86 



JOHN STUART MILL. 



self from them, but his opinions, 

 from one source and then from ano- 

 ther, and, generally with a rush, 

 modifying, changing, and " going 

 back " on them ; often falling into 

 ideas that were impractical, Uto- 

 pian, fantastic, and pernicious, es- 

 pecially when he attempted to strike 

 out for himself in matters that 

 called for the exercise of common 

 sense or knowledge of the world. 

 At first it was the " youthful fanati- 

 cisms" and the "great excesses," 

 etc., of a " reasoning machine " al- 

 ways " everything by turns and 

 nothing long." He resembled a 

 dog that is now on the scent, and 

 now off it, " taking the back-track," 

 and running this way and then that 

 way, and getting into holes from 

 which he requires to be drawn or 

 dug out. He was constantly tum- 

 bling around the " arena of thought"; 

 now he would tumble into a chair, 

 and no sooner was he in it, or seem- 

 ed to be in it, than he would tumble 

 out of it. Here is what he says of 

 himself: 



" I found the fabric of my old and 

 taiight opinions giving way in many fresh 

 places, and I never allowed it to fall to 

 pieces, but was incessantly weaving it 

 anew" (p. 156). "It has also seemed 

 to me that in an age of transition in 

 opinions, there may be somewhat 

 both of interest and of benefit [as there 

 doubtless is] in noting the successive 

 phases of any mind which was always 

 pressing forward, equally ready to learn 

 and to unlearn, either from its own 

 thoughts or from those of others" (p. 



2). 



It is interesting to note his opin- 

 ion of his father's temper and 

 general deportment while instruct- 

 ing his children at home, which ne- 

 cessity, as we have seen, made him 

 do ; so that the instruction, or the 

 way in which it was given, could be 

 of little or no use, as an example, in 

 the teaching of children at schools. 



" My father, in all his teaching, de- 

 manded of me not only the utmost that 

 T could do, but much that I could by no 

 possibility have done " (p. 5). " One of 



the most impatient of men " (p. 6). " I 

 was continually incurring his displeasure 

 Dy my inability to solve difficult prob- 

 ems, for which he did not see that I had 

 not the necessary previous knowledge " 

 (p. 12). "Most of these reflections 

 were beyond my capacity of full compre- 

 hension at the time" (p. 21). "The 

 particular attention which he paid 

 to elocution (in which his own excel- 

 lence was remarkable) made this read- 

 ing aloud to him a most painful task. 

 Of all things which he required me to 

 do, there was none which I did so con- 

 stantly ill, or in which he so perpetually 



lost his temper with me 



These rules he strongly impressed on 

 me, and took me severely to task for 

 every violation of them ; but I even then 

 remarked (though I did not venture to 

 make the remark to him), that though 

 he reproached me when I read a sen- 

 tence ill, and told me how I ought to 

 have read it, he never, by reading it 

 himself, showed me how it ought to be 

 read. A defect running through his 

 otherwise admirable [?] modes of in- 

 struction, as it did through all his 

 modes of thought, was that of trusting 

 too much to the intelligibleness of the 

 abstract, when not embodied in the con- 

 crete " (p. 23)." * "He was often, and 

 much beyond reason, provoked by my 

 failures in cases where success could not 

 have been expected ; but in the main his 

 method was right [?], and it succeeded " 

 (p. 29). " The element which was 

 chiefly deficient in his moral relation to 

 his children was that of tenderness " (p. 

 51). " If we consider further that he 

 was in the trying position of sole 

 teacher, and add to this that his temper 

 was constitutionally irritable, it is impos- 

 sible not to feel true pity for [children 

 rather than] a father who did, and strove 

 to do, so much for his children, who would 

 have so valued their affection, yet who 

 must have been constantly feeling that 

 fear of him was drying it up at its 

 source. This was no longer the case 

 later in life, and with his younger chil- 

 dren. They loved him tenderly ; and if 

 I cannot say so much of myself, I was 

 always loyally devoted to him. As re- 

 gards my own education, I hesitate 



* In regard to his power as a speaker, 



Mill says : " I never, indeed, acquired 



real fluency, and had always a bad and 



ungraceful delivery ; but I could make 



! myself listened to " (p. 129). 



