OF KNOWLEDGE. 



313 



important episode, in nineteenth century thought. It 

 began and ended with Agnosticism, though this term, 

 with the special meaning attached to it, was only 

 adopted at the end. James Mill 1 was, according to 

 the testimony of his son, neither a believer nor an un- 

 believer in any ultimate theory of the origin and destiny 

 of the world. In spite of his acquaintance with the pro- 

 nounced opposition to religious beliefs contained in the 

 writings of some of the French encyclopaedists he was 

 never an avowed atheist. The writings of his son, John 

 Stuart Mill, 2 notably his ' Autobiography,' and the post- 



1 " My father, educated in the 

 creed of Scotch presbyterianism, 

 had by his own studies and reflec- 

 tions been early led to reject not 

 only the belief in Revelation, but 

 the foundations of what is com- 

 monly called Natural Religion. . . . 

 Finding no halting-place in Deism, 

 he remained in a state of perplex- 

 ity until, doubtless after many 

 struggles, he yielded to the convic- 

 tion that, concerning the origin of 

 things, nothing whatever can be 

 known. This is the only correct 

 statement of his opinion ; for dog- 

 matic atheism he looked upon as 

 absurd ; as most of those, whom 

 the world has considered atheists, 

 have always done" ('Autobio- 

 graphy,' p. 38). James Mill's Ag- 

 nosticism was, however, as we are 

 told further on, founded, not upon 

 intellectual difficulties, nor upon 

 a mechanical or naturalistic direc- 

 tion of thought, but upon the 

 difficulties which surround the 

 problem of physical and moral 

 evil in the world. It is, at 

 the same time, remarkable that, 

 living so near the age during 

 which the philosophy of Kant had 

 made a lasting impression upon 

 Continental thought, his philosophi- 

 cal interests should not have led 



him to take some notice of the 

 critical and idealistic philosophy of 

 Germany. In his 'Life of James 

 Mill,' A. Bain has published a 

 reference to Mill's ' Commonplace 

 Book' "as a clue to his studies." 

 From this it is interesting to see 

 that among the many authors, 

 ancient and modern, English and 

 foreign, there is not one repre- 

 sentative of German philosophy, 

 nor even of the great and broad 

 current of speculation which began 

 with Descartes and was continued 

 by Spinoza and Leibniz, leading on 

 to contemporary German transcen- 

 dentalism. 



2 Although earlier and contem- 

 porary French thought played a con- 

 siderable part in the development 

 of J. S. Mill's convictions, we find 

 no reference to the ' Discourse on 

 Method ' of Descartes, nor did the 

 shallow philosophy of Condillac 

 satisfy him. Starting, as he said, 

 without any creed, he felt the 

 necessity of finding and possessing 

 one. Satisfied at an early age with 

 the '' principle of utility " as under- 

 stood by Bentham, he found in it 

 " the keystone which held together 

 the detached and fragmentary com- 

 ponent parts of [his] knowledge 

 and beliefs. ... It gave him a 



