closely reasoned and characteristic works, the Liberty, the Utilitarianism, the Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, and the Subjection of Women, besides his posthumously published essays on Nature and on the Utility of Religion, were thought out and partly written in collaboration with his wife. In 1856 he became head of the examiner’s office in the India House, and for two years, till the dissolution of the Company in 1858, his official work, never a light task, kept him fully occupied. It fell to him as head of the office to write the defence of the Company’s government of India when the transfer of its powers was proposed. Mill was earnestly opposed to the transfer, and the documents in which he substantiated the proud boast for the Company that “few governments, even under far more favourable circumstances, have attempted so much for the good of their subjects or carried so many of their attempts to a beneficial issue,” and exposed the defects of the proposed new government, are models of trenchant and dignified pleading.
On the dissolution of the Company Mill was offered a seat in the new council, but declined, and retired with a pension of £1500. His retirement from official work was followed almost immediately by his wife’s death at Avignon, whither they had come in the course of a tour. So great was the shock that for the rest of his life he spent most of his time at a villa at St Véran, near Avignon, returning to his Blackheath residence only for a short period in each year. He sought relief in active literary occupation, in politics, sociology and psychology. He published, with a touching dedication to his wife, the treatise on Liberty, which they had wrought out together. He then turned to politics, and published, in view of the impending Reform Bill, a pamphlet on parliamentary reform. The chief feature in this was an idea concerning which he and Mrs Mill often deliberated—the necessity of providing checks against uneducated democracy. His suggestion of a plurality of votes, proportioned to the elector’s degree of education, was avowedly put forward only as an ideal; he admitted that no authentic test of education could for the present be found. An anonymous Conservative caught at the scheme in another pamphlet, proposing income as a test. Soon after Mill supported in Fraser’s, still with the same object, Hare’s scheme for the representation of minorities. In the autumn of the same year he turned to psychology, reviewing Bain’s works in the Edinburgh Review. In his Representative Government (1860) he systematized opinions already put forward in many casual articles and essays. His Utilitarianism (published in Fraser’s in 1861) was a closely-reasoned systematic attempt to answer objections to his ethical theory and remove misconceptions of it. He was especially anxious to make it clear that he included in “utility” the pleasures of the imagination and the gratification of the higher emotions, and to show how powerfully the good of mankind as a motive appealed to the imagination. His next treatise, The Subjection of Women, was not published till 1869.[1] His Examination of Hamilton’s Philosophy, published in 1865, had engaged a large share of his time for three years before.
While mainly occupied in those years with philosophical studies, Mill did not remit his interest in current politics. He supported the North in the American crisis of 1862, using all his strength to explain what has since been universally recognized as the issue really at stake in the struggle, the abolition of slavery. It was characteristic of the closeness with which he watched current events, and of his zeal in the cause of “lucidity,” that when the Reader, an organ of science and unpartisan opinion, fell into difficulties in 1865 Mill joined with some distinguished men of science and letters in an effort to keep it afloat. He supplied part of the money for carrying it on, contributed several articles, and assisted the editor, Fraser Rae, with his advice. The effort was vain, though such men as Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Cairnes, Mark Pattison, F. Harrison, Sir Frederick Pollock and Lockyer were among the contributors.
In 1865 he agreed to stand as parliamentary candidate for Westminster, on conditions strictly in accordance with his principles. He would not canvass, nor pay agents to canvass for him, nor would he engage to attend to the local business of the constituency. He was with difficulty persuaded even to address a meeting of the electors. The story of this remarkable election has been told by James Beal, one of the most active supporters of Mill’s candidature. In parliament he adhered to his life-long principle of doing only work that needed to be done, and that nobody else seemed equally able or willing to do. It may have been a consciousness of this fact which prompted a remark, made by the Speaker, that Mill’s presence in parliament elevated the tone of debate. The impression made by him in parliament is in some danger of being forgotten, because he was not instrumental in carrying any great measure that might serve as an abiding memorial. But, although his first speech on the bill for the prevention of cattle diseases excited the opposition of country members, and a subsequent speech against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland was very unfavourably received, Mill thoroughly succeeded in gaining the ear of the House. The only speech made by him during his three years in parliament that was listened to with impatience was, curiously enough, his speech in favour of counteracting democracy by providing for the representation of minorities. His attack on the conduct of Governor Eyre in Jamaica (q.v.) was listened to, but with repugnance by the majority, although his action in this matter in and out of parliament was far from being ineffectual. He took an active part in the debates on Disraeli’s Reform Bill (moving an amendment to omit the word “man” and insert “person”), and helped to extort from the government several useful modifications of the Bill for the Prevention of Corrupt Practices. The reform of land tenure in Ireland, the representation of women, the reduction of the national debt, the reform of London government, the abrogation of the Declaration of Paris, were among the topics on which he spoke with marked effect. He took occasion more than once to enforce what he had often advocated in writing, England's duty to intervene in foreign politics in support of the cause of freedom. As a speaker Mill was somewhat hesitating, pausing occasionally as if to recover the thread of his argument, but he showed great readiness in extemporaneous debate. Viewed as a candidate for ministerial office, he might be regarded as a failure in parliament, but there can be no doubt that his career there greatly extended his influence.
Mill’s subscription to the election expenses of Bradlaugh, and his attitude towards Governor Eyre, are generally regarded as the main causes of his defeat in the general election of 1868. But, as he suggests himself, his studied advocacy of unfamiliar projects of reform had made him unpopular with “moderate Liberals.” He retired with a sense of relief to his cottage and his literary life at Avignon. His parliamentary duties and the quantity of correspondence brought upon him by increased publicity had absorbed nearly the whole of his time. The scanty leisure of his first recess had been devoted to writing his St Andrews rectorial address on higher education and to answering attacks on his criticism of Hamilton; of the second, to annotating in conjunction with Bain and Findlater, his father’s Analysis of the Mind. Now he looked forward to a literary life, and his letters show how much he enjoyed the change. His little cottage was filled with books and newspapers; the beautiful country round it furnished him with a variety of walks; he read, wrote, discussed, walked, botanized. He was extremely fond of music, and was himself a fair pianist. His step-daughter, Miss Taylor (d. January 1907), was his constant companion after his wife’s death. “Helen,” he wrote to W. T. Thornton, an old colleague in the India House, “has carried out her long-cherished scheme (about which she tells me she consulted you) of a ‘vibratory’ for me, and has made a pleasant covered walk, some 30 ft. long, where I can vibrate in cold or rainy weather. The terrace, you must know, as it goes round two sides of the house, has got itself
- ↑ He was one of the founders, with Mrs P. A. Taylor, Miss Emily Davies and others, of the first women’s suffrage society, which developed into the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and his writings are still the most important theoretical statement of the case for women’s suffrage. He presented to Parliament the first petition on the subject (see further Blackburn, Women’s Suffrage Record).
