JOHN STUART MILL. 



journeys or excursions, alone or 

 with friends." Then he began to 

 write in the Papers, soon after which 

 followed the foundation of the West- 

 minster. Review. 



There was an event in the history 

 of Mill, described at great length, 

 which would have been interesting 

 had it been given with sufficient 

 accuracy, as to its cause and cure, 

 to have made it intelligible. He 

 styles it " A crisis in my mental his- 

 tory," and introduces it in this way : 



"From the winter of 1821 [when he 

 was fifteen years of age] ... I had 

 what might truly be called an object 

 in life to be a reformer of the world. 

 My conception of my own happiness 

 was entirely identified with this ob- 

 ject " (p. 132). But in the year 1826 

 " I was in a dull state of nerves, such as 

 everybody is occasionally liable to . . ; 

 the state, I should think, in which con- 

 verts to Methodism usually are, when 

 smitten by their first ' conviction of sin' 

 [as if he knew anything about that sub- 

 ject]. In this frame of mind it occurred 

 to me to put the question directly to my- 

 self: ' Suppose that all your objects in 

 life were realized ; that all the changes 

 in institutions and opinions which you 

 are looking forward to [!] could be com- 

 pletely effected at this very instant; 

 would this be a great joy and happi- 

 ness to you? ' " (p. 133.) 



This was a trifling enough ques- 

 tion to be asked of himself by a lad 

 so inexperienced in the ways of the 

 world, and which would have had 

 little or no effect on a young man 

 differently brought up ; or rather, 

 his experience or common sense 

 would have prevented him asking it 

 at all. If he had inquired about 

 God, his soul, and its future destiny 

 calling in question all his father 

 had taught him on these subjects 

 we could have understood his allu- 

 sion to "converts to Methodism 

 when smitten by their first convic- 

 tion of sin." That was a subject 

 about which he was evidently pro- 

 foundly ignorant, and apparently as 

 indifferent ; nor does it appear, in 

 his many allusions to religion, that 



he believed he even had a soul that 

 would exist after leaving the body, 

 whether to be saved or lost, or a 

 God to be accountable to. But the 

 odd question he asked himself, he 

 answered thus : 



" An irrepressible self-consciousness 

 distinctly answered, ' No.' At this my 

 heart sank within me : the whole foun- 

 dation on which my life was constructed 

 fell down. All my happiness was to 

 have been found in the continual pur- 

 suit of this end. The end had ceased to 

 charm, and how could there ever again 

 be an interest in the means ? I seemed 

 to have nothing to live for. At first I 

 hoped that the cloud would pass away 

 of itself; but it did not. A night's sleep, 

 the sovereign remedy for the smaller 

 vexations of life, had no effect on it. I 

 awoke to a renewed consciousness of the 

 woful fact. I carried it with me into all 

 companies, into all occupations. Hard- 

 ly anything had power to cause me even 

 a few minutes' oblivion of it. For some 

 months the cloud seemed to grow thicker 

 and thicker " (p. 1 34). ' In vain I sought 

 relief from my favourite books, . . . and 

 I became persuaded that my love of man- 

 kind, and of excellence for its own sake, 

 had worn itself out" (p. 135), [in doing 

 what ?] 



"If 'I had loved anyone sufficiently 

 [notwithstanding his ' love of mankind 'J 

 to make confiding my griefs a necessity, 

 I should not have been in the condition 

 I was [rather an odd idea]. . . . But 

 there was no one on whom I could 

 build the faintest hope of such assist- 

 ance. My father, to whom it would 

 have been natural to me to have re- 

 course in any practical difficulties, was 

 the last person [excepting a priest] to 

 whom, in such a case as this, I looked 

 for help. Everything convinced me that 

 he had no knowledge of any such men- 

 tal state as I was suffering from ; and 

 that even if he could be made to under- 

 stand it, he was not the physician who 

 could heal it. My education, which was 

 wholly his work, had been conducted 

 without any regard to the possibility of 

 its ending in this result ; and I saw no 

 use in giving him the pain of thinking 

 that his plans had failed, when the fail- 

 ure was probably irremediable, and, at 

 all events, beyond the power of his 

 remedies. Of other friends, I had at 

 that time none to whom I had any hope 

 of making my condition intelligible. 





