JOHN STUART MILL. 



in teaching the children their reli- 

 gious lessons, and reading the 

 family prayers, or conducting the 

 household worship. Notwithstand- 

 ing that, his son says that he was 

 "early led to reject not only the 

 belief in Revelation, but the founda- 

 tions of what is commonly called 

 Natural Religion," merely on ac- 

 count of the moral and physical 

 evil that is in the world, and the 

 punishment that awaits the finally 

 impenitent. The early period here 

 mentioned was doubtless long be- 

 fore he was twenty-five, when 

 licensed to preach; a supposition 

 borne out when he says : 



" I have heard him say that the turn- 

 ing-point of his mind on the subject was 

 reading Butler's 'Analogy.' That work, 

 of which he always continued to speak 

 with respect, kept him, as he said, for 

 some considerable time, a believer in the 

 divine authority of Christianity " (p. 38). 



The " some considerable time " 

 here mentioned is a very indefinite 

 phrase, that might mean some months, 

 or weeks, as well as years. He was 

 naturally supposed to have been a 

 believer in Christianity, for the rea- 

 son that it was the religion of the 

 community in which he was reared, 

 as would be the case with a child, or a 

 grown-up person whose mind might 

 be called a sheet of blank paper; 

 not as a matter of inquiry or evi- 

 dence, but merely something float- 

 ing in the air, like any popular idea. 

 There is, therefore, an absurdity in- 

 volved in the remark that it was 

 only by hanging Butler around his 

 neck he was kept, " for some con- 

 siderable time," a believer ; when he 

 became an atheist, but not a dog- 

 matic one, whatever the difference 

 might be. " These particulars are 

 important " (p. 39). Real particu- 

 lars would have been important had 

 he given us them, in place of the 

 " slovenliness of thought " that 

 throws no light on the religious his- 

 tory of his father from the day he 

 went to college, or before he went 

 there, till he left for London. The 



circumstances and details between 

 the first doubt and the final step, 

 had he been able and willing to 

 give them, would doubtless have 

 been interesting. The questions 

 are, when did he first read Butler, 

 and when did he throw him off? 

 He doubtless read him not later 

 than the first year of his attendance 

 at the divinity hall, or while at the 

 moral philosophy class, or as is the 

 custom to-day. There is nothing 

 to show that James Mill ever be- 

 lieved in Christianity, when he came 

 to examine into it, except that But- 

 ler " the turning-point of his 

 mind" kept him in check for 

 " some considerable time " ; pre- 

 vious to which he must, of course, 

 have been a sceptic, possibly, but 

 not probably, before he even went 

 to college. At the best, Butler only 

 kept him from going over to deism, 

 but did not prevent him becom- 

 ing an atheist. His belief in Chris- 

 tianity, under the circumstances, 

 must have been only of a very so-so 

 nature. And that is confirmed by a 

 writer in the Edinburgh Review, for 

 January, when he says : " It seems, 

 from an inquiry which has been 

 made in the University Library of 

 Edinburgh, that the books he was 

 most given to read there were of a 

 sceptical character." * 



At any stage of his instruction 

 James Mill could have declined the 

 patronage of the ladies that be- 

 friended him, without avowing his 

 infidelity or atheism, and betaken 

 himself to many a calling in which 

 opinions on religion were not re- 

 quired, or expected to be expressed 

 or entertained, and earned his bread 

 like an honest man. But he seems 

 to have preferred acting the hypo- 

 crite for the benefit of the educa- 

 tion and worldly advancement, il- 

 lustrating, in some respects, a case 

 given by him to his son, 



* This was doubtless when he was 

 studying literature and philosophy, dur- 

 ing the first four years he was at College 

 and before he entered the Divinity Hall. 



