MILL AND SON. 



107 



period of my life [and at no other 

 period], than zeal for speculative opin- 

 ions " (p. 109). 



As we have seen, his capacity, as 

 he admitted, never went further, at 

 any time, than to entertain specula- 

 tive opinions and theories. It led 

 him, when in his twenty-first year, 

 to give expression to crude ideas 

 about his " love of mankind and of 

 excellence for its own sake " (p. 

 135), when he did not love anyone 

 sufficiently to justify him in confid- 

 ing in him the particulars of a ner- 

 vous disorder with which he was af- 

 flicted. And still he clung to his 

 ideal : 



" For though my dejection, honestly 

 looked at, could not be called other than 

 egotistical, produced by the ruin, as I 

 thought, of my fabric of happiness, yet 

 the destiny of mankind in general [in 

 this world only] was ever in my thoughts, 

 and could not be separated from my 

 own. I felt that the flaw in my life 

 must be a flaw in life itself" [!] (p. 145). 



Mill never had a real boyhood, 

 and apparently for that reason re- 

 tained, in a great measure, the char- 

 acter of a " raw lad " to the last, as 

 his Autobiography to a great extent 

 shows, in many ways, and especially 

 in the high-flown language which 

 he uses in panegyrizing any and 

 every one connected or associated 

 with himself. His opinions, and 

 the language in which they are ex- 

 pressed, are generally so extreme 

 that they merit very little notice or 

 credit. As illustrative of his raw- 

 lad-like peculiarities, we may collect 

 from the Autobiography the follow- 

 ing expressions, in addition to those 

 set down at page 81 : 



Cardinal points. 



Fundamental constitution of modes 



of thought. 



Fundamental improvement. 

 Great purposes. 

 High intellect. 

 High objects. 

 Higher principles. 

 Intellectual creed. 

 Intellectual cultivation. 

 Intellectual growth. 



Mental changes. 

 Mental development. 

 Mental history. 

 Mental progress. 

 Mental superiority. 

 Mental work. 

 Radical amendment. 

 Self-improvement. 

 Thinking faculties. 

 Ultimate aims. 



There is much in the Autobiogra- 

 phy in relation to himself, his wife 

 and his father, that need not have 

 been made public, as Mill has done 

 it. In regard to his father, he com- 

 mitted a worse than Ham-like ac- 

 tion, for Ham was cursed for not 

 immediately covering his father's 

 nakedness, while Mill exposed his 

 parent's, such as it was, to the gaze 

 of all mankind. Indeed, Mill 

 seems to have been very deficient, 

 not only in common sense, as I have 

 already said, but in delicacy or man- 

 liness of feeling, having little or no 

 regard for the ordinary proprieties, 

 or the sensibilities of others, were 

 it only those of his followers, who 

 cannot look on his Autobiography 

 but with a sense of mortification, 

 however interesting it may be to 

 others, as the history of what might 

 be called an irregularity in nature ; 

 but not possessing a single quality 

 to justify its being put into the 

 hands of youth, notwithstanding all 

 its professions and fine phrases to 

 that end. There is another point 

 that Mill should have considered in 

 his lifetime, that it is the custom, 

 indeed the law, that no government 

 officer is allowed to express, far less 

 publish, opinions for or against the 

 law or government of the country, 

 past or present; and although he 

 was not directly employed by the 

 Crown, he stood somewhat in the 

 same position, and should have gov- 

 erned himself accordingly. But it 

 appears to have been no part of Mill's 

 nature to entertain points of deli- 

 cacy or etiquette of that kind. 



It may interest the reader to know 

 how Mill the elder, whose coat-of- 



