MILL AND SON. 



109 



" In reflecting upon the duty which 

 we owe to our principles to that sys- 

 tem of important truths of which you 

 have the immortal honour to be the 

 author, but of which I am a most faith- 

 ful and fervent disciple [or one of his 

 brood], and hitherto, I have fancied, 

 my master's favourite disciple [as if he 

 were addressing the prophet Jeremiah] 

 I have considered that there was no- 

 body at all so likely to be your real suc- 

 cessor as myself. Of talents it would 

 be easy to find many superior. But, in 

 the first place, I hardly know of any- 

 body who has so completely taken up 

 the principles, and is so thoroughly of 

 the same way of thinking with yourself. 

 In the next place, there are very few 

 who have so much of the necessary 

 previous discipline ; my antecedent 

 years having been wholly occupied in 

 acquiring it. And, in the last place, I 

 am pretty sure you cannot think of any 

 other person whose whole life will be 

 devoted to the propagation of the sys- 

 tem " (Bourne). [He seems to have 

 prayed most earnestly for Jeremy to 

 throw his mantle over him.] 



Of this "grand system of truths," 

 which was to have established the 

 millennium on earth, the writer in 

 the Edinburgh Review, alluded to, 

 says : 



" Indeed, so far was Benthamism 

 from founding a school, that it perished 

 with its first disciples ; no such being 

 as a Benthamite of the second genera- 

 tion is known to exist, and even the 

 survivors of the original sect no longer 

 belong to it. Yet these were the men 

 who had started in life with a theory 

 [an utterly godless one] which was to 

 rally to it all educated minds, and re- 

 generate the world. Fifty years have 

 passed, and where is their theory now ? 

 It did not last them half their own 

 lives. John Mill himself had slipped 

 out of the pale. The elder Mill re- 

 mained steadfast in unbelief, denounc- 

 ing with savage vehemence the desert- 

 ers from his standard " [and died as he 

 had lived]. 



The remaining remarks which I 

 shall give from Mill in regard to his 

 father must be received not merely 

 with " a grain of salt," but with a 

 large allowance, or " a heavy dis- 

 count off the face of them," for ob- 



vious reasons, till at least they can 

 be confirmed by disinterested peo- 

 ple more capable than himself, and 

 having the opportunity of putting 

 a correct estimate on his parent's 

 merits, and particularly in connec- 

 tion with India. 



" It is only one of his minor merits 

 that he was the originator of all sound 

 statesmanship in regard to the subject 

 of his largest work, India " (p. 205). " In 

 his History he had set forth, for the first 

 time, many of the true principles of 

 Indian administration ; and his des- 

 patches, following his History [which 

 was published in the beginning of 1818], 

 did more than had ever been done be- 

 fore to promote the improvement of In- 

 dia, and teach Indian officials to under- 

 stand their business. [This, compara- 

 tively speaking, humble subordinate 

 would seem to have ' run ' the com- 

 pany.] If a selection of them were 

 published, they would, I am convinced 

 [whatever other people might think], 

 place his character as a practical states- 

 man [the Governor, directors, etc., hav- 

 ing had apparently nothing to do with 

 the despatches] fully on a level [what- 

 ever that was] with his eminence as a 

 speculative writer " (p. 26). 



" He wrote on no subject which he 

 did not enrich with valuable thought 



[religion, for example] 



In the power of influencing by mere 

 force of mind and character, the con- 

 victions and purposes of others [he 

 could not keep Bentham's goats to- 

 gether], and in the strenuous exertion 

 of that power to promote freedom and 

 progress, he left, as [far as] my knowl- 

 edge extends [a safe reservation], no 

 equal among men, and but one among 

 women " (p. 205), [who must be in- 

 censed or fumigated on all occasions]. 



Among the odd doctrines held 

 by him, the writer in the Edinburgh 

 Review says that he maintained 

 that " all men are born with equal 

 faculties, and that their mental 

 power or weakness [what about the 

 physical ?] is the mere result of ed- 

 ucation and circumstances." And 

 his son got very little in advance of 

 him in that respect, when he gave 

 it as his opinion that his receiving 

 the intellectual cramming given 



