208 



APPENDIX. 



inquiry addressed to Mr. Barclay in 

 regard to his father, after his death, 

 in which he said : 



"I believe he went through a medical 

 course, and also that for the Church, 

 and I have heard that he was actually 

 licensed as a preacher, but I never heard 

 him say so himself, and never heard of 

 it till after his death. I do not know 

 whether it is true or not ; perhaps you 

 do" (p. 104).* 



Professor Bain writes : 



"The account given by John Stuart 

 Mill (Autobiography) of his father's 

 introduction to the Fettercairn family is 

 a somewhat loose version of the state- 

 ment made to him by Mr. David Bar- 

 clay in a letter written after his father's 

 death in 1836" (p. 104). 



His father's " apostolic labours," 

 after being licensed by the Presby- 

 tery to " preach the gospel of Jesus 

 Christ," seem to have been anything 

 but acceptable. The evidence shows 

 that 



" The generality of the hearers com- 

 plained of not being able to understand 



* The ignorance of John Stuart Mill on 

 this point, however we may look at it, is 

 remarkable. It must surely have occur- 

 red to him to ask his father, for what pur- 

 pose he went to college, if not when re- 

 ceiving his education from him person- 

 ally, at least after he grew up. And the 

 idea would again naturally present itself 

 to him when being instructed in the ir- 

 religious principles impressed on his 

 mind almost from his earliest recollec- 

 tions. Mill by his admission seems to 

 have had very little curiosity about his 

 father's early history, or no means of 

 information on the subject from his 

 father's early Scotch associates or con- 

 nexions, or acquaintances of any kind ; 

 yet it must have been well known to the 

 public at large, owing to his notoriety, 

 that James Mill was a " stickit stibbler," 

 as the Scotch call a " minister " who 

 never finds a church and abandons the 

 profession in consequence. The reticence 

 of James Mill, under certain circum- 

 stances, was natural enough, but incon- 

 sistent with his allowing his sermons to 

 " knock about " the house, to the know- 

 ledge of " members of the family," John 

 Stuart Mill excepted. 



him. Other traditions concur in regard 

 to his unpopular style. Sir David 

 Brewster said to myself, ' I have heard 

 him preach ; and no great han' he made 

 o't.' His discourses would no doubt be 

 severely reasoned, but wanting in the 

 unction of the popular evangelical 

 preacher " [who sincerely believed what 

 he taught] (p. in). 



James Mill was born on the 6th 

 of April, 1773, went to college at 

 Edinburgh in 1790, was licensed as 

 a preacher on the 4th of October, 

 1798, and went to London in the 

 beginning of 1802, after being dis- 

 appointed in getting a church. On 

 the 7th of February, 1807, when 34 

 years of age, and nearly a year after 

 the birth of John Stuart Mill, we 

 find him, as we have seen, writing 

 to a friend in Scotland, asking him 

 if he had not yet found him a good 

 kirk in his neighbourhood. What 

 John Stuart Mill said with reference 

 to his father's religious history is as 

 follows : 



*' He was licensed as a 



preacher, but never followed the profes- 

 sion, having satisfied himself that he 

 could not believe the doctrines of that 

 or any other church " (p. 69, Auto. p. 3), 

 having "been early led to reject not 

 only the belief in Revelation, but the 

 foundations of what is commonly called 

 Natural Religion " (p. 69, Auto. p. 38). 

 He " rejected all that is called religious 

 belief" (p. 73, Auto. p. 39"). "He re- 

 garded it with the feeling due not to a 

 mere mental delusion, but to a great 

 moral evil. He looked upon it as the 

 greatest enemy to morality," and as 

 " radically vitiating the standard of 

 morals " (p. 73, Auto. p. 40), and "not 

 only false, but hurtful " (p. 76, Auto. p. 

 45) ; and that " the most perfect con- 

 ception of wickedness which the human 

 mind can devise " is " embodied in what 

 is commonly presented to mankind as 

 the creed of Christianity " (p. 76, Auto. 

 P. 41). 



Here we have a dismal chasm to 

 be bridged, for no value can be at- 

 tached to John Stuart Mill's re- 

 marks on this subject. I have al- 

 ready said : 



