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JOHN STUART MILL. 



savage and ferocious as not to admit the 

 necessity of believing in a God, however 

 ignorant they may be what sort of God 

 they ought to believe in. From whence 

 we conclude that every man must recog- 

 nize a Deity, who has any recollection 

 and knowledge of his own origin." 

 Cicero on the Laws, by Younge, p. 409. 



" In truth we can scarcely reckon 

 him a man whom neither the regular 

 courses of the stars, nor the alterations 

 of day and night, nor the tempera- 

 ture of the seasons, nor the productions 

 that nature displays for his use and en- 

 joyment, urge to gratitude towards 

 heaven." Ib., p. 434. 



Mill says : 



" There is no author to whom my 

 father thought himself more indebted 

 for his own mental culture, than Plato, 

 or whom he more frequently recom- 

 mended to young students. I can bear 

 similar testimony in regard to myself" 

 (p. 21). " My father's moral convictions, 

 wholly dissevered from religion, were 

 very much of the character of those of 



the Greek philosophers Even 



at the very early age at which I read 

 with him the Memorabilia of Zenophon, 

 I imbibed from that work, and from his 

 comments, a deep respect for the char- 

 acter of Socrates, who stood in my mind 



a model of ideal excellence At 



a somewhat later period, the lofty moral 

 standard exhibited in the writings of 

 Plato operated upon me with great 

 force" (p. 47). 



But the arguments of these writers 

 in favour of the Deity and the immor- 

 tality of the soul seem to have had 

 no effect upon either of them, for 

 they read their writings wholly dis- 

 severed from religion. And the same 

 can be said of the other ancient phi- 

 losophers, excepting that his father's 



" Standard of morals was Epicurean, 

 inasmuch as it was utilitarian, taking as 

 the exclusive test of right and wrong the 

 tendency of actions to produce pleasure 

 or pain " (p. 48), and of his own stand- 

 ard, he says ; " I never, indeed, wavered 

 in the conviction, that happiness is the 

 test of all rules of conduct, and the end 

 of life " (p. 142). 



We have seen how Mill seems to 

 have merely echoed his father's ideas 



i on the subject of religion (with the 

 1 exception that his wife's memory 

 became one to him) ; and what has 

 been just quoted, will show that he 

 did the same in regard to one of the 

 practical aspects of it. On both 

 points he realized the homely pro- 

 verb, " As the old cock crew, the 

 young one learned." Their " stand- 

 ards of morals " are singular enough. 

 We find in them no reference to 

 duties, or virtue for its own sake, 

 but a creed which might be extended 

 to embrace the most swinish or the 

 most devilish indulgences, if tempo- 

 ral pleasure and happiness are the only 

 things to be sought after, and pain 

 the only thing to be avoided. The 

 old Epicurean creed, " Let us eat 

 and drink, for to-morrow we die," 

 quoted by St. Paul, was an excellent 

 one when compared with it, for that 

 could not directly injure any one but 

 him following it. Had we been told 

 in what happiness or pleasure and 

 pain consisted, we could have form- 

 ed an idea of how far the pursuit of 

 the one, or the avoidance of the 

 other, was allowable. Our duties to 

 God and man are the only real ob- 

 jects worthy of being aimed at, 

 whatever the result ; and the dis- 

 charge of these is not likely to end 

 in real pain, whatever of that we 

 may unavoidably meet with in this 

 transitory state. In the creed of 

 the Mills, unexplained as it is, we 

 can find no moral obligations to 

 mankind individually, but merely 

 the caprices or passions of the crea- 

 ture, that might attach to any action 

 that the passing moment might dic- 

 tate. 



However much Mill recanted and 

 recanted again his opinions, we do 

 not find him canting on the subject 

 of religion (for that he never had), 

 but much in connection with the 

 "aggregate of our fellow-creatures," 

 but little or none with them indi- 

 vidually, and of which the following 

 are specimen expressions : 



Commencement of a new era in 

 thought. 



