A CRISIS IN HIS HISTORY. 



[Where was the family physician ?] It 

 was, however, abundantly intelligible to 

 myself; and the more I dwelt upon it 

 the more hopeless it appeared " (p. 135). 



Then for four pages (136 to 140) 

 he goes on to philosophize on the 

 phenomenon, and the cause of it, 

 saying far more than can be inserted 

 here ; but the following are the prin- 

 cipal words used, taking them in 

 their order, which, as now given, are 

 nearly as intelligible as Mill's four 

 pages on the question treated : 



Course of study, mental and moral 

 feelings and qualities, associations, love 

 and hope, pleasure, action, contempla- 

 tion, pain, ideas, education, experience, 

 corollary, associations of the salutary 

 class, retrospect, instruments, praise and 

 blame, reward and punishment, intense 

 associations, desires, aversions, artificial 

 and casual, intense and inveterate, prac- 

 tically indissoluble, natural tie, habitual 

 exercise, power of analysis, incredulity, 

 natural laws, complements and correc- 

 tives, prejudice, dissolving force, perma- 

 nent sequences, sympathy, object of ex- 

 istence, dissolving influence of analysis, 

 intellectual cultivation, precocious and' 

 premature analysis, inveterate habit, 

 blase and indifferent, heavy dejection, 

 melancholy winter.* 



" The idiosyncrasies of my education 

 had given to the general phenomenon a 

 special character, which made it seem 

 the natural effect of causes that it was 

 hardly possible for time to remove [al- 

 though it went away of its own accord]. 

 I frequently asked myself, if I could, or 

 if I was bound to go on living, when life 

 must be passed in this manner. I gen- 

 erally answered to myself that I did not 

 think I could possibly bear it beyond a 

 year. [Here we would have expected he 

 would have made away with himself.] 

 When, however, not more than half that 

 duration of time had elapsed, a small ray 



* Mill, as he left his region of recondite 

 subjects for the sphere of every-day life, 

 in which the most unsophisticated people 

 feel at home, illustrated, in the " crisis of 

 his mental history," the character of an 

 owl in daylight, with its large head, sol- 

 emn eyes, imposing garb, and judicial 

 air. The words now given, as the essence 

 of what he wrote, are a specimen of the 

 owl-like wisdom which he could display 

 on occasions. 



93 



of light broke in upon my gloom " (p. 

 140). 



The reader will doubtless be anx- 

 ious to learn how he got released 

 from this "purgatory on earth," 

 without a prayer being offered, or a 

 miracle wrought, for the purpose, 

 since no remedy seems to have been 

 resorted to to dispel the evil spirit 

 that possessed him. It was in this 

 way : 



" I was reading, accidentally, Mar- 

 montel's Memoires, and came to the 

 passage which relates his father's death, 

 the distressed position of the family, 

 and the sudden inspiration by which he, 

 then a mere boy [Mill was then twenty], 

 felt and made them feel that he would 

 be everything to them would supply 

 the place of all that they had lost. [A 

 case having no earthly resemblance to 

 his own.] A vivid conception of the 

 scene and its feelings came over me, 

 and I was moved to tears. From this 

 moment [!] my burden grew lighter. 

 The oppression of the thought that all 

 feeling was dead within me was gone. 

 I was no longer hopeless ; I was not a 

 stock or a stone." [And then he be- 

 came what he had been before.] " There 

 was, once more, excitement, though of a 

 moderate kind, in exerting myself for 

 my opinions and for the public good 

 [and 'figuring,' as before]. Thus the 

 cloud gradually drew off, and I again 

 enjoyed life : and [this is very signifi- 

 cant] though I had several relapses, 

 some of which lasted many months, I 

 never again was as miserable as I had 

 been " (p. 141). 



Before this attack of the " blues " 

 came on him, here were his ideas : 



" My conception of my own happiness 

 [not that of others] was entirely identi- 

 fied with this object [that of being a re- 

 former of the world, from the time he 

 was fifteen]. The personal sympathies 

 I wished for were those of fellow-la- 

 bourers in this enterprise. ... I 

 was accustomed to felicitate myself on 

 the certainty of a happy life which I en- 

 joyed [in building castles in the air], 

 through placing my happiness on some- 

 thing durable and distant, in which 

 some progress might be always making-, 

 while it could never be exhausted by 

 complete attainment" (p. 133). [So tar 



