John Austin
(1790-1859).
Among those who frequented James Mill’s house were Grote and the two Austins, John and Charles, the latter a man of almost unequalled reputation for brilliant talents, who contented himself with extraordinary pecuniary success at the bar, and early retired with a fortune. The elder brother, John Austin, was rather an independent thinker who adopted many of the same views, than a disciple of James Mill. He never achieved what was expected of him.
S. Mill says that his error was over-elaboration: he wore himself out before his work was accomplished through incapacity to satisfy himself. His writings are nevertheless full of redundancies; but he did a great deal towards forming a terminology for scientific jurisprudence. His works, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), and Lectures on Jurisprudence (1863), are, like nearly all the writings of his school, deficient in human interest.
Partly stimulated by and partly stimulating these men, John Mill began to think for himself and to initiate movements. It was he who in the winter of 1822-1823 founded the Utilitarian Society, the name of which was borrowed from Galt’s Annals of the Parish. A little later he was brought, through the agency of a debating society, into contact with a wider circle. The battles were originally between the philosophic Radicals and the Tory lawyers; but afterwards they were joined by those whom Mill describes as the Coleridgians, Maurice and Sterling. It was under the attrition of these friendships and friendly discussions that Mill’s mind was formed and polished after it passed from under the immediate control of his father. His interest from the start centred in philosophy. Before 1830 he had begun to write on logic, but his first important publication was the System of Logic (1843). For some years he edited the London Review, afterwards entitled the London and Westminster. His Political Economy appeared in 1848. In 1851 he married a widow, Mrs. Taylor, to whom he ascribes a share in some of his works scarcely inferior to his own. Her influence is especially strong in the essay On Liberty (1859), though this was not published until after her death.
About this time Mill took up the question of parliamentary reform, and in 1861 published his Considerations on Representative Government. Nearly contemporaneous in composition, though eight years later in publication, was the Subjection of Women; while Utilitarianism (1862) was the result of a revision of papers written towards the close of Mill’s married life. Auguste Comte and Positivism (reprinted from The Westminster Review) and the Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy both appeared in 1865. There remain to mention only the Autobiography and a collection of essays, both posthumous. During these later years Mill’s life was for a time more public than it had previously been. In 1865 the electors of Westminster asked him to be their representative, and he was elected without the ordinary incident of a canvass. In the election of 1868 however he was defeated, and the constituency never had an opportunity of redeeming its error.
Mill’s writings may be grouped under the heads of philosophical, economic, and political. The highly interesting but depressing and melancholy Autobiography stands outside these classes. Perhaps it is his best composition from the point of view of literature; and certainly it is the most valuable document for a study of the growth of his school. The three divisions are not mutually exclusive, for, strictly speaking, the first would embrace the other two. In it an attempt is made to lay down general principles which are applied in them.
Mill’s theory is contained in his Logic, his Utilitarianism, and his books on Comte and Hamilton. It has become known by the name he gave it as Utilitarianism; and as Bentham was the founder and first leader of the school, so was Mill the successor to his position and authority. It is a modern form of the theory associated with the name of the philosopher Epicurus; and on that ground it has been subjected to moral censure. Perhaps ultimately, as directed against the principle, the censure is sound; but it cannot be fairly turned against individuals. Certainly no thinkers of their time laboured more strenuously for the good of the community than Mill and Bentham. In Bentham’s exposition, the philosophy crystallised itself in the often-quoted phrase, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number.’ His contribution consists in the introduction of the idea of the greatest number. Whether that idea is logically consistent with a philosophy of pleasure may be questioned; but it was to Bentham’s addition that the maxim owed its power and its practical influence on legislation. It was moreover this consideration, in addition to the fact that he breathed Benthamite ideas from the cradle, that attracted Mill. For he was a typically English philosopher. He never of his own choice dwelt long on purely metaphysical problems, nor did he succeed well when he was forced to attempt them. His attitude towards Hume’s theory of cause, after Kant’s criticism of it, is vividly illustrative of his speculative limitations. If Oxford is the place where German philosophies go when they die, apparently London in Mill’s time was the place where German philosophies did not go at all; and even dead German philosophies are better than the English predecessors which they slew in the day of their vigour.
As a Utilitarian, Mill was more valuable for exposition than for the original elements of his thought. In all his writings he is clear in expression and abundant in illustration. This abundance, in truth, appears to the reader not wholly ignorant of the subject to be cognate to verbosity. It was however part of the secret of Mill’s great influence. He forced people to understand him. He talked round and round the subject, looked at it from every point of view and piled example upon example, until it was impossible to miss his meaning. When we add wide knowledge, patient study, keen intelligence and a considerable, if not exactly a great talent for original speculation, Mill’s influence as a philosopher is explained. He wielded, from the publication of his Logic till his death, a greater power than any other English thinker, unless Sir William Hamilton is to be excepted for the earlier part of the period.
These characteristics, combined perhaps with a greater share of originality, appear in the System of Logic as well as in the Utilitarian treatises. Its merit is proved by the fact that through many years of adverse criticism it has maintained its ground at the universities as one of the most useful books on the subject. The freshest section is that which is devoted to Induction. The Examination of Hamilton shows Mill to have possessed the gift of acute and powerful criticism of philosophy. He may not have succeeded in establishing his own position, but he certainly damaged very seriously the rival system of Hamilton.
Mill’s Political Economy is, like his general philosophy, lucid, full and thorough. Though cautious here, as always, in the admission of new principles, Mill made considerable contributions to economics. The theory of international exchanges is almost wholly his, and many particular turns and details of economic doctrine are due to him. In a still greater number of cases he has been, not the originator, but the best exponent of economic theory. The caution and judiciousness of his reasoning were qualities peculiarly valuable in this sphere; and where the views of ‘orthodox’ political economy are accepted at all, Mill’s opinions are treated with respect.