JOHN STUART MILL. 341 



" If this be failure, failure is but the second degree of success ; the first 

 and highest degree may be yet to come." 



The succeeding number appears in April, 1839, and contains the 

 last, and in one view the greatest, of Mill's political series. Liberalism 

 in Parliament is now at its lowest ebb : and only some new and grand 

 expedient can be of any avail. Departing from his old vein of criti- 

 cism of Whigs and Radicals, he plans the " reorganization of the Re- 

 form party " by an inquiry into the origin- and foundations of the two 

 great parties in the state. He inquires who, by position and circum- 

 stances, are natural Radicals, and who are natural Tories ; who are 

 interested in progress, and who in things as they are. I strongly 

 recommend this article as a piece of admirable political philosophy, 

 and I do not know any reason for his not preserving it, except that it 

 is so closely connected with the passing politics of the time. At all 

 events, it is the farewell to his ten years' political agitation. As this 

 was the year of his second bad illness, I presume the article was writ- 

 ten in the end of 1838, in the midst of great suffering. 



After six months' interval, the next number appeared October, 

 1839. It contained no article of Mill's : he had been abroad the first 

 half of the year. The number is otherwise notable for Sterling's ar- 

 ticle on Carlyle, and Robertson's on Cromwell. In March, 1840, was 

 published the last number under Mill's proprietorship. It opened with 

 his " Coleridge " article. 



The Bentham article both stands alone as an appreciation of Ben- 

 tham's work, and also forms one member of a correlative couple with 

 the disquisition on Coleridge. No one possessed the qualifications of 

 Mill for setting forth Bentham's merits and defects : we wish that he 

 had made still more use of his means in depicting Bentham's personal- 

 ity. But in the mode of dealing with the defective side of Bentham, 

 he undoubtedly gave offense to the Benthamite circle. He admits (in 

 the " Autobiography ") that it was too soon to bring forward the faults 

 of Bentham ; and, looking at the article now, we may be allowed to 

 say that a little more explanation is wanted on various points ; as, for 

 example, Bentham's deficiency in imagination, his omission of high 

 motives in his springs of action, and his aversion to the phrases 

 " good and bad taste." It is apparent that Mill is criticising him from 

 a point of view not taken by any other of Bentham's friends and dis- 

 ciples. When we turn to the " Coleridge " article, we find the more 

 explicit statement of his position, as between the great rival schools. 

 There we have a labored introduction to show the necessity of study- 

 ing the conflicting modes of thought on all questions ; we are told that, 

 as partisans of any one side, we see only part of the truth, and must 

 learn from our opponents the other part. Following out this text, 

 Mill endeavors to assign the truth that there is in Conservatism, when 

 purified by Coleridge and raised to a coherent system, or a philosophy. 

 It is needless to advert to the detailed illustration, but the conclusion 



