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JOHN STUART MILL. 



arms seems to have been " a horse's 

 skeleton painted black," and whose 

 " portion " was " this world," went 

 out of it. 



" During the whole of 1835 his health 

 had been declining : his symptoms be- 

 came unequivocally those of pulmonary 

 consumption, and after lingering to the 

 last stage of debility, he died on the 

 23d of June, 1836. Until the last few 

 days of his life, there was no apparent 

 abatement of intellectual vigour ; his in- 

 terest in all things and persons that had 

 interested him through life was undi- 

 minished ; nor did the approach of death 

 cause the smallest wavering (as in so 

 strong and firm a mind it was impossi- 

 ble that it should) in his convictions on 

 the subject of religion [as to its being 

 ' a great moral evil ' ] . His principal sat- 

 isfaction, after he knew that his end was 

 near, seemed to be the thought of what 

 he had done to make the world better 

 than he found it [did he do that ?] ; and 

 his chief regret in not living longer, 

 that he had not time to do more " (p. 

 203). 



The following are some of his 

 opinions, in addition to those al- 

 ready given : 



" He thought human life a poor thing 

 at best [as it is, if its end is no better 

 than a dog's], after the freshness of 

 youth and of unsatisfied [satisfied ?] 

 curiosity had gone by. This was a 

 topic on which he [naturally enough] 

 did not often speak, especially, it may be 

 supposed, in the presence of young 

 persons ; but when he did, it was with 

 an air of settled and profound convic- 

 tion. He would sometimes say that if 

 life were made what it might be, by 

 good government and good education 

 [such as he gave to his son, which ex- 

 cluded everything connected with the 

 imagination and the heart], it would be 

 worth having ; but he never spoke with 

 anything like enthusiasm even of that 

 possibility " (p. 48). 



" My father never was a great ad- 

 mirer of Shakspeare, the English idol- 

 atry of whom he used to attack with 

 some severity" (p. 16). 



" For a long time I saw nothing in these 

 [early articles of Carlyle] (as my fathe 

 saw nothing in them to the last) but in 

 sane rhapsody" (p. 161). "I did not 

 however, deem myself a competen 

 judge of Carlyle. 1 felt that he was a 



oet, and that I was not ; that he was 

 a man of intuition, which I was not 

 and there he spoke the truth, for he ac- 

 [uired his knowledge as a sponge takes 

 n water] ; and that as such he not 

 nly saw many things long before me, 

 vhich I could only, when they were 

 pointed out to me, hobble after [like an 

 mpote'nt man] and prove, but that it 

 was highly probable he could see many 

 hings which were not visible to me 

 even after they were pointed out. [He 

 must have been dull in the apprehen- 

 sion.] I knew that I could not see round 

 lim, and could never be certain that I 

 saw over him ; and I never presumed 

 :o judge him with any definiteness until 

 le was interpreted to me by [his ' almost 

 nfallible counsellor'] one greatly the 

 superior of us both who was more a 

 Doet than he, and more a thinker than 

 [whose own mind and nature included 

 tiis, and infinitely more " (p. 176). [The 

 nymph appearing to Numa at the foun- 

 tain was nothing compared with her.] 



In considering what Mill further 

 says of his father, we must make 

 great allowance for the peculiarity 

 of his nature, and his general want 

 of judgment, especially when dis- 

 played in bragging, however indi- 

 rectly, about himself, or directly in 

 regard to any one connected with 

 himself, or indeed, any person what- 

 ever. 



" His place is an eminent one in the lit- 

 erary and even in the political history of 

 his country; and it is far from honourable 

 to the generation which has benefited 

 by his work [?] that he is so seldom 

 mentioned, and, compared with men 

 far his inferiors, so little remembered " 

 (p. 203). " He did not revolutionize, or 

 rather create, one of the great depart- 

 ments of thought. But ... he 

 will be known to posterity as one of 

 the greatest names in that most import- 

 ant branch of speculation on which all 

 the moral [?] and political sciences ulti- 

 mately rest As Brutus was 



called the last of the Romans, so was 

 he the last of the eighteenth century " 

 (p. 204). " By his writings and his per- 

 sonal influence he was a great centre 

 of light to his generation " (p. 205). 



In a letter which James Mill ad- 

 dressed to Jeremy Bentham, in the 

 year 1814, he says: 



