No More Learning

Genuine poets arose, possessing the essen-
tials of high art, — a perfected technique, a deep and sympathetic
insight into the most diverse human motives, and a strong individu-
ality. Byron was the dominant literary influence. It is evident in

-


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
Malczewski's superb poem, “Maria,' whose appearance in 1825 marked
the beginning of the great age. Malczewski had known Byron in
Venice, and had suggested to him the theme of “Mazeppa'; but Mic-
kiewicz, Krasinski, Slowacki, all bear the marks of Byronic inspira-
tion. The literature of this golden age in Poland was one of exiles
and emigrants. Scarcely one of the great works of the time was
written on Polish soil, and yet never was a literature more intensely
national. The scenes are laid in Poland, the themes are drawn
from Polish history, and everything is treated with a passionate
patriotism. Even when, as in Krasinski's Irydion, the subject is
taken from the history of a foreign people, its application to the
situation of Poland is obvious. And it was Mickiewicz, wandering
for thirty years far from his native land, who finally gave to the
spirit of Poland its highest literary expression; he revived the pride
of the Poles in the spiritual achievements of their race, and restored
to them the consciousness of their national solidarity. He created
the great national poem of Poland in Pan Tadeusz” (Pan Thaddeus
of Warsaw), which ranks with the finest poetry of the world's liter-
ature. It is the crystallized product of all the centuries of Polish
culture; in it centre the pride, the hopes, and the ambitions of
the Polish people.
Adam Mickiewicz was born at Zaosie, near Novogródek, on Decem-
ber 24th, 1798. His childhood was passed in the midst of the most
stirring scenes, which left a deep impression upon him. During the
Russian campaign, his father's house was the headquarters of the
King of Westphalia. All the hopes of Poland were then founded
upon Napoleon; and for Napoleon, Mickiewicz cherished a lifelong
enthusiastic reverence, which in his latter days assumed a mystical
character. For Byron he felt a similar regard; but it was not Byron
but Bürger who gave the impulse to the volume of ballads with
which Mickiewicz made his first appearance in literature in 1822.
The ballad of 'Lenore) had a wonderful fructifying power: it gave
to Scott his earliest inspiration; it caught the youthful fancy of Vic-
tor Hugo; it awoke the genius of Mickiewicz. But the first distinctive
work of the Polish poet was written in the spirit of 'Werther, and
was wrung from him by his grief over an unfortunate love affair.
This was “Dziady' (In Honor of our Ancestors), a broadly conceived
but never finished poem, of which the first installment appeared in
1823. It is not the poet's own sorrow alone that here finds expres-
sion, for under this we hear the despairing cry of an enslaved people.
In 1824 Mickiewicz left his native land, never to return. He lived
in an age of unions and associations, of unrest and suspicion. Liter-
ary societies easily became involved in political discussions, and ac-
quired a reputation for revolutionary sentiments. Mickiewicz belonged


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
9997
to the Philalethes; and on account of the part he took in a student
demonstration, he was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. Banished
thence to Odessa, he obtained permission in the autumn of 1825 to
visit the Crimea. In the following year this visit bore fruit in the
splendid Oriental series of Crimean Sonnets. Meanwhile Mickiewicz,
whose personal relations with the Russian government had always
remained cordial, was given a post in the office of the Governor-
General at Moscow. He never had pretended to play the martyr; for
with his genuine Polish patriotism he combined a coldly objective
view of the political situation. When in 1828 he settled in St. Peters-
burg, he was received into the great world by the leading spirits of
the time with an enthusiasm that bordered on glorification. He stood
in close spiritual intercourse with Pushkin, the other great Slavic
poet of the age, and his junior by just six months. The fame of Mic-
kiewicz in Russia was based upon the translations of the Crimean
Sonnets) and of Konrad Wallenrod. ' This powerful epic, written
in Moscow in 1827 and published in St. Petersburg in 1828, treats of
the relations between Russia and Poland, and the burning questions
of the day are presented with cold objectivity. The manner is
Byronic. This poem at once took its place as a national epic, con-
tributed incalculably to the strengthening of the national feeling, and
furthermore it signalized the triumph of Romanticism.
Mickiewicz never definitely renounced Romanticism as Goethe
did. The classic and the romantic existed in him side by side. He
freed himself, however, from the shackles of a one-sided tendency, and
began to seek the sources of his poetry in reality and truth. And
for Mickiewicz truth came more and more to assume a religious color-
ing. Even where the influence of Faust' and 'Cain and Manfred'
is most apparent, the heroes of Mickiewicz are at strife only with
the sins and evils of humanity; they are never in revolt against the
Divine power.
But the work in which Mickiewicz first definitely
abandoned purely romantic methods was (Grazyna. It appeared at
about the same time that the publication of Konrad Wallenrod”
marked the culinination of the Romantic movement.
treat of the Lithuanian struggles against the encroachments of the
Teutonic Knights; but (Grazyna' is full of epic reserve, classic sim-
plicity, and majestic repose. It reveals Mickiewicz as an epic poet of
the grand style. By these two works he rose at once above the
strife of schools and tendencies into the regions of universal poetry,
and became the national poet of his people.
In the adulation with which Mickiewicz was surrounded in St.
Petersburg there lurked a certain danger: it threatened to drag his
genius down into the epicurean dolce far niente of the gay capital; but
the deep earnestness of his character saved him. In 1829 he obtained
Both poems


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9998
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
(
permission to leave Russia. As when, five years before, he had left
Poland forever, so when he crossed the Russian border he crossed it
never to return; he never again set foot on Slavic soil. The five
years in Russia had given to his genius its universality and cosmo-
politan range. And the travels which now began brought him a rich
harvest of experience and friends. In Weimar he met Goethe; in
Switzerland his two greatest Polish contemporaries, Krasinski and
Slowacki; and in the cosmopolitan society of Rome he formed a close
friendship with James Fenimore Cooper. In 1830 the revolution
which Mickiewicz had foreseen broke out in Warsaw, with the singing
of the closing stanzas of his own 'Ode to Youth. ' The poet hastened
to join his countrymen: but he was met at Posen with the news of
Polish defeat. He turned back, saddened and aimless. Sorrow of a
keenly personal sort followed close upon the grief of the patriot. In
Italy he fell in love with the daughter of a Polish magnate. His love
was reciprocated; but encountering the father's haughty opposition,
Mickiewicz suddenly departed. The literary result of this sorrow was
(Pan Tadeusz,' written, as Goethe wrote, for self-liberation. It was
begun in Paris in 1832 and published in 1834. It is the most per-
fect work of the poet, the culminating point of Polish poetry, - and
indeed, the pearl of all Slavic literature.
The scene of Pan Tadeusz' is laid in Lithuania in 1812, when
Poland's hopes were high, and Napoleon's star still in the ascendant.
It is the story of the last raid in Lithuania; and the lawlessness of
private war is here portrayed in vivid pictures. These civil feuds
were a late survival of the many disruptive evils upon which the com-
monwealth was finally wrecked. The poem abounds in rich poetic
scenes of Lithuanian life, the sublime sweep of the landscapes, the
solemn gloom and loneliness of vast primeval forests. There is in it
all a tone of majesty which reveals a great poet in his loftiest mood.
(Pan Tadeusz) was Mickiewicz's last important work. To be
mentioned, however, are (The Books of the Polish People and of the
Polish Pilgrimage, and the Lectures on Slavic Literature. ' In the
former the poet treats in Biblical style of the function of Poland in
history, and of her mission in the future. The Slavic lectures were
those delivered at the Collège de France, where in 1840 Cousin had
founded a chair of Slavic literature. Mickiewicz was the first incum-
bent, and his lectures were received with unbounded enthusiasm. All
literary Paris flocked to hear the famous poet tell of the spiritual
conquests of his countrymen. The lectures are distinguished by feli-
city of phrase and fineness of fancy; less by careful scholarship.
The last decade of the poet's life was clouded by sorrow, illness,
and financial embarrassment. In 1834 he had married the daughter
of the celebrated pianiste Szymanowska. It was not a marriage of


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
9999
love, but seems not to have been unhappy. Mickiewicz's nature was
deeply religious; in Italy he had been in close communion with such
men as Montalembert and Lamennais; in Paris he became fascinated
by the mystic Messianism of the uncultured fanatic Towianski, and
with all the poetic fervor of his being he plunged into the depths of
mysticism. He was removed from his professorship on this account
in 1844. The genius of the poet was darkened; only the patriot
remained. In 1848 he tried to raise in Italy a Polish legion against
Austria. In 1849 he edited the Tribune des Peuples, but at the end
of three months the paper was suppressed. When Napoleon III.
seized the imperial throne in 1852, Mickiewicz was made librarian of
the Arsenal Library. During the war in the Orient, he was sent as
a special emissary of the French government to raise Polish legions
in Turkey. The camp life which his duties rendered necessary ruined
a constitution already undermined; and at Constantinople, on Novem-
ber 26th, 1855, he died. His body was brought to Montmorency, but
in 1890. was removed to the royal vaults at Cracow.
Mickiewicz, with his wide knowledge of literatures and languages,
and with his cosmopolitan experience, nevertheless succeeded by sheer
force of genius, infused with ardent patriotism, in so blending all the
foreign elements of his own culture with the characteristics of his
race and country as to create a distinctively Polish literature, and
deserve the name of supreme national poet. His poetry exercises in
Poland that cohesive force which Greece found in Homer and Italy
derived from Dante. He is the rallying-point for the poets and
patriots of Poland, and the consolation of a proud and oppressed race.
Chaus 4
Grunning
SONNET
T"
HE tricks of pleasing thou hast aye disdained;
Thy words are plain, and simple all thy ways;
Yet throngs, admiring, tremble 'neath thy gaze,
And in thy queenly presence stand enchained.
Amid the social babble unconstrained,
I heard men speak of women words of praise,
And with a smile each turned some honeyed phrase.
Thou cam'st, - and lo! a sacred silence reigned.
Thus when the dancers with each other vie,


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10000
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
And through the merry mazes whirling go,
Abruptly all is hushed: they wonder why,
And no one can the subtle reason show.
The poet speaks: “There glides an angel by! ”
The guest all dimly feel, but few do know.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
[The following poems are from the Poets and Poetry of Poland. Edited, and
copyrighted 1881, by Paul Soboleski. ]
FATHER'S RETURN
A BALLAD
"G
0, CHILDREN, all of you together,
To the pillar upon the hill,
And there before the miraculous picture
Kneel and pray with a fervent will.
“Father returns not. Mornings and evenings
I await him in tears, and fret.
The streams are swollen, the wild beasts prowling.
And the woods with robbers beset. ”
The children heard, and they ran together
To the pillar upon the hill;
And there before the miraculous picture
Knelt and prayed with a fervent will.
“Hear us, O Lord! Our father is absent,
Our father so tender and dear.
Protect him from all besetting danger!
Guide him home to us safely here!
They kiss the earth in the name of the Father,
Again in the name of the Son.
Be praised the name of the Trinity holy,
And forever their will be done.
Then they said Our Father, the Ave and Credo,
The Commandments and Rosary too;
And after these prayers were all repeated,
A book from their pockets they drew.
And the Litany and the Holy Mother
They sang while the eldest led:


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
1000I
"O Holy Mother,” implored the children,
« Be thy sheltering arms outspread! ”
Soon they heard the sound of wheels approaching,
And the foremost wagon espied.
Then jumped the children with joy together:
“Our father is coming! they cried.
The father leaped down, his glad tears flowing,
Among them without delay.
“And how are you all, my dearest children ?
Were you lonesome with me away?
"And is your mother well — your aunt and the servants ?
Here are grapes in the basket, boys. ”
Then the children jumped in their joy around him,
Till the air was rent with their noise.
« Start on,” the merchant said to the servants,
“With the children I will follow on;"
But while he spoke the robbers surround them,
A dozen, with sabres drawn.
Long beards had they, and curly mustaches,
And soiled the clothes they wore;
Sharp knives in their belts and swords beside them,
While clubs in their hands they bore.
Then shrieked the children in fear and trembling,
And close to their father clung,
While helpless and pale in his consternation,
His hands he imploringly wrung.
« Take all I have! ” he cried; "take my earnings,
But let us depart with life.
Make not of these little children orphans,
Or a widow of my young wife. ”
But the gang, who have neither heard nor heeded,
Their search for the booty begin.
Money! ” they cry, and swinging their truncheons,
They threaten with curses and din.
Then a voice is heard from the robber captain,
"Hold, hold, with your plundering here!
And releasing the father and frightened children,
He bids them go without fear.
XVII-626


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10002
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
To the merchant then the robber responded :
“No thanks — for I freely declare
A broken head you had hardly escaped with,
Were it not for the children's prayer.
« Your thanks belong to the children only;
To them alone your life you owe.
Now listen while I relate to you briefly
How it came to happen, and go.
“I and my comrades had long heard rumors
Of a merchant coming this way;
And here in the woods that skirt the pillar
We were lying in wait to-day.
"And lying in wait behind the bushes,
The children at prayer I heard.
Though I listened at first with laugh derisive,
Soon to pity my heart was stirred.
“I listened, and thoughts of my home came to me;
From its purpose my heart was won.
I too have a wife who awaits my coming,
And with her is my little son.
«Merchant, depart, — to the woods I hasten;
And children, come sometimes here,
And kneeling together beside this pillar
Give me a prayer and a tear! »
PRIMROSE
I
SM
CARCE had the happy lark begun
To sing of Spring with joyous burst,
When oped the primrose to the sun
The golden-petaled blossoms first.
II
'Tis yet too soon, my little flower, -
The north wind waits with chilly breath;
Still capped by snow the mountains tower,
And wet the meadows lie beneath.


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
10003
Hide yet awhile thy golden light,
Hide yet beneath thy mother's wing,
Ere chilly frosts that pierce and blight
Unto thy fragile petals cling.
III
PRIMROSE
«LIKE butterflies our moments are;
They pass, and death is all our gain:
One April hour is sweeter far
Than all December's gloomy reign.
G
« Dost seek a gift to give the gods?
Thy friend or thy beloved one ?
Then weave a wreath wherein there nods
My blossoms fairer there are none. "
IV
'Mid common grass within the wood,
Beloved flower, thou hast grown;
So simple, few have understood
What gives the prestige all thy own.
Thou hast no hues of morning star,
Nor tulip's gaudy turbaned crest,
Nor clothed art thou as lilies are,
Nor in the rose's splendor drest.
When in a wreath thy colors blend,
When comes thy sweet confiding sense
That friends -- and more beloved than friend -
Shall give thee kindly preference ?
V
PRIMROSE
“With pleasure friends my buds will greet,-
They see spring's angel in my face;
For friendship dwells not in the heat,
But loves with me the shady place.
« Whether of Marion, beloved one,
Worthy I am, can't tell before ?
If she but looks this bud upon,
I'll get a tear — if nothing more! ”


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10004
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
NEW-YEAR'S WISHES
T"
He old year is dead, and from its ashes blossoms bright
New Phænix, spreading wings o'er the heavens far and
near;
Full of hopes and wishes, earth salutes it with delight.
What should I for myself desire on this glad New Year ?
Say, happy moments! I know these lightning flashes swift;
When they the heavens open and gild the wide earth o'er,
We wait the assumption till the weary eyes we lift
Are darkened by a night sadder than e'er known before.
Say, 'tis love I wish! -- that youthful frenzy full of bliss
Bears one to spheres platonic— to joys divine I know;
Till the strong and gay are hurled down pain's profound abyss,
Hurled from the seventh heaven upon the rocks below.
I have dreamed and I have pined. I soared, and then I fell.
Of a peerless rose I dreamed, and to gather it I thought,
When I awoke. Then vanished the rose with the dream's bright
spell,
Thorns in my breast alone were left - Love I desire not!
Shall I ask for friendship ? — that fair goddess who on earth
Youth creates ? Ah! who is there who would not friendship
crave ?
She is first to give imagination's daughter birth;
Ever to the uttermost she seeks its life to save.
Friends, how happy are ye all! Ye live as one, and hence
Ever the selfsame power has o'er ye all control;
Like Armida's palm, whose leaves seemed separate elements
While the whole tree was nourished by one accursed soul.
But when the fierce and furious hail-storms strike the tree,
Or when the venomous insects poison it with their bane,
In what sharp suffering each separate branch must be
For others and itself ! -I desire not friendship's pain!
de-
For what, then, shall I wish, on this New Year just begun?
Some lovely by-place – bed of oak — where sweet peace
scends,
From whence I could see never the brightness of the sun,
Hear the laugh of enemies, or see the tears of friends!


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ADAM MICKIEWICZ
10005
There until the world should end, and after that to stay
In sleep which all my senses against all power should bind,
Dreaming as I dreamt my golden youthful years away,
Love the world — wish it well — but away from humankind.
TO M-
H
ENCE from my sight! —I'll obey at once.
Hence from my heart! —I hear and understand.
But hence from memory? Nay, I answer, nay!
Our hearts won't listen to this last command!
As the dim shadows that precede the night
In deepening circles widen far and near,
So when your image passes from my sight
It leaves behind a memory all too dear.
In every place – wherever we became
As one in joy and sorrow that bereft -
I will forever be by you the same,
For there a portion of my soul is left.
When pensively within some lonely room
You sit and touch your harp's melodious string,
You will, remembering, sigh in twilight's gloom,
"I sang for him this song which now I sing.
”
Or when beside the chess-board -as you stand
In danger of a checkmate — you will say,
« Thus stood the pieces underneath my hand
When ended our last game — that happy day! ”
When in the quiet pauses at the ball
You, sitting, wait for music to begin,
A vacant place beside you will recall
How once I used to sit by you therein.
When on the page that tells how fate's decree
Parts happy lovers, you shall bend your eyes,
You'll close the volume, sighing wearily,
< 'Tis but the record of our love likewise. ”
But if the author after weary years
Shall bid the current of their lives reblend,
You'll sit in darkness, whispering through your tears,
«Why does not thus our story find an end? ”


## p. 10006 (#418) ##########################################

10006
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
When night's pale lightning darts with fitful flash
O'er the old pear-tree, rustling withered leaves,
The while the screech-owl strikes your window-sash,
You'll think it is my baffled soul that grieves.
In every place -- in all remembered ways
Where we have shared together bliss or dole -
Still will I haunt you through the lonely days,
For there I left a portion of my soul.
FROM "THE ANCESTORS)
SHF
He is fair as a spirit of light,
That floats in the ether on high,
And her eye beams as kindly and bright
As the sun in the azure-tinged sky.
The lips of her lover join hers
Like the meeting of flame with flame,
And as sweet as the voice of two lutes
Which one harmony weds the same.
FROM (FARIS)
N°
O PALMS are seen with their green hair,
Nor white-crested desert tents are there;
But his brow is shaded by the sky,
That Alingeth aloft its canopy;
The mighty rocks lie now at rest,
And the stars move slowly on heaven's breast.
MY ARAB steed is black-
Black as the tempest cloud that flies
Across the dark and muttering skies,
And leaves a gloomy track.
His hoofs are shod with lightning's glare;
I give the winds his flowing mane,
And spur him smoking o'er the plain ;
And none from earth or heaven dare
My path to chase in vain.
And as my barb like lightning flies,
I gaze upon the moonlit skies,
And see the stars with golden eyes
Look down upon the plain.


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ខ្ញុំចង
J. S. MILL.


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M


## p. 10007 (#423) ##########################################

10007
JOHN STUART MILL
(1806-1873)
BY RICHARD T. ELY
he life of John Stuart Mill is in sev ral particulars one of the
most remarkable of which we have any record; and it can
scarcely be an exaggeration to call his Autobiography - in
which we find presented in simple, straightforward style the main
features of his life- a wonderful book. Heredity, environment, and
education are the principal forces working upon our original powers
and making us what we become. It may be said that John Stuart
Mill was favored with respect to each one of these three forces. His
father was a philosopher and historian of merit and repute. His envi-
ronment naturally brought him into close relations with the most
distinguished men of his day, even in early youth; and his education,
conducted by his father, was an experiment both unique and mar-
velous.
John Stuart Mill was born in London, May 20th, 1806. His father,
James Mill, was a Scotchman, who four years before the birth of his
son John Stuart had moved to London. When his son was thirteen
years old, James Mill received an appointment at the India House, in
which he finally rose to the remunerative position of Head Examiner.
John Stuart Mill had just begun his eighteenth year, when on May
21st, 1823, he entered the India House as junior clerk; where he
remained, rising also to the position of Head Examiner, until the
extinction of the East India Company and the transfer of India to the
Crown, in 1858. Both of the Mills were thus associated with India in
their practical activities, and one of James Mill's principal works was
a History of British India. ' Two other works by the father must
be mentioned, because they both exercised important influence upon
the intellectual development and the opinions of the son; viz. , the
Elements of Political Economy' and the Analysis of the Phenomena
of the Human Mind. '
James Mill decided what he wished his son to become, and began
to train him for his destined career almost from infancy. In his
Autobiography, John Stuart Mill says that he cannot remember the
time when he began the study of Greek, but he was told that it was
when he was three years of age. He could only faintly remember


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10008
JOHN STUART MILL
reading Æsop's Fables, his first Greek book. When he was eight,
among other authors he had read the whole of Herodotus, the Cyro-
pædia' and Memorabilia' of Xenophon, and six Dialogues of Plato.
At the age of eight he began the study of Latin, and had read more
than most college students have in their college course when he was
twelve years old. Besides this he had read a marvelous amount of
history. It was at the age of thirteen that he began a complete
course in political economy under his father's instruction. James
Mill lectured to his son during their daily walks; and then the son
wrote out an account of the lectures, which was read to his father
and criticized by him. The lad was compelled to rewrite again and
again his notes until they were satisfactory. These notes were used
in the preparation of James Mill's Elements of Political Economy';
a work which was intended to present, in the form of a school-book,
the principles of his friend Ricardo. Ricardo's writings and Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations) were carefully studied under the father's
tuition. The son was questioned, and difficulties were not explained
until he had done his best to solve them himself.
An important event in Mill's education was
a year spent in
France, in the house of Sir Samuel Bentham, a brother of the Eng-
lish philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham, who was a friend both of
father and son. While in France he acquired the French language,
and gained an interest in French affairs which he never lost. He also
enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery which he visited while on the
Continent. While in Paris, on his way to Sir Samuel Bentham's, he
spent nine days in the house of the French political economist Jean
Baptiste Say, a distinguished French disciple of Adam Smith. Mill
returned to England in 1821, at the age of fifteen, and then began
the study of Roman and English law. He began his writing for the
press at the age of sixteen; and the day after he was seventeen, as
we have seen, he entered upon a service of nearly forty years in the
India House.
There has been considerable controversy about the value of the
education which he received in his early years, and also about the
disadvantages which attended his father's methods of instruction.
John Stuart Mill himself states, and with apparent regret, that he
had no real boyhood. But he does feel that otherwise his education
was a success, and gave him an advantage of starting a quarter of a
century ahead of his contemporaries. The following words are found
in his Autobiography :-
«In the course of the instruction which I have partially retraced, the point
most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of
childhood, an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches
of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of


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JOHN STUART MILL
10009
manhood. The result of the experiment shows the ease with which this may
be done, and places in a strong light the wretched waste of so many precious
years as are spent in acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek commonly
taught to schoolboys; a waste which has led so many educational reformers to
entertain the ill-judged proposal of discarding these languages altogether from
general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension,
or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory, or were of a remark-
ably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive: but in
all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par,— what I could do,
could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy
physical constitution; and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among
other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training
bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advan-
tage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries. ”
We are quite safe in calling in question at least the statement
that what John Stuart Mill did could be done by any boy or girl of
“average capacity and healthy physical constitution. ” It may be
well to quote in this connection Mill's statement about the impression
produced upon him by a perusal of Dumont's Traité de Législation'
(Treatise on Legislation), which contained an exposition of the princi-
pal speculations of Jeremy Bentham: -
«The reading of this book was an epoch in my life, one of the turning-
points in my mental history. My previous education had been, in a certain
sense, already a course of Benthamism. The Benthamic standard of the
(greatest happiness) was that which I had always been taught to apply; I
was even familiar with an abstract discussion of it, forming an episode in an
unpublished dialogue on (Government, written by my father on the Platonic
model. Yet in the first pages of Bentham it burst upon me with all the force
of novelty. What thus impressed me was the chapter in which Bentham
passed judgment on the common modes of reasoning in morals and legislation,
deduced from phrases like (law of nature,) (right reason, (the moral sense,'
(natural rectitude, and the like; and characterized them as dogmatism in dis-
guise, imposing its sentiments upon others under cover of sounding expressions
which convey no reason for the sentiment, but set up the sentiment as its own
It had not struck me before, that Bentham's principle put an end to
all this. The feeling rushed upon me that all previous moralists were super-
seded, and that here indeed was the commencement of a new era in thought.
When I laid down the last volume of the (Traité, I had become a
different being. ”
reason.
All this, and much more like it, proceeded from a youth of fifteen!
Assuredly his native powers were extraordinary.
Among the men with whom Mill came in contact, and who influ-
enced him, may be mentioned Ricardo, Bentham, Grote the historian,
John Austin, Macaulay, Frederick Denison Maurice, and John Sterling.


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1οοΙο
JOHN STUART MILL
Even in so brief a sketch of John Stuart Mill as the present,
mention must not fail to be made of Mill's remarkable attachment to
his wife, Mrs. John Taylor, whom he married in 1851, but with whom
he had already enjoyed many years of devoted and helpful friend-
ship. Mill's demeanor in general society seems to have been cold,
and perhaps almost frigid. Mention is made of his “icy reserve”;
but no youth could surpass him in the ardor of his love for his wife,
or in the warmth with which he expressed it. His exaggerated state-
ments about her have brought upon him a certain reproach; and his
entire relation to his wife, both before and after marriage, forms one
of the strangest passages in his remarkable career. Mrs. Mill does
not appear to have impressed others with whom she came in contact
very strongly; but he speaks of her "all-but unrivaled wisdom. ”
Mill was once elected a Member of Parliament; but his career in
the House was not especially remarkable, although he appears to
have made a strong impression upon Gladstone, who dubbed him the
«Saint of Rationalism. ”. “He did us all good,” writes the statesman.
Mill's moral worth and elevation of character impressed all who
knew him. Herbert Spencer speaks of his generosity as “almost
romantic”; and his entire life was one of singular devotion to the
improvement of mankind, which was with him quite as strong a pas-
sion as with Adam Smith.
Mill's intellectual activity was remarkable on account of the vari-
ous fields to which it extended. He was a specialist of distinction in
logic and mental philosophy generally, in moral science, in political
philosophy, in political economy, and in social philosophy -- of which
his political economy was only a part. While attaining high rank in
each one of these fields, his interests were so broad that he avoided
the dangers of narrow specialism. His interests even extended be-
yond the humanities; for he was an enthusiastic botanist, and even
contributed botanical articles to scientific magazines.
Mill took immense pains in the preparation of all his works, and
also in their composition; with the result that whatever he wrote be-
came literature. Taine in his History of English Literature) devotes
forty pages to the Logic'; and the Political Economy' is perhaps
the only economic treatise which deserves to rank as literature.
Mill's first great work was his treatise on logic, which bears the
title, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Con-
nected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scien-
tific Investigation. This was published in 1843. Along with this
work should be mentioned his 'Examination of Sir William Hamil-
ton's Philosophy and the Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed
in his Writings,' although this did not appear until 1865. These
two works, together with his father's (Analysis of the Phenomena of


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JOHN STUART MILL
IOONI
the Human Mind,' edited by him in 1869, give a view of his philoso-
phy. He belongs to the school of Locke, Hartley, and Hume. Indi-
vidual experience is the foundation upon which he builds his system
of knowledge. The connecting principle binding together what indi-
vidual experience has given is the principle of association. Innate
ideas and a priori reason - in fact, all knowledge antecedent and
prior to experience -- are rejected.
The fearlessness and consistency with which Mill bases all knowl-
edge upon individual experience cannot fail to excite a certain
admiration even in those who differ widely with him. He will not
acknowledge the universality of causation, but thinks it quite possible
that in regions beyond our experience things may happen at random.
These are the words in which he expresses this doctrine:-
«I am convinced that any one accustomed to abstraction and analysis,
who will fairly exert his faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagina-
tion has once learnt to entertain the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving
that in some one, for instance, of the many firmaments into which sidereal
astronomy now divides the universe, events may succeed one another at ran-
dom without any fixed law; nor can anything in our experience, or in our
nental nature, constitute a sufficient — or indeed any reason for believing
that this is nowhere the case. )
Mill's Logic' has in all countries a high reputation, and must take
its rank among the great treatises on logic of all times. He is fre-
quently called the founder of the inductive logic, so great was the
contribution which he made in his treatment of induction.
In his political philosophy he was an exponent of democracy.
What he did for democracy in the nineteenth century has been com-
pared with Locke's contribution to the philosophy of constitutional
monarchy in the seventeenth century. His principal work in this
field is entitled “Thoughts on Representative Government. ' His work
on Liberty, however, belongs in part to the domain of political
philosophy; and the volumes entitled Dissertations and Discussions)
contain many essays on scientific politics.
He advocated government by the people because, among other
things, political activity carried with it an intellectual and ethical
education. Political interests were the first, he maintained, to enlarge
men's minds and thoughts beyond the narrow circle of the family.
One marked feature of what he wrote on politics was his advocacy
of the enfranchisement of women. He was always a champion of
women's rights, and reference should be made in this connection to
his work The Subjection of Women. ' He disliked to think that
there were any fundamental differences in mind and character be-
tween the sexes. One of his speeches in the House of Commons was
on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise. '


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IOOI 2
JOHN STUART MILL
But Mill was keenly conscious of the dangers of democracy; and
he wished that measures should be adopted, on the one hand to pre-
pare men and women by education for self-government, and on the
other to prevent a tyranny of the majority. Consequently he was an
advocate of a representation of minorities in legislative bodies. He
was always known as a friend of the workingman; but he was no
demagogue, and would not stoop to flattery. When he was candidate
for Parliament, he was asked in a public meeting whether he had
ever made the statement that the working classes of England differed
from those of other countries in being ashamed of lying, although
they were generally liars. The audience was composed largely of
workingmen, and his reply was a frank and instantaneous “I did. ”
The statement was greeted with applause, which was always to him
a source of hope for the wage-earning classes. It showed that they
wanted friends, not flatterers.
It is noteworthy, however, that as Mill grew older he became less
democratic and more socialistic. He says of himself and Mrs. Taylor,
referring to the year 1843 or thereabouts:-
“We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as
education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance
and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass; but our ideas of ulti-
mate improvement went far beyond democracy, and classed us under the gen.
eral designation of socialists. . The social problem of the future we
considered to be, how to unite the greatest liberty of action with a common
ownership of the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all
in the benefits of combined labor. »
a
Mill's chief contribution to ethics is found in his little work en-
titled Utilitarianism'; and this gives him a position in the history
of ethical thought. His «utilitarianism” was what he himself called
the greatest happiness principle; not the greatest happiness of the
individual merely, but the greatest happiness of society. This thought
of the greatest happiness as the ultimate test of conduct in the
individual and in society runs all through his writing, and is funda-
mental. It must always be borne in mind by one who would under-
stand what he wrote; and in it we find at least a certain unity amid
many inconsistencies. The greatest-happiness rule was Bentham's
principle: but Mill added to considerations of quantity of happiness,
the considerations of quality; it was not merely the highest quantity of
happiness which must be sought, but the highest sorts of happiness.
While this elevated utilitarianism, it introduced an element of ideal-
ism which has rightly been held to be inconsistent with the utilita-
rian philosophy. If happiness is fundamental, how can we distinguish
between kinds of happiness on any other grounds than those of mere


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JOHN STUART MILL
10013
quantity? If we are able to say that one sort of happiness is higher
than another, then we must have some different test and some more
fundamental test than happiness itself.
Mill's Political Economy' is a transitional work; and indeed, it
may not be too much to say of all his work that it was transitional.
He brought to a close a line of development in economics proceeding
from Adam Smith through Ricardo, Malthus, and James Mill, and
opened a new era. He added on to the superstructure large humani-
tarian and social considerations which were hardly consistent with the
foundations upon which he built; and this he himself recognized late
in life. Yet the very imperfections of his book on political economy
render it interesting and also instructive. It must be read carefully
and in connection with his other writings to be fully understood; but
its mastery has been called in itself a liberal education.
The book is entitled Principles of Political Economy, with some
of their Applications to Social Philosophy. ' It is in truth as a part
of a system of social philosophy that Mill's political economy is most
interesting This enlargement of the scope of political economy,
and its connection with general sociology, is something for which he
was chiefly indebted to the French sociologist Auguste Comte, whose
works he studied, with whom he formed a warm friendship which
lasted for some years, and whom he always admired. It was from
Comte that he learned his distinction between social statics and social
dynamics: the first dealing with phenomena in their coexistence, and
giving us the theory of order; the second dealing with social phe-
nomena in their succession, and giving us the theory of progress.
The view of nature found in his writing is in marked contrast to
the eighteenth-century view entertained by Adam Smith. Nature is
no longer a beneficent power, but inexpressibly cruel. Man is benefi-
cent, and the good in the world is brought about through the sub-
jugation of nature by man. Civilization means to him a contest with
nature and a conquest of her forces. It is for inan to overcome her
inequalities and injustices.
Mill's thoughts were directed to the improvement of the condi-
tion of the masses; and this improvement was to be brought about
gradually, through an enlargement of economic and political oppor-
tunities. He advocated views of the taxation and regulation of in-
heritance and bequest which would break down large fortunes and
bring about a wider diffusion of property. In the same spirit was
conceived his plan for the appropriation of the “unearned increment”
of land, or future increments in the rent of land due to the progress
of society and not to the exertions of the individual land-owner. His
last public act was the foundation of the Land Tenure Reform Asso-
ciation, which was designed to carry out this idea of the appropriation


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10014
JOHN STUART MILL
of the future unearned increment by society, to be used for general
social purposes and to encourage co-operative agriculture.
It has already been stated that Mill's views gradually changed in
the direction of socialism. He was at work on the problem of social-
ism at the time of his death, but appears to have reached no definite
conclusion. He dreaded anything like tyranny over the individual,
and on this account rejected all schemes of socialism with which he
was familiar. Nevertheless, he was working towards an ideal kind
of socialism, which, as he said, should with the common ownership of
the instruments of production and participation in the benefits of
combined labor «unite the greatest individual liberty of action. ”
Richard gely
OF THE STATIONARY STATE OF WEALTH AND POPULATION
From (Political Economy
)
I
CANNOT, therefore, regard the stationary state of capital and
wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested
towards it by political economists of the old school. I am
inclined to believe that it would be, on the whole, a very con-
siderable improvement on our present condition. I confess I am
not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think
that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to
get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on
each other's heels, which form the existing type of social life, are
the most desirable lot of human kind, or anything but the dis-
agreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress.
It may be a necessary stage in the progress of civilization, and
those European nations which have hitherto been so fortunate as
to be preserved from it may have it yet to undergo. It is an
incident of growth, not a mark of decline, for it is not necessarily
destructive of the higher aspirations and the heroic virtues: as
America in her great civil war is proving to the world, both by
her conduct as a people and by numerous splendid individual
examples; and as England, it is to be hoped, would also prove on
an equally trying and exciting occasion. But it is not a kind of
social perfection which philanthropists to come will feel any very
eager desire to assist in realizing. Most fitting indeed is it, that


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JOHN STUART MILL
10015
one
while riches are power, and to grow as rich as possible the uni-
versal object of ambition, the path to its attainment should be
open to all, without favor or partiality. But the best state for
human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no
desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back
by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.
That the energies of mankind should be kept in employment
by the struggle for riches, as they were formerly by the strug-
gle of war, until the better minds succeed in educating the oth-
ers into better things, is undoubtedly more desirable than that
they should rust and stagnate.
While minds are coarse they
require coarse stimuli; and let them have them.
In the mean
time, those who do not accept the present very early stage of
human improvement as its ultimate type, may be excused for
being comparatively indifferent to the kind of economical progress
which excites the congratulations of ordinary politicians,— the
mere increase of production and accumulation. For the safety of
national independence it is essential that a country should not
fall much behind its neighbors in these things; but in them-
selves they are of little importance, so long as either the increase
of population or anything else prevents the mass of the people
from reaping any part of the benefit of them. I know not why
it should be matter of congratulation, that persons who are
already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled
their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure
except as representative of wealth; or that numbers of individ-
uals should pass over, every year, from the middle classes into
a richer class, or from the class of the occupied rich to that of
the unoccupied. It is only in the backward countries of the
world that increased production is still an important object; in
those most advanced, what is economically needed is a better
distribution,- of which one indispensable means is a stricter
restraint on population. Leveling institutions, either of a just
or of an unjust kind, cannot alone accomplish it; they may
lower the heights of society, but they cannot of themselves per-
manently raise the depths.
On the other hand, we may suppose this better distribution
of property attained by the joint effect of the prudence and fru-
gality of individuals, and of a system of legislation favoring
equality of fortunes, so far as is consistent with the just claim of
the individual to the fruits, whether great or small, of his or her


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10016
JOHN STUART MILL
own industry. We may suppose, for instance (according to the
suggestion thrown out in a former chapter), a limitation of the
sum which any one person may acquire by gift or inheritance,
to the amount sufficient to constitute a moderate independence.
Under this twofold influence, society would exhibit these leading
features: a well-paid and affluent body of laborers; no enormous
fortunes, except what were earned and accumulated during a
single lifetime; but a much larger body of persons than at pres-
ent not only exempt from the coarser toils, but with sufficient
leisure both physical and mental, from mechanical details, to
cultivate freely the graces of life, and afford examples of them
to the classes less favorably circumstanced for their growth.
This condition of society, so greatly preferable to the present, is
not only perfectly compatible with the stationary state, but, it
would seem, more naturally allied with that state than with any
other.
There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old coun-
tries, for a great increase of population, supposing the arts of
life to go on improving and capital to increase. But even if
innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The
density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain,
in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of co-operation
and of social intercourse, has in all the most populous countries
been attained. A population may be too crowded, though all be
.
amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man
to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his species.
A world from which solitude is extirpated is a very poor ideal.
Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any
depth of meditation or of character; and solitude in the presence
of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thoughts and
aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which
society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in
contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous
activity of nature: with every rood of land brought into cultiva-
tion which is capable of growing food for human beings; every
flowery waste or natural pasture plowed up, all quadrupeds or
birds which are not domesticated for man's use exterminated as
his rivals for food, every hedge-row or superfluous tree rooted
out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could
grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of im.
proved agriculture. If the earth must lose that great portion


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JOHN STUART MILL
I0017
of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited
increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for
the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a
better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of
posterity, that they will be content to be stationary long before
necessity compels them to it.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition
of capital and population implies no stationary state of human
improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all
kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much
room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood
of its being improved when minds ceased to be engrossed by the
art of getting on. Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly
and as successfully cultivated, with this sole difference: that in-
stead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, indus-
trial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of
abridging labor. Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical
inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human
being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same
life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of
manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased
the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun
to effect those great changes in human destiny which it is in
their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when,
in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be
under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the con-
quests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and
energy of scientific discoveries become the common property of
the species, and the means of improving and elevating the uni-
versal lot.