and of improvement, 
 during many years in which we never expected to 
 be in any closer relation to one another. Ardently 
 as I should have aspired to this complete union of 
 our lives at any time in the course of my existence 
 at which it had been practicable, I, as much as my 
 wife, would far rather have foregone that privilege 
 for ever, than have owed it to the premature death 
 of one for whom I had the sincerest respect, and she 
 the strongest affection. That event, however, having 
 taken place in July, 1849, it was granted to me to 
 derive from that evil my own greatest good, by 
 adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and 
 writing which had long existed, a partnership of our 
 entire existence. For seven and a-half years that 
 blessing was mine ; for seven and a-half only ! I 
 
 Written about 1861. 
 
MARRIAGE. 241 
 
 can say nothing which could describe, even in the 
 faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But 
 because I know that she would have wished it, I 
 endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, 
 and to work on for her purposes with such diminished 
 strength as can be derived from thoughts of her, and 
 communion with her memory. 
 
 When two persons have their thoughts and specu- 
 lations completely in common ; when all subjects of 
 intellectual or moral interest are discussed between 
 them in daily life, and probed to much greater 
 depths than are usually or conveniently sounded in 
 writings intended for general readers ; when they set 
 out from the same principles, and arrive at their 
 conclusions by processes pursued jointly, it is of 
 little consequence in respect to the question of origi- 
 nality, which of them holds the pen ; the one who 
 contributes least to the composition may contribute 
 most to the thought ; the writings which result are 
 the joint product of both, and it must often be im- 
 possible to disentangle their respective parts, and 
 affirm that this belongs to one and that to the other. 
 In this wide sense, not only during the years of our 
 married life, but during many of the yei-is of con- 
 fidential friendship which preceded, all my published 
 writings were as much her work as mine ; her share 
 in them constantly increasing as years advanced. 
 But in certain cases, what belongs to her can be 
 
 B 
 
242 MARRIAGE. 
 
 distinguished, and specially identified. "Over and 
 above the general influence which her mind had over 
 mine, the most valuable ideas and features in these 
 joint productions — those which have been most fruit- 
 ful of important results, and have contributed most 
 to the success and reputation of the works them- 
 selves — originated with her, were emanations from 
 her mind, my part in them being no greater than in 
 any of the thoughts which I found in previous 
 writers, and made my own only by incorporating 
 them with my own system of thought. During the 
 greater part of my literary life I have performed the 
 office in relation to her, which from a rather early 
 period I had considered as the most useful part that 
 I was qualified to take in the domain of thought, 
 that of an interpreter of original thinkers, and 
 mediator between them and the public ; for I had 
 always a humble opinion of my own powers as an 
 original thinker, except in abstract science (logic, 
 metaphysics, and the theoretic principles of political 
 economy and politics), but thought myself much 
 superior to most of my contemporaries hi willing- 
 ness and ability to learn from everybody ; as I found 
 hardly any one who made such a point of examining 
 what was said in defence of all opinions, however 
 nev or however old, in the conviction that even if 
 they were errors there might be a substratum of 
 truth underneath them, and that in any case the 
 
MARRIAGE. ^ 243 
 
 discovery of what it was that made them plausible, 
 would be a benefit to truth. I had, in consequence, 
 marked this out as a sphere of usefulness in which I. 
 was under a special obligation to make myself active : 
 the more so, as the acquaintance I had formed with 
 the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the German thinkers, 
 and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely opposed to the 
 mode of thought in which I had been brought up, 
 had convinced me that along with much error they 
 possessed much truth, which was veiled from minds 
 otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcen- 
 dental and mystical phraseology in which they were 
 accustomed to shut it up, and from which they 
 neither cared, nor knew how, to disengage it ; and I 
 did not despair of separating the truth from the 
 error, and exposing it in terms which would be 
 intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own 
 side in philosophy Thus prepared, it will easily be 
 believed that when I came into close intellectual 
 communion with a person of the most eminent 
 faculties, whose genius, as it grew and unfolded 
 itself in thought, continually struck out truths far 
 in advance of me, but in which I could not, as I had 
 done in those others, detect any mixture of error, 
 the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in 
 the assimilation of those truths, and the most 
 valuable part of my intellectual work was in 
 building the bridges and clearing the paths which 
 
 R 2 
 
244 MARRIAGE. 
 
 connected them with my general system of 
 thought. * 
 
 The first of my books in which her share was con- 
 spicuous was the " Principles of Political Economy." 
 The " System of Logic " owed little to her except in 
 the minuter matters of composition, in which respect 
 
 * The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to her were 
 far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the subject 
 would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, that my 
 strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political, social 
 and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and women, 
 may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far from being 
 the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest results of the ap- 
 plication of my mind to political subjects, and the strength with which 
 I held them was, as I believe, more than anything else, the originating 
 cause of the interest she felt in me. What is true is, that until I knew 
 her, the opinion was in my mind, little more than an abstract principle. 
 I saw no more reason why women should be held in legal subjection to 
 other people, than why men should. I was certain that their interests 
 required fully as much protection as those of men, and were quite as 
 little likely to obtain it without an equal voice in making the laws 
 by which they were to be bound. But that perception of the vast 
 practical bearings of women's disabilities which found expression in 
 the book on the " Subjection of Women' 1 was acquired mainly through 
 her teaching. But for her rare knowledge of human nature and com- 
 prehension of moral and social influences, though I should doubtless 
 have held my present opinions, I should have had a very insufficient 
 perception of the mode in which the consequences of the inferior position 
 of women intertwine themselves with all the evils of existing society 
 and with all the difficulties of human improvement. I am indeed pain- 
 fully conscious of how much of her best thoughts on the subject I 
 have failed to reproduce, and how greatly that little treatise falfo 
 short of what would hava been if she had put on paper her entire 
 mind on this question, or had lived to revise and improve, as she 
 certainly would have done, my imperfect statement of the case. 
 
MARRIAGE. 245 
 
 my writings, both great and small, have largely 
 benefited by her accurate and clear-sighted criticism.* 
 The chapter of the Political Economy which has had 
 a greater influence on opinion than all the rest, that 
 on " the Probable Future of the Labouring Classes " 
 is entirely due to her : in the first draft of the book, 
 that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the 
 need of such a chapter, and the extreme imperfection 
 of the book without it : she was the cause of my 
 writing it ; and the more general part of the chapter, 
 the statement and discussion of the two opposite 
 theories respecting the proper condition of the 
 labouring classes, was wholly an exposition of her 
 
 * The only person from whom I received any direct assistance in 
 the preparation of the System of Logic was Mr. Bain, since so justly 
 celebrated for his philosophical writings. He went carefully through 
 the manuscript before it was sent to press, and enriched it with a 
 great number of additional examples and illustrations from science ; 
 many of which, as well as some detached remarks of his own in con- 
 firmation of my logical views, I inserted nearly in his own words. 
 
 My obligations to Comte were only to his writings — to the part 
 which had then been published of his " Systeme de Philosophie 
 Positive :" and, as has been seen from what I have already said in this 
 narrative, the amount of these obligations is far less than has some- 
 times been asserted. The first volume, which ontains all the funda- 
 mental doctrines of the book, was substantia y complete oefore I had 
 seen Comte's treatise. I derived from him many valuable thoughts, 
 conspicuously in the chapter on Hypotheses and in the view taken 
 of the logic of Algebra : but it is only in the concluding Book, on the 
 Logic of the Moral Sciences, that I owe to him any radical improve- 
 ment in my conception of the application of logical method. This 
 improvement I have stated and characterized in a former part of the 
 preseat Memoir. 
 
246 MAEKTAGE. 
 
 thoughts, often in words taken from hbr own lips. 
 The purely scientific part of the Political Economy I 
 did not learn from her ; but it was chiefly her in- 
 fluence that gave to the book that general tone by 
 which, it is distinguished from all previous exposi- 
 tions of Political Economy that had any pretension 
 to being scientific, and which has made it so useful 
 in conciliating minds which those previous exposi- 
 tions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in 
 making the proper distinction between the laws of 
 the Production of Wealth, which are real laws of 
 nature, dependent on the properties of objects, and 
 the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to cer- 
 tain conditions, depend on human will. The common 
 run of political economists confuse these together, 
 under the designation of economic laws, which they 
 deem incapable of being defeated or modified by 
 human effort ; ascribing the same necessity to things 
 dependent on the unchangeable conditions of our 
 earthly existence, and to those which, being but the 
 necessary consequences of particular social arrange- 
 ments, are merely co-extensive with these : given 
 certain institutions and customs, wages, profits, and 
 rent will be determined by certain causes ; but this 
 class of political economists drop the indispensable 
 presupposition, and argue that these causes must, by 
 an inherent necessity, against which no human means 
 can avail, determine the shares which fall, in the 
 
MARRIAGE. 247 
 
 division of the produce, to labourers, capitalists, and 
 landlords. The " Principles of Political Economy' ' 
 yielded to none of its predecessors in aiming at the 
 scientific appreciation of the action of these causes, 
 under the conditions which they presuppose ; but it 
 set the example of not treating those conditions as 
 final. The economic generalizations which depend, 
 not on necessities of nature but on those combined 
 with the existing arrangements of society, it deals 
 with only as provisional, and as liable to be much 
 altered by the progress of social improvement. I 
 had indeed partially learnt this view of things from 
 the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of 
 the St. Simonians ; but it was made a living prin- 
 ciple pervading and animating the book by my wife's 
 promptings. This example illustrates well the 
 general character of what she contributed to my 
 writings. What was abstract and purely scientific 
 was generally mine ; the properly human element 
 came from her : in all that concerned the application 
 of philosophy to the exigencies of human society 
 and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of 
 speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment. 
 For, on the one hand, she was much more courageous 
 and far-sighted than without her I should have been, 
 j in anticipations of an order of things to come, in 
 j which many of the limited generalizations now so 
 | often confounded with universal principles will cease 
 
248 RETIREMENT FKOM 
 
 to be applicable. Those parts of my writings, and 
 especially of the Political Economy, which con- 
 template possibilities in the future such as, when 
 affirmed by socialists, have in general been fiercely 
 denied by political economists, would, but for her, 
 either have been absent, or the suggestions would 
 have been made much more timidly and in a more i 
 qualified form. But while she thus rendered me 
 bolder in speculation on human affairs, her practical 
 turn of mind, and her almost unerring estimate of ; 
 practical obstacles, repressed in me all tendencies 
 that were really visionary. Her mind invested all 
 ideas in a concrete shape, and formed to itself a 
 conception of how they would actually work : and 
 her knowledge of the existing feelings and conduct 
 of mankind was so seldom at fault, that the weak 
 point in any unworkable suggestion seldom escaped 
 her.* 
 
 During the years which intervened between the 
 commencement of my married life and the cata- 
 strophe which closed it, the principal occurrences of 
 my outward existence (unless I count as such a first 
 attack of the family disease, and a consequent journey 
 ; of more than six months for the recovery of health, in 
 
 * A few dedicatory lines acknowledging what the book owed to her, 
 were prefixed to some of the presentation copies of the Political 
 Economy on its rirst publication. Her dislike of publicity alone ^rd* 
 vented their insertion in the other copies of the work, 
 
THE INDIA HOUSE. 249 
 
 Italy, Sicily, and Greece) had reference to my posi- 
 tion in the India House. In 1856 I was promoted 
 to the rank of chief of the office in which I had 
 served for upwards of thirty-three years. The ap- 
 pointment, that of Examiner of India Correspondence, 
 was the highest, next to that of Secretary, in the 
 East India Company's home service, involving the 
 general superintendence of all the correspondence 
 with the Indian Governments, except the military, 
 naval, and financial. I held this office as long as it 
 continued to exist, being a little more than two 
 years ; after which it pleased Parliament, in other 
 words Lord Palmerston, to put an end to the East 
 India Company as a branch of the Government of 
 India under the Crown, and convert the adminis- 
 tration of that country into a thing to be scrambled 
 for by the second and third class of English parlia- 
 mentary politicians. I was the chief manager of the 
 resistance which the Company made to their own 
 political extinction, and to the letters and petitions 
 I wrote for them, and the concluding chapter of my 
 treatise on Representative Government, I must refer 
 for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this ill- 
 considered change. Personally I considered myself 
 a gainer by it, as I had given enough of my life to 
 India, and was not unwilling to retire .on the liberal 
 compensation granted. After the change was con- 
 summated, Lord Stanley, the First Secretary of 
 
250 RETIREMENT FROM 
 
 State for India, made me the honourable offer of 
 a seat in the Council, and the proposal was subse- 
 quently renewed by the Council itself, on the first 
 occasion of its having to supply a vacancy in its own 
 body. But the conditions of Indian Government 
 under the new system made me anticipate nothing 
 but useless vexation and waste of effort from any 
 participation in it : and nothing that has since hap- 
 pened has had any tendency to make me regret my 
 refusal. 
 
 During the two years which immediately preceded 
 the cessation of my official life, my wife and I were 
 working together at the " Liberty." I had first 
 planned and written it as a short essay in 1854. It 
 was in mounting the steps of the Capitol, in January, 
 1855, that the thought first arose of converting it 
 into a volume. None of my writings have been 
 either so carefully composed, or so sedulously cor- 
 rected as this. After it had been written as usual 
 twice over, we kept it by us, bringing it out from 
 time to time, and going through it de novo, reading, 
 weighing, and criticising every sentence. Its final 
 revision was to have been a work of the winter of 
 1858-9, the first after my retirement, which we had 
 arranged to pass in the South of Europe. That 
 hope and every other were frustrated by the most 
 unexpected and bitter calamity of her death — at 
 Avignon, on our way to Montpellier, from a sudden 
 attack of pulmonary congestion. 
 
THE INDIA HOUSE. 251 
 
 Since tlien I have sought for such alleviation as 
 my state admitted of, by the mode of life which 
 most enabled me to feel her still near me. I bought 
 a cottage as close as possible to the place where she 
 is buried, and there her daughter (my fellow- 
 sufferer and now my chief comfort) and I, live 
 constantly during a great portion of the year. My 
 objects in life are solely those which were hers ; my 
 pursuits and occupations those in which she shared, 
 or sympathized, and which are indissolubly asso- 
 ciated with her. Her memory is to me a religion, 
 and her approbation the standard by which, sum- 
 ming up as it does all worthiness, I endeavour to 
 regulate my life.* 
 
 After my irreparable loss, one of my earliest cares 
 was to print and publish the treatise, so much of 
 which was the work of her whom I had lost, and 
 consecrate it to her memory. I have made no altera- 
 tion or addition to it, nor shall I ever. Though it 
 wants the last touch of her hand, no substitute for 
 that touch shall ever be attempted by mine. 
 
 The " Liberty" was more directly and literally our 
 joint production than anything else which bears my 
 name, for there was not a sentence of it which was 
 not several times gone through by us together, turned 
 over in many ways, and carefully weeded of any 
 
 * What precedes was written or revised previous to, or during the 
 
 year L8h] . Wh it follows was written in 1870. 
 
252 PUBLICATION OF 
 
 • 
 
 faults, either in thought or expression, that we 
 detected in it. It is in consequence of this that, 
 although it never underwent her final revision, it far 
 surpasses, as a mere specimen of composition, anything 
 which has proceeded from me either before or since. 
 With regard to the thoughts, it is difficult to identify 
 any particular part or element as being more hers 
 than all the rest. The whole mode of thinking of 
 which the book was the expression, was emphatically 
 hers. But I also was so thoroughly imbued with it, 
 that the same thoughts naturally occurred to us 
 both. That I was thus penetrated with it, however, 
 I owe in a great degree to her. There was a moment 
 in my mental progress when I might easily have 
 fallen into a tendency towards over-government, both | 
 social and political; as there was also a moment 
 when, by reaction from a contrary excess, I might 
 have become a less thorough radical and democrat 
 than I am. In both these points, as in many others, 
 she benefited me as much by keeping me right where 
 I was right, as by leading me to new truths, and , 
 ridding me of errors. My great readiness and eager- 
 ness to learn from everybody, and to make room in 
 my opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting 
 the old and the new to one another, might, but for 
 her steadying influence, have seduced me into 
 modifying my early opinions too much. She was 
 in nothing more valuable to my mental development 
 
" LIBERTY. " 253 
 
 than by her just measure of the relative importance 
 of different considerations, which often protected me 
 from allowing to truths I had only recently learnt to 
 see, a more important place in my thoughts than was 
 properly their due. 
 
 The " Liberty" is likely to survive longer than 
 anything else that I have written (with the possible 
 exception of the " Logic"), because the conjunction 
 of her mind w^ith mine has rendered it a kind of 
 philosophic text-book of a single truth, which the 
 changes progressively taking place in modern society 
 tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: the impor- 
 tance, to man and society, of a large variety in types 
 of character, and of giving full freedom to human 
 nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting 
 directions. Nothing can better show how deep are 
 the foundations of this truth, than the great impres- 
 sion made by the exposition of it at a time which, 
 to superficial observation, did not seem to stand 
 much in need of such a lesson. The fears we ex- 
 pressed, lest the inevitable growth of social equality 
 and of the government of public opinion, should 
 impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity 
 in opinion and practice, might easily have appeared 
 chimerical to those who looked more at present facts 
 than at tendencies ; for the gradual revolution that is 
 taking place in society and institutions has, thus far, 
 been decidedly favourable to the development of new 
 
254 PUBLICATION OF 
 
 opinions, and has procured for them a much more un- 
 prejudiced hearing than they previously met with. 
 But this is a feature belonging to periods of transition, 
 when old notions and feelings have been unsettled, 
 and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their 
 ascendancy. At such times people of any mental 
 activity, having given up their old beliefs, and not 
 feeling quite sure that those they still retain can 
 stand unmodified, listen eagerly to new opinions. 
 But this state of things is necessarily transitory : 
 some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the 
 majority round it, organizes social institutions and 
 modes of action conformably to itself, education im- 
 presses this new creed upon the new generations with- 
 out the mental processes that have led to it, and by 
 degrees it acquires the very same power of com- 
 pression, so long exercised by the creeds of which 
 it had taken the place. Whether this noxious power 
 will be exercised, depends on whether mankind have 
 by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised 
 without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is 
 then that the teachings of the " Liberty" will have 
 their greatest value. And it is to be feared that they 
 will retain that value a long time. 
 
 As regards originality, it has of course no other 
 than that which every thoughtful mind gives to its 
 own mode of conceiving and expressing truths which 
 are common property. The leading thought of the 
 
" LIBERTY. " 255 
 
 book is one which though in many ages confined to 
 insulated thinkers, mankind have probably at no 
 time since the beginning of civilization been entirely 
 without. To speak only of the last few generations, 
 it is distinctly contained in the vein of important 
 thought respecting education and culture, spread 
 through the European mind by the labours and 
 genius of Pestalozzi. The unqualified championship 
 of it by Wilhelm von Humboldt is referred to in the 
 book ; but he by no means stood alone in his own 
 country. During the early part of the present 
 century the doctrine of the rights of individuality, 
 and the claim of the moral nature to develope itself 
 in its ©wn way, was pushed by a whole school of 
 German authors even to exaggeration ; and the 
 writings of Goethe, the most celebrated of all 
 German authors, though not belonging to that or to 
 any other school, are penetrated throughout by 
 views of morals and of conduct in life, often in my 
 opinion not defensible, but which are incessantly 
 seeking whatever defence they admit of in the 
 theory of the right and duty of self-development. In 
 our own country, before the book " On Liberty" 
 was written, the doctrine of Individuality had been 
 enthusiastically asserted, in a style of vigorous de- 
 clamation sometimes reminding one of Fichte, by 
 Mr. William Maccall, in a series of writings of which 
 the most elaborate is entitled " Elements of In- 
 
256 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 dividualism :" and a remarkable American, Mr. 
 Warren, had formed a System of Society, on the 
 foundation of the " Sovereignty of the Individual," 
 had obtained a number of followers, and had actually 
 commenced the formation of a Village Community 
 (whether it now exists I know not), which, though 
 bearing a superficial resemblance to some of the 
 projects of Socialists, is diametrically opposite to 
 them in principle, since it recognises no authority 
 whatever in Society over the individual, except to 
 enforce equal freedom of development for all in- 
 dividualities. As the book which bears my name 
 claimed no originality for any of its doctrines, and 
 was not intended to write their history, the only 
 author who had preceded me in their assertion, of 
 whom I thought it appropriate to say anything, was 
 Humboldt, who furnished the motto to the work ; 
 although in one passage I borrowed from the 
 Warrenites their phrase, the sovereignty of the in- 
 dividual. It is hardly necessary here to remark that 
 there are abundant differences in detail, between the 
 conception of the doctrine by any of the predecessors I 
 have mentioned, and that set forth in the book. 
 
 The political circumstances of the time induced me, 
 shortly after, to complete and publish a pamphlet 
 ("Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform"), part of 
 which had been written some years previously, on 
 the occasion of one of the abortive Reform Bills, and 
 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFK 257 
 
 had at the time been approved and revised by her, 
 Its principal features were, hostility to the Ballot (a 
 change of opinion in both of us, in which she rather 
 preceded me), and a claim of representation for 
 minorities ; not, however, at that time going beyond 
 the cumulative vote proposed by Mr. Garth Marshall. 
 In finishing the pamphlet for publication, with a view 
 to the discussions on the Reform Bill of Lord Derby's 
 and Mr. Disraeli's government in 1859, I added a 
 third feature, a plurality of votes, to be given, not to 
 property, but to proved superiority of education. 
 This recommended itself to me as a means of re- 
 conciling the irresistible claim of every man or 
 woman to be consulted, and to be allowed a voice, in 
 the regulation of affairs which vitally concern them, 
 with the superiority of weight justly due to 
 opinions grounded on superiority of knowledge. 
 The suggestion, however, was one which I had never 
 discussed with my almost infallible counsellor, and I 
 have no evidence that she would have concurred in 
 it. As far as I have been able to observe, it has 
 found favour with nobody ; all who desire any sort 
 of inequality in the electoral vote, desiring it in 
 favour of property and not of intelligence or know- 
 ledge. If it ever overcomes the strong feeling which 
 exists against it, this will only be after the establish- 
 ment of a systematic National Education by which 
 the various grades of politically valuable acquirement 
 
258 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 may be accurately defined and authenticated. 
 Without this it will always remain liable to strong, 
 possibly conclusive, objections; and with this, it 
 would perhaps not be needed. 
 
 It was soon after the publication of " Thoughts on 
 Parliamentary Reform," that I became acquainted 
 with Mr. Hare's admirable system of Personal 
 Representation, which, in its present shape, w r as then 
 for the first time published. I saw in this great 
 practical and philosophical idea, the greatest im- 
 provement of which the system of representative 
 government is susceptible ; an improvement which, 
 in the most felicitous manner, exactly meets and 
 cures the grand, and what before seemed the inherent, 
 delect of the representative system ; that of giving 
 to a numerical majority all power, instead of only a 
 power proportional to its numbers, and enabling the 
 strongest party to exclude all weaker parties from 
 making their opinions heard in the assembly of the 
 nation, except through such opportunity as may be 
 given to them by the accidentally unequal distribu- 
 tion of opinions in different localities. To these 
 great evils nothing more than very imperfect 
 palliations had seemed possible ; but Mr. Hares 
 system affords a radical cure. This great discovery, 
 for it is no less, in the political art, inspired me, as I 
 believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who 
 have adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 259 
 
 respecting the prospects of human society ; by freeing 
 the form of political institutions towards which the 
 whole civilized world is manifestly and irresistibly 
 tending, from the chief part of what seemed to 
 qualify, or render doubtful, its ultimate benefits. 
 Minorities, so long as they remain minorities, are, 
 and ought to be, outvoted ; but under arrangements 
 which enable any assemblage of voters, amounting to 
 a certain number, to place in the legislature a repre- 
 sentative of its own choice, minorities cannot be 
 suppressed. Independent opinions will force their 
 way into the council of the nation and make them- 
 selves heard there, a thing which often cannot happen 
 in the existing forms of representative democracy ; 
 and the legislature, instead of bein.9; weeded of indi- 
 vidua! peculiarities and entirely made up of men who 
 simply represent the creed of great political or religious 
 parties, will comprise a large proportion of the most 
 eminent individual minds in the country, placed there, 
 without reference to party, by voters who appreciate 
 their individual eminence. I can understand that 
 persons, otherwise intelligent, should, for want of 
 sufficient examination, be repelled from Mr. Hare's 
 plan by what they think the complex nature of its 
 machinery. But any one who does not feel the want 
 which the scheme is intended to supply ; any one 
 who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or 
 crotchet, tending to no valuable purpose, and un- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 worthy of the attention of practical men, may he 
 pronounced an incompetent statesman, unequal to the 
 politics of the future. I mean, unless he is a minister 
 or aspires to become one : for we are quite accustomed 
 to a minister continuing to profess unqualified hos- 
 tility to an improvement almost to the very day when 
 his conscience, or his interest, induces him to take it 
 up as a public measure, and carry it. 
 
 Had I met with Mr. Hare's system before the 
 publication of my pamphlet, I should have given an 
 account of it there. Not having done so, I wrote an 
 article in Fraser's Magazine (reprinted in my mis- 
 cellaneous writings) principally for that purpose, 
 though I included in it, along with Mr. Hare's 
 book, a review of two other productions on the ques- 
 tion of the day ; one of them a pamphlet by my early 
 friend, Mr. John Austin, who had in his old age 
 become an enemy to all further Parliamentary 
 reform ; the other an able and vigorous, though par- 
 tially erroneous work by Mr. Lorimer. 
 
 In the course of the same summer I fulfilled a duty 
 particularly incumbent upon me, that of helping (by 
 an article in the Edinburgh Review) to make known 
 Mr. Bain's profound treatise on the Mind, just then 
 completed by the publication of its second volume. 
 And I carried through the press a selection of my 
 minor writings, forming; the first two volumes of 
 " Dissertations and Discussions." The selection had 
 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 261 
 
 been made during my wife's lifetime, but the revision, 
 in concert with her, with a view to republication, had 
 been barely commenced ; and when I had no longei 
 the guidance of her judgment I despaired of pur- 
 suing it further, and republished the papers as they 
 were, with the exception of striking out such passages 
 as were no longer in accordance with my opinions. 
 My literary work of the year was terminated with an 
 essay in Fraser's Magazine, (afterwards republished 
 in the third volume of " Dissertations and Dis- 
 cussions,") entitled " A Few Words on Non-inter- 
 vention." I was prompted to write this paper by a 
 desire, while vindicating England from the imputa- 
 tions commonly brought against her on the Conti- 
 nent, of a peculiar selfishness in matters cf foreign 
 policy, to warn Englishmen of the colour given to 
 this imputation by the low tone in which English 
 statesmen are accustomed to speak of English policy 
 as concerned only with English interests, and by the 
 conduct of Lord Palmerston at that particular time 
 in opposing the Suez Canal : and I took the oppor- 
 tunity of expressing ideas which had long been in 
 my mind (some of them generated by my Indian 
 experience, and others by the international questions 
 which then greatly occupied the European public), 
 respecting the true principles of international mora- 
 lity, and the legitimate modifications made in it by 
 difference of times and circumstances ; a subject I had 
 
262 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 already, to some extent, discussed in the Vindication 
 of the French Provisional Government of 1848 
 against the attacks of Lord Brougham and others, 
 which I published at the time in the Westminster 
 Review, and which is reprinted in the " Disser- 
 tations." 
 
 I had now settled, as I believed, for the remainder 
 of my existence into a purely literary life; if that can 
 be called literary which continued to be occupied in 
 a pre-eminent degree with politics, and not merely 
 with theoretical, but practical politics, although a 
 great part of the year was spent at a distance of 
 many hundred miles from the chief seat of the 
 politics of my own country, to which, and primarily 
 for which, I wrote. But, in truth, the modern 
 facilities of communication have not only removed all 
 the disadvantages, to a political writer in tolerably 
 easy circumstances, of distance from the scene of 
 political action, but have converted them into ad- 
 vantages. The immediate and regular receipt of 
 newspapers and periodicals keeps him au courant of 
 even the most temporary politics, and gives him a much 
 more correct view of the state and progress of opinion 
 than he could acquire by personal contact with indi- 
 viduals : for every one's social intercourse is more or 
 less limited to particular sets or classes, whose 
 impressions and no others reach him through that 
 channel ; and experience has taught me that those 
 
THE KEMAINDEE, OF MY LIFE. 263 
 
 who give their time to the absorbing claims of what 
 is called society, not having leisure to keep up a/ 
 large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain 
 much more ignorant of the general state either of the 
 public mind, or of the active and instructed part/of 
 it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need oe. 
 There are, no doubt, disadvantages in too kmg a 
 separation from one s country — in not occasionally 
 renewing one's impressions of the light in which men 
 and things appear when seen from a position in the 
 midst of them ; but the deliberate judgment formed 
 at a distance, and undisturbed by inequalities of 
 perspective, is the most to be depended on, even for 
 application to practice. Alternating between the two 
 positions, I combined the advantages of both. And, 
 though the inspirer of my best thoughts was no 
 longer with me, I was not alone : she had left a 
 
 daughter, my step-daughter, * * * 
 
 * • * ft ft ft 
 
 * * * whose ever growing and 
 
 ripening talents from that day to this have been 
 
 devoted to the same great purposes. * * 
 
 * ft * * «& -::- 
 
 Surely no one ever before was so fortunate, as, after 
 such a loss as mine, to draw another prize in the 
 lottery of life. * * * • * 
 
 * * Whoever, either now or hereafter, 
 may think of me and of the work I have done, must 
 
264 CONSIDERATIONS ON 
 
 never forget that it is the product not of ene intellect 
 
 and conscience, but of three. * * * 
 
 * # * * & * 
 
 * « * # * # * 
 
 The work of the years 1860 and 1861 consisted 
 chiefly of two treatises, only one of which was in- 
 tended for immediate publication. This was the 
 " Considerations on Representative Government ;" a 
 connected exposition of what, by the thoughts of 
 many years, I had come to regard as the best form 
 of a popular constitution. Along with as much of the 
 general theory of government as is necessary to sup- 
 port this particular portion of its practice, the 
 volume contains my matured views of the principal 
 questions which occupy the present age, within the 
 province of purely organic institutions, and raises, by 
 anticipation, some other questions to which growing 
 necessities will sooner or later compel the attention 
 both of theoretical and of practical politicians. The 
 chief of these last, is the distinction between the 
 function of making laws, for which a numerous 
 popular assembly is radically unfit, and that of 
 getting good laws made, which is its proper duty 
 and cannot be satisfactorily fulfilled by any other 
 authority : and the consequent need of a Legisla- 
 tive Commission, as a permanent part of the con- 
 stitution of a free country; consisting of a small 
 number of highly trained political minds, on whoi 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. 265 
 
 when Parliament has determined that a law shall 
 be made, the task of making it should be devolved ; 
 Parliament retaining the power of passing or re- 
 jecting the bill when drawn up, but not of altering 
 it otherwise than by sending proposed amendments 
 to be dealt with by the Commission. The question 
 here raised respecting the most important of all 
 public functions, that of legislation, is a particular 
 case of the great problem of modern political organi- 
 zation, stated, I believe, for the first time in its full 
 extent by Bentham, though in my opinion not 
 alw r ays satisfactorily resolved by him ; the com- 
 bination of complete popular control over public 
 affairs, with the greatest attainable perfection of 
 skilled agency. 
 
 The other treatise written at this time is the one 
 which was published some years later * under the 
 title of "The Subjection of Women." It was written 
 * * * * that there might, in 
 
 any event, be in existence a written exposition of 
 my opinions on that great question, as full and con- 
 clusive as I could make it. The intention was to 
 keep this among other unpublished papers, im- 
 proving it from time to time if I was able, and to 
 publish it at the time when it should seem likely 
 to be most usefuL As ultimately published 
 
 * In 1869. 
 
26G THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 tt tt ft * * „ « « 
 
 in what was of my own composition, all that is most 
 striking and profound belongs to my wife ; coming 
 from the fund of thought which had been made 
 common to us both, by our innumerable conversa- 
 tions and discussions on a topic which filled so large 
 a place in our minds. 
 
 Soon after this time I took from their repository 
 a portion of the unpublished papers which I had 
 written during the last years of our married life, 
 and shaped them, with some additional matter, into 
 the little work entitled " Utilitarianism ;" which was 
 first published, in three parts, in successive numbers 
 of Fraser's Magazine, and afterwards reprinted in a 
 volume. 
 
 Before this, however, the state of public affairs 
 had become extremely critical, by the commence- 
 ment of the American civil war. My strongest 
 feelings were engaged in this struggle, which, I felt 
 from the beginning, was destined to be a turning 
 point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs 
 for an indefinite duration. Having been a deeply 
 interested observer of the slavery quarrel in 
 America, during the many years that preceded the 
 open breach, I knew that it was in all its stages 
 an aggressive enterprise of the slave-owners to 
 extend the territory of slavery ; under the com- 
 bined influences of pecuniary interest, domineering 
 
IN AMEBIC A. 267 
 
 temper, and the fanaticism of a class for its class 
 privileges, influences so fully and powerfully de- 
 picted in the admirable work of my friend Professor 
 Cairn es, " The Slave Power." Their success, if they 
 succeeded, would be a victory of the powers of evil 
 which would give courage to the enemies of progress 
 and damp the spirits of its friends all over the 
 civilized world, while it would create a formidable 
 military power, grounded on the worst and most 
 anti-social form of the tyranny of men over men, and, 
 by destroying for a long time the prestige of the 
 great democratic republic, would give to all the privi- 
 leged classes of Europe a false confidence, probably 
 only to be extinguished in blood. On the other 
 hand, if the spirit of the North was sufficiently 
 roused to carry the war to a successful termina- 
 tion, and if that termination did not come too soon 
 and too easily, I foresaw, from the laws of human 
 nature, and the experience of revolutions, that when 
 it did come it would in all probability be thorough : 
 that the bulk of the Northern population, whose 
 conscience had as yet been awakened only to the 
 point of resisting the further extension of slavery, 
 but whose fidelity to the Constitution of the United 
 States made them disapprove of any attempt by the 
 Federal Government to interfere with slavery in the 
 States where it already existed, would acquire feelings 
 of another kind when the Constitution had been 
 
268 THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 shaken off by armed rebellion, would determine to 
 have done for ever with the accursed thing, and 
 would join their banner with that of the noble body 
 of Abolitionists, of whom Garrison was the courageous 
 and single-minded apostle, Wendell Phillips the elo- 
 quent orator, and John Brown the voluntary martyr.* 
 Then, too, the whole mind of the United States 
 would be let loose from its bonds, no longer cor- 
 rupted by the supposed necessity of apologizing to 
 foreigners for the most flagrant of all possible viola- 
 tions of the free principles of their Constitution ; 
 while the tendency of a fixed state of society to 
 stereotype a set of national opinions would be at least 
 temporarily checked, and the national mind would 
 become more open to the recognition of whatever 
 was bad in either the institutions or the customs of 
 the people. These hopes, so far as related to slavery, 
 have been completely, and in other respects are in 
 course of being progressively realized. Foreseeing 
 from the first this double set of consequences from 
 the success or failure of the rebellion, it may be 
 imagined with what feelings I contemplated the 
 rush of nearly the whole upper and middle classes 
 of my own country, even those who passed for 
 Liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship : 
 
 * The saying of this true hero, after his capture, that he was worth 
 more for hanging than for any other purpose, reminds one, by ita 
 combination of wit, wisdom, and self-devotion, of Sir Thomas More. 
 
IN AMERICA. 269 
 
 the working classes, and some of the literary and 
 scientific men, being almost the sole exceptions to 
 the general frenzy. I never before felt so keenly 
 how little permanent improvement had reached the 
 minds of our influential classes, and of what small 
 value were the Liberal opinions they had got into 
 the habit of professing. None of the Continental 
 Liberals committed the same frightful mistake. But 
 the generation which had extorted negro emancipa- 
 tion from our West India planters had passed away ; 
 another had succeeded which had not learnt by 
 many years of discussion and exposure to feel 
 strongly the enormities of slavery ; and the in- 
 attention habitual with Englishmen to whatever is 
 going on in the world outside their own island, 
 made them profoundly ignorant of all the ante- 
 cedents of the struggle, insomuch that it was not 
 generally believed in England, for the first year or 
 two of the war, that the quarrel was one of slavery. 
 There were men of high principle and unquestion- 
 able liberality of opinion, who thought it a dispute 
 about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which 
 they were accustomed to sympathize, of a people 
 straggling for independence. 
 
 It was my obvious duty to be one of the small 
 minority who protested against this perverted state 
 of public opinion. I was not the first to protest. 
 It ought to be remembered to the honour of Mr. 
 
270 THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 Hughes and of Mr. Ludlow, that they? by wittings 
 published at the very beginning of the struggle, 
 began the protestation. Mr. Bright followed in one 
 of the most powerful of his speeches, followed by 
 others not less striking. I was on the point of 
 adding my word to theirs, when there occurred, 
 towards the end of 1861, the seizure of the Southern 
 envoys on board a British vessel, by an officer of the 
 United States. Even English forgetfulness has not 
 yet had time to lose all remembrance of the explosion 
 of feeling in England which then burst forth, the 
 expectation, which prevailed for some- weeks, of war 
 with the United States, and the warlike preparations 
 actually commenced on this side. While this state 
 of things lasted, there was no chance of a hearing 
 for anything favourable to the American cause ; and, 
 moreover, I agreed with those who thought the act un- 
 justifiable, and such as to require that England should 
 demand its disavowal. When the disavowal came, and 
 the alarm of war was over, I wrote, in January, 1862, 
 the paper, in Frasers Magazine, entitled " The Contest 
 in America." * * * * 
 
 * * * Written and published 
 
 when it was, this paper helped to encourage those 
 Liberals who had felt overborne by the tide of 
 illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good 
 cause a nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, 
 and, after the success of the North began to seem 
 
IN AMERICA. 271 
 
 probable, rapidly. When we returned from our 
 journey I wrote a second article, a review of Pro- 
 fessor Cairnes' book, published in the Westminster 
 Review. England is paying the penalty, in many 
 uncomfortable ways, of the durable resentment 
 which her ruling classes stirred up in the United 
 States by their ostentatious wishes for the ruin of 
 America as a nation : they have reason to be thankful, 
 that a few, if only a few, known writers and speakers, 
 standing firm|y by the Americans in the time of their 
 greatest difficulty, effected a partial diversion of these 
 bitter feelings, and made Great Britain not altogether 
 odious to the Americans. 
 
 This duty having been performed, my principal 
 occupation for the next two years was on subjects not 
 political. The publication of Mr. Austins Lectures 
 on Jurisprudence after his decease, gave me an oppor- 
 tunity of paying a deserved tribute to his memory, and 
 at the same time expressing some thoughts on a sub- 
 ject on which, in my old days of Benthamism, I had 
 bestowed much study. But the chief product of those 
 years was the Examination of Sir William Hamilton's 
 Philosophy. His Lectures, j3ublished in 1860 and 
 1861, I had read towards the end of the latter year, 
 with a half-formed intention of giving an account of 
 tliem in a Be view, but I soon found that this would 
 be idle, and that justice could not be done to the 
 subject in less than a volume. I had then to con- 
 
272 EXAMINATION OF 
 
 sider whether it would be advisable tlM I myself 
 should attempt such a performance. On considera- 
 tion, there seemed to be strong reasons for doing so. 
 I was greatly disappointed with the Lectures. I 
 read them, certainly, with no prejudice against Sir 
 William Hamilton. I had up to that time deferred 
 the study of his Notes to Reid on account of their 
 unfinished state, but I had not neglected his " Discus- 
 sions in Philosophy ;" and though I knew that his 
 general mode of treating the facts of mental philosophy 
 differed from that of which I most approved, yet his 
 vigorous polemic against the later Transcendent alists, 
 and his strenuous assertion of some important princi- 
 ples, especially the Relativity of human knowledge, 
 gave me many points of sympathy with his opinions, 
 and made me think that genuine psychology had con- 
 siderably more to gain than to lose by his authority 
 and reputation. His Lectures and the Dissertations 
 on Reid dispelled this illusion : and even the Discus- 
 sions, read by the light which these throw on them, 
 lose much of their value. I found that the points of 
 apparent agreement between his opinions and mine 
 were more verbal than real ; that the important 
 philosophical principles which I had thought he 
 recognised, were so explained away by him as to 
 mean little or nothing, or were continually lost 
 sight of, and doctrines entirely inconsistent with 
 them were taught in nearly every part of his philo- 
 
sie william Hamilton's philosophy. 273 
 
 sopliical writings. My estimation of him was there- 
 fore so far altered, that instead of regarding him as 
 occupying a kind of intermediate position between 
 the two rival philosophies, holding some of the 
 principles of both, and supplying to both powerful 
 weapons of attack and defence, I now looked upon 
 him as one of the pillars, and in this country from his 
 high philosophical reputation the chief pillar, of that 
 one of the two which seemed to me to be erroneous. 
 
 Now, the difference between these two schools of 
 philosophy, that of Intuition, and that of Experience 
 and Association, is not a mere matter of abstract 
 speculation ; it is full of practical consequences, and 
 lies at the foundation of all the greatest differences 
 of practical opinion in an age of progress. The 
 practical reformer has continually to demand that 
 changes be made in things which are supported by 
 powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question 
 the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of esta- 
 blished facts ; and it is oft^n an indispensable part 
 of his argument to show, how those powerful feelings 
 had their origin, and how those facts came to seem 
 necessary and indefeasible. There is therefore a 
 natural hostility between him and a philosophy 
 which discourages the explanation of feelings and 
 moral facts by circumstances and association, and 
 prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human 
 nature ; a philosophy which is addicted to holding 
 
 T 
 
274 EXAMINATION Otf 
 
 Up favourite doctrines as intuitive truths, and 
 deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of 
 God, speaking with an authority higher than that of 
 our reason. In particular, I have long felt that the 
 prevailing tendency to regard all the marked dis- 
 tinctions of human character as innate, and in the 
 main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs 
 that by far the greater part of those differences, 
 whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are 
 such as not only might but naturally would be pro- 
 duced by differences in circumstances, is one of the 
 chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great 
 social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling 
 blocks to human improvement. This tendency lias 
 its source in the intuitional metaphysics which 
 characterized the reaction of the nineteenth century 
 against the eighteenth, and it is a tendency so 
 agreeable to human indolence, as well as to con- 
 servative interests generally, that unless attacked at 
 the very root, it is sure to be carried to even a 
 greater length than is really justified by the more 
 moderate forms of the intuitional philosophy. That 
 philosophy, not always in its moderate forms, had 
 ruled the thought of Europe for the greater part 
 of a century. My fathers Analysis of the Mind, 
 my own Logic, and Professor Bain's groat treatise, 
 had attempted to re-introduce a bettor mode 
 philosophizing, latterly with quite as much succ 
 
 
sir william Hamilton's philosophy. 275 
 
 could be expected ; but I had for some time felt that 
 the mere contrast of the two philosophies was not 
 enough, that there ought to be a hand-to-hand fight 
 between them, that controversial as well as exposi- 
 tory writings were needed, and that the time was 
 i come when such controversy would be useful. Con 
 sidering then the writings and fame of Sir W. 
 Hamilton as the great fortress of the intuitional 
 philosophy in this country, a fortress the more formi- 
 dable from the imposing character, and the in many 
 res] great personal merits and mental endow- 
 
 ment-, of the man, I thought it might be a real 
 i to philosophy to attempt a thorough exami- 
 nation of all his in** t important doctrines, and an 
 of his general claims to eminence as a 
 philosopher, and I was confirmed in this resolution 
 by observing that in the writings of at least one, and 
 him one of the ablest, of Sir W. Hamilton's fol- 
 lowers, hi liar doctrines were made the justifi- 
 cation of a view of religion which I hold to be 
 profoundly immoral — that it is our duty to bow down 
 in worship before a Being whose moral attributes are 
 nned to be unknowable by us, and to be perhaps 
 bremely different from those which, when we are 
 speaking of our fellow creatures, we call by the same, 
 names 
 
 As I advanced in my task, the damage to Sir W. 
 Hamilton's reputation became greater than I at first 
 
 T 2 
 
276 EXAMINATION OF 
 
 expected, through the almost incredible multitude of 
 inconsistencies which showed themselves on com- 
 paring different passages with one another. It was 
 my business, however, to show things exactly as 
 they were, and I did not flinch from it. I endea- 
 voured always to treat the philosopher whom I 
 criticised with the most scrupulous fairness ; and I 
 knew that he had abundance of disciples and admirers 
 to correct me if I ever unintentionally did him 
 injustice. Many of them accordingly have answered 
 me, more or less elaborately ; and they have pointed 
 out oversights and misunderstandings, though few in 
 number, and mostly very unimportant in substance. 
 Such of those as had (to my knowledge) been pointed 
 out before the publication of the latest edition (at 
 present the third) have been corrected there, and the 
 remainder of the criticisms have been, as far as 
 seemed necessary, replied to. On the whole, the 
 book has done its work : it has shown the weak side 
 of Sir WiDiam Hamilton, and has reduced his too 
 great philosophical reputation within more moderate 
 bounds ; and by seme of its discussions, as well as 
 by two expository chapters, on the notions of Matter 
 and of Mind, it has perhaps thrown additional light 
 on some of the disputed questions hi the domain of 
 psychology and metaphysics. 
 
 After the completion of the book on Hamilton. I 
 applied myself to a task which a variety of reasons 
 
sir william Hamilton's philosophy. 277 
 
 seemed to render specially incumbent upon me ; that 
 of giving an account, and forming an estimate, of the 
 doctrines of August e Comte. I had contributed 
 more than any one else to make his speculations 
 known in England, and, in consequence chiefly of 
 what I had said of him in my Logic, he had readers 
 and admirers among thoughtful men on this side of 
 the Channel at a time when his name had not yet 
 in France emerged from obscurity. So unknown 
 and unappreciated was he at the time when my 
 Logic was written and published, that to criticise 
 his weak points might well appear superfluous, while 
 it was a duty to give as much publicity as one could 
 to the important contributions he had made to 
 philosophic thought. At the time, however, at 
 which I have now arrived, this state of affairs had 
 entirely changed. His name, at least, was known 
 almost universally, and the general character of his 
 doctrines very widely. He had taken his place in 
 the estimation both of friends and opponents, as one 
 of the conspicuous figures in the thought of the age. 
 The better parts of his speculations had made great 
 progress in working their way into those minds, 
 which, by their previous culture and tendencies, were 
 fitted to receive them : under cover of those better 
 parts those of a worse character, greatly developed 
 and added to in his later writings, had also made 
 some way, having obtained active and enthusiastic 
 
278 GENERAL VIEW OP 
 
 adherents, some of them of no inconsiderable per- 
 sonal merit, in England, France, and other countries. 
 These causes not only made it desirable that some 
 one should undertake the task of sifting what is 
 good from what is bad in M. Comte's speculations, 
 but seemed to impose on myself in particular a 
 special obligation to make the attempt. This I 
 accordingly did in two essays, published in suc- 
 cessive numbers of the Westminster Review, and 
 reprinted in a small volume under the title " August e 
 Comte and Positivism. " 
 
 The writings which I have now mentioned, toge- 
 ther with a small number of papers in periodicals 
 which I have not deemed worth preserving, were 
 the whole of the products of my activity as a writer 
 during the years from 1859 to 1865. In the early 
 part of the last -mentioned year, in compliance with 
 a wish frequently expressed to me by working men, 
 I published cheap People's Editions of those of my 
 writings which seemed the most likely to find 
 readers among the working classes ; viz., Principles 
 of Political Economy, Liberty, and Representative 
 Government. This was a considerable sacrifice of i 
 pecuniary interest, especially as I resigned all idea 
 of deriving profit from the cheap editions, and after 
 ascertaining from my publishers the lowest price 
 which they thought would remunerate them on the 
 usual terms of an equal division of profits, I gave up 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 279 
 
 my half share to enable the price to be fixed still 
 lower. To the credit of Messrs. Longman they 
 fixed, unasked, a certain number of years after 
 which the copyright and stereotype plates were to 
 revert to me, and a certain number of copies after the 
 sale of which I should receive half of any further 
 profit. This number of copies (which in the case of 
 the Political Economy was 10,000) has for some 
 time been exceeded, and the People's Editions have 
 
 •1111 to yield me a small but unexpected pecuniary 
 return, though very far from an equivalent for the 
 diminution of profit from the library Editions. 
 
 In this summary of my outward life I have now 
 arrived at the period at which my tranquil and 
 retired existence as a writer of books was to be 
 exchanged for the less congenial occupation of a 
 member of the House of Commons. The proposal 
 made to me early in L865, by some electors of West- 
 minster, did not present the idea to me for the first 
 time. It was not even the first offer I had received, 
 for, more than ten years previous, in consequence ot 
 my opinions on the Irish Land Question, Mr. Lucas 
 
 I Mr. Dully, in the name of the popular party in 
 Ireland, offered to bringr me into Parliament for an 
 Irish county, which they could easily have done: 
 but the incompatibility of a seat in Parliament with 
 the oifice I then held in the India House, precluded 
 even consideration of the proposal. After I had 
 
280 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 quitted the India House, several of my friends would 
 gladly have seen me a member of Parliament ; but 
 there seemed no probability that the idea would 
 ever take any practical shape. I was convinced 
 that no numerous or influential portion of any 
 electoral body, really wished to be represented by 
 a person of my opinions ; and that one who pos- 
 sessed no local connexion or popularity, and who 
 did not choose to stand as the mere organ of a 
 party, had small chance of being elected anywhere 
 unless through the expenditure of money. Now 
 it was, and is, my fixed conviction, that a candi- 
 date ought not to incur one farthing of expense 
 for undertaking a public duty. Such of the lawful 
 expenses of an election as have no special reference 
 to any particular candidate, ought to be borne as a 
 public charge, either by the State or by the 
 locality. What has to be done by the supporters 
 of each candidate in order to bring' his claims 
 properly before the constituency, should be done 
 by unpaid agency, or by voluntary subscription. If 
 members of the electoral body, or others, are willing 
 to subscribe money of their own for the purpose of 
 bringing, by lawful means, into Parliament some one 
 who they think would be useful there, no one is 
 entitled to object : but that the expense, or any 
 part of it, should fall on the candidate, is funda- 
 mentally wrong; because it amounts in reality to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 281 
 
 buying his seat. Even on the most favourable sup- 
 position as to the mode in which the money is ex- 
 pended, there is a legitimate suspicion that any one 
 who gives money for leave to undertake a public 
 trust, lias other than public ends to promote by it ; 
 and (a consideration of the greatest importance) the 
 cost of elections, when borne by the candidates, 
 deprives the nation of the services, as members of 
 Parliament, of all who cannot or will not afford to 
 incur a heavy expense. I do not say that, so long 
 as there is scarcely a chance for an independent 
 candidate to come into Parliament without com- 
 plying with tlii^ vicious practice, it must always be 
 morally wrong in him to spend money, provided that 
 no part of ither directly or indirectly employed 
 
 in corruption. But, to justify it, he ought to be 
 very & rtain that he can be of more use to his 
 country as a member of Parliament than in any 
 other mode which is open to him; and this assurance, 
 in my own case, I did not feel. It was by no means 
 clear t<> me that I could do more to advance the 
 public objects which had a claim on my exertions, 
 from the benches of the House of Commons, than 
 from the simple position of a writer. I felt, there- 
 re, that I ought not to seek election to Parlia- 
 ment, much less to expend any money in pro- 
 curing it. 
 
 But the conditions of the question were con- 
 
282 PARLIAMENTARY LITE. 
 
 siderably altered when a body of electors sought 
 me out, and spontaneously offered to bring me 
 forward as their candidate. If it should appear, on 
 explanation, that they persisted in this wish, knowing 
 my opinions, and accepting the only conditions on 
 which I could conscientiously serve, it was ques- 
 tionable whether this was not one of those calls upon 
 a member of the community by his fellow-citizens, 
 which he was scarcely justified in rejecting. I there- 
 fore put their disposition to the proof by one of the 
 frankest explanations ever tendered, I should think, 
 to an electoral body by a candidate. I wrote, in reply 
 to the offer, a letter for publication, saying that I had 
 no personal wish to be a member of Parliament, that 
 I thought a candidate ought neither to canvass nor 
 to incur any expense, and that I could not consent 
 to do either. I said further, that if elected, I could 
 not undertake to give any of my time and labour to 
 their local interests. With respect to general polil i 
 I told them without reserve, what I thought on a 
 number of important subjects on which they had 
 asked my opinion ; and one of these being the 
 suffrage, I made known to them, among other thin 
 my conviction (as I was bound to do, since I 
 intended, if elected, to act on it), that women were 
 entitled to representation in Parliament on the same 
 terms with men. It was the first time, doubtless, 
 that such a doctrine had ever been mentioned to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 283 
 
 English electors ; and the fact that I was elected 
 after proposing it, gave the start to the movement 
 which has since become so vigorous, in favour of 
 women's suffrage. Nothing, at the time, appeared 
 more unlikely than that a candidate (if candidate I 
 could be called) whose professions and conduct set so 
 completely at defiance all ordinary notions of elec- 
 tioneering, should nevertheless ho elected A well- 
 known literary man was heard to say that the 
 Almighty himself would have no chance of being 
 1 on such a programme. I strictly adhered to 
 it, neither spending money nor canvassing, nor did I 
 take any personal part in the election, until about a 
 week pre of nomination, when I 
 
 mded a few public meetings to state my prin- 
 ciples and give answ i any questions which the 
 
 electors might exercise their just right of putting to 
 me for their own guidance ; answers as plain and 
 unreserved as my address. On one subject only, 
 my religious opinions, I announced from the 
 b -inning that I would answer no questions ; a deter- 
 mination which appeared to be completely approved 
 by those who attended the meetings. My frank- 
 ness on all other subjects on which I was interrogated, 
 evidently did me far more good than my answers, 
 whatever theymight be, did harm. Among the proofs 
 I received of this, one is too remarkable not to be 
 recorded. In the pamphlet, " Thoughts on Parlia- 
 
 ) 
 
284 PARLIAMENT ABY LIFE. 
 
 mentary Reform," I had said, rather bluntly, that 
 the working classes, though differing from those of 
 some other countries, in being ashamed of lying, are 
 yet generally liars. This passage some opponent got 
 printed in a placard, which was handed to me at a 
 meeting, chiefly composed of the working classes, and 
 I was asked whether I had written and published it. 
 I at once answered "I did." Scarcely were these 
 two words out of my mouth, when vehement applause 
 resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident 
 that the working people were so accustomed to expect 
 equivocation and evasion from those who sought their 
 suffrages, that when they found, instead of that, a 
 direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable 
 to them, instead of being affronted, they concluded 
 at once that this was a person whom they could 
 trust. A more striking instance never came under 
 my notice of what, I believe, is the experience of 
 those who best know the working classes, that the 
 most essential of all recommendations to their favour 
 is that of complete straightforwardness ; its presence 
 outweighs in their minds very strong objections, 
 while no amount of other qualities will make amends 
 for its apparent absence. The first working man who 
 spoke after the incident I have mentioned (it was 
 Mr. Odger) said, that the working classes had no 
 desire not to be told of their faults ; they wanted 
 friends, not flatterers, and felt under obligation to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LITE. 285 
 
 any one who told them anything in themselves which 
 he sincerely believed to require amendment. And 
 to this the meeting heartily responded. 
 
 Had I been defeated in the election, I should still 
 have had no reason to regret the contact it had 
 brought me into with large bodies of my country- 
 men ; which not only gave me much new experience, 
 but enabled me to scatter my political opinions more 
 widely, and, by making me known in many quarters 
 where I had never before been heard of, increased 
 the number of my readers, and the presumable influ- 
 ence of my writings. These latter effects were of 
 course produced in a still greater degree, when, as 
 much to my surprise as to that of any one, I was 
 returned to Parliament by a majority of some 
 hundreds over my Conservative competitor. 
 
 I was a member of the House during the three 
 sessions of the Parliament which passed the Reform 
 Bill ; during which time Parliament was necessarily 
 my main occupation, except during the recess. I 
 was a tolerably frequent speaker, sometimes of pre- 
 pared speeches, sometimes extemporaneously. But 
 my choice of occasions was not such as I should have 
 made if my leading object had been Parliamentary 
 influence. When I had gained the ear of the House, 
 which I did by a successful speech on Mr. Gladstone's 
 Reform Bill, the idea I proceeded on was that when 
 anything was likely to be as well done, or sufficiently 
 
286 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 well done, by other people, there was no necessity 
 for me to meddle with it. As I, therefore, in general 
 reserved myself for work which no others were likely 
 to do, a great proportion of my appearances were on 
 points on which the bulk of the Liberal party, even 
 the advanced portion of it, either were of a different 
 opinion from mine, or were comparatively indifferent. 
 Several of my speeches, especially one against the 
 motion for the abolition of capital punishment, and 
 another in favour of resuming the right of seizing 
 enemies' goods in neutral vessels, were opposed to 
 what then was, and probably still is, regarded as the 
 advanced Liberal opinion. My advocacy of women's 
 suffrage and of Personal Representation, were at the 
 time looked upon by many as whims of my own ; but 
 the great progress since made by those opinions, and 
 especially the response made from almost all parts of 
 the kingdom to the demand for women's suffrage, 
 fully justified the timeliness of those movements, 
 and have made what was undertaken as a moral and 
 social duty, a personal success. Another duty which 
 was particularly incumbent on me as one of the metro- 
 politan members, was the attempt to obtain a 
 Municipal Government for the Metropolis: but 
 that subject the indifference of the Hou e of Comm< 
 was such that I found hardly any help or supp 
 within its walls. On this subject, however, 1 v 
 the organ of an active and intelligent body of persona 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LITE. 287 
 
 outside, with whom, and not with me, the scheme 
 
 originated, and who carried on all the agitation on the 
 
 subject and drew up the Bills. My part was to 
 
 bring in Bills already prepared, and to sustain the 
 
 discussion of them during the short time they were 
 
 allowed to remain before the House ; after having 
 
 taken an active part in the work of a Committee 
 jj 
 presided over by Mr. Ayrton, which sat through the 
 
 greater part of the session of 18 G6, to take evidence 
 on the subject. The very different position in which 
 the question now stands (1870) may justly be attri- 
 buted to the preparation which went on during those 
 years, and which produced but little visible effect at 
 tin' time; but all questions on which there are strong 
 private im on one side, and only the public 
 
 good on the other, have a similar period of incubation 
 to go through. 
 
 The same idea, that the use of my being in Par- 
 liament was to do work which others were not able 
 or not willing to do, made me think it my duty to 
 I come to the front in defence of advanced Liberalism 
 - on occasions when the obloquy to be encountered 
 was such as most of the advanced Liberals in the 
 fi House, preferred not to incur. My first vote in the 
 ,- House was in support of an amendment in favour of 
 Ireland, moved by an Irish member, and for which 
 only five English and Scv. tch votes were given, in- 
 i eluding my own : the other four were Mr. Bright, Mr. 
 
288 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 M'Laren, Mr. T. B. Potter, and Mr. Hadfield. And 
 the second speech I delivered"' 5 " was on the Bill to 
 prolong the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in 
 Ireland. In denouncing, on this occasion, the English 
 mode of governing Ireland, I did no more than the 
 general opinion of England now admits to have been 
 just ; but the anger against Fenianism was then in 
 all its freshness ; any attack on what Fenians attacked 
 was looked upon as an apology for them ; and I was 
 so unfavourably received by the House, that more 
 than one of my friends advised me (and my own 
 judgment agreed with the advice) to wait, before 
 speaking again, for the favourable opportunity that 
 would be given by the first great debate on the 
 Reform Bill. During this silence, many flattered 
 themselves that I had turned out a failure, and that 
 they should not be troubled with me any more. 
 Perhaps their uncomplimentary comments may, by 
 the force of reaction, have helped to make my sjoeech 
 on the Reform Bill the success it was. My position 
 in the House was further improved by a speech in 
 which I insisted on the duty of paying off the National 
 Debt before our coal supplies are exhausted, and by 
 
 * Tlie first was in answer to Mr. Lowe's reply to Mr. Bright on the 
 Cattle Flague Bill, and was thought at the time to have helped to 
 rid of a provision in the Government measure which would have g 
 to landholders a second indemnity, after they had already been i 
 indemnified for the loss of some of their cattle by the increased 
 selling price of the remainder. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 289 
 
 an ironical reply to some of the Tory leaders who had 
 quoted against me certain passages of my writings, 
 and called me to account for others, especially for one 
 in my " Considerations on Representative Govern- 
 ment," which said that the Conservative party was, 
 by the law of its composition, the stupidest party. 
 They gained nothing by drawing attention to the 
 passage, which up to that time had not excited any 
 notice, but the sobriquet of " the stupid party' 
 stuck to them for a considerable time afterwards. 
 Having now no longer any apprehension of not being 
 listened to, I confined myself, as I have since thought 
 too much, to occasions on which my services seemed 
 specially needed, and abstained more than enough 
 from speaking on the great party questions. With 
 the exception of Irish questions, and those which 
 concerned the working classes, a single speech on 
 Mr. Disraelis Reform Bill was nearly all that I 
 contributed to the great decisive debates of the last 
 . two of my three sessions. 
 
 I have, however, much satisfaction in looking back 
 i to the part I took on the two classes of subjects just 
 \ mentioned. With regard to the working classes, the 
 chief topic of my speech on Mr. Gladstone's Reform 
 Bill was the assertion of their claims to the suffrage. 
 A little later, after the resignation of Lord Russell's 
 Ministry and the succession of a Tory Government, 
 came the attempt of the working classes to hold a 
 
 u 
 
290 PARLIAMENTARY LIFB. 
 
 meeting in Hyde Park, their exclusion by the police, 
 and the breaking down of the park railing by the 
 crowd. Though Mr. Beales and the leaders of 
 the working men had retired under protest when 
 this took place, a scuffle ensued in which many in- 
 nocent persons were maltreated by the police, and 
 the exasperation of the working men was extreme. 
 They showed a determination to make another 
 attempt at a meeting in the Park, to which many of 
 them would probably have come armed ; the Govern- 
 ment made military preparations to resist the attempt, 
 and something very serious seemed impending. At 
 this crisis I really believe that I was the means of 
 preventing much mischief. I had in my place in 
 Parliament taken the side of the working men, and 
 strongly censured the conduct of the Government. I 
 was invited, with several other Radical members, to a 
 conference with the leading members of the Council 
 of the Reform League; and the task fell chiefly upon 
 myself, of persuading them to give up the Hyde Park 
 project, and hold their meeting elsewhere. It was 
 not Mr. Beales and Colonel Dickson who needed 
 persuading ; on the contrary, it was evident that 
 these gentlemen had already exerted their influence 
 in the same direction, thus far without success. It 
 was the working men who held out, and so bent 
 were they on their original scheme, that I was obliged 
 to have recourse to les. grands moyens. I told them 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 291 
 
 that a proceeding which would certainly produce a 
 collision with the military, could only be justifiable 
 on two conditions : if the position of affairs had 
 become such that a revolution was desirable, and if 
 they thought themselves able to accomplish one. To 
 this argument, after considerable discussion, they at 
 last yielded : and I was able to inform Mr. Walpole 
 that their intention was given up. I shall never 
 forget the depth of his relief or the w^armth of his 
 expressions of gratitude. After the working men 
 had conceded so much to me, I felt bound to comply 
 with their request that I would attend and speak 
 at their meeting at the Agricultural Hall ; the only 
 meeting called by the Reform League which I ever 
 attended. I had always declined being a member 
 of the League, on the avowed ground that I did not 
 agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the 
 ballot : from the ballot I dissented entirely ; and I 
 could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood 
 suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion 
 of women was not intended to be implied ; since if 
 one goes beyond what can be immediately carried, 
 and professes to take one's stand on a principle, one 
 should go the whole length of the principle. I have 
 entered thus particularly into this matter because 
 my conduct on this occasion gave great displeasure 
 to the Tory and Tory-Liberal press, who have charged 
 me ever since with having shown myself, in the trials 
 
 U 2 
 
292 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 of j ublic life, intemperate and passionate. I do not 
 know what they expected from me ; but they had 
 reason to be thankful to me if they knew from what 
 I had, in all probability, preserved them. And I do 
 not believe it could have been done, at that particular 
 juncture, by any one else. No other person, I believe, 
 had at that moment the necessary influence for re- 
 straining the working classes, except Mr. Gladstone 
 and Mr. Bright, neither of whom was available : Mr. 
 Gladstone for obvious reasons; Mr. Bright because he 
 was out of town. 
 
 When, some time later, the Tory Government 
 brought in a Bill to prevent public meetings in the 
 Parks, I not only spoke strongly in opposition to it, 
 but formed one of a number of advanced Liberals, 
 who, aided by the very late period of the session, 
 succeeded in defeating the Bill by what is called 
 talking it out. It has not since been renewed. 
 
 On Irish affairs also I felt bound to take a decided 
 part. I was one of the foremost in the deputa- 
 tion of members of Parliament who prevailed on Lord 
 Derby to spare the life of the condemned Fenian 
 insurgent, General Burke. The Church question was 
 so vigorously handled by the leaders of the party, in 
 the session of 1868, as to require no more from me 
 than an emphatic adhesion : but the land question was 
 by no means in so advanced a position : the supersti- 
 tions of landlordism had up to that time been little 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 293 
 
 challenged, especially in Parliament, and the hack- 
 ward state of the question, so far as concerned the 
 Parliamentary mind, was evidenced by the extremely 
 mild measure brought in by Lord Russell's Govern- 
 ment ill 1866, which nevertheless could not be car- 
 ried. On that Bill I delivered one of my most 
 careful speeches, in which I attempted to lay down 
 some of the principles of the subject, in a manner 
 calculated less to stimulate friends, than to conciliate 
 and convince opponents. The engrossing subject of 
 Parliamentary Reform prevented either this Bill, 
 or one of a similar character brought in by Lord 
 Derby's Government, from being carried through. 
 They never got beyond the second reading. Mean- 
 while the signs of Irish disaffection had become much 
 more decided ; the demand for complete separation 
 between the two countries had assumed a menacing 
 aspect, and there were few who did not feel that if 
 there was still any chance of reconciling Ireland to 
 the British connexion, it could only be by the adop- 
 tion of much more thorough reforms in the territorial 
 and social relations of the country, than had yet been 
 contemplated. The time seemed to me to have come 
 when it would be useful to speak out my whole 
 mind ; and the result was my pamphlet " England 
 and Ireland/ 7 which was written in the winter of 
 1867, and published shortly before the commence- 
 ment of the session of 1868. The leading features of 
 
294 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 the pamphlet were, on the one hand, an argument to 
 show the undesirableness, for Ireland as well as foi 
 England, of separation between the countries, and 
 on the other, a proposal for settling the land ques- 
 tion by giving to the existing tenants a permanent 
 tenure, at a fixed rent, to be assessed after due 
 inquiry by the State. 
 
 The pamphlet was not popular, except in Ireland, 
 as I did not expect it to be. But, if no measure 
 short of that which I proposed would do full justice 
 to Ireland, or afford a prospect of conciliating the 
 mass of the Irish people, the duty of proposing it 
 was imperative ; while if, on the other hand, there was 
 any intermediate course which had a claim to a trial, 
 I well knew that to propose something which would 
 be called extreme, was the true way not to impede 
 but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. It is 
 most improbable that a measure conceding so much to 
 the tenantry as Mr. Gladstones Irish Land Bill, 
 would have been proposed by a Government, or 
 could have been carried through Parliament, unl 
 the British public had been led to perceive that a 
 case might be made, and perhaps a party formed, for 
 a measure considerably stronger. It is the character 
 of the British people, or at least of the higher and 
 middle classes who pass muster for the British 
 people, that to induce them to approve of any 
 change, it is necessary that they should look upon 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 295 
 
 1 it as a middle course : they think every proposal 
 extreme and violent unless they hear of some other 
 proposal going still farther, upon which their anti- 
 pathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it 
 proved in the prefeent instance ; my proposal was 
 condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land reform, 
 short of mine, came to be thought moderate by com- 
 parison. I may observe that the attacks made on 
 my plan usually gave a very incorrect idea of its 
 nature. It was usually discussed as a proposal that 
 the State should buy up the land and become the 
 universal landlord ; though in fact it only offered to 
 a individual landlord this as an alternative, if 
 
 1 he liked better to Bell his i than to retain it on 
 
 the new conditions ; and I fully anticipated that 
 most landlords would continue to prefer the position 
 of landowners to that of Government annuitants, and 
 would retain their existing relation to their tenants, 
 often on more indulgent terms than the full rents on 
 which the compensation to be given them by Govern- 
 ment would have been based. This and many other 
 explanations I gave in a speech on Ireland, in the 
 
 ] debate on Mr. Maguire's resolution, early in the 
 
 ! session of 18G8. A corrected report of this speech, 
 together with my speech on Mr. Fortescue's Bill, 
 has been published (not by me, but with my per- 
 mission) in Ireland. 
 
 Another public duty, of a most serious kind, it 
 
296 PARLIAMENTARY LITE. 
 
 was my lot to have to perform, both in and out of 
 Parliament, during these years. A disturbance in 
 Jamaica, provoked in the first instance by injustice, 
 and exaggerated by rage and panic into a pre- 
 meditated rebellion, had been the motive or excuse 
 for taking hundreds of innocent lives by military 
 violence, or by sentence of what were called courts- 
 martial, continuing for weeks after the brief distur- 
 bance had been put down ; with many added atrocities 
 of destruction of property, flogging women as well as 
 men, and a general display of the brutal recklessness 
 which usually prevails when fire and sword are let 
 loose. The perpetrators of those deeds were defended 
 and applauded in England by the same kind of 
 people who had so long upheld negro slavery : and it 
 seemed at first as if the British nation was about to 
 incur the disgrace of letting pass without even a 
 protest, excesses of authority as revolting as any of 
 those for which, when perpetrated by the instruments 
 of other Governments, Englishmen can hardly find 
 terms sufficient to express their abhorrence. After 
 a short time, however, an indignant feeling was 
 roused : a voluntary Association formed itself under 
 the name of the Jamaica Committee, to take such 
 deliberation and action as the case might admit of, 
 and adhesions poured in from all parts of the country, 
 I was abroad at the time, but I sent in my name to 
 the Committee as soon as I heard of it, and took an 
 active part in the proceedings from the time of my 
 
PARLIAMENTABY LIFE; 297 
 
 1 
 
 j return. There was much more at stake than only 
 justice to the Negroes, imperative as was that con- 
 ! sideration. The question was, whether the British 
 i dependencies, and eventually, perhaps, Great Britain 
 i itself, were to be under the government of law, or of 
 i military licence ; whether the lives and persons of 
 I British subjects are at the mercy of any two or three 
 S officers however raw and inexperienced or reckless 
 > and brutal, whom a panic-stricken Governor, or other 
 functionary, may assume the right to constitute into 
 a so-called court-martial. This question could only 
 be decided by an appeal to the tribunals ; and such 
 an appeal the Committee determined to make. Their 
 determination led to a change in the chairmanship of 
 the Committee, as the chairman, Mr. Charles Buxton, 
 thought it not unjust indeed, but inexpedient, to 
 prosecute Governor Eyre and his principal sub- 
 ordinates in a criminal court : but a numerously 
 attended general meeting of the Association having 
 decided this point against him, Mr. Buxton withdrew 
 from the Committee, though continuing to work in 
 the cause, and I was, quite unexpectedly on my own 
 part, proposed and elected chairman. It became, in 
 consequence, my duty to represent the Committee in 
 the House of Commons, sometimes by putting questions 
 to the Government, sometimes as the recipient of ques- 
 tions, more or less provocative, addressed by individual 
 members to myself ; but especially as speaker in the 
 important debate originated in the session of 1866, by 
 
293 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Buxton : and the speech I then delivered is that' 
 which I should probably select as the best of my^ 
 speeches in Parliament.* For more than two years 
 we carried on the combat, trying every avenue legally 
 open to us, to the Courts of Criminal Justice. A 
 bench of magistrates in one of the most Tory counties j 
 in England dismissed our case : we were more success- 
 ful before the magistrates at Bow Street ; which 
 gave an opportunity to the Lord Chief Justice of the 
 Queen's Bench, Sir Alexander Cockburn, for deliver- 
 ing his colebrated charge, which settled the law of 
 the question in favour of liberty, as far as it is in the 
 power of a judge's charge to settle it. There, how- 
 ever, our success ended, for the Old Bailey Grand 
 Jury by throwing out our Bill prevented the case 
 from coming to trial. It was clear that to bring 
 English functionaries to the bar of a criminal court y 
 for abuses of power committed against negroes and 
 !nulattoes was not a popular proceeding with the 
 English middle classes. We had, however, redeemed, 
 so far as lay in us, the character of our country, by 
 showing that there was at any rate a body of 
 persons determined to use all the means which the 
 law afforded to obtain justice for the injured. We 
 
 * Among the most active members of the Committee were Mr. P. A. 
 Taylor, M.P., always faithful and energetic in every assertion of 
 Mie principles of liberty ; Mr. Gold win Smith, Mr. Frederick Harrison, 
 Mr. Slack, Mr. Chamerovzow, Mr. Shaen, and Mr. Chesson, the 
 Honorary Secretary of the Association. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 299 
 
 ■'had elicited from the highest criminal judge in the 
 \ nation an authoritative declaration that the law was 
 what we maintained it to be ; and we had given an 
 emphatic warning to those who might be tempted 
 to similar guilt hereafter, that, though they might 
 escape the actual sentence of a criminal tribunal, 
 they were not safe against being put to some trouble 
 and expense in order to avoid it. Colonial governors 
 and other persons in authority, will have a consider- 
 able motive to stop short of such extremities in 
 
 future. 
 
 As a matter of curiosity I kept some specimens 
 of the abusive letters, almost all of them anonymous, 
 which I received while these proceedings were going 
 on. They are evidence of the sympathy felt with the 
 brutalities in Jamaica by the brutal part of the popu- 
 lation at home. They graduated from coarse jokes, 
 verbal and pictorial, up to threats of assassination. 
 Among other matters of importance in which I 
 took an active part, but which excited little interest 
 in the public, two deserve particular mention. I 
 joined with several other independent Liberals in 
 defeating an Extradition Bill introduced at the 
 very end of the session of 1866, and by which, 
 though surrender avowedly for political offences was 
 not authorized, political refugees, if charged by a 
 foreign Government with acts which are necessarily 
 incident to all attempts at insurrection, would have 
 been surrendered to be dealt with by the criminal 
 
300 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 courts of the Government against which they had 
 rebelled : thus making the British Government an 
 accomplice in the vengeance of foreign despotisms. 
 The defeat of this proposal led to the appointment 
 of a Select Committee (in which I was included), to 
 examine and report on the whole subject of Extra- 
 dition Treaties ; and the result was, that in the Ex- 
 tradition Act which passed through Parliament after 
 I had ceased to be a member, opportunity is given 
 to any one whose extradition is demanded, of being 
 heard before an English court of justice to prove 
 that the offence with which he is charged, is really 
 political. The cause of European freedom has thus 
 been saved from a serious misfortune, and our own 
 
 country from a great iniquity. The other subject to 
 be mentioned is the fight kept up by a body of 
 advanced Liberals in the session of 1868, on the 
 Bribery Bill of Mr. Disraeli's Government, in which 
 I took a very active part. I had taken counsel with 
 several of those who had applied their minds most 
 carefully to the details of the subject — Mr. W. D. 
 Christie, Serjeant Pulling, Mr. Chadwick — as well 
 as bestowed much thought of my own, for the pur- 
 pose of framing such amendments and additional 
 clauses as might make the Bill really effective 
 against the numerous modes of corruption, direct 
 and indirect, which might otherwise, as there was 
 much reason to fear, be increased instead of dimi- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 301 
 
 nished by the Eeform Act. We also aimed at en- 
 grafting on the Bill, measures for diminishing the 
 mischievous burden of what are called the legitimate 
 expenses of elections. Among our many amend- 
 ments, was that of Mr. Fawcett for making the 
 returning officer's expenses a charge on the rates, 
 instead of on the candidates ; another was the pro- 
 hibition of paid canvassers, and the limitation of 
 paid agents to one for each candidate ; a third was 
 the extension of the precautions and penalties 
 against bribery, to municipal elections, which are 
 well known to be not only a preparatory school for 
 bribery at Parliamentary elections, but an habitual 
 cover for it. The Conservative Government, how- 
 ever, when once they had carried the leading pro- 
 vision of their Bill (for which I voted and spoke), 
 the transfer of the jurisdiction in elections from the 
 House of Commons to the Judges, made a determined 
 resistance to all other improvements ; and after one 
 of the most important proposals, that of Mr. Fawcett, 
 had actually obtained a majority, they summoned 
 the strength of their party and threw out the clause 
 in a subsequent stage. The Liberal party in the 
 House was greatly dishonoured by the conduct of 
 many of its members in giving no help whatever 
 to this attempt to secure the necessary conditions of 
 an honest representation of the people. With their 
 large majority in the House they could have carried 
 
302 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 all the amendments, or better ones if they Lad better 
 to propose. But it was late in the session ; members 
 were eager to set about their preparations for the 
 impending General Election : and while some (such 
 as Sir Robert Anstruther) honourably remained at 
 their post, though rival candidates were already can- 
 vassing their constituency, a much greater number 
 placed their electioneering interests before their 
 public duty. Many Liberals also looked with in- 
 difference on legislation against bribery, thinking 
 that it merely diverted public interest from the 
 Ballot, which they considered, very mistakenly as I 
 expect it will turn out, to be a sufficient, and the only, 
 remedy. From these causes our fight, though kept 
 up with great vigour for several nights, was wholly 
 unsuccessful, and the practices which we sought to 
 render more difficult, prevailed more widely than 
 ever in the first General Election held under the 
 new electoral law. 
 
 In the general debates on Mr. Disraeli's Reform 
 Bill, my participation was limited to the one speech 
 already mentioned : but I made the Bill an occasion 
 for bringing the two greatest improvements which 
 remain to be made in Representative Government, 
 formally before the House and the nation. One of 
 them was Personal, or, as it is called with equal 
 propriety, Proportional Representation. I brought 
 this under the consideration of the House, by an 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 303 
 
 expository and argumentative speech on Mr. Hare's 
 plan ; and subsequently I was active in support of 
 the very imperfect substitute for that plan, which, 
 in a small number of constituencies, Parliament was 
 induced to adopt. This poor makeshift had scarcely 
 any recommendation, except that it was a partial 
 recognition of the evil which it did so little to 
 remedy. As such, however, it was attacked by the 
 same fallacies, and required to be defended on the 
 same principles, as a really good measure \ and its 
 adoption in a few Parliamentary elections, as well 
 as the subsequent introduction of what is called the 
 Cumulative Vote in the elections for the London 
 School Board, have had the good effect of converting 
 the equal claim of all electors to a proportional share 
 in the representation, from a subject of merely 
 speculative discussion, into a question of practical 
 politics, much sooner than would otherwise have 
 been the case. 
 
 This assertion of my opinions on Personal Repre- 
 sentation cannot be credited with any considerable 
 or visible amount of practical result. It was other- 
 wise with the otl er motion which I made in the 
 form of an amendment to the Reform Bill, and 
 which was by far the most important, perhaps the 
 only really important, public service I performed in 
 the capacity of a member of Parliament : a motion 
 to strike out the words which were understood to 
 
304 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 limit the electoral franchise to males, and thereby 
 to admit to the suffrage all women who, as house- 
 holders or otherwise, possessed the qualification re- 
 quired of male electors. For women not to make 
 their claim to the suffrage, at the time when the 
 elective franchise was being largely extended, w^ould 
 have been to abjure the claim altogether ; and a 
 movement on the subject was begun in 1866, when 
 I presented a petition for the suffrage, signed by a 
 considerable number of distinguished women. But 
 it was as yet uncertain whether the proposal would 
 obtain more than a few stray votes in the House : 
 and when, after a debate in which the speakers on 
 the contrary side were conspicuous by their feeble- 
 ness, the votes recorded in favour of the motion 
 amounted to 73 — made up by pairs and tellers to 
 above 80 — the surprise was general, and the en- 
 couragement great : the greater, too, because one of 
 those who voted for the motion was Mr. Bright, a 
 fact which could only be attributed to the im- 
 pression made on him by the debate, as he had pre- 
 viously made no secret of his non-concurrence in the 
 proposal. * * * * 
 
 I believe I have mentioned all that is worth 
 remembering of my proceedings in the House. But 
 their enumeration, even if complete, would give but 
 an inadequate idea of my occupations during that 
 period, and especially of the time taken up by cor- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 305 
 
 respondence. For many years before my election to 
 Parliament, I had been continually receiving letters 
 from strangers, mostly addressed to me as a writer 
 on philosophy, and either propounding difficulties or 
 communicating thoughts on subjects connected with 
 logic or political economy. In common, I suppose, 
 with all who are known as political economists, I 
 was a recipient of all the shallow theories and 
 absurd proposals by which people are perpetually 
 endeavouring to show the way to universal wealth 
 and happiness by some artful reorganization of the 
 currency. When there were signs of sufficient in- 
 telligence in the writers to make it worth while 
 attempting to put them right, I took the trouble to 
 point out their errors, until the growth of my cor- 
 respondence made it necessary to dismiss such per- 
 sons with very brief answers. Many, however, of 
 the communications I received were more worthy of 
 attention than these, and in some, over-sights of 
 detail were pointed out in my writings, which I was 
 thus enabled to correct. Correspondence of this sort 
 naturally multiplied with the multiplication of the 
 subjects on which I wrote, especially those of a 
 metaphysical character. But when I became a member 
 of Parliament, I began to receive letters on private 
 grievances and on every imaginable subject that 
 related to any kind of public affairs, however remote 
 from my knowledge or pursuits. It was not my 
 
 x 
 
306 PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 
 
 constituents in Westminster who laid -this burden 
 on me : they kept with remarkable fidelity to the 
 understanding on which I had consented to serve. 
 I received, indeed, now and then an application from 
 some ingenuous youth to procure for him a small 
 Government appointment ; but these were few, and 
 how simple and ignorant the writers were, was shown 
 by the fact that the applications came in about 
 equally whichever party was in power. My in- 
 variable answer was, that it was contrary to the 
 principles on which I was elected to ask favours of 
 any Government. But, on the whole, hardly any 
 part of the country gave me less trouble than my 
 own constituents. The general mass of corre- 
 spondence, however, swelled into an oppressive 
 
 burden. * * * * * 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 ■fc ¥r * * * * 
 
 While I remained in Parliament my work as an 
 author was unavoidably limited to the recess. During 
 that time I wrote (besides the pamphlet on Ireland, 
 already mentioned), the Essay on Plato, published in 
 the Edinburgh Review, and reprinted in the third 
 volume of " Dissertations and Discussions ;" and the 
 address which, conformably to custom, I delivered to 
 the University of St. Andrew's, whose students had 
 done me the honour of electing me to the office of 
 
PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 307 
 
 Rector. In this Discourse I gave expression to 
 many thoughts and opinions which had been accumu- 
 lating in me through life, respecting the various 
 studies which belong to a liberal education, their 
 uses and influences, and the mode in which they 
 should be pursued to render their influences most 
 beneficial. The position taken up, vindicating the 
 high educational value alike of the old classic and 
 the new scientific studies, on even stronger grounds 
 than are urged by most of their advocates, and 
 insisting that it is only the stupid inefficiency of the 
 usual teaching which makes those studies be regarded 
 as competitors instead of allies, was, I think, calcu- 
 lated, not only to aid and stimulate the improve- 
 ment which has happily commenced in the national 
 institutions for higher education, but to diffuse juster 
 ideas than we often find, even in highly educated men, 
 on the conditions of the highest mental cultivation. 
 
 During this period also I commenced (and com- 
 pleted soon after I had left Parliament) the per- 
 formance of a duty to philosophy and to the memory 
 of my father, by preparing and publishing an edition 
 of the "Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human 
 Mind," with notes bringing up the doctrines of that 
 admirable book to the latest improvements in science 
 and hi speculation. This was a joint undertaking : 
 the psychological notes being furnished in about 
 equal proportions by Mr. Bain and myself, while Mr. 
 
308 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 Grote supplied some valuable contributions on points 
 in the history of philosophy incidentally raised, and 
 Dr. Andrew Findlater supplied the deficiencies in 
 the book which had been occasioned by the imperfect 
 philological knowledge of the time when it was 
 written. Having been originally published at a time 
 when the current of metaphysical speculation ran 
 in a quite opposite direction to the psychology of 
 Experience and Association, the " Analysis" had not 
 obtained the amount of immediate success which it 
 deserved, though it had made a deep impression on 
 many individual minds, and had largely contributed, 
 through those minds, to create that more favourable 
 atmosphere for the Association Psychology of which 
 we now have the benefit. Admirably adapted for a 
 class-book of the Experience Metaphysics, it only 
 required to be enriched, and hi some cases corrected, 
 by the results of more recent labours in the. same 
 school of thought, to stand, as it now does, in com- 
 pany with Mr. Bain's treatises, at the head of the 
 systematic works on Analytic Psychology. 
 
 In the autumn of 1868 the Parliament which 
 passed the .Reform Act was dissolved, and at the 
 new election for Westminster I was thrown out ; 
 not to my surprise, nor, I believe, to that of my 
 principal supporters, though in the few days pre- 
 ceding the election they had become more sanguine 
 than before. That I should not have been elected at 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 309 
 
 all would not have required any explanation ; what 
 excites curiosity is that I should have been elected the 
 first time, or, having been elected then, should have 
 been defeated afterwards. But the efforts made to 
 defeat me were far greater on the second occasion 
 than on the first. For one thing, the Tory Govern- 
 ment was now struggling for existence, and success in 
 any contest was of more importance to them. Then, 
 too, all persons of Tory feelings were far more em- 
 bittered against me individually than on the previous 
 occasion ; many who had at first been either favour- 
 able or indifferent, were vehemently opposed to my 
 re-election. As I Lad shown in my political writings 
 that I was aware of the weak points in democratic 
 opinions. Borne Conservatives, it seems, had not been 
 without hopes of finding me an oj)ponent of demo- 
 cracy : as I was able to see the Conservative side 
 of the question, they presumed that, like them, I 
 could not see any other side. Yet if they had really 
 read my writings, they would have known that after 
 giving full weight to all that appeared to me well 
 grounded in the .arguments against democracy, I 
 unhesitatingly decided in its favour, while recom- 
 mending that it should be accompanied by such 
 institutions as were consistent with its principle and 
 calculated to ward off its inconveniences: one of the 
 chief of these remedies being Proportional Repre- 
 sentation, on which scarcely any of the Conservatives 
 
310 GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 gave me any support. Some Tory -expectations 
 appear to have been founded on the approbation I 
 had expressed of plural voting, under certain con- 
 ditions : and it has been surmised that the suggestion 
 of this sort made in one of the resolutions which 
 Mr. Disraeli introduced into the House preparatory 
 to his Reform Bill (a suggestion which meeting with 
 no favour he did not press), may have been occa- 
 sioned by what I had written on the point : but if 
 so, it was forgotten that I had made it an express 
 condition that the privilege of a plurality of votes 
 should be annexed to education, not to property, and 
 even so, had approved of it only on the supposition 
 of universal suffrage. How utterly inadmissible such 
 plural voting would be under the suffrage given by 
 the present Reform Act, is proved, to any who could 
 otherwise doubt it, by the very small weight which 
 the working classes are found to possess in elections, 
 even under the law which gives no more votes to 
 any one elector than to any other. 
 
 While I thus was far more obnoxious to the Tory 
 interest, and to many Conservative Liberals than I 
 had formerly been, the course I pursued in Par? 
 liament had by no means been such as to make 
 Liberals generally at all enthusiastic in my support. 
 It has already been mentioned, how large a pro- 
 portion of my prominent appearances had been on 
 questions on which I differed from most of the 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 311 
 
 Liberal party, or about which they cared little, and 
 how few occasions there had been on which the line 
 I took was such as could lead them to attach any 
 great value to me as an organ of their opinions. I 
 had moreover done things which had excited, in many 
 minds, a personal prejudice against me. Many 
 were offended by what they called the persecution 
 of Mr. Eyre : and still greater offence was taken at 
 my sending a subscription to the election expenses 
 of Mr. Bradlaugh. Having refused to be at any 
 expense for my own election, and having had all its 
 expenses defrayed by others, I felt under a peculiar 
 obligation to subscribe in my turn where funds were 
 deficient for candidates whose election was desirable. 
 I accordingly sent subscriptions to nearly all the 
 working class candidates, and among others to Mr. 
 Bradlaugh. He had the support of the working classes ; 
 having heard him speak, I knew him to be a man of 
 ability, and he had proved that he was the reverse of a 
 demagogue, by placing himself in strong opposition 
 to the prevailing opinion of the democratic party on 
 two such important subjects as Malthusianism and 
 Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who, 
 while sharing the democratic feelings of the working 
 classes, judged political questions for themselves, and 
 had courage to assert their individual convictions 
 against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed 
 to me, in Parliament, and I did not think that Mr, 
 
312 GENERAL VIEW OP 
 
 Bradlaugh's anti-religious opinions (even ^though he 
 had been intemperate in the expression of them) ought 
 to exclude him. In subscribing, however, to his elec- 
 tion, I did what would have been highly imprudent 
 if I had been at liberty to consider only the interests 
 of my own re-election ; and, as might be expected, 
 the utmost possible use, both fair and unfair, was 
 made of this act of mine to stir up the electors of 
 Westminster against me. To these various causes, 
 combined with an unscrupulous use of the usual 
 pecuniary and other influences on the side of my 
 Tory competitor, while none were used on my side, it 
 is to be ascribed that I failed at my second election 
 after having succeeded at the first. No sooner was 
 the result of the election known than I received 
 three or four invitations to become a candidate for 
 other constituer cies, chiefly counties ; but even if 
 success could have been expected, and this without 
 expense, I was not disposed to deny myself the relief 
 of returning to private life. I had no cause to feel 
 humiliated at my rejection by the electors ; and if I 
 had, the feeling would have been far outweighed 
 by the numerous expressions of regret which I 
 received from all sorts of persons and places, and In a 
 most marked degree from those members of the 
 Liberal party in Parliament, with whom I had been 
 accustomed to act. 
 
 Since that time little has occurred which there is 
 
THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE. 313 
 
 need to commemorate in this place. I returned to 
 my old pursuits and to the enjoyment of a country 
 life in the south of Europe, alternating twice a year 
 with a residence of some few weeks or months in the 
 neighbourhood of London. I have written various 
 articles in periodicals (chiefly in my friend Mr. 
 Morley's Fortnightly Review), have made a small 
 number of speeches on public occasions, have pub- 
 lished the " Subjection of Women," written some 
 years before, with some additions * * 
 
 * and have commenced the preparation of 
 
 matter for future books, of which it will be time to 
 speak more particularly if I live to finish them. 
 Here thereforOj for the present, this memoir may 
 close. 
 
 THE END. 
 
3477-2