104 



JOHN STUART MILL. 



he received no other direct assist- 

 ance from her in this work, he had 

 it from Mr. Bain, who " went care- 

 fully through the manuscript before 

 it was sent to press, and enriched it 

 with a great number of additional 

 examples and illustrations from sci- 

 ence ; many of which, as well as 

 some detached remarks of his own 

 in confirmation of my logical views, I 

 inserted nearly in his own words " (p. 

 245) ; and a good deal of a slightly 

 different nature from Comte. In 

 writing the Logic he said that he was 

 * stopped and brought to a halt on 

 the threshold of Induction " (p. 207), 

 but the history of Dr. Whewell on 

 the Inductive Sciences, gave him what 

 he " had been waiting for " (pp. 208 

 and 223) ; and he " gained much 

 from Comte" (p. 210).* Of his 

 Liberty he says : 



"None of my writings have been 

 either so carefully composed or so sedu- 

 lously corrected as this" (p. 205). It 

 "was more directly and literally our 

 joint production than anything else 

 which bears my name " (p. 251). " With 

 regard to the thoughts, it is difficult to 

 identify any particular part or element 

 as being more hers than all the rest. 

 The whole mode of thinking of which 

 the book was the expression was emphat- 

 ically hers. But [oddly as it may appear] 

 I also was so thoroughly imbued with 

 it, that the same thoughts naturally oc- 

 curred to us both. That I was thus 

 penetrated with it, however, I owe in a 



great degree to her She 



benefited me as much by keeping me 

 right when I was right, as by leading 

 me to new truths, and ridding me of 

 errors " (p. 252). " Its final revision 

 was to have been a work of the winter, 



* Of his edition of his father's work on 

 the Analysis of the Phenomena of the Hu- 

 man Mind, he says : " This was a joint 

 undertaking : the psychological notes 

 being furnished in about equal propor- 

 tions by Mr. Bain and myself, while Mr. 

 Grote supplied some valuable contribu- 

 tions on points in the history of philoso- 

 phy incidentally raised ; and Dr. Andrew 

 Findlater supplied the deficiencies in the 

 book which had been occasioned by the 

 imperfect philological knowledge of the 

 time when it was written " (p. 308). 



1858-9" (p. 250). [But losing her be- 

 fore that, he printed it as it stood.] 



Part of his Thoughts on Parlia- 

 mentary Reform had also " been ap- 

 proved and revised by her" (p. 

 257). The remainder of it " I had 

 never discussed with my almost in- 

 fallible counsellor [!J, and I had no 

 evidence that she would have con- 

 curred in it" (p. 257). Of his Dis- 

 sertations and Discussions, he says : 



" The selection had been made dur- 

 ing my wife's lifetime, but the revision, 

 in concert with her, with a view to pub- 

 lication, had been barely commenced; 

 and when 1 had no longer the guidance 

 of her judgment, I despaired of pursuing 

 it further [did he generally swim with 

 bladders round his neck ?] and repub- 

 lished the papers as they were, with the 

 exception of striking out such passages 

 as were no longer in accordance with 

 my opinions " (p. 261). 



Of his Subjection of Women, he 

 says : " As ultimately published, 

 all that is most strik- 

 ing and profound belongs to my 

 wife " (p. 266). 



" The steps in my mental growth for 

 which I was indebted to her were far 

 from being those which a person wholly 

 uninformed on the subject would prob- 

 ably suspect. It may be supposed, for 

 instance, that my strong convictions on 

 the complete equality in all legal, politi- 

 cal, social and domestic relations, which 

 ought to exist between men and women 

 [voting, holding office, fighting, sup- 

 porting themselves, with no claims on 

 their husbands, or they on them, etc. ?] 

 may have been adopted or learned 

 from her. This was so far from being the 

 fact, that these convictions were among 

 the earliest results of the application of 

 my mind [doubtless with the assistance 

 of his father or some other person] to 

 political subjects, and the strength with 

 which I held them was, I believe, more 

 than anything else, the originating cause 

 of the interest she felt in me. What is 

 true is, that until I knew her, the opin- 

 ion was in my mind little more than an 



abstract principle [as usual] 



But that perception of the vast practi- 

 cal bearings of women's disabilities [?] 

 which found expression in the book on 

 the Subjection of Women was acquired 



