110 



JOHN STUART MILL. 



him "could assuredly be done by 

 any boy or girl of average capacity 

 and healthy physical constitution " 

 (p 30). Mill says of his father: 



" Nor did he think it possible to set 

 any positive bounds to the moral capa- 

 bilities which might unfold themselves 

 in mankind under an enlightened direc- 

 tion of social and educational influ- 

 ences " (p. 179), [provided that the 

 worship of God, or even the belief in 

 his existence, or religion in any shape, 

 be banished from the world.] 



But that is in direct contradic- 

 tion to what he said, as we have 

 just seen : " He would sometimes 

 say that if life were made what it 

 might be, by good government [the 

 English was certainly a good gov- 

 ernment] and good education, it 

 would be worth having; but he 

 never spoke with anything like enthu- 

 siasm even of that possibility " (p. 

 48). He must have been difficult 

 to please with both government and 

 education. John Stuart Mill gives 

 it. as his own opinion that " educa- 

 tion, habit and the cultivation of 

 the sentiments, will make a com- 

 mon man [why a common man ?] dig 

 or weave for his country as readily 

 as fight for his country " (p. 232). 

 His " country " has always paid, 

 and always expects to pay, for these, 

 as well as all other services. 



John Stuart Mill seems to have 

 *' boxed the compass " on almost 

 all the subjects he touched : but he 

 never did it on religion, for he never 

 had one to change. He appears to 

 have kept or lost the count of his 

 changes; at least, he speaks of" the 

 third period of his mental progress," 

 but does not mention the changes 

 during each of these periods. The 

 following is a list of some of them, 

 arranged alphabetically : 



Actual revolution. 

 Further mental changes. 

 Future development. 

 Last change. 

 New era in my life. 

 New fabric of thought. 

 New way of thinking. 



Third period of my mental progress. 

 Transformation in my opinions. 

 Transition in my mode of thought. 



He was capable of working a 

 good deal of mischief during his 

 lifetime, with people lacking the ca- 

 pacity or knowledge to reject his 

 nostrums, and partly because of the 

 half-mythical kind of mystery sur- 

 rounding him, and the uncertainty 

 regarding his religious opinions. In 

 the Autobiography such people will 

 not find a sound moral or manly 

 sentiment of any importance ; but 

 much to create a disgust for the 

 father, and a pity for the son for 

 being subjected to the training he 

 received ; as well as anything but a 

 respect for the want of judgment and 

 natural feeling displayed throughout 

 it. It is unnecessary to speak of his 

 radicalism, democracy, women's- 

 rights-ism, socialism, St. Simonism, 

 Owenism, or demagogism generally. 

 But all, or almost all, of his peculi- 

 arities could have been forgiven 

 him, had he not, after seeing nearly 

 the three-score and ten, and receiv- 

 ing many public honours, stated in 

 his posthumous writings that he 

 never had any religion, or apparent- 

 ly a feeling of it, or belief in the 

 existence of God, and glorying in 

 the same ; thus putting himself, in 

 that respect, on a level with the 

 brutes that perish. 



His writings must stand on their 

 merits and the circumstances under 

 which they were produced ; and 

 so must the personal and conven- 

 tional virtues and peculiarities by 

 which he may have been character- 

 ized. His Autobiography shows a 

 wonderful egotism as regards him- 

 self and all connected with him all 

 apparently practical atheists ; an 

 egotism which nothing would seem 

 to have been capable of affecting, 

 except perhaps to anger him for the 

 moment ; for in other respects we 

 could imagine it to have -been in- 

 sensible to a hint and indifferent to 

 a rebuke. When writing it, he may 

 have imagined, in his ignorance of 



