JOHN STUART MILL. 33 



November, and entered the Government service, and was therefore in 

 constant residence until I saw fit to resign in 1850. For this interval, 

 I have not the advantage of possessing any letters from Mill, and can 

 only give a few scattered recollections of the more impressive occur- 

 rences. 



The " Political Economy " was published in the beginning of 1848. 

 I am not about to criticise the work, as I mean to do the subsequent 

 writings, but I have a few remarks to niake upon it. One modification 

 in the laying out of the subject he owes, as I have already said, to 

 Comte's sociological distinction into Statics and Dynamics. This is 

 shown in the commencement of the fifth book, entitled " The Influ- 

 ence of the Progress of Society in Production and Distribution." I 

 can believe, although I am not a political economist, that this distinc- 

 tion may have been as useful in political economy as in politics. He 

 spoke of it to me at the time as a great improvement. 



But what I remember most vividly of his talk pending the publica- 

 tion of the work, was his expectation of a tremendous outcry about 

 his doctrines on property. He frequently spoke of his proposals as to 

 inheritance and bequest, which, if carried out, would pull down all 

 large fortunes in two generations. To his surprise, however, this 

 part of the book made no sensation at all. I can not now undertake to 

 assign the reason. Probably people thought it the dream of a future 

 too distant to affect the living ; or else that the views were too wild 

 and revolutionary to be entertained. One thing strikes me in the 

 chapter on property. In section 3, he appears to intimate that the 

 children even of the wealthy should be thrown upon their own exer- 

 tions for the difference between a bare individual maintenance and 

 what would be requisite to support a family ; while in the next sec- 

 tion he contemplates " a great rftultiplication of families in easy cir- 

 cumstances, with the advantage of leisure, and all the real enjoyments 

 which wealth can give, except those of vanity." The first case would 

 be met by from two to five hundred pounds a year ; the second sup- 

 poses from one to two thousand. The whole speculation seems to me 

 inadequately worked out. The question of the existence of large for- 

 tunes is necessarily a very complex one ; and I should like that he 

 had examined it fully, which I do not think he ever did. 



His views of the elevation of the working-classes on Malthusian 

 principles have been much more widely canvassed. But there is still 

 a veil of ambiguity over his meaning. Malthus himself, and some of 

 his followers, such as Thomas Chalmers, regarded late marriages as 

 the proper means of restricting numbers ; an extension to the lower 

 classes of the same prudence that maintains the position of the upper 

 and middle classes. Mill prescribes a further pitch of self-denial, the 

 continence of married couples. At least, such is the more obvious in- 

 terpretation to be put upon his language. It was the opinion of many, 

 that while his estimate of pure sentimental affection was more than 

 VOL. XVI. — 3 



