MILL
MILLEE
are all works of commanding ability. On
the ethical side he zealously propagated
Bentham s Utilitarianism, and he was not
less active in practical movements like the
reform of education and the improvement
of the workers. D. June 23, 1836.
MILL, John Stuart, philosopher. B. May 20, 1806. He was educated by his father, James Mill, so severely that he could read Greek at the age of seven, had a large acquaintance with the classics and began to study logic at the age of twelve, and took up political economy at thirteen. He continued his studies until 1821, when he took a clerkship in India House (where he remained until 1858). In 1823 he began to contribute to the reviews, and the famous group of " Philosophic Eadi- cals " (which grew out of his father s ideals) gathered about him. His chief works (A System of Logic, 2 vols., 1843 ; Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols., 1848 ; On Liberty, 1859 ; Utilitarianism, 1863 ; and The Subjection of Women, 1869) had a profound influence in rationalizing English thought, and his high character and elevated public activity extorted the admiration even of his opponents. From 1865 to 1868 he was M.P. for Westminster. It is well known that Mr. Gladstone spoke of him as " the saint of Eationalism "; and the refusal of Gladstone to subscribe to the erection of a statue of Mill, when some early zeal of his for Malthusianism was unearthed, is ludicrous. Mill had, of course, been brought up in his father s Agnosticism ; but under the influence of Wordsworth he, about 1830, began to modify his position. He had, partly to keep clear of Materialism, adopted Berke ley s idealism, and this may have helped. We find him writing to Carlyle in 1834 that he has " only a probable God " (Letters, p. 90). At his death, however, he left the manuscript of Three Essays on Beligion (1874), which go beyond " proba bility." Lord Morley tells us (Recollec tions, i, 106) that he and other Agnostics read them with pain and surprise, and
507
regarded them as " a laboured evasion of
plain answers to plain questions." Mill s
God," however, was impersonal and not
infinite a " limited liability god " and he
never accepted personal immortality. His
later years were spent at Avignon. D.
May 8, 1873.
MILLAR, Professor John, jurist. B. June 22, 1735. Ed. Glasgow University. Millar was intended for the Church, but discussion on religion with James Watt, the inventor [SEE] , and the study of Adam Smith undermined his religious beliefs. He became tutor to the son of Lord Kames, at whose house he often met Hume, and adopted his philosophy. In 1760 he became an advocate, and in the following year professor of law at Glasgow University. He was a member of the " Friends of the People," and often defended liberal opinions at the Glasgow Literary Society. His Origin of the Distinc tions of Banks (1806) is discreetly Eation- alistic (see pp. 272-75), and in the biogra phical sketch which is prefixed to it Mr. J. Craig tells us that Millar " was a zealous admirer of Mr. Hume s philosophical opinions" (p. Ixi). D. May 30, 1801.
MILLE, Constantin, LL.D., Eumanian writer. B. Dec. 21, 1861. Ed. Paris, and Brussels University. On his return to Eumania he practised law, and he took an active part in the dissemination of Eation alism and Socialism at Bucharest. He founded the Dreptiirile omului (Bights of Man) and other journals, and gave public lectures on the Materialistic conception of history. He has also published verse and novels, and contributed to all advanced periodicals. For some years he was in the Eumanian Parliament.
MILLER, Florence Fenwick, writer. B. Nov. 5, 1854. In her early years Miss Miller she has retained her maiden name in marriage, with her husband s consent made a thorough study of anatomy and headed her class in the London Ladies 508
