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Autobiography
One of the greatest prodigies of his era, John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was studying arithmetic and Greek by the age of three, as part of an astonishingly intense education at his father's hand. Intellectually brilliant, fearless and profound, he became a leading Victorian liberal thinker, whose works - including On Liberty, Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women and this autobiography - are among the crowning achievements of the age. Here he describes the pressures placed on him by his childhood, the mental breakdown he suffered as a young man, his struggle to understand a world of feelings and emotions far removed from his father's strict didacticism, and the later development of his own radical beliefs. A moving account of an extraordinary life, this great autobiography reveals a man of deep integrity, constantly searching for truth.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1873
About the author
John Stuart Mill
1,669 books1,576 followersJohn Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an exponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's.
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November 27, 2021
سيرة حياتية وفكرية للفيلسوف والاقتصادي والسياسي البريطاني جون ستيورات مِل
حياة قائمة على الدراسة والفكر والعلم, البحث والقراءة والكتابة بدءا من الطفولة وحتى النهاية
حياة قائمة على الدراسة والفكر والعلم, البحث والقراءة والكتابة بدءا من الطفولة وحتى النهاية
June 27, 2011
Think you're pretty smart? Think you've read a lot of books? Think you've had a rigorous education? Prepare to be utterly humbled. Excellent slim volume about a brilliant and also a very good man.
November 13, 2018
The autobiography is such an ancient genre, St. Augustine having written his Confessions in 400 AD, that its conventions were already pretty fixed by the time that Mill finally completed his shortly before his 1873 death. His contribution to the genre is right in line with what we expect: an overview of his life, his work, his relationship (note the singular), and his likely legacy, balancing between honest modesty and fair self-regard. It's notable not just merely because of who he was - pioneering radical, influential politician, prescient philosopher, one of the most enduringly useful of the great modern thinkers - but because of how he thought, and though each chapter is written in that dense, fractally-claused 19th century style, the precision, honesty, and clarity of his sentiments comes across regardless. His descriptions of his own crisis of confidence, his admiration for his wife, and descriptions of his role in some of the most important political and philosophical debates of his time are still worth reading today, because aside from the historical recollections, he works in several other genres as well: implicit child-raising guide, a model for self-education and rational thinking, a self-help book on depression, advice on how to reform the political system from inside, and even some relationship goals. I'd previously read Nicolas Capaldi's biography of him and it's not bad, but there's nothing like going back to the source. This is definitely worth a stop after reading Utilitarianism and On Liberty.
His account of his childhood is fascinating. His father James Mill decided to raise him as a sort of knowledge-seeking missile, giving him nothing but impossibly ambitious classical homework and barely letting him interact with other children. The contrast between the dry tone of Mill's description of his father's methods and the profoundly ambivalent effects it obviously had on him is striking: Ancient Greek lessons at 3 years old, Latin at 8, rhetoric and history philosophy, all with scholastic discipline and criticism that sounds nearly as bad as the infamous British boarding school punishments of the day, because although his father never beat him, imagine having your father yelling at you because your elocution when orating a speech by Demosthenes at age 12 was not quite up to par. I was a fairly bookish child, so a boyhood of not having to go to school and just reading all day doesn't sound so bad, and yet I doubt that force-feeding you child literature like that is useful. A 10 year-old's interpretation of Thucydides can only ever be so good. This steroidal homeschooling did produce one of the most famous philosophers of all time, but it's not a surprise that although he respected and admired his father, Mill calmly states that he didn't love him. He would later endorse government-funded (though not government-run) mandatory education in On Liberty, so this reluctance to endorse his own schooling method is pretty interesting. One can only wonder if he would approve of the "guided self-direction" of the Montessori method as being a happy medium between the austere Plato's Republic-style force-feeding of his youth and the often-inflexible public school system we have today, or what he thought of Rousseau's system in Emile.
Of course, there's only so much you can learn from your father, even if your father is himself a major philosopher, so it's fortunate that James Mill knew many of the leading philosophic lights of the day. Mill spends many pages talking about how his personal relationships with David Hume, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, etc. as a child and young man influenced his later thinking. James Mill was an autodidact himself, perhaps he wanted to try to hurry up his son's enlightenment by giving him access to people who had already read all those books. In a way that's almost more interesting than his homeschooling background - if you deliberately unleashed your kid on your smartest friends and let ask them as many questions as they wanted and your friends would tolerate, how would that mentorship affect them? Bentham was the main influence, of course, but Mill came into contact with many people who already were or would later go on to be very significant (he himself would become godfather to Bertrand Russell), and Mill is very perceptive about what he took and what he rejected from his mentors. There's an inherent tension between trying to devise an authentic personal philosophy that's true to yourself, on one hand, and on the other to race ahead as fast as possible, to stand on the shoulders of giants by learning from other people as much and as quickly as possible. I think that's where judgment and discernment come in, because ultimately you need the ability to say no to people, to choose what's important from what you take in and discard the rest, and indeed one can take much of Mill's philosophy as instructive guidance on how to choose wisely, not just between ideas but between anything.
And yet we are not mere utilitarian calculating machines, as Mill illustrates with his account of his spiritual crisis at age 20. It's a fascinating account of how he found that he was unable to derive personal happiness purely by the maximize pleasure-minimize pain ethos that underlay his own philosophy. One day in the autumn of 1826, he wasn't feeling so great (it sounds sort of like one of those Sunday afternoons that Douglas Adams so memorably described as the long dark tea-time of the soul), and he started asking himself some tough questions:
"In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, 'Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No!' At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for."
There are a truly remarkable number of thought-provoking questions embedded in that paragraph that he answers explicitly or implicitly in the remainder of the chapter:
- Is it actually possible to find true happiness in abstract thought, in any degree? For anyone, or just some? Even if it was possible for you, would that happiness be sufficient? How do you balance the importance of your own "life of the mind" with the rest of your life?
- How does your own personal temperament affect your philosophy? Is something like utilitarianism more or less likely to be believed by happy people? Does switching (or reaffirming) belief systems really change your happiness in the long run, like feeling more confident in a nicer outfit? Can you think yourself sad?
- How important are our own beliefs about the world to you, not just your answers to "big questions" but even minor tastes and opinions? What would it mean if something you thought you really loved turned out to be empty, or flat wrong, or even actively negative to your ego?
- If you don't find joy in something's ultimate conclusion, can there be anything positive about any aspect of it at all? Can you go through the motions of something and be happy, or do you need to excise the whole thing, root and branch, and move on? Does being unhappy that something failed mean that there's still something valuable there, or is unhappiness synonymous with exhaustion?
- As we go through life, does it matter at what age we have big mental paradigm shifts? Is it better to have a crisis of faith when young so you can "course correct" more easily, later so that you don't have to live through as much disappointment, or are quandaries time-invariant? How much depends on the quandary, and how much depends on you as a person?
- When you fall down, how do you find what will pick you up? Is it better to just distract yourself until you feel better and go back to what you were doing, or deliberately start on a different path? What role do other people play?
Mill spent some time depressed, then picked himself back up, rebuilt his entire value system from the ground up, and then went on to become one of the most important philosophers in modern history. That's how it's done, folks! His discovery that happiness is often easier to find when you don't chase it too directly is hardly original, but given that it's a much easier maxim to hear than to actually live, you can hardly hear it repeated too frequently. How many goals have we chased in the idea that when we reach them we will finally be satisfied, only to find out that we needlessly caused ourselves and others unhappiness along the way to an empty and unfulfilling end? How many are we still chasing right now?
A more uplifting human interest point in his life story is his relationship with Harriet Taylor, the woman who would later become his wife. One of the downsides of being raised as a child prodigy apart from your peers by a humorless father who cares mostly about your ability to recite ancient Greek is that it's not great for your sex life. On the flip side, when he met Harriet that repression gave him an admirable devotion to her, sustained platonically at the beginning since she was married at the time and then not-so-platonically after the husband conveniently died and they could then get hitched. It's a good reminder that there's no one right way to go through life, and even if you've got baggage, or what you're doing seems scandalous (there's no evidence that Mill was ever a homewrecker, but really really close friendships with someone else's spouse are red flags in any era), it's possible to come out the other side happy and fulfilled. Not that anyone would recommend his path to happiness, probably least of all Mill himself, but in spite of their irrationality and generally low odds of success, I think "love finds a way" stories will always find an audience, since very few of us ever take the straight line to happiness. I am honestly jealous of his appreciation for his wife as a person and a philosophical companion who complemented him. As he says: "What was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment." He doesn't spend too much time outlining his grief at her death after only 7 years of marriage, but he clearly missed her very deeply, both as a companion and as a fellow philosopher.
One thing that separates Mill from the overwhelming majority of philosophers both ancient and modern is that he was actually a member of the House of Commons for a time, and not merely a writer. Like Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it!" It's all well and good to sit down at your desk and construct a paper paradise, but actually rolling up your sleeves and participating in the ugly moral compromises that politics requires is very different, particularly in that pre-Marx era when advocates of socialism were basing much of their reform proposals on models of primitive communism, which were as much of a dangerous distraction in the Industrial Revolution as they are now. Unsurprisingly, his main issues were all related to fairness: universal suffrage, reducing corruption, and instituting proportional representation. He was unhappy that no one liked his proposal that the more educated be given more votes than the less educated, which sounds anti-egalitarian, but compared to the contemporary explicit bias towards property-owners or the modern implicit bias towards rural voters, it sounds downright reasonable. He was critical to the development of British Liberal Party, but was himself reluctant to fully embrace party labels, preferring to be his own man, and when it came down to tough choices, as it did for him when considering Gladstone's Reform Bill, he was a stick-to-your-guns kind of guy even at the potential cost of passage:
"I had always declined being a member of the [Reform] League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied; since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried and professes to take one’s stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of the principle."
For the most part his views as expressed here only reinforce my idea of Mill as a thinker tirelessly trying to find the most logical way to systematize and thus extend morality. As a member of that unhappy tribe of non-socialist liberals, without the helpful guiding light of a dogma, many of his difficulties with his fellow legislators stemmed from his insistence at trying to universalize moral concepts in a system that encouraged parochialism. For example, during the US Civil War there was a real danger that the UK would support the Confederacy instead of the Union out of crass commercial interests (Karl Marx, then covering the war as a journalist for the New York Herald-Tribune, also correctly argued against this view at length), and for many British legislators, the Civil War really did seem like those "it was about states' rights" myths you still heard about sometimes: "There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathise, of a people struggling for independence." His friend David Hume infamously said of logic: "We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." You can look at Mill's entire parliamentary career as a struggle to show that moral passion and the highest reasoning faculties are not in fact opposed, although judging by the fact that one of his best and most famous lines is still as relevant today as it was in 1861, his successes are tempered at best: "The Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
The best Mill is his philosophical works, though his accounts of his practical experiences in his career are filled with fascinating little historical asides. For example, I never knew that Mill played such an important role in promoting acceptance of Lord Durham's recommendation for the 1840 unification of French and English Canada, which laid the foundation for modern Canada's creation in 1867 and become the template for the motherland's relationship to the other British colonies. His discussions with famous friends, his disputes with other leading lights, and his recollections of a long and productive life make certain elements of Utilitarianism and On Liberty make a lot more sense; I guess on some level our abstract mental systems of the world can never really be fully divorced from personal experience, and understanding where someone is coming from tells you a lot about where they're trying to go to. An autobiography might be as much mortification as inspiration, like George Orwell's line about how "A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats", but Mill had such an exceptionally eventful life that even with his characteristic modesty and understatement it's truly hard to see how he could have written a better or more useful book. His life was his work, and he did a ton of it.
His account of his childhood is fascinating. His father James Mill decided to raise him as a sort of knowledge-seeking missile, giving him nothing but impossibly ambitious classical homework and barely letting him interact with other children. The contrast between the dry tone of Mill's description of his father's methods and the profoundly ambivalent effects it obviously had on him is striking: Ancient Greek lessons at 3 years old, Latin at 8, rhetoric and history philosophy, all with scholastic discipline and criticism that sounds nearly as bad as the infamous British boarding school punishments of the day, because although his father never beat him, imagine having your father yelling at you because your elocution when orating a speech by Demosthenes at age 12 was not quite up to par. I was a fairly bookish child, so a boyhood of not having to go to school and just reading all day doesn't sound so bad, and yet I doubt that force-feeding you child literature like that is useful. A 10 year-old's interpretation of Thucydides can only ever be so good. This steroidal homeschooling did produce one of the most famous philosophers of all time, but it's not a surprise that although he respected and admired his father, Mill calmly states that he didn't love him. He would later endorse government-funded (though not government-run) mandatory education in On Liberty, so this reluctance to endorse his own schooling method is pretty interesting. One can only wonder if he would approve of the "guided self-direction" of the Montessori method as being a happy medium between the austere Plato's Republic-style force-feeding of his youth and the often-inflexible public school system we have today, or what he thought of Rousseau's system in Emile.
Of course, there's only so much you can learn from your father, even if your father is himself a major philosopher, so it's fortunate that James Mill knew many of the leading philosophic lights of the day. Mill spends many pages talking about how his personal relationships with David Hume, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, etc. as a child and young man influenced his later thinking. James Mill was an autodidact himself, perhaps he wanted to try to hurry up his son's enlightenment by giving him access to people who had already read all those books. In a way that's almost more interesting than his homeschooling background - if you deliberately unleashed your kid on your smartest friends and let ask them as many questions as they wanted and your friends would tolerate, how would that mentorship affect them? Bentham was the main influence, of course, but Mill came into contact with many people who already were or would later go on to be very significant (he himself would become godfather to Bertrand Russell), and Mill is very perceptive about what he took and what he rejected from his mentors. There's an inherent tension between trying to devise an authentic personal philosophy that's true to yourself, on one hand, and on the other to race ahead as fast as possible, to stand on the shoulders of giants by learning from other people as much and as quickly as possible. I think that's where judgment and discernment come in, because ultimately you need the ability to say no to people, to choose what's important from what you take in and discard the rest, and indeed one can take much of Mill's philosophy as instructive guidance on how to choose wisely, not just between ideas but between anything.
And yet we are not mere utilitarian calculating machines, as Mill illustrates with his account of his spiritual crisis at age 20. It's a fascinating account of how he found that he was unable to derive personal happiness purely by the maximize pleasure-minimize pain ethos that underlay his own philosophy. One day in the autumn of 1826, he wasn't feeling so great (it sounds sort of like one of those Sunday afternoons that Douglas Adams so memorably described as the long dark tea-time of the soul), and he started asking himself some tough questions:
"In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself, 'Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?' And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, 'No!' At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for."
There are a truly remarkable number of thought-provoking questions embedded in that paragraph that he answers explicitly or implicitly in the remainder of the chapter:
- Is it actually possible to find true happiness in abstract thought, in any degree? For anyone, or just some? Even if it was possible for you, would that happiness be sufficient? How do you balance the importance of your own "life of the mind" with the rest of your life?
- How does your own personal temperament affect your philosophy? Is something like utilitarianism more or less likely to be believed by happy people? Does switching (or reaffirming) belief systems really change your happiness in the long run, like feeling more confident in a nicer outfit? Can you think yourself sad?
- How important are our own beliefs about the world to you, not just your answers to "big questions" but even minor tastes and opinions? What would it mean if something you thought you really loved turned out to be empty, or flat wrong, or even actively negative to your ego?
- If you don't find joy in something's ultimate conclusion, can there be anything positive about any aspect of it at all? Can you go through the motions of something and be happy, or do you need to excise the whole thing, root and branch, and move on? Does being unhappy that something failed mean that there's still something valuable there, or is unhappiness synonymous with exhaustion?
- As we go through life, does it matter at what age we have big mental paradigm shifts? Is it better to have a crisis of faith when young so you can "course correct" more easily, later so that you don't have to live through as much disappointment, or are quandaries time-invariant? How much depends on the quandary, and how much depends on you as a person?
- When you fall down, how do you find what will pick you up? Is it better to just distract yourself until you feel better and go back to what you were doing, or deliberately start on a different path? What role do other people play?
Mill spent some time depressed, then picked himself back up, rebuilt his entire value system from the ground up, and then went on to become one of the most important philosophers in modern history. That's how it's done, folks! His discovery that happiness is often easier to find when you don't chase it too directly is hardly original, but given that it's a much easier maxim to hear than to actually live, you can hardly hear it repeated too frequently. How many goals have we chased in the idea that when we reach them we will finally be satisfied, only to find out that we needlessly caused ourselves and others unhappiness along the way to an empty and unfulfilling end? How many are we still chasing right now?
A more uplifting human interest point in his life story is his relationship with Harriet Taylor, the woman who would later become his wife. One of the downsides of being raised as a child prodigy apart from your peers by a humorless father who cares mostly about your ability to recite ancient Greek is that it's not great for your sex life. On the flip side, when he met Harriet that repression gave him an admirable devotion to her, sustained platonically at the beginning since she was married at the time and then not-so-platonically after the husband conveniently died and they could then get hitched. It's a good reminder that there's no one right way to go through life, and even if you've got baggage, or what you're doing seems scandalous (there's no evidence that Mill was ever a homewrecker, but really really close friendships with someone else's spouse are red flags in any era), it's possible to come out the other side happy and fulfilled. Not that anyone would recommend his path to happiness, probably least of all Mill himself, but in spite of their irrationality and generally low odds of success, I think "love finds a way" stories will always find an audience, since very few of us ever take the straight line to happiness. I am honestly jealous of his appreciation for his wife as a person and a philosophical companion who complemented him. As he says: "What was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the properly human element came from her: in all that concerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in boldness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment." He doesn't spend too much time outlining his grief at her death after only 7 years of marriage, but he clearly missed her very deeply, both as a companion and as a fellow philosopher.
One thing that separates Mill from the overwhelming majority of philosophers both ancient and modern is that he was actually a member of the House of Commons for a time, and not merely a writer. Like Marx said, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it!" It's all well and good to sit down at your desk and construct a paper paradise, but actually rolling up your sleeves and participating in the ugly moral compromises that politics requires is very different, particularly in that pre-Marx era when advocates of socialism were basing much of their reform proposals on models of primitive communism, which were as much of a dangerous distraction in the Industrial Revolution as they are now. Unsurprisingly, his main issues were all related to fairness: universal suffrage, reducing corruption, and instituting proportional representation. He was unhappy that no one liked his proposal that the more educated be given more votes than the less educated, which sounds anti-egalitarian, but compared to the contemporary explicit bias towards property-owners or the modern implicit bias towards rural voters, it sounds downright reasonable. He was critical to the development of British Liberal Party, but was himself reluctant to fully embrace party labels, preferring to be his own man, and when it came down to tough choices, as it did for him when considering Gladstone's Reform Bill, he was a stick-to-your-guns kind of guy even at the potential cost of passage:
"I had always declined being a member of the [Reform] League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied; since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried and professes to take one’s stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of the principle."
For the most part his views as expressed here only reinforce my idea of Mill as a thinker tirelessly trying to find the most logical way to systematize and thus extend morality. As a member of that unhappy tribe of non-socialist liberals, without the helpful guiding light of a dogma, many of his difficulties with his fellow legislators stemmed from his insistence at trying to universalize moral concepts in a system that encouraged parochialism. For example, during the US Civil War there was a real danger that the UK would support the Confederacy instead of the Union out of crass commercial interests (Karl Marx, then covering the war as a journalist for the New York Herald-Tribune, also correctly argued against this view at length), and for many British legislators, the Civil War really did seem like those "it was about states' rights" myths you still heard about sometimes: "There were men of high principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion who thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the cases in which they were accustomed to sympathise, of a people struggling for independence." His friend David Hume infamously said of logic: "We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." You can look at Mill's entire parliamentary career as a struggle to show that moral passion and the highest reasoning faculties are not in fact opposed, although judging by the fact that one of his best and most famous lines is still as relevant today as it was in 1861, his successes are tempered at best: "The Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
The best Mill is his philosophical works, though his accounts of his practical experiences in his career are filled with fascinating little historical asides. For example, I never knew that Mill played such an important role in promoting acceptance of Lord Durham's recommendation for the 1840 unification of French and English Canada, which laid the foundation for modern Canada's creation in 1867 and become the template for the motherland's relationship to the other British colonies. His discussions with famous friends, his disputes with other leading lights, and his recollections of a long and productive life make certain elements of Utilitarianism and On Liberty make a lot more sense; I guess on some level our abstract mental systems of the world can never really be fully divorced from personal experience, and understanding where someone is coming from tells you a lot about where they're trying to go to. An autobiography might be as much mortification as inspiration, like George Orwell's line about how "A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats", but Mill had such an exceptionally eventful life that even with his characteristic modesty and understatement it's truly hard to see how he could have written a better or more useful book. His life was his work, and he did a ton of it.
May 19, 2018
An enjoyable, fairly short read about the education of the most important English-speaking philosopher of the 19th century. Tells the story of how under his father's direction he began learning Greek at age 3, Latin at 8, was responsible for the education of his 8 siblings, and had consumed most of the classical canon by 12. He begins productive work as a philosopher and political economist, then this education runs up against a mental breakdown and loss of purpose in his early 20s, finally resolving as he opens himself up to poetry and the world of emotions. It's the synthesis of these forces that makes him the unique philosopher he ends up becoming.
Mill seems above all a man of integrity, thoughtfulness, and deep intellectual honesty. His intellectual partnership with his friend and later wife, Harriet Taylor, who he talks about as almost a co-author on much of his work, is quite remarkable. He was a leading voice for women's suffrage and all types of individual freedoms.
If I could do it again, I would probably read Mill's On Liberty and some background on his philosophy and influence, and perhaps a bit about Bentham, before taking this book on. As it was, it's an interesting character study. I lost interest for a while in the middle and nearly dropped it, but I was glad I hung on as the story of his marriage and time in Parliament came towards the end.
Mill seems above all a man of integrity, thoughtfulness, and deep intellectual honesty. His intellectual partnership with his friend and later wife, Harriet Taylor, who he talks about as almost a co-author on much of his work, is quite remarkable. He was a leading voice for women's suffrage and all types of individual freedoms.
If I could do it again, I would probably read Mill's On Liberty and some background on his philosophy and influence, and perhaps a bit about Bentham, before taking this book on. As it was, it's an interesting character study. I lost interest for a while in the middle and nearly dropped it, but I was glad I hung on as the story of his marriage and time in Parliament came towards the end.
November 15, 2013
It is good to know there is someone out there in the world with even less originality when it comes to titles than I have. Of course, it probably was the style of the time.
I'm encouraged anyway.
I liked Autobiography. Mill's writing is tight and well-written. His life is interesting and he does a good job examining the sources (books and people) that shaped his life. It does get a tad long when reading about said sources at 1 am, but otherwise I found it enjoyable and interesting. His enthusiasm for his wife is very apparent. I expected more about her.
It is interesting that he does not despair of his upbringing. Though he points out a few things that might have been better (like not having him teach his sisters Latin) he nevertheless notes to some degree the large success of it. He considers his abilities average. Perhaps posterity has cast his father in the role of villain unduly.
Mill is encouraging because he affirms human desire for inner fulfillment. He found it in "culture" - poetry, art, music. As society strives to be more scientific, mathematics, reasoned...this book is a reminder that a life devoid of inward emotional cultivation will eventually burn out before its time.
I'm encouraged anyway.
I liked Autobiography. Mill's writing is tight and well-written. His life is interesting and he does a good job examining the sources (books and people) that shaped his life. It does get a tad long when reading about said sources at 1 am, but otherwise I found it enjoyable and interesting. His enthusiasm for his wife is very apparent. I expected more about her.
It is interesting that he does not despair of his upbringing. Though he points out a few things that might have been better (like not having him teach his sisters Latin) he nevertheless notes to some degree the large success of it. He considers his abilities average. Perhaps posterity has cast his father in the role of villain unduly.
Mill is encouraging because he affirms human desire for inner fulfillment. He found it in "culture" - poetry, art, music. As society strives to be more scientific, mathematics, reasoned...this book is a reminder that a life devoid of inward emotional cultivation will eventually burn out before its time.
March 19, 2017
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February 7, 2020
John Stuart Mill was a remarkable man. He was schooled and/or versed in economics, politics, law, philosophy, logic, mathemathics, and sociology. The man clearly was a genius. This is not strange, since, as he himself claims, he was a man of average intellect receiving an extraordinary education by his father. Mill was taught Greek when he was three years old, Latin when he was eight. As a child he was trained in Greek and Roman poetry and philosophy. And gradually he was educated more and more in philosophy, logic, political economics and law. In short, when he was about twenty years old, and about to go on a one year stay in France, he was a trained genius.
This of course, comes with costs. His father was incapable of showing any tenderness, and was as rigid as a Spartan commander. It is not to be wondered that Mill was extraordinary happy when he met the love of his life, and that he suffered from severe bouts of depression throughout all his life. These subjects are of personal interest to someone who is interested in Mill's thought. Throughout the book, you can trace his intellectual development.
Basically Mill can be defined as replacing all traditional law and morality with an emphasis on human well-being - happiness as a principle to conduct life and to formulate laws. He also was a staunch supporter of the French Revolution, at least its humanitarian ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. For Mill, human beings are intrinsically worthy of respect, and equally demaning of personal autonomy. I think the French Revolution is a very good overarching theme to connect all of Mill's later treatises and essays.
Academics sometimes find Mill's essays to be incompatible. For example, in On Liberty (19859) he promotes a radical freedom of the individual - only limited by the principle of direct harm to others. Yet, in Utilitarianism (1861) he seems to promote a more democratically styled Aristotelean virtue ethics. People should be educated to care for higher pleasures, in order to promote the biggest amount of happiness for the biggest amount of people. This means, in effect, that people are rather less free than his earlier stance in On Liberty. But I think this superficial contradiction can be cleared away by acknowledging Mill's conception of freedom as 'informed and responsible freedom'. The person is free to do what he or she wants, as long as no one is directly hurt, yet this doesn't mean public opinion is forbidden. Freedom comes with a cost, and a huge responsibility - rather in line with Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist ideals.
Also, Mill wrote - during the same years - on the importance of representative government (with education as a check on the psychology of the mob) and on the necessity of equalizing women in all respects. In all these essays, Mill is promoting individual freedom and utilitarianism.
I love Mill's clear, concise and witty style of writing. I like his ideas and theories very much. His ethics and his political stance are both very laudable, and I try to adopt some of his principles in my personal life. Yet, this Autobiography is rather disappointment. Mostly its a 200 pages story of when he read what books, at what year he met what person, and basically a dry summing up of all his ideas. Next to Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill is my favorite thinker and philosopher, yet I find this book a huge disappointment. I guess you can just read the Wikipedia page on Mill and collect the same information.
This of course, comes with costs. His father was incapable of showing any tenderness, and was as rigid as a Spartan commander. It is not to be wondered that Mill was extraordinary happy when he met the love of his life, and that he suffered from severe bouts of depression throughout all his life. These subjects are of personal interest to someone who is interested in Mill's thought. Throughout the book, you can trace his intellectual development.
Basically Mill can be defined as replacing all traditional law and morality with an emphasis on human well-being - happiness as a principle to conduct life and to formulate laws. He also was a staunch supporter of the French Revolution, at least its humanitarian ideals of equality, fraternity and liberty. For Mill, human beings are intrinsically worthy of respect, and equally demaning of personal autonomy. I think the French Revolution is a very good overarching theme to connect all of Mill's later treatises and essays.
Academics sometimes find Mill's essays to be incompatible. For example, in On Liberty (19859) he promotes a radical freedom of the individual - only limited by the principle of direct harm to others. Yet, in Utilitarianism (1861) he seems to promote a more democratically styled Aristotelean virtue ethics. People should be educated to care for higher pleasures, in order to promote the biggest amount of happiness for the biggest amount of people. This means, in effect, that people are rather less free than his earlier stance in On Liberty. But I think this superficial contradiction can be cleared away by acknowledging Mill's conception of freedom as 'informed and responsible freedom'. The person is free to do what he or she wants, as long as no one is directly hurt, yet this doesn't mean public opinion is forbidden. Freedom comes with a cost, and a huge responsibility - rather in line with Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist ideals.
Also, Mill wrote - during the same years - on the importance of representative government (with education as a check on the psychology of the mob) and on the necessity of equalizing women in all respects. In all these essays, Mill is promoting individual freedom and utilitarianism.
I love Mill's clear, concise and witty style of writing. I like his ideas and theories very much. His ethics and his political stance are both very laudable, and I try to adopt some of his principles in my personal life. Yet, this Autobiography is rather disappointment. Mostly its a 200 pages story of when he read what books, at what year he met what person, and basically a dry summing up of all his ideas. Next to Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill is my favorite thinker and philosopher, yet I find this book a huge disappointment. I guess you can just read the Wikipedia page on Mill and collect the same information.
October 19, 2020
A fine study of modern philosophies as ways of being. Mill uses his life to promote a romantic twist to enlightenment rationalism.
April 23, 2013
Reading John Stuart Mill's life is like reading a book of fantasy. This man was to a very large extent a product of an experiment of his father - a child genius, a troubled man. I like this book for the same reason that I liked Justin Martyr's First Apology. The man seems so completely honest with himself and everything else that one feels very secure reading what he has to say. Mostly due to his strange upbringing and undoubtedly also due to his own sin, he is often wrong, but never boring and never dishonest. The autobiography portraits a true seeker of truth. And a seeker of truth that starts from a very different starting point as anyone else I know, or even anyone who has ever lived. He starts his search being crammed up on books with worldly wisdom and having very little knowledge of relationships and of God. It is a great shame that his friend John Sterling who could have and did teach him a lot about relationships and God died so early. To me the most touching moments in this book are the ones in which he describes how he found meaning in life through new friendships such as that of John Sterling and F.D. Maurice and from the Nature and from music. It is these moments that one feels light shining into the darkened soul of this troubled man and also to the darkened soul of myself.
December 1, 2013
Somehow simultaneously dry and fascinating...
April 17, 2022
An examining life partly examined
July 31, 2010
Reading this book has solidified my admiration for John Stuart Mill. Someone needs to make a movie about his life.
July 8, 2010
Now we have a blueprint for manufacturing geniuses, so we may as well run an experiment with a control group to see if anybody can be turned into one. GO!
March 12, 2019
OMG! If you want to read John Stuart Mill, read On Liberty, not this book! I knew he had a very unusual life, like learning Greek and math at the age of 3, so I thought his autobiography would be interesting. Actually I guess it takes real talent to make such an interesting life so boring....
August 5, 2020
"Οι αλλαγές που λαμβάνουν χώρα στη σύγχρονη κοινωνία τείνουν να αναδεικνύουν ολοένα και περισσότερο: τη σημασία, για τον άνθρωπο και την κοινωνία, μιας μεγάλης ποικιλίας στους τύπους των χαρακτήρων και της απόδοσης πλήρους ελευθερίας στην ανθρώπινη φύση για να επεκταθεί προς αναρίθμητες και διαφορετικές κατευθύνσεις."
December 3, 2019
ظننت أنها ربما سيرة ذاتية لوالد ميل وليس له هو شخصيًا، من المثير للإهتمام مقدار التأثير الذي يُحدِثه والِدَي المرء في نفسه.
قراءة ممتعة عن بعض ما وراء الفيلسوف والإقتصادي جون ستيوارت ميل.
قراءة ممتعة عن بعض ما وراء الفيلسوف والإقتصادي جون ستيوارت ميل.
August 7, 2021
John Stuart Mill was one of the foremost thinkers on liberty and women’s rights in the 19th century. It was interesting to read about his unusual education. He was homeschooled and only read Greek and Arithmetic in his early years. His reading routine and the amount he read at such a young age was fascinating. The second part of the book is his tribute to his wife and daughter. They played a major role in his success, not only in evolving his ideas but also in writing major parts of his books. It was a short and for most parts, an enjoyable read.
About learning Greek:
Committing to memory lists of common Greek words with meaning in English. Grammar was only learnt some years later, mostly by reading Greek books.
About happiness/ depression:
The secret to being happy is to not think about happiness but to have an external purpose of life. Mill went through a lull/ depressive period for a short time in his twenties but recovered by appreciating the smaller things in life like the Poetry of William Wordsworth.
The answer, he discovered through reading Wordsworth, is to take refuge in a capacity to be moved by beauty — a capacity to take joy in the quiet contemplation of delicate thoughts, sights, sounds, and feelings, not just titanic struggles.
About learning Greek:
Committing to memory lists of common Greek words with meaning in English. Grammar was only learnt some years later, mostly by reading Greek books.
About happiness/ depression:
The secret to being happy is to not think about happiness but to have an external purpose of life. Mill went through a lull/ depressive period for a short time in his twenties but recovered by appreciating the smaller things in life like the Poetry of William Wordsworth.
The answer, he discovered through reading Wordsworth, is to take refuge in a capacity to be moved by beauty — a capacity to take joy in the quiet contemplation of delicate thoughts, sights, sounds, and feelings, not just titanic struggles.
March 16, 2018
This account, John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, made a strong impression on me, though at some times stronger than others insofar as at times it is about parliamentary matters of over a century ago, and I'd certainly recommend the first chapters, about his education as a child prodigy, and the fifth chapter, which is about his mental breakdown, to all readers; it was, however, sometimes difficult to read, though not more so than other books of this esteemed era, so I found it very pleasurable, though still quite thought provoking, to listen to it on audio, a performance given by Noah Waterman, who did a great job, or at least not a bad one, and who cannot be faulted in any way, at least not by a reasonable audience, for his reading of the long, though not impossible to follow, sentences that make up this work.
July 25, 2010
I thought that this book would be more interesting and insightful than it actually was. Amidst a boring recounting of various details of his life, there were three aspects of this book that I found interesting: (i) Mill's childhood education was extremely rigorous, time-consuming, and broad; (ii) Mill's depression midway through his life is a well articulated portrait of clinical depression; (iii) Various strategies that Mill employed in doing his work. For example, every time he would write something, he would do a first draft, almost completely scrap it, and then write the second draft over. He would then be nearly finished with the project.
November 10, 2020
مقتطفات من حياة فيلسوف الحرية العظيم جون ستيوارت ميل بقلمه
حياة ميل عامرة بالجدية والعلم لدرجة لا تصدق اعجبني ان اصدقاء والده من اعظم علماء عصره ديفيد ريكاردو من اهم خمسة علماء في الاقتصاد على مر التاريخ وبنثام الفيلسوف الكبير وهيوم ولم يكونوا مجرد اصدقاء لوالده بل كان يتعلم عندهم انفراديا في مراهقته وطفولته بالاضافة الى ان والده من اهم المؤرخين والعلماء وقد شرع في تعلم اليونانية من سن الثالثة والاغريقية في الثامنة واصبح يكتب المقالات ويحررها في سن الثانية عشر فعلا حياة عامرة بالجدية والتعلم
ورغم هذا الكم الهائل من العلم الا انه خرج بنظرة جديدة في السياسة والاقتصاد والفلسفة واصبح من اشهر الفلاسفة في التاريخ ولم يكن اسيرا لما تعلمه بل ابدع وخرج بالجديد
حياة ميل عامرة بالجدية والعلم لدرجة لا تصدق اعجبني ان اصدقاء والده من اعظم علماء عصره ديفيد ريكاردو من اهم خمسة علماء في الاقتصاد على مر التاريخ وبنثام الفيلسوف الكبير وهيوم ولم يكونوا مجرد اصدقاء لوالده بل كان يتعلم عندهم انفراديا في مراهقته وطفولته بالاضافة الى ان والده من اهم المؤرخين والعلماء وقد شرع في تعلم اليونانية من سن الثالثة والاغريقية في الثامنة واصبح يكتب المقالات ويحررها في سن الثانية عشر فعلا حياة عامرة بالجدية والتعلم
ورغم هذا الكم الهائل من العلم الا انه خرج بنظرة جديدة في السياسة والاقتصاد والفلسفة واصبح من اشهر الفلاسفة في التاريخ ولم يكن اسيرا لما تعلمه بل ابدع وخرج بالجديد
May 28, 2016
الكتاب مهم من الناحية الفكرية و التاريخية ،حيث يعرض الكاتب سيرة تطوره الفكرية و أهم الأشخاص الذين أثروا في حياته بدءًا من والده و بنثام و غيرهم من المفكرين و السياسيين ،مما يكشف جزءًا هامًا من الحياة السياسية و الفكرية للمجتمع الانجليزي في بدايات القرن التاسع عشر ، أعجبني إشادته بدور زوجته و ابنتها في حياتها و حزنه الشديد بعد وفاة زوجته كما أثار اهتمامي طريقة نشأته الأولى في الصغر و اكتسابه مهارات النقد و التفكير المنطقي في سن صغير جدًا مقارنة بالعصر الحالي .
الكتاب يعيبه الملل في بعض الأجزاء لكنه في المجمل مفيد و ممتع إلى حدٍ ما .
الكتاب يعيبه الملل في بعض الأجزاء لكنه في المجمل مفيد و ممتع إلى حدٍ ما .
October 8, 2017
جيد جداً الكتاب
مِل شخص عملي
وسيرته الذاتية عبارة عن عرض للحياة الاقتصادية والسياسية والفكرية للمجتمع في الفترة اللي عاشها
تحدث عن تأثير والده الكبير وتحفيزة له للتعلم والدراسة وايضاً بنثام والمدرسة النفعية
وعرض تأثير الصحافة الحرة على تغيير وتوعية الرأي العام بالحقوق والنفقات الحكومية وترشيدها
تحدث عن اممانية الاصلاح عبر خلق الوعي عند الشعب وبالتالي الضغط على الحكومة
شيء جميل جداً ومحفز، في الوقت الحالي الانترنت عنده امكانيات الصحافة الحرة
ومرة في كلام مع وحدة من بتوع " أهم شي الأمن والأمان " قلتلها على الأقل خلي عندك فكرة ووعي بالصح والخطأ ولا تغيري مسار تفكيرك بسبب الخوف !
مِل شخص عملي
وسيرته الذاتية عبارة عن عرض للحياة الاقتصادية والسياسية والفكرية للمجتمع في الفترة اللي عاشها
تحدث عن تأثير والده الكبير وتحفيزة له للتعلم والدراسة وايضاً بنثام والمدرسة النفعية
وعرض تأثير الصحافة الحرة على تغيير وتوعية الرأي العام بالحقوق والنفقات الحكومية وترشيدها
تحدث عن اممانية الاصلاح عبر خلق الوعي عند الشعب وبالتالي الضغط على الحكومة
شيء جميل جداً ومحفز، في الوقت الحالي الانترنت عنده امكانيات الصحافة الحرة
ومرة في كلام مع وحدة من بتوع " أهم شي الأمن والأمان " قلتلها على الأقل خلي عندك فكرة ووعي بالصح والخطأ ولا تغيري مسار تفكيرك بسبب الخوف !
June 29, 2022
This is John Stuart Mill's own account of his life focusing on his education and intellectual developments. There is a minimal amount of digression into his personal life, chiefly his relationship with his father and his wife Harriot Taylor Mill. There are brief mentions of some of his associates who had parliamentary careers such as John Arthur Roebuck including Mill's sympathy with Lord Durham. Mill's own parliamentary career is also discussed in some detail but focusing almost exclusively on what Mill himself did. There is some detail on the editorial history of first the Westminster Review then the London Review which became the London & Westminster Review. Mill's career at the India office of the West India company is touched on only briefly.
The writing is compared to Mill's other work relatively light and brief and philosophical, economic and political subjects are not usually entered into in detail. However some sense of Mill's thoughts on subject such as free will and necessity and the question of political liberty are interestingly summarized. Also some insight into Mill's intellectual process and sources is recorded. I suspect it would be an interesting introduction to Mill's thought for the uninitiated.
This edition includes six speeches of Mill's previously unpublished 5 of which are from the 1820s. These give a sense of the continuity of Mill's intellectual interests and commitments, the focus on the development of character as a key aspect of education, the importance of free thought and discussion in arriving at progressive intellectual opinion are clear in these early writings and echoed and elaborated on in later more famous and thorough works.
There is a short introduction by Harold J. Laski given the impressions of an early 20th century intellectual on Mill. It gives some context and an interesting sympathetic evaluation of the work.
There is an index at the end, one boon of this is that it allows you to look up people named and often get their full name and dates. This adds some useful context, often Mill seems to assume we will know his circle without much introduction. Likewise some of his technical terms or names for historical events (the Canadian coercion bill of 1837) are obscure.
The writing is compared to Mill's other work relatively light and brief and philosophical, economic and political subjects are not usually entered into in detail. However some sense of Mill's thoughts on subject such as free will and necessity and the question of political liberty are interestingly summarized. Also some insight into Mill's intellectual process and sources is recorded. I suspect it would be an interesting introduction to Mill's thought for the uninitiated.
This edition includes six speeches of Mill's previously unpublished 5 of which are from the 1820s. These give a sense of the continuity of Mill's intellectual interests and commitments, the focus on the development of character as a key aspect of education, the importance of free thought and discussion in arriving at progressive intellectual opinion are clear in these early writings and echoed and elaborated on in later more famous and thorough works.
There is a short introduction by Harold J. Laski given the impressions of an early 20th century intellectual on Mill. It gives some context and an interesting sympathetic evaluation of the work.
There is an index at the end, one boon of this is that it allows you to look up people named and often get their full name and dates. This adds some useful context, often Mill seems to assume we will know his circle without much introduction. Likewise some of his technical terms or names for historical events (the Canadian coercion bill of 1837) are obscure.
October 10, 2023
Geçtiğimiz aylarda Kadınların Köleleştirilmesi’ni okumuştum ve Mill’in hayatını merak etmiştim. Çünkü o devirde kadın erkek eşitsizliğine bir erkek olarak değinmek ataerkil sistemin ona sağladığı avantajları da zan altında bırakmak demek.
Mill, sakin bir hayat geçirdiğini söyleyerek eğitim hayatının ona çok büyük bir katkı sağladığını ve bunu dile getirmek istediğini belirtiyor. Ona kesinlikle katılıyorum. Eğitiminde babasının onu aileden olmayan çocuklardan uzun süre uzak tutmuş olmasının ve çok küçük yaştan itibaren muhakeme yeteneğini ortaya çıkaran bir eğitim almış olmasının son derece önemli olduğunu düşünüyorum.
Diğer çocuklardan uzak kalması bence toksik erkekliğin belli özelliklerinin zorbalık yoluyla içine işlemesinin önüne geçmiş ve bir şeyleri başarabileceği inancını diri tutmuş diye düşündüm.
Aldığı muhakemeye dayalı eğitimin de ona sadece bir şeyleri öğrenmesini ve bunun üzerine tartaşabilmesini sağlamanın dışında yapılanların üzerine ekleyerek katkıda bulunma cesareti de verdiğini düşünüyorum. Tabi hem kendisinde hem de babasında dünya için iyi bir şeyler yapma prensibi olmasaydı bunca eğitim kişisel hırslar ve güç kazanmak için de kullanılabilirdi.
Bunlar dışında aldığı eğitimin yoğunluğu onu genç yaşta tüketmiş de. Bunun yaşamasını zaten okumaya başladığımda bekliyordum. Hayatını anlatırken hem babasının ona kazandırdığı hem de eksik kaldığı yanları anlatmış. Bence bu anlamda oldukça tutarlı. Kendisinin yaptığı şeyleri başarmış olması tesadüf değil. Arkasında onca emek var. Eşinin hayatındaki yeri ve önemine değinmesi de çok kıymetliydi. Resmen babasına ve eşine duyduğu sevgiyi kelimelerinden hissettim. Sadece hem babası hem de kendisi birer bilgin olmaktansa çok daha atılgan olabilirlermiş. Yine de bunları okuduğuma memnunum. Bazı şeylerin tesadüf olmadığının da altı çizilmiş oldu.
Mill, sakin bir hayat geçirdiğini söyleyerek eğitim hayatının ona çok büyük bir katkı sağladığını ve bunu dile getirmek istediğini belirtiyor. Ona kesinlikle katılıyorum. Eğitiminde babasının onu aileden olmayan çocuklardan uzun süre uzak tutmuş olmasının ve çok küçük yaştan itibaren muhakeme yeteneğini ortaya çıkaran bir eğitim almış olmasının son derece önemli olduğunu düşünüyorum.
Diğer çocuklardan uzak kalması bence toksik erkekliğin belli özelliklerinin zorbalık yoluyla içine işlemesinin önüne geçmiş ve bir şeyleri başarabileceği inancını diri tutmuş diye düşündüm.
Aldığı muhakemeye dayalı eğitimin de ona sadece bir şeyleri öğrenmesini ve bunun üzerine tartaşabilmesini sağlamanın dışında yapılanların üzerine ekleyerek katkıda bulunma cesareti de verdiğini düşünüyorum. Tabi hem kendisinde hem de babasında dünya için iyi bir şeyler yapma prensibi olmasaydı bunca eğitim kişisel hırslar ve güç kazanmak için de kullanılabilirdi.
Bunlar dışında aldığı eğitimin yoğunluğu onu genç yaşta tüketmiş de. Bunun yaşamasını zaten okumaya başladığımda bekliyordum. Hayatını anlatırken hem babasının ona kazandırdığı hem de eksik kaldığı yanları anlatmış. Bence bu anlamda oldukça tutarlı. Kendisinin yaptığı şeyleri başarmış olması tesadüf değil. Arkasında onca emek var. Eşinin hayatındaki yeri ve önemine değinmesi de çok kıymetliydi. Resmen babasına ve eşine duyduğu sevgiyi kelimelerinden hissettim. Sadece hem babası hem de kendisi birer bilgin olmaktansa çok daha atılgan olabilirlermiş. Yine de bunları okuduğuma memnunum. Bazı şeylerin tesadüf olmadığının da altı çizilmiş oldu.
February 9, 2024
Mill’s greatest contribution in this book is sharing how he came to think independently on a variety of topics. Not just by reading exceptional works by people before him, but also examining them, finding deficiencies in their ideas and putting forth his own. Prolific is an insufficient word for the volume of writing he produced. And given the reach and influence of his ideas, his humility is astounding.
My biggest takeaway from this book is don’t just read immensely, but dissect, question, analyse and rewrite what you read. Also, if you need reading recommendations, Mill has got you covered for a few years here.
My biggest takeaway from this book is don’t just read immensely, but dissect, question, analyse and rewrite what you read. Also, if you need reading recommendations, Mill has got you covered for a few years here.
July 18, 2018
I found this book interesting for two reasons: the account of his extraordinary early education and the story of his "dark night of the soul" in early adulthood.
What Mill himself seems to find interesting -- his relationships with other philosophers of political economy and the Scottish enlightenment, his role in politics and his frequent occupations editing some literary review or other -- strike me as slow going. What I find fascinating, however, are all the elements absent from his book: any mention whatsoever of his mother, hardly any description of an emotion that does not in some way relate to his intellectual endeavors, or even an account of his highly unorthodox relationship with his eventual wife.
What Mill himself seems to find interesting -- his relationships with other philosophers of political economy and the Scottish enlightenment, his role in politics and his frequent occupations editing some literary review or other -- strike me as slow going. What I find fascinating, however, are all the elements absent from his book: any mention whatsoever of his mother, hardly any description of an emotion that does not in some way relate to his intellectual endeavors, or even an account of his highly unorthodox relationship with his eventual wife.
May 12, 2020
Mill prefaces the book by saying that the majority of his life would be quite boring to hear about, and the only reason he's written an autobiography is to make a record of the unusual education he had. indeed, that is what i wanted to read about, and i read the first half of this with great attention. but then he gets beyond his education, and it is as boring as he said it would be. worth it? i guess.
January 15, 2024
This book changed my life quite honestly. I found a new light in which to examine my existence and goals. If nothing else, it motivated me to apply to PhD programs and gave me fuel for a damn good personal statement.
July 24, 2019
I don’t know what got into me, but I could hardly put this down! I had to stop myself from overtasking my retentive faculties (that, and it was getting late). For one thing, Mill writes a melt-in-your-mouth prose – which I know has been called dry, but, well, so are sugar cubes. Okay, perhaps it should be taken into account that I’m someone who enjoys technical drawing, and if one needed a verbal approximation of a blueprint, it would be something by Mill. I’ve read Utilitarianism and parts of On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, and I have to say that the autographical narrative here makes his writing that much more compelling, and his ideas, that much more digestible. In a way, perhaps, the reconciliation of the “man of feeling” with the “man a machine” is embodied by the Autobiography, which put soundly to rest my usual reservations about memoirs and personal accounts by offering immeasurably more than biographical detail. It follows the development of a mind, and a great one at that, and I know I said the same in praise of Newman’s Apologia, but that doesn’t make the fact any less true: an account of mental growth by the likes of either necessarily foregrounds the ideas that, as Mill would have it, press the mind on. I understood a lot, in effect, about Mill as a thinker during what he called an age of transition – I was able to place his theories in clearer lights, better reckon with his influences and his influence. In fact, I preferred the Autobiography to the Apologia, perhaps because it was written with a threefold purpose – to comment on education, describe the progress of a nineteenth-century mind, and acknowledge major contributors to Mill’s outlook and output – executed less unilaterally than Newman’s defensive history of his religious opinions; in any case, I found it more enriching, as well as pleasurable.
But if I were going to compare Mill and Newman – and it looks like I am – there would be much to say. Both are attached to the notion of a doctrine or premise that unifies one’s body of thought: both are attracted to systems. For the early Mill of Benthamite extraction, this is the principle of utility; for Cardinal Newman, this is Roman Catholicism. What’s pretty astounding is that Mill and Newman effect a kind of flip-flop between them over the course of their careers. Newman’s veritably preordained refusal of “all middle courses and compromises” – epitomized in his experience by the Via Media of the Anglican Church – is the mirror image of Mill’s transformation into the arbiter between Utilitarianism and Romantic individualism, or between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, as he says with a certain accuracy. In light of his reputation, Mill’s claim that “the most useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought [was] that of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and the public” raises an eyebrow, but it also carries considerable truth in light of his balancing between various ostensible opposites. Mill celebrates pluralistic society but warns against conformism; he champions democracy and, increasingly, socialism, but not egalitarianism or collectivist policy; he believes in the complexity of social forces, but also in their predication on natural laws; most illustriously of all, he offsets analytical reasoning with the faculty of feeling. Newman also refers to the reason/imagination binary, often and interestingly enough, and his apparent distress at the tension involved would appear to relate him to Mill, who develops the same misgivings about analysis that Newman professes against logic.
But I think Newman’s resolution, so far as I can make it out, introduces a third term entirely: faith. Whereas not only does Mill remain entirely within the secular domain: his philosophy does not admit of any third unit, but rather insists on balancing extremes. Again, Mill is the steward of the via media par excellence, a mere middleman or go-between – but not so fast. The distinction of his conciliatory gesture, which is not a simple handshake between the head and the heart, is that it refines, and thereby redefines, the unitary principle with which Mill started out. After all, he goes down as having innovated, not rejected, the Benthamite creed. Rather than merely fostering prejudices and delusions that summon the corrective work of reason, Mill learns, habitual association generates “all moral and intellectual qualities” as well. Moreover, analytic habits are the agents of “prudence and clear-sightedness,” but also “a perpetual worm at the root both of the passions and of the virtues.” What Mill comes to appreciate is a relativism inclusive of the terms he had thought unconditional, which invokes a tension less between passion and intellect, than between association and analysis both, adversely or favorably deployed. The upshot, to my mind at least, is that Mill deems no metaphysics required for an understanding of the world and the people in it, true to his first word, and still safe in his last.
But if I were going to compare Mill and Newman – and it looks like I am – there would be much to say. Both are attached to the notion of a doctrine or premise that unifies one’s body of thought: both are attracted to systems. For the early Mill of Benthamite extraction, this is the principle of utility; for Cardinal Newman, this is Roman Catholicism. What’s pretty astounding is that Mill and Newman effect a kind of flip-flop between them over the course of their careers. Newman’s veritably preordained refusal of “all middle courses and compromises” – epitomized in his experience by the Via Media of the Anglican Church – is the mirror image of Mill’s transformation into the arbiter between Utilitarianism and Romantic individualism, or between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, as he says with a certain accuracy. In light of his reputation, Mill’s claim that “the most useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought [was] that of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and the public” raises an eyebrow, but it also carries considerable truth in light of his balancing between various ostensible opposites. Mill celebrates pluralistic society but warns against conformism; he champions democracy and, increasingly, socialism, but not egalitarianism or collectivist policy; he believes in the complexity of social forces, but also in their predication on natural laws; most illustriously of all, he offsets analytical reasoning with the faculty of feeling. Newman also refers to the reason/imagination binary, often and interestingly enough, and his apparent distress at the tension involved would appear to relate him to Mill, who develops the same misgivings about analysis that Newman professes against logic.
But I think Newman’s resolution, so far as I can make it out, introduces a third term entirely: faith. Whereas not only does Mill remain entirely within the secular domain: his philosophy does not admit of any third unit, but rather insists on balancing extremes. Again, Mill is the steward of the via media par excellence, a mere middleman or go-between – but not so fast. The distinction of his conciliatory gesture, which is not a simple handshake between the head and the heart, is that it refines, and thereby redefines, the unitary principle with which Mill started out. After all, he goes down as having innovated, not rejected, the Benthamite creed. Rather than merely fostering prejudices and delusions that summon the corrective work of reason, Mill learns, habitual association generates “all moral and intellectual qualities” as well. Moreover, analytic habits are the agents of “prudence and clear-sightedness,” but also “a perpetual worm at the root both of the passions and of the virtues.” What Mill comes to appreciate is a relativism inclusive of the terms he had thought unconditional, which invokes a tension less between passion and intellect, than between association and analysis both, adversely or favorably deployed. The upshot, to my mind at least, is that Mill deems no metaphysics required for an understanding of the world and the people in it, true to his first word, and still safe in his last.
February 7, 2022
There are men of ideas, and men of action. Thomas Paine wrote pamphlets advocating American independence. Washington actually achieved it. Both have their place, although credit for effective change should always be more towards men of action, who achieve things and get their hands dirty, compared to the men of ideas. That said, if there is a man of ideas, who I respect as much as other heroes of mine (Lee Kuan Yew, Gates, T Roosevelt, Washington, Chuck Feeney, J Adams, Soros and so on), then it is JS Mill.
Mill, was subject to an extreme educational regime, wherein he had mastered several languages - English, French, Latin and Greek, and was reading classical Greek texts from his childhood itself. According to him, he had a head start of about 25 years compared to his peers because of his father's intense training. Notably, substantial credit for Mill's achievements needs to be given to his father, James Mill, who devised and successfully implemented a successful education plan. Mill does not disappoint to this extent, he devotes large sections of the book, in praise and remembrance of his father, and wife. The autobiography, is not too long, and is about 220 pages. It details Mill's experiences being the subject of an intense, but not stressful, training regime of his father, which would allow Mill to surpass his young peers. It reveals his attachment to his father. It details incredible insights for both the individual and the society. There are interesting tidbits for scholars - his father's propensity to concentrate and author landmark treatises despite distractions, the need to study logic, and its various forms, and most importantly, the need to have a peer group to constantly discuss ideas, and re-evaluate positions. He had the urge, and maturity to learn something from everyone. Detailing his childhood studies, he mentions, that although Plato's conclusions might be suspect, there was to much to learn from his reasoning:
"I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from
the least intelligible of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures."
In fact, this scholarly characteristic of having an open mind, was, in his opinion, the reason behind his achievements. Towards the end of the book, he notes:
"I had always a humble opinion of my own powers as an original thinker, except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics, and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics), but thought myself much superior to most of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to learn from everybody; as I found hardly any one who made such a point of examining what was said in defence of all opinions, however new or however old, in the conviction that even if they were errors there might be a substratum of truth underneath them, and that in any case the discovery of what it was that made them plausible, would be a benefit to truth . I had, in consequence, marked out this as a sphere of usefulness in which I was under a special obligation to make myself active: the more so, as the acquaintance I had formed with the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the German thinkers, and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely opposed to the mode of thought in which I had been brought up, had convinced me that along with much error they possessed much truth, which was veiled from minds otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut it up and from which they neither cared, nor knew how, to disengage it; and I did not despair of separating the truth from the error and expressing it in terms which would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own side in philosophy. "
A trend I have noticed after reading Roosevelt, Darwin, and Mill; all of whom belonged to a privileged land owner class, is that they were cognizant of their wealth, and riches and in fact this consciousness spurred them to take action, and focus on upliftment of the underprivileged. Jn fact, they would openly admit that their success was not a consequence of some innate quality, but due to the advantages afforded by their wealthy backgrounds. Similarly, even Soros and FDR have been known to be "traitors" to their class. To some extent, their careers are also examples that can be used to support UBI, since it is financial stability that allowed all of them to achieve great things for society in their respective fields.. In fact, it is the ostensibly called, self-made men, such as Hoover, and Ford who believed that state support is not necessary for the upliftment of individuals, and that an individual could elevate himself merely by his actions. An interesting pattern, in today's world where the backgrounds of individuals is scrutinized more than their actions. Following extract, appears relevant:
"What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated, was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine."
If Mill feels that his success is not attributable to his inherent superiority, I wonder what scope I have to attribute my achievements (howsoever small), to my abilities? Mill, like me, could not function, without a life purpose or mission or goal. I think certain kinds of individuals need a goal, to be obsessed about, and to work towards. For instance, being a utilitarian (which he later partly abandoned), he was consumed by the goal to help achieve societal reforms, to ensure greatest number of good for the greatest number of people. Another pattern is that Utilitarian, because of their focus on greatest welfare for all, in contrast to metaphysical ethics based on arbitrary a priori premises, are usually the first to advocate for social reform - broader voting rights, women suffrage, animal rights, and so on due to their focus greatest welfare for all. In fact, enough individuals agree with Utilitarian conclusions - women and animal rights, the basis for these reforms is change in nature from Utilitarianism to virtue ethics/rights, taking away the credit from the very movement which initiated the change in public opinion. He did go through a mental crisis, when he reasoned that what he wanted to achieve for his country men could not be the ultimate solution - in other words, even if everyman were extremely happy, and satisfied with pleasures, men would still not be happy, which is today described as the concept of Hedonic Treadmill. It is interesting, that Mill detailed this concept, a good 100 years before Viktor Frankl wrote a book, detailing this concept. How Mill got out of his mental crisis, is exactly what Frankl recommends - to devote yourself to a goal or mission larger than your happiness. The interesting part however, is that Mill arrived at this conclusion independently of Frankl's book. As this, and later parts of the review will review, he was truly prescient. Put simply, like Frankl he realized that happiness cannot be the primary goal, and can only be the by product of the happiness produced by striving for a larger mission.
Although he understates this aspect, but he was extremely hard working. He was no self-made man, as can be gathered from the fact that his father obtained a job for him with the East India Company, but he ensured that once he was assigned his duties, he worked hard at fulfilling them, in addition to his scholarly work. So Mill's would work for the East India Company, in the morning and afternoon, then utilize the evening, and night for authoring his works, studying contemporary works, having discussions with his ideologically similar group members, authoring opinion pieces and pamphlets, serving as the editor or assistant for both his father's and Bentham's work and so on.
I was delighted to read, that he was a part Utilitarian and staunch empiricist. He had no patience for metaphysics, and "transcendental philosophy" (sorry Emerson). His disregard for metaphysics with its focus on self-justified arbitrary a priori premises was intense. See below:
"The German, or à priori view of human knowledge, and of the knowing faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves with such enquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the System of Logic supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite doctrine – that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence, can do by themselves, towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep seated prejudices. And the chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science."
I think the reason, that Britain has achieved a lot, and been relatively successful in the last 500-600 years, is an intellectual culture grounded in free speech, empiricism, and analytical philosophy. It truly was the nation of Bacon, Hume, Newton, Darwin, Mill, Bentham and Russell (although Russell had some problems with empiricism); in contrast to France, where the 'relative' achievements in physical science and political structures were sub-optimal in comparison due to the intellectual roots of Rationalism, Metaphysics (not empiricism), and prioritization of substantive goals (like equality) over process and diversity of views(which culminated in the eventual transformation of the French Revolution into the Great Terror).
His work on personal rights, and social welfare notwithstanding, what I most find amazing is his expertise in political science/philosophy. The man was on a separate level. Before referring to his work, it is necessary to refer to Karl Popper's work who argued that any argument or ideology, which claims to be in possession of the entire truth, in exclusion to others, is necessarily wrong (since that ideal is unattainable), and that such ideology, which does not allow space for other views, will inevitably be imposed by compulsion. A similar point was made by Ambedkar, with his emphasis on constitutional morality, where his focus was as much on the mode of protest or claims, as on the substantive content and goals of such protest. Any reform movement, or argument, which in Ambedkar's view did not leave space for other views was unconstitutional. Therefore, movements like Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, on account being the representative of the sole truth, which if undertaken after independence, would be unconstitutional according to Ambedkar. The emphasis, which both Popper, and Ambedkar put was on allowing different claims and arguments exist together, in absence of which we would have totalitarian societies. Now, see the following extract from Mill:
"The Liberty is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible exception of the Logic), because the conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking place in modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions. Nothing can better shew how deep are the foundations of this truth, than the great impression made by the exposition of it at a time which, to superficial observation, did not seem to stand much in need of such a lesson. The fears we expressed lest the inevitable growth of social equality and of the government of public opinion should impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice, might easily have appeared chimerical to those who looked more at present facts than at tendencies; for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and institutions has thus far been decidedly favourable to the development of new opinions, and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced hearing than they previously met with. But this is a feature belonging to periods of transition, when old notions and feelings have been unsettled and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy. At such times people of any mental activity, having given up many of their old beliefs, and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain can stand unmodified, listen eagerly to new opinions. But this state of things is necessarily transitory: some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have led to it, and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it has taken the place . Whether this noxious power will be exercised depends on whether mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is then that the teachings of the Liberty will have their greatest value. And it is to be feared that they will retain that value a long time.
In essence, he predicted the replacement of political structures with new ones, with the new political structure although ostensibly focusing on ideals, such as equality; but yet not allowing competing claims, and ideologies, and therefore being repressive in character - see French Revolution turning into French Terrors, October Revolution turning into Communist Autocracy, Chinese Revolution turning into a repressive regime, and so on. Any ideology no matter how noble in its substantive goals, which does not allow space for competing views, is inevitably a totalitarian disaster. The best illustration, which I think reaffirms Mill's prediction is Russia. It transitioned from an old creed (monarchy), to a new one of equality (communism), to a new one (single party democracy) - with all of them although having different foundational principles, but being united by the lack of space for different views, resulting in some or the other forms of Totalitarianism. There are many individuals who fight for causes, in which their self interest is involved (Washington), but no man fought for causes, completely outside, and in fact inimical to his self interest, as Mill did. He wanted complete equality for women in all spheres of life (not just suffrage), wanted the expansion of democracy to the poor and workers, supported the Union during the American Civil War, was in favor of Canadian self-rule, and in fact readily took up unpopular causes such as the need to prosecute British soldiers, for military excesses in foreign lands, and making Britain a safe haven for political refugees by arguing against extradition. He was truly a man beyond his time, and more progressive than some men of even this time.
To end there are two criticisms of Mill, his working for and supporting the East India Company's rule. It is ironical, that on one hand he wrote works such as On Liberty, and yet sustained himself with salary from an organisation that was rooted in plunder and exploitation. That said, I will not expound more on this since there are contradictory historical narratives of historians on the extent, and nature of Mill's belief, and such a topic cannot be done justice in this review. Second, is that although Mill one of a kind, an additional reason why we don't see men like him today is the positive development of more egalitarian social and capital distribution, as opposed to the earlier times where specific privileged men (usually landlords) could afford to men of theoryand not affairs.
But, the fact that he belonged to a privileged class was not in his control, and makes his efforts even more admirable. Maybe, my fascination for him is sub-conscious narcissism, because of the extent I relate to his analytical nature or the fact that I am a man of ideas (although I want to be one of action)...or with the pressing desire to improve society/surroundings.. or maybe because I also idealize the women in my life (both real and imaginary) like he did (substantial portion of the book is just him praising his wife), or his intense criticism of religion.. or maybe because he is of the few historical figures, who can serve as an inspiration even 400-500 years in the future. Whatever the reason, I am a huge fan.
Mill, was subject to an extreme educational regime, wherein he had mastered several languages - English, French, Latin and Greek, and was reading classical Greek texts from his childhood itself. According to him, he had a head start of about 25 years compared to his peers because of his father's intense training. Notably, substantial credit for Mill's achievements needs to be given to his father, James Mill, who devised and successfully implemented a successful education plan. Mill does not disappoint to this extent, he devotes large sections of the book, in praise and remembrance of his father, and wife. The autobiography, is not too long, and is about 220 pages. It details Mill's experiences being the subject of an intense, but not stressful, training regime of his father, which would allow Mill to surpass his young peers. It reveals his attachment to his father. It details incredible insights for both the individual and the society. There are interesting tidbits for scholars - his father's propensity to concentrate and author landmark treatises despite distractions, the need to study logic, and its various forms, and most importantly, the need to have a peer group to constantly discuss ideas, and re-evaluate positions. He had the urge, and maturity to learn something from everyone. Detailing his childhood studies, he mentions, that although Plato's conclusions might be suspect, there was to much to learn from his reasoning:
"I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from
the least intelligible of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures."
In fact, this scholarly characteristic of having an open mind, was, in his opinion, the reason behind his achievements. Towards the end of the book, he notes:
"I had always a humble opinion of my own powers as an original thinker, except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics, and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics), but thought myself much superior to most of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to learn from everybody; as I found hardly any one who made such a point of examining what was said in defence of all opinions, however new or however old, in the conviction that even if they were errors there might be a substratum of truth underneath them, and that in any case the discovery of what it was that made them plausible, would be a benefit to truth . I had, in consequence, marked out this as a sphere of usefulness in which I was under a special obligation to make myself active: the more so, as the acquaintance I had formed with the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the German thinkers, and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely opposed to the mode of thought in which I had been brought up, had convinced me that along with much error they possessed much truth, which was veiled from minds otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut it up and from which they neither cared, nor knew how, to disengage it; and I did not despair of separating the truth from the error and expressing it in terms which would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own side in philosophy. "
A trend I have noticed after reading Roosevelt, Darwin, and Mill; all of whom belonged to a privileged land owner class, is that they were cognizant of their wealth, and riches and in fact this consciousness spurred them to take action, and focus on upliftment of the underprivileged. Jn fact, they would openly admit that their success was not a consequence of some innate quality, but due to the advantages afforded by their wealthy backgrounds. Similarly, even Soros and FDR have been known to be "traitors" to their class. To some extent, their careers are also examples that can be used to support UBI, since it is financial stability that allowed all of them to achieve great things for society in their respective fields.. In fact, it is the ostensibly called, self-made men, such as Hoover, and Ford who believed that state support is not necessary for the upliftment of individuals, and that an individual could elevate himself merely by his actions. An interesting pattern, in today's world where the backgrounds of individuals is scrutinized more than their actions. Following extract, appears relevant:
"What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated, was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine."
If Mill feels that his success is not attributable to his inherent superiority, I wonder what scope I have to attribute my achievements (howsoever small), to my abilities? Mill, like me, could not function, without a life purpose or mission or goal. I think certain kinds of individuals need a goal, to be obsessed about, and to work towards. For instance, being a utilitarian (which he later partly abandoned), he was consumed by the goal to help achieve societal reforms, to ensure greatest number of good for the greatest number of people. Another pattern is that Utilitarian, because of their focus on greatest welfare for all, in contrast to metaphysical ethics based on arbitrary a priori premises, are usually the first to advocate for social reform - broader voting rights, women suffrage, animal rights, and so on due to their focus greatest welfare for all. In fact, enough individuals agree with Utilitarian conclusions - women and animal rights, the basis for these reforms is change in nature from Utilitarianism to virtue ethics/rights, taking away the credit from the very movement which initiated the change in public opinion. He did go through a mental crisis, when he reasoned that what he wanted to achieve for his country men could not be the ultimate solution - in other words, even if everyman were extremely happy, and satisfied with pleasures, men would still not be happy, which is today described as the concept of Hedonic Treadmill. It is interesting, that Mill detailed this concept, a good 100 years before Viktor Frankl wrote a book, detailing this concept. How Mill got out of his mental crisis, is exactly what Frankl recommends - to devote yourself to a goal or mission larger than your happiness. The interesting part however, is that Mill arrived at this conclusion independently of Frankl's book. As this, and later parts of the review will review, he was truly prescient. Put simply, like Frankl he realized that happiness cannot be the primary goal, and can only be the by product of the happiness produced by striving for a larger mission.
Although he understates this aspect, but he was extremely hard working. He was no self-made man, as can be gathered from the fact that his father obtained a job for him with the East India Company, but he ensured that once he was assigned his duties, he worked hard at fulfilling them, in addition to his scholarly work. So Mill's would work for the East India Company, in the morning and afternoon, then utilize the evening, and night for authoring his works, studying contemporary works, having discussions with his ideologically similar group members, authoring opinion pieces and pamphlets, serving as the editor or assistant for both his father's and Bentham's work and so on.
I was delighted to read, that he was a part Utilitarian and staunch empiricist. He had no patience for metaphysics, and "transcendental philosophy" (sorry Emerson). His disregard for metaphysics with its focus on self-justified arbitrary a priori premises was intense. See below:
"The German, or à priori view of human knowledge, and of the knowing faculties, is likely for some time longer (though it may be hoped in a diminishing degree) to predominate among those who occupy themselves with such enquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the System of Logic supplies what was much wanted, a text-book of the opposite doctrine – that which derives all knowledge from experience, and all moral and intellectual qualities principally from the direction given to the associations. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what either an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons of evidence, can do by themselves, towards guiding or rectifying the operations of the understanding. Combined with other requisites, I certainly do think them of great use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep seated prejudices. And the chief strength of this false philosophy in morals, politics, and religion, lies in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the evidence of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical science."
I think the reason, that Britain has achieved a lot, and been relatively successful in the last 500-600 years, is an intellectual culture grounded in free speech, empiricism, and analytical philosophy. It truly was the nation of Bacon, Hume, Newton, Darwin, Mill, Bentham and Russell (although Russell had some problems with empiricism); in contrast to France, where the 'relative' achievements in physical science and political structures were sub-optimal in comparison due to the intellectual roots of Rationalism, Metaphysics (not empiricism), and prioritization of substantive goals (like equality) over process and diversity of views(which culminated in the eventual transformation of the French Revolution into the Great Terror).
His work on personal rights, and social welfare notwithstanding, what I most find amazing is his expertise in political science/philosophy. The man was on a separate level. Before referring to his work, it is necessary to refer to Karl Popper's work who argued that any argument or ideology, which claims to be in possession of the entire truth, in exclusion to others, is necessarily wrong (since that ideal is unattainable), and that such ideology, which does not allow space for other views, will inevitably be imposed by compulsion. A similar point was made by Ambedkar, with his emphasis on constitutional morality, where his focus was as much on the mode of protest or claims, as on the substantive content and goals of such protest. Any reform movement, or argument, which in Ambedkar's view did not leave space for other views was unconstitutional. Therefore, movements like Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, on account being the representative of the sole truth, which if undertaken after independence, would be unconstitutional according to Ambedkar. The emphasis, which both Popper, and Ambedkar put was on allowing different claims and arguments exist together, in absence of which we would have totalitarian societies. Now, see the following extract from Mill:
"The Liberty is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible exception of the Logic), because the conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking place in modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions. Nothing can better shew how deep are the foundations of this truth, than the great impression made by the exposition of it at a time which, to superficial observation, did not seem to stand much in need of such a lesson. The fears we expressed lest the inevitable growth of social equality and of the government of public opinion should impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice, might easily have appeared chimerical to those who looked more at present facts than at tendencies; for the gradual revolution that is taking place in society and institutions has thus far been decidedly favourable to the development of new opinions, and has procured for them a much more unprejudiced hearing than they previously met with. But this is a feature belonging to periods of transition, when old notions and feelings have been unsettled and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their ascendancy. At such times people of any mental activity, having given up many of their old beliefs, and not feeling quite sure that those they still retain can stand unmodified, listen eagerly to new opinions. But this state of things is necessarily transitory: some particular body of doctrine in time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have led to it, and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it has taken the place . Whether this noxious power will be exercised depends on whether mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is then that the teachings of the Liberty will have their greatest value. And it is to be feared that they will retain that value a long time.
In essence, he predicted the replacement of political structures with new ones, with the new political structure although ostensibly focusing on ideals, such as equality; but yet not allowing competing claims, and ideologies, and therefore being repressive in character - see French Revolution turning into French Terrors, October Revolution turning into Communist Autocracy, Chinese Revolution turning into a repressive regime, and so on. Any ideology no matter how noble in its substantive goals, which does not allow space for competing views, is inevitably a totalitarian disaster. The best illustration, which I think reaffirms Mill's prediction is Russia. It transitioned from an old creed (monarchy), to a new one of equality (communism), to a new one (single party democracy) - with all of them although having different foundational principles, but being united by the lack of space for different views, resulting in some or the other forms of Totalitarianism. There are many individuals who fight for causes, in which their self interest is involved (Washington), but no man fought for causes, completely outside, and in fact inimical to his self interest, as Mill did. He wanted complete equality for women in all spheres of life (not just suffrage), wanted the expansion of democracy to the poor and workers, supported the Union during the American Civil War, was in favor of Canadian self-rule, and in fact readily took up unpopular causes such as the need to prosecute British soldiers, for military excesses in foreign lands, and making Britain a safe haven for political refugees by arguing against extradition. He was truly a man beyond his time, and more progressive than some men of even this time.
To end there are two criticisms of Mill, his working for and supporting the East India Company's rule. It is ironical, that on one hand he wrote works such as On Liberty, and yet sustained himself with salary from an organisation that was rooted in plunder and exploitation. That said, I will not expound more on this since there are contradictory historical narratives of historians on the extent, and nature of Mill's belief, and such a topic cannot be done justice in this review. Second, is that although Mill one of a kind, an additional reason why we don't see men like him today is the positive development of more egalitarian social and capital distribution, as opposed to the earlier times where specific privileged men (usually landlords) could afford to men of theoryand not affairs.
But, the fact that he belonged to a privileged class was not in his control, and makes his efforts even more admirable. Maybe, my fascination for him is sub-conscious narcissism, because of the extent I relate to his analytical nature or the fact that I am a man of ideas (although I want to be one of action)...or with the pressing desire to improve society/surroundings.. or maybe because I also idealize the women in my life (both real and imaginary) like he did (substantial portion of the book is just him praising his wife), or his intense criticism of religion.. or maybe because he is of the few historical figures, who can serve as an inspiration even 400-500 years in the future. Whatever the reason, I am a huge fan.
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