The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVI - The Later Letters 1849-1873 Part III

John Stuart Mill

amagi symbol
Published by Liberty Fund, Inc.

John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVI - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part III [1865]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVI - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part III, ed. Francis E. Mineka and Dwight N. Lindley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972).

Author: John Stuart Mill

Editor: Francis E. Mineka

Editor: Dwight N. Lindley

Vol. 16 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1865-1868.

Copyright:

The online edition of the Collected Works is published under licence from the copyright holder, The University of Toronto Press. ©2006 The University of Toronto Press. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or medium without the permission of The University of Toronto Press.

Table of Contents

Contents

Abbreviations and Short Titles

COLLECTED WORKS OF JOHN STUART MILL volume xvii

1865

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO WILLIAM TALLACK1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

TO JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO MAX KYLLMANN1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO HARRIET GROTE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JAMES BEAL1

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

TO [HENRY PITMAN]1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO WILLIAM TODD1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO THOMAS JONES1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

TO RICHARD HOLT HUTTON1

TO THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO JAMES BEAL1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOSHUA FAYLE1

TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO HENRY SODEN1

TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO EMILE LITTRÉ1

TO FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO HENRY BOWIE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO PARKE GODWIN1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO EDWIN L. GODKIN1

TO WILLIAM WHEWELL1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO MAX KYLLMANN1

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

TO CHARLES LORING BRACE1

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

TO EDWIN ARNOLD1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO W. L. HARVEY1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

TO JANE MILL FERRABOSCHI1

TO HENRY FRANKS1

TO THE REV. WILLIAM HENRY LYTTELTON1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO RICHARD CONGREVE1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO EDWARD WILSON1

TO JAMES BEAL1

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

TO JOHN BOYD KINNEAR1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM MARTIN DICKSON1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

TO JOHN BOYD KINNEAR1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO MAURICE WAKEMAN1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

TO MACRAE MOIR1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO JOHN MORLEY1

TO ADAM GUROWSKI1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO W. O. ADAMS1

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO CHARLES KINNEAR WATT1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO DR. HENRY MacCORMAC1

TO JAMES BEAL1

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

TO HORACE WHITE1

TO JOHN TULLOCH1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

1866

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO HENRY SAMUEL CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO ARTHUR LANKESTER1

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

TO HENRY REEVE1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO [MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY?]1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO EDWARD WELMISLEY1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THE SPEAKER’S SECRETARY1

TO FREDERICK MILNES EDGE1

TO MONTAGUE RICHARD LEVERSON1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

TO JOHN CAMPBELL1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THOMAS CARLYLE1

TO THE EARL OF CLARENDON1

TO SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO HENRY PITMAN1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO HENRY PITMAN1

TO CAROLINE E. LIDDELL1

TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

TO EDWARD OWEN GREENING1

TO JOHN A. LEATHERLAND1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EARL GREY1

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO CHARLES ROSS1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

TO LADY AMBERLEY1

TO CHRISTOPHER DARBY GRIFFITH1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO LADY AMBERLEY1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JAMES MARTINEAU1

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

TO FRANCIS BOWEN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO EDMOND BEALES1

TO EDMOND BEALES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO J. ARTHUR PARTRIDGE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO WILLIAM SCHOLEFIELD1

TO THOMAS DAVIDSON1

TO ROBERT PHARAZYN1

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

TO JOHN BAXTER LANGLEY1

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN MORLEY1

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

TO DAVID URQUHART1

TO THOMAS PERRONET THOMPSON1

TO [DANIEL O’DONOGHUE?]1

TO DAVID URQUHART1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

TO JOHN MILLS1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO ROBERT WERE FOX1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO ALEXANDER VANCE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO THOMAS HUGHES1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

1867

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN TULLOCH1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO W. L. (JOHNS?)1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO SPENCER H. WALPOLE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO ARNOLD RUGE1

TO HENRY S. BRANDRETH1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THE REV. THOMAS W. FOWLE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO ROBERT HERBERT STORY1

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWARD WALFORD1

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO HENRY I. ROWNTREE1

TO WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER1

TO JAMES GARTH MARSHALL1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

TO JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWARD TRUELOVE1

TO FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL1

TO FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL1

TO THOMAS HUGHES1

TO AUGUST JOANNY CHAPÉ1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO EDWARD KYLLMANN1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN NICHOL1

TO JOHN ALLEN1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO EDWARD OWEN GREENING1

TO G. W. SHARP1

TO WILLIAM TODD1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO SAMUEL N. WOOD1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO FREDERIC HARRISON1

TO DR. WILLIAM W. IRELAND1

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO JOHN COLAM1

TO GEORGE JOHN GRAHAM1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO ROBERT W. OLLIVIER1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO PARKER PILLSBURY1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO EDMOND BEALES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO GEORGE JOHN GRAHAM1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO LORD HOUGHTON1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO MARY THOMPSON1

TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON1

TO LORD HOUGHTON1

TO MARY CARPENTER1

TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE1

TO LORD BROUGHAM1

TO THE REV. STEPHEN THOMAS HAWTREY1

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

TO SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX1

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO JOHN NICHOL1

TO DAVID AMES WELLS1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM JAMES LINTON1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO WILLIAM BROUGHAM1

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON1

TO OSCAR BROWNING1

TO JAMES GARTH MARSHALL1

TO ALEXANDER BAIN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON1

TO E. W. YOUNG1

TO JOHN HENRY BRIDGES1

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WALTER LOVELL1

TO ALEXANDER BAIN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO F. KIDELL1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO HORACE WHITE1

TO MARY CARPENTER1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE1

1868

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

TO THE REV. LEOPOLD JOHN BERNAYS1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO HENRY SOLLY1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO SECRETARY, UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AUGUST JOANNY CHAPÉ1

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

TO JULIUS GROSSER1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO MARY CARPENTER1

TO JOHN VENN1

TO CHARLES HAYES1

TO WILLIAM TALLACK1

TO DAVID MASSON1

TO THOMAS JOSEPH HASLAM1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO LINDSEY MIDDLETON ASPLAND1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO LORD HOBART1

TO GEORGE WALKER1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO M. E. GRANT DUFF1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO WILLIAM ALLINGHAM1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO THOMAS HARE1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

TO NICHOLAS KILBURN1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO JOHN VENN1

TO FLORENCE MAY1

TO JOHN A. ELLIOTT1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO LUCY STONE1

TO LYON PLAYFAIR1

TO PROFESSOR CARL ADOLF BUCHHEIM1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO PETER DEML1

TO JAMES TRASK1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

TO JAMES TRASK1

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO STUART GRACE1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

TO JULES SIMON1

TO JULES SIMON1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON1

TO GOLDWIN SMITH1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO GEORGE W. JULIAN1

TO GEORGE CAPEL1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO MISS NICHOLSON1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO HENRY JONES1

TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO ENOCH C. WINES1

TO GEORGE KENYON HOLDEN1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO JOHN NICHOL1

TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT1

TO JOHN NICHOL1

TO JOHN COLAM1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

TO JOHN NICHOL1

TO ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO J. BAILEY AND H. ARMISTEAD1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JAMES HENDERSON1

TO AUSTIN HOLYOAKE1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO CHARLES GILPIN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Virtus Dormitiva

TO J. R. WARE1

TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

TO GEORGE THATCHER1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO SAMUEL WARREN BURTON1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO EDMOND BEALES1

TO P. CALLERALL1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE1

TO CHARLES STEWART WALTHER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

TO CHARLES FRIEND1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO FLORENCE MAY1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO J. S. BIRD1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JAMES EDWARDS1

TO J. H. FLETCHER1

TO RICHARD MARSHALL1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO J. DAWSON BURNS1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO FREDERICK BATES1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO LOUIS BLANC1

TO CHARLES BRADLAUGH1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO JOHN BUCKLE1

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

TO MRS. RACHEL CHADWICK1

TO MRS. ELIZABETH LAMBERT1

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

TO ALPHONSE ESQUIROS1

TO JOHN MORLEY1

TO THOMAS DYKE ACLAND1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO S. ALFRED STEINTHAL1

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN1

TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN1

TO JOHN CANDLISH1

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

TO HENRY G. MACKSON1

TO R. C. MADGE1

TO ARCHIBALD MICHIE1

TO ALEXANDER T. TEETGEN1

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

TO EDWARD WILLIAM STAFFORD1

TO PRISCILLA McLAREN1

TO JOHN HAYWARD1

TO JAMES BEAL1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO [PRINCESS MARIE STCHERBATOV AND ASSOCIATES]1

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

TO WILLIAM T. MALLESON1

TO PHILIP HENRY RATHBONE1

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

TO GEORGE GROTE1

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

Edition: current; Page: [ii]

COLLECTED WORKS OF JOHN STUART MILL

volume xvi

Edition: current; Page: [iii]

The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873

Edited by FRANCIS E. MINEKA Cornell University and DWIGHT N. LINDLEY Hamilton College

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL

Edition: current; Page: [iv]

© University of Toronto Press 1972

Toronto and Buffalo

Printed in Canada

ISBN 0-8020-5261-4

Microfiche ISBN 0-8020-0091-6

LC 75-163833

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

ISBN 0-7100-7294-5

This volume has been published with the assistance of a grant from the Canada Council

Edition: current; Page: [v]

Contents

abbreviations and short titles vii

the letters, 1865-1868

1865, 985

1866, 1130

1867, 1226

1868, 1347

indexes

General Index 2017

Index of Correspondents 2078

John Stuart Mill, portrait by E. Goodwyn Lewis facing page 985

Edition: current; Page: [vi] Edition: current; Page: [vii]

Abbreviations and Short Titles

Am.: American

Arsenal: Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris

Autobiog.: John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, ed. with an Introduction and Notes by Jack Stillinger (Boston, 1969)

Bain, JSM: Alexander Bain, John Stuart Mill: A Criticism: With Personal Recollections, London, 1882

Bernard: Mountague Bernard, A Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, London, 1870

Bibliothèque Nationale: Bibliothèque National, Paris

Bodleian: Bodleian Library, Oxford

Brit. Mus.: British Museum, London

Canberra: National Library of Australia, Canberra

Columbia: Columbia University Library

Cornell: Olin Library, Cornell University

Cosmopolis: “Letters of John Stuart Mill to Gustave d’Eichthal,” ed. Eugène d’Eichthal, in Cosmopolis, IX (March, 1898), 781-89

Dilke: Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, “John Stuart Mill, 1869-1873,” Cosmopolis, V (March, 1897), 429-41

Dissertations: John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical, 4 vols., London, 1859-75; 5 vols., Boston, 1864-68

Duncan: David Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, 2 vols., New York, 1908

ER: The Edinburgh Review, 1802-1929

Earlier Letters: The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill, 1812-1848, ed. Francis E. Mineka, vols. XII and XIII of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Toronto, 1963

Early Draft: The Early Draft of John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, ed. Jack Stillinger, Urbana, 1961

D’Eichthal Corresp.: John Stuart Mill, Correspondance inédite avec Gustave d’Eichthal, 1828-1842, 1864-1871, ed. Eugène d’Eichthal, Paris, 1898

Elliot: The Letters of John Stuart Mill, ed. Hugh S. R. Elliot, 2 vols., London, 1910

FR: The Fortnightly Review, 1865-1954

Fraser’s: Fraser’s Magazine, 1830-82

Gomperz: Heinrich Gomperz, Theodor Gomperz, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ausgewählt, erläutert und zu einer Darstellung seines Lebens verknüpft, Vol. I (all published), Vienna, 1936

Hamilton: John Stuart Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, London, 1865

Edition: current; Page: [viii]

Hansard: Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, London, 1830-91

Harvard: Harvard College Library

Hayek: F. A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Their Friendship and Subsequent Marriage, London and Chicago, 1951

Huntington: The Huntington Library, Pasadena

I.H.: India House

Indiana: Indiana University Library

JSM: John Stuart Mill

Johns Hopkins: The Johns Hopkins University Library

King’s: Keynes Collection, King’s College Library, Cambridge University

LSE: The British Library of Political and Economic Science, at the London School of Economics and Social Science

Leeds: Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

Logic: John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive; being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation, 2 vols., London, 1843. The references are to the 8th edition, London, 1872

LWR: London and Westminster Review, 1836-40

Macmillan’s: Macmillan’s Magazine, 1859-1907

MacMinn, Bibliog.: Bibliography of the Published Writings of John Stuart Mill, ed. Ney MacMinn, J. R. Hainds, and James McNab McCrimmon, Evanston, Ill., 1945

Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1859-

Melbourne: Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne

Motley: The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, ed. George William Curtis, New York, 1889

NAPSS: National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, Transactions, 1857-84, 1886

NLI: The National Library of Ireland, Dublin

NLS: The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

NLW: The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

NYP: New York Public Library, New York City, New York

No. Am. Rev.: The North American Review, 1815-1940

Osborn Collection, Yale: The James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Yale University Library

Packe: Michael St. John Packe, Life of John Stuart Mill, London, 1954

Parl. Papers: Sessional Papers printed by order of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords, London, 1849-

Pol. Econ.: John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, With Some of Their Application to Social Philosophy, London, 1848. The references are to the last edition revised by JSM (the 7th in 1871) available in the edition of Sir W. J. Ashley, London, 1909, and as Vols. II and III of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. J. M. Robson, Toronto, 1965

Edition: current; Page: [ix]

Principles: John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. J. M. Robson, Vols. II and III of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Toronto, 1965. References have been made to this edition only for information not available in other editions of Pol. Econ.

QR: The Quarterly Review, 1809-

Rep. Govt.: John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, London, 1861

SR: The Saturday Review, 1855-1938

Sp.: The Spectator, 1828-

Stamp: “New Letters of John Stuart Mill. A philosopher in politics,” The Times, Dec. 29, 1938

UCL: Library of University College, the University of London

UCLA: Library, University of California at Los Angeles

Villey: Daniel Villey, “Sur la traduction par Dupont-White de ‘La Liberté’ de Stuart Mill,” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale, XXIV (1938)

Wellesley Index: The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900, ed. Walter E. Houghton, Vol. I, Toronto, 1966

WR: Westminster Review, 1824-1914

Yale: Yale University Library

Edition: current; Page: [x] Edition: current; Page: [xi]

COLLECTED WORKS OF JOHN STUART MILL
volume xvii

Edition: current; Page: [xii]

John Stuart Mill

Portrait by E. Goodwyn Lewis dated 1869

In the possession of Dr. Graham Hutton

Edition: current; Page: [985]

1865

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 5. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

741.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 5. 1865

Dear Sir

I have been too long in acknowledging the receipt of the very interesting things you last sent; but I was working against time on another subject, and had unwillingly to put by your last notes unread until this morning. I thank you most heartily for them. They are a complete Essay on the state and prospects of Ireland,2 and are so entirely satisfactory that they leave me nothing to think of except how to make the most use of them. For my new edition I must confine myself chiefly to the general results; but if I find it advantageous to transcribe certain paragraphs entire, will you allow me to name their real author?3 The article is a valuable supplement to the notes. The letter in the Gardener’s Chronicle4 I was already acquainted with, having read it in I forget what newspaper. I beg you to offer my sincere thanks to Mr Pim5 for the books he so kindly sent, which I shall immediately read. His letter, inclosed in yours, is full of good sense.

Respecting the rate of profits in the United States, we must hope to learn something through the kind offices of Mr Moran.6 But it is, I imagine, very difficult to ascertain the real average rate of profit, or expectation of profit, in any country. It would, however, be something to have an answer to the Edition: current; Page: [986] more vague question, whether, in the opinion of Mr Ashworth,7 or other persons to whom business in both countries is familiar, the profits of capital in the United States are or are not, higher than in England.

Of the two or three points which we differ about, I will only touch upon one—the influence of price on demand. You say, if a tax is taken off beer and laid on tobacco in such a manner that the consumer can still, at the same total cost as before, purchase his usual quantity of both, his tastes being supposed unaltered, he will do so. Does not this assume that his taste for each is a fixed quantity? or at all events that his comparative desire for the two is not affected by their comparative prices. But I apprehend the case to be otherwise. Very often the consumer cannot afford to have as much as he would like of either: and if so, the ratio in which he will share his demand between the two may depend very much on their price. If beer grows cheaper and tobacco dearer, he will be able to increase his beer more, by a smaller sacrifice of his tobacco, than he could have done at the previous prices: and in such circumstances it is surely probable that some will do so. His apportionment of self-denial between his two tastes is likely to be modified, when the obstacle that confined them is in the one case brought nearer, in the other thrown farther off.

Now as to the Reader.8 I consented to become a shareholder with the full intention of sending occasional contributions (to which I should be quite willing to put my initials) in case I was satisfied with the editorial arrangements, which I should be, in a very high degree, with regard to any part of them which you might undertake. My satisfaction would be much increased if you were willing, as Mr Spencer wished and hoped, to undertake not merely the political economy department, but political philosophy generally. I could be more useful to the Reader on other branches of that subject than on political economy, on which you would seldom need any hand but your own, and could easily obtain other aid if you accidentally required it. I might give some help too in moral and metaphysical philosophy, but that department will probably be under Spencer’s superintendance, and he and I should, I dare say, often differ. I have heard nothing further of their plans since the first communication made to me. Perhaps they may like to try their wings a little before attempting the higher flight which we have advised, but for which they are not strong enough at present, if the number for December 31 (which as it has been sent to me, I suppose came out under the new management) is a sample of what they can do. When you are fixed in London and ready to take an active part, we shall be likely to have more influence on their proceedings.

Edition: current; Page: [987]

I take Macmillan, and was much interested by your article,9 which makes more distinct the idea I already had of the contract system in the mining districts. Laing, in his Prize Essay,10 brought it forward many years ago as an example of the cooperative principle.

I was glad to see Mr Brace’s letter in the Daily News.11 I have had a visit here from a rather remarkable American, Mr Hazard,12 of Peacetown, Rhode Island. Do you know him, or his writings? If not, I shall have a good deal to tell you about him that will interest you.

Ever, Dear Sir, yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 18. 1865

Avignon

William Tallack

Tallack, William

742.

TO WILLIAM TALLACK1

Avignon

Jan. 18. 1865

Sir

Your letter and its inclosures have been forwarded to me here. I am glad of the appointment of a Commission to enquire into the effects of capital punishment.2 I confess, however, that I have a very strong opinion against its total abolition, being persuaded that the liability to it (whatever may be the case with the sight of it) has a greater deterring effect, at a less expense of real suffering, than any other penalty which would be adequate to the worst kind of offences. If examined, therefore, I should not be a witness on the “right side.” I am Sir

yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

William Tallack Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [988]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 22. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Augustus de Morgan

Morgan, Augustus de

743.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 22. 1865

Dear Sir

I have been so much occupied with pressing work, that I have only quite recently had time to go through the “Double Algebra.”2 I have found it everything that from what I already knew of your speculations I expected it to be. Either you are the first (not excepting Peacock)3 who has pointed out the true rationale of algebra as an universal calculus, or I was not capable formerly of understanding the true theory when I had it before me, and have become capable now. Which of these suppositions is the true one, you best know. The fact in regard to myself is, that everything which I had a glimmering of, I now seem to myself to see as clear as day, while you have also led me into regions of which I had not even a glimmering, and have shewn me how I may have an equally clear comprehension of the whole of these by taking sufficient pains to follow you through the details.

Why is what you have done, not known and recognized as the great contribution to philosophy which it is? I suppose because so few mathematicians are psychologists, and so few psychologists are mathematicians. I take blame to myself for not having known your speculations two years ago, as I might have been helping to spread the knowledge of them. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

A. De Morgan Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 31. [1865]

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

744.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Jan. 31. [1865]

Dear Chadwick

I have received your note, and the slips of part of your intended address,2 which I have read with great edification, though I do not think the practical Edition: current; Page: [989] question so completely decided by it as you seem to think. I cannot conveniently manage to be at the meeting this evening, but I shall be at the Club on Friday3 when I hope to hear the subject fully discussed by yourself and others.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

745.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

Feb. 4. 1865

Dear Sir

I have delayed answering your last letter, until I could at the same time inform you of my return here.

The Political Economy2 has gone to press, considerably improved as I think, and indebted to you for much of the improvement. I have availed myself of your permission to acknowledge this in the preface,3 and also in the chapter on the Irish question,4 a good deal of which I have given in inverted commas as a communication from you. I have endeavoured to correct the effect of the passage which has been used by Australian protectionists, not by omitting it, but by giving a fuller expression of my meaning.5 The subject of an Index I had thought of, but most Indexes of philosophical treatises are so badly and stupidly done, that unless I could have made it myself or got it made by a political economist, I thought it better let alone. An index is less wanted for a systematic treatise than for a book of a miscellaneous character, as the general arrangement of topics, aided by the analytical table of contents, shews where to find the things most likely to be wanted.

Edition: current; Page: [990]

I hope that the Reader is not tied to its present editor or sub editor,6 and that all its arrangements are at present only provisional. He goes out of his way to say the most abominable things about America, and in other respects he seems to me to do his business carelessly and ill.

I look forward to the pleasure of seeing you soon in England, and, as I am glad to think, permanently established there.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

746.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 4. 1865

Dear Sir

I have this morning left at Mr Trubner’s, directed to you, the first article on Comte. I am well advanced with the second, which will, as I expected, be considerably shorter than the first.2

I should feel obliged if you would kindly have twenty separate copies made up for me, as there are a considerable number of persons to whom I should like to send the articles.

I thank you much for your pamphlet on Seasickness.3 You seem to have made a great discovery.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1865

Blackheath

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

747.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath

Feb. 4. 1865

Dear Sir

I am glad that my first note to you after our return here is to say that you were, yesterday evening, elected a member of the Political Economy Club.

Edition: current; Page: [991]

You will be glad to read the inclosed, which please return, as I have not answered it. When is your new edition likely to be ready?2

I have been struck, though not disappointed, by the extreme narrowness of mind shewn by the Radical members of parliament in all their recent addresses. There would be more chance, I think, of being listened to, on such subjects as representation of minorities, by the working classes themselves, than by their well dressed friends, who are afraid to concede anything, or admit any fault or danger on the democratic side. But it is a real disappointment to find the Daily News as bad on these subjects as if the editor3 were looking out for a seat in parliament.

Lord Amberley’s speech4 is the only one of any promise. He has brains, and is in earnest, and as he is sure of influence, good is likely to come of him.

With our kind regards to all your family I am

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 7 [1865?]

Blackheath Park

Rowland G. Hazard

Hazard, Rowland G.

748.

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 7 [1865?]

Dear Sir

As you are still in London I should be glad if we could see each other once more before you leave. Would it suit you to come down and take dinner with us on Friday at six?

I have been so busy with other subjects that I have not yet been able to read your book on the Will.2 I preferred not to touch it until I could give consecutive attention to it. I have read the greater part of your Essay on Language3 of which the purely metaphysical part pleased me much. The Edition: current; Page: [992] speculations respecting a future state seemed to me to have an imaginative rather than a philosophic interest.

I hope my publishers have complied with my directions to send to you, through Messrs Baring, my two volumes of Dissertations.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Please let me know as soon as convenient if Friday will suit you.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1865

Blackheath Park, Kent

Joseph Henry Allen

Allen, Joseph Henry

749.

TO JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN1

Blackheath Park, Kent

Feb. 9. 1865

Dear Sir

The delay in acknowledging your kind and interesting letter of Nov. 10 was occasioned by my absence from England, which had prevented me from receiving the sheets of the Christian Examiner which you so obligingly sent. One of the first things I did after my return here was to read them. The paper on Inspiration2 interested me as an exposition of a particular line of thought, but, as you would naturally expect from the nature of my psychological opinions, it did not carry me with it. The political articles I was, as I expected to be, much pleased with; and it gave me great pleasure that you should have thought my miscellaneous essays worthy of so highly complimentary a judgment.3 The article ‘Democracy on Trial’4 I am almost certain that I received, and quite certain that if I received it I read it, and thought highly of it, having always done so of everything political which I have read in the “Examiner”. In the third edition of my “Representative Government” just published, I have corrected the omission to notice the democratic municipal system of the New England States.5

It is almost superfluous now, to congratulate you on the progress of events. A triumphant end of the war seems not only certain but as near at Edition: current; Page: [993] hand as is perhaps consistent with that complete regeneration of the political feeling and thought of the country, to which I have always looked forward as its result. The present attitude of the Free States with respect to slavery was worth buying at even a greater price than has been paid for it; since it is the removal not only of a stain but of a moral incubus, and is likely to be the starting point of a moral progress not inferior to the prodigious material expansion which will be hereafter dated from the annihilation of negro slavery. I am Dear Sir

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

J. H. Allen Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

750.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

Feb. 9. 1865

Dear Sir

As you supposed, your letter of Jan. 24 had not reached me when I last wrote to you, but it has been sent from Avignon since. I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken to get information respecting the rate of profit in the U. States, but I fear it is next to impossible to obtain any conclusive evidence on the subject. There is no more difficult point to ascertain in the whole field of statistics. The scientific question remains as great a puzzle to me as ever. Hitherto I have left the passage of my Pol. Economy exactly as it was; but I shall have to alter it more or less in the proof sheet.2

I may perhaps get some light on the subject from Mr Hazard, (himself a New England manufacturer of great experience) whom I shall see tomorrow. I wish you had been already here, that I might have asked you to meet him. He leaves for America on the 25th.

Respecting the cost of transferring land in France I can speak from my own experience. The mere law expenses are very trifling. The only important expense is the tax, i.e. the duty on reggistration, which is at present somewhere about 7½ per cent, but this includes a décime-de-guerre, and the whole or half of another—which do not profess to be permanent, though there is considerable danger that one of them at least will become so. The second décime is that which Louis Napoleon made a demonstration of taking off on the Edition: current; Page: [994] termination as he thought, or pretended to think, of the Mexican war.3 The upshot was the taking off of half of it only, but whether immediately or prospectively, and whether the reduction has yet taken effect, I cannot say.

The notary’s charge for the contract is 1 per cent.

I am delighted that you now agree with me on the question of American separation. Dr Brown Séquard’s opinions4 do not surprise me, both because the scientific class have been very generally on the right side of the American question, and because the actual sight of America generally corrects prejudices which 19 times out of 20 are the effect of pure ignorance. It is such things as this which gauge the depth of British ignorance on all matters whatever outside of this island. What wonder that people are ignorant of America, when they are equally ignorant, & equally ignorant of their ignorance, as to Ireland? I agree with you in thinking Goldwin Smith entirely wrong in the object of his last two letters.5

The last number of the Reader is a little better. Since you have begun to write in it,6 the political writing will improve.

I look forward with great interest to what you are now writing about Ireland.

In haste
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [995]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

751.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

Feb. 9. 1865

Dear Sir

I return the Lancet2 with many thanks. This additional instance of the value of your discovery must be highly gratifying to you.

I have put into the first page of the second article on Comte a sentence respecting Mr Bridges’ translation, but without including it in the list at the head of the article, which is confined to original works.3 I see no reason against its being noticed in the small print at the end of the Review.4 You will have my second article by that time, and will be able to avoid as far as necessary any inconsistency between that and the notice. The Discours Préliminaire which Mr Bridges has translated, gives the pith of Comte’s later speculations free from some of their grosser absurdities, and in a form better adapted than any other of his later works for the information and edification of English readers.

Many thanks for your kind offer of a greater number of separate copies, but twenty will be ample. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1865

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

752.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

Feb. 9. 1865

Dear Sir

I am afraid you have thought me very negligent in not having sooner acknowledged your last two letters, but having at the time nothing important Edition: current; Page: [996] to communicate, I put off writing till I could tell you that we have returned, and shall be happy to see you here at any time when you are in London.

I saw “Charlie in Australia”2 and thought it extremely good. I always take the greatest interest in all you do, and shall hope to hear more from you, when I see you, about the controversy in the Daily Telegraph3 of which I heard something but which my absence prevented me from seeing. I am Dear Sir

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 10. 1865

Blackheath

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

753.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath

Feb. 10. 1865

Dear Mr Fawcett

Mr Hazard, of Rhode Island, with whom I believe you have already corresponded, is very desirous to make your personal acquaintance and from what I have seen of him and read of his writings I feel certain that you will have as much pleasure in conversing with him as I have in giving him this introduction.

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Henry Fawcett Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 14. 1865

B[lackheath]

William Longman

Longman, William

754.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath]

Feb. 14. 1865

Dear Sir—

I am quite satisfied with as much of your proposal as relates to the 8000 copies;2 but when we talked together on the subject I understood Edition: current; Page: [997] that a period was to be fixed after which the plates would revert to me. Nothing was said about destroying them; & were I to agree to that part of your proposal I shd be no longer a free agent, unless under the condition of making new plates, the cost & risk of which it would require another 8000 copies to remunerate. I would suggest in preference, that if after the first 8000 are sold the demand should still continue, we should for a further period (to be now fixed)3 go on at half profit & that on the expiration of this further term (whether determined by years or by number of copies) the plates shd be at my disposal.

I thank you for your note just received. I am anxious to get on with the new book.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 15. 1865

B[lackheath]

Max Kyllmann

Kyllmann, Max

755.

TO MAX KYLLMANN1

B[lackheath]

Feb. 15. 1865

Dear Sir—

It is pleasant to hear from you again. Your letters, besides being interesting on your own account, almost always contain some valuable piece of intelligence. What you tell me of the progress of Mr Hare’s system among the working classes of Manchester is preeminently so. I know very well to whose indefatigable exertions it is owing. But it confirms me in the opinion that the working classes will see the true character & the importance of Mr Hare’s principle much sooner than their Parliamentary allies. The speeches made by these to their constituents lately have very much disgusted me. The proverb “il vaut mieux avoir affaire à Dieu qu’à ses saints” is true of the demagogues & the Demos. The demagogues never dare admit anything which implies a doubt of the infallibility of the majority. The Demos itself makes no such pretensions & can see the utility of taking precautions against its own mistakes. I shall make use of your letter to convince some of the dress-coated democrats that there is no need to be “plus royalistes que le roi.”

With regard to the other subject of your letter; I quite agree with you that no Reform Bill which we are likely to see for some time to come, will be worth moving hand or foot for. But with respect to the manhood suffrage Edition: current; Page: [998] movement, & the question of my taking part in it, I have long since determined that I would on no account whatever aid any attempt to make the suffrage universal to men, unless the inclusion of women were distinctly & openly proclaimed as a substantive part of the design. There are only two things worth working for—a practical result or a principle: if a practical result it shd be one which is attainable; if a principle, not to go the whole length of it is to sacrifice it. I look upon agitation for manhood as distinguished from universal suffrage as decidedly mischievous. The exceptionally enlightened leaders, mentioned in your letter may not intend, in claiming half, to deny the whole; but such is the power of words, that every time the phrase manhood suffrage is publicly pronounced, save in contempt or execration, an additional rivet is added to the chain of half the human species. It is to be remembered, too, that universal suffrage was the expression formerly used by all radicals, & that it was withdrawn & manhood suffrage substituted precisely because the wider expression had been criticised as including women. To adopt a phrase which has no other reason of existence than that it excludes them, would be, in my opinion, to betray the principle & at the same time, to make a retrograde step.

When any portion or body of the working classes chooses as its programme a reading & writing (or rather writing and cyphering) qualification, adult instead of manhood suffrage & Hare’s system, I will gladly give to such a noble scheme all the help I possibly can. Do not suppose that my opinion about plural voting2 would be any obstacle. I put that in abeyance, first because I would accept universal suffrage, & gladly too, without it (though not without Hare’s system) & next because Buxton has smashed plural voting for years to come by associating it with property,3 a thing I have always protested against & would on no account consent to. Plural voting by right of education I shd not mind defending to any assemblage of working men in the kingdom. But though I would always speak my mind on it, it would be no bar to my cooperating. But on adult suffrage I can make no compromise.

I must therefore defer the pleasure of an introduction to Mrs Kyllmann till she & you happen to be in London when it will increase the pleasure I am sure of having from seeing yourself.

The Baden minister whom I referred to must be well known to you—Prof. Mohl of Heidelberg,4 who advocated Hare’s plan by articles in the Zeit of Frankfort. Mr Hare has the papers.

Edition: current; Page: [999]

The two French authorities whom I mentioned are Louis Blanc5 (of course) & Laboulaye.6

P.S. I have the greatest regard & respect for Louis Blanc but I think it would be fatal to the success of any political movement in this country to put him forward in it, as his name is associated in the vulgar English mind with everything that can be made a bugbear of.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 18 [1865]

B[lackheath]

William Longman

Longman, William

756.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath]

Feb. 18 [1865]

Dear Sir—

I accept your proposal of five years2 & shall be glad to receive a draft of the agreement.

I saw Mr. Buckle yesterday & he will send me the MSS. immediately.3

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 22. 1865

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

757.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Feb. 22. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I am glad that you were enabled to hear through Mr Hare of the cause of my not having sent you the immediate answer you asked for. It is very honourable to Mr Beal2 and his friends to have proposed so good a mode of selecting a candidate,3 and to be willing to take upon themselves in the manner Edition: current; Page: [1000] you describe, all the trouble of his election. As regards myself, my only course, for the present, is to do exactly what you intend doing, namely to wait and see if anything further comes of the proposal.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 22. 1865

Blackheath

Harriet Grote

Grote, Harriet

758.

TO HARRIET GROTE1

Blackheath

Feb. 22. 1865

Dear Mrs Grote

Our boxes are not to be heard of, either yesterday or today, at London Bridge or Charing Cross. I have therefore sent down our servant in hopes that you will let him know when they were sent, that he may be able to trace their course.

We arrived at home well, and much the better for our three days with you2—and Helen sends her love and thanks for the pleasant visit.

With kind regards to Mr Grote

Ever dear Mrs Grote
Yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 28. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

759.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 28. 1865

Dear Sir

I inclose a note which I have received from Lord Amberley. His articles in the North British Review, on Tests,2 and on the Report of the (Public Schools) Education Commissioners,3 have shewn real capacity both of thinking and writing, and I am very glad that he wishes to write for the Westminster. He has talent and earnestness, and there is no young man coming forward in public life on whom I build so much hope.

Edition: current; Page: [1001]

I have returned the proof of the article on Comte, and have asked the printer for a revise. The second article is finished. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 2. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

760.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 2. 1865

.

Dear Sir—

I will certainly attend the meeting on Tuesday2 & will gladly cooperate with you in attempting to effect a radical reform in the conduct of the Reader. It has hitherto been an entire disappointment to me, nothing whatever having been done to fulfil the expectations held out—& had I not supposed that the existing arrangements must be only temporary & that the final ones were not yet installed, I should not have allowed so much time to elapse without a strenuous remonstrance. The idea is ridiculous that such a set of men as had been got together shd have given their money to establish such a wretched thing as, with the exception of the scientific department, this has hitherto been. The only chance evidently is that Mr Pollock shd be induced to resign all concern in the editorship. I shd think there could be no difficulty in finding a successor. I dare say Professor Cairnes would undertake it if asked, though he is very unlikely to put himself forward—if he would, I know no one who would be better qualified & I know him to be most desirous that the Reader shd be made what we thought it was meant to be, a real organ of advanced opinions, political & social as well as philosophical.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 5. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

761.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

March 5. 1865

Dear Sir

Your two letters, with their inclosures, arrived in time; the former of them only just in time. Mr Pim’s remarks,2 as you anticipated, do not change any Edition: current; Page: [1002] of my opinions, but they have enabled me to correct one or two inaccuracies, not so much of fact as of expression. On reading the proofs of the new matter I have inserted respecting Ireland3 for most of which I am indebted to you, and in which consequently your name is mentioned, I feel unwilling that it should see the light without your imprimatur. I have therefore taken the liberty of sending you by this post the two sheets of which it forms a part, and I shall not have them struck off until I hear from you that you do not object to anything they contain. Any addition or improvement you may kindly suggest will be most welcome.

The American information is very valuable, and I can hardly be thankful enough to Mr Ashworth4 and to his Boston correspondent for the trouble they have taken and the service they have done me. I beg you will convey to Mr Ashworth my grateful acknowledgements. From their statements it is clear that the ordinary notion of the extravagantly high rate of profit in the U. States is an exaggeration, and there seems some doubt whether the rate is at all higher than in England. But that does not resolve the puzzle, as even equality of profits, in the face of the higher cost of labour, indicated by higher money wages, is as paradoxical as superiority. This is the scientific difficulty I mentioned, and I cannot yet see my way through it. I have framed a question for the purpose of bringing it before the P. Ec. Club, which will perhaps be discussed at the April meeting & if not, at the July.5 I hope you may be present in either case. You were greatly missed on Friday last. Had not I shone in plumes borrowed from you, we should not have made much of it, and I regretted your absence the more, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, and spoke.6

The American news is better and better. With regard to the chances of a war between the U. S. and this country, the calamity would be so immense that the bare possibility of it is enough to cause anxiety, but that there is any real danger of it I do not believe. This country will give no cause of quarrel which international law recognises, and the deeprooted respect of the Americans for law and judicial tribunals is a very strong ground of reliance in the last resort. I attach no importance at all to any general impression in this country that there will be war. It is, to my thinking, a mere expression of the state of mind of people who, under the teaching of the Times and Dr Mackay,7 never allowed themselves to imagine that the North could succeed, and consequently Edition: current; Page: [1003] let loose their tongues in the certainty, as they thought, of complete impunity, and now having come to perceive that their precious protégés are beaten, and anxious to buy off war with the North by war with Europe, they are frightened, and cry “What is to become of us.” If all they are in the habit of saying of democracy were true, they might be right. But those who hate democracy most do not at all understand its characteristic weaknesses: one of which is that the outward signs of public opinion are at the absolute command of professional excitement-makers, to which category most of the journalists and nearly all the politicians in the U. S. belong. Accordingly all the politicians, even the President’s own cabinet, are in the daily habit of bidding high for the good word of these people, who are lords and masters of their momentary estimation; but when things grow serious, the President with his responsibility, and the Northern and Western farmers with their simple honesty, come forth and trample out the nonsense, which therefore never tells on serious public transactions, though making a very formidable appearance in spoken and written words.

I much regret to hear that you have been obliged to suspend what you were writing on the land question.—The affairs of the Reader8 seem to have reached a crisis. I am going to a meeting of the proprietors on Tuesday to help Spencer in attempting to upset the present arrangements. I will write to you immediately afterwards.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

762.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

March 6. 1865

Dear Sir

I have just received notice that the Reader meeting2 is put off till Tuesday the 21st, to accommodate “many of the shareholders who are anxious to attend.” This is of good augury.

Many thanks for the Belfast paper. The article3 is so good that I should have supposed it to be yours but for the words you wrote across the concluding paragraph. Was that paragraph an editorial addition? Or was the article not yours at all?

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1004]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6, 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

763.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

March 6, 1865

Dear Sir

I returned on Friday the revise of the article on Comte. I suppose it would be rather more than less convenient to you to let me have the separate copies before the Review is out, and I should like to send it at once to M. Littré,2 who has promised to get it translated.3 If you have no objection, I will ask you to do me the additional favour of requesting the publisher to send some of the copies to certain persons whose addresses I will send,4 postage and all expenses being at my charge. All except the copies to M. Littré can, if you prefer it, be delayed until after publication.

The second article shall be sent to you as soon as you express a wish to have it.

Shall I say anything from you to Lord Amberley?5

Yrs. very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

764.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 6. 1865

Dear Sir—

Many thanks for your note. The desire of “many of the shareholders” to attend is of good augury. I need hardly say I shall be present.

The notice of the first adjournment reached me this morning from Avignon—as will probably the one that followed it. It will be best that all notices be sent here in future, as they are forwarded to me at short intervals whereever I am.

Edition: current; Page: [1005]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 7, 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

James Beal

Beal, James

765.

TO JAMES BEAL1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 7, 1865

Dear Sir—

Your note, I am sorry to say, did not reach me till yesterday evening owing to a mistake at the postoffice.

To be the representative of Westr is an honour to which no one can be insensible, & to have been selected as worthy of that honour by a body like that in whose name you write not only without solicitation but without my being personally known to them either in a public or private capacity is a very signal one indeed.2 While it must ever command my sincere gratitude, it is a proceeding which nothing but the truest public spirit could have dictated. And the mode in which you propose to ascertain the sense of the electors cannot be too highly applauded.3 It is an example deserving to be imitated by all popular constituencies & worthy of the rank which belongs historically to Westminster as the head & front of the Reform party.

In answer, therefore, to your question, I assent to having my name submitted to the electors in the proposed manner, if, after the explanations which it is now my duty to give, the Committee should still adhere to their intention.

I have no personal object to be promoted by a seat in Parlt. All private considerations are against my accepting it. The only motive that could make me desire it would be the hope of being useful: and being untried in any similar position, it is as yet quite uncertain whether I am as capable of rendering public service in the H[ouse] of C[ommons] as I may be in the more tranquil occupation of a writer. It is, however, certain, that if I can be of any use in Parlt it could only be by devoting myself there to the same subjects which have employed my habitual thoughts out of Parlt. I therefore could not undertake the charge of any of your local business: & as this, in so important a constituency, must necessarily be heavy, it is not impossible that my inability to undertake it may in itself amount to a disqualification for being your representative.

Again, my only object in Parliament would be to promote my opinions. What these are, on nearly all the political questions in which the public feel Edition: current; Page: [1006] any interest, is before the world: & until I am convinced that they are wrong, these & no others are the opinions that I must act on. I am ready to give any further explanation of them that might be wished for, & shd I be elected I would freely state to my constituents whenever desired, the votes I intend to give, & my reasons for them. But I could give no other pledge. If the electors are sufficiently satisfied with my opinions as they are, to be willing to give me a trial, I would do my best to serve those opinions & would in no case disguise my intentions or my motives from those to whom I should be indebted for the opportunity.

Lastly, it is neither suitable to my circumstances nor consistent with my principles to spend money for my election. Without necessarily condemning those who do, when it is not expended in corruption, I am deeply convinced that there can be no Parliamentary Reform worthy of the name, so long as a seat in Parliament is only attainable by rich men, or by those who have rich men at their back. It is the interest of the constituencies to be served by men who are not aiming at personal objects, either pecuniary, official, or social, but consenting to undertake gratuitously an onerous duty to the public. That such persons should be made to pay for permission to do hard & difficult work for the general advantage, is neither worthy of a free people, nor is it the way to induce the best men to come forward. In my own case, I must even decline to offer myself to the electors in any manner; because, proud as I should be of their suffrages, & though I would endeavour to fulfil to the best of my ability the duty to which they might think fit to elect me, yet I have no wish to quit my present occupations for the H. of C. unless called upon to do so by my fellow-citizens. That the electors of Westr have even thought of my name in this conjuncture is a source of deep gratification to me, & if I were to be elected I shd wish to owe every step in my election, as I shd already owe my nomination, to their spontaneous & flattering judgment of the labours of my life.

Whatever be the result as regards myself, allow me to express the hope that your recommendation to the electors will not be limited to two names. To obtain the best representative & even, if only to ensure success against the powerful local influence which is already in the field,4 it seems plainly desirable to give the electors the widest possible choice among all persons, willing to serve, who would worthily represent the advanced liberal & reforming party. Several eminent persons have been mentioned, whom it would be highly desirable to give the electors an opportunity of selecting if they please. Edition: current; Page: [1007] Sir J. Romilly5 is in the number of these, & would, in every way, do honour to your choice. Mr Chadwick would be one of the most valuable members who could be chosen by any constituency; & besides the many important public questions on which he is one of the first authorities, he is peculiarly qualified to render those services in connexion with your local business which it would not, in general, be possible for me to perform. The admirable mode of selection which you have adopted will not have fair play unless you bring before the consideration of the electors the whole range of choice, among really good candidates, which lies within their reach. It will not be inferred from your placing any particular person on the list, that you consider him the best. Some will prefer one & some another; & those who are preferred by the greatest number of electors would alone be nominated.

In requesting you to lay this matter before the Comee, I beg to assure yourself & them that whatever may be their decision, I shall never cease to feel the proposal they have made to me as one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.

I am Dear Sir very sincerely & respectfully yours

J. S. Mill

James Beal Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8, 1865

Blackheath Park

Lord Amberley

Amberley, Lord

766.

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

Blackheath Park

March 8, 1865

Dear Lord Amberley

Dr Chapman writes to me that he should be very glad to have you as a contributor,2 but that he would prefer political to theological articles; not that he thinks your articles “would be less able if theological,” but because he is disposed to lessen the quantity of theological and increase that of scientific matter in the Review. I do not think this need affect you practically in any way. The greatest utility of the Westminster Review is that it is willing to print bolder opinions on all subjects than the other periodicals: and when you feel moved to write anything that is too strong for other Reviews, you will generally be able to get it into the Westminster. The fact is, Chapman is Edition: current; Page: [1008] stronger in theological contributors than in political, and would like to be strengthened where he is weakest.

I see no reason against your offering him what you have written on Political Economy,3 unless you prefer to publish it in a more substantive and permanent form.

With best wishes for your success at Leeds, I am

Dear Lord Amberley
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 10, 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

767.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

March 10, 1865

Dear Sir

Thanks for your note. I have written to Lord Amberley the part of its substance which concerns him.2

I inclose the list of persons whom I should like to receive copies of the article on Comte. I have put down four to be sent to M. Littré, being for himself, for the future translator, for M. Taine, and for M. Célestin de Blignières.

The second article on Comte shall be left at Mr Trübner’s as soon as I have had time to read it once more through.

Ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Monsieur Littré, membre de l’Institut, 48, Rue de l’Ouest, Paris (four copies)

Monsieur Auguste Picard,3 Place Coste Belle, Avignon, France.

Herr Theodor Gomperz, Deutsches Haus, Singerstrasse, Wien (Austria)

George Grote Esq. 12 Savile Row

Professor Bain, Aberdeen

Herbert Spencer Esq. 88 Kensington Gardens Square

Professor De Morgan, 91, Adelaide Road. N.W.

W. T. Thornton Esq. 23 Queen’s Gardens, Hyde Park

Professor Cairnes, 74 Lower Mount Street, Dublin

Max Kyllmann Esq. Greenbank Fallowfield, Manchester

Viscount Amberley, 40 Dover Street

in all 14, leaving 6 copies for the author.

Edition: current; Page: [1009]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 11. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

768.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

March 11. 1865

Dear Sir

I thank you sincerely for your further favours in regard to my Political Economy. I have sent your new matter to press, and have profited to the full by your observations on what I had myself written. I am indebted to you for nearly all which will give to that chapter of the book,2 any present value.

Your solution of the difficulty as to American profits3 is perfectly scientific, and was the one which had occurred to myself. As far as it goes, I fully admit it; but my difficulty was, and still is, in believing that there can be so great a difference between the cost of obtaining the precious metals in America and in England, as to make the enormous difference which seems to exist in money wages, consistent with a difference the contrary way in the cost of labour. It is impossible to approfondir the subject in time for the present edition. I have contented myself, therefore, with qualifying the opinion I had previously expressed,4 so as to leave the subject open for further inquiry.

The meetings of the Pol. Ec. Club are on the first Friday in every month of the season, except when Easter interferes, and as it will not interfere this year, the next meeting, I have no doubt, will be on the 7th. As you thought of being in London on the 8th, I hope your arrival may admit of being accelerated to that extent. I wish it the more, as we are going away in as few days after the meeting as my printing will allow, which I hope will be very few—and I may perhaps, therefore, lose the opportunity of seeing you before Midsummer, unless I see you then.

I am very glad that there is another writer in Ireland besides yourself, who writes such excellent articles on America as the one you sent me.5

I have directed to be sent to you (in Dublin) a separate copy of an article of mine on Comte, which is to be in the forthcoming Westminster. I do not know on what day it will be ready.

I am Dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1010]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 11, 1865

Blackheath Park

George Grote

Grote, George

769.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath Park

March 11, 1865

My Dear Grote

I have finished the first volume of the Plato,2 not so quickly as I expected, having been very much taken off by an unusual press of occupations, especially that of correcting several sets of proofs at once. As far as this volume reaches, the book so completely fulfils my hopes—the things said seem so exactly those which it was good to say, and which required saying—that I see little else for me to do in reviewing it,3 than to try to condense into a few pages the general results. I look forward with the greatest pleasure to your account of the longer and more important dialogues; more important, I mean, in point of doctrine. The character, scope, and value of the purely dialectic or peirastic dialogues are already as completely brought out as can be done even by yourself in the subsequent volumes. Your general conception of Plato, and your view of the Platonic Canon, seems to me completely inexpugnable.

You will receive in a day or two a separate copy of the first of my articles on Comte, though the Review containing it will not be published till the first of next month. Littré is going to get the article translated and published in France.4

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, believe me

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 11. 1865

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

770.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

March 11. 1865

.

Dear Sir

Dr Chapman will send to you in the course of a day or two a copy of an article of mine on Comte, which is to be published in the forthcoming Westminster. In forming an estimate of him, I have necessarily come into collision Edition: current; Page: [1011] with some of your opinions2—a thing for which I should never think of apologising to you or any other advanced thinker: but it has so happened that though our points of agreement very greatly exceed in number and importance those of difference, the latter are those respecting which, accidentally, most has been said to the public, on my side at least. What I have now written, however, will give a very false impression of my feelings, if it raises any idea but that of minor differences of opinion between allies and fellow-combatants. In a larger volume3 which I shall soon have the pleasure of offering to you, there will be little or nothing to qualify the expression of the very high value I attach to your philosophical labours.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 15. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

771.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

March 15. 1865

Dear Sir

From your letter, which came this morning, I am afraid you never received a short note which I wrote to you, to the effect that the “Reader” meeting was postponed to next Tuesday, the 21st, at the wish of many shareholders who desired to attend.2 I am very sorry that there is no chance of your being present. The fons malorum appears to be, that after it had been arranged that there should be five departmental editors, the publishers thought it necessary that there should be a general one and this title was consequently given to Mr F. Pollock; who, contrary [to] the intention and understanding of some at least of the shareholders has assumed a control over all the departments. The object ought to be to get Mr Pollock out—but to do this, it will be necessary to put somebody else in. Now, would you allow me (in case the discussion renders it necessary or expedient) to say that you would be willing to accept the position of Editor? I know of no one connected with the Reader Edition: current; Page: [1012] who would be equally fit, and I am not aware if any other is inclined, as you have told me that you are, to give a considerable part of his time to the Reader. You may rely on me for not letting it appear as if you had sought the position, knowing as I do that you have not: I will take the whole responsibility of the proposal on myself. But I should like to be able to say that I have reason to think that you would not refuse.

I am sorry to find that I have no chance of seeing you before I go abroad, as I shall go before Easter. The question on the rate of interest is luckily postponed, and will, I suppose, come on in July.3

All other subjects must wait until I next write to you.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 16, 1865

Blackheath Park

Thomas Bayley Potter

Potter, Thomas Bayley

772.

TO THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER1

Blackheath Park

,

March 16, 1865

.

Dear Sir,—

Nothing can, to my estimation, be more desirable than that you should take an active part in the projected Reform Conference (the London Conference).2 It is of vast importance that any great public cause should be taken up by men who are not (in the phraseology of the great English revolution) self-seekers; and you, having been at the head of a valuable popular organisation,3 would very probably be urged to render a similar office to the new one which it is proposed to form. Of course the Edition: current; Page: [1013] desirableness of your doing so depends on the goodness of the object which the organisation is meant to promote; and on this no one can judge for you but yourself. For my own part, I could not presume to advise on what it would be right for you to do, since I do not sufficiently know your opinions on the particular points on which Radical reformers differ. I can only respond to your very flattering confidence by saying what I should think it right to do myself in this or any similar case.

I have long since determined that, for myself, I will never join in any movement for what is called manhood suffrage. Adult suffrage is what I contend for; and when one goes in, not for an object immediately attainable, but for a principle, we ought to go the whole length of it. No reason, either of right or of expediency, can be found to justify giving the suffrage to men, exclusively of women, and the word manhood suffrage, having been substituted for the good old phrase, universal suffrage, for the express purpose of showing that women are not included, to adopt it is to give a direct assent to their exclusion.

On the other hand, I consider an educational qualification, to the extent of reading and writing (I would even add ciphering) indispensable. It is to be hoped that before long, this restriction will no longer exclude anybody; and I could have no adults excluded on any other ground. But adult suffrage is not complete unless minorities have their fair share of representation. If 50,000 electors have to elect five members, it is not fair and equal representation that 30,000 of them should be able, by outvoting the others, to elect all five. The 30,000 are only entitled to three members and the remaining 20,000 to two. This is not, as is sometimes pretended, a proposal made for the purpose of defeating democracy. On the contrary it is positively required by democratic principles. Democracy is not the exclusive rule of the greater number and the virtual disfranchisement of the rest, but the equal representation of all; majorities returning a majority, and minorities a minority. Mr. Hare’s admirable plan is the best that has been proposed for securing the equal representation of minorities, and would incidentally attain many other important objects. It is, as I hear, making some way among the intelligent leaders of the working classes at Manchester.4 I should not, however, make that particular plan a sine qua non; but the acknowledgement of the principle, that minorities ought to be represented in proportion to their numbers, seems to me indispensable to show that the working classes are willing to allow the same justice to others which they claim for themselves. In the present state of the constituencies, the working-classes would themselves benefit by it. And it is hardly possible to exaggerate the moral effect that would be produced Edition: current; Page: [1014] in favour of them and their cause, by such a proof that they do not aim at merely substituting one class ascendency for another, but demand for every class a hearing, and such influence as it is entitled to.

Neither would I support equal electoral districts, because I do not think that any one class, even though the most numerous, should be able to return a decided majority of the whole Legislature. But I would support any readjustment of the constituencies that would enable the working classes to command half the votes in Parliament. The most important questions in practical politics are coming to be those in which the working classes as a body are arrayed on one side, and the employers as a body on the other; as in all questions of wages, hours of labour, and so on. If those whose partialities are on the side of the operatives had half the representation, and those who lean to the side of the employers had the other half, the side which was in the right would be almost sure to prevail, by the aid of an enlightened and disinterested minority of the other. But there would not be the same assurance of this if either the working classes, or a combination of all other classes could command a decided majority in Parliament.

Lastly, I could not support the ballot.

It is extremely probable that these opinions may prevent me from being able to co-operate with any organised movement for reform that we may have any chance of seeing at present. If, as is not unlikely, your opinions are different, you have not the same reason for abstaining. But it would, I think, be a good thing if the movers could be induced to leave some of these points, and particularly the ballot, in the position of open questions. By doing so, they would enable many earnest reformers to join them, who would never consent to support the ballot, but who would not refuse to connect themselves with those who do.

I thank you very sincerely for your kind invitation; but I do not feel called on to attend the conference.5 I think that I can probably do more good as an isolated thinker, forming and expressing my opinions independently, than by associating myself with any collective movement, which, in my case, would almost always imply putting some of my opinions in abeyance. Your position is different, and you seem to me to be, in a manner, called (if you will allow me the expression) to take part in such movements, and endeavour to direct them to right objects.

I have stated my opinions very imperfectly, but they are all expressed as well as I am able to express them in my volume on Representative Government.

I am, dear Sir, very sincerely and respectfully yours,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1015]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 16. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

773.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 16. 1865

.

Dear Sir—

I never doubted that we agreed—feeling as we do—in theory as well as in our practice, as to the free expression of differences of opinion, & my reason for mentioning the subject to you at all2 was merely to guard against your supposing that I like to bring forward my differences with you rather than my much more numerous & more important agreements.

Mr. Pollock’s refusal of remuneration for editorship deserves respect as well as thankful recognition, but as it does not render him an exponent of the opinions or wishes of the subscribers, or at least of such among them as agree with ourselves, it cannot affect the substance of what they have to do.3 As for the manner, doubtless no one would wish to make it other than the least unpleasant possible.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 17. [1865]

Blackheath

George Grote

Grote, George

774.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath

March 17. [1865]

My dear Grote

If you are in town on Sunday, will you come down here for a walk and dine with me. There is a train from Charing Cross at 2.50 P.M. on Sundays and if you will let me know that you are coming, I will meet you at the Blackheath station. In any case I shall like much to come up to talk with you when you are settled in town. Helen and myself beg to be particularly remembered to Mrs Grote.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18, 1865

Blackheath Park

Lord Amberley

Amberley, Lord

775.

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

Blackheath Park

March 18, 1865

Dear Lord Amberley

I have taken the liberty of sending you a copy of the new edition of Mr Hare’s treatise,2 as, even if you have read the book, I think you will be Edition: current; Page: [1016] interested by the excellent new preface, and perhaps also by the documents in the Appendix, shewing the progress of his idea on the Continent, in the United States, and in our colonies.

I congratulate you warmly on your last speech at Leeds3 (in this morning’s Daily News). It deserved to make, as it seems to have made, a great impression and must be wormwood to those who congratulated themselves on the check which they thought you had received.

With our kind regards to Lady Amberley, I am

Dear Lord Amberley
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18. [1865]

Blackheath Park

Henry Pitman

Pitman, Henry

776.

TO [HENRY PITMAN]1

Blackheath Park

,

March 18. [1865]

Dear Sir,—

In consequence of what you wrote to me concerning the Wolverhampton Platelock Workers,2 and of the additional information I have received from that excellent friend of Co-operation, Mr. Kyllmann, respecting the system they have adopted (which seems to be a very thoughtful one, and one of the most favourable to the workers which has yet been started), I am now convinced that they ought to be supported against the attempt to ruin them by unfair competition. . . .

I will communicate on the subject with such of my friends here as take an active interest in Co-operation.

With best wishes, I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 20 mars 1865

Blackheath Park, Kent

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

777.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Blackheath Park, Kent

le 20 mars 1865

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Permettez-moi de vous prier de vouloir bien envoyer la lettre ci-jointe, après l’avoir lue, à Duveyrier2 dont je ne sais pas l’adresse actuelle.

Edition: current; Page: [1017]

Aurons-nous bientôt la suite de votre travail sur les Evangiles?3 Si la seconde partie vaut la première sa valeur sera grande. J’attends avec un vif intérêt votre opinion sur les écrits attribués à Saint-Jean.

Veuillez me rappeler au bon souvenir de votre frère,

votre tout dévoué

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 20, 1865

Blackheath Park, Kent

William Todd

Todd, William

778.

TO WILLIAM TODD1

Blackheath Park, Kent

,

March 20, 1865

.

Sir,—

I have read your papers on Parliamentary Reform, and I certainly think that as long as the electoral franchise is determined by rental, rating to the house tax is a better basis for it than rating to the poor rate; the house tax being, of course, brought down, as you propose, to the lowest rental which it is intended to admit to the suffrage, and being extended to lodgers as well as householders. There is another part of your plan of which I very highly approve; the provision which visits the receiver of a bribe with loss of the franchise, and the giver of one with permanent disqualification for sitting in Parliament.—I am, Sir, your obd. servt.

J. S. Mill.

William Todd, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 22. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

779.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

March 22. 1865

Dear Sir

The Reader meeting took place yesterday afternoon,2 and after a three hours debate, it was adjourned to Wednesday April 5th, when the question will be decided, whether to wind up the concern, or to conduct it in a totally Edition: current; Page: [1018] different manner. Mr Pollock, who has edited it up to the present time, and some others of the Directors were for selling the paper, since as it had, in their opinion, deserved success, they thought the experiment had been well tried and had failed. But the opinion that it had not been well tried, was that of a large majority, including Spencer, Huxley, Tyndal[l], and the better part of the subscribers generally; and the manifestation of this opinion on their part, induced Mr Pollock to resign the editorship. There is a fortnight in which to determine whether and how the paper can be carried on. Spencer is full of hope and confidence, saying that the obstacle is removed, that we shall now be unanimous, and that it will be carried on in our own way. He and his supporters certainly have the right notion of how to carry it on; that it should have decided opinions, that they should be those of advanced liberalism, political, scientific, and theological, and that one of the objects should be (as Huxley said) to carry the scientific spirit into politics. The financial affairs seem to have been as much mismanaged as everything else, but they are not, in the opinion of those present, irretrievable: when all retrenchments are made, the concern will not be losing more than £6 a week, and the opinion is, that if the eight shares which have not been assigned, are taken up as it is thought that they may be, on the footing of preference shares, this and the £10 still due on the old shares will enable the experiment to be tried long enough to give it a chance of success. A good deal has been lost in money, and I should think, in reputation by what Huxley called our false start; but he and the rest think it is not too late to retrieve it. If they succeed between this and April 5 in organizing the management, both in the business and in the writing department, as well as they think they can, I shall be disposed to give them all the little help which is consistent with my occupations. I need hardly say of how great importance your cooperation would be, even if only as a writer, and much more if you would still be willing to take charge of a department.

I have again gone through your exposition of profits in the papers you so kindly took the trouble of writing for me; and I think, as before, that your mode of putting the doctrine is very good as one among others, and that there is no difference of opinion between us.3 I still, however, prefer my own mode of statement, for reasons which it would be long to state, and which I have not time at present to reconsider from the foundations. I am inclined to think that the real solution of the difficulty, and the only one it admits of, Edition: current; Page: [1019] has been given by myself in a subsequent place, Book III, ch. xix, 2 (vol. ii. p. 156 of the fifth edition.)4

Your anxieties about the mischief makers on the subject of America must have been a good deal relieved by the debate in which Disraeli and the other Tories vied with the Liberals in disclaiming all idea of the probability of war,5 and of any conduct on the part of the United States which could produce or justify it. Both the Times and the Saturday Review have backed out of what they said on the probability of war.6 I am Dear Sir

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 22. 1865

Blackheath

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

780.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath

March 22. 1865

Dear Mr Fawcett

I have sent to you through Thornton the Appeal of the Wolverhampton Plate Lock Cooperators,2 and Pitman’s and Kyllmann’s letters on their case. They appear to me preeminently entitled to support. What is the way in which we can best help them? For myself I mean to write them a letter and send them a subscription, but any pecuniary help will be a mere drop in the bucket unless some portion of the public can be induced to join in it. The best way I can think of is that some one should write a letter to the Spectator (which from its connexion with Ludlow and Maurice, is likely to be favourable) and invite subscriptions;3 in which case we ought to send in a few names to commence with. If you agree in this, should you be willing to write such a letter with your name to it? And do you think you could get a few subscribers’ names? Thornton will be one. If you are disposed to do this, and will let me know, I will at once endeavour to get a few names. I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1020]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 22. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Thomas Jones

Jones, Thomas

781.

TO THOMAS JONES1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 22. 1865

Sir—

I beg to inclose a subscription of £10 to aid, as far as such a sum can do it, in the struggle which the Cooperative Plate Lock makers of Wolverhampton are sustaining against unfair competition on the part of the masters in the trade.2 Against fair competition I have no desire to shield them. Cooperative production carried on by persons whose hearts are in the cause, & who are capable of the energy & self denial always necessary in its early stages ought to be able to hold its ground against private establishments; and persons who have not those qualities had better not attempt it. But to carry on business at a loss in order to ruin competitors is not fair competition. In such a contest, if prolonged, the competitors who have the smallest means, though they may have every other element of success, must necessarily be crushed through no fault of their own. I am now convinced that they ought to be supported against the attempt to ruin them. Having the strongest sympathy with your vigorous attempt to make head against what in such a case may justly be called the tyranny of capital I beg you to send me a dozen copies of your printed appeal to assist me in making the case known to such persons as it may interest in your favour.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 23. 1865

Blackheath

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

782.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath

March 23. 1865

Dear Sir

I was very glad to see your Appeal in the Daily News.2 It will, no doubt, have been read by some persons with profit. But the editor has not afforded the opportunity I hoped for, of a “rejoinder” to comments of his own on your paper. Without something like controversy to give interest and attract readers, an attempt to press the subject further by more letters in the paper at the present time would, I think, be lost labour. You no doubt feel with me, Edition: current; Page: [1021] that nothing ought to be more avoided than accustoming people to regard the subject as a bore. Our best chance of being able to do anything at present, lies in the proposed Social Science meeting3—the way for which ought to be prepared by a previous circulation of your paper, in a separate form, among selected persons. But the time of year is an obstacle to the meeting, unless it could be held at the end of the week after next, immediately after your return; Passion Week, I suppose, would be objected to; and in the fortnight following, many whose attendance might otherwise be hoped for, will be out of town. I myself would willingly put off my departure for days, but to postpone it for weeks would deprive my year of its spring. And I doubt if a meeting in May would have any very material advantage over one in July. This, however, is in the hands of those who are much better judges of the expediences than I can be.

Many thanks for your kindness about Lord Russell’s book.4 We got it from the Library, on the day on which we received your note. I have read the Introduction, and been much struck with its pompous emptiness, and the mental feebleness which it shews.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 24, 1865

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

783.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

March 24, 1865

Dear Sir

I am very glad to hear that you have made an arrangement which improves your position, as well as gives you easier access to sources of information. It will always give us pleasure to see you, and Mrs Plummer also. I always find time to read what you send me, though I have often to wait some days first.

In haste
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1022]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 25 mars 1865

Blackheath Park

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

784.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Blackheath Park

le 25 mars 1865

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

Je viens de recevoir la lettre ci-jointe,2 qui, comme vous verrez, vous regarde. Je crois devoir vous l’envoyer afin que la demande qu’elle contient, un peu présomptueuse à mon sens, ait la chance quelconque que votre bonté pourra lui donner.

Je vois avec plaisir qu’on annonce quelque chose de vous sur l’Angleterre.3 Que ce soit une réimpression de vos articles du Temps, ou quelque chose de nouveau, sera toujours un plaisir pour vos lecteurs et une chose utile aux deux pays.

Tout à vous

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 25. 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

785.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

March 25. 1865

Dear Sir

Many thanks for the copies,2 which arrived safely this morning. I regret to hear of your friend’s illness, and hope I may understand from your letter that it is proceeding favourably.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 27. 1865

Blackheath Park

Augustus de Morgan

Morgan, Augustus de

786.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Blackheath Park

March 27. 1865

Dear Sir

Your note, received today, would have reminded me, if I had forgotten, that I have another communication of yours still to acknowledge. I have just Edition: current; Page: [1023] read it again for the fourth or fifth time, and find a great deal of meaning in it. To understand it entirely I must wait for your promised paper.2 But I have little doubt that you will find out, and make intelligible at all events to psychologists, whatever there is to be found out in that direction.

I hope you have good accounts from your son.3 The Mediterranean, with the exception perhaps of Rome, is certainly ill suited for irritable respiratory organs. It is bad for the bronchitis which usually accompanies consumption. When, as sometimes happens, the pulmonary disorder is unaccompanied with bronchial irritability, then, I believe, the dry sharp air of such places as Nice, Naples, &c. is beneficial, by its bracing effect on the system generally. But that is not the common case.

Your conjecture about the original meaning of the word Compliment4 reminds me of the way in which it occurs in the English translations of the letters of Indian princes and nobles to the Governor General of India. These translations always begin with the words “After Compliments” which are the equivalent of a long string of high sounding ceremonial phrases in the original, which, as being matters of course in formal Asiatic correspondence, may well be dismissed under the general denomination of “fillings up.”

Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 27, 1865

Blackheath

Harriet Isabella Mill

Mill, Harriet Isabella

787.

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

Blackheath

March 27, 1865

Dear Harriet

I return the legal document, which seems quite unobjectionable so far as I am concerned, and I am quite ready to sign it. If this could be done not later than the 10th of April it would be convenient as I shall probably go abroad Edition: current; Page: [1024] on the 11th. The interpretation you put upon the reservation of certain lands is probably the true one.

I enclose stamps for 1s 4d which if I remember right was the amount of surplus postage one of my letters cost you.

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 2, 1865

Blackheath Park

Lord Amberley

Amberley, Lord

788.

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

Blackheath Park

April 2, 1865

Dear Lord Amberley

I hope that a copy of Mr Hare’s book,2 as well as of my paper on Comte, has been forwarded to you from Dover Street:3 They were sent there before I knew exactly where to address you in Gloucestershire.

Helen and I are much obliged to you and Lady Amberley for your kind invitation, but as we leave for Avignon on the 11th of this month, and I shall be very fully occupied during the whole intermediate time, we are unable to avail ourselves of your kindness. I am

Dear Lord Amberley
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 2. 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

789.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

April 2. 1865

Dear Sir

I have made my arrangements to leave for Avignon on the 11th, by which time I suppose it is not possible that I should have a proof of the second article on Comte. It should however be sent to Avignon in the course of a few weeks, for after the end of May I shall probably be moving about and the proof might not reach me. It will be necessary to send the copy along with the proof.

I suppose there is some one who makes himself acquainted for you with what the newspapers and periodicals say about the Review. If there should Edition: current; Page: [1025] be anything said about the Comte article, either in praise or dispraise, that is worth my seeing, I should feel obliged by your keeping it for me, as it may be useful hereafter in revising the article for separate publication.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 4. 1865

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

790.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

April 4. 1865

Dear Chadwick

Your proposed letter2 is very good as to substance, but I think it would be much improved by some alterations in form, and especially in the order of the topics. It would be made much more effective by going at once in medias res, saying first of all who are the persons addressing the electors, and what they want the electors to do, and then giving the reasons. I have put upon paper, rather hastily and roughly, how I think the letter might run. Of course it is a mere suggestion, to be dealt with in any manner that you, or Mr Beal think fit.

I would not mention subscribers in the letter. A list of them can be appended if desirable. I also think the electors should not be told that their returning the paper will amount to a promise, since many might be willing to express their preference who would be deterred from doing so if they thought they were absolutely binding themselves.

I am very glad to hear that Mr Westerton3 has declared for you. I am much more desirous that you should be elected than that I should.

My name is quite at your and Mr Beal’s service on Friday.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1026]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 6. 1865

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

791.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

April 6. 1865

Dear Sir

The Reader meeting yesterday was satisfactory.2 Huxley and Tyndall have made all the arrangements; the editor is to be a Mr Rae,3 a barrister, who wrote the article on Taine in the January number of the Westminster Review,4 and who, Huxley says, is a strong liberal, and bent upon making the paper a liberal organ. The editorial and all other literary expenses are placed on a very moderate scale, and Mr Rae’s pay is to be credited as payment on two shares in the paper, which he is to take. The other deficient shares (all but three) are either taken, or expected to be taken immediately. All business expenses will be reduced as much as is consistent with efficiency, and so that the present receipts (if not diminished by a further falling off in the advertisements) will cover them. Spencer is elected a Director in the room of Pollock, and he and others mean for the present to write as much as they can in the paper. It is perfectly understood that original articles of any kind will be received as well as reviews, and that signing, either by name or initials, will be rather encouraged than otherwise. The greatest drag is, that no fewer than 32 reviews, actually accepted, are on hand: but though all these must be paid for there are hopes that only the best of them will be used. I therefore think that the prospects of making the paper a useful organ are now as good as they seemed to be at first. Mr Hughes5 was very particular in his enquiries after you, and desired me to tell you that he hopes to see you as soon as you arrive in London. He thinks your cooperation of the greatest possible value, and hopes that you will be able to write a good deal; the more, as most of the others are so very much occupied. For myself, I think that success will depend more on your cooperation than on anything else. You will now (I think) be well supported, but there is need of some one, capable of writing well on great subjects, who will stick to the thing and write regularly, and I hope it may suit you to do so.

In case this Westminster movement should come to anything, which I cannot bring myself to think at all probable, it will be a great encouragement to me that you express a deliberate and well considered opinion in favour of the desirableness of my being in Parliament. However this may be, there is something very encouraging in the enthusiasm which has been excited, both in Edition: current; Page: [1027] Westminster and elsewhere, not simply for me, but for the opinion respecting the proper position of a candidate, which I expressed in my letter.6 You would be surprised at some of the people who have come forward unasked to offer subscriptions merely from reading the letter. What do you think of Howell and James7 offering £50, Fortnum and Mason of Piccadilly,8 I believe the same sum, Debenhams9 the auctioneers £100, two brothers, wine merchants in Bond Street another £100? The greatest pleasure which public life could give me would be if it enabled me to shew that more can be accomplished by supposing that there is reason and good feeling in the mass of mankind than by proceeding on the ordinary assumption that they are fools and rogues.

My printing is nearly finished, and we start for Avignon on the 11th. To what address should books, or parcels be sent for you before you arrive in London.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 6 [1865]

Blackheath

Harriet Isabella Mill

Mill, Harriet Isabella

792.

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

Blackheath

April 6 [1865]

Dear Harriet

I have signed the document, and sent it to the Solicitors, and will sign whatever else is necessary when I receive it. Meanwhile I return the letters.

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 7. 1865

Blackheath Park

Richard Holt Hutton

Hutton, Richard Holt

793.

TO RICHARD HOLT HUTTON1

Blackheath Park

April 7. 1865

Dear Sir

I have had great pleasure in hearing from Mr Hughes, this morning, that you are disposed to help the Wolverhampton Plate Lock workers,2 and that Edition: current; Page: [1028] you wish to be able to state that I am among their supporters. I sent them a subscription some days ago, with a letter, a copy of which I inclose, as it will shew on what principle my desire that pecuniary help should be given them, is grounded. I should mention that Mr Pitman intends to publish this letter in the next number of the Cooperator.3

Your paper is, so far as I know, the only one which has treated the questions involved in the present struggle in the iron manufacture as they ought to be treated; and it is to you one naturally turns when right principles need to be asserted, or a good cause to be aided, in connexion with those questions.

The subscriptions I have as yet collected are

W. T. Thornton Esq. | £2
Miss Helen Taylor | £2
and myself | £10

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

R. H. Hutton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 7, 1865

Blackheath Park

Thomas Bayley Potter

Potter, Thomas Bayley

794.

TO THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER1

Blackheath Park

,

April 7, 1865

.

Dear Sir,—

Though I have good reason for sympathising in your personal disinclination to go into Parliament, having the same feeling myself, I cannot help being very glad, on public grounds, that there is a prospect of your being elected for Rochdale.2 And if this takes place, in spite of your professing opinions in advance of the general state of opinions among reformers, there will be the more reason for satisfaction.

I have no objection whatever to the publication of my letter.3 Its association with the last thing Mr. Cobden ever wrote will give it a melancholy interest.

I am, dear Sir, yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1029]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 9, 1865

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

795.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

April 9, 1865

Dear Sir

I have written to Mr Lubbock2 to express my great satisfaction at his being a candidate, and the pleasure it would give me to be of any use to him. One of whom you express so high an opinion must be a very desirable member of the advanced liberal party in Parliament or anywhere.

I leave for Avignon on Tuesday evening, but will endeavour to send something for the Reader occasionally from thence.

Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 10. 1865

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

796.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

April 10. 1865

Dear Sir

You are in the way of seeing many newspapers and periodicals, and it is probable that during my absence in France articles, connected with the Westminster election or with myself personally, may come under your notice, which I should be glad to see. If such should be the case, would it be very troublesome to you to cut out the articles and send them to me by post? Of course it is a condition that you will allow me to pay all expenses, whether of buying, posting, or anything else. Reviews of my books are not included, as I shall receive them through my publisher.

If you would kindly undertake this for me, I should be greatly obliged.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1030]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 11. 1865

Blackheath

John Chapman

Chapman, John

797.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath

April 11. 1865

Dear Sir

I thank you very much for having enabled me to correct a proof of the second article on Comte before leaving. I have asked the printers to send a revise to Avignon. I should be much obliged if you would kindly let me have the same number of copies (20) as of the former article, and cause them to be sent to the same persons, with the difference of sending five instead of four to M. Littré, and one to M. Dupont-White, 11 Rue d’Angoulême Saint-Honoré, Paris; leaving only four copies for myself, to be sent here, and not to Avignon. The earlier the separate copies could be got ready, the better I should like it, as some of those who have had copies of the first would be glad to have the second as soon after it as possible. But this, of course, must be entirely subordinate to your arrangements.

M. Littré will take care that the translation is not published till after the second article has appeared in the Westminster.2

I leave for Avignon this evening.

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 12. 1865

Paris

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

798.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Paris

April 12. 1865

Dear Mr Fawcett

I have sent the few subscriptions I have received to Mr Hughes, whose letter in last Saturday’s Spectator you have perhaps seen.2 Mr Hughes has also collected a few, and intended handing them over to Mr Hutton, the editor of the Spectator, to be published in next Saturday’s paper.3 I think the best thing you could do with yours would be to send it in a note to the editor, so that it might appear in the same list.

The Social Science meeting went off well,4 and was very full. Lord Stanley presided, and brought out Hare’s strength by good questions. The reports Edition: current; Page: [1031] which I have seen give no idea at all of what was said, but I was glad to see that the Times reporter stated well and clearly the plan itself. Altogether it will have had a lift upwards by the meeting.

I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 17, 1865

Avignon

James Beal

Beal, James

799.

TO JAMES BEAL1

[

Avignon

]

[

April 17, 1865

]

Dear Sir—

I beg leave to acknowledge your communication of the 12th inst. informing me that at a meeting of Westminster Electors2 it has been resolved to adopt me as a candidate on the terms of my letter of March 7th & to invite subscriptions to defray the expenses of my election.

On the subject of this Resolution it would not become me to say anything, except what might equally be said by one who had no personal interest in the matter: That if the Electors of Westminster return to Parlt as their representative any one, either myself or another, who has no claim whatever on them except their opinion of his fitness for the trust, & if on that sole ground they elect him without personal solicitation & without expense, they will do what is as eminently honourable to themselves as to the object of their choice, will set an example worthy to be, & likely to be, imitated by other great constituencies—& will signally raise the character of the popular party & advance the cause of Reform.

On this part of the subject, I have only further to express the earnest hope, that in accepting me on the terms of my letter, the Meeting intended to include Edition: current; Page: [1032] in their adhesion the principle of an individual appeal by circular to every elector, laying other names before him as well as mine & requesting him to select from among them or from any others the person or persons whom he would wish to be brought forward as candidates.

I am also invited to state, for the more full information of the electors, my opinions on various political questions of general interest. Such a call can only be properly answered by the most complete openness. I hold decided opinions on all the subjects on which my sentiments are asked, & whether those opinions may serve or injure me in the estimation of the electors it is equally incumbent on me to state them plainly.

1. With regard to Reform Bills: I shd vote at once both for Mr. Baines’ bill3 & for Mr. Locke King’s,4 & for measures going far beyond either of them. I would open the suffrage to all grown persons, both men & women, who can read, write, & perform a sum in the rule of three, & who have not, within some small number of years, received parish relief. At the same time, utterly abominating all class ascendancy, I would not vote for giving the suffrage in such a manner that any class, even though it be the most numerous, could swamp all other classes taken together. In the first place, I think that all considerable minorities in the country or in a locality should be represented in proportion to their numbers. What other adjustments of the electoral system to an universal or nearly universal suffrage might prove practically the best adapted to secure to every portion of the community its just share of influence, while preventing any class from acquiring an unjust degree of preponderance either by means of property or of numbers, is a question which may be answered in many different ways & which will require much sifting & public discussion before the best can be selected. In the meanwhile I shd be prepared to support a measure which would give to the labouring classes a clear half of the national representation.

2. I prefer a mixed system of direct & indirect taxation to either alone. If the attempt were made to raise so large a revenue as ours after all due retrenchments would still be exclusively by direct taxation, I do not know of any taxes, in themselves just, which, under such strong pecuniary temptation, would not be successfully evaded. The evasions of the income tax are already a disgrace to the national morality. I would in no case tax any of the necessaries of life; but if even a working man expends in luxuries for himself, & Edition: current; Page: [1033] especially in stimulants, what is required by the necessities of his family, I think it perfectly just that he shd be taxed on such expenditure.

3. Every civilised country is entitled to settle its internal affairs in its own [way], & no other country ought to interfere with its discretion, because one country, even with the best intentions, has no chance of properly understanding the internal affairs of another: but when this indefeasible liberty of an independent country has already been interfered with; when it is kept in subjection by a foreign power, either directly, or by assistance given to its native tyrants, I hold that any nation whatever may rightfully interfere to protect the country against this wrongful interference. I therefore approve the interposition of France in 1859 to free Italy from the Austrian yoke,5 but disapprove the intervention of the same country in 1849 to compel the Pope’s subjects to take back the bad government they had cast off.6 It is not however a necessary consequence that because a thing might rightfully be done, it is always expedient to do it. I would not have voted for a war in behalf either of Poland7 or of Denmark,8 because on any probable view of consequences I shd have expected more evil than good from our doing what, nevertheless, if done would not have been, in my opinion, any violation of international duty.

4. Respecting the disabilities of Dissenters my answer may be brief. There ought to be no disabilities whatever on account of religion.

5. Voting for a member of parlt is a public & political act, which concerns not solely the elector’s individual preferences, but the most important interests of the other electors, of the non-electors, and even of posterity: & my conviction is that in a free country all such acts shd be done in the face & subject to the comments & criticisms of the entire public. I wish that the elector shd feel an honourable shame in voting contrary to his known opinions, & in not being able to give for his vote a reason which he can avow. The publicity which lets in these salutary influences admits also, unfortunately, some noxious ones; & if I believed that these were now the strongest—if I thought Edition: current; Page: [1034] that the electors of this country were in such a state of hopeless & slavish dependence on particular landlords, employers, or customers, that the bad influences are more than a match for the good ones, & that there is no other means of removing them, I should be, as I once was, a supporter of the ballot. But the voters are not now in this degraded condition: they need nothing to protect them against electoral intimidation but the spirit & courage to defy it. In an age when the most dependent class of all, the labouring class, is proving itself capable of maintaining by combination an equal struggle with the combined power of the masters, I cannot admit that farmers or shopkeepers, if they stand by one another, need despair of protecting themselves against any abuse now possible of the power of landed or other wealth.

6. As regards retrenchment, it is certain that chiefly through unskilful management great sums of public money are now squandered, for which the country receives no equivalent in the efficiency of its establishments, & that we might have a more useful army & navy than we possess, at a considerably less expense. I expect little improvement in this respect until the increased influence of the smaller taxpayers on the government, through a large extension of the suffrage, shall have produced a stricter control over the details of public expenditure. But I cannot think that it would be right for us to disarm in the presence of the great military despotisms of Europe, which regard our freedom through its influence on the minds of their own subjects, as the greatest danger as well as reproach to themselves, & might be tempted to pick a quarrel with us, even without any prospect of ultimate success, in the mere hope of reviving the national antipathies which so long kept apart the best minds of England & of the Continent.

7. I am decidedly of opinion that landed property shd be subject to the Probate Duty, & that property in settlement should pay succession duty on its full value & not, as at present, only on the value of the life interest.

8. Purchase is the very worst way but one, in which Commissions in the army could possibly be appropriated. The one, which is still worse, is jobbing & favoritism. I would support any mode in which the one evil can be got rid of without replacing it by the other. That there is such a mode I am fully satisfied, & that it would put an end to what is justly called in your letter, the monopoly by certain classes of the posts of emolument.

9. I am entirely opposed to flogging, either in the army or out of it, except for crimes of brutality. In some of those it seems to me a very appropriate punishment.

10. The differences between employers & workpeople which give rise to strikes, are, it appears to me, a subject which wholly escapes the control of legislation. I see nothing which law can do in the matter except to protect from violation the equal liberty of all to combine or to refrain from combining. Edition: current; Page: [1035] After a sufficient trial of each other’s strength, both sides will probably be willing to refer their disputes to arbitration, but even then I do not think that the arbitrators should have power to enforce their decisions by law; because, in such cases as they would usually have to decide, it is impossible to lay down rules of justice & equity which would suit all cases, or would obtain universal assent: & the adjustments must generally be of the nature of compromises, not acting on fixed principles, but each side giving up something for the sake of peace. I do not presume to say that a better rule may not be arrived at in time, but it would be quite premature to act as if it had already been arrived at.

I am, Dear Sir,
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

James Beal Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 17. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

800.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Saint Véran, Avignon

April 17. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I have received your note dated the 11th. and Mr Beal’s official announcement of the decision of the Meeting.2 The same post which takes this carries my reply to him, of which I inclose a copy.

When I saw them advertising for subscriptions for my election singly, I was alarmed lest they should have abandoned the intention of proposing any other names. Should this unfortunately happen, and should you, thereupon, go forward independently, I beg that you will at once put down my name for a subscription of £50, for which I will send a cheque as soon as your Committee is constituted.

I have suggested to Longman (as you recommended) that he should advertise in the penny papers,3 weekly as well as daily, and have now written again to recommend his not omitting the Morning Advertiser4—

yrs ever truly,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1036]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 20. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

801.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

April 20. 1865

Dear Sir

I shall be very glad to see the article in the Saturday Review,2 as my own copy has been stopped at the French post office; for which reason it will be advisable, if you have not already sent the number, to cut out the article and send it only.

I have always contemplated reprinting the articles on Comte as soon as is consistent with the interest of the Review; and if Mr Trübner3 wishes to be the publisher, no one has so good a claim. We will therefore consider that as settled.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 24, 1865

Avignon

Joshua Fayle

Fayle, Joshua

802.

TO JOSHUA FAYLE1

Avignon

April 24, 1865

Dear Sir

Owing to my absence from England, I have only this morning received your note, and the same cause makes it impossible for me to comply with the request which the Society2 has done me the honour of making.

I regret the delay which will take place in your receiving my answer, but I hope that my letter,3 published in Friday’s papers, may have made you aware of my absence soon enough to prevent any inconvenience. I am

yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

Jos. Fayle Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1037]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 24, 1865

Avignon

William E. Hickson

Hickson, William E.

803.

TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON1

Saint Véran

Avignon

April 24, 1865

Dear Hickson

Your letter, as you are probably by this time aware, did not find me in England.

I did not, I believe, reserve the right of translation as regards the book on Liberty. But I have had two applications from intending translators of it. The first was from my friend Professor Villari of Pisa, author of the Life of Savonarola, and of an enlightened and thoughtful Report on Education in England.2 The second was from Alberto Mario,3 Garibaldi’s Secretary and fellow-combatant, the husband of Madame White Mario. Him I referred to Professor Villari, and as the latter has his time very fully occupied, it is not improbable that he may have given up his project, in favour of Mario. In what state the matter is, I do not know, and I can only suggest, that the gentleman who does me the honour to make a third proposal, should ascertain what are the present intentions of his two predecessors. If they have abandoned their purpose, or desist from it in his favour, I give him the full consent which his politeness induces him to ask, but which he does not, for any legal purpose, require.

Death has indeed been busy lately, and one is continually reminded, if at our age we needed reminding, of our mortality. Cobden4 was perhaps the most perfectly honest man among all English politicians of his time and of anything like his celebrity, for he meant every word that he said. Is the Lucas who has just died,5 the same who wrote so many literary articles in the Times, and who had just started a new Magazine?

I hope you are well, and Mrs. Hickson at least no worse.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

W. E. Hickson Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1038]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 28. 1865

Saint Véran. Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

804.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Saint Véran. Avignon

April 28. 1865

Dear Chadwick

Dr Lankester2 and the others whom you mention, fancy, I suppose, that they would diminish their chance of carrying one candidate by attempting two; in which opinion they might be right if they were proceeding in the old beaten track, and bringing forward a candidate in the commonplace, stupid way. But on the plan which was proposed, of going to the electors with a list of names, it would not be they, but the electors, who would determine to have two new candidates, and would decide who they should be. The Committee would be taking nothing upon themselves but to carry out the declared wishes of a body of electors requiring only organization. I fear from the apparent hanging back from executing this plan, that they have grown cold on the subject, and finding that they are getting praised for proposing me, and for the other honourable features of the case, the exemption from canvassing, pledges, and expense, they are content with that, and do not seek for more. If it is so, it is a great mistake, and an opportunity lost, independently of the great value to public objects, and even specially to Westminster of making you one of its members. But I still hope for better things. As to your own conduct in exerting yourself for my election exactly as if you had no claims of your own, I cannot praise it more highly than by saying that it is like everything else I have seen of your public conduct.

As to my last letter,3 I expected that it would damage my chance. If it does no worse than you seem to think, I shall reckon it wholly a success. I do not see how I could have refused to answer questions about my opinions, put in the very letter which announced the acceptance of me as a candidate. It can only be a small proportion of the electors who have ever looked into my books. But I do not think my answers to questions will admit of being confounded with pledges, especially as several of them are opposed to the general opinion of those who support me. I hope there are many more Tories who will take your Tory friend’s view of women’s votes.

The glorious news from America is dreadfully dashed by the terrible report Edition: current; Page: [1039] about Lincoln.4 The idea of its being true is scarcely endurable—but the cause will not suffer—may even benefit by it, now.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 28 1865

Avignon

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

805.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

Avignon

April 28 1865

Dear Sir—

I have received your two notes & your pamphlet,2 which I think is one of the best of your writings, & well calculated to stir up the thinking minds among the working classes to larger views of political questions. So far as I am myself concerned, I cannot but be pleased to find you in sympathy with some of the most generally unpopular of my political notions. For my own part, I attach for the present more importance to representation of minorities, and especially to Mr Hare’s plan, combined with opening the suffrage to women, than to the plural voting which, in the form proposed by Mr Buxton, of attaching the plurality of votes directly to property,3 I have always strongly repudiated. But I think what you say of it likely to be very useful by impressing on the working people that it is no degradation to them to consider some people’s votes of more value than others. I would always (as you do) couple with the plurality the condition of it being accessible to any one, however poor, who proves that he can come up to a certain standard of knowledge.

I am
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

G. J. Holyoake Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1040]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 30 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Theodor Gomperz

Gomperz, Theodor

806.

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

Saint Véran, Avignon

,

April 30 1865

I have delayed thanking you for the first number of your Herculanean series,2 in hopes that I should have been able to say something about the work itself. I have, however, been so busy, that I have not yet had time to do more than read your Preface and Introduction and merely glance at the Greek text. What you say of it, however, proves it to be, at the very least, a highly important and novel contribution to the history of Greek thought, and I look forward with great pleasure to making a real study of it at some not distant time.—But, interesting as such labours are, you are capable of things much more valuable than such mere editorial work. I can not wish that you should leave unfinished what you have so well begun, but I shall be glad when the time comes to which you seemed to be looking forward in your last letter, now some months ago. . . . I hope, before this, you have received the book on Hamilton, and also the first of two articles which I have written on Comte’s philosophy. The second article is in print and I expect to be able to send it to you before it is published in England. I shall be well content if you are half as well pleased with these as you are sure to be with Mr. Grote’s book on Plato. This is nearly all printed, and I have read most of it; and both in point of learning and of thought it comes up to my highest expectations. It can not, I think, fail to produce a great effect in Germany, where the thoroughness of his knowledge of the subject will be much better appreciated than by an unlearned public, which can only take it on trust . . . .

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 30, 1865

S[aint] V[éran]

William Longman

Longman, William

807.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

S[aint] V[éran]

April 30, 1865

Dear Sir—

I noticed the discrepancy between the price mentioned in the agreement & those advertised,2 but supposed that it was intentional & that you Edition: current; Page: [1041] thought it advantageous to begin at once with the lower price. I would make any sacrifice rather than consent to fixing the price of the Pol. Ec. higher than the one announced, as it would look like breaking faith with the public. But I feel the same objection as before to binding myself by a permanent engagement which would prevent the plates from ever returning to me. I am most willing that you should retain as many copies beyond the 8000 as will indemnify you for what you would otherwise lose by your mistake. The loss being 2/6 on each of 4000 copies, 2000 copies additional at 5/- would compensate you for this, but would leave you losers by the paper & press work of the 2000 & for that I am ready to add as many more copies as you think sufficient to indemnify you, leaving the stipulation about the subsequent sale as it already stands, viz, that you should continue to publish the editions at half profit for five years after the sale of the whole number of copies agreed on.

I am glad to hear so good an account of the sale.3 I suppose the 400 copies sold of Hamilton are chiefly the trade subscription.4 The Logic will require an unusual amount of revision for the new edition,5 & I will take it in hand as soon as I can, but as this can hardly be before my next return to England, I will ask you to send the sheets to Blackheath Park rather than here.

I was not aware that you had been asked to allow your name to appear as one of my supporters for Westminster, and I beg that you will not consent unless, on public grounds, you prefer me to any other candidate likely to be proposed. I should be much honoured by your doing so, but if you do not I hope you do not think that it can have any influence on my personal sentiments towards yourself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1865

William George Ward

Ward, William George

808.

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

[

May? 1865

]

It is very unlikely that anything you write, however much I may disagree with it, could appear to me either “detestable” or “simply mischievous,”2 I have never read anything of yours in which I have not found much more to Edition: current; Page: [1042] sympathise with than to dislike. . . . [again] the only opposition which I deem injurious to truth is uncandid opposition, and that I have never found yours to be, nor do I believe I ever shall.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1. 1865

Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

809.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Avignon

May 1. 1865

Dear Sir

I am extremely obliged to you for taking the trouble to send me those cuttings, none of which I had seen (except Mr Berkeley’s letter,2 which was also in the Daily News) and most of which it would have been a loss to miss. I have been particularly pleased with the tone in which several of them speak of women’s voting, and of Mr. Hare’s plan.

Lincoln is a glorious martyr if ever there was one. He is not to be pitied—to be envied rather. One’s feeling is all personal—it is as if a ruffianly assassin had deprived one of a dear personal friend. I do not believe the cause will suffer. It may even gain, by the indignation excited. There was real danger lest the North, and Lincoln himself, should be too soft-hearted to the exslaveholders, and leave them too much power of mischief.

We are glad to hear that you are settled in your new home.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer I am

Dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1. 1865

Avignon

810.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Avignon

May 1. 1865

Dear Sir

I shall be happy to join in any mark of sympathy to the Free States of America, both on their success in their arduous struggle, and on the atrocious Edition: current; Page: [1043] act which has mingled such deep grief with the very hour of triumph. I should think that the initiative would be taken by friends of the cause who are in a position to act more effectually than I could. I should like an address to the American people to be signed by millions.2

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 2. 1865

Avignon

Henry Soden

Soden, Henry

811.

TO HENRY SODEN1

Avignon

May 2. 1865

Dear Sir—

I have just received your letter, dated 25th Feby.

It is a great compliment to me that my supposed opinions should have had the influence you ascribe to them in Australia.2 But there seems to have been a considerable degree of misunderstanding about what they are. The fault probably lies with myself, in not having explained them sufficiently. I have entered rather more fully into the subject in the new editions published this spring. But, not to give you the trouble of referring to them, I can have no difficulty in saying that I never for a moment thought of recommending or countenancing, in a new colony more than elsewhere, a general protective policy, or a system of duties on imported commodities such as that which has recently passed the representative assembly of your colony. What I had in view was this. If there is some particular branch of industry, not hitherto carried on in the country, but which individuals or associations, possessed of the necessary capital, are ready & desirous to naturalize: & if these persons can satisfy the legislature that after their workpeople are fully trained, & the difficulties of the first introduction surmounted they shall probably be able to produce the article as cheap or cheaper than the price at which it can be Edition: current; Page: [1044] imported, but that they cannot do so without the temporary aid either of a subsidy from the Govt or of a protecting duty: Then it may sometimes be a good calculation for the future interests of the country to make a temporary sacrifice, by granting a moderate protecting duty for a certain limited number of years, say ten, or at the very most twenty, during the latter part of which the duty should be on a gradually diminishing scale, & at the end of which it should expire. You see how far this doctrine is from supporting the fabric of Protectionist doctrine, in behalf of which its aid has been invoked.

Your wish respectg a cheap edition of the little book on Liberty has already been fulfilled. It is now on sale at 1/4 & my Pol. Econ. & Rep. Govt at prices proportionally even lower 5/ & 2/.

You are at full liberty to make any use you please of this letter.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 3, 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

William E. Hickson

Hickson, William E.

812.

TO WILLIAM E. HICKSON1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 3, 1865

Dear Hickson

The universality of the feeling occasioned by Lincoln’s catastrophe is a good sign of our common humanity, for it is, in most cases, genuine feeling of the bitterness of losing such a man. He himself may be considered happy in his death—quite otherwise than if he had died before the decisive triumph. There cannot be a more glorious fate than to die so mourned by a whole people—to have become so dear to them through the best part of their character exclusively. I agree with you in having no fear of public mischief from his loss. It will perhaps, on the contrary, prevent a great deal of weak indulgence towards the slaveholding class, whose power it is necessary should be completely and permanently broken at all costs. Meanwhile the effect is admirable in Continental Europe (England does not need that particular lesson) of the example of power passing by course of law, without a dream of opposition in the freest country in the world.

From what you say, the Lucas who is dead2 must be the younger brother of Frederic Lucas. I was slightly acquainted with him formerly, but had lost sight of him. I suppose he died of heart disease like his brother—more fortunate than he in dying without a long illness.

Pray thank Mrs Hickson and Miss Grant3 for their kind remembrances.

Edition: current; Page: [1045]

We shall remain here probably until about May 30, when we leave for a time in Auvergne. We expect to return about June 30, and to leave for England about July 3. If you should be passing while we are here, we shall be very glad to see you.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 5 mai 1865

Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

813.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Avignon

le 5 mai 1865

Je voudrais bien, mon cher d’Eichthal, pouvoir répondre à votre lettre, comme M. Blackie,2 par une lettre en grec: Πολλου̑ γε καὶ δει̑; ἐπεὶ παντὸς μα̑λλον, ὤ ϕίλε, βουλοίμην ἄν.3 Assurément la nation grecque vous doit de la reconnaissance, ainsi que, en second lieu, à M. Duruy.4 Du reste, elle me semble déjà bien avancée dans le chemin de la restauration grammaticale de son ancienne langue. Jugez de ma satisfaction quand j’ai vu, dans la redaction de sa nouvelle Constitution,5 qu’elle avait repris possession complète du cas datif. Après cela il ne lui reste guère à reprendre que l’infinitif, chose très importante, mais nullement plus difficile à regagner.

Votre nouvelle brochure6 ne m’est pas encore parvenue, mais un paquet va venir qui la contiendra. Je tâcherai de faire en sorte qu’il soit question de toutes les deux, non seulement dans la Revue de Westminster,7 mais peut-être ailleurs.

Nous avons un fort bon livre anglais sur la prononciation de la langue grecque, par un nommé Pennington,8 dans lequel il est à peu près démontré que les anciens Grecs prononçaient leur langue d’une manière peu éloignée Edition: current; Page: [1046] de celle des Grecs d’aujourd’hui. Je n’ai pas un exemplaire de ce livre, et je crois qu’il se trouve difficilement, si ce n’est dans les bibliothèques publiques; sans cela je vous l’aurais envoyé. C’est le sécrétaire du gouvernement anglais des îles Ioniennes qui me le fit lire en 1855.9

J’essaierai de vous voir en traversant Paris en deux mois d’ici, bien que je n’y compte rester que quelques heures.

Avez-vous vu l’article du dernier numéro de la Revue de Westminster sur l’Evangile de Saint-Jean? Il ne vous offre probablement rien de nouveau, puisqu’il se donne comme résumé des travaux de l’école de Tubingue.10

Bien des salutations à votre frère et à Duveyrier,

Tout à vous

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 11. 1865

S[t] V[éran]

Emile Littré

Littré, Emile

814.

TO EMILE LITTRÉ1

S[t] V[éran]

May 11. 1865

Cher monsieur—

La seconde partie de mon travail sur M. Comte ne sera publiée que le 1er juillet mais on a promis de me donner bientôt des exemplaires séparés. Il vous en sera expédié cinq, destinés comme auparavant pour vous même, pour le traducteur,2 pour Mme Comte, pour M. de Blignières et pour M. Taine. Il est très naturel que vous n’approuviez pas sans réserve tout ce que j’ai dit dans la 1re partie. Ce que votre livre a montré d’accord entre nos jugements est encore plus que je n’osais espérer. Une critique de ma critique, faite de votre point de vue, m’intéresserait grandement, et ce serait une bonne fortune pour moi si vous pouviez avoir le temps de vous en occuper.3

Quant au livre sur Hamilton c’est en grande partie une oeuvre de circonstance, comme le doit être tout livre de polémique—mais avec quelques chapitres de psychologie positive. Ce que ce livre a de mieux c’est qu’il porte Edition: current; Page: [1047] la guerre dans le camp ennemi. Aussi je crois que les métaphysiciens de l’école éclectique et allemande ne me le pardonneront pas.

Si un journal a dit que je sollicite des électeurs, ce journal se trompe: ce sont des électeurs qui m’ont sollicité. On m’a porté candidat presque malgré moi. J’ai refusé de rien faire de ce que font ordinairement chez nous les candidats. Je n’ai fait que ce qu’ils ne font guère c. à. d. une profession de foi parfaitement sincère. Au reste je pense avec M. Comte que, sauf des circonstances exceptionelles et transitoires, la place des philosophes n’est pas dans le gouvernement, et malgré mes 35 ans des fonctions administratives je ne me regarde pas comme une exception. Vous savez que dans l’idée que je me fais des assemblées délibérantes, elles doivent être un lieu de discussion plutôt que d’action, et si je consentais à y siéger ce serait pour n’y exercer qu’un pouvoir spirituel. P. L. Courier4 disait que, presque seul parmi les Français, il ne voulait pas être roi: si l’on me nommait à la chambre j’y serais probablement le seul député qui ne voudrait pas être ministre.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 11. 1865

S[t]V[éran]

Frederick Denison Maurice

Maurice, Frederick Denison

815.

TO FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE1

S[t]V[éran]

May 11. 1865

Dear Mr Maurice—

I was already so well aware of your kind feelings towards me that even such a letter as I have just received from you hardly increases my sense of them. I most sincerely feel towards you & your work in life, the full equivalent of all which you so kindly express. I never voluntarily leave unread any of your writings & if I have not more frequently offered you any of mine it was because I seldom felt confident that what you would approve in them, would outweigh what you would disapprove. I knew however that there was much in my new book2 with which you would fully sympathize, greatly as I know you differ from the metaphysical doctrines contained in it. You were continually in my thoughts when I wrote the chapter against Mansel3 and your controversy with him contributed much towards stirring me up to write the book.

Edition: current; Page: [1048]

I sympathize with the feeling of (if I may so call it) mental loneliness which shews itself in your letter & sometimes in your published writings. In our age & country, every person with any mental power at all, who both thinks for himself & has a conscience, must feel himself, to a very great degree, alone. I shd think you have decidedly more people who are in real communion of thoughts, feelings & purposes with you than I have. I am in this supremely happy, that I have had, & even now have, that communion in the fullest degree where it is most valuable of all, in my own home. But I have it nowhere else; & if people did but know how much more precious to me is the faintest approach to it, than all the noisy eulogiums in the world! The sole value to me of these is that they dispose a greater number of people to listen to what I am able to say to them; & they are an admonition to me to make as much of that kind of hay as I can before the sun gives over shining. What is happening just now is the coming to the surface of a good deal of influence which I had been insensibly acquiring without knowing it; & there are to me many signs that you are exercising a very considerable influence of the same kind, though you yourself seem to think the contrary.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 11. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

816.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 11. 1865

Dear Sir

I have to thank you for a great many more cuttings, which were extremely interesting to me, and on the whole very satisfactory, for those of my opinions which are thought to be most out of the common way seemed to obtain fair consideration, and to be found not so bad as they look. I was amused with your friend’s letter, especially with his idea that the male voters need the ballot to protect them against their wives. I think, myself, that the privilege of the vote gives an advantage not only to a bad husband over the wife, but to the wife over a kind husband, for he thinks he ought to defer more or less to her, on account of his voting as the representative of both. If she had a vote of her own, she would not have so much power of interfering with his.

Your friend should reconsider his opinion on representation of minorities. Cobden’s answer2 is no answer at all; for in his plan, of having as many constituencies as there are members, a minority of each would still be unrepresented. On Mr Hare’s plan, no one need be unrepresented, since the electoral body would divide of itself into unanimous constituencies.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1049]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 13. 1865

Avignon

Henry Bowie

Bowie, Henry

817.

TO HENRY BOWIE1

Avignon

May 13. 1865

Sir

I have had the honour of receiving your letter dated the 10th inst. inclosing a Requisition from the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and many distinguished citizens of Edinburgh, who, in the name of the Directors and Members of the Philosophical Institution,2 invite me to deliver the Inaugural Address at the opening of the Session in November next.

I feel most strongly the high distinction conferred on me by being the object of such a request from such a body. There being, however, many persons who are far better qualified than myself for the honourable function which the Directors and Members of the Institution propose to entrust to me, I beg to be excused from undertaking it, as I could not without great personal inconvenience be at Edinburgh, or anywhere in Great Britain, in November next, in addition to which I have so much occupation on my hands, that I could with difficulty find time for the duty and the necessary preparation for it.

I have the honour to be

Sir
very respectfully yours

J. S. Mill

Henry Bowie Esq
&c &c

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 15. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

818.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 15. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I have been so very busy, and have had, besides, so many letters to write, that I am very tardy in replying to your interesting letter of April 29. We were greatly amused by the “election humours” which it communicates, and by the comments you report on the injudiciousness of my second letter.2 I do Edition: current; Page: [1050] not wonder that people should think it injudicious if they suppose that my grand object in the whole matter is to get myself elected. But as the only purpose for which I care to be elected is to get my opinions listened to, it would have been very “injudicious” in me to forego so good an opportunity of that, for fear that it should damage my election. I have gained this by it, that what are thought the most out of the way of all my opinions, have been, and are, discussed and canvassed from one end of the country to the other, and some of them (especially women’s voting) are obtaining many unexpected adhesions. I reckon this a good stroke of practicality, whether I am elected for Westminster or not.

As to the election itself, I had much rather you were elected than I, and if I could transfer my supporters in a body to you, I would do so instantly. I suspect, however, that the thing will be taken out of our hands. The appearance in the field of the illustrious man3 whom the Tories have put forward as the representative of the intelligent classes against popular ignorance, as embodied in me, will probably produce a general demand that one of the professedly liberal candidates should be withdrawn; and perhaps the appeal to the individual electors by circular, which we have contended for, will be made for the inferior purpose of ascertaining who ought to retire. I do not think the Tories expect their man to come in, otherwise some more considerable person would have started in that interest. But they are glad when anybody with money to spend, is willing to venture it on the chance.

I feel for Sir Edw. Lytton,4 who expected to get some credit from my friends by the expression of his good wishes (which were very likely sincere) but found he had come across a man who had the peculiarity of expecting that people should act up to what they say. I should have thought more highly of him if he had said plainly, “These are my private sentiments, but I must go with my party”, a feeling which, as men go, is very excusable. Lord Amberley,5 I am glad to see, has a higher standard. It is really a fine thing in him to have withdrawn from Grosvenor’s Committee and come over to me.6

It is an agreeable surprise to me that Mr Westerton should have been so favourably impressed by the “Liberty”. I give him very great credit for it. It shews that his view of religion is a much higher and better one than is at all Edition: current; Page: [1051] common. Had I listened to commonplace notions of “practicality,” I should never have published that book; yet its publication does not seem to do me any practical harm.

As to the application you have received about having my likeness taken for publication, I have a real difficulty about it, owing to having refused my photograph to friends who much wished for it. If it should be necessary, however, there is a cameo likeness of me,7 from which a copy could be taken; but it cannot be till we return.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

P.S. I have just received your packet of printed documents. The list of the Committee is very good: there are some names on it which I am glad to see, but was afraid would be wanting.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 15. 1865

Avignon

Parke Godwin

Godwin, Parke

819.

TO PARKE GODWIN1

Avignon

May 15. 1865

Dear Sir—

I had scarcely received your note of April 82 so full of calm joy in the splendid prospect now opening to your country & through it to the world; when the news came that an atrocious crime had struck down the great citizen who had afforded so noble an example of the qualities befitting the first magistrate of a free people & who in the most trying circumstances had gradually won not only the admiration but almost the personal affection of all who love freedom & appreciate simplicity & uprightness. But the loss is ours, not his. It was impossible to have wished him a better end than to add the crown of martyrdom to his other honours & to live in the memory of a great nation as those only live who have not only laboured for their country but died for it. And he did live to see the cause triumphant & the contest virtually over. How different would our feelings now be if this fate had overtaken him as it might so easily have done, a month sooner!

In England, horror of the crime & sympathy with your loss seem to be almost universal, even among those who have disgraced their country by wishing success to the slaveholders. I hope the manifestations which were instantaneously made there in almost every quarter may be received in Edition: current; Page: [1052] America as some kind of atonement or peace-offering. I have never believed that there was any real danger of a quarrel between the two countries but it is of immense importance that we should be firm friends; & this is our natural state; for though there is a portion of the higher & middle classes of Great Britain who so dread & hate democracy that they cannot wish prosperity or power to a democratic people, I firmly believe that this feeling is not general even in our privileged classes. Most of the dislike & suspicion which have existed towards the U.S. were the effect of pure ignorance; ignorance of your history, & ignorance of your feelings & disposition as a people. It is difficult for you to believe that this ignorance could be as dense as it really was. But the late events have begun to dissipate it, & if your Government & people act as I fully believe they will, in regard to the important questions which now await them there will be no fear of their being ever again so grossly misunderstood, at least in the lives of the present generation.

As to the mode of dealing with these great questions, it does not become a foreigner to advise those who know the exigencies of the case so much better than he does. But as so many of my countrymen are volunteering advice to you at this crisis perhaps I may be forgiven if I offer mine the contrary way. Every one is vaguely inculcating gentleness, and only gentleness, as if you had shown any signs of disposition to take a savage revenge. I have always been afraid of one thing only, that you would be too gentle. I shd be very sorry to see any life taken after the war is over (except those of the assassins) or any evil inflicted in mere vengeance; but one thing I hope will be considered absolutely necessary: to break altogether the power of the slaveholding caste. Unless this is done, the abolition of slavery will be merely nominal. If an aristocracy of ex-slaveholders remain masters of the State legislatures they will be able effectually to nullify a great part of the result which has been so dearly bought by the blood of the Free States. They & their dependents must be effectually outnumbered at the polling-places: which can only be effected by the concession of full equality of political rights to negroes & by a large immigration of settlers from the North, both of them being made independent by the ownership of land. With these things in addition to the constitutional amendment3 (which will enable the Supreme Court to set aside any State legislation tending to bring back slavery in disguise) the cause of freedom is safe & the opening words of the Declaration of Independence will cease to be a reproach to the nation founded by its authors.

I doubt not that you have by this time received from Mr Hare the new edition of his book. I do not know if Mr Fawcett has fulfilled his intention of sending you his pamphlet,4 but as Mr Hare has adopted the simplifications Edition: current; Page: [1053] which Mr Fawcett proposed, you will be under no necessity of learning them from any other source. I am,

dear Sir,
yours very truly,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 22. 1865

Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

820.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Avignon

May 22. 1865

Dear Sir

I have this morning received three more packets of extracts, for which I cannot sufficiently thank you. They are all of use to me, the unfavourable ones most of all.

You will do me a favour if you will buy the Fortnightly Review for me, and (after reading it yourself) keep it for me till my return to England. I should like to see the article you speak of,2 but do not think it worth while to have it sent here, and the more, as I have very little time at the present moment to read it.

I have the Saturday Review.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 23 mai 1865

Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

821.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Avignon

le 23 mai 1865

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Merci de votre brochure sur “l’usage pratique de la langue grecque comme langue internationale”2 et des deux journaux grecs de Trieste.3 La première me fait désirer la complétion de l’ouvrage dont elle forme le commencement. Edition: current; Page: [1054] Les derniers montrent bien l’enthousiasme que votre proposition excite très naturellement chez les esprits Helléniques. Je lis assez facilement le Grec moderne, à quoi, en effet, il suffit de posséder une certaine connaissance de la langue ancienne, et d’avoir lu une grammaire quelconque de la moderne: car, dans le vocabulaire, toute ce qui n’est pas grec ancien est une imitation assez drôle des mots occidentaux et surtout français. Je n’ai jamais ri de meilleur coeur que lorsqu’à ma première visite à la poste aux lettres d’Athènes, je vis devant moi une affiche commençant par ces mots: Ἡ γενικη διευθυνσις τω̑ Ἑλληνικων ἀτμοσκαϕειων Ἐιδοποιει̑.4

Je trouve l’article de Littré5 fort bon, et votre lettre dans la Clio6 excellente. Ce serait, sans doute, difficile de faire dans la langue ordinaire la restauration grammaticale que vous proposez. Mais après tout ce que les Grecs ont déjà fait dans ce genre, il ne faut désespérer de rien. D’ailleurs l’instruction que reçoivent à peu près tous les enfants (au moins mâles) dans l’ancienne langue, rend ces changements beaucoup moins difficiles, puisque les formes restaurées seraient tout d’abord comprises.

Je vous renverrai les journaux, qui pourront vous servir encore pour la propagande.

Je ne connais M. Blackie7 que par son réputation et par quelques-uns de ses écrits. J’ai remarqué avec plaisir les succès parlementaires de Lanjuinais.8

Ce serait une bonne fortune pour moi que de vous voir à Avignon: mais, pour le moment, je n’en ai guère l’espoir; car je me propose de partir en cinq jours pour une tournée dans les Cévennes et en Auvergne, après quoi je ne serai ici que pendant deux ou trois jours au commencement de juillet avant de partir pour l’Angleterre, où je passe habituellement la moitié de l’année. L’élection de Westminster n’est pour rien dans mon retour. Cette élection se fait absolument sans moi.9 Je ne compte pas du tout sur le succès, mais s’il arrive, il en sera d’autant plus honorable pour moi et pour les électeurs.

Je vous serre la main.

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1055]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 24, 1865

Avignon

Edwin L. Godkin

Godkin, Edwin L.

822.

TO EDWIN L. GODKIN1

Avignon

May 24, 1865

Dear Sir

I thank you very sincerely for your article in the North American Review;2 not merely for sending it to me, but for writing it. I consider it a very important contribution to the philosophy of the subject; a correction, from one point of view of what was excessive in Tocqueville’s theory of democracy, as my review of him was from another. You have fully made out that the peculiar character of society in the Western States—the mental type formed by the position and habits of the Pioneers—is at least in part accountable for many American phenomena which have been ascribed to democracy. This is a most consoling belief, as it refers the unfavourable side of American social existence (which you set forth with a fulness of candour that ought to shame the detractors of American literature and thought) to causes naturally declining, rather than to one which always tends to increase.

But if any encouragement were required by those who hope the best from American institutions, the New England States as they now are, would be encouragement enough. If Tocqueville had lived to know what those states have become, thirty years after he saw them, he would, I think, have acknowledged that much of the unfavourable part of his anticipations had not been realized. Democracy has been no leveller there, as to intellect and education, or respect for true personal superiority. Nor has it stereotyped a particular cast of thought; as is proved by so many really original writers, yourself being one. Finally, New England has now the immortal glory of having destroyed Slavery; to do which has required an amount of high principle, courage, and energy, which few other communities, either monarchial or republican, have ever displayed. And the great concussion which has taken place in the American mind, must have loosened the foundations of all prejudices, Edition: current; Page: [1056] and secured a fair hearing for impartial reason on all subjects, such as it might not otherwise have had for many generations.

It is a happiness to have lived to see such a termination of the greatest and most corrupting of all social iniquities—which, more than all other causes together, lowered the tone of the national and especially the political mind of the United States. It now rests with the intellect and high aspirations of the Eastern States, and the energy and straightforward honesty of the Western, to make the best use of the occasion, and I have no misgiving as to the result.

Do not trouble yourself to send me the North American Review, as I already subscribe to it. But I shall always be glad to be informed of any article in it which is of your writing, and to know your opinion on any American question.

I am Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Edwin L. Godkin Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 24. 1865

Avignon

William Whewell

Whewell, William

823.

TO WILLIAM WHEWELL1

Avignon

May 24. 1865

Dear Sir—

It gave me great pleasure to receive your note of May 15. It was, in the first place, very agreeable to hear that you go along with my book, so far as it is directed against Sir W. Hamilton; which is fully as much approbation as I could hope for; & it was pleasant to be told that there are other points which could have been made against Sir W. H. but which I had omitted—fearful as I was of being charged, on the contrary, with having pursued him à toute outrance.

But a still greater cause of satisfaction to me from receiving your note, is that it gives me an opportunity on which without impertinent intrusion I may express to you, how strongly I have felt drawn to you by what I have heard of your sentiments respecting the American struggle2 (now drawing to a close) between freedom & slavery, & between legal gott & rebellion without justification or excuse. No question of our time has been such a touchstone of men & has so tested their sterling qualities of mind & heart—as this one—& I Edition: current; Page: [1057] shall all my life feel united by a sort of special tie with those, whether personally known to me or not, who have been faithful when so many were faithless. I am Dear Sir

very truly & respectfully yours

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 28. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

824.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 28. 1865

Dear Sir

It seems a very long time since I either heard from you or wrote to you, and you may have thought it strange that I did not write on a subject of such deeply tragical interest to us both as the assassination of Lincoln. But I felt it necessary to express my feelings on that catastrophe to so many persons,2 Americans and others, who could not otherwise have known them, that I felt less prompted than usual to give vent to them, to those who would know and judge of them by their own. What I now principally feel is that the death of Lincoln, like that of Socrates, is a worthy end to a noble life, and puts the seal of universal remembrance upon his worth. He has now a place among the great names of history, and one could have wished nothing better for him personally than to die almost or quite unconsciously, in perhaps the happiest hour of his life. How one rejoices that he lived to know of Lee’s surrender.

At present I am chiefly anxious that the Americans may not do themselves any damage in the matter of Jefferson Davis.3 I do not like the trial of the assassins by martial law. If they try Davis in that manner, and convict him, let him be ever so guilty, the world will never believe that he had a fair trial. I have good hopes, however, from the favourable opinion of Johnson4 expressed by men who have the means of knowing him.

I was happy to see your name in full, attached to your excellent article on Lowe’s speech.5 There were several very good things in the last number: Edition: current; Page: [1058] the leader, by Huxley,6 particularly so, notwithstanding what I venture to think heretical physiology, which, however, he clearly sees, and as clearly shews, not to affect in the smallest degree the moral, political, or educational questions, either as regards negroes or women. I wish, however, that the Reader did not cultivate a tone of flippant attack, often on very slender grounds which is infinitely more offensive than damaging to the persons attacked. The Saturday Review, with much more real matter, manages these things much better. Do you know the editor?7 He seems to me to be amenable to good influences, and worth cultivating.

We propose setting out in two or three days for an excursion in the central mountains of France, but letters will from time to time be forwarded to me from here. I shall be in England in time for the July meeting of the Club,8 at which I am pledged to open my question if required and where I shall hope to see you. If you write, pray tell me your London address.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 28, 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

825.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 28, 1865

Dear Chadwick

You have indeed a fine list of occupations for any one to carry on pari passu with his election to Parliament. But your power of work seems unlimited.

The request of the Committee2 places me in a considerable embarrassment. What they propose is in itself perfectly reasonable; and any one who comes forward and proposes himself as a candidate, ought to be willing to meet the Committee and the Electors in the way they propose, as often as they think desirable. But I have never, from the beginning, been in the position of one who offers himself as a candidate. In my first letter3 I disclaimed doing so; I said that my personal inclination was against going into Parliament; but that Edition: current; Page: [1059] if the electors of Westminster nevertheless did me the great honour of choosing me, I would do my best to serve them, and would answer unreservedly any number of questions respecting my political opinions, which might be put to me by or in behalf of any body of electors. My candidature went forth to the public on this footing; and this declaration seemed to be one of the causes of the feeling so widely expressed in favour of the candidature. If I were now to attend meetings and make speeches to the electors in the usual, and, in most cases, very proper manner, it would seem as if there had been no truth in my declaration that I did not personally seek to be in Parliament; as if I had merely been finessing to get myself elected without trouble and expense, and having found more difficulty than I expected, had at last shewn myself in my true colours, rather than run the risk of losing the election.

If you will kindly represent these things to the Committee, they will, I hope, enter into the difficulty I feel. If they think that any further explanation of my opinions would be desirable, they have only to ask for it. If Mr Beal, or Mr Westerton, or any other member of the Committee, will write to me, asking my opinion on any new points, or the reasons and justification of my opinion on any of those on which it has been already asked and given, I shall have the greatest pleasure in satisfying them.

In the same manner, I shall be happy to reprint any of my articles which the Committee may propose. I cannot, however, remember any that would be much to the purpose, as the political articles are mostly on gone-by politics. I should be very happy to reprint the article on “Enfranchisement of Women,”4 but it must be as my wife’s, not as mine.

I am glad to hear what you tell me concerning Mr M’Clean.5 In addition to his very handsome subscription, he has lately sent me two polite invitations in his capacity of President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and I was desirous to know how I had acquired so much of his good will.

Any writing by Tories, nominally in my favour, is of no consequence. The Tories prefer anybody to a regular government man, as they suppose Grosvenor to be.6 Any one who is not a pledged member of the ministerial party, they hope may now and then give them a stray vote. But if I were elected I should hope to be a much greater thorn in their side than a member of the old Whig connexion can be.

Edition: current; Page: [1060]

This letter of course is not for publication, but it may be shewn to any members of the Committee.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 29. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

826.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 29. 1865

Dear Sir

It is a long time since I wrote to you: indeed, from a variety of causes. I have had so many more letters to write to total or comparative strangers than I ever wrote in the same time before, that writing to my real friends has been put off. I have not, however, been inattentive to what you have been doing meanwhile. The Social Science meeting2 evidently gave a push onward to Personal Representation, and you have followed it up in the Daily News with vigour and effect.3 The question has for the first time passed into the domain of popular discussion, and is making unexpected proselytes. You must have noted Lubbock’s4 qualified and Hughes’5 distinct adhesion in their electoral addresses. Perhaps you may not have observed a letter from Francis Newman,6 giving reasons for and against supporting my candidature, in which my adherence to your plan is placed among the foremost of the reasons for supporting me. There are also articles in some of the country papers, shewing that the plan is obtaining favour in proportion as it becomes known. In addition to which, my Westminster supporters are all busy finding what they can say to defend their candidate on the points of representation of minorities and women’s suffrage. Certainly this election affair is a better propaganda for all my political opinions than I might have obtained for many years; and Edition: current; Page: [1061] it is selling my cheap editions, and indeed the dear ones too, in a most splendid manner.

My occupation here, except letter-writing, has been of a kind very remote from these interests, being chiefly that of reading Plato, with a view to reviewing Grote’s new book.7 I do not find that this by any means quickens my zeal in my own cause, as a candidate. It is an infinitely pleasanter mode of spending May to read the Gorgias and Theatetus under the avenue of mulberries which you know of, surrounded by roses and nightingales, than it would be to listen to tiresome speaking for half the night in the House of Commons. The only disagreeable thing here is having to choose between pleasures: thus we are about to tear ourselves away from this most enjoyable place to make a tour in the Cevennes and Auvergne, beginning at Alais, and going round by Le Vigun, the Lozère, the Cantal, and Mont Dore, to Clermont. We expect much pleasure from this, but we give up so much pleasure by not remaining here, that did we not think it useful to health, I do not believe we could either of us make up our minds to it.

I shall be back for the July meeting of the Club, where I shall hope to see you. I am glad to see that Gladstone is to be chosen a member.8

With our kind regards to all your family

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Letters will be sent to us from here.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 29. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

827.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

May 29. 1865

Dear Sir

Nothing can be more agreeable to me than to hear that you are going to answer me in the Fortnightly Review.2 I hope you will not spare me. If you make out so strong a case (and no one is more likely to do so if it can be done) as to make it absolutely necessary for me to defend myself, I shall perhaps do so through the same Review; but not without a positive necessity. I have had enough, for the present, of writing against a friend and ally.

Edition: current; Page: [1062]

With regard to the Reader, I like the plan of full signatures. I am glad to see that my friend Professor Cairnes has adopted it, & I should be glad if it were the common practice. But, to admit of this, it would be necessary for the Reader to give up the plan it has recently adopted of making slashing attacks to the right and left, with very insufficient production of evidence to justify the vituperation: and in a manner which gives to an indifferent spectator the impression either of personal ill will in the particular case, or of general flippancy and dogmatism. Contributors will not like to identify themselves by name with a publication which would embroil them with an unlimited number of angry and vindictive writers together with their friends and their publishers. I myself should not like to be supposed to be in any way connected, for instance, with the attack on the Edinburgh Review3 (for which I am at this very time preparing an article)—an attack of which I wholly dislike the tone, and agree only partially with the substance; and it happens that the article singled out from the last number for special contempt,4 my name too being cited against it, is by a personal friend of my own, a man of very considerable merit, whom I was desirous of securing as a recruit for the Reader—and who is very naturally hurt and indignant at the treatment of him. I am by no means against severity in criticism, but the more it is severe, the more it needs to be well weighed and justly distributed. I have represented a good deal of this to Mr. Rae,5 with whom I am in correspondence, and of whom in other respects I have formed a very favourable impression. He has very much improved the Reader, and is improving it more and more; and but for that one fault it bids fair to justify our original hopes.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 30, 1865

S[aint] V[éran]

Max Kyllmann

Kyllmann, Max

828.

TO MAX KYLLMANN1

S[aint] V[éran]

May 30, 1865

Dear Sir—

I have not written to you since I came here, having from various causes been so overwhelmed with letter writing that I was obliged to Edition: current; Page: [1063] adjourn all of it that admitted of postponement. I now write though I have not anything very particular to say, except that I am going to leave Avignon for a tour in the Cevennes & Auvergne & though letters will be sent to me from here, they will not reach me so soon or so certainly as at present. It seems to me that discussion on the fundamental points of representative government & especially on the points raised in my Westminster letters, is going on very satisfactorily at present. Numbers of country papers are sent to me in which Hare’s system, repr of minorities, in all its shapes, and women’s suffrage are mooted—sometimes with approbation, & often (especially as to women’s suffrage) with much less hostility than was to be expected. You have probably seen Mr. Hughes’ declaration in favour of Hare’s system2 & Francis Newman’s commendation of me for adhering to it.3 The cheaper editions also are going off at a wonderful rate & even the dear ones are increasing in sale. These are substantial advantages derived from the Westr contest whether it succeeds or not. I think it hardly possible that it should succeed. Though it has brought to light a most unexpected amount of good feeling by isolated individuals towards me personally, there is no set of political men who really wish to have me in Parlt: neither Whigs, nor Tories, nor the Bright radicals (though I hear that B. himself speaks in my favour), nor any other set of radicals except perhaps the Cooperative section of the working classes. Look at the list of subscribers for the election expenses: next to none of them are representative men. They are people from here, there, & everywhere who have happened to like my books. Many even who for personal reasons might have subscribed, hold back, evidently because their sets are hostile to me. This is what I always said would be the case. As Comte says, “tout ce qui est aujourd’hui classé” is sure to be hostile to really new ideas—a little shuffling of the cards is all they want.4

But enough of this. I am full of joy & spirits for the glorious future of America. The catastrophe of Lincoln though it was a great shock, does not cloud the prospect. How could one have wished him a happier death? He died almost unconsciously, in the fulness of success, & martyrdom in so great a cause consecrates his name through all history. Such a death is the crown of a noble life.

Edition: current; Page: [1064]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 31. 1865

Avignon

William Fraser Rae

Rae, William Fraser

829.

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

Avignon

May 31. 1865

Dear Sir

The author of the paper “Nurses Wanted”2 offers an article on a very different subject, a notice of the new (and much improved) edition of Mr Hare’s book on Representation. The article3 is strongly in favour of Mr Hare’s system; which I suppose you do not object to, especially as any other contributor is free to take the opposite side. I think the writer brings out some important points very well, and will give an impression of novelty in the mode of treatment.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

W. F. Rae Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June, 1865

Brioude

Charles Loring Brace

Brace, Charles Loring

830.

TO CHARLES LORING BRACE1

[

June, 1865

]

Your remark2 is most just on the unworthiness of the conversions due only to success. Such conversions merely show the fundamental unworthiness of the original error. The disgust they occasion is one of the causes which make those who have fought an up-hill battle up to the hour of victory eager to go forward to something else, in which they will still have the low-minded and selfish part of mankind against them.

Edition: current; Page: [1065]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 7, 1865

Bagnols les Bains, Lozère

Rowland G. Hazard

Hazard, Rowland G.

831.

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

Bagnols les Bains, Lozère

June 7, 1865

Dear Sir

I am writing to you from a little place in the mountains of Central France, where we are making a short excursion. I have not liked to write until I had read your treatise on Freewill.2 I have now done so, with great admiration in many respects, but I am unable to say that it has made any alteration in my opinion. It is very clearly thought and expressed, and draws some metaphysical distinctions which though quite correct are often disregarded, for instance, that fundamental one between volition and choice. There is great acuteness too in much of the polemic with Edwards,3 though I think that he might have found much to say in reply to it, and that you have sometimes refuted rather his expressions than his thoughts. But I do not find that your arguments in any way touch the doctrine of so-called Necessity as I hold it. You allow that volition requires the previous existence of two things, which the mind itself did not make, at least directly, nor, in most cases, at all: a knowledge, and a want. You consider as the peculiarity of a free cause, that its determinations do not depend on the past, but on a preconception of the future. But though the knowledge and the want refer to what is future, the knowledge and the want themselves are not future facts, but present, or rather past, facts, for they must exist previous to the volitional act. You seem to admit not only that the knowledge and want are conditions precedent to the will, but that the character of the will invariably corresponds to that of the knowledge and want, and that any variation in either of these determines, or at least is sure to be followed by, a corresponding variation in the volition. Now this is all that I, as a necessitarian, require. I do not believe in anything real corresponding to the phrases Necessity, Causal Force or the like. I acknowledge no other link between cause and effect, even when both are purely material, than invariability of sequence, from which arises possibility of prediction. And this it seems to me, on your own shewing, exists equally between volitions and the mental antecedents by which you allow that they are and must be preceded.

My own view of the subject you will find in a chapter of my book on Sir William Hamilton,4 which I hope reached you, and to which I must refer Edition: current; Page: [1066] you for the arguments I have not room for here. Let me add, however, that on the subject, practically considered, I am at one with you. Your view of what the mind has power to do, seems to me quite just: but we differ on the question, how the mind is determined to do it.5

To turn to another subject, no less interesting to us both; you seem to have now a finance minister who understands currency,6 and the close of the war will render return to the right path comparatively easy. I look forward to the brightest future for America now, provided the North is not foolishly generous to its conquered enemies. It is quite indispensable to break the power of the Slaveholding oligarchy. Emancipation is not enough, without making the freed negroes electors and landholders, nor without reinforcing them by a large migration of northern people into the southern states. Otherwise the negroes will remain in a state of dependence on their old masters approaching to slavery, and both they and the mean whites will be kept ignorant and brutish as they have been kept hitherto. I would not shrink from extensive confiscation if it were necessary for these purposes, but doubtless the impoverishment of the great landholders, and their disgust with the new state of things, will cause a great number of the large estates to be sold and broken up, a thing eminently desirable. Probably the indignation of your whole people at the atrocious crime which robbed the world of your noble President, added to the known opinions and determined character of his successor, may tend to diminish the risk of any undue indulgence being shown to those who, like dethroned despots, will be always hankering after their lost power. It is only the next generation of them who can possibly become true citizens of a free nation.

I am Dear Sir
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

R. G. Hazard Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 8. 1865

Mende, Lozère

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

832.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Mende, Lozère

June 8. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I am extremely sorry that your two letters were not answered immediately, owing to their having arrived a day or two after we had set out on an excursion Edition: current; Page: [1067] in the mountains. They have been forwarded to me here, along with a letter from Mr Beal, to whom I have by this post sent a reply, which he will no doubt communicate to you. I have told him that I am decidedly for proceeding in the way first proposed,2 and submitting your name to the electors with those of all the candidates, and that it would not be just to you to ask you to forgo such claims as you possess, without having laid them before the electors and obtained their decision. The talk about dividing the liberal interest is quite inapplicable to the course proposed, in which it is implied that neither you nor I will be nominated if the result of the appeal to the electors shews that we have fewer supporters than Grosvenor and Smith. I need not repeat what my own wishes are, and that I would much rather you were elected than myself. But that is not the question: it is for the electors to shew their preference, and for us, or rather our supporters, to withdraw our names if any other candidates in the liberal interest are preferred to us.

I have revised your address,3 not as to matter, but as to style, in which it was very defective, and sometimes even unintelligible, from haste. The contents of it (and it is an understatement of your public services) ought to suffice for your election by any constituency in the country. If the public were not so much inured to seeing any petty consideration prevail over personal fitness they would feel it a national disgrace that you are not in Parliament.

Ever, dear Chadwick,
yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 18. 1865

Mont Dore les Bains

George Grote

Grote, George

833.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Mont Dore les Bains

June 18. 1865

My dear Grote

Many thanks for the two sheets, which were waiting for me at Mende along with your letter. The chapter on the Leges2 is less interesting than most of the others, because the subject is less so: its inferiority, in fact, was the main point to bring out. The two concluding chapters,3 on the other hand, are equal in interest to almost anything in the work; especially the account of the Megarics, Edition: current; Page: [1068] Kyrenaics &c. of whom I previously knew very little. I hope to be able to make a useful article on the book:4 but when I spoke of giving an intellectual outline of Plato from your materials, I meant from your thoughts: not that I had attained any higher point of view than yours, but that I hoped to reproduce yours in a condensed form.

I hope you have seen Mark Pattison’s review of you in the Reader.5 He contests the question of the Platonic canon with you, or rather, promises to contest it. I fancy he reckons the history of philosophy one of his own strong points; which it certainly is not, since he can speak of Aristotle as a mere pupil of Plato. I was pleased, however, as well as surprised, to find him so eulogistic of the book in every other respect. He had just before written a review of my Hamilton in which he equally surprised me by the extent of his adhesion.6

How valuable to me is your approbation of the Hamilton I need not say. The opinion you express of it comes up to my highest hopes. I have been amused by some of the discussions respecting it which have been evoked by the stimulus of the Westminster affair. I learn from the Spectator,7 that the Morning Advertiser8 (à propos of the chapter on Mansel’s Bampton Lectures)9 declares that I am not only an athetist, but have on this occasion put forth my atheism in a form the most revolting which the editor of that paper has ever met with: and the Record10 says I am the chief of the Satanic School in England at present. The Spectator, on the contrary, says the principal value of the book is the logical; that the passages in question are the true language of prophets and apostles: and in the same number in which it attacks and protests against the philosophy of the book, makes a hearty and vigorous defence of its religion: saying at the same time that it has never been able to find out what my private religious opinions are, and that nobody has any right to pry into them. All this is pretty much as I expected, and wished.

I am writing to you from a beautiful place, in the heart of a valley which is an old crater, surmounted by summits between 6 and 7000 feet above the sea, though only from 3 to 4000 above the plateau of Central France. The interior of the crater is filled up with the loveliest pastures and forests. We have enjoyed our tour very much, and have not been indulged with a single rainy day, Edition: current; Page: [1069] or even hour, in which to get on with Plato. I hope to see you in the early part of next month.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 21 [1865]

Clermont-Ferrand

Charles Westerton

Westerton, Charles

834.

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

Clermont-Ferrand

,

June 21 [1865]

Dear Sir—

I very much regret that your letter and telegraphic message were not answered as promptly as I should have wished, they having had to be forwarded to me here. I have no objection whatever to attend meetings of the Committee, or even of the electors, other than those which I stated in my answer2 to a letter which Mr Chadwick wrote to me on the subject, at the request as I understood, of the Committee. But I confess the reason you now give for desiring me to come over and meet the Committee, operates on my mind the reverse way. I should never, for my own part, think of taking any notice of a charge of irreligion brought by the Record3 or the M. Advertiser.4 They are ready to bring such a charge against the most pious man in England if he does not agree in their narrow minded & thoroughly unChristian notions of religion and my attending a meeting just at present would scarcely promote the purpose for which you suggest it, since I should positively and deliberately refuse to allow myself to be interrogated on any subject whatever of purely religious opinion. I do this on principle. I conceive that no one has any right to question another on his religious opinions; that the tree ought to be judged, and only can be judged, by its fruits; and I hold myself bound, not for my own sake, for it is my practice to speak my opinions very plainly, but for the sake of future candidates, not to do any thing that may facilitate raising a religious cry against a person who may be unassailable as a politician, on evidence extorted from his own mouth. The case is different as to my expressed opinions. Whatever I have written and published I stand by, and am ready to defend; and I defy any one to point out in my writing a single passage that conflicts with what the best religious minds of our time accept as Christianity. The passage which, I am informed, the Record and the Advertiser have Edition: current; Page: [1070] fastened upon, I maintain to be one of the most religious and Christian expressions of feeling in all recent literature. I am not alone in this opinion. Among many others, one of the most eminent of the Bench of Bishops declares in a letter in the Spectator of June 17,5 that the sentence in question breathes the purest spirit of Christian morality; and the Spectator itself (a most religious paper) had said a fortnight before,6 of the same sentence, that it speaks the true language of Prophets and Apostles. Such expressions as these it would not become me to use; but I am not afraid that your judgment, or that of any rational person who reads the passage and the context fairly, would pronounce it other than Christian, in the truest sense. I am not aware that Mr Mansel’s theology7 is the same thing with religion, or that to say that I will worship no God but a good God is to be an atheist.—You are at full liberty to make any use you please public or private, of this letter.

Any letter to me had better be addressed to Avignon, as I am about to return there, and thence very shortly to England.

Charles Westerton, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 21, 1865

Blackheath

Charles Westerton

Westerton, Charles

835.

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

[

June 21, 1865

]

Dear Sir—

When I wrote to you this morning I had not yet received your letter of the 17th inst. written in the name of the Committee and requesting a personal interview. In reply I beg to say that I shall be happy to attend the Committee on any day they may appoint after I arrive in England. In the meantime I beg to say that with regard to the plan of addressing the electors by circular, as on every other matter connected with the election, it rests with the Committee alone to decide; and I regard it simply as an additional mark of courtesy and consideration towards myself, that they should have sought any consultation with me on the subject. Not taking any of the usual burthens of a candidate, I have no claim to the privileges of one. It is but reasonable that those who take all the trouble should freely determine on their own judgment the course to be pursued. I did not volunteer the proposal of submitting various names to the constituency, as a suggestion of my own; I understood it to be included in the original scheme of which my nomination was a part; and thinking the plan an excellent one, both in itself and as an Edition: current; Page: [1071] example, I expressed strongly the approbation which I felt. My opinion on the subject is not changed; I still think that it would have been highly desirable to adopt this course in the first instance. The Committee, however, are of opinion that the time has gone by for it, and that it would not be suitable to the present state of affairs. They have a perfect right to act on their own judgment; and were they even to carry courtesy so far as to postpone their judgment to mine, to accept such an act of abnegation would be to take the conduct of the election out of their hands, which I am as little inclined as entitled to do. Any discussion between us, therefore, on this matter, I regard as merely an affair of friendly explanation, and not of a practical character. I shall be at Blackheath Park on the 6th of July,2 and I shall hold myself at the disposal of the Committee any day and hour afterwards, except the evening of the 7th for which I have a positive engagement.3

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 22. 1865

Brioude

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

836.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Brioude

June 22. 1865

Dear Chadwick

Your letters of the 15th and 16th followed me to Clermont, and along with them I received an urgent letter from Mr Westerton (with a telegraphic message which had preceded it) urging emphatically the necessity of my coming over at once on account of the accusations of atheism made against me by the Record and the Morning Advertiser.2 I thought so much sensitiveness to such attacks from such quarters of very bad augury; and not choosing to submit to being catechized on my religious belief, I wrote to Mr Westerton as follows: [Here JSM copies Letter 834].

By the next day’s post I received a further letter from Mr Westerton as Chairman of the Committee requesting on their part a personal interview with me for the purpose of explaining to me how they had endeavoured to adopt my plan (as he called it) of addressing the electors by circular, and why they were now of opinion that altered circumstances render it desirable to abandon the plan. I do not see what answer I could give to this except that it was their affair, not mine; that having been asked my opinion I had given it, and that it is unchanged; but that I am not a candidate, and have no right or wish to take the management of the election into my own hands. I therefore wrote the following letter: [Here JSM copies Letter 835].

Edition: current; Page: [1072]

My private opinion is, that they made a mess of the matter, and spoiled their chances of great public good and great honour to themselves, by not acting on the plan at first; but that they have let the time go by; that they would stultify themselves by adopting it now, and (especially after Shelley’s retirement)3 would bring on themselves bitter reproaches for dividing the liberal interest, which they are not the men to be capable of facing. My opinion of them is greatly lowered, and I doubt much if they have it in them to bring in even one candidate. Mr Beal is evidently not a typical, but a much too favourable specimen of them.

If you decide to start independently, I will subscribe, as I said. I do not think either of us will be elected. I would at present lay considerable odds on Grosvenor and Smith.

The details in your letters interest me very much and some of them are really important, for purposes much beyond this election.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Of course this letter is private, and only for yourself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 26. 1865

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

837.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

June 26. 1865

Dear Chadwick

A very urgent letter which I have received this morning from Mr Westerton seems to make it necessary that I should return immediately, as it is due to those who have taken so much trouble about me that I should not give them the impression that for my own convenience I expose them to the probable frustration of all their endeavours. I shall therefore be at Blackheath next Friday morning, and shall probably see Mr Westerton and perhaps the Committee on the same day.2 I shall apparently be obliged to attend also a meeting of the electors, though by doing so I shall in some degree alter the original character of my candidature, which I had wished to preserve.

As I expect to see you so soon, I need not touch on any other topic.

Ever, dear Chadwick
yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1073]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 26, 1865

Avignon

Charles Westerton

Westerton, Charles

838.

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

Avignon

June 26, 1865

.

Dear Sir

Your letter, which I have just received, leaves me no alternative but to comply with the wish which you so strongly express. I will therefore return to England immediately, and shall arrange so as to arrive early on Friday the 30th.

I shall be happy to attend the Committee or to call on you personally on that or any following day, if you will kindly write to Blackheath Park fixing the place and time.

I am Dear Sir
Very truly yours

J. S. Mill.

Charles Westerton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 30. 1865

Blackheath Park

Charles Westerton

Westerton, Charles

839.

TO CHARLES WESTERTON1

Blackheath Park

June 30. 1865

Dear Sir

Having been informed by you that a proposal has been received from Capt. Grosvenor’s Committee, for a personal conference between Capt. Grosvenor and five members of his Committe on the one part, and myself and five members of your Committee on the other, to discuss the possibility of cooperation between the two bodies; I beg to say, that I can have no objection whatever to a conference between the two Committees for the proposed purpose, but that I cannot personally take any part in it. I have from the first declared that I am not a candidate, in the ordinary sense of the term; that I do not offer myself to the electors, but that, if thought worthy of the honour of being elected, I will do my best to serve them. To engage personally in a negociation with another candidate, would be not only to assume the character which I have disclaimed but to take into my own hands, in a certain degree, the management of the election. That management must rest, as it has hitherto done, wholly with your Committee; with whose judgment respecting the Edition: current; Page: [1074] mode of conduct which most conduces to the furtherance of the liberal interest, I have neither the wish nor the right to interfere.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Charles Westerton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 2, 1865

Blackheath Park

Harriet Isabella Mill

Mill, Harriet Isabella

840.

TO HARRIET ISABELLA MILL1

Blackheath Park

July 2, 1865

Dear Harriet

I duly received your packet, but thought it best to put off signing the document till I got my signature witnessed in London. Having now done so, I dispatch it to Mr. Paterson2 by the first post.

There is no occasion to send stamps.

I am glad that you have got to the end of your troubles in this matter.

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 6, 1865

Blackheath Park

Edwin Arnold

Arnold, Edwin

841.

TO EDWIN ARNOLD1

Blackheath Park

July 6, 1865

Dear Sir

I am very much indebted to you for your note, as well as for your most energetic and most valuable support. I did not get the note until I had finished my speaking for the evening2 except in answer to questions. If any one had come, as I fully expected, primed with questions out of the Morning Advertiser,3 Edition: current; Page: [1075] I was prepared to enter upon the subject you mention.4 But as no one said anything about it, I thought it best to say nothing either. If I should be troubled on the subject at any of the other meetings I have to attend (which does not now seem likely) I shall be ready to face the assailants. But (thanks partly to you) I have now such a multitude of defenders5 that they would carry me through almost any attacks—saying and doing much more for me than I should choose to say or do for myself.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edwin Arnold Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 6. 1865

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

842.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

July 6. 1865

Dear Chadwick

Though I hope you have gone to Evesham, I write to say that when I went to the meeting yesterday evening,2 the Committee had already come to an arrangement with Grosvenor’s Committee,3 in the bona fides of which they seemed to have complete confidence so that there was nothing for me to do but to acquiesce in it. I had copies made of the draft of my speech, but as the reports of the previous meeting4 were so satisfactory, I made no use of them, and those of this morning give me no reason to regret that I did not. You will have seen in the Daily News, and doubtless in the Telegraph,5 Edition: current; Page: [1076] the onslaught I made on the money power. The Times report,6 though otherwise good, has cut down, or rather cut out, all that related to that subject. I have to speak at meetings tonight, Saturday, and Monday. Happily Monday’s must be the last.7 The meeting was very enthusiastic, and every one seemed very confident. Qui vivra verra. I shall only believe in success when I see it; and, success or not, shall always regret that the original plan was not tried. The probable loss of some liberal seats even metropolitan ones, through too many or bad candidates, will make the liberal managers see what they ought to have done when it is too late to retrieve the error. I am

Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 13 [1865]

Blackheath-park

W. L. Harvey

Harvey, W. L.

843.

TO W. L. HARVEY1

Blackheath-park

,

July 13 [1865]

Dear Sir,—

The suggestion2 you make of an optional secrecy of voting has been made before, but it has always appeared to me to be liable to all the objections against the ballot without having its advantages; since an elector who asked for the ballot would, by doing so, be considered to declare that he intended to vote in opposition to the influence exerted over him; and Edition: current; Page: [1077] the influence which is strong enough to induce him to vote against his convictions would be strong enough to compel him to give his vote openly as long as he had the option of doing so. Electors who are tradesmen may be some times exposed to coercive influence from both sides; but in that case I should expect that both sides, or at all events the one which thought itself strongest, would insist on the elector’s voting openly, in order that they might know whether they could depend on him.

You are at liberty to publish my letter.

I am, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 13, 1865

Blackheath Park

844.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

,

July 13, 1865

Dear Sir—

. . . In spite of Mr. Hill’s drawing back about the Wolverhampton Plate-Lock Makers,2 the papers which have been sent to me from both sides, and especially the report of the correspondent of “Aris’s Birmingham Gazette,”3 confirm me in my opinion that the Co-operators are wholly in the right.

I am, dear Sir, very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 14 / 65

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

845.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

July 14 / 65

Dear Sir

Would this day week Friday the 21st, suit you and Mrs Cairnes for coming here about 12 o’clock and going with us to Chiselhurst returning here to Edition: current; Page: [1078] dinner? If Mr Conway2 would do us the favour of accompanying you, he would see some very pretty country of the English type, and would give me the pleasure I much desire of seeing and conversing with him.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 14, 1865

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

846.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

July 14, 1865

Dear Sir

To begin with the most pressing—there does not exist any photograph of me; but I have been so urged to have one taken, that I have been obliged to make up my mind to it, and I promise that you shall have one of the very first copies.2

I cannot thank you enough for the trouble you have taken in sending me such a number of cuttings from newspapers &c which I should not otherwise have seen, and for which even in a pecuniary sense I must be considerably your debtor. We are hoping to see you and Mrs Plummer very soon but are still so overloaded with occupations we cannot put off, that we have not been able yet to fix a day when we can ask you to give us that pleasure.

In haste
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 17, 1865

William George Ward

Ward, William George

847.

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

[After

July 17, 1865

]

It gives me much pleasure that you sympathise so completely with me on the subject of the Westminster election. That you were sure to feel with me Edition: current; Page: [1079] as to the passage of my book for which I have been attacked,2 I could not doubt after reading your book on Nature and Grace.3 Let me add that (whatever may be my opinion of Ultramontanism) I know far too much both of your writings and of yourself to be in any danger of mistaking you for a ‘bigot.’4 Few people have proved more fully than you not only their endeavour but their ability to do ample justice to an opponent.

[Mill wrote also at considerable length on the Galileo case,5 and the essay was partially recast in deference to his criticism.]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 18, 1865

Blackheath Park

Jane Mill Ferraboschi

Ferraboschi, Jane Mill

848.

TO JANE MILL FERRABOSCHI1

Blackheath Park

July 18, 1865

Dear Jane

Though extremely busy, I write these few words to thank you for your congratulations,2 and to wish you, though it is past the day, many happy returns of your birthday. I am quite well, and am glad to hear a good account of your health and that of all your family. The cause of my not having called on you is that it is many years since I have passed more than a few hours at Paris. I regretted that some time ago when you were in England, my absence prevented me from seeing you. Helen desires her kind regards.

J.S.M.

Edition: current; Page: [1080]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 21, 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Henry Franks

Franks, Henry

849.

TO HENRY FRANKS1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

July 21, 1865

.

Dear Sir—

I have been prevented by much occupation from sooner acknowledging your letter dated the 14th.

The difficulty which you feel I understand to be this: how is the opinion that Christianity might have been extinguished by persecution, compatible with the belief that God intended & preordained that Christianity should subsist?2 I conceive there is no inconsistency between the two opinions. If Xtianity would have perished had it been persecuted in a certain manner, if God had preordained that it shd not perish, the reasonable inference is that God preordained that it should not be persecuted in that manner. The preservation of Xtianity thus brought about would be no “accident” but part of the divine plan.

The relation between means & ends is quite compatible with a providential government of human affairs. It is only necessary to suppose that God, when he willed the end, willed the means necessary to its accomplishment. If the Maker of all things intended that a certain thing should come to pass, it is reasonable to suppose that provision was made in the general arrangements of the universe for its coming to pass consistently with these arrangements.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 21. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Henry Lyttelton

Lyttelton, William Henry

850.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM HENRY LYTTELTON1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

July 21. 1865

Dear Sir—

I thank you most sincerely for your Tract2 which I have read with very great pleasure & sympathy. Though I had read several papers belonging to the same series & was well acquainted with your name & character I had not happened to see this tract. You had a strong case & you have stated Edition: current; Page: [1081] it well & effectively, & above all, like one who feels its importance. I cannot conceive how any other view than that which you take, of the question raised by Mr Mansel,3 can be deemed religious, or Christian; & I felt sure that in maintaining, from my own point of view, the same conception of religious duty, I shd be in complete sympathy with the best part of the religious world—using that phrase in its literal & not in its slang acceptation. Accordingly the manner in which so many of the greatest ornaments of the C[hurch] of E[ngland] lately came forward4 to share the responsibility of a doctrine which coming from me was called atheistic & satanic,5 did not cause me half so much pleasure from its connexion with myself as because it so fully justified the perfect confidence I had in their high feelings & principles. It causes me no surprise but additional pleasure that you so fully participate in the same convictions & sentiments.

I return as desired your letter in the Guardian6 with thanks for the pleasure it has given me.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 23. 1865

Blackheath Park

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

851.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Blackheath Park

July 23. 1865

My dear Sir

Allow me, in thanking you for your kind congratulations on the result of the Westminster election, to congratulate in my turn, not you, but the electors of South Lancashire,2 on having placed themselves in the honourable position Edition: current; Page: [1082] which another constituency has so unwisely relinquished. Though your reelection for the University under the new circumstances would have been, both personally and publicly, a great triumph, the opposite result is not any real loss, it being obvious to everybody that, but for the new mode of voting, you would have been returned by a large majority. If the temporary check to the Liberal party had indicated a retrograde movement at Oxford, it would have been a serious matter. But the country knows that the real University, the resident members of the body, are clear of the discredit of this party move, and that, with them, you are stronger than ever. It is even possible that this disappointment, by stimulating the Liberal party in the University to increased exertions, may ultimately be as great a help to the cause of improvement as even your reelection would have been.

I am My dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 25, 1865

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

852.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

July 25, 1865

Dear Sir

I hope to be able to give you a photograph soon, but I have not yet received a proof from the artist. As soon as I have a likeness in a state to be sent to you I will send it.

Hoping to see you and Mrs Plummer on Sunday I am

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 28, 1865

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

853.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

July 28, 1865

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your note.

My usual conditions with my publishers are the ordinary half profit plan for a single edition—the number of copies to be at the discretion of the publisher Edition: current; Page: [1083] and the copyright to remain with me. This is what I should propose for the Comte papers, if agreeable to Mr Trübner.2 I should wish to revise the articles before they are sent to the printer.

I shall be very glad to hear of any further applications of your discovery.3 If it proves applicable to cholera, it will be still more important than it is already shewn to be. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 28 [1865]

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

854.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

July 28 [1865]

Dear Sir

I wrote last Sunday to ask if you and Mrs Plummer would do us the pleasure of dining with us next Sunday July 30 at six o’clock. I have since received a note from you and not being sure when yours was written, do not know whether you have received mine. I should be glad to know whether we may count on the pleasure of seeing you.

I hope the photograph will soon be ready.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 30. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

855.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

July 30. 1865

Dear Sir

I have been long under an engagement to review Mr Grote’s book for the Edinburgh2—and shall scarcely have time to do that, much less to write another review also,3 before the meeting of Parliament. I sympathize much in your difficulty, as it is not easy to find writers who are sufficiently familiar Edition: current; Page: [1084] both with Plato and with philosophy, without being full of wrong ideas on the latter, if not on both. I can think of no one who is not likely to have been already thought of by yourself. Have you asked Professor Bain?4

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 31, 1865

Blackheath

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

856.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Blackheath

July 31, 1865

Dear Sir—

In revising my Logic for a new edition2 I have arrived at the places where your son pointed out an error—viz, in my numerical estimation of the probability arising from the addition of two independent improbabilities (Vol. 2. Ch. 23 § 6 of the third book). I find to my very great regret that I have mislaid the paper which contained the discussion of the point, and though I was convinced at the time, I have not been able to reason out for myself the estimation of the compound probability in the case supposed. Though I greatly regret giving you the trouble, I should feel it a great favour if you would kindly put on paper the few sentences which would be sufficient to make me once more understand the matter as it really is.

I ought not to need this additional assistance but though it is my own fault, I think it better to ask for instruction on the subject than to go without it.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Wednesday [Aug. 2, 1865]

Penzance

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

857.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

Penzance

(Queen’s Hotel)

Wednesday [Aug. 2, 1865]

Thanks dear for taking the trouble to write an abstract of so many letters. None of them need be sent, or need be answered till I come back, except Edition: current; Page: [1085] Thornton’s.2 To him I will write tonight or tomorrow & I quite agree with you about not taking any notice of Smith’s letter.3 It is very possible that the creature thinks he has not committed any corruption, for that sort of person squares his conscience by the law, entirely.

I rather think I shall not return till Monday, but I will write again to say. Irvine4 seems rather inclined to stay on, and there is plenty to do botanically for a much longer time. We have been successful thus far—fine though showery weather (I have brought & worn a waterproof) & plenty of plants but I have not been so well as I expected to be having had diarrhoea which is going off but has not quite left me. I cannot write more as I am keeping Irvine from his dinner to save the post.

Yours ever affectionately

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 8. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Richard Congreve

Congreve, Richard

858.

TO RICHARD CONGREVE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

.

Aug. 8. 1865

Dear Sir—

It is precisely because I consider M. Comte to have been a great thinker, that I regard it as a duty to balance the strong & deeply felt admiration which I express for what I deem the fundamental parts of his philosophy by an equally emphatic expression of the opposite feeling I entertain towards other parts.2 It is M. Comte himself who, in my judgment, has thrown ridicule on his own philosophy by the extravagances of his later writings; & since he has done so, I conceive that the mischief can only be corrected if those who desire to separate the first from the last, shew that they are as much alive to the ridiculous side of his character & speculations as those are who are unable to appreciate his greatness. Unless this separation can be effected, either the Edition: current; Page: [1086] absurdities will weigh down the merits or the merits will float the absurdities, & since many of those last are, in my estimation, of such a kind that if it were impossible to laugh at them it would be necessary to denounce them seriously & severely, I am glad that the former side of the alternative is possible. Forgive the freedom with which I express what I know must appear to you not only error & prejudice, but want of due modesty & reverence. But any weaker terms would not put you in full possession of what I feel in the matter, on which feeling must rest the justification of the tone of the article. In saying that the offence I feared I might give would be unintentional I did not mean that it would be unforeseen, but only that such a consequence of my free speaking on the subject would be one which I shd sincerely regret. I earnestly disclaimed, near the beginning of the second article, any feeling but that of respect towards M. Comte’s persistent disciples, and I am bound to acknowledge the extreme courtesy of your letter, in circumstances which would have excused in my eyes some vehemence of language.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 8. 1865

Blackheath Park

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

859.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 8. 1865

Dear Sir

I have to thank you for three or four notes which want of time prevented me from answering when I received them. I congratulate you on the triumphant return of Mr Cowen for Newcastle,2 and I regret that the attacks on you should have prevented the realization of your hopes in regard to the Secretaryship.3

The Affirmation Bill4 must not be suffered to drop in consequence of Sir John Trelawny’s absence from the House.5 His non-election is one of the Edition: current; Page: [1087] greatest of the few losses which advanced opinions have sustained in this Parliament.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 8. 1865

Blackheath Park

Thomas Henry Huxley

Huxley, Thomas Henry

860.

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 8. 1865

Dear Sir

I suppose that the projected International Education Society2 is intended to carry out the plan concerning which a good deal has been written by Professor Lorimer of Edinburgh.3 The idea seems to me a good one, but I should hardly place it in the foremost rank of the improvements which require to be made in education, and in any case I could not afford to give any time to it, or incur any responsibility. I do not know whether being one of the Vice Presidents would imply more than a general good opinion of the undertaking, grounded on confidence in some of the names of the list of Directors.

I should like also to know more precisely what attitude the mode of education will hold towards Theology.4

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Professor Huxley

Edition: current; Page: [1088]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 9. 1865

Blackheath Park

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

861.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 9. 1865

Dear Sir

Your letter is clear and conclusive, and, together with my own letter grounded on your previous one,2 makes the truth perfectly obvious in the case to which they apply, viz. the comparative probabilities of the different causes which may have produced a known effect. But it is not quite so easy to apply the same principle to cases in which there is no known effect to be accounted for, but the antecedent probability of an unknown fact is to be estimated from mere statistics. Take the case in its most general form, as it stands in my book: Two of every three As are Bs, three of every four Cs are Bs, what is the probability that something which is both an A and a C is a B?3

The beginning of the argument runs smoothly enough. If the thing is a B, something must be true which is only true twice in every thrice, and something else which is only true thrice in every four times, and this coincidence will only happen six times in twelve. If the thing is not a B, something must be true which is only true once in every thrice, and something else which is only true once in every four times, and this coincidence will only happen once in twelve times; making the comparative probabilities six to one. But what becomes of the other five cases in this statement? In the case of the two witnesses these five cases are put out of count, being cases in which the two witnesses give opposite testimonies, which in the case in question it is known they have not done. But what is the equivalent of this exclusion in the more general theorem? It seems to me that in this, the a posteriori falsity is replaced by an a priori impossibility, since the remaining five cases, implying that the thing is both B and not B, involve a contradiction.

There is something, to my mind, a little louche about this reasoning, which makes me wish for your sanction to it before I make use of it. Is there not something absurd in a theory of 12 possible cases of which 5 turn out impossible? In the case of the witnesses, the five cases are not impossible, but it is merely known that the particular instance is not one of them. But in the general form of the theorem it would seem as if there were twelve cases, in six of which one thing is true; in one, another thing; and in the remaining five, nothing.

I thank you for your kind wishes about my health. No doubt I shall be fully occupied with Parliament during the session, but I hope by keeping out of Edition: current; Page: [1089] engagements, to be able to work at other subjects in the vacation. My safeguard is that I have no taste for what is called society; which is the grand consumer of time, energy, and in my case, of animal spirits. As I do not mean to let myself be drawn into that, I hope to have a fair average amount of leisure like other people.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 11. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Plummer

Plummer, John

862.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 11. 1865

Dear Sir

I have now the pleasure of enclosing two carte photographs either of which I give my full consent to your employing, for the purpose of Cassell’s Family Paper.2

I also enclose the very droll letter which you received from North Wales. If you are often expected to communicate universal knowledge by return of post, your duty will be an onerous one. The impatience of your correspondent must have been great, since he could not even wait for an answer in the paper. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 12. 1865

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

863.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 12. 1865

Dear Sir

When I received your article in the Fortnightly Review,2 the reprint of my book on Hamilton was too far advanced to admit of any correcting at the proper place the misconception which you pointed out in p. 536 of the Review. Edition: current; Page: [1090] I consequently added a note at the end of the volume, of which, in case you have not seen it, I enclose a transcript.

I do not find that the distinction between the two senses of the word inconceivable,3 removes or diminishes the difference between us. I was already aware that the inconceivability which you regard as an ultimate test, is the impossibility of uniting two ideas in the same mental representation. But, unless I have still further misunderstood you, you regard this incapacity of the conceptive faculty merely as the strongest proof that can be given of a necessity of belief. Your test of an ultimate truth I still apprehend to be the invariability of the belief of it, tested by an attempt to believe its negative.

I have, in my turn, to correct a partial misunderstanding of my own meaning. I did not assert that a belief is proved not to be necessary by the fact that some persons deny its necessity, but by the fact that some persons do not hold the belief itself; which opinion seems as evident as the other would be absurd.4

On the main question between us your chief point seems to be, that the Idealist argument is reduced to nonsense if we accept the idealist conclusions, since it cannot be expressed without assuming an objective reality producing, & a subjective reality receiving, the impression.5 The experience to which our states of mind are referred, is, ex vi termini, (you think) experience of something other than states of mind. This would be true if all states of mind were referred to something anterior; but the ultimate elements in the analysis I hold to be themselves states of mind, viz—sensations, memories of sensations, and expectations of sensation. I do not pretend to account for these, or to recognize anything in them beyond themselves and the order of their occurrence; but I do profess to analyze our other states of consciousness into them. Now I maintain that these are the only substratum I need postulate; and that when anything else seems to be postulated, it is only because of the erroneous theory on which all our language is constructed, and that if the concrete words used are interpreted as meaning our expectations of sensations the nonsense and unmeaningness which you speak of do not arise.

I quite agree with you, however, that our difference is “superficial rather than substantial”,6 or at all events, need not and does not affect our general mode of explaining mental phenomena. From the first I have wished to keep the peace with those whose belief in a substratum is simply the belief in an Unknowable. You have said what you deemed necessary to set yourself right on the points which had been in controversy between us. I am glad you have done so, and am now disposed to let the matter rest. There will probably be other and more hostile criticisms, by Mansel and others, and if I should think it desirable to reply to them, I could on the same occasion make some remarks Edition: current; Page: [1091] on yours, without the appearance of antagonism which I am anxious to avoid.

I am, Dear Sir,
very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

Since writing this I have seen a clever article in today’s Saturday Review7 which takes my side of the question against yours. It is pleasant to see these abstract questions really and intelligently discussed in a popular periodical.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 13. 1865

Blackheath Park

Edward Wilson

Wilson, Edward

864.

TO EDWARD WILSON1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 13. 1865

Sir

I beg to acknowledge your letter of Aug. 2 respecting Parliamentary Reform and representation of minorities, and to say that I shall be happy to read the pamphlet2 you mention when it reaches me, which it has not yet done.

I am Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

Edward Wilson Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 14. 1865

Blackheath Park

James Beal

Beal, James

865.

TO JAMES BEAL1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 14. 1865

Dear Sir

In consequence of the wish expressed by many of my friends in Westminster to have my likeness, I have sat to a photographer, and the result is the Edition: current; Page: [1092] inclosed cartes of which allow me to request your acceptance. It will therefore be unnecessary that I should comply with the proposals made by Mr Mayall2 and by the Stereoscopic Society.3

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

James Beal Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 18, 1865

Blackheath Park

Thomas Henry Huxley

Huxley, Thomas Henry

866.

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

Blackheath Park

August 18, 1865

Dear Sir

From what you say of the projected School2 I feel no doubt that it will be a good thing, and deserving of support; but I do not see how, with my opinions, I could publicly associate myself as a special supporter and recommender, with any school in which theology is part of the course; for assuredly I do not think that theology ought to be taught in any school; and there are, even at present, schools (the Birkbeck schools)3 in which none is taught; though I am not aware of any schools of that sort for the higher and middle classes, unless it be the London University College School,4 which, I believe is only a day school. It might be useless, in the present state of the public mind to propose such schools, and it may be quite right to support others; but I do not feel that that justifies me in holding myself forth as approving, and partly founding, schools in which a principle I wholly condemn is even partly recognised and acted on. I must wait, therefore, to know more of the actual plan of the institution in this respect, before I can judge how far and in what way I can join in promoting its establishment.

Edition: current; Page: [1093]

When I said that our educational system needs other modifications still more than it needs the due introduction of modern languages and physical science,5 what I had chiefly in view was improvements in the mode of teaching. It is disgraceful to human nature and society that the whole of boyhood should be spent in pretending to learn certain things without learning them. With proper methods and good teachers boys might really learn Greek and Latin, instead of making believe to learn them, and might have ample time besides for science and for as much of modern languages as there is any use in teaching to them while at school. And if science were taught as badly as Greek and Latin are taught, it would not do their minds more good.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 19. 1865

B[lackheath] P[ark]

John Boyd Kinnear

Kinnear, John Boyd

867.

TO JOHN BOYD KINNEAR1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Aug. 19. 1865

Dear Sir—

Having a strong impression that I shd like the book which you did me the favour to send,2 I delayed writing to thank you for it until I shd have had time to read it through.

I have now done so & I not only agree with far the greater part of the opinions expressed but consider the book as of permanent value & shall keep it by me for reference, especially on points connected with our military & naval system, & with law reform.

The chief points on which I differ from you are

1st. I think you ascribe too great influence to differences of race & too little to historical differences & to accidents as causes of the diversities of character & usage existing among mankind.3

2dly. I cannot join with you (glad as I shd be to do so) in thinking that the wages-receiving class, if universally enfranchised would have no class feelings or class opinions as such.4 The fact that the operative classes are divided Edition: current; Page: [1094] on many questions of politics & legislation is equally true of the higher, or the middle class, of landholders, or of capitalists, & is as consistent in the one case as in the other with their holding together as a compact body in cases in which their joint interest is or seems to be involved, or in which any bias arising from their common social position is liable to operate.

I am heartily glad to welcome you as an adherent of a reading & writing qualification. We agree in thinking that this, combined with independence of public charity, should entitle to a vote. I do not find any notice in your book of the principle of representation of minorities or rather, representation of all instead of a number of local majorities. I cannot help wishing that your attention were drawn to a principle which besides its inherent justice and manifold expediency, would be the most important corrective, as I think, of the inconveniences liable to arise from universal suffrage even subject to the condition of reading and writing.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 22. 1865

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

868.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Aug. 22. 1865

Dear Sir

I have read your letter in the Economist.2 It is extremely well done, and I sympathize fully in your feelings, but it does not touch any of my difficulties.

I still think that the proper ground to take is to insist on keeping out of the Senate of the Queen’s University3 any person who is disaffected to the purpose for which that University was instituted, viz. mixed education.4 The Catholic party have a just claim to be represented in the choice of examiners, but none whatever to have a voice in the curriculum of study for any but their own institutions, or the conditions of a degree even for those. These are things to be decided only by the State. If necessary, the subjects of examination ought to be fixed, not by the body which confers degrees, but by the government, or even by act of parliament.

You are quite right to point out the bad consequences which are likely to Edition: current; Page: [1095] follow the present concession,5 even if it cannot be with propriety refused. But the great point is, to insist that the particular scheme of education which the British nation has instituted because it thinks that (for Ireland) it is the best, shall continue to have fair play; and that the enemies of the scheme shall have no voice in deciding how it shall be carried out. This is also the utmost which there is any chance of obtaining; for the ministry cannot retract after the general election what they promised before it. They must either keep their promise, or resign.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 22. 1865

Blackheath Park

George Grote

Grote, George

869.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 22. 1865

My dear Grote

I am sorry to say that this present day is the first time since I left Avignon on which I have been able to resume Plato. The whole time here, since I got clear of the election, has been occupied in preparing a new edition of the Logic;2 which I had hoped to be spared until December and January, when the article for the Edinburgh3 would be finished. But Longman came down on me unexpectedly with a peremptory demand; which I should not be much surprised, after all, to find had been premature. From this pressure, I have been obliged to get through the revision of the Logic in a more summary manner than I had hoped to do, and to content myself with alterations and additions to several chapters which I had once thought of rewriting altogether. I have limited myself to what was indispensable, but have given references to the book on Hamilton on points into which I could not enter at length. I read Professor Grote’s4 book carefully, but found speculations and criticisms much more vague and less tangible than I expected. Bain seemed to think that Edition: current; Page: [1096] the objection to Noumena was important, and merited notice, but, as I understand it, it amounts to little. It is very well to say, why suppose an unknowable entity as the substratum of everything knowable, but the truth seems to be that the Professor merely, with Reid and Hamilton, believes this unknowable entity to be the knowable. Altogether I could make no use of the Exploratio for the improvement of my Logic, and have merely touched upon it briefly in a note.5

I have also (but this was a very slight business) revised the two articles on Comte for republication by Trübner as a small volume. I need hardly say how glad I am that you like them. The parallel which struck you between Comte in his old age and Plato in his, had impressed itself forcibly on my own mind.

I was very happy to infer from Mrs Grote’s letter to Helen, that the visit to Baden was benefitting her health. It is hardly to be expected that her recovery should be rapid from the state of prostration she seems to have been in. All will depend upon her being surrounded for a considerable time with the most favourable circumstances attainable. We are not likely either to see you and her before our departure or to encounter you on the Continent, as we go first to North Germany, and shall make a long though very rapid circuit before settling down to Avignon and Plato. There is now no other heavy work hanging over me before the meeting of Parliament, and the worst that can happen is that I may have to ask Reeve6 for an additional three months, so as to have the whole time up to February available.

Your doubts whether the new employment of so much of my time will on the whole be a good thing, answer to corresponding misgivings of my own. It will depend on what I find myself able to do in Parliament in the way of promulgating useful opinions and adding to improving influences. How much this will be, neither I nor anyone else can know beforehand, but it will be a positive duty for me to try my utmost. On the other point you speak of, the new influences brought to bear on the tone of my writings, I feel quite easy. Those new influences will have no effect at all. I consented to be elected on the footing of not modifying or keeping back a high opinion on account of its being unacceptable to the public or the electors. As much to my own astonishment as to that of others, I actually was elected on that footing, and nothing else that I said or did, had so much success at all the public meetings as that had. As for the social influences which so often corrupt or tame men when they go into Parliament, I shall protect myself against those by keeping out of their way.

An intelligent correspondent of mine in Greece, Mr Leonidas Sgouta,7 has Edition: current; Page: [1097] sent me the inclosed appeal from the Archaeological Society of Athens to those in the Western countries who are interested in Grecian antiquities. You are at the central point of all such, and I cannot better promote the object than by sending the papers to you. I should be very glad to join with others in any subscription for the object.

Ever my dear Grote
Yours most truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 1. 1865

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

870.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Sept. 1. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I am obliged to you for drawing my attention to the official correspondence about the Low2 affair. I should otherwise have overlooked it.

Today, the very day before we leave, I have for the first time been able to look through the pamphlets and documents which you sent to me, and which I now return. Your address to the Social Science Assn is very good,3 and Lord Ebrington’s pamphlet4 is full of good things.

I send a few more of the photographs. If you write before the end of September, it will be best to direct here, as letters, (though not parcels) will be forwarded. After that time direct to Saint Véran, Avignon.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1098]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 1, 1865

Blackheath Park, Kent

William Martin Dickson

Dickson, William Martin

871.

TO WILLIAM MARTIN DICKSON1

Blackheath Park, Kent

,

Sept. 1, 1865

.

Dear Sir

I am sincerely obliged to you for giving me an opportunity of reading the letter of General Cox,2 and your excellent paper in reply.3

You ask me for an opinion. I should hesitate very long before obtruding upon any American, and still more upon the American public, any mere opinion of mine respecting their internal concerns. But it is the concern of all mankind, almost as much as of the United States, that the conquests achieved by your great and arduous struggle should not be, in the very hour of victory, carelessly flung away: and the opinion which you do me the honor to ask is one which I share with so many of the noblest and wisest Americans, that I need have the less scruple in expressing it.

It is certainly some gain to the negroes, and to the principle of freedom, that they have been made even nominally free. I do not pretend that it is nothing, that they can no longer legally be bought and sold. But this is about the amount of all they will have gained, if the power of legislation over them is handed over once more to their old masters, and to the mean whites by whom they are despised as much, and probably hated more, than even by their masters, and who have been fighting these four years to retain them enslaved. If it were not for your State institutions, the case would not be so pressing, for those who have made them free could keep them so. But, once the war power laid down, and the regular course of State government restored, what is to prevent a State legislature chosen by their enemies from making laws under which, unless they resist by force, they will have as little the control of their own actions, as little protection for life, honor, and property, will Edition: current; Page: [1099] in short be, except in a few of the outward incidents of slavery, almost as much slaves as before? To bring this about, it would not even be necessary to enact new laws. It would suffice to leave the old ones unrepealed, by which the testimony of a negro cannot be received against a white. Nay, even were these laws abrogated, nothing more would be needed than partiality and prejudice in the white courts of justice. And would it be consistent with ordinary human nature that such partiality and prejudice should not exist? All this is so evident that even the candidate to whose letter you so ably replied, is quite aware of it; and can suggest no means of averting the evil, except what I agree with you in regarding as the chimerical project, of effecting a local separation between the two races, excluding the negroes from the jurisdiction of the States, and giving them a territorial government apart. It is not to be believed that the President or Congress will entertain such a scheme as this seriously. If, then, they allow the Southern States to reorganize themselves and resume all their constitutional rights without negro suffrage, what is to be done? To abandon the negroes to the tender mercies of those from whom, at so terrible a cost, you have so lately rescued them? No party or set of men in the Free States are so shameless as to propose this combined turpitude and imbecility. But the freedom of the negroes and the self-government of the Southern States as at present constituted, cannot coexist: and if it is determined that, come what will, the former shall be a reality, it must be intended that the latter should be a mere pretence. A censorship will have to be exercised over all the acts, both legislative and administrative, of the State governments; the Federal authorities will by military coercion prevent or set aside all proceedings calculated to interfere with that equality of civil rights which they are bound by every consideration both of duty and of interest to secure to the freed race. And this military dictatorship will have to be continued for a very great length of time; for it is speaking within bounds to say that two generations must elapse before the habits and feelings engendered by slavery give place to new ones; before the stain which the position of slave master burns into the very souls of the privileged population can be expected to fade out.

This is the state of things which the policy now apparently acted on by the Federal Government leads to; but I have too high an opinion of the intentions and feelings of the President, and the practical good sense and determination of the American people, to believe that such a policy will be persevered in. It would be nothing less than electing to rule tyrannically over the whole Southern population, in order to avoid depriving the white half of that population of the power of tyrannizing over the black half.

Instead of restoring to the States lately in rebellion a nominal self-government which, unless you are willing to sacrifice all that has been gained by four years of civil war, can not be suffered to be real, would it not be better Edition: current; Page: [1100] to make the self-government real, but to grant it only to a mixed community, in which the population who have been corrupted by vicious institutions will be neutralized by black citizens and white immigrants from the North?

And what is the hindrance to this in the minds of the President and his cabinet? Is it scruples about legality? To be scrupulous about exceeding his lawful powers, well becomes the first magistrate of a free people. But in this case the scruple seems wholly out of place. We are told that the rebel States must be assumed never to have been out of the Union, and therefore to be unconditionally entitled to all their original liberties and powers the moment they condescend to accept them. Reason would say, on the contrary, that by declaring themselves independent of the Union, they could not indeed, divest themselves of its obligations, but certainly forfeited its privileges. A state of civil war suspends all legal rights, and all social compacts, between the combatants. Except under the terms of a capitulation, defeated rebels have no rights but the universal ones of humanity. The Southern people, their lives, bodies, and estates, were by the issue of the war, placed at the discretion of their conquerors; but of conquerors whom both the general law of right, and the special principles of their own social and political institutions, forbid to exercise permanent dominion over any human beings as subjects, or on any other footing than that of equal citizenship. It would, however, be on the part of the Free States a generosity partaking of silliness, were they to give back to their bitter enemies not only power to govern themselves, and the negroes within their limits, but (through representatives in Congress,) to govern the Free States too, without first exacting such changes in the structure of Southern society as will render such a relation between them and the Free States rational and safe. If you have not a right to do this, you had not a right to impose the abolition of Slavery. Consider what an element you are going once more to admit into the supreme government of the Union. Think of this one thing—it is but one of many. Every Southern member of Congress, elected without negro suffrage, is a sure vote for that blackest and most disgraceful breach of faith, which would brand American democracy and popular government itself with a mark that would endure for generations—the repudiation of the war debt. The Southern representatives, in fact, would be the only members of Congress who could honestly vote for this; since to their minds, unless the Confederate debt is recognised too, it would seem only equal justice. This is of itself a sufficient reason why no community, composed exclusively or principally of those who have been engaged in the rebellion, is fit to have a voice in Congress. Of course the States have to be readmitted: to keep them out, and govern them as subjects, would be in contradiction to all the principles of the American or any other free constitution. But the future history of America perhaps for ages to come, depends (I cannot but think) upon your requiring them, before admission, to give Edition: current; Page: [1101] guarantees to freedom, by admixture with fellow citizens whose interests and feelings are in unison with justice and with the principles of the Free States. Migration from the North will do this in time and in part, but only negro suffrage can do it sufficiently.

I have no objection to requiring, as a condition of the suffrage, education up to the point of reading and writing; but on condition that this shall be required equally from the whites. The poor whites of the South are understood to need education quite as much as the negroes, and are certainly quite as unfit for the exercise of the suffrage without it.

I am Dear Sir,
yours, very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

Hon. Judge Dickson

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 2. 1865

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

872.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Sept. 2. 1865

Dear Sir

The “middle course” which you seem to think not feasible2 would, I think, consist in making the Board which confers degrees totally distinct from any of the Colleges, and depriving it of all authority over them. Perhaps the best mode would be to place the whole affair under the University of London,3 appointing, as you suggest a few persons in the confidence of the Ultramontanes4 to seats in the Senate. If this is objected to, it seems to me that a similar body, named by the Government, and in which the Ultramontanes should be represented but not to the extent of half, should be created for Ireland. They are not entitled to half. The Catholic religion is entitled to half, but not any particular section of the Catholic body. The Government would merely in appointing Catholics take care to appoint some of the Ultramontane party, instead of taking care to exclude that party.

But I am afraid there is little chance of getting this, or anything like it, Edition: current; Page: [1102] assented to by the Government or Parliament. Jacta est alea5 I fear. But there must be a stir made in the House, in which I hope to help.

We leave this evening (Saturday). It will be best to write to Blackheath Park up to the end of September; after that to Saint Véran, Avignon. In haste

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 13. 1865

Berlin

George Howell

Howell, George

872A.

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

Berlin

Sept. 13. 1865

Dear Sir

I thank you sincerely for your letter and its enclosures.2 Your details are of importance by shewing that a strike, when extending to an entire trade, or even to a great part of it throughout the country, is sometimes remarkably successful. But you seem to argue that the benefit to the operators is not at the expense of the employers, being, I suppose, reimbursed to them by the increased price of the article in which they deal, being, in the present case, houses. Now this might, and often would, happen in a single trade, but you have not, perhaps, considered that it could not happen if the rise of wages extended to all, or the generality, of trades. I could shew that there could not possibly be, in that case, an equivalent rise of general prices. But I content myself with saying that even if there was, it would not compensate the employers, since a rise of price extending to all things is merely nominal. Besides, a rise of wages accompanied by an equivalent rise of all prices would be no benefit to the labouring classes.

I think you will find, on consideration, that though a partial rise of wages may be at the expense of the consumer, a general one is always at that of the employer; which however is far from being, with me, a reason for not desiring it. I am Dear Sir

Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Mr George Howell

Edition: current; Page: [1103]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 25. 1865

Munich

John Boyd Kinnear

Kinnear, John Boyd

873.

TO JOHN BOYD KINNEAR1

Munich

Sept. 25. 1865

Dear Sir—

Many thanks for your long & interesting letter. It is well that those who agree as much as we do shd occasionally discuss their points of difference, if only for the sake of suggesting to each other matter for further thought. I will therefore add a few words by way of rejoinder confining myself at present to your third point, the extension of the suffrage.2

My experience agrees with yours as to the greater mental honesty, & amenability to reason, of the better part of the working classes, compared with the average of either the higher or middle. But may not this reasonably be ascribed to the fact that they have not yet, like the others, been corrupted by power? The English working classes have had no encouragement to think themselves better than, or as good as, those who are more educated than themselves. But once let them become the ascendant power & a class of base adventurers in the character of professional politicians will be constantly addressing them with all possible instigations to think their own crude notions better than the theories & refinements of thinking people, & I do not deem so highly of any numerous portion of the human race as to believe that it is not corruptible by the flattery which is always addressed to power.

The vertical divisions of opinion which you speak of seem to me to belong to the past, & to be almost wholly the effect of bad laws, now mostly removed. Who ever thinks of opposition of interest or feeling between the agricultural & the trading classes now that the corn laws have been repealed?3 But the division between labourers & employers of labour seems to me to be increasing in importance, & gradually swallowing up all others, & I believe it will be always widening & deepening unless, or until, the growth of Cooperation practically merges both classes into one. And if either of the two powers is strong enough to prevail without the help of an enlightened minority of the opposite class, it seems to me contrary to all experience of human nature to suppose that it will not abuse its power. There is no considerable opposition of apparent interest among the different kinds of manual labourers. Even if there be any kind of them whose wages do not admit of being raised, which I for one do not believe (much less would they), they would still, I apprehend, vote for a law which they thought would raise the wages of others, since the rise would not be at their expense. Neither is it only on the question of wages, or hours of labour, that the poorest & most Edition: current; Page: [1104] numerous class would feel a common interest as against the propertied classes; might they not be tempted to throw all taxes on property—or even on realised property—& to make the taxes heavy in order, by their outlay, to benefit as they might think, trade & labour? Does anyone think them sufficiently enlightened to have outgrown these fallacies? I am expressing all this very crudely for want of time & space, but “I speak as to wise men—judge ye what I speak.”4

I heartily wish you were in the H. of C. to speak there the whole of your book5 & many things besides. But perhaps the wish will appear to you like that of the fox who had lost his tail.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 14, 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

874.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 14, 1865

.

Dear Sir

There has lately been forwarded to me from Blackheath a note from Mr Walford,2 one of the editors of “Once a Week”, saying that he had been asked to suggest a proper person to go out to India to edit a daily paper, with a good salary guaranteed for three years certain, a knowledge of commercial politics being one of the requisites. He wished to know whether I thought you qualified for such a post, as if so he should like to recommend you for it. I was in some difficulty in giving a distinct answer to Mr Walford’s question, from not knowing exactly what he meant by commercial politics, nor knowing completely what commercial questions you had attended to. I stated to him this difficulty, but said that I thought you quite competent to the editing and much of the writing of such a paper as he mentioned. I did not, however, say anything leading him to suppose either that you would, or that you would not, be likely to accept such a position, not knowing whether it would be more agreeable to you than your present one. I have heard nothing further from Mr Walford, but I think it as well to mention to you what has passed on the subject. It is at any rate an additional instance of a favourable impression made by you.

We are now here till the meeting of Parliament. With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1105]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 18. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

William Fraser Rae

Rae, William Fraser

875.

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 18. 1865

Dear Sir

I have a strong impression that you are well qualified for the Professorship for which you propose offering yourself,2 but have some difficulty in specifying the grounds of that impression with the precision and detail desirable in a testimonial. I inclose a few lines, but I should not be surprised if they were quite insufficient to be of use to you.

I am sorry that you have had so serious an illness, but very glad that you have got so much better. Your letter is the first information I have had that you are no longer editor of the Reader. I have heard nothing of its affairs since I saw you beyond being invited to a meeting to ratify the sale to some one whose name I do not remember to have heard you mention.3 I was in hopes that in changing proprietors the paper would not have lost its Editor. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

W. F. Rae Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 23. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Moncure Daniel Conway

Conway, Moncure Daniel

876.

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 23. 1865

Dear Sir

I cannot thank you enough for Mr Wendell Phillips’ admirable speeches.2 I was not aware that he was so thorough an adherent of not only representation of minorities, but what is much more, personal representation—the Edition: current; Page: [1106] representation of every elector: that great idea of which the credit, though Mr Phillips seems to give it to me, is exclusively due to Mr Hare. It is hardly possible to state the merits of the principle more forcibly, or with a more thorough understanding of all its importance, than Mr Phillips has done. It is indeed at once a direct corollary from the first principles of democracy, and a most powerful corrective of all evils liable to arise from the forms of democratic government hitherto in use. That Mr Phillips should have taken it up, and in the manner he has, is most cheering and auspicious. I was not aware of the publication he mentions, and should like very much to see it.

I beg that you will express my warmest thanks to Mr Phillips for his correction of my unintentional misrepresentation of the Abolitionists—to whom, I hope I need not say that I meant no disparagement, having always regarded them as the élite of their country, not to say of their age. I have been much gratified by receiving so strong a confirmation, from such authority, of my opinion concerning Tocqueville, which I shall now hold with increased confidence.

I have not, however, been convinced by Mr Phillips’ argument against an educational qualification.3 It is very true that intelligence, and even a high order of it, may be formed by other means than reading, and even (though, I think, rarely) without the aid of reading: but not, I think, intelligence of public affairs, or the power of judging of public men, save perhaps in exceptional cases, too few to affect the practical conclusion. At the present crisis, however, the securing of equal political rights to the negro is paramount to all other considerations respecting the suffrage. I should be glad to think that you are strong enough to reject a compromise admitting negroes on an educational qualification common to them with the whites. As things look now, it seems as if even that would be a thing to be thankful for.

The author of the article “Enfranchisement of Women” would have been Edition: current; Page: [1107] well rewarded by the progress which that question is making, had she lived to see it.4 Nothing would have gratified her more than to hear on such high authority that a cause to which she was so earnestly devoted had been in any degree forwarded in America by what she wrote.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Do you wish the two numbers of Mr Garrison’s paper5 to be returned?

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 25, 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

877.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 25, 1865

Dear Sir

I have to thank you for three letters2 which have been reproaching me ever since they were forwarded from Blackheath. The one on probability I was obliged to lay by for reperusal. This I have now been able to give to it and I seem to myself to follow the reasoning and agree with it. You have probably observed the correction I made on the point in question in the new edition of my Logic.3 It will probably now require a supplementary one. If the edition were still unpublished I would have asked you for a short note with leave to insert it as yours.

I agree with you about the misuse of prepositions, but is “averse to” a case of it? Undoubtedly we ought to have said averse from; but did writers in any [era?] of English literature, say so?

When I refer to a former “book,” I always mean liber not opus. The confusion is only pardonable in conversation where the context usually clears it up.

Edition: current; Page: [1108]

I have sometimes thought I ought to have some mark for alterations and additions. But one could scarcely give distinctive marks to all the successive strata of new matter, and a mere note of distinction from the edition immediately previous would not answer the [purposes of] those readers who only possess a still earlier one.

I well remember our meeting long ago, on the occasion you refer to, and I have retained ever since a vivid impression of your personal appearance. By the way, the phrenological indications in your letter do not by any means tally with what knowledge I possess of my own character; but I refrain from saying in what they differ from it, as I am not [—?] to shew up my weak points.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 25. 1865

Avignon

Maurice Wakeman

Wakeman, Maurice

878.

TO MAURICE WAKEMAN1

Avignon

Oct. 25. 1865

Dear Sir—

Your letter dated Sept. 29 has been forwarded to me here. For the good opinion & good will which it expresses as regards myself I am duly thankful.2 You will scarcely be surprised that the bitter hostility it declares against my country & (with a few individual exceptions) against the whole of my countrymen, produces in me a very different sentiment.

No one disapproves more, or is in the habit of expressing his disapprobation more strongly than I do of the narrow, exclusive patriotism of former ages which made the good of the whole human race a subordinate consideration to the good, or worse still, to the mere power & external importance, of the country of one’s birth. I believe that the good of no country can be obtained by any means but such as tend to that of all countries, nor ought to be Edition: current; Page: [1109] sought otherwise, even if obtainable. If my country were peopled, as you seem to think, by the scum of the earth, & if its existence were a standing nuisance to all other nations, I for one would shake the dust from my feet & seek a better country elsewhere. But, speaking as one who has never kept any terms with national vanity nor ever hesitated to tell his countrymen of their faults & who has especially censured the feelings & conduct of an influential portion of them on the occasion of your late glorious contest, I do not admit the charges brought against them in your letter. England is to the populations of Europe the representative, by no means perfect but still the representative, of the same principles of social & political freedom which Americans so justly cherish. Any weakening of her influence would be simply so much additional discouragement to popular institutions & to liberty of thought, speech, & action throughout the old continents, & strengthening of the hands of despotism, temporal & spiritual, all over the world.

A war between Great Britain & the United States, were such a calamity possible, would give a new lease to tyranny & bigotry wherever they exist, & would throw back the progress of mankind for generations. Let me remind you that what you say about the grasping disposition & aggressive spirit of the English Government & people, is exactly & literally what the ignorant and prejudiced part of the higher & middle classes of Great Britain sincerely think & say concerning America. In neither of the two cases is the accusation true: but the profound ignorance of each other which it exhibits in both countries, is a most serious danger & evil to the world, which all who wish well to mankind must earnestly desire to cure, & which can only be exagerated by the indulgence of such feelings as you express.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 26 octobre 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

879.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 26 octobre 1865

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je vous remercie très sincèrement de l’envoi de votre travail sur la question des origines américaines,2 bien que je ne l’aie point encore vu. Votre lettre m’a été envoyée ici, mais l’Etude se trouve confondue dans la foule d’imprimés de tout genre dont on m’accable, et pour la faire venir ici il faudrait qu’on fît un paquet de plusieurs kilogrammes de fadaises. Ce sera pour moi une lecture bien intéressante lorsque je pourrai la faire. Je ne puis vous recommander Edition: current; Page: [1110] d’autre nom pour recevoir un exemplaire, si ce n’est peut-être celui de la Société Ethnologique, presidée par M. Crawfurd.3

Vous m’avez écrit de Vienne une bien aimable lettre, à laquelle je n’ai pas répondu alors, à cause de l’incertitude de votre adresse, et encore plus par la multitude de mes occupations. Cette dernière raison m’a également empêché de remercier votre frère du bon et amical billet qu’il m’écrivit lors de mon élection. Je vous prie tous deux d’agréer mes excuses, et de croire que je n’en suis pas moins sensible à ces marques d’amitié. Plus on s’avance dans la vie et plus on tient aux vieilles amitiés, même lorsque l’éloignement physique en fait une jouissance surtout de pensée et de conscience.

Je me réjouis que vous vous occupez fortement de votre St Jean.4 Si cette partie est relativement à la hauteur de la première, vous aurez fait un des plus importants ouvrages sur un des plus grands sujets.

Tout à vous

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 29, 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

880.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 29, 1865

Dear Sir:—

I have kept your letter by me unanswered, partly for want of time, and partly in hopes that the delay might enable something to occur to me which would throw light on the rather subtle matter of difference between us which you bring to my notice.2 It is evident that I have again a misapprehension of your opinion to confess and correct, since you do not acknowledge it as yours in the mode in which it is stated by me. We seem to differ on two questions, one a question of fact, viz. whether it is possible, while looking at the sun, to imagine darkness. You, and your three friends, think it is not, while my consciousness seems to tell me that it is quite as possible to imagine darkness in its absence, as anything else in its absence. Of course the stronger present Edition: current; Page: [1111] impression of an actual sensation makes the simultaneous consciousness of a mere recollection seem feeble by comparison. But it appears to me perfectly real, and as like the impression of sense which it corresponds to, as most reminiscences are to their originals.

But, you say, even if I could, under such conditions, imagine darkness, it would not follow that I could imagine that I am actually at the moment looking into darkness. To me it seems, that to imagine an object of sight, is always to imagine myself actually at the moment seeing it. I think one never imagines anything otherwise than as an immediate and present impression of one’s own. Indeed, when the object to be conceived is darkness, there is absolutely nothing else to imagine, than oneself trying to see and not seeing; for darkness is not a positive thing. It seems to me, then, that I can, in broad daylight, conceive myself then & there looking into darkness. Is this the same thing, or not the same thing, as what you mean by the words “conceive that I am then and there looking into darkness”?3 It strikes me that this change of the expression to the form I am, just marks the transition from conception to belief—from an imagination of something thought as absent from the senses, to an apprehension of something which is thought to be present to the senses; of which two states of mind I hold the former to be, in the assumed circumstances, possible, the latter impossible. It was in this way I was led to think that you were here using the word conception in the sense of belief. Even now, I cannot see how the phrase, to conceive that I am, or that anything is, can be consistent with using the word conceive in its rigorous sense.

I am, Dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 30. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Charles Gavan Duffy

Duffy, Charles Gavan

881.

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 30. 1865

Dear Sir

The place from which this note is dated will sufficiently account to you for my not having written to you sooner. Had I been in England, I should have endeavoured to find you out before this. As it is, I can only say that I shall be at Avignon for the next three months and that if your Continental excursion Edition: current; Page: [1112] should lead you this way, I shall be most happy to see you. My address here can be learnt at the Hotel d’Europe.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

C. Gavan Duffy Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

October 30, 1865

Macrae Moir

Moir, Macrae

882.

TO MACRAE MOIR1

October 30, 1865

My absence from England prevented me from receiving your circular . . . but I beg to express my satisfaction at Mr. Masson’s appointment to the Edinburgh Professorship.2

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 4 Novembre 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

883.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 4 Novembre 1865

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

J’avais déjà vu dans un journal la nouvelle de votre mariage,2 et j’ai reçu depuis de Blackheath la carte qui m’en faisait part. Je vous félicite de tout mon coeur, et vous souhaite tout le bonheur que puisse offrir un pareil événement.

J’espère que l’adresse n’indique pas que vous avez définitivement quitté Londres pour demeurer à Brighton. Quoiqu’ il en soit, je n’ai pas besoin de vous dire que lorsque vous et Madame Louis Blanc serez à Londres et que nous serons à Blackheath nous aurons le plus grand plaisir à vous y voir.

Votre affectionné

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1113]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 4, 1865

John Morley

Morley, John

884.

TO JOHN MORLEY1

Nov. 4, 1865

Wherever I might have seen that article,2 I should have felt a strong wish to know who was its author, as it shows an unusual amount of qualities which go towards making the most valuable kind of writer for the general public.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5, 1865

Adam Gurowski

Gurowski, Adam

885.

TO ADAM GUROWSKI1

[Before

Nov. 5, 1865

]

I have read your three volumes . . . and the result is that on their own account as well as on yours, I am desirous that they should be published.2 You have fully established the claim of your view of the last years of American Edition: current; Page: [1114] history, to be heard and considered. Your Diary will be an important part of the evidence which future historians of these great events will have to study. It will be very instructive even in this country.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5. 1865

Avignon

John Nicolaus Trübner

Trübner, John Nicolaus

886.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

Avignon

Nov. 5. 1865

Dear Sir

Though I should like very much to be of service to Count Gurowski, and really think his book2 well worthy of republication, I should not be willing to write an introduction to it, or attach my name to it as Editor. I have abstained hitherto, and prefer still to abstain, from making myself responsible for other people’s writings; and in this book there are so many severe things said of individual politicians, that it would be wrong in me, with no more information than I possess, to make myself a party to them, and hardly possible to put my name to the book without seeming to do so.

Your report respecting the work on Comte is very satisfactory.3 A translation of it into French is in course of being made, with my concurrence, to be published by Germer Baillière.4 With regard to a German translation,5 I have no wish except that it should not be done by an incompetent person. I do not look for any gain from it, and I doubt if it would be worth the while of a publisher to give anything worth taking for the privilege: but if it should so happen, I propose that we should divide equally whatever is obtained.

I do not wish any copies to be sent here; but I should like a copy sent to Professor Fawcett, M.P. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, if he was not on the list I sent you; also to J. S. Storr Esq.6 26 King Street Covent Garden, and Dr Brewer,7 21 George Street Hanover Square.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1115]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 10. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

887.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 10. 1865

My dear Grote

I find myself, from my want of knowledge of the Platonic critics, ignorant of the merits of a question of some importance and difficulty, viz. whether the Platonic Apologia is in substance the real defence of Sokrates. I learn from your book that Schleiermacher and Ueberweg think so,2 and that you are of the same opinion. But on the other hand, the Platonic Apologia is almost wholly different from the Xenophontic,3 which latter professes to be the defence actually made by Sokrates and told to Xenophon by Hermogenes, who is also mentioned in the Phaedon as one of the friends who were with Sokrates at his death.4 Xenophon says,5 indeed, that many more things were said by Sokrates than are included in his report; and the things which Xenophon was likely to omit, would be just those which Plato would relate. But Plato’s report does not profess to omit anything. If both are genuine, we must suppose that each reporter left out exactly what the other took, for there is hardly anything in common to them both, except the allusion to Palamedes.6 Now, in every other case, you seem to regard the Xenophontic, and not the Platonic, as the historical Sokrates. Could you, without much trouble, give me some notion of the reasons for holding the opposite opinion in this particular case?

If the Apologia is not the real speech of Sokrates I do not know why we should consider it as authoritative evidence of the point of view of Sokrates as distinct from Plato. For it seems almost equally unlikely that Plato would have put anything unSokratic into the mouth of Sokrates in the affecting narrative of the last day of his life: yet he does, without scruple, put into his mouth on that day the whole of his own two doctrines of Ideas and Reminiscence, which, as far as I know, neither you nor any one supposes to have been held by Sokrates. These things are a real puzzle to me: an ἀπορια for which I greatly need τον καταλυσοντα.7

Reeve has very courteously consented to wait for the article till the April number,8 which gives me the whole time up to the meeting of Parliament for Edition: current; Page: [1116] completing it. I have not yet written anything, but have read Plato all through, and am now going through your book carefully again, not only referring to Plato frequently, but reading once more quite through some of the most important of the dialogues which I read last spring: Phaedon, Parmenides, Theoctetus, Sophistes, Politikos, &c.

The article in the Westminster on your book9 seems to me very good. I am curious to know who wrote it.

If you have time to answer this, please tell us also how Mrs Grote is, for it is long since we heard.

Ever yours affectionately

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 13. 1865

Avignon

W. O. Adams

Adams, W. O.

888.

TO W. O. ADAMS1

Avignon

Nov. 13. 1865

Sir—

To give a proper answer to your question2 would be to write the essay which you are intending to write. But if you wish for a mere opinion, expressed in few words, I would say,

1. Severe punishments of some kind are often necessary for boys, but only when they have been negligently or ill brought up & allowed to acquire bad habits.

2. Assuming severe punishments to be necessary, any other mode of punishment that would be effectual is preferable to flogging. In the case however of certain grave moral delinquencies chiefly those which are either of a cowardly or of a brutal character, corporal punishment in that or some equivalent form may be admissible.

Edition: current; Page: [1117]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 15. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Rowland G. Hazard

Hazard, Rowland G.

889.

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 15. 1865

Dear Sir

I have been a long time without acknowledging your very interesting letter of July 1. My excuse must be the great quantity of temporary business (including a vast amount of letter-writing) which has come upon me lately, and the necessity of finishing off old engagements before the new and engrossing ones commence.

I hope you at length received the book on Hamilton. I gave a fresh order for sending it to you, having reason to think that the first had not been executed. You will have found less than you probably expected on the Freewill controversy, the object having been, not to give a complete view of the metaphysics of the question, but merely to reply to some objections and resolve certain difficulties. I am glad you were interested by the review of Comte. The remarks on his philosophy in your letter are just and reasonable from your own point of view. Above all, they are clear; a merit which your writings possess in a degree not common with the a priori or spiritualist metaphysicians.

I was happy to find, though it was no more than I expected, that we think exactly alike on the necessity of giving equality of political rights to the negroes. What has just taken place in Jamaica2 might be used as a very strong argument against leaving the freedmen to be legislated for by their former masters. The legislation appears to have been just such as might have been expected, and the consequence is what we see. It seems not at all unlikely that England will have to make a clean sweep of the institutions of Jamaica, and suspend the power of local legislation altogether, until the necessary internal reforms have been effected by the authority of the mother country. How much more needful, then, is it that America should refrain from giving back to the rebel states the rights already forfeited by them, except on such conditions as will secure equal laws and an impartial administration Edition: current; Page: [1118] of justice between colour and colour; which will not and cannot be the case unless the Negroes can serve on juries, and, through the electoral suffrage, have an equal voice in choosing or controlling the judges, or those who appoint them. I felt greatly discouraged a short time ago by the turn which events seemed to be taking; but the published conversation between the President and Mr Stearns3 has revived my hopes; for it seems to shew that Mr Johnson does not differ fundamentally from us; that he only hesitates on the question of time, and is ready even at once to enfranchise the negroes subject to certain conditions, which he would make applicable also to the uneducated whites. If he adheres to this, and also to his declared opinion that non-electors ought not to be counted, even in a fractional proportion, as part of the population that determines the number of Federal representatives; the Republican majority in Congress will be able to act with him, and to prevent any serious mischief.

You must be greatly edified, if you read the English newspapers and periodicals, by their change of tone on American affairs. Those who, at the time of the colonization of New England, used to be called “waiters on Providence,” have changed sides, and are now profuse of panegyrics on the people of the United States. Their praise is of no more intrinsic value than their attacks were before; but it is an additional proof what a great benefit your people have conferred on mankind by shewing what democracy and universal education together can do—how they make a whole people heroes when heroism is required, and peaceful citizens again as soon as the necessity is ended. Most English observers are also much struck by the total absence of vindictive spirit, even under the provocation of Mr Lincoln’s murder. I do not share their surprise, my only fear having been that your people would forgive too easily. But if they only take care not to be forgiving at the Negroes’ expense, I am ready to join in the universal chorus.

We often think and talk of you, both at Blackheath and here, where we first saw you. I hope to hear from you now and then. It is of no consequence whether you direct here or to Blackheath, as letters are promptly forwarded.

Ever, dear Sir, yours truly,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1119]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 24, 1865

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

890.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Nov. 24, 1865

Dear Sir

I have had the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 30th ulto. It is needless to send me the North American Review, as I am already a subscriber to it; but I am always glad to hear from any of the writers and to be enabled to identify an article with its author. The essay on American Political Ideas2 I had read the day before I received your letter. There is a good cause why the Americans are more attached than the people of other countries to the principles of their Constitution; it is because their Constitution has principles. The British Constitution has no principles: it is the unpremeditated and unplanned result of a secular conflict of opposing forces. There are however, principles, not laid down in words, but involved both in the English and in the American institutions, viz. personal freedom; liberty of thought and publication; and, in America, perfect civil equality between one person and another. To these principles the people of each country are strongly attached, but in neither are they thoroughly carried out, though by you far more nearly so than by us. I hope you are going to carry the last of them into effect as between white people and black; after which it will still remain to bring it into operation between men and women.

I have great pleasure in subscribing to every word of the practical exhortations in your concluding paragraphs. Society in the Southern States has to be democratized in law and in fact, on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, otherwise the sufferings and sacrifices of these glorious years will be more than half lost. And this will be easily done if the people of the Northern States do but will it. The opinions, feelings, and entire civilization of the North have made a wonderful stride since the war began. If they are not yet quite up to the final mark, who can blame them? May they reach it before anything irrevocable has been done in restoring the rebel States to their constitutional rights. I am Dear Sir

Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

My address is Blackheath Park, Kent, from whence, in my absence, letters are forwarded.

Edition: current; Page: [1120]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 26. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

891.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 26. 1865

My dear Grote

I am very much indebted to you for taking the trouble to give me such full explanations in answer to my question respecting the Apologia.2 The points you mention in Xenophon and Plato are all familiar to me, but I wanted your appreciation of them, and that you have given me. I had been much struck with the fact that the two authorities are not agreed even as to what the oracle was, though unquestionably they must both have known it. There is also a prima facie objection to the statement of Sokrates in the Apology, that he first commenced his cross-examining Elenchus after he had already been declared by the oracle to be the wisest of men. If the oracle declared this of Sokrates before he set out on the career which has given him all his fame with posterity, the oracle must have had remarkable sagacity and wonderfully good information. However this may be, I understand you to think that Sokrates spoke the substance of what Xenophon ascribes to him, and also matters which, idealized by Plato, became the Platonic Apology;3 and this seems much the most probable supposition which can be made.

I now feel assured how far I can safely build upon the character of Sokrates which the Apology indicates; and that is what I wanted. I do not think it possible, without abridging more important matter, to discuss in the article Plato’s precise relation to Sokrates. His relation to the Sokratic dialectic is the important thing: and, by the aid of your book and of the familiarity I have now acquired with Plato himself, this is not difficult to bring out.

I have written a great part of the article, and see my way clearly to the end of it. There will never, I think, have been as much said about Plato in the same space; but there will not be anything both important and new in it, for you have left nothing to do: except that every fresh turning over of the ground makes some of the things that are turned up look new by some new light which falls on them.

We are very happy to hear your favourable account of Mrs. Grote. Pray give her our kindest regards. I am equally pleased and honoured by your reviewing me for Chapman,4 and I am glad that you take the opportunity of Edition: current; Page: [1121] doing justice to my father.5 My own contribution to his memory is already written in a MS designed for posthumous publication;6 though if I live more than a few years longer, I shall very likely publish it while I am alive.

I am fully and greatly enjoying my last weeks of freedom. The chief occupation of this year has been with Plato, Sokrates, and you: and there could not have been, to me, a pleasanter one.

Ever, my dear Grote
yours most truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 27. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

892.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 27. 1865

Dear Sir

I have received your note, but not the prospectus of the new paper,2 which if sent to Blackheath, would in ordinary course wait there for my return, as though letters are forwarded to me here, printed matter is not. I however expect a parcel from Blackheath in a week or thereabouts, which will probably contain it. I dare say I shall be able to write some sort of letter to you when I have seen the Prospectus, or at any rate after the first number. An article, I am sorry to say, would be quite out of the question with my present occupations.

I have never yet had time to acknowledge your letter of Nov. 11. I am very much obliged to you for all you write, and no less so for not writing solely to forward applications which you are quite right in thinking I should be unable to comply with. I am not surprised at your not accepting the offer of the Indian Editorship,3 and were I in your place I would not accept it either. Your present position, like all others, may have its disagreeables, but they are probably much less than those of the Indian situation, and the connexion is a better one for opening other opportunities both of improving your own condition and of serving your opinions.

Edition: current; Page: [1122]

I am always glad to be told what people say about public affairs; but the remarks mentioned in your letter as made by the Moderate Liberals must come from very moderate Liberals indeed. If (which I am not aware of) the Liberal party is “rapidly approaching a state of complete disorganisation”, the conclusion I should draw would be that it is time for it to dissolve, and organise itself anew on some better basis. I am sure no party can deserve to be kept together which is in danger of being broken up by the accession of two or three persons who are thought likely to speak opinions freely which are in advance of the rest. But the Moderate Liberals are always anxious to stop the mouths of the immoderate ones, and these things are said and printed for the effect it is hoped they may produce on the supposed marplots themselves. I am Dear Sir

with our kind regards to Mrs Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 27. 1865

Avignon

Charles Kinnear Watt

Watt, Charles Kinnear

893.

TO CHARLES KINNEAR WATT1

Avignon

Nov. 27. 1865

Dear Sir

I have this morning had the honour of receiving your letter of the 23rd instant.

At almost any other time than the present I should have felt it a duty to shew my sense of the distinguished honour conferred on me, by accepting the office of Rector and endeavouring to the best of my power to discharge its duties. But it is hardly possible that such a function could have devolved on me more inopportunely than in the circumstances in which I am placed at the present moment, when my whole time is devoted to clearing off longstanding literary engagements which I cannot hope to have completed sooner than the commencement of the Session of Parliament.2 Even, therefore, if it were possible for you to wait a considerable time for the visit which it would be my duty to pay you, I do not know at what time it would be in my power Edition: current; Page: [1123] to pay it. An address fit to be delivered on such an occasion and to such an audience, is a thing which I certainly could not produce off-hand, or with a mind occupied with other engrossing thoughts. Under these difficulties I see no course which I can take but that of respectfully declining the office which has been so flatteringly bestowed on me by the students of the University.3 With sincere thanks for their good will and favourable opinion, I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Charles K. Watt Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 2 Décembre 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

894.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 2 Décembre 1865

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

Je ne puis m’abstenir de vous féliciter des admirables lettres que vous écrivez au Temps sur les déplorables événements qui se sont passés en Jamaïque, et surtout de celle qui a paru le 30 Novembre.2 Rien ne saurait être mieux pensé ni mieux senti que cette lettre. Souhaitons qu’il se trouvera dans le parti libéral de la chambre assez d’hommes de coeur, non seulement pour flétrir dignement les iniquités de la répression, mais pour exiger la punition exemplaire de leurs auteurs. Le ministère et la chambre, voire même la nation, veut donner leur mesure. S’ils laissent faire de pareilles énormités au nom de l’Angleterre, ils n’auront rien à reprocher ni aux Russes en Pologne—qui n’ont jamais fait autant—ni aux Carrier3 et Collot4 de la Révolution française.

Vos observations au le Times sont excellentes; mais on pourrait dire de plus, que dans ce qui regarde les West Indies, ce journal ne représente pas l’opinion publique de l’Angleterre, bien qu’il entraîne trop souvent cette opinion. Vous avez pu remarquer qu’en tout ce qui regarde les nègres, le Times est depuis vingt ans l’organe de l’oligarchie blanche des West Indies. Je ne sais pas quel est l’intérêt, pécuniaire ou social, qui le décide à se ranger Edition: current; Page: [1124] sous cette bannière, mais le fait n’est pas douteux. Le Times n’a-t-il pas fait, pendant de longues années, tout son possible pour forcer ou persuader le gouvernement à retirer l’escadre anglaise des côtes de l’Afrique?5 tentative qu’il n’a abandonnée que lorsque l’impossibilité de réussir a été pleinement constatée. On sait toujours d’avance ce que dira le Times dans tout cet ordre de questions: on est sûr qu’il sera du parti le plus brutalement contraire aux noirs. Il ne serait pas sans utilité que cette liaison du Times avec les intérêts esclavagistes fût connue en France, où généralement on voit dans ce journal un organe de l’opinion anglaise, sans tenir compte des impulsions spéciales et privées qui agissent souvent sur les écrivains du Times comme sur ceux de tout autre journal, et modifient sa mauvaise direction générale par de mauvais caprices particuliers.

tout à vous

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 4. 1865

Avignon

Dr. Henry

Dr. Henry

895.

TO DR. HENRY MacCORMAC1

Avignon

Dec. 4. 1865

Dear Sir—

In answer to your letter of Nov. 29, I would say, that restrictions on marriage, or on any other human action when so conducted as to be directly injurious to others than the agents themselves, do not appear to me objectionable on the principle of Liberty.2 For all our actions which affect the interests of other people I hold that we are morally, & may without violation of principle be made legally, responsible. I have however expressly guarded myself against being understood to mean that legal restrictions on marriage are expedient. That is an altogether different question, to which I conceive no universal & peremptory answer can be given, & in deciding which for any particular case due weight ought to be given to the probability of consequences of the kind you mention as well as of any other kinds.

Edition: current; Page: [1125]

I am glad that you agree with me on the subject (much more urgent in this country) of compulsory education.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 13, 1865

Avignon

James Beal

Beal, James

896.

TO JAMES BEAL1

[

Avignon

]

Dec. 13, 1865

Dear Sir—

I have seen with great pleasure, in the newspapers, the movement which the St. James’s Vestry has originated at your suggestion for the union of all London into one body for municipal purposes, with smaller bodies of the same sort for purposes special to each of the parliamentary divisions.2 I have long wished that an effort in this direction should be made. All the more important town-interests are common to the whole town, and can only be properly attended to by a body representative of the whole; and I quite agree with you that there should be but one such body, and that the functions (for instance) of the Board of Trade should merge into those of the united municipality. I also go entirely along with the proposal to abolish the jurisdiction of the Middlesex magistrates in the metropolis, and to have none but stipendiary magistrates. The only point on which I do not agree with the scheme as reported is the choice of magistrates by the citizens or the municipal body. The proposed corporation ought, of course, to have powers equal to those of other municipal corporations; but it seems to me that the choice of judicial officers is best placed, not with any corporation, but with a minister or great public functionary, who can be held responsible for making a proper choice. As a general rule, skilled professional officers are hardly ever well chosen by numbers; some one person must make it his business to find them and judge of their qualifications. I do not know if this view of the question has been under your consideration, or that of the vestry; but as I hope to aid in bringing your plan before Parliament, I am glad to begin already an interchange of sentiment with you on the subject.3

I am, dear Sir,
very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

James Beal, Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1126]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 14. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

William Fraser Rae

Rae, William Fraser

897.

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 14. 1865

Dear Sir

I imagine that none of the candidates for the Professorship had any chance against Mr Henry Morley.2 I am sorry to hear such an indifferent account of your health, and I regret much that you have been prevented from finishing the article you mention. If you pass through Avignon before we leave for England, we shall be very glad to see you.

I fully intend to read Livingstone’s new book3 when I have time, but I do not know when that will be. There seems likely to be enough doing in Parliament, this session, to occupy all one’s thoughts. There is no part of it all, not even the Reform Bill, more important than the duty of dealing justly with the abominations committed in Jamaica.4 If England lets off the perpetrators with an inadequate punishment, no Englishman hereafter will be entitled to reproach Russia or the French Revolutionists with any massacres, without at the same time confessing that his own country has done worse.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 15. 1865

Avignon

Horace White

White, Horace

898.

TO HORACE WHITE1

Avignon

Dec. 15. 1865

Dear Sir—

Your letter dated Nov 3 has been forwarded to me here. It would be a great satisfaction to me to be able to give any assistance in the struggle which the enlightened friends of Free Trade have to maintain against, I am sorry to say, many Americans whose opinions & feelings on other matters Edition: current; Page: [1127] command my warmest sympathies. I do not despair of being able, some time hence, to write something for the Chicago Tribune of the kind you wish,2 & if so I shall esteem it a privilege to have it accepted without any payment. At present however my time & thoughts are so fully occupied by engagements which must be completed before the commencement of the session of Parlt now near at hand, that I really am not able to undertake any fresh work. What you ask me to do is not easy; I hardly know any point in Pol. Economy which it is more difficult to treat popularly, & so as to carry persuasion to those who have not studied the subject, than that one, of the influence of high & low wages on foreign trade. To understand the matter it is necessary to realize the fact that all trade is in reality barter—that the question is not whether the home capitalist shall produce or not, but whether he shall produce one thing or another—cotton fabrics, for instance, or wheat; & that high wages which must equally be paid in either case, cannot place one of these two modes of employing his capital at any disadvantage by the side of the other. If it was only in cottonspinning that American wages were higher than English, while in agriculture they were equal, then indeed the high wages being peculiar to one employment would really make it more difficult, & perhaps impossible to carry it on without a protecting duty. But in that case it would clearly be an employment unsuited to the country, since labour employed in it would require to be remunerated more highly than the general rate of wages in the country.

It is very difficult to make this argument popular. What one ought to do is, to ask, If high wages are sufficient to make the American cotton manufacturer unable to compete with the English, how is it that the same high wages do not prevent the American farmer from underselling the English, unless because farming is an industry suited to the circumstances of the country & cottonspinning not?

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 20. 1865

Avignon

John Tulloch

Tulloch, John

899.

TO JOHN TULLOCH1

Avignon

Dec. 20. 1865

Dear Sir,

You are probably aware of the causes which have so long delayed my answer to your communication dated the 24 in ulto. Being so situated as to Edition: current; Page: [1128] have no chance of being able to visit Saint Andrews’ for the purpose of delivering an address, at any time when the University will be sitting, earlier than the end of January 1867, I thought it best to make this circumstance known to the students who had done me the honour of electing me, and to be guided by their wishes in accepting or declining the Rectorship. Being informed that, notwithstanding this inevitable delay, it is still the wish of the Students that I should fill the office of Rector, I beg, accordingly, to communicate to you my acceptance of that office. I understand that this intimation should properly be made to the Vice Chancellor.2 I am not able, where I am, to ascertain who is the present holder of that dignity, nor the proper form in which to make the announcement; but I take the liberty of inclosing a communication addressed to him, and of begging that if it be informal, or in any other way insufficient, you will kindly furnish me with the means of rectifying it.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Rev. Principal Tulloch

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 29. 1865

Saint Véran, Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

900.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 29. 1865

Dear Chadwick

I received your letter only this morning, so that if you are at Paris tomorrow as you expected, you will not receive this answer. But as in that case I shall probably see you at Avignon, it will not matter.

I am doubtful of any good from an inquiry moved for by Lord Elcho.2 The sole object of its promoters will probably be to obtain such statistics as may frighten Parliament and the electoral body into restricting the extension of the suffrage to the narrowest limits possible. They do not want to have Edition: current; Page: [1129] your, or my, or Mr Hare’s plans of reform taken into consideration, and they will prevent all such consideration if they can. Any locus standi for “crochets” and “fancy franchises” before the Commission will have to be fought for, and fought for against Tories, Whigs, and such Radicals as Bright. It would therefore be in my opinion a false policy for any reformer to say to Government or the public, Do not propose a Reform Bill, but wait for the result of an enquiry by such men as Lord Elcho. But even if it were competent to any other reformer to take this position, it is not so for me. It is for those to call for an enquiry who need an enquiry, before being willing to take action. I know what reform I want, and am ready now to do my utmost to get it. An enquiry should be supplementary to, and not instead of, any measure of reform that the present ministry are likely to propose.

I am very sorry that you have had so much unpleasantness about the Newsman, and sorry that Beal had any share in it. I was hoping that you and he would be able to work together at the local government of London. It is one of the many questions which incessantly make me regret that you are not member for Westminster. I shall want to consult with you about it, and shall miss you if you are in Algeria.3 But if you can really help the sanitary improvement of the army, it is a thing worth going there for.

The idea of making the rate book the register, is a good one if the only qualification is to be one of rating, because it makes the registration seek the elector instead of the elector the registration. But it will not be carried, because it would take away the qualifications by property—freehold, copyhold, and leasehold. If those qualifications are allowed to remain, there will still be need of lawyers, and registration associations. The whole of our laws of election from top to bottom require to be reconstructed on new principles: but to get those principles into people’s heads is work for many years, and they will not wait that time for the next step in reform. If they would, all they would get is to be told that the public is content with the thing as it is. And perhaps some measure of reform is as likely to promote as to delay other improvements in the representative system. I am Dear Chadwick

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1130]

1866

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 1. 1866

Saint Véran

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

901.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Saint Véran

Jan. 1. 1866

.

Dear Mr Fawcett

I have delayed long to thank you for your book,2 having been very busy writing, and unable to read it with proper attention until within these few days.

I think the essays must have been very interesting as lectures,3 and will be very useful as a book. The subject of the land laws, and laws of inheritance, is very well treated, and is one of which few feel the importance. You have broken ground very usefully on it. The considerations you have brought forward will be much needed in the discussions we shall soon have on Irish affairs, and the whole subject will become much more practical after any considerable parliamentary reform. One of the most important consequences of giving a share in the government to the working classes, is that there will then be some members of the House with whom it will no longer be an axiom that human society exists for the sake of property in land—a grovelling superstition which is still in full force among the higher classes.

I need hardly say how highly I approve your chapter on cooperation, and the restatement of the ideas of your Westminster Review article respecting Strikes.4 On all these subjects you have strengthened yourself by new thoughts and illustrations; and the speculations in the concluding chapter, on the possibilities of the future, open a class of considerations both new and very necessary to be thought of.

The chapter which on the whole I least like is the one on wages,5 though it will probably be more praised than any of the rest: but I think I could shew that an increase of wages at the expense of profits would not be an impracticability on the true principles of political economy. It might doubtless send capital to other countries; but we must recollect that the movement Edition: current; Page: [1131] for higher wages and shorter working hours is now common to all the industrious nations.

There is one mistake in a matter of fact which I saw with regret in the book, and which I hope a new edition may soon give you an opportunity of correcting. You have entirely misunderstood the ateliers nationaux.6 They were not advances to cooperative societies, but direct payment of wages, for work mostly nominal, from the public purse; and so far were they from having any connexion with Louis Blanc or his opinions, that he has always bitterly complained of them, as having been set up, not for, but against him and his plans. The member of the Provincial Government principally responsible for them was, he says, M. Marie.7 The advances to associations of workmen were quite another matter, and did none of the harm which the ateliers nationaux did—probably even some good: at all events the Government could not have refused such experimental aid when the associations thought that they could not get on without it. I am not certain that such advances (resembling those the Crédit Mobilier8 makes to a richer class) would not sometimes be useful even now: though it is one of the lessons of the experience of that time that in most cases the associations which did without subsidies prospered the most.

There are some misprints in the volume, especially ‘married men’ for ‘monied men’ at p.209, and Arsène Haussage for Houssaye9 (p.103).

We shall now soon meet on our common field of battle. The two great topics of the year will be Jamaica10 and Reform,11 and there will be an immensity to be said and done on both subjects. I have just seen with great pleasure that Lord Hobart has come out decidedly in McMillan’s for Hare’s system.12 It is gradually taking hold of one after another of the thinking men; of whom Lord Hobart is decidedly one. I shall perhaps invoke your aid on the Metropolitan government question,13 of the burthen of which I shall probably have to take a considerable share.

I am Dear Mr Fawcett
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1132]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 4. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

902.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 4. 1866

Dear Sir

It is a favourable sign of the impression which the idea of Personal Representation is making not only on the best thinkers but on thinking persons of all degrees that I should have received such a letter as the one I inclose.2 The objections to the plan proposed by the writer, you will not need me to point out; but he shews that his mind has worked on the subject, and many minds like his are probably by this time doing the same.

I was delighted to read Lord Hobart’s complete and most intelligent adhesion in the new number of McMillan.3 His is about the best theoretical head in the whole nobility. What a pity that he holds an office which excludes him from the House of Commons.

In a letter I have just received from M. Morin,4 he tells me that through the impression made by Naville,5 and in consequence of the victory of the Independent Party in the late elections, there is some chance of an actual trial of Personal Representation in the choice of the four deputies whom Geneva elects to the National Council of Switzerland.6 This, it seems, can be done by the authority of the ordinary legislature: while the mode of election of the cantonal authorities can only be changed by a Constituent Assembly, or by a general assembly of the citizens. But if the trial is made in the one case, and succeeds, its application to the other will probably soon follow. And if made at all, the trial is pretty sure to be a true and fair one, with Naville to direct it.

I begin to think that you or I may live to see the plan in actual operation in England, or at all events in America.

There are at least Hughes and Fawcett who I hope will help me to bring it before the House of Commons in the approaching discussions on reform.

I am Dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1133]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 4. 1866

Avignon

John Nicolaus TrüBner

TrüBner, John Nicolaus

903.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

Avignon

Jan. 4. 1866

Dear Sir—

With regard to the question of stereotyping the book on Comte, if I revise the book well before it is reprinted, it is hardly likely that any further alterations will be urgently required. It may, however, be desirable after a time to publish a cheap edition; but stereotyping need not I suppose prevent this as it could be done by merely lowering the price. If therefore you decidedly prefer stereotyping I have no objection. In that case I shd be obliged by your telling me what you would be disposed to give, either in the form of so much a year, or so much for every 1000 copies sold, or a sum down for a fixed number of years or of copies. It would be well also to fix some number of years, or of copies sold, after which the copyright & the stereotype plates should revert to me or my representatives.

I thank you for your offer of a payment on account, but I should prefer to wait for any payment till the accounts of the first edition are made out & the pecuniary result ascertained.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 6. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

904.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 6. 1866

Dear Sir

It seems a long time since I either heard from you or wrote to you. As the time approaches when I shall be taking part in the discussion of pending questions, I feel an increasing desire to take counsel with you concerning some of them.

One is the question of the Irish Colleges. I have been drawing nearer and nearer to your view of that subject,2 practically considered, though I am not sure that we quite agree yet about the amount of concession required by equal justice. I shall take my stand against the denominational system in any form for Ireland—regarding it as a mere concession to practical difficulties even in England, and in Ireland inadmissible altogether. I am prepared to maintain that no public assistance ought to be given in Ireland to any education Edition: current; Page: [1134] involving more or other religious teaching than exists in the mixed, or national system. I also think that in Ireland it is so great a point to bring youths of different religions to live together in colleges, as will justify almost any encouragement to the system of the Queen’s University, except that of actually refusing degrees to those who have studied elsewhere. From what I see in newspapers and hear, I am in hopes that the Catholic prelacy is shewing itself so impracticable as to give the Government a fair ground for withdrawing any offers they may have made, if only they can be induced to think such a retraction desirable: and it must be the business of members of Parliament to try to make them think so. Do you know of any member likely to lead the opposition on your side? What do you think of M’Cullagh Torrens?3 He, most likely, agrees with you, and he is one of the few Irishmen in Parliament who are not incumbered with an Irish constituency. Do you know what views Neate4 takes of the question? Any tolerable stand made in the House will have powerful support outside, from the mass of feeling in the country always ready to be called forth against any new concession to Catholics.

Then comes the Land Question. I have read several of your letters in the Economist,5 and admired them greatly. The generalities of the question have perhaps never before been so well stated as in your first letter. But your conclusion seems to me to fall far short of your premises. It may be that this is unavoidable. But the remedy of permitting the tenant to carry away or destroy his improvements, will surely do very little for him. It is monstrous that the law, at present, should not permit him to do this. But supposing that abominable state of the law to be altered, how inconsiderable would be the advantage to the tenant. 1st. If, as is generally the case, the landlord’s object is to clear the estate and consolidate the holdings, the tenant by pulling down his buildings is merely doing the landlord’s work gratis. 2dly. The cases most of all deserving compensation, are those in which the tenant has actually reclaimed the land: and how can he put it back into the state of heath or bog in which it was before? 3dly. Even when the improvement consisted in putting something on the farm which can be carried away such as buildings or fences—to remove them would make no return to the farmer for the labour or cost of putting them up, but would merely give him the value of the materials; and what are they? earth or rough stones: seldom worth even the Edition: current; Page: [1135] trouble of carrying away. It would be his interest to accept the most trifling offer from the landlord, rather than exercise his right: unless indeed his motive was a vindictive one; and he would have but little even of that kind of satisfaction, for he could in general do the landlord as little harm as he could do himself good.

I am disposed to make a much greater claim for the tenant—to demand for him, not compensation for his outlay, but a full equivalent for the additional value which either by his labour or his expenditure he has given to the land: to be assessed either by a special tribunal or by arbitration. Justice requires no less than this, and its impracticability is not, to my mind, made out. But, as I am afraid you are of a different opinion, I should like very much to compare notes with you on the subject.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 7, 1866

Avignon

Henry Samuel Chapman

Chapman, Henry Samuel

905.

TO HENRY SAMUEL CHAPMAN1

Avignon

,

Jan. 7, 1866

Dear Chapman

Your letter of June 18 reached me just before leaving England for Avignon, where I have been during the whole time, which, as you mentioned, Mrs Chapman and your younger children were to pass in London.2 I consequently have not seen them; but I shall hope to see your son who is to remain in England,3 as well as his brother who was already there.4 I have had less intercourse with your eldest son than I had hoped and intended to have, owing to the great engrossment of my time when in England by occupations which you can well appreciate: and now there is more on my hands than ever, and I have so many calls upon every moment of time that I am obliged to seem negligent of old friends, and almost to avoid making new ones. But I am not the less desirous to be of use to any one connected with you, and if I seem inattentive, it is not owing to indifference.

It must be very interesting to you to renew your knowledge of British New Zealand after an interval which bears so considerable a proportion to its short history.5 England has heard much of New Zealand these few years, and in a Edition: current; Page: [1136] manner far from agreeable. Thoughtful people have found it hard to make up their minds on the New Zealand aspect of the universal colonial question—what to do with the aborigines. It was hoped that this would be a less desperate difficulty in New Zealand than elsewhere, on account of the higher qualities and more civilisable character of the Maoris. But the eternal source of quarrel, the demand of the colonists for land, has defeated these hopes; and it seems as if, unless or until the progressive decline of the Maori population ends in their extinction, the country would be divided between two races always hostile in mind, if not always in actual warfare. Here, then, is the burthen on the conscience of legislators at home. Can they give up the Maoris to the mercy of the more powerful, & constantly increasing, section of the population? Knowing what the English are, when they are left alone with what they think an inferior race, I cannot reconcile myself to this. But again—is it possible for England to maintain an authority there for the purpose of preventing unjust treatment of the Maoris, and at the same time allow self government to the British colonists in every other respect? How is that one subject to be kept separate, and how is the Governor to be in other things a mere ornamental frontispiece to a government of the colony by a colonial Cabinet and Legislature, and to assume a will and responsibility of his own, overruling his cabinet and legislature wherever the Maoris are concerned? If the condition of colonial government is, to keep well with the colonial population and its representatives, there is no hindering the colonists from making their cooperation depend on compliance with their wishes as to the Maoris. I do not see my way through these difficulties. Nor do I feel able to judge what would be the consequence of leaving the colonists, without the aid of Queen’s troops, to settle the Maori difficulty in their own way. Perhaps the proofs which the Maoris have given that they can be formidable enemies may have produced towards them in the colonists a different state of mind from the overbearing and insolent disregard of the rights and feelings of inferiors which is the common characteristic of John Bull when he thinks he cannot be resisted. On all these questions I am now under a special public obligation to make up my mind, and I hope to be helped to do so by your knowledge and experience. The information your letters are always full of, will be often valuable to me now.

Your account of the Middle Island and its impassable range of high Alps, is very attractive to me, and if New Zealand were an island in the Northern Atlantic, would speedily send me on a visit there. The very idea of anything impassable and impenetrable is almost too charming, now when every nook and corner of our planet has got or is getting opened to the full light of day. One of the many causes which make the age we are living in so very important in the life of the human race—almost, indeed, the turning point of it—is that so many things combine to make it the era of a great change in the Edition: current; Page: [1137] conceptions and feelings of mankind as to the world of which they form a part. There is now almost no place left on our own planet that is mysterious to us, and we are brought within sight of the practical questions which will have to be faced when the multiplied human race shall have taken full possession of the earth (and exhausted its principal fuel). Meanwhile we are also acquiring scientific convictions as to the future destination of suns and stars, and the whole visible universe. These things must have ultimately a very great effect on human character. You have read Buckle’s remarks on the effect of the aspects of nature in different parts of the earth, upon the mental characteristics, and thence on the social development of the different nations.6 One begins to see a long vista of effects, of analogous origin but very different, on the future generations of mankind. Even without looking to anything so distant, or going beyond the proximate effects of social and economical causes already in operation, some thinkers are beginning to speculate on what will happen when the agricultural labourers of England shall have followed those of Ireland to America; and are asking themselves whether we shall have to import Chinese to supply the vacancy. The most certain result that I foresee from all this, is that English statesmanship will have to assume a new character, and to look in a more direct way than before to the interests of posterity. We are now, I think, standing on the very boundary line between this new statesmanship and the old; and the next generation will be accustomed to a very different set of political arguments and topics from those of the present and past.

I am Dear Chapman
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 9. 1866

Avignon

John Nicolaus TrüBner

906.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

Avignon

Jan. 9. 1866

Dear Sir—

When I have disposed of the second edition of any of my books for a fixed sum, I have always hitherto had more for it than the amount of the half profit I had derived from the first. I think I might reasonably look for £70 for the second ed. of the Comte—the half profit on the first ed. to be Edition: current; Page: [1138] paid when it is all sold & the £70 on the publication of the second. If you agree to this I accept your proposal regarding the remainder of the 5000 copies, on the understanding that the reduced price commences after the sale of the second thousand.

I have to thank you for sending me a number of the Contemporary Review.2

Will you be so kind as to send Count Gurowski’s book3 to my house, Blackheath Park, at any convenient time in the course of the month.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 11. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

907.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 11. 1866

Dear Sir

It is not so clear to me as it is to you, that we ought to desire that the Government measure of reform should include nothing but an extension of the suffrage. No doubt there might be advantage in obtaining that first, if there were a reasonable prospect of getting anything else afterwards; but is there such a prospect? I can see none. If Bright’s doctrine2 is accepted by public opinion and acted on by the Government, it may be assumed as certain that no other point of parliamentary reform will be allowed to be discussed this year. No party in the House would tolerate it: whoever attempted it would speak to empty benches—would probably be counted out. And it is to my mind equally indubitable that when any reform has been passed the whole subject of changes in the representation will be tabooed for years to come. Most of the liberal members are not real reformers, and only vote for any reform because they are obliged, and in the hope of getting rid of the question. You seem to think that while the House is passing a bill confined to the one point, it might be induced to appoint a Committee to enquire into the best means of “liberating and stimulating individual thought and action.” But what is to be the inducement? Are there six persons in the House of Edition: current; Page: [1139] Commons who think it any business of theirs to liberate and stimulate individual thought and action, or who would desire to do so even if they knew what it meant? How many are there even outside the House, who would support a motion for such a Committee? The small number who are already converts to your plan; not a man beside. To nobody else would such a proposal carry any distinct meaning; still less represent anything that to their minds would appear sensible or practical. I admit that our prospects are nearly as bad if Lord Russell does include something else in his bill, as if he does not. Little as the chance is of an early reopening of parliamentary reform after the bill has passed, it will probably be sooner reopened for a readjustment of seats than merely for personal representation. This I cannot deny; but in the meanwhile we lose the opportunity of discussing personal representation in the present session—an opportunity which could not be refused to us if the whole subject of representation were on the tapis, but which we certainly shall not have if the question at issue is, by a previous understanding between the two great parties, confined to the extension of the franchise. I have given you my impression on the subject; but I cannot feel complete confidence in its correctness when I see yours to be different.

I shall be delighted to read your paper in the Fortnightly Review3 when I return to Blackheath. Were it sent here I probably should not receive it. The Pall Mall Gazette you kindly sent, never arrived. The Daily News was stopped four times in the six days of last week; and for about two months past, we have never received both the Spectator and the Saturday Review—very often neither. What has happened to increase the rigour of the French Government to the foreign press, I do not know; but there is certainly something. You doubtless noticed the interdiction of the Indépendance Belge,4 and of the principal liberal German papers, and the principle on which it was rested. If that principle means anything, it means the exclusion of all my English papers, except the Times which, for reasons best known to itself, is never seized.

I agree with you about Lorimer’s book.5 It is merely a weaker repetition of his former one.

I shall be very desirous to discuss with you all the points of London municipal Edition: current; Page: [1140] reform, in which I shall have to take an active part. Beal6 told me that you had sent him “a little work” of your own7 “full of good matter on the question.”

Helen sends her kind regards to the Miss Hares. I am Dear Sir

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 15. 1866

Avignon

John Nicolaus TrüBner

TrüBner, John Nicolaus

908.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

Avignon

Jan. 15. 1866

Dear Sir—

I have received your letter of Jan. 12 for which I thank you & I accept all the conditions as mentioned in it.

It would have been more convenient to me to have made my corrections in the sheets of the first edition than in the proofs of the new, as I have more leisure now than I shall have a fortnight or three weeks hence; but I am willing to do whichever you prefer. If it is done from the proofs they had better be sent to Blackheath Park.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 22, 1866

Avignon

Arthur Lankester

Lankester, Arthur

909.

TO ARTHUR LANKESTER1

Avignon

Jan. 22, 1866

Dear Sir—

I regret that the extreme proximity of the date at which the meeting of the Commons Preservation Society2 is to be held makes it impossible for me to be present. I have all my life been strongly impressed with the importance of preserving as much as possible of such free space for healthful exercise, & for the enjoyment of natural beauty as the growth of Edition: current; Page: [1141] population and cultivation has still left to us. The desire to engross the whole surface of the earth in the mere production of the greatest possible quantity of food & the materials of manufacture, I consider to be founded on a mischievously narrow conception of the requirements of human nature. I therefore highly applaud the formation of the Commons Preservation Society & am prepared to cooperate in the promotion of its objects in any manner which lies in my power.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 23 janvier 1866

St Véran

910.

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

St Véran

le 23 janvier 1866

Messieurs—

J’ai eu l’honneur de recevoir votre lettre du 20 janvier.

Comme il est reconnu que la coupe fréquente des arbres affaiblit et épuise leur force de végétation ce dont j’ai moi-même, dans ce pays-ci, pu faire l’épreuve, j’avais sollicité la location des arbres attenant à ma propriété dans l’espoir de les préserver d’une coupe qui est sans doute, d’usage dans le pays, mais par des motifs purement économiques par rapport au bois. J’ose encore, messieurs, vous demander la permission de conserver ces arbres, sans en faire la coupe; mais dans le cas où pour des raisons quelconques la Commission ne voudrait pas les en dispenser je lui serais très obligé si elle voulait bien permettre que je fasse tailler la moitié seulement cette année et l’autre moitié l’année prochaine.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 30. 1866

Blackheath Park

Thomas Beggs

Beggs, Thomas

911.

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

Blackheath Park

Jan. 30. 1866

Dear Sir

I am much obliged to you for sending me your Social Science paper,2 and the article on Cobden3—the former I had read, Mr. Storr4 having kindly Edition: current; Page: [1142] given me a copy, but I am glad to have one from yourself. The subject of it is one of the most interesting and important of the practical matters now before the public. Many things are pointing to a strong, and I hope a combined movement for the improvement of the dwellings of the working classes which will need all our exertions to forward it. I agree with you as to the necessity of some legislative measure to facilitate the procurement of sites; and I attach the same importance as you do to enabling working classes to be proprietors of their own dwellings. I hope you are on the Committee appointed by the Social Science Association, and are in communication with Mr Hare who has, as you know, given great attention to the subject, and who [has] a particularly strong opinion on this point.

My constituents have hitherto been very forbearing with me, but those who have exerted themselves in the manner you and others have done for my election because they thought me capable of promoting practical improvements, have the best possible claim on my time and attention when they have any improvements to propose. I beg that you will never scruple to communicate with me on any matter of public interest in which you think I can be of use; and I will always either do my best to help your object, or explain and discuss with you why I am unable to do so.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Thomas Beggs Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 30. 1866

Blackheath Park

Henry Reeve

Reeve, Henry

912.

TO HENRY REEVE1

Blackheath Park

Jan. 30. 1866

Dear Sir

I regret that Mrs Austin should have had any annoyance or anxiety on the subject of the missing Notes of Lectures.2 They never were in her possession, having unfortunately been lent by me and lost by the borrower within a year or two after the Lectures were delivered.

The Notes were written next day from memoranda made by myself in the Lecture Room; and Mr Austin’s slow delivery and splendid articulation made it easy to report all the important passages nearly in his exact words. By these means I had the good fortune to preserve many valuable oral elucidations. Edition: current; Page: [1143] There was only one lecture (I forget which one) at which I was unable to be present, and in that case Mr Austin kindly lent me his manuscript to enable me to fill up the vacancy. I never saw the MS of any of the others, nor did he see any of the Notes.

I am happy that the unusual length of my article3 is not an insuperable obstacle to its insertion.

The proofs should be sent to Blackheath.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 31. [1866]

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

913.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Jan. 31. [1866]

Dear Sir

Your letter reached me late, owing to my having left Avignon before it arrived. I am most desirous to confer with you on the critical state of things respecting the education question,2 but I suppose I shall scarcely now be able to see you until we meet at the Political Economy Club on Friday.3 We can then fix a time and place for further talk.

If the ministers do not take care, they will commence the breaking up of their party by this measure.4

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 31. 1866

Moncure Daniel Conway

Conway, Moncure Daniel

914.

TO [MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY?]1

Jan. 31. 1866

Dear Sir

The inclosed passage2 is the one which Mr Wendell Phillips seems to have had particularly in view. The remainder not only of the Preface, but of the book, may be regarded as a commentary on it.

Edition: current; Page: [1144]

I had already read the article in Harper’s Magazine3—I need hardly say with how much pleasure and had guessed, though not with full assurance, its authorship.

I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1866

Blackheath Park

George Grote

Grote, George

915.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 4. 1866

My dear Grote

Unless I write now to thank you for your admirable article in the Westminster Review,2 I do not know when I shall be able to do so, as my time is already taken up, to a degree which you can very well understand both from theory and experience, though my constituents have hitherto given me very little trouble of any kind, and that little only for important objects. I write, then, while I can, to express some part of the pleasure it gives me that one whose good opinion and good feeling I value more than that of any other living man, should be able to write about me in the way you have done.3 I thank you, too, most heartily, for the justice you have done to my father.4 When your Kleine Schriften come to be collected, that passage will remain as one of the weightiest testimonies to his worth, and to the place he filled in his generation.

As to the points of difference between us on some minor matters of opinion, which occur in the course of the article, it will be a pleasure to talk them over with you some day. There is only one of them on which I yet see myself to have been wrong, viz. when I spoke of a beginning without a cause as being inconceivable by us. Of course, however, I did not mean inconceivable by a law of the mind, but only by an acquired association.

Edition: current; Page: [1145]

Have you seen Mansel’s critique (for I am told it is his) in Nos 1 and 2 of a new publication called the Contemporary Review?5 I should like much to know what you think of it, if you have read it.

My article on the Plato6 is in Reeve’s hands and accepted by him; which is a relief to me, as its length so much exceeds the usual Edinburgh Review dimensions, that I feared he might be unwilling to insert it without an impossible curtailment. I have seldom given so much time and pains to a review article, but it has been well employed if I have done any tolerable justice to the subject.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote I am my dear Grote

yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1866

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

916.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 4. 1866

.

Dear Sir:—

On arriving here last week, I found the December livraison of your Biology, and I need hardly say how much I regretted the announcement in the paper annexed to it.2 What the case calls for, however, is not only regret, but remedy; and I think it is right you should be indemnified by the readers and purchasers of the series for the loss you have incurred by it. I should be glad to contribute my part, and should like to know at how much you estimate the loss, and whether you will allow me to speak to friends and obtain subscriptions for the remainder. My own impression is that the sum ought to be raised among the original subscribers.

In the next place, I cannot doubt that the publication in numbers, though it may have been the best means that presented itself at the time, has had an unfavourable effect on the sale, and that a complete treatise with your name to it would attract more attention, obtain more buyers, and would be pretty sure to sell an edition in a few years. What I propose is that you should write the next of your treatises, and that I should guarantee the publisher against loss, i.e., should engage, after such length of time as may be agreed on, to Edition: current; Page: [1146] make good any deficiency that may occur, not exceeding a given sum, that sum being such as the publisher may think sufficient to insure him. With this guarantee you could have your choice of publishers, and I do not think it likely that there would be any loss, while I am sure that it could in no case be considerable. I beg that you will not consider this proposal in the light of a personal favour, though even if it were I should still hope to be permitted to offer it. But it is nothing of the kind—it is a simple proposal of cooperation for an important public purpose, for which you give your labour and have given your health.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1866

Blackheath Park

Edward Welmisley

Welmisley, Edward

917.

TO EDWARD WELMISLEY1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 4. 1866

Sir

In reply to your letter of Jan. 31, I beg to express my willingness to take charge of the Bill for carrying into effect the arrangement which appears to have been made between the Government and the other parties interested.

I am Sir
very faithfully yours

J. S. Mill

Edward Welmisley Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 7. 1866

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

918.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

Feb. 7. 1866

Dear Sir

To take your last subject first. I have of late avoided giving my name to any of the Working Classes’ Exhibitions,2 as it seems to me that the thing is rather overdone; so many of these Exhibitions are now attempted that they stand in each other’s way, are apt to be unsuccessful in a pecuniary sense, and excite but little of the interest which was felt about the first things of the Edition: current; Page: [1147] kind. If it would oblige you that I should give my name to the North London Exhibition I will very willingly do so on that account; but there is very little chance that my daughter and I can be present at the opening, or at any time during the exhibition, as we are almost sure to be abroad at the time.

Allow me to congratulate you on being Editor of the Family Paper,3 both as a rise in your position, and a great increase in the comfort of your daily work. I thank you for the pleasant things you have written about me in the Sydney Morning Herald,4 and for the letter on reform which you purpose addressing to me: Would it not be worth while to write it so that it might be published either in the Family Paper, the Working Man,5 or somewhere else? as a statement of the ideas of the best part of the working classes on reform would be important and interesting to many persons besides me.

Many thanks for the cuttings. I have seen Mr Conway’s article6 and the one in the Contemporary Review.7 The Blackwood8 I have not seen but expect to see.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 10. 1866

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

919.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Feb. 10. 1866

Dear Chadwick

I shall be happy to see you at the House at three on Monday, or at any time after four—as the debate being on the Cattle Plague,2 I shall not feel bound to pay any special attention to it.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1148]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 13. 1866

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

920.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

Feb. 13. 1866

Dear Sir

Your news is very important, and the move of the Presbyterian body promises well,2 if the Government is not yet irrevocably committed.3 I, on my side, have talked with Mr Grant Duff,4 who said he could hardly believe that the Government can meditate such a step as the one we apprehend. Not a single Scotch member (he said) would vote with them, and (he added) as their enemies are keenly watching to take the first opportunity of putting them in a minority they would probably be obliged to resign. The result of this and of much other information that reaches me, is to make me apprehensive that we may be more successful than we desire, and may perhaps break up the Ministry and lose the Reform Bill. This is not a sufficient reason against fighting the question of the Colleges to the utmost; but I attach great importance to not being supposed to have the smallest approach to an understanding or concert with those who will merely use our question as a means of effecting purposes which we should greatly lament. Nothing can be more proper than that you should apply to any and every influential politician whom you can get access to; but I am very anxious not to be held out to any one, even to sincere liberals, and much less to false liberals or Tories, as desiring to communicate with them on the subject. I have no objection to its being said to any person whatever, that I have a very strong opinion against the proposed changes. If any M.P. (even a Tory) chooses to open the subject to me, I will tell him my mind. One or two members have already done so; Mr Lowe5 did so the very day I saw you, and I thought he seemed disposed to take the initial step (by putting a question to the Government) without any further parley or consultation with us and our liberal friends. It is most clear to me that we, meaning myself and the other liberal members you mention, should endeavour to act directly on the members of the Government, and should avoid even the appearance of concert with any Edition: current; Page: [1149] of those who would like to do them an ill turn. With regard to Sir Hugh Cairns,6 or any one on that side of the house, whatever they may choose to do should be quite apart from us. The same political instinct which influenced Lord Stanley,7 would probably make them feel that they had better appear as seconders than as originators of a move on this subject.

Many thanks for the pamphlet, which will be very useful to me.

I need scarcely say that this letter is confidential to yourself.

I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 22, 1866

921.

TO THE SPEAKER’S SECRETARY1

Feb. 22, 1866

Sir,

I have had the honour of receiving an invitation to dine with the Right Honble the Speaker2 on Wednesday next Feb 28 but beg that I may be allowed to excuse myself from accepting it as I think it desirable that those members of the H. of C. who do not approve of the regulations in respect to dress at present in force should make their objection known to the Speaker, who I do not doubt will give to it whatever weight is justly due. I sincerely hope that in taking this mode of expressing the objection which I entertain to the practice hitherto followed I shall not be considered to be wanting in that respect and deference to the Rt Hon the Speaker which it is as much my wish as my duty invariably to observe.

Edition: current; Page: [1150]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 26, 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Frederick Milnes Edge

Edge, Frederick Milnes

922.

TO FREDERICK MILNES EDGE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb. 26, 1866

Dear Sir—

I have to acknowledge a letter from you dated Feb. 15 asking me to explain a passage of my Principles of Pol. Economy2 in which I express the opinion that a protecting duty, for a limited space of time, may be defensible in a new country, as a means of naturalizing a branch of industry in itself suited to the country but which would be unable to establish itself there without some form of temporary assistance from the state. This passage you say has been made use of by American protectionists as the testimony of an English writer on Pol. Economy to the inapplicability to America of the general principle of free trade. The passage has been used for a similar purpose in the Australian colonies,3 erroneously in my opinion but certainly with more plausibility than can be the case in the U. States; for Australia really is a new country whose capabilities for carrying on manufactures cannot yet be said to have been tested: but the manufacturing parts of the U.S., New England & Pennsylvania, are no longer new countries; they have carried on manufacturing on a large scale, & with the benefit of high protecting duties for at least two generations; their operatives have had full time to acquire the manufacturing skill in which those of England had preceded them; & there has been ample experience to prove that the inability of their manufactures to compete in the American market with those of Great Britain does not arise merely from the more recent date of their establishment, but from the fact that American labour & capital can in the present circumstances of America be employed with greater return & greater advantage to the national wealth, in the production of other articles. I have never for a moment recommended or countenanced any protecting duty except for the purpose of enabling the protected branch of industry, in a very moderate time, to become independent of protection. That moderate time in the U. States has been exceeded, & if the cotton or iron of America still need protection against those of the other hemisphere it is in my eyes a complete proof that they ought not to have it, & that the longer it is continued the greater the injustice & the waste of national resources will be.

I confine myself on the present occasion to the one special point which you have referred to me & do not enter into the fallacies of Protectionism generally Edition: current; Page: [1151] or of American Protectionists in particular. But since you pay me the compliment of thinking that what is said on the subject in my Pr. of P.E. is read & listened to by some Americans, I beg to recommend to your notice the further explanations which I have added to the passage quoted by you in the last published (the People’s) edition of that work.4 I have directed the publisher to send you a copy & if the important journal with which you are connected, is pleased to attach any value to my opinion on the subject, that opinion will be found much more completely stated, with additional replies to Protectionist arguments in pp. 556 to 558 of the People’s edition.

F. Milnes Edge.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb 26 1866

Blackheath Park

Montague Richard Leverson

Leverson, Montague Richard

923.

TO MONTAGUE RICHARD LEVERSON1

Blackheath Park

Feb 26 1866

Dear Sir,

I have gone through the Draft of a Bill,2 and I think it does you very great credit, containing some very valuable provisions respecting the mechanism of representative institutions. I also highly applaud the stand you have made for universal instead of manhood suffrage. As, however, several of the general principles on which the plan is founded, particularly ballot and electoral districts, are opposed to my opinions, I think it best not to connect myself in any way with the movement, and do not wish to have any letter of mine read at the Conference. The authors of the plan may be fully assured of my zealous cooperation on all the points on which their opinions and my own coincide.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly,

J. S. Mill

Montague Leverson Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1152]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6. 1866

Blackheath Park

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

924.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Blackheath Park

March 6. 1866

My dear Sir

I have just had the pleasure of receiving from you and Mrs Gladstone a card of invitation for Wednesday the 21st. There are few things I more value than the opportunity of cultivating the degree of personal acquaintance to which you have done me the honour of admitting me; but I find it absolutely necessary, just at present, to avoid all engagements on the evenings which attendance in the House leaves me for other indispensable purposes. I hope to be allowed to indemnify myself on Thursday mornings after Easter for my present abstinence. I am

My dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

The Right Hon.

W. E. Gladstone M.P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 17. 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Longman

Longman, William

925.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 17. 1866

Dear Sir—

Your idea of a collected edition of my writings has much to recommend it, & I have sometimes thought of such a thing myself, but was inclined to think that the most suitable time would be after my death, as I am likely, so long as I live, to make material improvements in every new edition of my larger works. This objection however might be got over. But do you not think that the publication of such a series—each volume of which would of course be obtainable separate from the others—would almost entirely stop the sale of the current library editions of which, in the case of the Logic & Pol. Econ. the greater number of the copies are still on hand. Would it not, therefore, be best to adjourn the project of a collected edition until these editions are nearly sold?

It is satisfactory to find that the People’s Editions have not so much damaged as might have been expected the sale of the library editions. But the Edition: current; Page: [1153] edition you propose would probably compete with the library editions much more successfully.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 17, 1866

Blackheath-park

J. George Mawby

Mawby, J. George

926.

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

Blackheath-park

,

March 17, 1866

Sir—

I have to acknowledge your note of the 11th instant. I have received many communications on the same subject from working men, and it gives me much satisfaction to find that so great a number of them are in the habit of giving intelligent attention to the foreign policy of the country. The question, which is the subject of your communication, is encumbered with great difficulties; and though if Mr. Gregory2 had divided the House I should have voted against him, I am not satisfied that the immunity of private property from capture would not on the whole be for the advantage if the Declaration of Paris3 must be maintained.

I agree with you in thinking this last the really important question, and I am decidedly of opinion that the relinquishment by the naval Powers of their most powerful weapon of defence against the great military Powers,4 can only be defended if it be true that the change of circumstances has made that weapon one which could no longer safely be used.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

J. S. Mill

Mr. Mawby

Edition: current; Page: [1154]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 23. 1866

Blackheath Park

927.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

March 23. 1866

Dear Sir

I start for Avignon tonight, but if it should be the opinion of my friends in Westminster that a public meeting should be held during the recess2 for the purpose of making a demonstration in support of the Reform Bill I shall hold myself ready to return at a day’s notice in order to take part in it.

Probably however it may be thought that the first day after the recess, Monday 9th April, will be as good or even a better day for a political meeting in a Metropolitan district, than any day during the recess. Whatever may be determined on this point, I am in the hands of my friends.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Alderman Salomons3 has asked me for a copy of the Bill,4 which I suppose you will give him as a matter of course. If it suited your plans to send one also to Mr P. A. Taylor, who has asked me for a copy, it would give me pleasure.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 24, 1866

Blackheath Park

Thomas Henry Huxley

Huxley, Thomas Henry

928.

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

Blackheath Park

March 24, 1866

Dear Sir

I return the paper with my signature added, and am happy to join in the Edition: current; Page: [1155] plan proposed for enabling Mr Spencer to continue the publication of his philosophical writings.2

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 4, 1866

Avignon

John Campbell

Campbell, John

929.

TO JOHN CAMPBELL1

Avignon

April 4, 1866

Dear Sir—

The supposition that I approve of the bill empowering Govt to make loans for the improvement of the dwellings of the working classes is quite correct.2 If I thought that such a measure would injure the independence of the working classes or encourage their improvidence I shd strenuously oppose it. But the case seems to me to be one of a class of cases in which people require artificial help, to enable them afterwards to help themselves. The taste for better house accommodation has still to be created: & until it is created, private speculation will not find its account in supplying that improved accommodation. The aid of Govt is often useful, & sometimes necessary, to start improved systems which once started are able to keep themselves going without further help. I support loans from the public for the purpose in question (which is still more important morally than even physically) as I would support similar loans for the purpose of creating peasant proprietors, or (if necessary for the purpose) in aid of colonization. I think however that the loans ought not to be accessible only to Town Councils, but Edition: current; Page: [1156] also to building companies or private capitalists under strict conditions & on proper security; and the Bill introduced by the Govt gives, I believe, the power of making such advances.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 9. 1866

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

930.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

April 9. 1866

Dear Sir

Your note of the 29th reached me at Avignon, but I could not answer it until my return here enabled me to tell you if Mr Sullivan’s pamphlet2 had been sent to me or not. I find that it has, and I have lost no time in reading it. After doing so, my opinion decidedly is that it requires an answer. It is written with some ability, and knowledge of detail; it does not manifestly exhibit want of candour, and as it makes some points on matters of fact, with apparent success (though none which are essential to the question) it will be largely used in the discussions, and will be represented as a complete answer to you3 and Whittle.4 There should, I think, be a reply to it in print if only to supply those who fight the battle in Parliament with answers to what will be brought against them. The fight will be a more arduous one than we thought; for several of the leading Tories, in the debate on Tests,5 shewed a disposition to adopt denominational instead of mixed education, and exhibited a decided sympathy with the movement of the Catholic bishops. If you reply, I have not the least objection to its being, as you propose, in the form of a letter to me.6

I am obliged to stop short, being very busy, as you may suppose at such a time as this.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1157]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 11, 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Thomas Carlyle

Carlyle, Thomas

931.

TO THOMAS CARLYLE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 11, 1866

Dear Carlyle—

My answer to your note respecting Dr Löwe2 has been delayed by the necessity of finding time to rummage old papers in order to ascertain whether an impression I had of having already consented to a similar proposal from some other quarter, was well founded or not. I now find that in December 1861 I gave my assent to a translation of my book on Repr. Govt by a Dr F. A. Wille,3 who like Dr Löwe, had been engaged in the political events of 1848 & had for ten years afterwards been living in Switzerland. Dr Wille then informed me that his translation was partly printed & I am almost sure that it was published in the course of the following years. If a copy was sent to me I have it not at hand, but Dr Löwe could probably inform himself on the subject without difficulty. Dr Wille’s address at that time was Mariafeld (sic), Meilen, Zürich.

Please thank Mrs Carlyle for her remembrance of me. I have been sorry to hear a rather poor account of her health4 & to see by your Edinburgh address5 that your own is not quite satisfactory.6

Edition: current; Page: [1158]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 15, 1866

Blackheath Park

932.

TO THE EARL OF CLARENDON1

Blackheath Park

April 15, 1866

.

My Lord,

I have had the honour of receiving your communication of the 9th inst. and am much gratified that the small offering2 which I had the opportunity of making to the London Library should have appeared to the Committee deserving of such an acknowledgment. It is probable that I may continue to receive from private friends or public authorities in the United States books and documents of a similar character to those which I had the pleasure of presenting, and since they are considered to be of value to the Library, I shall have great satisfaction in forwarding them as they arrive. A few have been discovered which were overlooked when the parcel was sent, and these I will at once despatch to the Librarian.

I have the honour to be your Lordship’s most obedient Servant,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 15, 1866

Blackheath Park, Kent

Samuel Sullivan Cox

Cox, Samuel Sullivan

933.

TO SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX1

Blackheath Park, Kent

April 15, 1866

.

Dear Sir

On my return to England I did not forget the promise in my letter of Dec. 21, but addressed myself to one of the highest statistical authorities in this country, Mr Newmarch, the associate of Mr Tooke in the later volumes of his admirable History of Prices,2 and a man of mark among our economists; that he is a warm freetrader I need not say. Mr Newmarch has furnished me with some publications in which you will find a great deal of the information Edition: current; Page: [1159] you want respecting the operation of free trade in this country, and with a full review of the commercial history of the last year, forming a Supplement to the Economist newspaper of March 10,3 and written by himself. These I will immediately send (probably through Mr Trübner) to the New York address you gave me. I fear the unsatisfactory state of the reconstruction question, and the differences between Congress and the President, may delay for some time the progress which might otherwise have taken place more rapidly on the freetrade question. But every awakening of the national mind is sure to be favourable to the removal of prejudice; and I have no doubt that, if not a complete, yet a very considerable reform of the legislation on this subject, will before many years reward the exertions of yourself and the other enlightened men who have taken up the cause.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Hon. S. S. Cox

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 21. 1866

Blackheath Park

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

934.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Blackheath Park

April 21. 1866

My dear Sir

I thank you very much for your kind invitation for Wednesday May 2, but I still find so much need of repose on the evenings on which the House does not sit (when those evenings are not absorbed by other necessary occupations) that I do not yet venture to accept an invitation for any evening. But if your Thursday mornings have commenced, I should have great pleasure in soon availing myself of one of them.

I venture to ask your acceptance of the inclosed paper2 (printed in the current number of the Edinburgh Review) the subject of which I know to be interesting to you, whatever may be the case with the execution. I offer it, not forgetting how long it must wait before you are likely to be able to give it even a cursory glance. I am

My dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1160]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 22. 1866

Blackheath

George Grote

Grote, George

935.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath

April 22. 1866

My dear Grote

You may well conceive what a gratification it is to me to find that you are so well satisfied with my attempt to condense into an article the principal ideas of your book. You had left so little to be done that the greatest success I could hope for was to throw in a sufficient number of fresh citations and illustrations and to put sufficient originality into the mode of turning the expression of your thoughts, to enable my repetition of them to have in some small degree the value of a confirmation by an independent inquirer.

Was I not lucky in being able to quote so capital a Platonic passage from Max Müller?2

I suppose you have read the review of your book in Fraser which was unfortunately the last production of Dr Whewell.3 So far as he differed from you he always seemed to me to be wrong; but it was very pleasant to see that, having some real knowledge of the subject, he gave so complete and so intelligent an adhesion to your novelties of opinion respecting the Sophists.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote I am

My dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 27, 1866

Blackheath Park

Henry Pitman

Pitman, Henry

936.

TO HENRY PITMAN1

Blackheath Park

,

April 27, 1866

Dear Sir,—

A Liberal county member,2 to whom I have been speaking about Edition: current; Page: [1161] the Suffolk experiment in Agricultural Co-operation,3 is very desirous to know more about it. I could not remember to what numbers of “The Co-operator” to refer him; but if you would kindly inform me of that, or of any other source of information which it would be well for him to consult, you would do, I think, a useful service to the cause.

I should be very glad if you would, at the same time, tell me how matters go on with yourself and “The Co-operator.”

As I know the great expense you are put to for postage, I take the liberty of enclosing a stamped envelope.—I am, dear Sir, very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 28. 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Longman

Longman, William

937.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 28. 1866

Dear Sir—

Your report of the sale of the books is extremely satisfactory—in the case of the book on Hamilton even embarrassingly so2—for several elaborate criticisms & replies to it having appeared since the publication of the 2d edit.3 there will be a great deal to do by way of preparation for a third, whether this is published separately or as part of the collected edition you propose.

In regard to the collected edition the difficulty occurs to me, that it cannot at present be complete in consequence of the interest which Mr. Trübner has in the reprint of the essays on Comte. This seems to be a reason (in addition to others) for at least postponing the project until the sale of the book on Comte has considerably slackened, which it is sure before long to do; I am at present inclined to put off the subject & to take it into consideration a year hence with a view to Jan. 1st 1868 instead of 1867.

Edition: current; Page: [1162]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1 [1866]

Blackheath Park

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

938.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Blackheath Park

May 1 [1866]

My dear Sir

As I mentioned to you my intention of availing myself of your kind invitation next Thursday morning, I think it best to tell you that I have a severe attack of influenza, to get rid of which I am told that I must confine myself to bed. I am afraid therefore I shall not only lose the pleasure of seeing you on Thursday morning, but what I regret still more, that of hearing your financial statement.2 I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 4. 1866

Blackheath

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

939.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath

May 4. 1866

Dear Sir

I return Mr. Rathbone’s2 sensible letter. He certainly had every reason to presume that you would have influence with me or with any one else who knows you. But I have been obliged to answer Mr. Crosfield’s3 letter by a refusal, being compelled to refuse all engagements, and to put off even St. Andrews till next winter.4

I am better, and hope to be at the House on Monday and at the Committee5 if summoned; but as I am practically examiner in chief in the present passing stage of the business, it is not unlikely that Ayrton will not summon the Committee until he has assured himself that I can be present.

I am ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1163]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 4, 1866

Blackheath Park

Henry Pitman

Pitman, Henry

940.

TO HENRY PITMAN1

Blackheath Park

,

May 4, 1866

.

Dear Sir,—

Many thanks for the pamphlets,2 which will be of the greatest use to Mr. Acland3 (the county member I mentioned), and perhaps to others.

The news of the Wolverhampton Plate-Locksmiths4 is most gratifying, and a fine example of what Co-operation can do.

Though I do not agree, so far as compulsory measures are concerned, with the U. K. Alliance,5 yet, since you do, I congratulate you on having obtained a sure income, compatible with the continuance of your most valuable services to Co-operation.—I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,

J. S. Mill

H. Pitman, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

6th May 1866

Caroline E. Liddell

Liddell, Caroline E.

941.

TO CAROLINE E. LIDDELL1

6th May 1866

Madam,—

I am happy to hear that you and other ladies are disposed to assert your just claim to be represented in the body that taxes you, and I recommend to you to lose no opportunity of doing so. When men who wish to remove the invidious distinctions under which you labour offer arguments founded on the evident justice of your cause, we are constantly met by the reply that ladies themselves see no hardship in it, and do not care enough for the franchise to ask for it. I am glad to be able to say that I know several members of Parliament who wish to grant the franchise without distinction of sex, but I know many more who would be ashamed to refuse it if it were quietly and steadily demanded by women themselves. I am sorry to find that you disclaim being strong-minded, because I believe strength of mind to be Edition: current; Page: [1164] one of the noblest gifts that any rational creature, male or female, can possess, and the best measure of our degree of efficiency for working in the cause of truth. But such mental powers and energies as we any of us do possess, ought to be employed in striving to remove the evils with which circumstances have made us acquainted; and a woman who is a taxpayer is the most natural and most suitable advocate of the political enfranchisement of women. I hope, therefore, that you will endeavour to strengthen the hands of those (and I know more than one) who have devoted their lives to working in your cause, by protesting against the injustice you suffer, whenever and wherever you can, both in society, and when occasion offers in public. If you could yourself write a petition (almost in the terms of your letter to me), and procure as many signatures to it as you can, I should be happy to present it to Parliament.2

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 6th, 1866

Blackheath Park

John Lothrop Motley

Motley, John Lothrop

942.

TO JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY1

Blackheath Park

,

May 6th, 1866

.

Dear Sir,

I am afraid you must have thought hard things of me for being so slow in answering your very friendly and most interesting letter of February 1st. Had your introduction to Mr. Holmes2 not already been sent, but depended on my answer, I should have written at once, if even only a line, to say how glad I should be both to see and know him, both as his father’s3 son, as your friend, and as one whose personal history has already been such as your letter intimates. Among the countless and inexhaustible blessings which you, from your national struggle, will in the end bring forth for the human race, it is one of the greatest that they have behind them so many who, being what your friend was, have done what he has done. Such men are the natural leaders of the democracy of the world from this time forward; and such a series of events, coming upon minds prepared by previous high culture, may well have ripened Edition: current; Page: [1165] their intellects, as it cannot but have fitted their characters, for stepping into that vacant post and filling it with benefit to the world.

The new struggle, in which you are now engaged, that of reconstruction, is well fitted to carry on the work of educating the political mind of the country. I have learnt to have great trust in the capability of the American people at large (outside the region of slavery) to see the practical leanings of a political question truly and rapidly when the critical moment comes. It seems to me that things are going on as well and as fast as could be hoped for under the untoward accident of getting an obstinate Southern man, a pro-slavery man almost to the last, in the position of President.4 But the passing of the Civil Rights Bill5 over his head seems almost to ensure the right issue to the contest. If you only keep the Southern States out of Congress till they one by one either grant negro suffrage or consent to come in on the basis of their electoral population alone, they may probably then be let in in safety. But the real desideratum (in addition to colonization from the North) is the Homestead law which you propose for the negroes.6 I cannot express too strongly the completeness of my agreement with all you say on that point. Compared with these great questions, free trade is but a secondary matter; but it is a good sign that this also has benefited by the general impulse given to the national mind, and that the free traders are raising themselves for vigorous efforts. I am not anxious that this question should be forced on while the others are pending; for anything which might detach the Western from the Eastern States, and place them in even partial sympathy with the South, would at present be a great calamity.

I have often during the years since we met in Vienna7 wished that I could talk with you, but always found something more urgent to do than to resort to the unsatisfactory mode of communication by letter, and this is still more the case now that I have allowed new and onerous duties to be placed upon me. They are not nearly so agreeable to myself, and it remains to be seen whether they will be as useful as that of writing out my best thoughts and putting them into print. I have a taller pulpit now, but one in which it is impossible to use my best materials. But jacta est alea, I must make the best I can of it; and I have had thus far much more of what is called success than I could have hoped for beforehand.

I am, dear Sir,
Ever sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1166]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 11 [1866]

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

943.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

May 11 [1866]

Dear Sir

I am much better,2 and am now attending the House, but as I do not go there every day, and on Mondays and Thursdays have to attend a Committee3 from 12 to 4, it is difficult to make an appointment at the hour you mention. At present Tuesday is the first day I can mention, and that is uncertain, but if you do not hear from me previously, you will find me at the House on Tuesday at three. I am

Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 15. 1866

Blackheath Park

Moncure Daniel Conway

Conway, Moncure Daniel

944.

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 15. 1866

Dear Sir

Will you and Mrs Conway do us the pleasure of coming down and dining with us on Sunday week (May 24th)? We dine at five, and there is a train from Charing Cross at 4.5 P.M.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 18th 1866

Blackheath Park

Edward Owen Greening

Greening, Edward Owen

945.

TO EDWARD OWEN GREENING1

Blackheath Park

May 18th 1866

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 10th inst. inviting me to a Soirée to be held tomorrow, in celebration of the 1st. year’s successful working of Edition: current; Page: [1167] the new limited liability company, “Greening & Co.”2 I regret my inability to attend on this interesting occasion; but beg to be allowed to express my warm approbation of the principle of associating all the persons employed by the Company, in the profits of the undertaking, and my congratulations on the success which has already attended your application of that principle.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 19. 1866

Blackheath Park

John A. Leatherland

Leatherland, John A.

946.

TO JOHN A. LEATHERLAND1

Blackheath Park

May 19. 1866

Dear Sir

I beg to apologize for the delay in answering your note. I am greatly honoured by the opinion you express of my writings, and had I the necessary leisure, should be happy to read your volume of poems, as you wish me to do so.

My time however is so much occupied that I am obliged to defer looking at much that is sent me in those departments of literature to which I give most attention and I fear therefore it will be impossible for me to give the attention to your poems which you wish.

I am Dear Sir
yrs faithfully

J. S. Mill

Mr. J. A. Leatherland

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 19 [1866]

Blackheath

947.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath

May 19 [1866]

Dear Sir,—

I entirely approve and applaud the object of the meeting to be held on Monday next on Primrose-hill2—that of encouraging and strengthening the Government in resisting all compromise in the leading provisions of Edition: current; Page: [1168] the Reform Bill. I am greatly obliged by your very cordial invitation to attend the meeting, but my absence from town will prevent my being present at it.

I am, &c.,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 21. 1866

Crowcome, Somerset

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

948.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Crowcome, Somerset

May 21. 1866

Dear Chadwick

I am much obliged to you for the documents you forwarded and I hope to make good use of them.

I had no opportunity before leaving town of making the inquiries about Carlisle and Bristol, but I will do so as soon as I can.

The Commission respecting Middle Class Schools2 seems to be much in need of information and suggestions that you could give them. I have been talking with Acland,3 one of the members of the Commission, and found that he knew absolutely nothing of what had been done at Faversham.4 He promised that he would look up the case, which must have been reported on by one of their Assistant Commissioners. I could not remember where your account of it was,5 which I read with such extreme interest when it came out. Could you not write them a short letter, or send them papers about it, or, as the next best thing, cram me on the subject, for I am threatened with having a set of questions sent to me from them,6 which would be much better sent to you.

I am
Yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

Write to Blackheath as usual.

Edition: current; Page: [1169]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 21. 1866

Crowcombe, Somerset

Earl Grey

Grey, Earl

949.

TO EARL GREY1

Crowcombe, Somerset

May 21. 1866

My dear Lord

The Reform Bill of the Government is no doubt a kind of makeshift which it would be difficult for persons of my opinions to defend as being the best thing in itself, and in the detail of which many improvements might be suggested, if it could be done without damaging the chance which the Bill has of getting through Parliament. Among other things, representation of minorities would be an immense improvement in this, as it would in any other scheme of representation. But supposing it desirable that such a proposal should be made in the House of Commons, I am not the right person to make it, in the shape to which you give the preference.2 If I were to originate any move for representation of minorities, it could only be in the form which alone, as I conceive, carries out the principle, that of Mr Hare’s system; which I believe to be practicable, though I am aware that you are of a different opinion. My inability to originate a proposal for the cumulative vote plan (which I regard as the next best) would be no hindrance to my supporting it if proposed by others. But I could only do so in the cases in which the constituency returns three members. There is, no doubt, much truth in your remark that where the two parties are of nearly equal strength, there is less injustice in giving one member to each than two members to the one which is slightly the most numerous, and none at all to the other. But it seems to me indispensable in the future interest of the principle of representation of minorities (which is particularly liable to be misunderstood and misrepresented) that a broad line should be drawn between it and any plan which makes a minority politically equal to a majority; and that this last should be absolutely disclaimed, as going beyond and in opposition to the principle. Unless this is done, the democrats of the old one-sided school3 will succeed in making the principle unpopular as an aristocratic contrivance to neutralise the extension of the Edition: current; Page: [1170] franchise: though in truth it is exactly as much democratic as aristocratic, its effect being to limit the tyranny of the strongest power, whatever this happens to be.

I do not see, therefore, how I can in any direct way promote the object you have in view. I am

my dear Lord
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

The Earl Grey.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 25. 1866

Porlock, Somerset

Thomas Beggs

Beggs, Thomas

950.

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

Porlock, Somerset

May 25. 1866

Dear Sir

Your note of May 22 followed me into Somersetshire. Having ascertained that I should not be wanted in the House on Thursday or Friday, I gave myself a whole week’s holiday in the only form in which a holiday does me any good, by long walks through beautiful scenery. I am sorry that you and your friends will have had the trouble of going to the House on Thursday to no purpose; but I shall be there on Monday, and every subsequent day for some time.

I should have been much surprised if you, having attended to Irish affairs, had come to any other conclusion about them than the one you express in your letter. I am very happy that you think my speech2 calculated to do good. The writer of the article you inclosed (for which I thank you) has well seized the leading points. But he is mistaken in saying that the speech was a surprise to the Irish members. The leaders of the National Party knew my opinions and offered, more than ten years ago to bring me into Parliament for an Irish County on purpose to advocate them.3 He is also mistaken in thinking that the Tory leaders went away to show disrespect to me. They went away because it was long past dinner time.

I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Thomas Beggs Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1171]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 25. 1866

Porlock, Somerset

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

951.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Porlock, Somerset

May 25. 1866

My dear Sir

Your letter found me yesterday at the further extremity of Somersetshire where I was wandering about the woody and heathy hills, to the great benefit of my health, and had arranged to continue doing so the whole week; not without having ascertained from Mr Brand2 that in his opinion a vote more or less would be of no consequence on Thursday or Friday.

I go entirely along with nearly the whole of your paper:3 on a point or two I need some further explanation which you could probably give in five minutes conversation at any convenient opportunity. It is quite clear that the objection made to the plan has no application, so long as we do not require to borrow a sum greater than the whole surplus on our Banking Account: since the extra million of charge occasioned by the plan, will not absorb any part of our surplus either on the Exchequer or on the Banking account, but will be provided for like the other expenses of the year, by the ways and means voted by Parliament.

On the other hand, if we at any time require to borrow a larger amount than our banking surplus, or in other words, than we can borrow from ourselves, it does seem to me, as at present informed, that the plan is pro tanto liable to the same objection as the old Sinking Fund. But this contingency, if we keep out of wars (or even if we have wars, but only short ones, at considerable intervals) will be altogether exceptional, and will, I think, be greatly outweighed by the advantage of tying down the nation to keeping up an extra revenue of a million for the express purpose of paying off debt.

In time of war, Operation B4 might, and probably ought to be suspended.

I am My dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Rt Hon. W. E. Gladstone &c &c

Edition: current; Page: [1172]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 29 [1866]

Blackheath Park

952.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

May 29 [1866]

2

Dear Sir

If you are not engaged on Wednesday, June 6th, will you dine with us on that day at 7? If you will meet me at the House of Commons at ¼ before 6, we can go down to Blackheath together.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 31. 1866

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

953.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

May 31. 1866

Dear Chadwick

I have received the invitation I expected from Lord Taunton’s Commission2—and shall be much obliged by any references you can give me to sources of information, or by any intimation of views of your own. When your proposal came about visiting the Limehouse schools, we were in Somersetshire; and at present it is extremely difficult for either of us to find time for it. I think I should learn more about the schools from any good account of them (if there be one) which you could refer me to, than I should pick up from a flying visit.

I read both the articles you sent with great interest, especially the conclusive and highly effective one from the Examiner.3

I should be very glad of a walk and talk with you as you propose, but it is difficult to fix a time for it just now.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1173]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June, 1866

[Embossed] House of Commons

Charles Ross

Ross, Charles

954.

TO CHARLES ROSS1

[Embossed] House of Commons

[

June, 1866

]

Dear Sir

I thank you very much for your note. The report of my speech in the Times, so far as I have been able to examine it, was so good, that I have lost nothing by not being able to substitute my own report for it. If I understand your note correctly it would not be open to you, if you took a speech from myself, to give slips to the other papers. I am afraid, if this is so, that it will generally prevent me from availing myself of your obliging offer to receive such communications from me. It is of much more importance to be well reported in the Times than anywhere else, but one is so much more certain of being so, that if one has to choose between sending one’s notes to the Times or to the other papers one would rather do it to the others.2 I am

yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 1. [1866]

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

955.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

June 1. [1866]

Dear Sir

Be sure that I shall persist in opposing the Gas Bill,2 whatever the Committee may report3—and I hope the Government will do so too, as one of them (I believe, Mr. Cowper),4 on the former discussion, expressed the opinion Edition: current; Page: [1174] that Gas works ought to be kept out of towns and their immediate vicinity altogether.

I expect to be at the House every day next week and if you like to come at any time when the House is sitting and send in your name to me, I shall be happy to come to you.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 2. 1866

Blackheath Park

William Fraser Rae

Rae, William Fraser

956.

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

Blackheath Park

June 2. 1866

Dear Sir

I shall be happy to propose you as a member of the Political Economy Club. You may however have to wait some time before being elected, as there are several good candidates standing before you.2

The reason I do not give my speeches to the Times, is that the Times would keep them to itself, while the other papers give slips to one another. It would be a great piece of servility to give anything that depends on me to the Times alone; denying it to the papers with whose politics I agree, and which have acted in the most friendly manner to me throughout.3

Will you do us the pleasure of dining with us on Wednesday next (June 6) at half past seven? I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 3. [1866]

Blackheath Park

Lady Amberley

Amberley, Lady

957.

TO LADY AMBERLEY1

Blackheath Park

June 3. [1866]

Dear Lady Amberley

I should much like to accept your kind proposal, if it were not that I have given a general invitation to two persons to dine with me at the House any Edition: current; Page: [1175] day this week, and one or both of them may possibly choose Monday,2 the more so as they may be there on Monday to hear the debate. I therefore feel tied up until my engagement with them is fulfilled, or till the end of this week.

I am
Dear Lady Amberley
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

9th June 1866

Blackheath Park

Christopher Darby Griffith

Griffith, Christopher Darby

958.

TO CHRISTOPHER DARBY GRIFFITH1

Blackheath Park

,

9th June 1866

Dear Sir,—

I am happy that, as I infer from your note of yesterday’s date, you are not indisposed towards the extension of the electoral franchise to women within the limits expressed in the petition.

The notice which I gave in the House yesterday2 goes as far as I think it prudent to go, on this subject, in the present session. As there is no chance that we can succeed in getting a clause for admitting women to the suffrage introduced with the present Reform Bill, it seems to me and to other friends of such a proposal desirable merely to open the subject this year, without taking up the time of the House and increasing the accusation of obstructiveness by forcing on a discussion which cannot lead to a practical result. What we are now doing will lay the foundation of a further movement when advisable, and will prepare for that movement a much greater amount of support in the country than we should have if we attempted it at present.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 13 [1866]

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

959.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

June 13 [1866]

Dear Sir

If you are disengaged on Wednesday the 20th, will you dine with us at half past seven to meet some Americans, whom I think you will like to know Edition: current; Page: [1176] if you do not already know them. Miss Hamilton,2 a granddaughter of the famous Hamilton—her two nieces,3 and Mr Schuyler,4 who is married to one of them—I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Wednesday June 13, 1866

House of Commons Library

John Plummer

Plummer, John

960.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

House of Commons Library

Wednesday
[

June 13, 1866

]

Dear Mr Plummer

It is most mortifying that we were beaten last night on the Gas Bill.2 I thought when the Government took our side we should be successful, but the influence of the Gas Companies, and the unwillingness of many members to set aside the decision of the Select Committee, were too much for us.

I found your letter at the House, but not your own petition, and I could learn nothing about it. But it would have made no difference.

I obtained several votes for the right side. But some who would otherwise have voted with us [said?] that the manufacturers are a still worse nuisance, and that the ground now given to the Gas Company would have been sure to be occupied by manufacturers.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

The papers are all wrong about my motion last night. I did not bring it in, but postponed it to Tuesday [next?]3

J.S.M.

Edition: current; Page: [1177]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Thursday June 14, 1866

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

961.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

Thursday night
[

June 14, 1866

]

Dear Mr Plummer

The House will be very impatient of an attempt to renew the contest on a subject of this sort after a decision, and will probably defeat us, in consequence, by a greatly increased majority.2 Nevertheless, if Mr Tite3 and the others who led the opposition to the Bill the other night are willing to oppose it again, I will join with them. Without their concurrence it would be a mere waste of time attempting it. I think our best hope now is the House of Lords, where the private pecuniary interests are not so powerful. In that House the demonstration you intend to make may have a considerable effect. I recommend a direct application to Lord Derby4 for his support.

I am very sorry that I shall not be able to see you next Sunday, as I am engaged through the whole day and evening, but if you can come to the House pretty early tomorrow (Friday) evening I will see you.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 3. 1866

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

962.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

July 3. 1866

Dear Sir

Immediately on receiving your letter I wrote to Mr Gladstone, and I inclose his answer,2 which I have only this morning received. I wrote also to Mr Fortescue3 giving him notice that I should ask him a question publicly in the House yesterday; but did not do so, since the private explanation which he gave me in the House shewed me, as his memorandum sent by Gladstone will shew to you, that all the mischief which could be done by the Government without passing a Bill through Parliament has been consummated.4 Edition: current; Page: [1178] The supplemental charter received the Queen’s signature weeks ago. It empowers the Senate to give degrees to all comers. In order to enable these graduates to have any voice in the Government of the University, and to enable the Govt to enlarge the Senate, a Bill is required which Fortescue was on the point of introducing when the resignation took place.

You are better able than I am to judge whether any breach of faith has been committed. Fortescue maintains that the expression of intention given in their speeches was the notice promised, and a sufficient warning. We, who were holding back on account of the Reform Bill, certainly were led to expect a further notice: otherwise we should have brought the matter before the House at once, which would have been very disagreeable to the Govt. Whether treachery or misunderstanding, the fact is most unfortunate both in its direct and its indirect consequences. When you have made up your mind what is the best thing that can now be done, please let me know. I suppose the next step will be to put a question to the incoming Ministry.

The conclusion of your pamphlet which you sent to me in proof, is excellent.5 It adds new and good arguments to the old ones. But I suppose you will have to add a supplement to it now. In haste

yours ever

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 3 [1866]

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

963.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

July 3 [1866]

Dear Chadwick

I only received your note yesterday (Monday) on returning from the country. The Evidence is with Hickson, who wanted it for the same reason as yourself.2 I have written to him to send it to you as soon as he can spare it.

Edition: current; Page: [1179]

I am quite unable to propose any time for a talk on the subject unless you are able to come here early on Wednesday forenoon (for I expect a visitor later) or unless you can come to the House on Thursday before the hour of the Committee (twelve) or after the rising of the House—which will probably be between four and five. In haste

yrs ever

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 4. [1866]

Blackheath Park

Lady Amberley

Amberley, Lady

964.

TO LADY AMBERLEY1

Blackheath Park

.

July 4. [1866]

Dear Lady Amberley

Thursday will not be convenient, and perhaps you will kindly allow me to leave Tuesday week dependent on what is doing in the House that evening—especially as it is the day on which I hope to bring in the motion I have given notice of.2 I am

Dear Lady Amberley
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 4. 1866

Blackheath Park

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

965.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Blackheath Park

July 4. 1866

My dear Sir

Many thanks for your note and its inclosure.2 I saw Mr Fortescue in the House on Monday, and he gave me substantially the same explanations, differing however in one point from what seems to be your impression, for according to his statement the authority to the University to grant degrees to all comers is a completed fact. The admission of the new class of graduates to Convocation, and the increase of the numbers of the Senate, require the Edition: current; Page: [1180] previous authority of Parliament; but these are, in the eyes of opponents, only secondary points, since the Government for the time being can, though more gradually, infuse any element into the Senate by the process of filling up vacancies. There has been an unfortunate misunderstanding in this matter, on one or on both sides. Whose fault it was I am unable to say; very probably ours. But the fact is that many Liberals who were opposed to the changes fully believed that the speeches to which Mr Fortescue refers were not the promised notice, and that in some shape (such as a notice of the introduction of the intended Bill) they should be otherwise warned before the last moment arrived; being anxious not to stir until the last moment, on account of the Reform Bill. I am afraid that the consciousness of having, or being thought to have, partly themselves to blame, will not tend to soften their feelings, or disincline them to blame others. I am

My dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

The Right Hon.

W. E. Gladstone M.P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Friday [6 July, 1866]

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

966.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Friday [6? July, 1866]

Dear Chadwick

I send you by this post some of the most important parts of the Evidence,2 of which I have been able to obtain duplicate copies. Hickson will send the rest when he can spare it.

yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 6. 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

James Martineau

Martineau, James

967.

TO JAMES MARTINEAU1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

July 6. 1866

Dear Sir—

It would be very discreditable to any Englishman who watches the progress of opinion, & is capable of understanding the vast importance of speculative philosophy, to have remained ignorant of your contributions to Edition: current; Page: [1181] it or of the influence you have exercised over the mode of thought of a considerable proportion of the few & scattered metaphysical students in this country. It would always give me much pleasure to bear testimony to your knowledge both special & general, your abilities, & your candid appreciation of opponents, of which I have had a striking instance in my own case.2 Unfortunately, however, if I were to volunteer that testimony on the occasion of the vacancy in University College,3 & if when given it were of any value to you, it could only be so by being prejudicial to another candidate4 who, though I have no reason to think his claims superior to yours in any other respect, would certainly teach doctrines much nearer than yours to those which I myself hold on the great philosophical questions. Now though this in itself is far from being a paramount consideration with me, the opportunities are so few & unfrequent of obtaining for opinions similar to my own their fair share of influence in the public teaching of this country that if I myself had a vote in the disposal of the professorship, I shd think myself bound, in the general interest of philosophical thought no less than of my own form of it, to give the preference to a candidate (otherwise sufficiently qualified) who would teach my own opinions, in one of the very few chairs from which those opinions would not be a peremptory exclusion. You are perfectly capable of entering into this feeling even if you do not approve of it, & I can only add that I do not think I have ever in any instance regretted so much my inability to support a similar candidature.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 6, 1866

Blackheath Park

J. George Mawby

Mawby, J. George

968.

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

Blackheath Park

,

July 6, 1866

Dear Sir—

I have read attentively your letter, and the printed correspondence which you sent, and which contains many things having an important Edition: current; Page: [1182] bearing on the question to which it relates; but it seems to me to avoid a point which cannot be excluded from consideration, viz., how far a nation is bound by the unauthorized act of its representative when it has not disavowed that act at the proper time.2 You say, “the way to recal the undue words of a plenipotentiary would be to punish him for exceeding his powers.”3 But whether we ought or ought not to have done this, we did not do it; on the contrary, the few words of modified disapprobation which were uttered by a few public men, only brought into stronger relief the general assent, or at least acquiescence, which the Declaration of Paris4 received from our all constituted authorities. Surely if there ever was such a thing as a tacit recognition and confirmation of the act of an ambassador, we have it in this case. I am far from giving this consideration as conclusive; for, indeed, I hold the right of a nation to bind itself and its posterity permanently, even by an express treaty, to be much more limited than I believe it is generally deemed to be by those who share your opinions. But there is surely a difficulty here which I do not perceive that you have in any degree taken into account.

I am, dear Sir, yours very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

Mr. J. G. Mawby

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 10, 1866

Francis Bowen

Bowen, Francis

969.

TO FRANCIS BOWEN1

July 10, 1866

Dear Sir

Your visit to London has occurred at a time at which I am unluckily unable to profit by it as much as I might have hoped to do, my time being almost entirely preoccupied for every day this week. But if it is not inconvenient to you, I could arrange to call on you at your Hotel some time on Saturday afternoon, say two o’clock. Should this not suit you, the only other thing I can at present propose is that we should meet on Monday evening at the House of Commons. I am

Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1183]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 10. 1866

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

970.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

July 10. 1866

Dear Sir

I perceive that Sir R. Peel has given a notice,2 virtually for Monday next, about the proceedings on the subject of the Queen’s University, expressly including the hurried convocation of the Senate.3 This is probably done in concert with Mr Lowe and I think the subject is best in their hands. I do not think there would be the smallest use in my speaking or writing further to Mr Gladstone. The letter I wrote to him4 in answer to the one you saw, would make him fully aware of the damage which I consider to be done to the reputation of his Government by the disregard of what was, at least, supposed by the persons most concerned to be a pledge.

The subject is altogether a most unhappy one, and, in any event, full of mischief to the liberal cause. I am Dear Sir

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 15. 1866

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

971.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

July 15. 1866

Dear Sir

The success of the motion in the Senate for postponement is very important.2 Is the postponement to a given day, or, as I find stated in a newspaper Edition: current; Page: [1184] sine die? It is also important that it was moved by Sir R. Peel, as it shews him to be in earnest: and he has been backed by an article in the Times, no doubt written or prompted by Lowe.3

As they seem determined to go on with the subject, I think it is best in their hands. I will certainly support them in what I think a good cause, but I would rather not be the prominent person in a move which is very likely to break up the alliance between the Irish Catholics and the English Liberals, and perhaps keep the Tories in office for years. I am

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 16 [1866]

House of Commons

Thomas Henry Huxley

Huxley, Thomas Henry

972.

TO THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY1

[

House of Commons

]

July 16 [1866?]

Dear Sir

Monsieur Barrère,2 the bearer of this note, and a highly esteemed and valued friend of mine, is a candidate for headship of the new International School to be established in France by your Association.3 I should think M. Barrère eminently qualified for such a post, both by his acquirements, his general character and disposition, and his great experience as a teacher both in England and in France. But he will himself more fully explain his qualifications. He is, I understand, very well known to Dr Leonard Schmitz.4

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Professor Huxley.

Edition: current; Page: [1185]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 19 [1866]

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

973.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

July 19 [1866]

Dear Sir

I shall be at the Cobden Club dinner,2 but it will hardly be possible for us to talk of such matters there. I shall be at the House on Friday, and able to see you either while the House is sitting, or, if it suits you better, in the Library at any time between three and four.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Saturday [July 21, 1866]

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

974.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Saturday [July 21, 1866]

Dear Chadwick

This is to remind you that I hope to see you at the Committee on Monday,2 and to say that the Committee has appointed to meet at one instead of twelve.

yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 22 [1866]

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

975.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

July 22 [1866]

Dear Mr Plummer

Could you and Mrs Plummer do us the pleasure of dining with us next Sunday at five? We should like to see you again before we leave England. I am

Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1186]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 25 [1866]

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

976.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

July 25 [1866]

Dear Mr Plummer

I wrote to you on Sunday2 to ask if you and Mrs Plummer can give us the pleasure of dining with us on Sunday next at five, but as I directed the note to Belle Sauvage Yard3 and have not heard from you in answer, I am afraid it did not reach you. Will you kindly give me a line to say if you can come?

Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 26, 1866

Blackheath Park

Edmond Beales

Beales, Edmond

977.

TO EDMOND BEALES1

Blackheath Park

July 26, 1866

.

Dear Sir,

I congratulate you and all our friends on the yielding of the government.2 They deserve credit, especially Mr. Walpole,3 for having given way before it was too late.

I enclose £5 for the Defence Fund.4

I am,
Dear Sir,
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edmond Beales Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1187]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 28. 1866

Blackheath Park

Edmond Beales

Beales, Edmond

978.

TO EDMOND BEALES1

Blackheath Park

July 28. 1866

Dear Sir

Some American friends of mine, chiefly ladies, are very desirous of being present at the meeting on Monday.2 Would you kindly interest yourself in getting them places on the platform? The party consists of Miss Hamilton, grandaughter of the celebrated statesman, her two nieces, and her brother in law, Mr Schuyler.3 An admission directed to G. S. [sic] Schuyler Esq., United Hotel, Charles Street, Haymarket, would find them. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edmond Beales Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 1. [1866]

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

979.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Aug. 1. [1866]

Dear Chadwick

I found your Clause on returning late at night from the House on the day on which the Public Health Bill completed its passage through Committee.2 It was thus too late to do anything.

I will take care that your Evidence3 is sent to you for revisal.

yrs ever truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 5. 1866

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

980.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Aug. 5. 1866

.

Dear Chadwick

I should be obliged if you could soon return my paper on Schools2 with any Edition: current; Page: [1188] remarks and suggestions, as I wish to send it in before I leave England, which will be as speedily as possible after the prorogation.

I regretted, the other day, not having kept a copy of your Clause,3 as there was an unforeseen opportunity of rediscussing the subject on the bringing up of the Report.4 You will however, in all probability, do better with it than I could on that occasion have done.

yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 5. 1866

Blackheath Park

H. Cholmondeley Pennell

Pennell, H. Cholmondeley

981.

TO H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 5. 1866

Mr Mill presents his compliments to Mr Cholmondeley Pennell, and approves the principle of uniting the greatest possible number of capable writers in the same publication, each under his individual responsibility: but Mr Mill’s engagements, both public and private, are so numerous and pressing, that he is unable to hold out any prospect of its being in his power to contribute to the intended publication.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 5. 1866

John Plummer

Plummer, John

982.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Aug. 5. 1866

Dear Mr Plummer

I have read the essays which you sent,2 and I am glad that I was able (though not without some inconvenience) to find time for doing so, as they Edition: current; Page: [1189] were very interesting and encouraging reading. All the seven essays deserve honourable mention, and if they were printed together in a volume, it would be a really valuable one, both for sound views and for arguments well worth considering in support of what I think unsound ones. But the only one to which, if I were the judge, I could conscientiously award a prize would be the one numbered 160, with the motto, “Knowledge is Power.” This, I think, is very decidedly the best, both in matter and style.

The one numbered 137, with the motto “Free Competition,” though by no means equal to 160, shews a remarkable degree of mastery over some not very obvious principles of political economy proving that the Sheffield artisan by whom it professes to be written, has studied that subject diligently and intelligently. If the writers were pupils in a school or students in an University, this one would perhaps deserve the second prize for his personal merits: but as an essay on the subject, and as a composition generally, I do not think it [superior?] if even equal, to several of the others. If the second prize is divisible, I should suggest divid[ing] it among the six: if not, I cannot venture to recommend any one of them as preferable to the rest. But if it is necessary to select one, you can hardly go far wrong.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 8. 1866

B[lackheath] P[ark]

J. Arthur Partridge

Partridge, J. Arthur

983.

TO J. ARTHUR PARTRIDGE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Aug. 8. 1866

Dear Sir—

I am sincerely obliged to you for sending me your book on Democracy2 which I will read as soon as I can find time for any reading not required by an immediate exigency.

The other subject of your letter, the possibility of an organization of the middle class reformers,3 is very important but I am afraid very difficult, as Edition: current; Page: [1190] it is hardly possible for the advanced reformers to agree on a common creed & it would not be desirable that each shd put in abeyance the special points of his own. This observation applies to myself even more than to most reformers since my particular scheme has probably very few adherents as a whole, though almost every separate point of it has many. I can only say for myself that I shd always be eager to cooperate with all other reformers when I agree with them, & to go forward if necessary alone on those convictions of my own with which others may not agree, or to which they may not attach so much practical importance as I do.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 9. 1866

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

984.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 9. 1866

.

Dear Chadwick

I am greatly obliged to you for your notes. I have made use of them in improving my answers by various alterations and insertions.2 The main substance of the answers I am very glad to find that you approve.

I have sent in your name as a candidate for the Cobden Club.3 The Committee will meet in February for the purpose of filling up the list of members.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 10. 1866

Blackheath Park

985.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 10. 1866

Dear Sir

I am very deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of maintaining intact the convertibility of all bank notes; but whether payment in gold at ten days sight might not be a sufficient protection against the evils involved in inconvertibility, is a question fairly open to discussion, and on which I do not profess to have finally made up my mind. I am not, however, inclined to rate highly the positive advantages of such a relaxation of the existing law. But I Edition: current; Page: [1191] shall be glad to read what may be said in its favour, either by the Chamber of Commerce of Birmingham2 or by any other mercantile authority. I am

Dear Sir
very faithfully yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug 11. 1866

Blackheath Park

Charles Gavan Duffy

Duffy, Charles Gavan

986.

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

Blackheath Park

Aug 11. 1866

Dear Sir

I had been hoping for some further communication from you, and now it has unluckily come on the very day on which I am leaving England for the Continent. I very much regret that circumstances have prevented us from meeting more frequently during your stay in this country; but, so far as regards Australian politics, I regret it chiefly on my own account, for on that subject I should have been almost solely a learner from you. If you have time to write to me at my address in France, Saint Véran, près Avignon, it would give me great pleasure to correspond with you.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 15. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

987.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Aug. 15. 1866

Dear Sir

The Jamaica Committee2 have decided that a short letter asking the public for subscriptions to form a Guarantee Fund of £10,000 shall be published Edition: current; Page: [1192] with the signatures of some of those members of the Committee whose names would have a favourable influence on any part of the public.3 You are, in virtue of your subscriptions, a member of the General Committee, and your name, as one of those appended to the letter, would be of very great value, as it would add, to a great intellectual and moral weight, that of a position aloof from all the personal part of politics, and a character which no one would think of calling intemperate or fanatical. Merely in the list of subscribers your name is of great value, but if you would not object to allowing the use of it for the other purpose, please communicate with Mr. Chesson,4 the Secretary, 65 Fleet Street. He will send you the letter and the list of those who have given, or hereafter give, their names: the officers of the Committee of course, together with Bright, Goldwin Smith, Samuel Morley (probably) and several other members of parliament and liberal notabilities in the North of England.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 20 août 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

988.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 20 août 1866

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Votre lettre n’est parvenue à Londres qu’après mon départ. Depuis bientôt huit jours, je suis ici, et bien content, je vous jure, de pouvoir revenir à des occupations tranquilles. La vie parlementaire fatigue et dissipe l’esprit toujours pour l’exercer quelquefois.

C’eût été un vrai plaisir pour moi que de causer avec vous et de comparer nos impressions.

Je suis très indifférent aux pensées de ceux pour qui les événements du moment ne sont que des événements d’un moment; quand même ce moment Edition: current; Page: [1193] s’appellerait un siècle. Mais ceux chez qui tout ce qui arrive se lie à une conception générale du développement humain—et c’est notre cas à tous deux—ceux-là ont toujours quelque chose à dire l’un à l’autre. Espérons que l’occasion nous en viendra.—Bien des amitiés à votre frère, et à Duveyrier, dont la santé altérée me fait de la peine.

Votre bien dévoué

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 20. 1866

Avignon

William Scholefield

Scholefield, William

989.

TO WILLIAM SCHOLEFIELD1

Avignon

Aug. 20. 1866

Dear Sir

The Reform Meeting2 to which the Committee and yourself have done me the honour to invite me, seems likely to be a very important demonstration, but it is out of my power to take part in it in any other way than by the expression of my best wishes. Begging the favour of your communicating this reply to the Committee I am

Dear Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

William Scholefield Esq. M. P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 21, 1866

Avignon

Thomas Davidson

Davidson, Thomas

990.

TO THOMAS DAVIDSON1

Avignon

Aug. 21, 1866

Sir

You have probably thought me unfeeling, since your letter of July 17th seemed to me to deserve an answer, in having so long delayed it. The delay was not solely owing to the manner in which all my time was engrossed during the latter part of the session, for if I could have seen my way to any mode of helping your struggles, though only by advice, I would not have omitted to do Edition: current; Page: [1194] so. But I felt as if any time would be soon enough to say no, while by waiting there might always be a faint chance of being able to say something better. There is but little, however, that I can say, and hardly anything that I can do. I have no power of obtaining government appointments, and little or no influence with those who can give literary employment. I am afraid, in the circumstances of the case, your chance of obtaining employment as a teacher is small. Translating is one of the most wretchedly paid of all kinds of literary work, and the market is so overstocked with translators (very bad ones, but few publishers know the difference) that it is almost impossible to get employment even at that wretched pay. I see only two things of much promise, in a literary capacity, open to those who are situated as you are, and in neither of these would your opinions be much of an obstacle. You might be able to form a connexion with some newspaper as subeditor, correspondent, or writer, ultimately perhaps leading to editorship; or you might be able to earn a subsistence by writing in periodicals. In the former I have no power of helping you, unless you had already done something which could be adduced as proof of your capabilities. In the second it is barely possible that I might be of use to you; that is, if you write an article and send it to me, then may be some review or magazine which if I think well of it, would take it on my recommendation, whereby the foundation might be laid for your becoming a habitual contributor. After a good deal of thinking, I can find nothing else to propose to you. Manuscripts can be sent here (Avignon, Vaucluse, France) by book post, or if sent to my house (Blackheath Park, Kent) they are sure to be forwarded, but possibly not in less than three or four weeks.

You mention having been favourably recommended to Professor Key.2 From a former slight acquaintance with him, I should not think him likely to be prejudiced against you on account of your opinions; though what his power of being of use to you might be, I do not know. I am

Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Thomas Davidson Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 21. 1866

S[aint] V[éran]

Robert Pharazyn

Pharazyn, Robert

991.

TO ROBERT PHARAZYN1

S[aint] V[éran]

Aug. 21. 1866

Sir—

The great occupation of my time in the latter part of the session has prevented me from more promptly acknowledging your letter of April 14. I Edition: current; Page: [1195] am glad to find that a student & thinker, such as you evidently are, finds so much in common between me & himself. The author of the article in the W. R. from which you quote (who is not, as you suppose, Mr Lewes2) is quite right in saying that I have thrown no light on the difficulty of reconciling the belief in a perfectly good God with the actual constitution of Nature.3 It was not my business to do so, but if I had given any opinion on the point it would have been that there is no mode of reconciling them except the hypothesis that the Creator is a Being of limited power. Either he is not all powerful or he is not good, & what I said was, that unless he is good I will not call him so nor worship him. The appearances however of contrivance in the universe, whatever amount of weight we attach to them, seem to point rather to a benevolent design limited by obstacles than to a malevolent or tyrannical character in the designer & I therefore think that the mind which cherishes devotion to a Principle of Good in the universe, leans in the direction in which the evidence, though I cannot think it conclusive, nevertheless points. I therefore do not discourage this leaning, though I think it important that people shd know that the foundation it rests on is an hypothesis, not an ascertained fact. This is the principal limitation which I would apply to your position,4 that we shd encourage ourselves to believe as to the unknowable what it is best for mankind that we shd believe. I do not think it can ever be best for mankind to believe what there is not evidence of, but I think that, as mankind improve they will much more recognise two independent mental provinces, the province of belief & the province of imaginative conjecture, that they will become Edition: current; Page: [1196] capable of keeping them distinct, & while they limit their belief to the evidence, will think it allowable to let their imaginative anticipations go forth, not carrying belief in their train, in the direction which experience & the study of human nature shews to be the most improving to the character & most exalting or consoling to the individual feelings.

I do not know enough of N. Zealand politics to enter on that subject with you. I think most people in England are now of opinion that the colony shd have perfect freedom to manage its own affairs, paying the expenses of its own wars. There is some fear that you will not be just to the aborigines, but a still stronger belief that if you are not we cannot effectually protect them. I hope you are not wrong in saying that there is no disposition to be unjust to them. But if so the New Zealand colonists are I believe the only “Englishmen under new conditions” who do not think any injustice or tyranny whatever, legitimate against what they call inferior races, at least if those races do not implicitly submit to their will. I will hope better things for New Zealand, but in this as in the other & greater matter my belief will depend on the evidence.

P.S. I have not forgotten Mr. Revans,5 to whom pray make my remembrances.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 22, 1866

S[aint] V[éran]

Theodor Gomperz

Gomperz, Theodor

992.

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

S[aint] V[éran]

August 22, 1866

Dear Sir—

Ever since the functions of a member of parliament have been added I may say almost in spite of myself, to my other avocations, my time has been so completely engrossed that I was obliged to postpone even the duty & pleasure of thanking you for the second volume of your most interesting & valuable Herculanean series.2 You will not be surprised that I have not yet been able to give to the new volume more than a cursory inspection. I am indeed reduced to wondering whether I shall ever be able to resume those quiet studies which are so prodigiously better for the mind itself than the tiresome labour of chipping off little bits of one’s thoughts, of a size to be swallowed by a set of diminutive practical politicians incapable of digesting them. One ought to be very sure of being able to do something in politics Edition: current; Page: [1197] that cannot be as well done by others, to justify one for the sacrifice of time and energies that might be employed on higher work. Time will show whether it was worth while to make this sacrifice for the sake of anything I am capable of doing towards forming a really advanced liberal party which, I have long been convinced, cannot be done except in the House of Commons.

Meanwhile what a change in Germany!3 &, it may be said, in Europe: a change of which it is hardly possible for any foreigner or perhaps for any German, to divine the consequences. I am amazed at the confident omniscience of English journalists, periodical writers, & members of parliament, every one of whom thinks he perfectly sees all the consequences that are to issue from what has happened, forgetful that they themselves were mostly, when the war began, indignant denouncers of Prussia & sympathizers with Austria while they have now quite passed over to the other side. Rien ne réussit comme le succès. All the faults of Austria are now seen & people have ceased to care for the flagrant immorality of the contest on the Prussian side. They do not see, or they do not care, that the struggle was between an expiring feudality & a powerful Caesarism & that to wish success to the last even against the first is to cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.

I am very anxious to know what you think of all this. Few Germans are so impartial both by position & by character as you are. What is now likely to become of your country? It might be a greater country yet than it ever has been, but there seems to me a want of practical good sense, & comprehension of the situation in the counsels of the Court of Vienna which give little ground of hope. Are the Hapsburgs capable of learning from experience or of really fitting themselves into the circumstances of a new age? The abolition of the Reichsrath4 which many European liberals foolishly praised because it seemed a concession to Hungary, has proved to be the most fatal step that could have been taken, because, as might have been foreseen, it destroyed all faith in the durability of a concession once made. It shewed that the Imperial family did not deem itself bound by a Constitution once granted. The hopes I had begun to form for Austria sunk to a very low ebb from that day.

I expect to be at Avignon till the end of this year & shall be very happy if you have time & inclination to write to me.

Edition: current; Page: [1198]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 10th, 1866

Avignon

John Baxter Langley

Langley, John Baxter

993.

TO JOHN BAXTER LANGLEY1

Avignon

,

Sept. 10th, 1866

Dear Sir,—

Your letter of Aug. 30th, did not reach me until too late to send a letter which could be read at the meeting in favour of a Testimonial to Mr. Beales. I think it quite right that reformers should make compensation to Mr. Beales for the pecuniary loss to which he has been subjected in consequence of the prominent part he has taken in urging the claims of the working classes to representation in Parliament.2 I see no force in the reasons assigned as a justification of this treatment of Mr. Beales. Strong political convictions are not considered a disqualification in much higher judicial offices than that of Revising Barrister,3 nor are ever likely to be so considered except when the opinions are on the side opposed to the ruling powers. To exclude from the seat of justice all who are decided politicians would be to keep out all the fittest men, for who in the present state of the world is without strong political opinions of some sort, except because he is wanting either in the mental cultivation or in the public spirit requisite for taking due interest in the subject. And to say that the opinions shall be an exclusion because they are known and avowed would be still more absurd, since it is precisely when they are known to the world that there is least danger of their exercising an improper bias on the judgment. Besides, even if the reason were good against appointing an active politician for the first time, it cannot hold against retaining him who having been appointed has, by the acknowledgement of even adversaries, proved his impartiality by his conduct.—I am, dear sir,

Yours very faithfully,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1199]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 10, 1866

Avignon

J. George Mawby

Mawby, J. George

994.

TO J. GEORGE MAWBY1

Avignon

,

Sept. 10, 1866

Dear Sir,—

I thank you for your interesting and valuable letter of the 23rd ult.2 The considerations brought forward in the latter part of it are much to the purpose, and will materially assist me in making up my mind on the question to which you justly attach such high importance.

If, as you seem to have shown, Russia has, in the matter of Circassia,3 violated the provisions of the Declaration of Paris,4 it remains to be seen whether France, the only other great naval Power which was a party with us to the Declaration, is willing to join with us in getting rid of it. You and your friends seem to anticipate no difficulty on this point; and I certainly think that the Right of Search may, under many circumstances, be valuable to France as well as to England. But I cannot share your confidence in this matter, remembering how French Governments, and especially the first Napoleon, have inveighed against England for exercising this right, and have prided themselves on vindicating against us what they called the liberty of the seas.

Mr. Disraeli’s statement,5 referred to in your postscript, seems to me, as it does to you, to give ground for hope that this great question is not closed.

I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,

J. S. Mill

J. G. Mawby, Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1200]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 10. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

995.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Sept. 10. 1866

.

Dear Mr Plummer

Many thanks for your note of Aug. 14 and the article from the Working Man inclosed in it.2 The writing is that of one whose praise is worth having, but he rather overstates the share I had in getting the Industrial Societies Act passed.3 Mr Hughes, in his generosity, had already given me too much of the credit which justly belonged to himself and his friends. My evidence certainly helped them, but I was not examined for “a whole week”: my examination only lasted a day,4 and the transaction is altogether too highly coloured.

If you thought the parliamentary papers so bulky, what would you have said if you had had the whole? A much greater bulk than what I sent to you had unluckily been otherwise disposed of before you spoke to me on the subject. But you will probably find some of them useful.

Will you kindly send me by post the biographical notice of me which you wrote for Messrs Cassell?5 I have been asked by a Geneva editor for biographical particulars, and I do not know of anything so suitable for sending to him as your paper, but I have no copy of it here.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs. Plummer, I am

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 20 septembre 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

996.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 20 septembre 1866

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je suis à Saint Véran, et je compte y rester jusqu’à la fin de l’année et au delà. Vous serez le bienvenu si vous voulez bien y venir. Il serait bon Edition: current; Page: [1201] de m’avertir quelques jours d’avance, afin que je ne sois pas exposé à choisir, sans le savoir, le moment de votre arrivée pour une de ces excursions que j’ai l’habitude de faire. A l’hotel d’Europe on vous indiquera ma demeure.

Vous êtes maintenant un des plus anciens amis qui me restent. Nous avons non seulement beaucoup d’idées mais encore beaucoup de souvenirs en commun, à partir de celui de notre jeune ami Eyton Tooke,2 que nous perdîmes d’une manière si tragique il y a 36 ans. J’ai toujours mieux aimé les vieux amis que les nouveaux, et vous ne faites pas exception à la règle.

Votre affectionné

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 20. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

997.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Sept. 20. 1866

Dear Mr Plummer

Many thanks for the copy of the biographical notice.2 I am very sorry to hear of the backslidings of the firm in Belle Sauvage Yard,3 and of the probable failure of the Working Man,4 which is both unfortunate in itself and a special disappointment to you. I hope that, even on the worst supposition the personal inconvenience will only be temporary, but you will feel very much the loss of a position which at one time seemed to promise so much usefulness.

I am obliged to you for sending your Ode. It was really worth writing, for there is both sense and spirit in it, and a degree of energy as well as of melody which justify writing in verse.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1202]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 26. 1866

John Morley

Morley, John

998.

TO JOHN MORLEY1

Sept. 26. 1866

Dear Sir—

I am much obliged to you for your article2 though I do not altogether agree with it. I presented the petition,3 not because I concurred in its sentiments, but because it came from people who were entitled to be heard, & on the last day of the session they could not find any other member whom they thought suitable. I approved of all Lord Dalhousie’s annexations,4 except that of Kerouli which never took effect, having been at once disallowed from home & indeed Lord D. himself gave it up before he knew of its having been negatived. My principle was this. Wherever there are really native states, with a nationality, & historical traditions & feelings, which is emphatically the case (for example) with the Rajpoot states, there I would on no account take advantage of any failure of heirs to put an end to them. But all the Mahomedan (Rampore excepted which descends from Fyzoola Khan the Rohilla chief) & most of the Mahratta kingdoms are not of home growth, but created by conquest not a century ago5 & the military chiefs & office holders who carry on the government & form the ruling class are almost as much foreigners to the mass of the people as we ourselves are. The Scindia & Holkar families in Central India are foreign dynasties, & of low caste too, Mahrattas who have usurped provinces from their native dynasties of Jats, Goojars, Boondelas &c. The home of the Mahrattas is in the South, & there is no really native Mahratta kingdom now standing except Kolapore. In these modern states created by conquest I would make the continuance of the dynasty by adoption not a right nor a general rule, but a reward to be earned by good government & as such I would grant it freely.

All this however was changed by Lord Canning’s promise,6 which I thought Edition: current; Page: [1203] at the time, & still think most ill advised. And even if right otherwise I think it ought to have excepted states actually created by our gift, as Mysore was.7 In such cases we are by right the sole interpreters of our own deed of gift. All arguments grounded on vague phrases of that most plausible and successful of political humbugs Lord Wellesley,8 count with me for nothing. He would have taken the whole country outright had he dared, but Parlt had then very recently made a solemn declaration against territorial acquisitions in India & his object was to throw dust in the eyes of Parlt & take the country as far as it could be done while pretending not to do it. The only practical question with me is, does Lord Canning’s promise to the native princes which waived our right of escheat, fairly & reasonably include this particular case? Opinions among experienced Indians are divided on this point & I have not yet thoroughly examined the documents. I therefore have not made up my mind though I much fear our faith is committed beyond recal[l].

In one thing I fully agree with you: that whenever we sanction an adoption we ought to undertake the education of the young successor & train him to public business under a judicious and experienced Resident. This has been done in a good many instances & often with very considerable success. Travancore which you mention is only one of a number of cases in point (if we did educate the chief himself, which I forget)9 & though the princes so trained usually degenerate more or less in the lapse of years, they almost always remain much better than the miserable creatures brought up in the zenana.10 One native chief within a recent period before succeeding to his inheritance filled responsible offices in our territories & he immediately commenced introducing the best parts of our system into his own.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 2. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Charles Gavan Duffy

Duffy, Charles Gavan

999.

TO CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 2. 1866

Dear Sir

I feel it a very high compliment that you should wish to know my opinion Edition: current; Page: [1204] on a point of conscience, and still more so that you should think that opinion likely to be of any assistance to you in the guidance of your own political conduct.

The point mentioned in your letter is one which I have often and carefully considered, for though my own course in public matters has been one which did not often call on me to cooperate with anybody, I have reflected much on the conditions of cooperation, among the other requisites of practical public life. The conclusion which I have long come to is one which seems rather obvious when one has got at it, but it is so seldom acted on, that apparently most people find it difficult to practise. It seems to me, in the first place, that a conscientious person whose turn of mind and outward circumstances combine to make practical political life his line of greatest usefulness, may, and often ought to, be willing to put his opinion in abeyance on a political question which he deems to be, in the circumstances of the time and place, of secondary importance: which may be the case with any question that does not, in one’s own judgment, involve any fundamental principle of morality. But, in consenting to waive one’s opinion, it seems to me an indispensable condition that he should not disguise it. He should say to his constituents and to the world exactly what he really thinks about the matter. Insincere professions are the one cardinal sin in a representative government. If an Australian politician wishes to be in the Assembly for the sake of questions which he thinks much more important, for the time being, than that of protection, I should hold him justified in saying to a constituency “I think protection altogether a mistake, but since it is a sine qua non with you, and the opposite is not a sine qua non with me, if you elect me I will not oppose it”. If he conscientiously thought that the strong feeling of the public in its favour gave them a right, or made it expedient, to have its practice tried, I should not think him wrong in promising to support it; though it is not a thing I should lightly, or willingly, do. He might even, for adequate public reasons, consent to join a Protectionist ministry, but only on condition that protection should be an open question—that he should be at liberty to speak his mind publicly on the subject.—The question of expediency in these matters, each must decide for himself. The expediencies vary with all sorts of personal considerations. For instance, if he has considerable popular influence, and is, in all other respects than this, the favourite candidate, it will often be his most virtuous course to insist on entire freedom of action, and make the electors feel that they cannot have a representative of his quality without acquiescing in his voting against some of their opinions. The only absolute rule I would lay down, is not to consent to the smallest hypocrisy. The rest is matter of practical Edition: current; Page: [1205] judgment, on which all that can be said is, Weigh all the considerations and act for the best.

I am Dear Sir
very sincerely and respectfully yours

J. S. Mill

Hon. C. Gavan Duffy.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 4. 1866

S[t] V[éran]

David Urquhart

Urquhart, David

1000.

TO DAVID URQUHART1

S[t] V[éran]

Oct. 4. 1866

My dear Urquhart—

I am really obliged to you for the sight of Mrs Urquhart’s letter.2 I wish it were read by every person in the British Isles. Let me also beg you to thank your two friends3 if they are still with you, both for their subscriptions4 & for their letters. I feel a real respect for men who not only have a conscience, but whose conscience makes them feel that they are personally responsible for their actions & cannot shift off that responsibility upon the shoulders of superiors.

It is a real pleasure to me to find you & myself in thorough & hearty cooperation, even were it only on one subject. But the principle which actuates both of us on that subject is progressively important, & extends far beyond the particular case. You approve of my speech5 because you see that I am not on this occasion standing up for the negroes, or for liberty, deeply as both are interested in the subject—but for the first necessity of human society, law. One would have thought that when this was the matter in question, all political parties might be expected to be unanimous. But my eyes were first opened to the moral condition of the English nation (I except in these matters Edition: current; Page: [1206] the working classes) by the atrocities perpetrated in the Indian Mutiny6 & the feelings which supported them at home. Then came the sympathy with the lawless rebellion of the Southern Americans in defence of an institution which is the sum of all lawlessness, as Wesley said it was of all villainy7—& finally came this Jamaica business the authors of which8 from the first day I knew of it I determined that I would do all in my power to bring to justice if there was not another man in Parlt to stand by me. You rightly judge that there is no danger of my sacrificing such a purpose to any personal advancement. I hope I shd not be so base even if I cared for personal advancement, but as it happens, I do not.

When I last heard from the Cm they had raised £3200 though no appeal had yet been made to the general public. It must be considerably more now; & I have good hopes that we shall be near enough to getting the £10000 we ask for, to bring the Jamaica question within the reach of those of us who are most in earnest. The paper which I enclose contains only the first subscriptions. I am glad that our manifesto has raised your opinion of Goldwin Smith. I do not by any means agree in his practical conclusions as to the colonies,9 though many of his premises are too true. But he is a man of strong moral convictions which he is not afraid to act upon & has a decided power of leading others—provided they do not require to be conciliated first.

The Preston10 Cm did send me the placard which is excellent.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 10. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Perronet Thompson

Thompson, Thomas Perronet

1001.

TO THOMAS PERRONET THOMPSON1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Oct. 10. 1866

Dear Sir

I agree with you as to the importance of consulting the case of Governor Wall,2 and I doubt not that our law advisers have made themselves well Edition: current; Page: [1207] acquainted with it. I presume, and think I remember, that it is in the State Trials. If so, that is by far the most convenient place in which to study it.

The expensiveness of the attempt to get justice done in the Jamaica matter, arises from the necessity of bringing a number of witnesses from Jamaica to London, and maintaining them there until no longer required. Our lawyers’ bills will doubtless be heavy, but will, for aught I know, not exceed as many hundreds as we are obliged to ask for thousands. We may possibly not require the whole £10000, but we thought, after consideration, that it would not be safe to ask for less.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

General Thompson

Your old constituents at Bradford are doing nobly in this matter—they surpass everybody else.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 20 [1866]

Avignon

Daniel O’Donoghue

O’Donoghue, Daniel

1002.

TO [DANIEL O’DONOGHUE?]1

Avignon

,

Oct. 20 [1866]

Dear Sir—

I could hardly have received any invitation of a public kind which I should have had so much pleasure in complying with as that in your letter of the 4th instant, which has only just reached me. I feel as grateful as if I were myself an Irishman to whoever does any service to the cause of Ireland, and there is no one who has better earned the gratitude of Irishmen than Mr. Bright, were it only by his noble speech on the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill.2 I regard the honor which you are paying him3 as an important step Edition: current; Page: [1208] towards establishing that sympathetic co-operation between the English and the Irish liberals, a beginning of which was happily made in the last session, and which is not only essential to the early attainment of the legislative improvements, required by both countries, but is in itself of the most auspicious promise for the permanent well-being of the whole empire. Ireland does not, however, stand in need of such a voice as mine to assist her in doing honor to her eminent friend; and I am prevented from availing myself of your invitation, not merely by distance, but by the much more serious obstacle of pressing occupations, which require the devotion of all my time up to the reassembling of Parliament.—I am very sincerely and respectfully yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 26. 1866

S[t] V[éran]

David Urquhart

Urquhart, David

1003.

TO DAVID URQUHART1

S[t] V[éran]

Oct. 26. 1866

My dear Urquhart—

I thank you sincerely for your letter. The actual experience of one who has had so much of it, & of so unusual a sort, is sure to be worth having & worth meditating on.

Your letter makes me wish to give you an equally explicit statement of my own way of thinking, so far as it is different from yours. And I think I can trust myself sufficiently not to be afraid that my having done so will raise any obstacle of amour propre in my own mind to prevent me from changing any part of that way of thinking which can be shown to be wrong. I feel as strongly as you the absence of control over the executive in matters of foreign policy, & the absolute inutility & nullity, as far as that is concerned of any change of Ministers. I shd never dream of telling the working or any unrepresented classes that they have no power unless they can get the suffrage, & I do not ascribe the prodigious superiority of their moral sentiments on such matters as Eyre, the Indian Mutiny,2 &c. over the classes socially above them, to any intrinsic superiority of moral excellence. But I do not believe that the bad feelings, or absence of good feelings, in the others, arises from their having votes. I ascribe it to the sympathy of officials with officials & of the classes from whom officials are selected with officials of all sorts. I ascribe it also to the sympathy with authority & power, generated in our higher & upper middle classes by the feeling of being specially privileged to exercise them, & by living in a constant dread of the encroachment of the class beneath which makes it one of their strongest feelings that resistance to authority Edition: current; Page: [1209] must be put down per fas et nefas.3 I do not believe that feelings of these kinds would exist where there was no privileged class, & where no one had more political influence of a direct kind than his mere vote gave him. There is much in American politics that is regrettable enough, but I do not observe that there is a particle of the English upper class feeling that authority (meaning the persons in authority) must be supported at all costs; & American foreign policy is all above board & in broad daylight. So, I believe would that of England be, if the working classes had votes. I am no worshipper of those classes & they know it. I have written & published harsh truths of them,4 which were brought up against me in meetings of the working classes during my election & I never was so much applauded by them as when I stood to what I had written & defended it. They are not yet politically corrupted by power. I doubt not that they would be corrupted like other classes by becoming the paramount power in the country, though probably in a less degree because in a multitude the general feelings of human nature are usually more powerful & class feelings proportionately less so than in a small body. But I do not want to make them predominant. I see the country under the leadership of a higher & a middle class who, by long disuse of attempting or wishing to do their duty as managers of the national affairs have become incapable of doing it, & I am hopeless of any improvement but by letting in a powerful influence from those who are the great sufferers by whatever evil is done or is left uncorrected at home & who have no personal or class interests or feelings concerned either in oppressing dependencies, or in doing or conniving at wrong to foreign countries. I could write at great length on all this, but it is not my object to defend my view of existing English politics, my object is to enable you whom I respect, to understand the source from which that view proceeds in my own mind. As for those whom I do not respect, a category which includes the great majority of public men & public writers, I should never take the trouble to give any other explanation of myself to them, than that which I hope my conduct will give.

I return, with thanks, the answer to Mrs Urquhart’s letter on Jamaica.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 12. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

1004.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 12. 1866

My dear Grote

Were I to be appointed to the Council of the University of London, the chief advantage which I should anticipate would be that there would be an Edition: current; Page: [1210] additional vote and voice to support you on critical occasions. That I could, in case I survived you, be to any effectual purpose your successor, is very improbable. Such an influence as yours is, can only be acquired by many years of assiduous devotion, such as you have given, to the business of the institution.2 Moreover, influence over such people as your colleagues in the Senate can, by any one who has no claims to it but personal ones, only be acquired by keeping constantly working at them, and wearing away by perseverance the obstacles in their minds. He must not only accustom them to look on him as a main prop, and the chief working mind of the institution but must keep himself in frequent personal communication with them, and bring social influences to bear on them. All these things would be not only in the highest degree distasteful, but practically impossible to me; and I do not see any reasonable prospect of doing as much for our objects as would make it good economy in me to give the time and trouble that would be necessary for effecting even such good as might be practicable.

The help, however, which I might give to good objects as an auxiliary to you, would be a strong inducement to me to accept your proposal; and were I not in Parliament I would do so without hesitation. As it is, however, my attending the Senate, even if limited to the two important days which you mention, would have the effect of exactly depriving me of the Easter vacation. It is hardly possible for any one who does not share my life here, to estimate the greatness of the sacrifice that being detained in England at that time would be to me, or to know in how great a degree that break in the dreary six or seven months of London, helps to keep up my health, spirits, and working power for what I have to do there. I am willing, for any object which would make it my duty, to add this sacrifice to the great one I have already made. But it is not clear to me that it is my duty to do so for the amount of good which I can see my way to effecting by means of it. As long as you are able to continue your active exertions in the Senate, there is not much danger that the ground already gained will be lost. And without you I see little prospect that any influence I could ever have would supply your place. It is, however, very desirable that there should be some one in the Senate who would give you a more effective backing than you have at present. But there are others besides me who could do this. Bain being unattainable,3 have you ever thought of Herbert Spencer?4 He is as anti-clergymanish as possible; he goes as far as the farthest of us in explaining psychological phenomena by association, and the “experience hypothesis”; he has a considerable and growing reputation, much zeal and public spirit, and is not, I should think, more Edition: current; Page: [1211] suspect on the subject of religion than I am. I think he would be of great use in the Senate on the subjects on which you most need to be supported, and a very valuable acquisition otherwise. I do not know whether the duty would be agreeable to him, but from the little I know of his tastes and habits, I should expect that, rather than the contrary.

I am very glad that a majority of the Council of University College have established the principle of confining the Moral Philosophy professorship to laymen. I wish you had been able to get in Robertson,5 but you may still succeed in this, if the advertisements fail, as they probably will, to attract any candidate of greater prestige.

When Martineau determined to become a candidate, he wrote to me, asking for a testimonial. I wrote him a letter in reply,6 saying such complimentary things as I could say with truth, but declining to give him a testimonial, on the ground that I did not think it right to aid a person of his philosophical opinions in getting appointed to one of the few professorships in Europe that are open to a person of mine. Soon after, I received a letter from Hutton,7 saying that Martineau, having gone ahead, had charged him (Hutton) with sending in his testimonials and asking leave to send in my letter to Martineau as one of them. To which I answered that this would really be doing what I had declared myself unable conscientiously to do, and I therefore refused; to his considerable displeasure.

I hope the Aberdeen students will do themselves the honour of electing you.8 I am in more need of a model for my own Rectorial Discourse than capable of affording one to others, for though I have put into it a good deal that may be useful, I think it is very likely to disappoint expectation.

I am glad to see the announcement of a second edition of the Plato. I see, every now and then, traces of its influence both in English and in French writings.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, I am my dear Grote

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 16. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Rowland G. Hazard

Hazard, Rowland G.

1005.

TO ROWLAND G. HAZARD1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 16. 1866

Dear Sir

I am greatly obliged to you for your letter of Oct. 22, and still more so for Edition: current; Page: [1212] the printed one2 which I subsequently received. It is a real pleasure to have you for an antagonist, for you see the true gist of a question, do not trifle on the mere surface of the subject, and your arguments are real arguments addressing themselves to the real points in dispute and not to imaginary ones. If I had more time I might perhaps go into the subject fully, and answer you at as much length as you have answered me. But being obliged to economize my working power, I will not go down to the foundations of our difference, on which we are not likely to convince one another; if we ever change it will rather be in consequence of the progress of our own minds. I will merely touch on a few points which drew my attention in reading your essay.

1. As to your argument, that our knowledge of our own power to move our muscles cannot be derived from experience, because to obtain that experience, we must already have voluntarily moved them.3 My way of meeting that difficulty is this. I believe, with Hartley4 and Professor Bain, that all voluntary motions were originally automatic, produced by the stimulus of sensation, without what we call volition. For the process by which an idea, or reminiscence in the mind, gains that power over our muscles which was at first possessed only by sensations, I must refer you to the authors I have named, especially Mr Bain “The Emotions and the Will”, who is by far the fullest. If you have time to read him, you will see that experience of the sequence between a thought or desire and a motion may very well be (and, as we think, must be) complete before the thought or desire grows into a will.

2. You say that there are only two things to which we attribute power: viz. intelligence, and matter in motion.5 But there are many cases in which we regard as a cause of motion, matter which is not in motion, or (if there be no matter not in motion) which does not produce other motion by its own motion, but independently of it. For instance, the sun causes the motion of the earth: but, though the sun is now known to have a proper motion, it is not by virtue of that motion that it attracts the earth: if it were immoveable it would do so equally. Just so a magnet makes iron move towards it by its mere proximity. True the magnet moves round with the earth’s rotation and revolves with it about the sun, but it would attract the iron just the same if those movements were suspended. So, again, heat and light are causes, and active forces: the modern opinion indeed is that heat and light are matter in Edition: current; Page: [1213] motion, but they were just as much conceived and known as active forces before that opinion grew up. I think this consideration materially affects your theory, for the natural agencies which have always been conceived as powers, agree in nothing but in being the observed antecedents of motion or change.

Most of your arguments against my chapter on causation6 I have anticipated in the chapter itself: but

3. You misunderstand my expression “as long as the present constitution of things lasts.”7 You do not appear to see that the extinction of the sun’s light would not be, in my sense, a change in the present constitution of things. As long as all the properties of matter remain the same, and are governed by the same laws, no modification which those laws may produce in the concrete bodies surrounding us is a change in the constitution of things. Consequently I do not admit that we believe that “while the present constitution of things lasts night will invariably precede day”.8 It will only do so if the sun continues to give light, and if no other body of a similar nature comes into our region, or we into its region, of the universe. Night, though an invariable, is not an unconditional antecedent of day.

4. You say “As soon as we find that night can for a time exist without producing day, we perceive that it cannot be the cause of day.”9 Then sunrise is not the cause of day either; for the actual sunrise has taken place for some time without producing day, viz. the time necessary for a ray of light to travel over the intervening distance.

5. You say “if the whole aggregate antecedents are the cause of any effect, then, as at each instant the whole antecedents are the same at every point of space, the effects should be everywhere the same.”10 This, I think, you will see, is an oversight. The whole antecedents are not the same at every point of space; for, the antecedent condition of an effect is not the mere happening of an event somewhere, but its happening in a certain degree of proximity to the scene of the effect; and antecedents of this sort cannot be the same for any two points of space.

I throw out these remarks merely as matter for your own mind to work on. If they do nothing else, they will suggest answers from your point of view, and will help to render your side of the argument more complete.

It is unlucky that your visit to England should have occurred while we are away; for we shall not have returned by the time you mention, and I fear you are not likely to visit this side of the Channel before you recross the Atlantic: otherwise you would be warmly welcomed at our little place. Does Edition: current; Page: [1214] the notice prefixed to your printed letter include me? if so, I will return it through Messrs Baring.

I am Dear Sir
ever yours sincerely

J. S. Mill

R. G. Hazard Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

November 16, 1866

Avignon

John Mills

Mills, John

1006.

TO JOHN MILLS1

Avignon

November 16, 1866

.

Dear Sir,—

I have only just received your letter of the 15th in reply of mine. Your pamphlet2 reached me by the same post, my answer is therefore too late for the purpose for which you requested it. I am the more sorry for this, as you have thought it right to mention in a note that you had been told I had changed the opinion which you quoted from the last edition of my “Political Economy”,3 and I should have been glad if you had mentioned such a statement, you should have been able to contradict it. I hold to the passage you quoted in every respect; it still expresses my opinion as correctly as it did when I first wrote it.

I am faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 18. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1007.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 18. 1866

Dear Mr Hare

I have been in debt to you for two letters, I am ashamed to think how long: but when one is as busy as I am, and has also so many letters to write, the Edition: current; Page: [1215] friends one values most are apt to be last served, if there is nothing in their letters requiring to be answered immediately. You, also, have been working hard, and with great efficiency, for and at the Social Science meeting.2 The ignorance of the very A B C of the subject which was shewn by the speakers on the other side, struck me even in the newspaper reports, and your letter shews that this ignorance is accompanied by a false opinion of knowledge. Lord Robert Montagu’s3 confounding your plans with the mode of election which is of all others most different from it, and most opposed to its principle, is very illustrative of the manner in which English politicians, especially of his class, make themselves acquainted with new ideas. They just snatch up some one feature—in this case, the voting for many candidates instead of only two—and then fancy they are masters of the whole thing. What I most want to say to you is this: There will, in all probability, be a Tory Reform Bill, and whatever may be its quality, no moving of amendments or raising of new points will in the case of a Tory bill be regarded by Liberals as obstructiveness, or as damaging the cause. Then will be the very time to bring forward and get discussed, everything which we think ought to be put into a good Reform Bill. I am anxious, therefore, to hear what, in your opinion, would be the best way of bringing your plan before the House in the approaching session. Perhaps the mode you mention, that of moving for a Committee, would do best; for as Disraeli will be glad to curry a little favour with the independent liberals, and not sorry to gain a little time, we have more chance of getting our Committee, than perhaps we should at a future time. If a Committee is granted, we will get Fawcett and any other friends put on it, and I will devote myself as much as I am able to working it, and extorting a real discussion of the plan from the witnesses. If you think this the best way, should the motion be for a Committee on your plan alone, or on representation of minorities generally?

I suppose you saw in how excellent a way Lord Hobart returned to the subject in his article on Bribery in the November McMillan.4 Mr Schuyler5 says in a letter I have just received from him, “I have been carefully reading Edition: current; Page: [1216] Mr Hare’s book, and yours on Representative Government. For our country, I think Mr Hare’s plan would have to be modified so far as to confine the choice of members to districts of the country, like our present congressional districts—perhaps to States—and this because of the great extent of our country and the sparse population of most parts of it—” (He probably means that the people do not know the notabilities of any State not their own)—“Otherwise I can see no drawback to all the advantages it undoubtedly would give. I shall do what I can to bring it into public notice at home.”

With our kind regards

I am Dear Mr Hare
Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 21. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1008.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 21. 1866

Dear Sir

My daughter, from whom you have already more than once accepted articles, has written one on the claim of women in independent circumstances to the suffrage,2 which she sends by this post and places at the service of the Westminster Review if you are disposed to insert it. It is written, as you will see, with a practical object, to aid the parliamentary movement which will probably be made in the next session, and it takes, therefore, mainly the constitutional ground and that of analogy to English institutions, taking only incidental notice of the broader and higher principles on which the claim may be rested. It is desirable that the article, if accepted, should be in the January number, as the number following may perhaps be too late for the immediate occasion. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

Edition: current; Page: [1217]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 23, 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Robert Were Fox

Fox, Robert Were

1009.

TO ROBERT WERE FOX1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Nov. 23, 1866

Dear Sir

On returning home the other day, I regretted to find that you and your ladies,2 after taking the trouble to come, and staying some time for the purpose of seeing me, had gone away disappointed: I should certainly have made an attempt to find you before you left Avignon, if it had not been already too late. The recollections left by my former intercourse with your family are too pleasant for me not to have pleasure in reviving them. I was sorry to hear that your visit to the South was for the sake of Miss Caroline’s health—I hope only by way of precaution. The winter climate of the South East of France is, I think, excellent for chronic weakness or delicacy, but inferior to many other of the resorts of invalids in case of actual disease, either pulmonary or bronchial: and whenever there is any facility in taking cold, great care is required. But Hyères, in the opinion of medical men, has in a less degree than Nice the defects which are common to both. At all events it will have, in your case, the advantage of being a very complete change; for the type of its climate is the very opposite of that of Cornwall.

I am afraid we shall have left this place for England before you turn your faces homeward; but either in England or here I should always be happy to see you, or to serve you in any way in my power. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 1. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1010.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 1. 1866

.

Dear Sir

Dr Cazelles,2 a very intelligent medical man, residing at St. Giles, near the mouth of the Rhone, who has translated (excellently well, as far I am Edition: current; Page: [1218] competent to judge) one of the principal writings of Moleschott,3 and has just finished translating my book on Hamilton, proposes, if you will give him permission, to translate your First Principles, and your Psychology. His ultimate scheme is rather an extensive one—to publish in French the whole series of the Association Psychologists, from Hartley downwards, beginning with you and Bain: and he has the consent of Germer Baillière, the publisher of the series of Philosophie Contemporaine, to publish translations of Bain and you by Dr Cazelles. I have formed a very favourable idea of his capacity; his philosophical opinions are completely of the Experience school, and I know by my own case that he does not linger over what he undertakes, but sets about it with a will, and gets through it. Dr Cazelles means to write to you himself, and will most likely send you his translation of Moleschott. Unless you have already some competent person in view, I do not think you would be likely to regret having accepted Dr Cazelles’ proposal.

I am Dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec.2.1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1011.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec.2.1866

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your letter. My daughter intended all along to insert a heading in the proof.2 She had some thought of heading the article with the Report of the General Committee of Petitions in which the Ladies’ Petition was printed: but we have not the series of those Reports by us, and we do not know which of them is the one that contains it.

I am sorry to hear that you are in any difficulty about the Review, and should be very glad to hear further about it. Knowing how little support there is for a Review of advanced opinions, I have always thought it eminently Edition: current; Page: [1219] honourable to you that you should have been able to carry it on for so many years, and to make it as good as it has been through all that time. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 2, 1866

S[aint] V[éran]

George Grote

Grote, George

1012.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

S[aint] V[éran]

Dec. 2, 1866

My dear Grote—

I am very happy that you think my objection to being proposed for the Senate fair & reasonable. With regard to Spencer,2 Bain’s judgment will be a great help to you in the matter. I have not seen very much of Spencer, but what I have seen adds to the favourable side of the impression his writings make on me. I am not inclined, from anything I know, to consider him as on the whole disposed to magnify his differences from others whose philosophical opinions are allied to his own. He did so in the case of Comte, whom he knew very imperfectly. But in his controversies with me3 it is rather I who have magnified the differences, & he who has extenuated them. With regard to his reputation, no doubt it has not yet reached its height, but it is constantly growing. His is the rising philosophical name at the present & will probably stand very high ten years hence—& it is rather with a view to the future than to the present that additional thought is wanted in the Senate.

I have read several of the attacks on the Council about Martineau4 with much disgust at their extreme unfairness. There was, however, in the Morning Star of Nov 28th a leading article on the subject,5 as good & as much to the point as if it had been written by one of ourselves. In case you have not seen it, I inclose the article. Though the writer has evidently seen my letter to Martineau, I have no idea who he is. It may be the editor, Mr. Justin McCarthy,6 who, judging from two articles which he wrote [long?] ago in Edition: current; Page: [1220] the W.R., on Voltaire & on Buckle,7 is a man of very considerable ability & very good opinions.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 2, 1866

Avignon

Alexander Vance

Vance, Alexander

1013.

TO ALEXANDER VANCE1

Avignon

Dec. 2, 1866

Sir

I am obliged to you for your book. I have not had time to read more than the Introduction, but that is enough to convince me that your idea is a good one, and that you have done a useful thing.

I am Sir
Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Alex. Vance Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 6. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1014.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 6. 1866

Dear Sir

My daughter has put a heading to the article,2 and returns the corrected proof to your address by this post. She would be much obliged to you if you would allow twelve separate copies to be made up (at her expense) and sent to her here, as early as convenient.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr. Chapman

Edition: current; Page: [1221]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 18. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hughes

Hughes, Thomas

1015.

TO THOMAS HUGHES1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 18. 1866

Dear Mr Hughes

The idea of exhibiting in detail the practical need of reform, and answering the objections to it, in a volume of short essays,2 seems to me a very good one. If as well executed throughout, as from the persons engaged in it, some parts of it are sure to be, there is reason to hope that it will not only help Parliamentary Reform in the coming session, but will also hoist the flag of a future party of practical reformers, in anticipation of the time for following Parliamentary Reform to its consequences. It is impossible, however, that I should write anything for the collection, as I have work in hand that will require all my time up to the opening of Parliament.

With regard to the two departments for which I am asked to recommend writers, No 4 of the A series will, I think require to be divided. For Poor Law and Sanitary Reform, Mr Chadwick is the right person, if he can be prevailed on: if not, he is the person most competent to recommend some one else. For Municipal Reform, I should propose my constituent Mr James Beal, who has paid great attention to the subject, and understands it well: or, failing him, perhaps Mr Horton.3 9 C, “the House of Commons and Taxation”, I think I would omit altogether. There is no longer much to complain of in the conduct of the House of Commons, under the guidance of Mr Gladstone, on this subject; and any one who took it up with that idea, would probably do so on the wrong principles of the Liverpool Financial Association.4 The worst things the House of Commons is now chargeable with on the subject of taxation, are the non-extension of the Probate Duty to real property, and the levying of the Succession Duty, in case of settled property, on the life interest only: and these points, I think, would come in better, à propos of something else.

Edition: current; Page: [1222]

No 1 of the B series, which was destined for me, would be an excellent subject for Mr Goldwin Smith.

I think you would find Professor Cliffe Leslie a valuable coadjutor. He is an excellent popular expositor of scientific thought, one of our best political economists, and has thought much and well on several of the proposed subjects, the land laws being one.

If I think of anything else worth writing, I will write again. I am

Dear Mr Hughes
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 25. 1866

Saint Véran, Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

1016.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Dec. 25. 1866

My dear Grote

I am much obliged to you for giving me the history of the struggle which ended in the appointment of Robertson.2 “Those who exerted themselves to get the professorship suppressed because their candidate was rejected, have certainly given their measure by it, and a very wretched one it is.”3 As Helen said when she read your letter, it is like the Judgment of Solomon: we see on which side the real case for the institution and for the subject is; for there is probably not one of us who would not have voted for Martineau rather than lose the professorship altogether. I am truly happy that you were sufficiently well supported to avert either result.

I do not know whether the younger men are, as you think, inferior to those who were formed between 1820 and 1832; it is hardly possible to judge until they shew what they are when they reach the same age, for the Edition: current; Page: [1223] more various culture of more recent times causes people to ripen slowly. We must not forget either, that your experience and mine of the older set includes the very best of them—those who were formed under the Benthamic influence. There was, in general, Kimmerean darkness then, beyond the region to which that influence, directly or indirectly, extended.

I have got through fully three fourths of the revision of the Hamilton for the new edition.4 I have corrected some minor matters; but the wish you expressed, on Hamilton’s account, that some one might be able to clear him from a part of the inconsistencies and other errors laid to his charge, has not been realized to the extent that might reasonably have been expected. Mansel,5 in particular, is perpetually crying out that I have misunderstood Hamilton, but the points on which he makes out even a plausible case of misunderstanding are extremely few and small. Some of the new matter I have inserted will, I think, add to the intrinsic value of the book, independently of repelling objections.

Among the books I have had occasion to read in connexion with the subject is one lately published by Chapman and Hall, called “Inquisitio Philosophica, an Examination of the Principles of Kant and Hamilton by M.P.W. Bolton,”6 which is on our side, and attacks Mansel, and which I think you would like very much. The writer is a scholar, well read in the history of philosophy as well as in philosophy itself, is particularly good at stating correctly and clearly both sides of a case, and though he does not always profess to decide between them, shews plainly enough that he holds with the inductive school, both in their philosophy and in its consequences. I have mentioned his book to Bain.

In referring to the article in the Westminster, on Hamilton and me,7 am I at liberty to speak of it, either directly or by a circumlocution, as yours, or, as attributed to you? Unless you would rather I did not, I should like to be allowed to do so, not only on account of the value of your expressed approval of the book, but for the sake of the opportunity of expressing my sense of that value.

I hope Aristotle8 is profiting by the termination of your troublesome and anxious contest.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, who I hope is now quite recovered, I am

my dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1224]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 29. 1866

S[aint] V[éran]

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1017.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

S[aint] V[éran]

Dec. 29. 1866

Dear Chadwick—

Let me begin by requesting you to thank Miss Chadwick very heartily from me for the trouble she took in writing to me as your representative. I am extremely sorry for the cause which rendered her aid necessary; most of all on your own account. The loss of what you would have written & done during the interval is also much to be regretted, but on the whole you, like myself, have had less than the average share of interruption in your work from ill health.

I have, as you know, always agreed with you as to the importance of introducing military drill into schools, though I should be a little frightened at it if I thought it would do what in your present paper2 you say it sometimes does—make the majority of the boys wish to be soldiers. There can be no doubt also that by this means the purposes of an efficient reserve would be attained without either the expense, the loss of productive power, or any other of the evil consequences of increased armaments. But for that very reason it will not be listened to by any of the Continental governments except possibly Italy. Those governments do not want a real defensive force; they want an aggressive force; they want to have the very largest body of adult soldiers ready for service anywhere, whom they can afford to pay, & your arguments will be of no avail except to the French & Prussian liberals to use, against their governments. In that respect they may be very useful & I think copies might usefully be sent to the Temps newspaper, to Jules Favre,3 Jules Simon, Carnot,4 Garnier Pagès,5 Lanjuinais,6 &c. and to Twesten,7 Schultze-Delitsch,8 Jacobi,9 & any other of the best liberals in the French & Prussian Edition: current; Page: [1225] chambers. It was a good idea sending a proof to M. Wolowski10 for the Institute & if you were to give him a copy for M. Rouher11 there might be a chance of Rouher’s reading it. The idea of employing soldiers in civil work is not new in France, & it has been much discussed. You will find many minds prepared for it. I do not at present see any service that I can be of in the matter, at least by writing. I do not understand military subjects & can carry no authority upon them. But I will most willingly move for your paper & may take that opportunity of speaking my mind on the matter as a question of education.12 Hoping for a better account of you before long I am

Edition: current; Page: [1226]

1867

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan.1. 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1018.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan.1. 1867

Dear Sir

I am most desirous to find out what can be done to relieve you and the Review from your present difficulties.2 Besides the importance of the Review to the friends of progress, you have a very strong personal claim on them, not only by what you are likely to do, but by what you have already done. Any help in my own power to give, would go but a little way: and unfortunately my personal connexion does not lie among monied people. Most of my radical allies in the House of Commons who are men of wealth, and who are chiefly Yorkshire and Lancashire manufacturers,3 care for little except practical matters and politics: the most characteristic feature of the Westminster Review, its freedom of speculation in religion and philosophy, would rather be distasteful than a recommendation to most of them; while many who like this, do not like its radicalism. I do not know whether there is any other M.P. except Mr Stansfeld,4 whom there would be any use in taking into our councils. Him you probably know. The only other persons I can think of to consult with are Mr Grote and Mr Herbert Spencer. With both of these, however, it is likely that you are already in communication. If you give me permission to consult with them and with Mr Stansfeld, I will write to these three, and will inclose to Mr Grote your letter to me, with a request to pass it on. In the meanwhile, if I think of anything else, I will write to you again; and I hope you will mention to me anything that occurs to yourself.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

Edition: current; Page: [1227]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 8. 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1019.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 8. 1867

.

Dear Sir

I have received your second letter,2 and require a little more time to consider what is best to be done. In the meantime there are two questions I should like to ask. The first is—Is it in your opinion undesirable, or would it be disagreeable to you, that I should consult on the subject with Mr Herbert Spencer? or do you merely think that it would be of no use? The other point is this. There is one essential element of the question about which I should certainly be asked by every person to whom I might speak on the subject; the present pecuniary position of the Review. What is now its sale? and do the proceeds suffice to pay the actual expenses, or is there a fresh deficit every quarter, to be added to the debt against which you and the Review are now struggling? If you will do me the favour to answer these questions, I will then write to you again without delay. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 9. 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Tulloch

Tulloch, John

1020.

TO JOHN TULLOCH1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 9. 1867

Dear Sir

I duly received your kind note, as well as the Essays,2 about which I hope in two or three days to be able to write to you.

I propose leaving London by a night train on the 30th which will bring me to St Andrews some time in the forenoon of the 31st;3 and leaving again on Edition: current; Page: [1228] Saturday afternoon or evening; and I shall have great pleasure in accepting your kind invitation. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Rev. Principal Tulloch

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 13. 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1021.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Saint Véran, Avignon

Jan. 13. 1867

Dear Sir

As you kindly leave the question of consulting with Mr Spencer2 to my judgment, I will do so or not as it may seem to me, from future circumstances, advisable. Mr Octavius Smith3 I am not acquainted with, and have no direct access to. Indeed I am acquainted with very few monied people, well affected to the principles of the Review. Do you know Mr P.A. Taylor? and what should you think about my consulting with him?

In any case, I think it advisable not to attempt doing anything by letter but to wait for personal communication. And I am not hopeful about doing much, depending, as I must, on only one or two people for not only subscribing themselves, but getting subscriptions from others. What occurs to me in the meantime is this. One of your ideas was to raise £600 on a mortgage of the Review for five years, on condition that repayment should commence then, at £100 a year. If you are inclined to try this as an immediate answer, I would propose to take the mortgage myself, without interest. This would enable you to get rid of the pressing demands; to save something (I suppose) in interest; and we should have two years before us in which to look out for the remaining £500, besides the chances of an increase of your practice in that time.

That is glorious news about diabetes.4 If you can even occasionally cure such an intractable and fatal disease by your remedy, you will surely end by having a great practice. That you will leave a great name behind you as an alleviator of suffering and an improver of the medical art, is now, I think, almost certain.

Edition: current; Page: [1229]

I shall remain here till the 24th of January, and therefore letters can safely be addressed to me here until the 22nd

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Is it any secret who wrote the article “Social Reform in England”?5

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 17 janvier 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

1022.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Saint Véran, Avignon

le 17 janvier 1867

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je vous remercie bien de l’envoi du journal contenant la prédication du P. Hyacinthe.2 Je suis bien aise d’avoir eu un échantillon de ce prédicateur, quoique cet échantillon ne m’ait pas donné de lui une haute idée. Quant à la question de la population, je suis heureux de voir que vous et moi sommes si parfaitement d’accord là-dessus.

Le règlement du nombre d’enfants dans les familles me paraît, comme à vous, aussi important au point de vue de la moralité qu’au point de vue économique, et même, dans les circonstances actuelles de l’humanité bien davantage; car d’un côté le grand accroissement de la richesse, et de l’autre côté l’habitude croissante de l’émigration ont fort atténué l’importance de la question de la population économiquement parlant.

Je compte être à Paris pendant quelques heures le 26 janvier, et j’irai bien certainement vous trouver chez vous dans le courant de la journée probablement vers midi ou une heure. Je vous prie de la part de ma fille de remercier Madame et Mademoiselle d’Eichthal de leur aimable offre, dont elle serait très heureuse de profiter si notre séjour à Paris devait être un peu plus prolongé: mais ce séjour n’étant habituellement que d’une seule journée entre deux voyages, ma fille l’emploie le plus souvent au repos.

Croyez, mon cher d’Eichthal, toujours votre bien dévoué

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1230]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 22. 1867

Avignon

W. L. Johns

Johns, W. L.

1023.

TO W. L. (JOHNS?)1

Avignon

Jan. 22. 1867

Dear Sir

I have had the honour of receiving your communication of Oct. 21 on the subject of your plan for promoting a large emigration from Great Britain to New South Wales. I have, as you are aware, strongly advocated a national scheme of self-supporting emigration,2 based on the fund derived from the sale of waste lands in the Australian colonies: but, in the plan I proposed, no expense, beyond a temporary advance, would have been incurred by the mother country. In the present altered state of the labour market in Great Britain and Ireland, occasioned by the great increase of spontaneous emigration, our politicians have grown more afraid of under than of over population; and I am convinced that no scheme for aiding emigration at the public expense would now be listened to. Whatever is done to promote emigration to Australia, must now be done from the Australian side: and your plan might very properly engage the consideration of the Colonial Governments. Of the particular machinery which you propose, I cannot be so capable of judging, as those on your side of the water.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

W. L. (Johns?) Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 29. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1024.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Jan. 29. 1867

Dear Sir

I inclose a Draft of a mortgage deed,2 prepared by my Solicitor.3 It was drawn up without any reference to the former deed, and he has made it longer and (it seems to me) somewhat less clear than the former one, which I return herewith. Perhaps you will kindly look at the Draft, and return it to me with any remarks or suggestions which occur to you, between this and the 5th of February, on which day I shall return here from St Andrews. Please Edition: current; Page: [1231] fill up in the manner most convenient to yourself the dates which are left in blank.

I am sorry that I have not the smallest or most indirect knowledge of any one of the Directors of the Mutual Life Assurance Society. I could perhaps (if it would be of any use) get at their medical officer, Dr Brinton,4 who I hope is not the one whose death makes the vacancy. With your professional claims, and such testimonials, you ought to have a good chance. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 29. 1867

Blackheath Park

Spencer H. Walpole

Walpole, Spencer H.

1025.

TO SPENCER H. WALPOLE1

Blackheath Park

Jan. 29. 1867

My dear Sir

On arriving from abroad I found the communication which you have done me the great honour of addressing to me on the subject of the intended Royal Commission of Inquiry into the questions connected with Trades Unions.2 The importance of such an inquiry cannot be overrated; and that you should wish to include me in the number of those to whom it is to be entrusted, would be of itself a proof of your desire that it should be so conducted as to do complete justice to the artisans’ side of the question, equally with that of the employers.

Were the inquiry by a Committee of the House of Commons (though a much less efficient mode of investigation) or were its operations likely to be terminated within the Parliamentary season, I should feel bound in duty to accept the honourable office of taking a share in them. It is, however, next to certain that the proceedings of the Commission not only cannot be concluded before the end of the session, but will be carried on with much greater activity Edition: current; Page: [1232] during the recess. And it is extremely important to me to preserve the smaller half of the year for occupations, other than political, which I do not think it right to abandon; while I have a strong conviction that to pass some months of every year in the South is essential to the preservation of my health.

It seems to me, also, that the greater part (at least in discussions) of the investigations of the Commission will be of a quasi-judicial character, for which I am not aware that I have any special aptitude. If I could be of use, it would rather be in drawing conclusions from the evidence when taken, than in helping to take it. There are others whose presence in the Commission would be, as much as mine, a guarantee to the working classes that justice would be done to their opinions and objects: for instance, Mr Fawcett,3 who has made the subject one of his chief studies, who knows the workmen’s side of the question (we all know the other side) and who is much trusted by them.

You are very fortunate in the President you have obtained for the Commission.4 It is sure to do much good; and though I am not able to accept a place in it, no one will more heartily rejoice if its inquiries lead to more correct opinions or improved legislation on so vital a subject, and no one will join more cordially in applauding and thanking the present Government for every step they take in that direction. I am

my dear Sir
very sincerely and respectfully yours

J. S. Mill

The Right Honourable

S. H. Walpole, M.P.

&c &c

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 6. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1026.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 6. 1867

Dear Sir

I will direct my solicitor to make the alterations you suggest, and to prepare the deed for signature without loss of time.2 My solicitor says the mortgage should be registered at Stationer’s Hall, which he undertakes to see done.

Edition: current; Page: [1233]

In your note to my daughter concerning the reprint of her article3 you were kind enough to say that you had made an arrangement with Mr Trübner. My daughter thanks you very much for the trouble you have taken, and would be glad to know more exactly what the arrangement was, and also whether the printing, paper, &c. are to be paid for to Mr Trübner, or to whom else, as she wishes to pay for them at once. She would like to have twenty copies sent to her here.

I met with an interesting coincidence with your pathological speculations the other day on the part of an intelligent and philosophic medical man in the South of France. He has not had any cholera patients, but had made up his mind, if he had to treat them on the same principle as you, that of drawing away the congested blood from the spinal region—only he had not thought of the ice plan, but meant to do it by introducing atropine in the subcutaneous region, which he has found in other cases to be a means of producing that particular effect on the bodily economy. I am Dear Sir

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Febr. 7, 1867

Arnold Ruge

Ruge, Arnold

1027.

TO ARNOLD RUGE1

Febr. 7, 1867

Dear Sir,

The historical fragments left by Mr. Buckle, and which my daughter (not myself) is engaged in editing, have been in part published in Fraser’s Magazine for this month.2 More will probably be printed hereafter in a small octavo volume.3 I need hardly say that my daughter would most gladly do what she could to promote any wishes of yours with regard to them.4 And if you have Mrs. Allat’s5 consent, without which of course we should not be justified in Edition: current; Page: [1234] doing anything, she will forward the proofs to you when they are ready for publication.

I am very thankful for your kind expression of approbation and sympathy in regard to my public conduct. You will easily understand that I look upon the House of Commons not as a place where important practical improvements can be effected by anything I can do there, but as an elevated Tribune or Chair from which to preach larger ideas than can at present be realised.

I am
Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Henry S. Brandreth

Brandreth, Henry S.

1028.

TO HENRY S. BRANDRETH1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

.

Feb. 9. 1867

.

Dear Sir,

Your question respecting the obligation of veracity on the utilitarian view of ethics2 seems, if I understand it rightly, to proceed on a misapprehension of the utilitarian standard. The test of right on the happiness principle is not the pleasure of doing the act which is declared to be right, but the pleasurable or painful consequences to mankind which would follow if such acts were done; & these, in the case you put, could not be enunciated in any general rule, because they depend on varying circumstances. There are cases in which martyrdom is a useless self sacrifice, & a sacrifice of other means of doing real good. There are other cases in which the importance of it to the good of mankind is so great as to make it a positive duty, like the act of a soldier who gives his life in the performance of what is assigned to him. There are cases again where without being so necessary as to be, on the utilitarian ground, an absolute duty, it is yet so useful as to constitute an act of virtue, which then ought to receive the praise & honours of heroism. The duty of truth as a positive duty is also to be considered on the ground of whether more good or harm would follow to mankind in general if it were generally disregarded and not merely whether good or harm would follow in a particular case.

Edition: current; Page: [1235]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1029.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 9. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

We are truly grieved to hear of your suffering so much. You do not mention to what place in the South of France you are going. If to Pau, you must not be disappointed if you do not find your health greatly improved by it. The climate of Pau is damp, and dampness is, I am afraid, bad for rheumatism.

My daughter is very much pleased that you think favourably of what she has been doing. We have been made very happy by the adhesion of the Daily News,2 in an admirable article for which the cause is evidently indebted directly to Mr Hill,3 and indirectly to you.

I need not say how glad I am that you like my Address.4 Nor, I hope, need I say how earnestly I desire your speedy restoration to health. You can ill be spared from among us even for a short time.

With our best regards to Mrs Cairnes I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Thomas W. Fowle

Fowle, Thomas W.

1030.

TO THE REV. THOMAS W. FOWLE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb. 9. 1867

Dear Sir—

I agree entirely with the general principles & spirit of your letter received yesterday. I think it highly desirable that the New Testament, & those parts of the Old which are either poetical or properly historical, Edition: current; Page: [1236] should be taught as history in places of education;2 & so far my only difference with you would be that nearly all teachers, both churchmen & dissenters, being as yet far short of the enlightened views which you entertain on the subject, would at present be sure to teach & inculcate all that is contained in those books not as matter of history but of positive religious belief. There are, however other parts of the Old Testament viz. those which scientific knowledge or historical criticism have shewn not to be, in any proper sense of the word, historical, the book of Genesis for example; & I do not think it right to teach these in schools even as history, unless it were avowedly as merely what the Hebrews believed respecting their own origin & the early history of the world.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1031.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Feb. 9. 1867

Dear Mr Plummer

I have to congratulate you on the birth of your daughter, and at the same time to condole with you on the failure of the Working Man2 and on the termination of your engagement with Messrs Cassell. What have you in view for your next employment? I wish it were in my power to help you to a position of profit and usefulness.

I am glad to hear of a local Jamaica Committee, and of your being a member of it. I think you should decidedly offer yourself as a witness to the Trades Union Commission.3 They will find few who know so much of the subject and feel so impartially on it. There must often be witnesses quite as hard of hearing as you are.

With our kind regards to Mrs Plummer, I am

dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1237]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1032.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 9. 1867

Dear Sir

I am very happy that you think so favourably of the St Andrews address, except on one point. In regard to classical instruction, I do not altogether agree with you that the side favourable to it is too strong;2 for I think there is a growing reaction to the opposite extreme, producing a danger on that side which being the side most in harmony with modern tendencies has the best chance of being ultimately the stronger.

I am most happy to hear that there is a chance of reviving the scheme of the Reader.3 I agree with you as to the desirableness of taking time to mature the plans, so as to avoid the mistakes made with the Reader, through which the subscriptions were expended without a fair trial of the experiment. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 9. 1867

Robert Herbert Story

Story, Robert Herbert

1033.

TO ROBERT HERBERT STORY1

Feb. 9. 1867

Dear Sir

Allow me to thank you for the book2 you have been so good as to send, and which I am quite prepared to find very interesting. I am sorry that the Edition: current; Page: [1238] occupations, parliamentary and other, which press on me, are not likely soon to leave me the leisure necessary for reading it.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Rev. R. H. Story

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb 9 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William George Ward

Ward, William George

1034.

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb 9 1867

Dr Sir

The Dublin Review reached me duly & I thought I had acknowledged it. The article on Jamaica2 was excellent. I am very happy that you feel with me so strongly on that subject. I am glad too that you like the St. Andrews Address.

I wish I had seen your article on Free Will3 while I was revising my book4 for a new edition and replying to other critics. You would have been a much worthier adversary than most of those I have had.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 10. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1035.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 10. 1867

Dear Sir

I have communicated to my solicitor your remarks and wishes on the subject of the registration of the mortgage.2 In the meantime I have received from him the inclosed letter. I do not remember the exact import or effect of Edition: current; Page: [1239] the words which you wished omitted. But he says that even as the draft originally stood, it would not have pledged the back stock, or any monies still to come in from the back numbers.

I inclose a cheque, for which the deed of mortgage will be the receipt, and I am Dear Sir

yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 11, 1867

Blackheath Park

William George Ward

Ward, William George

1036.

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 11, 1867

Dear Sir—

I shall be very glad to see the proof of your article2 & I only regret that the pressure on my time during the session will make it impossible for me to take notice of it in the forthcoming edition of my book.3

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 13. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1037.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 13. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

I shall be happy to support your friend Mr Courtney2 if I am able to attend the Club. There is at present a vacancy by the death of Mr Cowell.3

The progress of the cause of women’s suffrage, both here and in the United States, is indeed wonderful. It is a great encouragement to those who have been working uphill.

I hope you will let me hear from you now and then.

With the most earnest wishes for your early and complete restoration to health. I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1240]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 14, 1867

Blackheath Park

Edward Walford

Walford, Edward

1038.

TO EDWARD WALFORD1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 14, 1867

Dear Sir

Want of time, combined with dislike for the operation, has obliged me to refuse all proposals from photographers to take my likeness, except in one instance, when I sat to Mr Watkins2 of Parliament Street, from whom any one who wishes for a photograph of me can obtain one. I hope, therefore, that you will excuse me if I decline to sit to Mr Edwards.3 I am

Dear Sir
yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

Edward Walford Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 14, 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William George Ward

Ward, William George

1039.

TO WILLIAM GEORGE WARD1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb. 14, 1867

Dear Sir—

I have read your article2 with very great interest. You are the clearest thinker I have met for a long time who has written on your side of these great questions. And I quite admit that your theory of divine premovement is not on the face of it inadmissible. Your illustration of the mice inside the piano is excellent.3 The uniform sequences which the mice might discover between the sounds & the phenomena inside would not negative the player without. But you only put back the collision between the two theories for a certain distance. It comes at last. At whatever point in the upward series the unforseeable will of the divine musician comes in, there the uniformity of physical sequence fails: the chain has been traced to its beginning; a physical phenomenon has taken place without any antecedent physical conditions. Now what would be asserted on the other side of the question is, that the facts always admit of, & render highly probable, the supposition that there Edition: current; Page: [1241] were such antecedent physical conditions, & that there has been no ultimate beginning to that series of facts, short of whatever beginning there was to the whole history of the universe.

We do not pretend that we can disprove divine interference in events, & direct guidance of them. All our evidence is only negative. We say that so far as known to mankind everything takes place as it would do if there were no such direct guidance. We think that every event is abstractedly capable of being predicted, because mankind are in each case as near to being able actually to predict what happens as could be expected, regard being had to the degree of accessibility of the data, & the complexity of the conditions of the problem.

I cannot perceive in your article any errors in physics. But I am not a safe authority on matters of physical science. Astronomers now think that they can predict much more than eclipses & the return of comets—their predictions reach even to the dissipation of the sun’s heat & the heaping up of the solar system in one dead mass of congelation. But I hold all this to be at present nothing more than scientific conjecture. All that is required by your argument is that the possibility of absolute & categorical prediction should be, as yet, confined to cosmic phenomena. This, I believe, all men of science admit, & I indorse everything on that subject which is said by Mansel in your note.4 Scientific prediction in other physical sciences is not absolute, but conditional. We know certainly that oxygen & hydrogen brought together in a particular way will produce water, but we cannot predict with certainty that oxygen & hydrogen will come together in that way unless brought together by human agency. The human power of prediction at present extends only to effects which depend on a very small number of causes. Astronomical phenomena do depend on a very small number of causes, & consequently can be predicted. Most other physical phenomena can be predicted with the same certainty provided we are able to limit the causes in question to a very small number. This power of prediction you have not, I think, allowed for in your Essay. Yet it surely is all important. For if the effect of any single cause, or of any pair or triad of causes, can be calculated, the joint effect of a myriad of such causes is abstractedly capable of calculation. That we are unable practically to calculate it is no more than might be expected, at least in the present state of our knowledge, however calculable it may in itself be.

With regard to free will, you have not said much that affects my argument. I am not aware of having ever said that foreknowledge is inconsistent with free will. That knotty metaphysical question I have avoided entering into, & in my Logic I have even built upon the admissions of the free will philosophers that our freedom be real though God foreknows our actions.5 You simplify the main question very much by your luminous distinction between Edition: current; Page: [1242] the spontaneous impulse of the will, which you regard as strictly dependent on preexisting mental dispositions & external solicitations, & what the man may himself do to oppose or alter that spontaneous impulse. The distinction has important practical consequences but I see no philosophical bearing that it has on free will; for it seems to me that the same degree of knowledge of a person’s character which will enable us to judge with tolerable assurance what his spontaneous impulse will be, will also enable us to judge with about an equal degree of assurance whether he will make any effort, & (in a general way) how much effort he is likely to make, to control that impulse. Our foresight in this matter cannot be certain, because we never can be really in possession of sufficient data. But it is not more uncertain than the insufficiency & uncertainty of the data suffice to account for.

Thanking you very much for giving me the opportunity of reading your very able & interesting speculation I am &c.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 16 [1867]

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1040.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 16 [1867]

Dear Sir

The best train to come by on Sunday will be the North Kent train which leaves Charing Cross at 1.5, as it is the earliest after 9.45, and as I am not sure that I shall be alone later in the afternoon. From the Blackheath station to my house (the last but one in Blackheath Park) is about ten minutes walk. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 16. 1867

Blackheath Park

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

1041.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 16. 1867

Dear Sir

I accompanied the deputation which waited on Mr Walpole yesterday,2 and we found it useless to press on him the appointment of any additional Edition: current; Page: [1243] members of the Commission, as he had already once cancelled a Commission already signed by the Queen, in order to issue a new one with Mr Harrison’s3 name in it, and was unwilling to take the same step a second time. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

G. J. Holyoake Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 18, 1867

Blackheath Park

1042.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 18, 1867

Dear Sir

Many thanks for the cards for your Lecture2 which you were kind enough to send. It would have been a real pleasure to me to make use of them, but unfortunately there is no prospect of my being able to do so. Shall I return the cards to you? I am

Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 19, 1867

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1043.

TO THOMAS HARE1

[Before

Feb. 19, 1867

]

. . . received your note I had been planning a Resolution to move in the Committee of the House if the Government Resolutions ever get that far.2 I Edition: current; Page: [1244] am disposed to go straight up to the main position, and move the Resolution annexed. The objection to yours is, that it will be impossible to keep the discussion of it . . . . [personal?] representation, which everybody except ourselves and the extreme Radicals is opposed to, and which, in fact, is not desirable or admissible except in conjunction with your option. I think it is now time to move directly the leading principle of your plan, to which all the rest of it is merely subsidiary.

Mr. Ware3 was very much pleased by his interview with you.

I hope you have quite recovered from your indisposition. I am Dear Mr. Hare

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 19. 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1044.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 19. 1867

Dear Mr. Hare

I am most happy that you approve so completely of my intended Resolution.2 As I understood from Mr. Gladstone’s speech yesterday evening3 that the Government will be allowed to proceed with their Resolutions, I shall give notice of mine tonight.4

We look forward with pleasure to seeing you on Sunday. I am Dear Mr. Hare

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1245]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 20, 1867

Kent

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1045.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Feb. 20, 1867

Dear Sir

My friend Mr Kyllmann of Manchester writes to me that having been spoken to by Mr Jacob Bright,2 he has succeeded in raising among his friends £80 for the Review, and expects to receive £20 more. This is so much further towards the sum wanted,3 and I thought you would be glad to be informed of it at once. I am Dear Sir

yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 21. 1867

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1046.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 21. 1867

Dear Mr Christie

There are a great many important features in your plan and I will endeavour by its help to think the subject out in a practical point of view as soon as leisure is given us from the urgency of the present contest.2 No one will give his mind to a detailed scheme for checking bribery at the present moment; but there is a very strong sense that it ought to be one of the first things done after passing a reform bill. You will have seen how strongly Mr Gladstone has already in the House, expressed his sense of its necessity.3 I am

Dear Mr Christie
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1246]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feby 27th 1867

Kent

1047.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Feby 27th 1867

Sir

I have not leisure to go at length into the subject of your letter, but I spoke of Dr Arnold2 as a practical reformer precisely because I think that it was in practice rather than in theory that his work and his influence were most beneficial. I look upon the example he set of friendly intercourse between master and scholars, and of effort on the part of the teacher to arouse moral ambition in his pupils, as of great practical value; and if generally followed, sure to produce (as I think it has already produced) a considerable reform in the whole method and results of school teaching.

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March, 1867

Henry I. Rowntree

Rowntree, Henry I.

1048.

TO HENRY I. ROWNTREE1

[

March, 1867

]

I hope you will permit me to observe that the principle that “it is unjust that the great bulk of the nation should be held amenable to laws in the making of which they have had no voice,” cannot stop at “residential manhood suffrage;” but requires that the suffrage be extended to women also. I earnestly hope that the working men of England will show the sincerity of their principles by being willing to carry them out when urged in favour of others besides themselves.

Edition: current; Page: [1247]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 1, 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Randal Cremer

Cremer, William Randal

1049.

TO WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 1, 1867

.

Dear Sir—

I am sorry to say that the proceedings at the meeting of Delegates reported in the Star2 of Feb. 28, a meeting promoted by the Reform League3 & at which members of its Council were the chief speakers, make it necessary for me to withdraw the paper which I had expressed my willingness to sign: because I can no longer say with sincerity that an agitation conducted in the manner proposed at that meeting would be beneficial to the cause of Reform.

The speeches delivered at the meeting were characterized by two things: a determined rejection beforehand of all compromise on the Reform question, even if proposed by the public men in whose sincerity & zeal as reformers you have repeatedly expressed the fullest confidence, & a readiness to proceed at once to a trial of physical force if any opposition is made either to your demands or to the particular mode, even though illegal, which you may select for the expression of them.

It is best that I shd express my opinion plainly & unreservedly on both these points. My conviction is that any Reform bill capable of being passed at present & for some time to come must be more or less of a compromise. I have hitherto thought that the leading minds among the working classes recognized this, & though frankly declaring that nothing less than the whole of what they think required by justice will finally satisfy them, were aware that such ultimate success can only in this country be obtained by a succession of steps, and that a large portion of the middle and some portion of the higher classes may be carried with them in the first step, & perhaps in every Edition: current; Page: [1248] successive step, but would certainly resist a passage all at once from the present distribution of political power to one exactly the reverse, the effects of which they feel quite unable to foresee. All this the speakers at the meeting on Thursday either forgot or entirely disregarded.

But even if I thought them right on this point I shd think them utterly & fatally wrong in the course they adopted of directly instigating the mass of reformers to seek the attainment of their object by physical violence. One of the leading speakers proclaimed superiority of physical force as constituting right, & as justifying the people in “riding down” the ministers of the law; & the speaker who followed him emphatically expressed concurrence in his treatment. I do not impute to the meeting the monstrous doctrine of these two speakers. But unless misreported, the general tone was that of a direct appeal to revolutionary expedients. Now it is my deep conviction that there are only two things which justify an attempt at revolution. One is personal oppression & tyranny & consequent personal suffering of such intensity that to put an immediate stop to them is worth almost any amount of present evil & future danger. The other is when either the system of government does not permit the redress of grievances to be sought by peaceable & legal means, or when those means have been perseveringly exerted to the utmost for a long series of years, & their inefficacy has been demonstrated by experiment. No one will say that any of these justifications for revolution exist in the present case. Yet unless the language used was mere bravado, the speakers appear to have meant to say that the time has already come for revolution.

I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of these things; I believe them to be the result of feelings of irritation, for which there has been ample provocation and abundant excuse. But however natural irritation it may be, things done or said under its influence are very likely to be repented of afterwards. This, however, is for you to judge of. I do not claim the smallest right of offering advice to you or to the League, but you have asked me to express, in a written document, approbation of the general character & effects of your agitation, & as it is impossible for me to do this when it has assumed a character of which I decidedly disapprove, I have thought it best to explain candidly the reasons why I must now decline to comply with your request.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 3. 1867

Blackheath Park

James Garth Marshall

Marshall, James Garth

1050.

TO JAMES GARTH MARSHALL1

Blackheath Park

March 3. 1867

Dear Sir

Excuse the long delay in answering your letter of the 22nd ulto. I have really had no time, during the interval, to write anything which would bear delay.

Edition: current; Page: [1249]

I quite agree with you that in proposing Mr Hare’s scheme, a suggestion should be made for its tentative introduction on a limited scale. Mr Hare has himself made several such suggestions, and particularly that of giving every qualified elector the option of being registered either locally as at present, or as a member of a national constituency. The new mode of voting would be applied only to those who chose the latter, and who in the commencement at least, would probably be a select and not very numerous body. This suggestion seems to me preferable to that of trying the experiment on a distinct category of electors composed of the professional and specially educated classes; on account of the serious objections that exist to any mode of officially recognising the special representation of classes. But if such a category of electors were going to be created, I certainly think that the application of Mr Hare’s plan to it might usefully be proposed.

I do not at all agree with you that small minorities in the nation have not a claim to the means of getting themselves specially represented in Parliament. I regard the maturing of opinions by public discussion as one of the most important functions of the House of Commons. And as to the danger of loss of time by the discussion of mere absurdities, there is a sort of voluntary police in the H. of Commons which is only too effectual in setting bounds to any discussion that is felt to be a bore. There are few who would be willing to occupy the position in the House of Mr Whalley,2 though his follies, I am afraid, are far from being those of a very small fraction of the public. I do not believe that any opinion, entertained by very few, would be able to obtain more than an occasional and rare hearing in the H. of C. unless it had for its organ some member generally respected & looked up to. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

J. G. Marshall Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 3. 1867

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1051.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

March 3. 1867

Dear Mr Plummer

I shall have much pleasure in giving you an introduction to an old friend of mine at Paris, M. Gustave d’Eichthal,2 who knows England and the English Edition: current; Page: [1250] language well, will be interested in you and your history, is well qualified to advise you, and can give you other introductions if you require them. If you will let me know when you are going, I will send you a letter to him.

I am happy to hear a good account of your prospects. There is a great heap of parliamentary papers ready for you, if they continue to be useful. Shall I send them to Homer Terrace?

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am

Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 5. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1052.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

March 5. 1867

Dear Chadwick

I supposed you knew the time fixed for the Committee on Mr Hardy’s bill.2 I am sorry to say it is next Thursday. I have not heard whether it is likely to be further put off.

I have been in communication with various people on the subject, among whom Dr Stallard,3 as far as he goes, seems to agree very much with you, while Beal4 and his Vestry attack the bill on the old anti-centralization notions, as interfering too much with the guardians. I had to fight a deputation of them in the tea room along with eight or ten metropolitan members, most of whom went with me against them. But the deputation also are for merging the separate boards in one. Their strongest objection was to the nominees. What do you think of that part of the plan? Could a better system of inspectors be substituted for it?

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1251]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6, 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Longman

Longman, William

1053.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 6, 1867

Dear Sir—

I agree to the terms mentioned in your note of March 4 for the people’s edition of the Address.2

Please send a copy of the People’s Ed. of “Pol. Economy” to Mr W. Dixon,3 care of Mr Radford, 7 Red Lion Street Clerkenwell E. C. charging me as usual with all expenses.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 6th, 1867

Richard Russell

Russell, Richard

1054.

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

March 6th, 1867

Dear Sir—

I do not see that the fact that it may become expedient at some future time to admit women to the House of Representatives can be any bar to admitting their claim at present to be electors. Any objections to the meeting of persons of both sexes for the purpose of legislation are such as naturally tend to diminish with a higher state of civilization. In some countries the sexes are still separated at church; in the East the influence of sex is so strong that even family life is rendered impossible by it, and brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, are separated, and men and women can only associate together in the single relation of husband and wife. But we have proved by experience that exactly in proportion as men and women associate publicly together in a variety of relations not founded on sex, their doing so becomes safe and beneficial, and raises the tone of public morality. I am disposed to think that no legislation is needed to prevent women from becoming members of parlt for that before any woman is likely to be chosen by a sufficient number of electors, public opinion will ensure sufficient propriety of sentiment in the House of Commons to make her presence there perfectly harmless.

Edition: current; Page: [1252]

As to the objection that men & women might on some occasions differ collectively, and that the women might have their own way, it has much less force than the similar objection to the working classes, because men and women are much more likely to be evenly balanced in number than the poor & the rich. I cannot see how arranging that men shall always have their own way in everything can in justice be the proper way to prevent women from occasionally having theirs. There is a more even balance between men and women than between any other two classes and therefore the attainment of justice through equal representation may be more easily trusted to the reason & right feeling of the best among each acting as a check to violence or party feeling on either side.

I should object to the plan of a subordinate house of representatives for women just as I should object to any such plan for working men, and just as I should object to placing the House of Commons in any such subordination to the House of Lords. I dislike all merely class representation, and I still more disapprove of all class subordination. Moreover one of the useful functions of a H. of Representatives is discussion, and the representation of women’s point of view whether through male or female representatives is part of what would be gained by admitting women to the suffrage. And it is not merely in the H. of C. but also even in the tone of electioneering and popular politics that the admission of new elements to the national life is of importance. New topics get discussed and old ones from new points of view. Different classes of electors are aroused to interest, and to influence one another. Shutting their representatives up separately, even if with equal powers, would be to weaken the educational influence of political contests, and at the same time to intensify their bitterness.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 8 mars 1867

Blackheath Park, Kent

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

1055.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Blackheath Park, Kent

le 8 mars 1867

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je viens de donner une lettre de recommandation auprès de vous à M. John Plummer,2 qui se rend à Paris comme représentant de plusieurs associations ouvrières, dans l’espoir d’obtenir pour elles certaines facilités, dont je ne sais pas précisément la nature, par rapport à l’Exposition.3 Je me rappelle Edition: current; Page: [1253] le grand intérêt que vous avez pris, il y a bien longtemps, à Rowland Detrosier.4 M. Plummer est un homme encore plus remarquable. Il a été longtemps simple ouvrier dans une petite ville de province. Il a commencé à écrire sous la stimulation d’une vive indignation contre certains procédés d’un Trades Union. De là, il a été toujours en progrès; il est maintenant écrivain et journaliste, et ses écrits, sur toutes les questions qui intéressent particulièrement la classes ouvrière, sont remarquables par leur bon sens, par leur philanthropie éclairée, et même par la pureté de leur style. Malgré les désavantages, non seulement de sa position mais de sa personne, car il est boiteux et un peu sourd, il a une influence considérable parmi les classes ouvrières, surtout en matière sociale et économique, car, quoique radical, il s’occupe moins de politique que des questions d’éducation et de progrès moral et intellectuel. Je suis sûr que vous ne le connaîtrez pas sans éprouver pour lui un vif intérêt; et si vous pouviez l’aider à obtenir ce qu’il désire, j’en serais vraiment reconnaissant.

J’ai vu hier Monsieur votre fils,5 pendant un quart d’heure à la Chambre. Je compte causer avec lui plus au long à son retour de Liverpool.

Votre affectionné

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8. 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1056.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

March 8. 1867

Dear Mr. Hare

The best plan, I think, will be for me to give notice, on Monday next, that I shall, in the course of the Reform discussions, call the attention of the House to the principle of Personal Representation.2 I will then put your clauses in the paper immediately after the production of the Bill.

I am Dear Mr. Hare
yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1254]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8, 1867

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1057.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

March 8, 1867

Dear Mr Plummer

I inclose a brief introduction to my friend M. d’Eichthal. I write to him by today’s post at greater length,2 in order to tell him more particulars about you than could well be put into a letter which he will only read at the moment of receiving your visit.

I have no power of introducing you to any one who has access to the Emperor, as my political opinions have always prevented me from cultivating an acquaintance with any of his adherents. Perhaps some of your other friends may have more power of being useful to you in this capacity; and it would be worth while for you to mention your wish yourself to M. d’Eichthal, as he may perhaps be able to help you.

I will look out the Parliamentary papers and send them to you as soon as I have time.

Our kind regards to Mrs Plummer.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1058.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

March 9. 1867

Dear Chadwick

You will have seen that you were mistaken about what Mr Hardy did on Thursday,2 and that the [substantive?] discussion in Committee commenced last night.3 In the course of it, I had opportunities of enunciating several of the true principles of administration (though I am very imperfectly reported—the Edition: current; Page: [1255] Star report4 is the best) and I shall bring out others of them on Monday5 when the Committee is to be resumed and when it will get to the position and mode of appointment of the medical officers. None of the reports give (what I said very emphatically) that, for the executive duties, the only persons to be relied on are the paid officers, and that the use of boards is to look after those officers.

Mr Hardy tells me that Miss Nightingale’s paper6 is already before the House annexed to the Cubical Space Report.

Thanks for your article, which I will return shortly.

yrs ever truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 11th 1867

Blackheath Park

1059.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

March 11th 1867

Dear Sir

You are evidently a real student and I wish that all who read my books would scrutinize them with the same strictness.

In quoting the passage from De Quincey2 I did not mean to make myself answerable for all it contains, but only for so much of it as is recognized in my own introductory sentences. I thought it in the main right and well fitted to carry the reader into the very heart of the subject, and when there to set him looking about and thinking for himself, which opinion is confirmed by the effect it has had upon you. I do not think that Mr De Quincey has in this passage given a correct expression to the whole of the truth, and on the particular point which is the subject of your letter my opinion agrees with that which, if I rightly understand your letter, you have arrived at.

Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1256]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 12. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1060.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

March 12. 1867

Dear Chadwick

The time had passed for moving your amendment in Committee but I have put it on the notice paper (to the great satisfaction, among others, of Dr Stallard) to be moved on bringing up the Report.2 I shewed it first to Mr Hardy, who said that the plan was ‘what we shall certainly come to.’

What I said is better reported this time than last,3 though briefly.

The Bill is now through Committee, and one of Mr Hardy’s own amendments4 has given the Poor Law Board, to a great extent, the power you want, of classifying without district restrictions.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 15. 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1061.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

March 15. 1867

Dear Mr Hare

Disraeli said last night in answer to a question, that the Reform Bill would be in the hands of members on Tuesday morning.2 It seems likely that its provisions will include cumulative voting. If so, our clauses ought to be moved as an amendment on that. I think the clause giving power to the Speaker of framing rules should stand and I expect to be able to suggest some other improvements in the draft.3 As I gave my notice in general terms last Edition: current; Page: [1257] night,4 the middle of next week will be soon enough for putting the actual clauses on the paper. I will call on you at your office as soon as possible after we have the Bill. I am

Dear Mr Hare
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 15th 1867

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1062.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

March 15th 1867

Dear Sir

Among the many letters on Reform which I have received since the subject assumed a practical aspect, none has given me so much pleasure and none I think has shown so true a perception of important principles and distinctions as yours. I am not aware that I differ essentially from anything which your letter contains though I should sometimes express the same, or an equivalent meaning in different words.

If you have time and are inclined to write further to me on the subject, specifying the particular mode which occurs to you of giving effect to the principles of representation laid down by you, it will give me much pleasure to hear from you.

I am dear Sir
yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 20, 1867

Richard Russell

Russell, Richard

1063.

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

March 20, 1867

Dear Sir

I am glad to find that considering women essentially inferior to men and therefore requiring that the constitution shall recognise the domination of men over women, you are yet willing to grant to women a right to advise men how to govern them; and that you think they ought to be permitted larger liberty and privileges than they at present enjoy.

Edition: current; Page: [1258]

Your point of view is quite reasonable and complete in itself; I have only one fault to find with it—I think it a mistaken one. I see no reason for believing women to be inferior to men, and I do not believe them to be so. You will of course see that it would be impossible for me to find time to enter with you into a discussion on the fundamental equality of the two sexes, it will be sufficient to indicate to you that this is the true point on which we are at issue.

H.T. [for JSM]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 21, 1867

Blackheath Park

James Anthony Froude

Froude, James Anthony

1064.

TO JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE1

Blackheath Park

March 21, 1867

Dear Sir

I hope it is not in consequence of indisposition that you are going abroad.2 If it is not, I congratulate you on the prospect.

My daughter desires me to say that she hopes to be able to send the second instalment of Buckle3 by Easter. It may, however, be further delayed by the endeavour to fill up blanks left in the MSS. requiring reference to various books not immediately accessible.

The series of Reform papers4 have hitherto been excellent and you must have been both judicious and fortunate in your selection of writers. I am not aware at present that I can make any suggestion as to subjects, or recommend any writers but those whom I mentioned in a former letter. I will however think about it, and if anything further occurs to me, I will let you know before Thursday, as it will not be possible for me to have the pleasure of dining with you, the demands on my time being more pressing than ever; not to mention that on Monday, and probably on Tuesday, my presence in the House will be absolutely necessary.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

J. A. Froude Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1259]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 21, 1867

Blackheath Park

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

1065.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

Blackheath Park

March 21, 1867

Dear Sir

I have heard nothing of your petition2 since I returned it to you in the lobby, but I will make particular enquiry about it today in the House.

I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Friday [March 22, 1867]

House of Commons

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

1066.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

House of Commons

Friday [March 22, 1867]

Dear Sir,

I have just presented your petition,2 and stated its contents, incorporating some of the most striking expressions in it. I have not moved that it should be printed, as I am told that this is only done when it is intended that a motion should be grounded on the petition; but it is sure to be printed by the Committee of Petitions and sent to every member with their periodical report.

I am Dear Sir
Very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Wedy [26 March 1867]

[Embossed] House of Commons Library

George Grote

Grote, George

1067.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

[Embossed] House of Commons Library

Wedy [? 26 March 1867]

2

My dear Grote

We shall be delighted to see you on Sunday. I will send you Herbert Edition: current; Page: [1260] Spencer’s address not having the number by me. It is Queen’s Gardens Hyde Park.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 26. 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1068.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

March 26. 1867

Dear Mr Hare

I understood you to say one day in conversation, that the majority of the old deeds of endowment of schools included girls as well as boys,2 but that this part of the original design has been allowed to fall into desuetude. Am I right as to the fact? If so, I shall make use of it in my speech on the representation of women.

I was glad to see your hand again in the Daily News.3 Helen asks me to beg you to be kind enough to tell Miss Hare that there is now no chance of the women’s suffrage debate coming on next Thursday, and it is not likely even for next week.4 I am Dear Mr Hare

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 26. 1867

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1069.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

March 26. 1867

Dear Sir

Mr Grote has promised to dine with us on Sunday April 7th and this being one of the Sundays on which I understood you to say that you would be in town, we hope to have the pleasure of seeing you on that day. We dine at five o’clock.

I am Dear Sir
Very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer, Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1261]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 28, 1867

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

1070.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

March 28, 1867

My dear d’Eichthal

This line will introduce to you Mr Theobald,2 at present of Balliol College, Oxford, the son of a very old friend of mine3 who has spent the greater part of his life in India. Mr Theobald is studying for the bar, and during the few weeks which he is able to pass at Paris, he is anxious to see all that he can of the judicial proceedings of the French courts as well as to improve his knowledge of the French language and of French affairs in general. I could not possibly address him to any one more competent to advise and aid him, or more disposed, as I know, to do him any kind office for my sake and for his own.

I am
my dear d’Eichthal
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

2nd April 1867

Richard Russell

Russell, Richard

1071.

TO RICHARD RUSSELL1

2nd April 1867

Dear Sir—

I am glad to find that you agree with me in thinking that there is no sufficient evidence that women are morally or intellectually, or essentially inferior to men. But in that case I am afraid I no longer think your theory reasonable so far as it goes, and complete in itself.

I do not think it indisputable that the physically strongest must necessarily be dominant over the physically weaker in civilized society, since I look upon it as the fundamental purpose of civilization to redress as much as possible all such natural inequalities, and I think the degree to which they have been redressed as one of the best tests of civilization.

Nor is superior physical strength invariably even at present the ground of political supremacy, for I suppose there can be little doubt that negroes are physically stronger than white men. But superiority whether of physical strength or of intelligence, having once given any sub-division of humanity an advantage over another it is always difficult for the dominant class to Edition: current; Page: [1262] see that their own particular superiority does not justly entitle them to limit the freedom or check the development of those who chance to be inferior to themselves in some respects. To see this it is necessary to admit in some form or other the law of justice or of the general good as the final test, but I do not at all despair of mankind as a whole becoming capable of recognising it as such, as I understand you yourself to do. I must beg you to excuse the brevity with which I am obliged to write.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 5. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1072.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

April 5. 1867

Dear Chadwick

Your plan of registration would be cheap and effectual and might have answered under the old constitution of the Poor Law Board; but it would never be consented to, nor would be admissible, to place the whole registration of the country under the supreme control of a member of the existing Cabinet, whatever it might be.

The subject of expenses of elections will certainly come on this year, unless there is an early dissolution. A paper in the next number of Fraser2 would, I have no doubt, be quite in time for it.

I return your paper by book post, and along with it the evidence of Chamberlain Scott,3 which please return

In haste
ever yrs

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 5, 1867

Blackheath Park

1073.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

,

April 5, 1867

Dear Sir,

It is impossible for me to find time for attending the meeting on Saturday,2 Edition: current; Page: [1263] but I heartily agree in the demand for an efficient lodger franchise3 and I trust that the House will insist on its introduction in any Reform Bill which it allows to pass.

I am
Yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 16, 1867

Avignon

Edward Truelove

Truelove, Edward

1074.

TO EDWARD TRUELOVE1

Avignon

April 16, 1867

.

Dear Sir

I hardly think there would be any use in putting the question you propose to the Government, as they would only return a blunt negative. But the subject ought to be brought in a direct manner before the House at an early period. Perhaps the best time, if a Reform Bill passes, would be in the first session of the Reformed Parliament.

I am not surprised, though very glad, to hear that you and the ladies of your family are strongly interested in favour of the admission of women to the suffrage. I am dear Sir

yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Edward Truelove, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 21. 1867

Avignon

Frederick J. Furnivall

Furnivall, Frederick J.

1074A.

TO FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL1

Avignon

April 21. 1867

Dear Sir

Owing to my absence from England, I have only just received your letter. I inclose a note addressed to yourself,2 which will probably answer your Edition: current; Page: [1264] purpose as well as anything which I am competent to write. Wishing you success I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 21. 1867

Avignon

Frederick J. Furnivall

Furnivall, Frederick J.

1074B.

TO FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL1

Avignon

April 21. 1867

Dear Mr Furnivall

The House of Commons will be very fortunate if it finds a person of higher qualification than yourself to fill the vacant office of its Librarian.2 What are the special requisites for the charge of that particular Library I do not know; but if a life largely devoted to philological erudition, and especially to the history of the English language and literature,3 is among them, your publications, and the trust confided in you by the Philological Society,4 are better evidence in your behalf than even the very distinguished testimonials which you possess. I may perhaps be allowed to add, that your enlightened and zealous participation in one of the most useful movements for the educational and social improvement of the working classes, indicates a habit of mind which turns all literary knowledge and acquirements to the most valuable practical ends.

I am Dear Mr Furnivall

very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

F. J. Furnivall Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 21. 1867

Saint Véran, Avignon

Thomas Hughes

Hughes, Thomas

1075.

TO THOMAS HUGHES1

Saint Véran, Avignon

April 21. 1867

Dear Mr Hughes

I am very glad to hear of the merit and success of the Frame Makers’ and Edition: current; Page: [1265] Gilders’ Association,2 but I have no intention whatever of taking a new house, and am not likely to be in the way of becoming a customer of the Association. Were the case otherwise, your recommendation, and what you say about them, would be strong inducements for giving them a trial. I am

Dear Mr Hughes
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 28. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

August Joanny Chapé

Chapé, August Joanny

1076.

TO AUGUST JOANNY CHAPÉ1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 28. 1867

Dear Sir

I have been a long time without answering your letter of Jan. 12 & you have been very patient under the delay. I am so busy that it is with difficulty I have found time to read your MS. To write to you what I think on the different topics of it would be impossible for it would require nothing less than a treatise to explain how far I think you right & how far wrong on all the greatest subjects, religious, political, & social, which can possibly occupy the thoughts of an intelligent human being. Let me say however that I think the production very creditable to you, that I advise you by all means to continue thinking, reading, & studying; but I hesitate to advise you to publish, because I think you will very probably acquire additional thoughts which will modify some of those that you have stated with so much vigour, & on many points with so great a foundation of truth. You will also, by persevering self culture, acquire constantly greater power of doing justice to your thoughts by your mode of expressing them. Had I time I shd be very glad to correspond with you, & discuss those great matters of speculation but my pressing occupations forbid any such hope.

I will return your MS, to any address you may give.

Edition: current; Page: [1266]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1. 1867

Blackheath Park

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1077.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath Park

May 1. 1867

Dear Mr Fawcett

Allow me to express my sincere congratulations on the fortunate event2 which I have learnt from the newspapers, and my warmest wishes for your happiness and that of the lady who has joined her destiny with yours.

It will give me great pleasure to repeat my congratulations personally. Would it be convenient and agreeable to you and Mrs Fawcett to dine with us here on Sunday the 12th at five?

The Liberal party is at sixes and sevens, but things are not, I think, so bad as they look. The women’s suffrage question may perhaps come on as early as Monday.3 I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 1st 1867

Kent

William Wood

Wood, William

1078.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 1st 1867

Dear Sir

Want of time has hitherto prevented me from complying with your request that I would acknowledge receipt of your last letter, which I would gladly do at greater length than is possible for me at present.

I think with you that the plan of Reform proposed in your letter is far preferable to that of the present Govt. I presume that your household suffrage would include women who are householders. I am glad to hear that you are against the Ballot. For other points I would refer you to Mr Hare’s book2 and my own volume on Representation.3

I shall hope to hear from you again, and to be able at a more favourable Edition: current; Page: [1267] moment to reply more fully to any communications with which you may favour me.

I am dear Sir
yours truly

J. S. Mill

Mr. William Wood

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 6, 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1079.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

,

May 6, 1867

Dear Mr. Hare—

I greatly regret that the absolute necessity of my being present at a most critical debate and division on the Reform Bill2 makes it impossible for me to attend our poor friend’s funeral. His loss is most grievous, not only to those who were so fortunate as to know him, but to the great political, social and philosophical principles to which he was so deeply devoted. I have known few men throughout life with minds so open to reason and evidence, so constantly in the foremost rank of human progress, or whose feelings so entirely went along with their principles in inspiring that ceaseless activity in working for what they deemed right, by which in all ages the great victories have been won for truth and justice. Manchester will long have cause to mourn the loss of Max Kyllmann, and England would mourn for him too, if his unostentatious worth, and his unflagging zeal in the promotion of all important movements in opinion, could be known as widely as they deserve to be.—I am, dear Mr. Hare, ever truly yours,

J. S. Mill

Thomas Hare Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 6, 1867

Blackheath Park

Edward Kyllmann

Kyllmann, Edward

1080.

TO EDWARD KYLLMANN1

Blackheath Park

May 6, 1867

Dear Mr Kyllmann

I have seldom been more shocked by any similar event than I was by the melancholy loss of your poor brother. Most gladly would I shew in any Edition: current; Page: [1268] way my profound respect for his memory and my sympathy with his poor wife but tonight, debate and division are unhappily among the most critical in the whole progress of the Reform Bill, making it absolutely necessary for me to be present, and to remain to an hour which would make it impossible for me to arrive at Manchester in time.

I am, Dear Mr Kyllmann with the deepest sympathy

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 10, 1867

1081.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

May 10, 1867

Sir

My letter did not amount to a promise that I would support the proposal to omit the word ‘certificated’ in the clause giving the franchise to attornies,2 though it expressed a willingness to entertain the question.

The Chelsea garden grievances which you complain of are a proper subject for a memorial to the Home Secretary or a petition to parliament, either of which I should be happy to present if it should be desired that I should do so rather than one of the members for Middlesex.3

I am Sir
Yours faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 14, 1867

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1082.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

May 14, 1867

Dear Sir

From the length of time which elapsed without my hearing further from you on the state of your affairs as connected with the Review,2 I had hoped Edition: current; Page: [1269] that things had in some way assumed a better aspect, but I am sorry to find that the very reverse is the case. I shall be anxious to hear the results of your communication with Mr Jacob Bright, my own prospects of being of use in the matter by any influence with monied people being, as I have said from the first, anything but promising. But I will endeavour to do what little I can, and will keep you informed of anything I have to tell. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 19. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1083.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

May 19. 1867

Dear Chadwick

From the turn which events are taking, there is now, I think, no prospect whatever of an early dissolution.2

In thinking of the various possibilities of your return to Parliament, it has occurred to me that one of the most promising might be, to offer yourself for one of the two Parliamentary boroughs into which the Tower Hamlets are to be divided.3 One advantage of this is that you would not displace any existing member, whose friends would oppose you: another is, that there are no preponderant or commanding local interests in a metropolitan borough.

Another chance would be to try against Doulton4 for Lambeth. Almost any presentable candidate standing as a supporter of Reform and of Gladstone, could probably succeed against Doulton if he were the first in the field.

It is feared that the University of London will return Fowler,5 the late Tory candidate for the City, who is an alumnus of University College, and takes an active part in its affairs and in those of the University.

I am Dear Chadwick
yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1270]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 24. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1084.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

May 24. 1867

Dear Sir—

I write now to ask a favour of you, which however I am certain before I ask it you will grant if it can reasonably be granted. My daughter has formed a plan for publishing a series of papers on the representation of women, which she would like to consist of the following:

1. Mrs Mill’s paper from the Westr on the Enfranchisement of women2

2. Mr Spencer’s chapter on the rights of women from “Social Statics”3

3. Passages on the same subject from Mr Bailey’s “Rationale of Repr”4 with Mr Mill’s speech in the H. of C.5 & passages from “Repr. Govt”.6

4. Miss Becker’s article on Female Suffrage from Contemp Rev.7

5. Mrs Bodichon’s papers read at the Soc. Science Assn.8

6. Miss Taylor’s article on the Claim of Englishwomen to the franchise.9

If the consent of these different writers can be obtained, she proposes to get them reprinted in a uniform series & published by Messrs Trubner at a very low price; probably 1 d. each.10

Can you consent to the publication in this form of your chapter, without which my daughter says the series would want solidity.

Edition: current; Page: [1271]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 26. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1085.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

May 26. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

We were very happy to hear of the improvement in your bodily state which you mention in your letter of the 20th.2 I should hope, most earnestly, that you will not omit any measures whatever that promise a chance of improvement, nor allow yourself to remain in any circumstances in which you do not think you find some improvement going on. I know by experience how much may be done by energetic measures, and while I have great faith in the power of intelligent medical men over disease, I would never place faith in any individual one, under whose treatment I was not progressing. I think one ought to use one’s own intelligence in seeking for remedies, and to use the advice of the best doctors as a guide and help to one’s own judgment. It pained me to hear that you were not making progress at Pau. It is possible that the climate of that place is not sufficiently bracing for you, and that the keen stimulating air of Nice, so dangerous in some cases, and so magically beneficial in others, might be of use in yours. Dr Gurney of Nice is a man of whose professional abilities I have a very high opinion, and whose long residence at Nice makes him a very good judge of the cases [in] which stimulating air may safely be tried, while I know that he sends away patients who he thinks have been injudiciously sent there by other medical men. If you should at any time think of trying the effect of dry bracing air in warm climates, such as that of Nice, Egypt, Malta, &c. you might perhaps like to hear Dr Gurney’s opinion of it in reference to your own case, and I am certain that if you wrote to him mentioning that I begged you to do so, you would get a very intelligent and disinterested opinion. I am so desirous that you would leave no means untried that I hope you will excuse me for mentioning this.

As the volume of Dissertations3 has not been forwarded, and as you have not read the paper on Plato,4 I will send you a separate copy of it by post. I had already desired that the new and enlarged edition of the book on Hamilton5 should be sent immediately on publication to the care of Major Cairnes6 at Pau.

You will have seen the debate on the representation of women.7 The Edition: current; Page: [1272] minority of 73 (which would have been near 100 if the division had not taken place unexpectedly at a bad time of the evening) is most encouraging, and has put its members and many other supporters in great spirits. The greatest triumph of all is getting [John] Bright’s vote: ten days before, he was decidedly against us.

We are not yet safe from the gross blunder as well as crime of shedding the blood of Fenian prisoners. The Government had decided, by a majority, to hang Burke.8 About 50 M.P.’s, of which I was one, went as soon as possible to intercede with Lord Derby,9 and at this time of writing I do not yet know what is the result. If they have not given in we shall attack them furiously in the House tomorrow.

As to Lord Naas’ bill,10 it does so very little that nobody seems to wish it to pass, except, probably, himself: I think, however, that it had better pass, because it contains the principle of giving compensation for improvements beneficial to the landlord, though made without his consent. But there are symptoms of the Government’s giving way on this point, and if they do, the Bill will be a mere authority to lend public money, even if ostensibly to tenants, yet really to landlords, for improvements by which landlords alone will benefit, except so far as everybody is benefitted by any agricultural improvement.

I hope you do not depend on the Times or Galignani for all your news. Probably you see the Daily News. Not only that, but the Star, and even the Telegraph, are much fairer, have often better reports and contain much that the Times does not choose to give.

With our kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, whose health we were happy to hear had improved.

I am Dear Mr Cairnes
yours most truly

J. S. Mill

May 30. I kept the letter open to be able to say that Burke’s life is spared. But we had to threaten that some of us would go down to Balmoral.11

Edition: current; Page: [1273]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Monday May 26, 1867

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1086.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

Monday
[

May 26, 1867

]

Dear Mr Hare

I write merely to remind you that the question of Personal Representation is very likely to come on next Thursday2 and that your name is on the Speaker’s list.3

ever yours truly,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 26, 1867

John Nichol

Nichol, John

1087.

TO JOHN NICHOL1

May 26, 1867

Dear Sir

It would give me much pleasure if you would take dinner with me at the House of Commons on Tuesday at seven. Under the new arrangements I shall be free from 7 to 9, and I have asked Prof. Bain to join us.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 27. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Allen

Allen, John

1088.

TO JOHN ALLEN1

Blackheath Park

May 27. 1867

Dear Sir—

I do not anticipate that women would be made less valuable in the house by having their minds directed to the great concerns of mankind: but quite the contrary, wherever men’s minds are employed as much as they ought to be on those great concerns.

Neither do I think that the adaptation of the work of each person to his Edition: current; Page: [1274] or her special endowments or position is a thing to be preappointed by society. I believe that perfect freedom will adjust these things far better than any general regulation can.

Perhaps I do not differ so much from you as you suppose, as to what is likely to be permanently the main occupation of a very great majority of women. But I do not think that the majority should give laws to the individual action of the minority.

I do not undervalue “what teachers of religion can effect”. I rate it most highly, but what they do effect I rate very low. An example of what they might do has been given lately by the Independent Church at Totnes,2 in severely rebuking those of its members who have been implicated in bribery, and only not expelling them from its communion because they expressed the deepest penitence, and determination never to offend in that manner again. This gave me the rare satisfaction of finding an existing Church, or branch of a Church, who are actually Christians. I am, Dear Sir, with many thanks for your kind and courteous expressions towards myself,

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

The Venerable

Archdeacon Allen.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 27, 1867

House of Commons

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

1089.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

House of Commons

May 27, 1867

Dear—

All is as it should be. Disraeli, in answer to the O’Donoghue,2 has announced the Queen’s consent to the remission of the capital sentence:3 & if he had not, the O’Donoghue, Sir John Gray4 and two others were prepared and determined to go to Balmoral tonight.

My regards to pussy.
Your ever affectionate

J.S.M.

Edition: current; Page: [1275]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

30 May 1867

Blackheath Park

Edward Owen Greening

Greening, Edward Owen

1090.

TO EDWARD OWEN GREENING1

Blackheath Park

30 May 1867

The introduction of the Co-operative trading principle for the supply of things required by the cultivators of the land will be very useful, both in itself, and, as a possible preparation for Co-operative Farming.

I am glad that there is no rivalry between your paper2 and Mr Pitman’s,3 but I would be glad to hear that a union had been affected between them. I am sorry to say I have no time to send any communication to either.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 1. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

G. W. Sharp

Sharp, G. W.

1091.

TO G. W. SHARP1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 1. 1867

Sir—

In answer to your letter of May 27 I beg to say that the passage you refer to in my speech at St James’s Hall was correctly reported.2 And I do not know how anyone could express himself otherwise who believes, as all Englishmen do, that insurrections & revolutions are sometimes justifiable. I will only mention, as cases about which there is scarcely any dispute in this country, the resistance to Charles I; our own Revolution of 1688; the Polish insurrections; & the Italian revolutions by Garibaldi & his friends.

I did not mean that all insurrections, if successful, stand exculpated; the rebellion of the American slaveholders would have been equally guilty & even more detestable if it had succeeded. What I was arguing for was that even those revolutionists who deserve our sympathy, ought yet for the general good, to be subject to legal punishment if they fail.

Edition: current; Page: [1276]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 1, 1867

London, Blackheath Park

William Todd

Todd, William

1092.

TO WILLIAM TODD1

London, Blackheath Park

,

June 1, 1867

.

Dear Sir,—

The superiority of the qualification, by direct taxation, over that by local rating,2 has been made still more obvious by the recent discussions, than it was before; and I have met with many, in Parliament and out of it, who think so, including one member of the present Government. But the almost certainty we now have of really passing a large Parliamentary Reform, depends on our letting the Government have their way on the point which they have chosen to proclaim as the principle of their bill, and the only thing they cannot give up. In the very first session of the Reformed Parliament, the question will probably be revived, as the parishes will not like to lose the convenience of collecting the rates through the owner; and the desire to reintroduce the compound householder, without refusing him a vote, will probably lead to a movement in favour of some other condition, such as yours would be. To discuss it, on this Reform Bill, would be to complicate the subject with a long discussion about taxation and finance, which neither Parliament nor the country would, at the present moment, support.—I am, dear Sir, yours very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

Mr. William Todd, Gateshead.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 1. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

John Nicolaus TrüBner

TrüBner, John Nicolaus

1093.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 1. 1867

Dear Sir

I was not aware that anybody was reprinting the speech.2

We have said nothing yet about the conditions of publication, & I leave it entirely to your choice whether you prefer to publish it at half profit, taking the risk, or to publish it on my account.

My daughter, Miss Taylor, would be glad to know whether you would publish, on her account, a new edition of her pamphlet3 in smaller type on a cheaper quality of paper so as to be sold for a penny. She would be obliged by your giving her an estimate of the cost of such an edition of 3000 copies Edition: current; Page: [1277] & informing her of the difference which is made in the cost by any increase in the number of copies.

[P.S.] Please send a copy of the speech as soon as published to Mr Hansard4 in the Row.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 1. 1867

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1094.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

June 1. 1867

Dear Sir

Your letter of May 20 interested me very much as the preceding ones did. You seem to have profited much by your really solid reading, and to have made excellent use of your powers of thought; and I shall be most happy to hear from you on the other subjects you mention. My immediate object in writing is to say that though it is very honourable to you to have relinquished your intention of going to the Paris Exhibition,2 it is really desirable that you should go, as there is much to be learnt in that way also by a thinking person like yourself: and to make up for the delay it may cause in stocking your bookcase, I would with the greatest pleasure lend you, say for six months at a time, any standard books I have in my library which may be interesting and useful to you which I am not immediately using. If you would let me know the subjects which you would like to study at present, I could probably recommend to you some of the best books there are on it. I am

Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Mr. William Wood

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 2. 1867

Blackheath Park

1095.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Blackheath Park

.

June 2. 1867

Dear Madam

It is impossible for me to bring forward the Cumulative Vote as a substitute for Personal Representation, which in my opinion attains the same specific object far more completely, and has many additional recommendations, Edition: current; Page: [1278] both moral and political, which the Cumulative Vote has not.2 The Cumulative Vote, however, under the necessary condition of three members to a constituency, is to be proposed by Mr Hughes,3 and I shall vote for it as the second best proposal: whether I shall say anything on that occasion will depend on circumstances, but much of what I have said for Mr Hare’s plan will be argument for the Cumulative Vote.

I am sorry that the Representation of Women has not the benefit of your support. No doubt, there are plenty of women, as there are of men, who are at present very insufficiently qualified for the exercise of political judgment; but their exclusion from the suffrage does more than anything else to perpetuate that incapacity, by stamping it with the approbation of Society. The removal of that stamp would make women feel entitled to exercise their minds on politics, and they would very soon know quite as much on the subject as men know; which they never will do while society and the law warn them off the ground.

I am Dear Madam
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 2, 1867

Blackheath Park, Kent

Samuel N. Wood

Wood, Samuel N.

1096.

TO SAMUEL N. WOOD1

Blackheath Park, Kent

June 2, 1867

Dear Sir:

Being one who takes as deep and as continuous an interest in the political, moral, and social progress of the United States as if he were himself an American citizen, I hope I shall not be intrusive if I express to you as the executive organ of the Impartial Suffrage Association,2 the deep joy I felt on learning that both branches of the Legislature of Kansas had, by large majorities, proposed for the approval of your citizens an amendment to your constitution, abolishing the unjust political privileges of sex at one and the same stroke with the kindred privilege of colour. We are accustomed to see Kansas foremost in the struggle for the equal claims of all Edition: current; Page: [1279] human beings to freedom and citizenship. I shall never forget with what profound interest I and others who felt with me watched every incident of the preliminary civil war3 in which your noble State, then only a Territory, preceded the great nation of which it is a part, in shedding its blood to arrest the extension of slavery.

Kansas was the herald and protagonist of the memorable contest, which at the cost of so many heroic lives, has admitted the African race to the blessings of freedom and education, and she is now taking the same advanced position in the peaceful but equally important contest which, by relieving half the human race from artificial disabilities belonging to the ideas of a past age, will give a new impulse and improved character to the career of social and moral progress now opening for mankind. If your citizens, next November, give effect to the enlightened views of your Legislature, history will remember that one of the youngest States in the civilized world has been the first to adopt a measure of liberation destined to extend all over the earth, and to be looked back to (as is my fixed conviction) as one of the most fertile in beneficial consequences of all the improvements yet effected in human affairs. I am, sir, with the warmest wishes for the prosperity of Kansas,

Yours very truly

J. Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 7. 1867

Blackheath Park

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1097.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath Park

June 7. 1867

Dear Mr Fawcett

Much as I sympathize with the object of the Select Committee on the University Bill,2 I would rather not serve on it, as I have much work on my hands, and there are many who would be much more useful on the Committee than I could be.

I am
Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1280]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 7. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

John Nicolaus TrüBner

TrüBner, John Nicolaus

1098.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 7. 1867

Dear Sir

Will you kindly have a page of the “Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage”2 set up on specimen paper?

The two copies of the Speech3 have not yet arrived. I should be glad to have a dozen for the present.

With regard to the conditions of publication whichever of the two modes you prefer will be agreeable to me.4

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sunday June 9, 1867

Saffron Walden

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

1099.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

Saffron Walden

Sunday morning
[

June 9, 1867

]

Dear—

the Spectator you kindly sent came safe. We2 have, as you see, splendid weather and things have gone prosperously with us thus far except as to my neuralgia, which came on as usual after the first half hour’s walking and remained much the same as in our bad days in the [Lebern?]3 (bad in that respect but glorious in all others). And, what is worse, I have it already this morning before starting, from the mere exertion of dressing. I am obliged therefore to take a fly today to carry us out a certain distance and begin our walk from thence though if I had been in proper condition we would have done it all on foot. We have determined to remain here the whole time, as none of the other places we wish to go to are too distant for excursions from hence. So any letters or newspapers posted on Monday will reach me if sent here. It is unnecessary to post any on Tuesday. With love to pussy, your ever affectionate

J.S.M.

Edition: current; Page: [1281]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Monday June 10, 1867

Saffron Walden

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

1100.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

Saffron Walden

Monday evg
[

June 10, 1867

]

I wrote yesterday morning rather gloomily, dear, so I write again to say that the fly plan answered perfectly, that I have had quite as much walking yesterday and today as on Saturday, but having it by portions at a time & separated by considerable rests, I have had but little pain. The country is not pretty, though it has pretty bits here and there; but we have thriven well botanically, having found two rare plants yesterday and two today, being four out of the five we hoped for. We hope to find the fifth tomorrow. I have been thinking very often of you and puss, and hoping that the PMG [Pall Mall Gazette] would put in your letter.2 As for work I have been too tired each evening to do any except reading reviews, and I must work double tides when I get back; hoping that there will not be an extraordinary number of pressing letters and that the Bankruptcy bill3 will not get on too fast in Committee. If my turn does not come until Monday I am safe. Adieu dear till Wednesday.

Your most affectionate

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 16, 1867

Frederic Harrison

Harrison, Frederic

1101.

TO FREDERIC HARRISON1

June 16, 1867

[Mill entirely approved of my Six Letters on Martial Law2—published by the Committee in 1867; and he was good enough to write (June 16, 1867):] . . . your aid and counsel are of great value to the Committee . . . .

Edition: current; Page: [1282]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 22. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Dr. William W. Ireland

Ireland, Dr. William W.

1102.

TO DR. WILLIAM W. IRELAND1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 22. 1867

.

Dear Sir—

I am very glad to receive so favourable an account of your health & to know that you fully share the feelings I expressed respecting the monstrous excesses committed & the brutal language used during & after the repression of the Indian mutiny.2 It is a duty to speak one’s mind openly concerning these things when there is a proper opportunity and the abusive attack made by some of the military officers in the House on a petition which referred in a very mild manner to these horrors, not only gave the opportunity, but would have made the omission to use it a disgraceful piece of cowardice.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 23. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Nicolaus TrüBner

TrüBner, John Nicolaus

1103.

TO JOHN NICOLAUS TRÜBNER1

Blackheath Park

June 23. 1867

Dear Sir

Please send, at my expense, twelve copies of the Speech2 to Mr Fitzgerald,3 Edition: current; Page: [1283] office of the City Item, Philadelphia; and 100 copies to Miss Becker,4 10 Grove Street, Ardwick, Manchester.

My daughter approves of the specimen you sent & decides to have 5000 copies of her pamphlet5 printed at the expense stated in your estimate. As she reprints it chiefly for distribution & does not look for a remunerating sale she fixes the price at a penny & cannot expect that a publisher shd take the risk, but she desires me to ask on what condition you would be willing to publish it on her account.

She sends a title page and would wish to see a proof.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 30. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1104.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

June 30. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

Many thanks for your kind and interesting letter of June 10. Since then we have twice had news of you through Thornton. I should think Barèges a very desirable place to try, as regards specific influence on your complaint, though all the Pyrenean climates are moist and relaxing. With regard to Montreux, I have been there, and remember its situation, which seemed sheltered, but I should have thought that no place in the Alps could have a climate mild enough in winter for a weak chest, or dry enough at any season for a rheumatic patient. However you will doubtless make all necessary enquiries and only act on the advice of good medical men well acquainted with the place.

You will have seen that Fawcett did not fail to bring on his motion for opening Trinity College.2 You will also have seen the amendment which Monsell moved;3 and I am very desirous to know what you think of it. My present impression is that though constituting a change for the worse, it is Edition: current; Page: [1284] less bad than the plan of the late Government because it is compatible with making the governing body of the proposed University impartial, and unconnected with the Colleges; excluding ultramontane Catholics, or at all events greatly diminishing their influence: and less bad also than the plan to which the present Government seem inclined, that of giving a charter to the Catholic University, because that would lead to a bidding for students by lowering the standard required for degrees in all secular subjects. But I wait to hear your opinion before forming any decided one of my own.

I never expected any better reception in Parliament or the press for Personal Representation than it has met with. Considerable good has notwithstanding been done, and the plan is becoming known, and obtaining serious consideration from many who had not previously attended to it. The Women’s question has been a most decided and important success, and it is truly astonishing how the right opinion is spreading both among women and men since the debate. We are now forming a Society in London for the Representation of Women,4 and hope to get others formed in Edinburgh, Dublin and elsewhere (there is already a most efficient one in Manchester, which obtained the majority of the 13500 signatures to this year’s petitions). The proposed Society will probably be composed of an executive committee of ladies, a General Committee of both sexes subscribing one guinea a year, which will be the ultimate governing body, and ordinary members who will only subscribe a small sum per annum, will receive the reports and circulars, but have no part of the management. The chief members of the Executive Committee will be Mrs P. A. Taylor,5 Miss Cobbe, Mrs Stansfeld6 and Mrs Fawcett. My daughter and I will be on the General Committee. Will you and Mrs Cairnes give us leave to put your names upon it? and can you give any help for the formation of a Society in Dublin?

It would have given you great pleasure had you been at the Garrison breakfast,7 and heard, especially Bright, and Garrison himself. I wished for you, too, at the splendid Reform meetings at St James’s Hall,8 if only to see Edition: current; Page: [1285] and hear the admirable feelings of the people respecting Ireland. A propos, at the last meeting Mrs Law9 addressed them in favour of the political equality of women, and was not only loudly applauded but when she asked all who were in favour of it to hold up their hands, nearly the whole of the multitude who were present did so. Is not that worth having worked for? I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 30. 1867

John Colam

Colam, John

1105.

TO JOHN COLAM1

June 30. 1867

Sir

In reply to your communication of the 28th I beg to express my regret that it will not be in my power to attend the annual meeting of the Society.

I am Sir
Yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

J. Colam Esq

Edition: current; Page: [1286]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 30. 1867

Blackheath Park

George John Graham

Graham, George John

1106.

TO GEORGE JOHN GRAHAM1

Blackheath Park

June 30. 1867

Dear Graham

It gives me great pleasure to be of any use to you, but your deposit of securities deprives me of even the small merit of trusting you.

I shall be glad if I am able to do anything for young Bisset2 in regard to the India Office, though I have not yet had an opportunity of ascertaining whether it is in my power. I fear, indeed, that his interpretation of the limit of age is incorrect.

I am Dear Graham
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 3. 1867

Blackheath Park

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

1107.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Blackheath Park

July 3. 1867

Dear Sir

A very remarkable working man,2 of Hanley in the potteries, who is a correspondent of mine, wishes to go through a “course of geometry, theoretical and practical”, with a view, inter alia, to what he calls his bread studies “the application of science and art to the production of pottery”: and he asks me to recommend to him the book or books which would be most useful to him. I need hardly say that I am very ill qualified to do this from my own knowledge, and I therefore venture to ask of you what answer I had better give to his question. I only know him (Wood is his name) from several long letters I have received from him; but these shew me that he is a student and a thinker, and that in recommending books to him, it is not necessary to adapt oneself to an inferior capacity; but it is, no doubt, desirable to keep practical application constantly though not exclusively in view.

Edition: current; Page: [1287]

Hoping that you will excuse the liberty I take, I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Augustus De Morgan Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 3rd 1867

Robert W. Ollivier

Ollivier, Robert W.

1108.

TO ROBERT W. OLLIVIER1

July 3rd 1867

.

Dear Sir

I should certainly endeavour to find time for assisting any movement among my Constituents which I think of public importance and with which I am able to sympathise.

But any movement for attempting to interfere with the full liberty of the Sovereign in the disposal of her private life so long as the example given is not mischievous, I should look upon with the very strongest disapproval.

I can conceive nothing more likely to be immoral & mischievous in its whole influence on society than any attempt to exact luxurious expenditure as a duty from those placed in high station; and I believe I am not expecting too much from the morality, the public spirit, & the patriotism of those tradesmen who make an immediate profit from such expenditure, in believing that they will be content to live by ministering to the store of luxury & pleasure which is a strong & universal principle in human nature, without seeking to stimulate artificially what if not kept within close bounds, is the ruin of public & private happiness & morality.

I do not hesitate to say that from the point of view of political economy, the notion entertained by many that such artificial stimulus is good for trade, is founded in error. All which it really does is to transfer gains from some dealers & tradesmen to others; while by encouraging expenditure which is not reproductive, it tends to diminish instead of increasing the employment for labour & the general wealth of the country.

And even if my convictions on these points were different from what they are, I should still think that the private affections—I will go further & say the personal tastes—of a Constitutional Sovereign are entitled to the respectful acquiescence of the people and ought never to be interfered with until at Edition: current; Page: [1288] least they lead to conduct which would excite moral disapprobation, or entail legal penalties on private individuals.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 4 juillet 1867

Blackheath Park, Kent

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

1109.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Blackheath Park, Kent

le 4 juillet 1867

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je suis honteux d’avoir si longtemps tardé à vous remercier de vos aimables attentions à M. Théobald2 et à M. Plummer3 et à répondre à votre lettre du 19 avril. Vous savez, du reste, ce que c’est que la vie parlementaire dès qu’on la prend au sérieux, et vous concevez jusqu’à quel point elle nuit à la correspondance. Aujourd’hui même je suis forcé d’être très bref. D’abord j’applaudis à votre Association pour l’encouragement des études Grecques en France,4 et puisque vous croyez que l’adhésion d’un étranger peut servir à quelque chose, je vous prie de proposer mon nom, et je vous ferai parvenir par la première occasion la cotisation annuelle. Il n’y a guère lieu, quant à présent, à quelque chose de semblable en Angleterre, où les études grecques sont suffisamment encouragées. Il est vrai que les méthodes d’enseignement ont besoin d’une réforme radicale, mais les savants et les professeurs les plus éclairés y travaillent déjà, et je crois que nous sommes à cet égard en voie de progrès, un peu lent à la vérité, comme d’ordinaire dans ce pays-ci.

Maintenant laissez-moi vous témoigner le plaisir véritable que m’a donné la noble protestation que vous avez publiée contre la recrudescence de l’esprit guerrier et des haines nationales dont la France naguère semblait menacée.5 Vous avez été presque le premier à vous prononcer en ce moment critique, et ce fut pour moi une grande joie que de voir avec quelle énergie la voix d’une grande partie de la nation a répondu à cet appel. On ne pourra plus désormais accuser la nation française de velléités guerrières et perturbatrices. Quoique dans beaucoup d’esprits l’honneur national reste encore trop attaché à la réputation d’être puissant pour nuire aux autres peuples, il y a évidemment très peu de Français qui désirent se servir de cette puissance.

Edition: current; Page: [1289]

J’espère, mon cher d’Eichthal, que vos sollicitudes sur la santé de Madame d’Eichthal se sont heureusement dissipées et que la vôtre est toujours bonne.

Bien des amitiés à votre frère

tout à vous

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 4 [1867]

Blackheath Park, Kent

Parker Pillsbury

Pillsbury, Parker

1110.

TO PARKER PILLSBURY1

Blackheath Park, Kent

,

July 4 [1867]

Dear Sir:

In acknowledging your letter of Feb. 18, I am ashamed to see how long that acknowledgment has been delayed. Your letter arrived in the thick of the parliamentary conflict, and I have ever since been so fully and engrossingly occupied, that I have had no time to write any letters but such as are indispensable, nor had I any leisure to write anything which would have been worth offering to be laid before the anniversary meeting of the Equal Rights Association.2 Since that time, however, many things have happened, and among others the debate in the House of Commons on the motion for giving the suffrage to woman. The unexpectedly large minority which the proposal obtained, and the thought and discussion which it excited in quarters where the subject had never been thought of before, have given an immense impulse to the question. Numbers both of men and women in all ranks have since given in their adhesion to the movement; and agreement with it is rapidly becoming a badge of advanced liberalism.

I need not say with what pleasure I learned, both from your letter and from many other sources, the great progress which the question is making in the United States, where the disabilities of women are now the only remaining national violation of the principles of your immortal Declaration of Independence; nor need I describe the feelings caused in me by the assurance of yourself and others that the essay published in the Westminster Review in 18513 has been in America, as it has been here, one of the most powerful agents in placing the question in the position it now occupies.

I am, dear sir, yours sincerely and respectfully,

J. S. Mill

Parker Pillsbury Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1290]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1111.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

July 9. 1867

Dear Sir

As I have not myself sufficient knowledge of recent works on geometry to be able to direct you to the books best adapted for your purpose, I have consulted my friend Mr De Morgan,2 the late Professor of Mathematics at University College London, who is not only one of our best mathematicians but a distinguished thinker on other important subjects. He was much interested by what I told him of you, and suggests that you should write directly to himself, stating in some detail both what you know and what you want. In doing so, you should specify what you know, whether much or little, of arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and physical science, as well as anything else you may like to tell him of your general knowledge and mental habits. His address is Augustus De Morgan Esq, 91 Adelaide Road, London, N. W.

I am very glad that you have so just and clear an appreciation of the true character and merits of Mr Hare’s system, and that you are making it known among your friends and fellow workmen. It is in that way that truth gets on. I am obliged to be brief, but I shall always be happy to hear from you at any length. Continue to direct here, as, when I am abroad, letters are forwarded to me at least once a week. Do not send stamped envelopes. I am Dear Sir

yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Mr William Wood

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 17. 1867

Blackheath Park

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1112.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath Park

July 17. 1867

Dear Mr Fawcett

I entirely agree with you about the unsatisfactoriness of Lord Stanley’s answer, and I meant to give notice of a further question the next time I am at the House, which will be on Friday.2

Edition: current; Page: [1291]

I am, on the whole, rather against carrying the subject of the Sultan’s ball any farther.3 It is by no means the strongest case of charging India with expenses that if incurred at all, should be borne by England; and many who might support us in other cases would probably consider the reason given by Northcote, that the civility is in return for assistance given to telegraphic communication with India, a sufficient justification for charging India with the expense. But what weighs with me more than this, is that, very possibly, Northcote did not tell us all. The real fact is that the Sultan has done his part in the telegraphic business very badly; he will not allow English telegraph clerks, and his Turkish ones perform the duty abominably. Perhaps, therefore, under pretence of thanking him for what he has done, the real object is to induce him to do better, and there may be a plan for coaxing him into concessions by putting him in good humour, which any further opposition might unwittingly obstruct. What you have already done has been very useful; the disavowals which it has elicited have wiped off part of the stain on our character, and it would perhaps be as well to let the matter rest for the present. I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 22. 1867

Edmond Beales

Beales, Edmond

1113.

TO EDMOND BEALES1

July 22. 1867

Dear Sir

I have already, by sending a subscription, given in my adhesion to the determination of the Reform League2 to employ its organization in promoting the registration of the Liberals, who will become entitled to the suffrage under the new Reform Act. With regard to the further object of promoting Edition: current; Page: [1292] the election of candidates professing advanced Liberal principles I should be glad if not only the Reform League, but all the other organisations of Reformers throughout the country would keep themselves in existence for that purpose—There will be ample work for all of them and I only hope that they will not confine their support to candidates who adhere to their own particular programme, but will extend it to advanced Liberals of all shades, a close union of whom among themselves was never more needed than it will be at the first General Election under the new Act. I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edmond Beales Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 22. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1114.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 22. 1867

Dear Chadwick

Mr Stansfeld is a graduate,2 but he has been interesting himself for Mr Bagehot,3 and, I think, joined in the requisition to him. The other two I will speak to. I shall be glad to help in drawing up a requisition, but it seems necessary that it should be (at least nominally) prepared by members of the constituency.

Many thanks for the copy of your report.4 I have just finished reading it with great interest. I think it might be made useful for your candidature.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1293]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 22. 1867

Blackheath Park

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

1115.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 22. 1867

Dear Sir

After receiving your answer to my note,2 I wrote to my Hanley correspondent, Mr W. Wood, and he has probably written to you by this time. If he has not, it will be because he may wish to write at greater length than he has immediately time for. But I feel quite confident that you will hear from him. With many thanks for your kind interest in the matter, I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

A. De Morgan Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 23. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1116.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

July 23. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

I am much obliged to you for your most interesting letter which I have shewn to Fawcett and shall shew to others who are interested in the Irish education question—which question I am sorry to say looks very ill. I hope soon to write to you about it at length. But my present object is different. I have heard that you have written to the authorities at University College expressing a fear that you may be obliged to resign the Professorship.2 Now even a chance of your being able to resume its duties is so valuable that I entreat you not to resign in the present season at least. I am aware that Waley3 declines going on for another year, but our friend Leslie is ready and desirous to take the duty as your locum tenens, and if you are willing to go on with a substitute for another year and to recommend Leslie as that substitute, there Edition: current; Page: [1294] can, I think, be no doubt that the arrangement would be accepted. The inestimable chance would then remain of your being able to take the duties; and Leslie is, next to you, by far the fittest person I know to fill the place, among those who would take it.

Excuse my brevity, as I am obliged to go to the House unexpectedly early to give all the opposition I can to the bill about the Parks.4 I will write again very shortly and am

Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 25. 1867

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1117.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

July 25. 1867

Dear Chadwick

I spoke to O’Reilly2 yesterday, within five minutes after he came into the House. Unfortunately he had already engaged himself to Fortescue3 and others to support Bagehot, otherwise he is almost sure he should have supported you. The O’Donoghue he thinks is not a graduate. Sir Colman O’Loghlen is,4 but he is on Lowe’s Committee.5 They both, however, say that an attempt will be made to induce Gladstone to let himself be proposed and that all are likely to give way to him. I am greatly afraid that many who might have supported you are thus preengaged. But that is no reason for not Edition: current; Page: [1295] bringing your name forward, if your medical and educational supporters can make up a tolerable list of signatures. I am Dear Chadwick

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 25. 1867

H[ouse] of C[ommons]

William Longman

Longman, William

1118.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

H[ouse] of C[ommons]

July 25. 1867

Dear Sir—

My daughter would be glad to have some separate copies of the second instalment of Mr Buckle’s remains which will be in Fraser’s Magazine for August2 & of the third also as soon as published which I understand will probably be in September.3

A friend of mine who has been engaged for many years in making a collection of the proverbs of all nations,4 has asked me for an introduction to you with a view to its publication. His name is Irvine & the only writings he is known by are botanical but he is a man of much Scotch shrewdness & extensive linguistic acquirements. If you think it might suit you to entertain the subject, Mr Irvine would be glad to call on you with part of his MS.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 30. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1119.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

July 30. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

I am most happy that you have given up your intention of immediately tendering your resignation,2 and I most earnestly hope that improved health may render it unnecessary for you to do so for a long time to come. In regard to Leslie, I am very sorry to hear that his recent relations with you have not been cordial. No one has expressed himself more feelingly than he has done about your illness. I am certain that if he were allowed to supply your place, he would feel that he was not only not conferring, but receiving a favour, and one of great value to himself, as a means of making himself better known. He will be, I am sure, very thankful for your willingness to bear testimony to his fitness, which he scrupled to ask you to do, because, as he said, you Edition: current; Page: [1296] might possibly have some other person in view whom you might prefer to him. I will say nothing to him until I hear again from you. I am still obliged to delay writing to you on the education question.

I am Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 31. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1120.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 31. 1867

Dear Chadwick

It is not the O’Conor Don,2 but his brother,3 who is a graduate of the University. The O’Conor Don says he will speak to his brother, but is afraid he is already pledged to Bagehot. Grant Duff4 was not at the House yesterday, but I have written to him in strong terms, and will speak to him at the first opportunity. Continue to let me know anything I can do.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 31 [1867]

Blackheath Park

George John Graham

Graham, George John

1121.

TO GEORGE JOHN GRAHAM1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 31 [1867]

Dear Graham

I suppose your packet2 was mistaken for printed matter by my servants at Avignon, as they have not forwarded it to me here. I have written by today’s post to order all doubtful packets to be sent at once, and suppose it will arrive about Thursday. Whenever it arrives I will execute the document and send it to you.

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1297]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 31, 1867

Blackheath Park

George Grote

Grote, George

1122.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Blackheath Park

July 31, 1867

My dear Grote

I inclose a note which I have just received from Mr Waley. I had myself also had a letter from Prof. Cairnes in which while assenting to my strong recommendation not to resign the Professorship at present, he expresses his opinion that Leslie would be a very proper substitute.2 I have written again to Cairnes and am waiting for his reply, which will probably bring a formal recommendation of Leslie if this has not been already sent to the Secretary.

I am extremely glad that you were able to induce the Council to take no step on the subject of Professor Beesly.3

I am my dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 1. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1123.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 1. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

I thank you for your very kind note of the 29th but you were not at all wrong in the request you made to me nor did I for one moment think you so. I was glad to be able to assure you in my note of yesterday,2 that I know Leslie desires the arrangement on his own account, and has not the smallest idea of conferring a favour, but would feel, on the contrary, that he was Edition: current; Page: [1298] receiving one by your recommendation. I hope to be able soon to write to you at some length.

I am Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Friday August 2, 1867

H of C Library

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1124.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

H of C Library

Friday
[

August 2, 1867

]

Dear Chadwick

Grant Duff2 is, most unfortunately, pledged to Bagehot, otherwise I really think he would have supported you. He says that, to give you a chance, your address3 ought to be out directly. As for the ballotting among the candidates4 that is not likely to occur unless a Tory, or some person in every way objectionable, should start.

I have not yet been able to see Cheatham.5

Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Friday August 2, 1867

Embossed

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1125.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

[

Embossed

]

House of Commons

Friday
[

August 2, 1867

]

Dear Chadwick

Cheatham is not a graduate of Un. Coll. but his son is,2 and I hope that what I have said to the father will get you the son’s vote which appears luckily to be disengaged.

I should think Bristol hopeless, but if any one speaks to Berkeley3 it had better be some other person rather than I, for though he is very civil to me, Edition: current; Page: [1299] he regards me as a stumbling block in the way of the ballot, the political matter he cares most for.

Lubbock’s4 friends are stirring, but if he finds there is no chance and retires, some of them (being scientific people) might probably prefer you to Lowe or Bagehot. I am

yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 2nd, 1867

Blackheath Park

Lord Houghton

Houghton, Lord

1126.

TO LORD HOUGHTON1

Blackheath Park

,

August 2nd, 1867

.

Dear Lord Houghton,—

A society is in course of formation to carry on the movement for admitting women to the suffrage,2 to which, I know, you are favourable, and it will be of great value to the society if you would give your adhesion to it by allowing me to add your name to the General Committee. Business will be conducted by the Executive Committee of ladies, and the members of the General Committee are responsible for nothing except approval of the object and an annual subscription of a guinea. My daughter and I are on the General Committee, and it would give me great pleasure to be allowed to enrol you on the list.

Very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 2. 1867

Blackheath Park

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1127.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 2. 1867

Dear Mr. Spencer

A society is in course of formation for the admission of women to the Suffrage. The executive committee consists of ladies, but there will be a General Committee, the members of which will incur no obligation or responsibility Edition: current; Page: [1300] beyond an annual subscription of a guinea, but who, by giving their names, will express their approval of the object. My daughter and I have joined the general Committee. Will you allow us to add your name to the list, either of the General Committee, or of the ordinary members? I am

Dear Mr. Spencer
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug 4. 1867

Blackheath Park

Mary Thompson

Thompson, Mary

1128.

TO MARY THOMPSON1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug 4. 1867

Dear Madam

You will be glad to hear that a Society has been formed to continue the movement for the admission of women to the suffrage, and I should be very happy to be allowed to add your name to the General Committee, of which my daughter and I are members. No responsibility is incurred except the annual subscription; but the General Committee is the body which will hereafter elect the Executive Committee. I am

Dear Madam
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Miss Thompson

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 6. [1867]

Embossed

William Thomas Thornton

Thornton, William Thomas

1129.

TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON1

[

Embossed

]

House of Commons

Aug. 6. [1867]

Dear Thornton

I will not thank you for your kind and hearty response about the Women’s Suffrage Society. I will only say that it is like yourself.

Edition: current; Page: [1301]

Concerning Mr Hare’s plan, although opinion on the subject is making great progress, I fear it is hardly ripe, especially among members of parliament, for forming an organized combination. When we can muster a little stronger it will be worth while to begin.

I need not say how earnestly I hope that your excursion may entirely restore your health and working power, and give you all the pleasure you can desire. I am

Dear Thornton
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 7, 1867

Lord Houghton

Houghton, Lord

1130.

TO LORD HOUGHTON1

After

August 7, 1867

Dear Lord Houghton—

I am very glad that you are willing to be on the General Committee of the Women’s Suffrage Society.2 The grounds of justice and of principle for removing the disabilities of women cannot be better stated than in your words, and in those of Lady Houghton cited in your note. Would it be too much to ask the benefit of her name along with yours on the General Committee? I am not uneasy about the future fate of representation of minorities, for the working men do not share the indifference of the middle class to superior cultivation, and are much more willing than the middle class to give full and thorough-going effect to a principle. Hughes stated at the meeting on Wednesday3 that the question was debated at the Working Men’s College, and after several discussions was at last decided in favour of representation of minorities. The only plan which fully and fairly carries out the democratic principle is Mr. Hare’s, and that is now rapidly making way among thinking people.

Very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1302]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

Mary Carpenter

Carpenter, Mary

1131.

TO MARY CARPENTER1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 9. 1867

.

Dear Madam

In case you should not have received the Prospectus of the Society now forming to promote the movement for the admission of women to the suffrage I take the liberty of inclosing it and of saying how much pleasure it would afford me if I might be permitted to add your name to the General Committee of which many of my friends are members.

Those who form the General Committee incur no obligation as to work or time, or anything but the annual subscription. The object of the Society is strictly limited to obtaining the suffrage for women who fulfil the same conditions as male electors: but the most important effect of gaining this political object would be the influence it would have on the social disabilities and the general social position of women.

I am, &c.

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 9. 1867

Blackheath Park

Florence Nightingale

Nightingale, Florence

1132.

TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 9. 1867

Dear Madam

As I know how fully you appreciate a great many of the evil effects produced upon the character of women (and operating to the destruction of their own and others’ happiness) by the existing state of opinion, and as you have done me the honour to express some regard for my opinion on these subjects I should not like to abstain from mentioning the formation of a Society aimed in my opinion at the very root of all the evils you deplore and have passed your life in combating.

Edition: current; Page: [1303]

There are a great number of people, particularly women, who from want of the habit of reflecting on politics are quite incapable of realizing the enormous power of politics, that is to say, of legislation to confer happiness and also to influence the opinion and the moral nature of the governed.

As I am convinced that this power is by far the greatest that it is possible to wield for human happiness I can neither approve of women who decline the responsibility of wielding it, nor of men who would shut out women from the right to wield it. Until women do wield it to the best of their ability, little or great, and that in a direct open manner, I am convinced that the evils of which I know you to be peculiarly aware can never be satisfactorily dealt with and this conviction must be my apology for troubling you now. I am

Dear Madam
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Miss Nightingale

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 10. 1867

Blackheath Park

Lord Brougham

Brougham, Lord

1133.

TO LORD BROUGHAM1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 10. 1867

My dear Lord Brougham

Though I do not positively know whether you are favourable to the movement for opening the suffrage to women, I presume so far on the congeniality of that proposal to your large and liberal feelings on political and social questions, as to venture on sending you the Prospectus of a Society now forming to promote the object. The work of the Society will be done by the very efficient Executive Committee of ladies, but there is a General Committee, of which I am myself a member, and which many friends both in and out of Parliament have joined; and it would give me great pleasure if you would permit me to add your name.

I was very happy to hear that you had returned to England in good health. I am

My dear Lord Brougham
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

I have among my books a Delphin Lucretius2 which I rather think was borrowed by my father from you. I ought to have asked you long ago whether this was the case. If my impression is correct, perhaps you will kindly inform me where to send it.

Edition: current; Page: [1304]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 10. 1867

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Stephen Thomas Hawtrey

Hawtrey, Stephen Thomas

1134.

TO THE REV. STEPHEN THOMAS HAWTREY1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Aug. 10. 1867

Dear Sir—

I thank you for your two little books,2 & regret that until within the last few days I have been prevented from reading them by mere want of time & by no means through indifference to their contents.

You have not misunderstood my meaning in the St Andrews address though the very concise manner in which I was obliged to express everything in that paper may probably have given you a partially incorrect impression of my opinions on education generally. There is much in your view of the subject with which I heartily agree. Your strictures on the system of French schools by which the boys are never for an instant out of the sight or free from the direct control of a master I entirely agree in & I have long thought that while French schoolboys, on the average, are better taught & learn more than English boys, the freer system of English schools has much to do with the superiority of England over France in the love & practice of personal & political freedom. I also agree to the full in your & Dr Hook’s3 principle that real education depends on “the contact of human living soul with human living soul.” But I am entirely sceptical as to the possibility of accomplishing this in any very considerable degree in a numerous school. Even the family if it consisted of 200 or 300 boys could not possibly accomplish it. A wise & zealous master may no doubt acquire a certain amount of beneficial moral influence over the boys & may come into really close contact with the minds & characters of a few among them. In the former of these points if not in both, St Mark’s School appears to have been signally successful; & the principles on which it appears to be conducted are well calculated to attain whatever Edition: current; Page: [1305] such success is attainable. But while I applaud both your theory & your practice I have the less hope of finding my opinion radically altered by them because you seem to me to regard Eton as a favourable specimen of what a school can do in the way of moral & religious training; an opinion from which all that I know of the kind of article turned out annually from Eton into the higher walks of life in this country leads me strongly to dissent.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 11. 1867

Blackheath Park

Moncure Daniel Conway

Conway, Moncure Daniel

1135.

TO MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY1

Blackheath Park

Aug. 11. 1867

Dear Sir

I thank you for the cuttings you kindly sent. Mr Greeley’s notion of two separate legislatures,2 one of men and the other of women, is unwise enough, though there are points in the article which make one feel indulgently towards the writer. I have met with an Englishman who had a similar notion.3 I suppose one might search long before finding a third.

I hardly think (to carry on your metaphor) that it is worth while to fire at such a long range on a position so little formidable. Perhaps to write against the proposal as a serious thing might be the way to make it one. Moreover I have too much on my hands at present. I shall be glad to hear if you find that the suggestion does any mischief. But I am more inclined to think that whatever leads people to turn over a great question in every possible way, is likely on the whole to be useful.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 12.1867

Samuel Sullivan Cox

Cox, Samuel Sullivan

1136.

TO SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX1

Aug. 12.1867

Dear Sir

This letter will be presented to you by my political and personal friend Lord Amberley, who is visiting your country2 to acquire that knowledge of it Edition: current; Page: [1306] which is so necessary to an European and especially to a British Statesman. No one is likely to make a better use of such knowledge than Lord Amberley, for he has purposes and abilities which make him perhaps the most promising of all our rising politicians.

Lord Amberley is kind enough to take charge of the book and photograph which you did me the honour to express a wish to possess, I am ashamed to say how long ago. But I have been so overloaded with work ever since, that this and many other things, though not forgotten, have been postponed. I have never yet thanked you for the kind present of your speeches3 which I hope hereafter to study much more than I have been able to do hitherto. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Hon. S. S. Cox

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 12. 1867

Blackheath Park, Kent

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

1137.

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON1

Blackheath Park, Kent

Aug. 12. 1867

My dear Sir

I give this letter to my friend Lord Amberley, not so much for his sake, for he would easily obtain abundant introductions to you, as to make use of the privilege of writing to you which was kindly conferred on me by the letter I had the pleasure of receiving from you last year.2 Few Englishmen, especially few Englishmen in political life, are more worthy of the privilege of knowing you than Lord Amberley3 who, while he is one of the very best of our rising politicians, is even more interested in the intellectual movement of mankind than in the political. He is likely to keep always in the front rank of his cotemporaries, and I fully share the general hope of his friends that he will be as useful to the coming generation as his father has been to that which is past.

Edition: current; Page: [1307]

I wish I could share with him the pleasure and benefit of hearing from your own lips your commentary on the present state and prospects of mankind. To me it seems that our two countries, on the whole the two most advanced countries of the world, have just successfully emerged from a crisis essentially similar, though by much the gravest and most trying in the United States; which has shaken up and dislocated old prejudices, set the stagnant waters flowing, and the most certain consequence of which is that all the fundamental problems of politics and society, so long smothered by general indolence and apathy, will surge up and demand better solutions than they have ever yet obtained. To those who, like me, regard stagnation as the greatest of our dangers, and the primary source of almost all social evils, this is a very hopeful and promising state of things; but it will make a most serious demand upon the energies of all cultivated minds, to obtain for thoughts which are not obvious at first sight, their just share of influence among the crowd of notions plausible but false or only half true. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

R. W. Emerson Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 15. 1867

Blackheath Park

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1138.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug. 15. 1867

Dear Mr Plummer

I will immediately send you the papers you ask for, in another parcel of Parliamentary papers. The former I must ask you to return when done with, as I shall require to study them. The addresses you intend writing will, I have no doubt, be of great use. I thank you for the article in the Liverpool Albion,2 which I had not seen. I spoke on the Indian Budget debate,3 but not on the Orissa debate,4 as I think it a good rule not to speak when there are other people capable and desirous of saying what one wishes should be said.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1308]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 17, 1867

Blackheath Park

John Nichol

Nichol, John

1139.

TO JOHN NICHOL1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug. 17, 1867

Dear Sir

I thank you very much for your two letters, and have had great pleasure in sending your name for the General Committee. All that you say on the women’s suffrage question I agree with so completely, that it is quite unnecessary for me to say anything more on the subject.

With regard to the projected Society for the encouragement of free inquiry and discussion,2 those who live in Scotland are the best judges of the value and seasonableness of the proposal. As far as I can presume to judge, I should think such a Society very desirable, but I feel some doubt whether my temporary connexion with one of the Scotch universities3 would prevent it from being thought a kind of intrusion in me to occupy so prominent a position in it as you propose. Perhaps you will allow me to suspend any positive answer at present and will in the meantime kindly inform me of the reception which the project meets with, and the progress it makes towards realization. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

P.S. As we leave England in two or three days, perhaps you will kindly send your subscription to the Treasurer, Mrs. P. A. Taylor, Aubrey House, Notting Hill, London.

Edition: current; Page: [1309]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 18. 1867

David Ames Wells

Wells, David Ames

1140.

TO DAVID AMES WELLS1

Aug. 18. 1867

Dear Sir

I think that a country can sometimes, by taxing its exports, make foreigners pay a part or even the whole of the tax. I have discussed this question in the first paper of a volume entitled “Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy”, and have there, as I think, shewn that even a tax on imports is not, of necessity, wholly paid by the home consumer, but that a part of it is sometimes paid (not by the foreign producer, but) by the foreign consumer of the country’s exports.

But these things, though abstractedly true, are too much interfered with by other agencies to be of much importance in practice. To confine myself to the case of exports: it is clear that a country can only make foreigners pay a tax on articles in which it possesses a superiority so preeminent that it has no competition to fear. Even then, foreign countries which cannot produce the article at all, or not at such a price as to compete with the taxed producer, may be able to produce some substitute for it, or something which will be accepted instead of it. In the present day, when there are so many exporting countries, and when the advantage of one country over another in any article is generally limited to a small margin, the attempt to tax exports almost always leads to the total or partial loss of that branch of trade. The latest considerable experiment of this kind that I remember in any part of the British possessions was in Ceylon. That island was supposed to have a natural monopoly of cinnamon, and for many years it derived a large revenue from an export duty; but in the end other nations either grew cinnamon, or used something else instead: the tax had to be repealed, and the trade, nevertheless was reduced to comparative insignificance.

I am leaving England for the Continent just when you are returning and cannot hope to meet you again this season; but I hope that our acquaintance will not be dropped and that we shall correspond on the many important subjects in which we feel a common interest. I am

Dear Sir yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

D. A. Wells Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1310]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 20. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1141.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug. 20. 1867

Dear Chadwick

I have made a great many minor alterations in your address,2 both for the sake of clearness and brevity, though it is still longer than I like. For greater legibility I have made most of the alterations in ink, but of course subject to your own judgment. The passages that I have struck out encumber the case more than they strengthen it; at least, that is my opinion. I have also made some slight alterations in the letter which is to be addressed to myself.3 I hope the reply to it, which I inclose,4 will meet your wishes, and be useful to your candidature.

Letters sent here will be forwarded to me wherever we are. I am

Dear Chadwick
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 20. 1867

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1142.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug. 20. 1867

Dear Chadwick

I think you eminently entitled to offer yourself as a candidate for the House of Commons; and, while I should rejoice to see you elected by any constituency, I should deem it highly appropriate that you should be returned by the University of London, one of the few bodies which, being emancipated from Edition: current; Page: [1311] all local influences, are peculiarly called on to guide their choice exclusively by the capability of a candidate to render important public service.

The services you are capable of rendering, are of the precise kind which will be most needed under our reformed Constitution. It is generally felt that one of the most pressing occupations of the new Parliament will be the better organisation of the machinery of government, which at present, from defects of construction, produces almost the minimum of beneficial result, at almost the maximum of cost. No one whom I know of has devoted so great a portion of his life, or so great an amount of mental power, as you have done, to the study of the scientific principles of administration. The course of your official life has continually brought you into contact with the most difficult administrative problems, and you have so well used the opportunities it afforded, that among all the administrative questions which you have touched (and they are both numerous and of the highest importance) there is hardly one on which you have not originated thoughts and suggestions of the greatest value; some of which have been carried into effect with distinguished success, while the merit of others has been manifested by the consequences which have followed their neglect. On several of the most important branches of public administration, you add to your knowledge of principles a knowledge of details which few can rival. I need only mention the sanitary department, the importance of which, now so widely recognised, you were among the very first to press upon a careless public; the various branches of the administration of relief to the destitute; and many parts of the great subject of the education of the poor, which is destined henceforth to be one of the most anxious cares of our public men of all parties, and which it is next to impossible to make really efficient except by means and on principles repeatedly pointed out by you.

These are claims which, as it seems to me, are well entitled to recognition from a scientific body like the University. They correspond more exactly with the exigencies of this particular juncture, than the merits, great as they are, of several of the other candidates; who, moreover, are almost sure to obtain access to the House of Commons through the ordinary channels. The time requires men who are not merely willing to adopt, but able to originate and prepare, important improvements; and when a man of this stamp offers his services, the consideration of whether he is or is not a graduate of the University sinks into insignificance.

I am Dear Chadwick
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edwin Chadwick Esq., C.B.

Edition: current; Page: [1312]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 21, 1867

William James Linton

Linton, William James

1143.

TO WILLIAM JAMES LINTON1

Aug. 21, 1867

Dear Sir

The object of the periodical2 mentioned in your note is one in which I fully sympathize, and I should have much pleasure in aiding a work in which Mr Mazzini takes interest; but unhappily I have no leisure for writing in periodicals at all, and certainly could not safely make any promise to do so. Pray accept this excuse, which is quite sincere, and believe me,

Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

W. J. Linton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 28. 1867

Baden

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1144.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Baden

Aug. 28. 1867

Dear Sir

I do not see how I can make the proposal to Mr Jacob Bright which you suggest. He probably would not think himself justified in parting with the £130 (unless for your entire liberation) without the express consent of each of the donors; and it is very doubtful if he would like to be asked to ask this of them. But, under the increased hope of ultimate extrication for you and the Review,2 given by the surplus of your receipts over your expenses in the last three months, I can lend you £100 on your personal security, for which I inclose a cheque.

Since I saw you I had some conversation with Mr Grote on your affairs, and shewed him the statements which you sent to me. He shewed, I thought, a willingness to join with others in helping, and I think you would be justified in sending him the latest statement of your affairs.

Edition: current; Page: [1313]

Letters sent to Blackheath as usual, will be forwarded to me.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

P.S. You will understand that I do not wish to be repaid the £100 at any given time, or until you can do it without inconvenience: but in case of unforeseen loss, I should wish only to bear my share of loss with the others who have pecuniary claims on you.

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 1. 1867

Freudenstadt (Würtemberg)

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1145.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Freudenstadt (Würtemberg)

Sept. 1. 1867

Dear Mr Cairnes

I have delayed a long time fulfilling my promise to write to you on the prospects of the Irish Education question, and you will see by the date of this at what time and place I have first found leisure to do so. Your long letter from Barèges was quite convincing to me, and therefore confirmed me in all my bad auguries. The evident intention of the Tory Government is to charter, if not to endow, a Catholic University. The very best thing which the Liberal leaders have to oppose to this will be Monsel’s plan,2 and the choice will lie between these two. The worst is that I do not see what there is for a true Liberal to do but to lament; for the only principle of opposition which could be taken up is the one so clearly laid down in your letter, viz. that no educational institution should be supported or aided by the State, but those which are perfectly impartial, as the Queen’s Colleges are, in respect to religion. But to stand upon this principle is to bind oneself to vote against all the grants of money by the Privy Council to denominational schools; and neither I, nor, as far as I know, any other Liberal, would think it right to do this. The misery is that ninety nine hundredths of England wish for only denominational places of education, and will not support any others; & it is not practicable permanently to have only a denominational system in England and only a mixed one in Ireland. The denominational principle is not giving way at all in England. The Manchester party,3 whose Edition: current; Page: [1314] plan was originally one of purely secular education supported by a school rate, have been obliged this year to provide in their bill that the denominational schools might be recognized and paid, provided there was a conscience clause. Even this, though brought in by Bruce,4 was resisted and thrown out. The Scotch School Commission, in which Tory, Whig and Liberal leaders all joined in recommending that schools which all could attend should be maintained by a school rate, did not go beyond stipulating for a conscience clause. The denominational feeling is perhaps not quite so strong about Universities as about schools, and there is the precedent of the London University. But this precedent only avails for keeping up the Queen’s University, and not against creating denominational ones. The appeal of the Irish Catholics is irresistible by the English, as soon as the No Popery feeling no longer overrides their principles: “you insist on denominational education for yourselves; why then deny it to us?” If I made any prediction, it would be that the present Government would give a charter to the Catholic University, but that the great strength of Voluntaryism, backed by the No Popery feeling, would oblige them to give up the endowment. Perhaps, for the reasons you give, this result would be less noxious than Monsel’s plan; though it would have the effect which Monsel, to me, predicted from it, viz. that the priests and prelates who manage the Catholic University, and who care little about secular instruction, would compete for students by making the standard for their degrees so contemptibly low as to degrade education in Ireland.

The (falsely called) cumulative vote in a few constituencies is of doubtful value in itself; but as a breaking in upon the old humdrum notions, and as necessitating the reopening of the larger question, it is of great importance; and the discussions have given a general idea of Hare’s system to numbers who knew nothing about it before, and have made many converts to it. The subject is also making great way in America: there is a Society at New York for “Personal Representation”5 of which Dudley Field6 is one of the leaders, and I am told that Greeley and Wendell Phillips are both favourable to the Edition: current; Page: [1315] principle. That question, as well as women’s suffrage, is now fairly launched in both countries. The Committee of which you and Mrs Cairnes kindly consented to be members, now considerably exceeds 100 in number, including two peers (Lords Romilly and Houghton), thirty members of the House of Commons (among whom, besides the best of the Radicals, I may mention Baines7 and Coleridge8 and many other known names, but by no means exclusively such. Your friend Mr Webb9 joins the Society, but modestly declines being on the Committee. I hope, however, to overcome his objection, as such men as he is are very much wanted on the Committee, and will be most useful as centres of local information and exertion. Mr Webb is not sanguine about gaining much support in Ireland at present, but it will come in time. A good many Irish liberal members of Parliament both Catholic and Protestant have already joined the Committee.

There is much to be said on the question of the Declaration of Paris10 which must wait till another time. I only just opened the subject in the House of Commons at the very end of the session, but it must come up for discussion again and again. Almost every one (except Sir Roundell Palmer)11 seems to agree with me thus far, that if we do not go back, we must go farther, and exempt private property from seizure even in the vessels of the belligerent countries. This last course is advocated by many. Lord Hobart12 (who by the way has joined the Committee of the Women’s Suffrage Society), goes farther still, and would abolish commercial blockades. The consequence of all this, it seems to me, would be that the naval powers would be unable to defend themselves against the military; and the independence of our own country could perhaps only be preserved by our joining the American Confederation as three States, England, Scotland and Ireland. This would at least have the advantage of settling the Irish difficulty.

Please write to Blackheath as usual until I write to you from Avignon, which will not be for some weeks. I hope your health is more benefitted by Aix than it was by Barèges. I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
Ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1316]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

September 3, 1867

1146.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Before

September 3, 1867

I have long been convinced that complete justice to Ireland was scarcely to be hoped for unless by a reform in Parliament sufficiently thorough to take away the present preponderance of the landed interest, and transfer a large share of political power to classes who are not under the influence of landed or Church prejudices. There is considerable reason to hope that the Parliamentary reform which we have now obtained may accomplish this. Whatever power has been gained by the working classes or by the advanced Liberals will, I am convinced, be used for the complete redress of the grievances of Ireland on the two most fundamental points—the Church and the land. An era of hope therefore is opening for Ireland, which, if improved by wise and harmonious action on the part of your representatives and ours, may make the connection between the two countries an unalloyed benefit to both.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 9. 1867

Avignon

William Brougham

Brougham, William

1147.

TO WILLIAM BROUGHAM1

Avignon

Oct. 9. 1867

Dear Sir

I have directed my servant to forward the Lucretius to 21 Berkeley Square, and I must again apologize for having retained it such an undue length of time.2

I regret that the proposal for the admission of women of independent position to the suffrage, cannot have the benefit of Lord Brougham’s great name and support. I saw with great pleasure the statements of his improved state of health, which I hope will long continue. With thanks to Lord Brougham and yourself for your letter I am Dear Sir

yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

William Brougham, Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1317]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 9 octobre 1867

Avignon

Gustave D’Eichthal

D’Eichthal, Gustave

1148.

TO GUSTAVE D’EICHTHAL1

Avignon

le 9 octobre 1867

Mon cher d’Eichthal

Je vous dois depuis longtemps une réponse à deux bonnes et intéressantes lettres, et je dois aussi ma souscription de 10 francs à la Société des Etudes Grecques.2 Je la comprends aujourd’hui dans un même mandat de poste avec les cinq francs de la Ligue Internationale de la Paix3 (celle de M. Frédéric Passy),4 vous priant de vouloir bien remettre les deux sommes à destination. Le succès de la Société des Etudes Grecques me fait un bien grand plaisir. Nulle part une pareille société ne saurait être plus utile qu’en France, sans compter qu’elle réunit déjà les hommes éclairés de la Grèce actuelle avec ceux qui apprécient le mieux ce que la Grèce ancienne a fait et ce que les études grecques peuvent encore faire pour le progrès de l’humanité. Je vous félicite de l’initiative que vous avez prise dans ces deux mouvements, celui des Etudes Grecques et celui de la paix. J’espère beaucoup plus de la Société Passy que de celle qui s’est tant remuée à Genève. Quand on se réunit pour prêcher la paix, il faudrait savoir se taire pour le moment sur la diversité de ses opinions politiques.

Vous avez bien jugé le résultat de la campagne réformiste de cette année en Angleterre. Nous avons fait un grand pas en avant, quand personne ne s’attendait à un aussi grand. Mais lorsque la tendance générale des choses est dans un certain sens, les intérêts même égoïstes trouvent quelquefois leur compte à hâter le mouvement. Vous dites très bien que “quand les gens ont l’égalité et la responsabilité, ils deviennent tout autres”: c’est ce qui me fait hâter de mes voeux le suffrage universel, et lutter pour y faire comprendre les femmes qui en ont certes le plus grand besoin.

J’espère que le séjour de Trouville aura parfaitement rétabli la santé de Madame d’Eichthal. Je vous prie de me rappeler à ses souvenirs et à ceux de votre fils ainé, ainsi que de mon ancien ami votre frère. Je serai ici jusqu’à la prochaine réunion du parlement, et je serai charmé d’avoir de vos nouvelles.

Votre affectionné

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1318]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 14, 1867

Avignon

George Howell

Howell, George

1149.

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

Avignon

Oct. 14, 1867

Dear Sir

The Lecture project is very good, but it is not in my power to be one of the corps of lecturers; not only because it would be very inconvenient to me to return to England on purpose, but because I am obliged to decline all proposals for delivering Lectures, being unable to spare the time necessary for preparing them.

I am
Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Mr George Howell

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 19.1867

Avignon

William Thomas Thornton

Thornton, William Thomas

1150.

TO WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON1

Avignon

Oct. 19.1867

Dear Thornton—

I have just finished reading your Chapter in the Fortnightly2 & I put down my observations while my mind is full of its contents. In execution I think it excellent, & of good augury for the success of the book;3 for, beginning with so luminous a statement of principles & going on as it probably will do afterwards to important practical recommendations, it bids fair both to make a more than ordinary impression on those who read it at first, & to be permanently distinguished from other writings on the subject as a systematic treatise. I expect that the subsequent chapters will be equally well executed & that I shall agree with all or most of your practical conclusions. But in its principles the chapter does not carry me with it. I find in it what I always find where a standard is assumed of so called justice distinct from general utility & supposed to be paramount whenever the two conflict, viz. that some other standard might just as well have been assumed. Not only do I not admit any standard of right which does not derive its sole authority from utility, but I remark that in such cases an adversary could always find some other maxim of justice equal in authority but leading to opposite conclusions. Edition: current; Page: [1319] A great many rules of morality of every day application are habitually classed as principles of justice. You have selected one of these; Louis Blanc4 against whom you are arguing would select others. You say, the rich are not bound to give employment & subsistence to the poor because they had nothing to do with bringing the poor into the world. Louis Blanc would or might say that the riches and often the very subsistence of the rich would not exist for them if the poor had not been brought into the world, & that to return good for good & the product to the producer is a duty of justice. Again, when he says that the raw material of the earth was not given to a few or to one generation but to the human race, you answer, admitting this, the vast majority of the poor could never have been born if the earth had not been appropriated & compensation is only due to them for their share of what the earth could have produced if it had remained unappropriated. To this L.B. might answer, Compensation is due to them not for that only but for not allowing them to appropriate their rateable share of the soil and to obtain what they by their labour can make that share produce. Again you argue throughout that no question of justice can arise as to the amount for which A hires the labour of B, because A is not bound to hire B at all. Is not this assuming that what the jurists call a duty of imperfect obligation, i.e., not owed to an assignable individual, is no duty? A may not be bound to hire B, but if he is bound to hire or to benefit some person or persons at his choice, the amount of the benefit may be an essential condition to his fulfilment of the duty. You carry your adherence to one particular view of moral obligation so far as to pronounce a person blameless in point of duty (however odious otherwise) who refuses to save the life of another without an exorbitant payment; I conceive on the contrary that it is a serious question whether a person who can save another’s life & does not do it even without any hope of reward, ought not to be amenable to the criminal law. For these reasons I think that the chapter, though as I said impressive, & though likely to be provocative of thought, will probably not convince a single person. All who did not already agree with you will find maxims of justice equally plausible, & in my estimation quite equally strong in support of contrary conclusions.

What you may perhaps effect is to make some of the poor, or of their friends, think they ought not to be severe on the rich as men for using the advantages which their position gives them. But the more they are persuaded of that the more determined will they be to upset the social system which gives a few persons these advantages. They may say, it is not A’s fault that he is rich, but they will be not the less likely to say, let us oblige him to divide his riches equally among all & start afresh; & they will never be persuaded by the principles of justice which you have laid down to think this Edition: current; Page: [1320] unjust. They would say, it may have been right to allow appropriation as long as unappropriated land was to be had by all, but when all is appropriated, & some are left without, there ought to be a redivision, the γη̑ς ἀναδασμός5 of the Greeks. Nor can they be met as far as I see by any arguments but those of expediency—which, once let in, would open the whole question of the rights of the poor & obligations of the rich, & would I think, lead to consequences very different from those which you draw from your theory of justice though probably not very different from what you would practically recommend.

I have stated strongly the fault I find with your Chapter. It would take me a considerable space to set out all the good I find in it. To mention only one thing, the book will be very serviceable in carrying on what may be called the emancipation of pol. economy—its liberation from the kind of doctrines of the old school (now taken up by well to do people) which treat what they call economical laws, demand & supply for instance, as if they were laws of inanimate matter, not amenable to the will of the human beings from whose feelings, interests, & principles of action they proceed. This is one of the queer mental confusions which will be wondered at by & by & you are helping very much in the good work of clearing it up.

We arrived here a few days ago & I am settling down to the winter’s work which will not be political or economical but psychological. I am going to prepare in concert with Bain a new edition of my father’s Analysis of the Mind with notes and supplementary matter.6 This will be not only very useful but a very great relief by its extreme unlikeness to parliamentary work & to parliamentary semi-work or idleness. I hope your health has greatly benefitted by your holiday & goes on improving.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

October 26. 1867

Avignon

Oscar Browning

Browning, Oscar

1151.

TO OSCAR BROWNING1

Avignon

October 26. 1867

.

Dear Sir—

I was glad to receive your letter because it is important to know what an Eton master (especially one who admits defects in the institution) says in vindication of Eton. Your defence however is mainly directed to Edition: current; Page: [1321] other points than those which I have attacked. I have never I believe expressed any opinion as to the merits or defects of Eton in comparison with our other public schools. As the one of highest pretensions I took it as the representative of them all. Nor in what I said of moral results had I particularly in view the grosser & more disreputable vices. I look upon the general moral state of the educated classes of Great Britain, taken in the mass, as essentially low & mean: a mean standard, & a contemptible falling short even of their own standard. You will not expect that I shd, in such a letter as the present, enter into a discussion as to the truth of this opinion, or shew how it is verified in our whole social state & in the manifestations which proceed from those classes on all public occasions on which the moral aspect of the facts is the predominant one. But if this opinion or anything approaching to it is justified by the fact, I cannot be wrong, as you seem to think, in visiting the shortcomings or vices of a class upon the school (or schools) which chiefly educates that class, not as the authors or primary causes of the evil, but as having at least been signally unsuccessful in counteracting it. The teachers, I apprehend, are only entitled to wash their hands of the “shortcomings or vices” of their pupils when they acknowledge & deplore them & shew that their utmost efforts are steadily exerted in the contrary direction.

When you say that so many of your best boys go into the Guards you say what amounts to an acknowledgment of utter failure in educating them morally either for the special responsibilities of a governing class or for the universal duties of a man.

I am not called on to deny that Eton as well as other schools, is far more successful in individual specimens than it is in the mass: & the peculiarities which you mention in its system, the less rigid confinement to a single curriculum & the more intimate association of every boy with his tutor afford facilities for this which, I have no doubt, are often taken good advantage of. But the use made of these facilities depends on what the tutors are & that their general quality shd [be] high is hardly consistent with what you say in your letter of the nepotism, favoritism, & general unfitness of the body who possess “the patronage of the chief school appointments.” From this evil you call on Parlt2 to relieve you & on me to do what I can to help, & you may rely on my doing so: The Public Schools Bill has been passed over by the H of C in the last two sessions not from neglect but from the incessant occupation of the H with the Reform Bill, & I look forward to its occupying much of the attention of the House in the session next to come.3

I am &c

Edition: current; Page: [1322]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 26. 1867

Avignon

James Garth Marshall

Marshall, James Garth

1152.

TO JAMES GARTH MARSHALL1

Avignon

Oct. 26. 1867

Dear Sir

I thank you for sending me your valuable Address,2 and Mr Buckalew’s speech.3 The latter I had seen, and it is one of many signs that the principle of the representation of minorities, and (as far as the case admits) of all sections and opinions in proportion to their numbers, is making rapid way in the United States. The footing, small as it is, which the principle has obtained in our own legislation by the new Reform Act, ensures its being discussed and rediscussed with a practical aim, and, if so, it is sure to be, ere long, understood and appreciated.

I feel, with you, the immense importance of effecting at once all that can be effected for the restraining of bribery; and the time is favourable as some of the leading Tories are very much afraid of the money power, and would now help the Liberals in the attempt to keep it within bounds. It is true that they do this mainly in the interest of the local influences; but no matter. The local influences are doomed: the emancipation of the farmers has commenced; while even the agricultural labourers are beginning to revolt against their employers. Within a few years their children will have been put to school, and after that, they will obtain votes. The real permanent danger now is, lest when the labouring class become the disposers of their own votes, they should sell them.

It is very important to get together for the next session all the best suggestions for the suppression of corrupt practices at elections, with a view to their being embodied in a bill which the advanced liberals could in a body support. They might not carry it, but they would probably be able to force a large part of its provisions upon the Government. Some of your suggestions should certainly be included; particularly that of making it the duty of a public officer to prosecute. I hope you will continue thinking on the subject, and will put on paper all available thoughts that occur to you with a view to bringing them into a common stock at the beginning of the session. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

James Garth Marshall Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1323]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 4. 1867

S[aint] V[éran]

Alexander Bain

Bain, Alexander

1153.

TO ALEXANDER BAIN1

S[aint] V[éran]

Nov. 4. 1867

Dear Bain—

I thank you very much for your letter, & for the promise of matter so soon for the edition of the Analysis.2 I myself have not begun writing yet, but see my way more & more clearly to the work; I have been reading through Laromiguière,3 & Maudslay.4 The first I read chiefly to know what he makes of the active department of human nature (that being his strong point) from the psychological side without the physiological. On that & on other subjects he is meritorious as far as he goes, but too easily satisfied. In the higher departments he leaves everything unexplained, or smuggles the explicandum into its own explanation. His acute remarks sometimes however anticipate the thoughts which others have worked out. I was surprised to find in him a complete anticipation of my father’s important remark on the ambiguity of the copula.5 He also anticipated Hamilton’s view of abstraction as distinct from generalization,6 & his notion of the substantial identity of Nominalism & Conceptualism.7 From Maudslay I have learnt more; but (as with most of the physiologists) his theories seem to me to go far beyond the evidence. I observe, by the way, that he takes Carpenter’s view,8 that ideation is the special function of the cerebral hemispheres, sensation (or rather something ill-defined which he calls a residuum) being packed up there by nerve force to be manufactured into idea. If I am not mistaken, you consider this to be obsolete and false theory. Is it not so? A propos—why does Maudslay charge me with disparaging physiology, Edition: current; Page: [1324] either in itself or in its application to Mind?9 It is like Matthew Arnold enumerating me among the enemies of culture.10

Besides these I have been toiling through Stirling’s Secret of Hegel.11 It is right to learn what Hegel is & one learns it only too well from Stirling’s book. I say too well because I found by actual experience of Hegel that conversancy with him tends to deprave one’s intellect. The attempt to unwind an apparently infinite series of self contradictions not disguised but openly faced & coined into [illegible word] science by being stamped with a set of big abstract terms, really if persisted in impairs the acquired delicacy of perception of false reasoning & false thinking which has been gained by years of careful mental discipline with terms of real meaning. For some time after I had finished the book all such words as reflexion, development, evolution, &c., gave me a sort of sickening feeling which I have not yet entirely got rid of.

Mansel’s article12 is very poor. It is a satisfaction to know that he could find nothing better to say. It will cost me only a few sentences in another edition. It is tolerably good tempered however much more so than his last.

I am obliged to you for discouraging the idea of my lecturing for Univ. College.13 I have so little time now that I must keep it for the few things which it is my special duty to do before the night cometh when no man can work. I wonder how you find time to do all you do. I look forward to your new book14 with much pleasure.

Edition: current; Page: [1325]

I am glad that Mr Hunter15 has done so well with the article for Chambers.16 That question is making way in a wonderful manner. In the U. States the so called radical party seems to be taking up in a body the equality of women as it has that of negroes. At least all the leaders seem to be doing so, Chief Justice Chase among the rest. The Governor of Kansas17 is said to be actually canvassing the State for the sanction by popular suffrage of the constitutional amendment which has passed both Houses admitting women to the franchise.

We are very well & hope to return three months hence in good condition.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 4. 1867

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1154.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Nov. 4. 1867

Dear Chadwick

Thanks for sending me a bulletin of your progress. What you say about the effect of your address2 is encouraging; but it is disheartening to see that in the constituencies generally, the only power which seems capable of making head against money is local influence. The great question of next session will be the promised bill against electoral corruption. The advanced Liberals must have their rival bill, and I am anxious that all who have thought on the subject, and particularly that you, should put down, as heads of a bill, all that has occurred to them as desirable on this subject. When all suggestions have been got together, the most feasible may be selected, and the best radicals in and out of the House may be urged to combine in forcing them on the government.

Whenever you think the time has come to form a Committee and raise a subscription for your return to Parliament, I beg you to put me down as I said before, for £50, and I am ready to serve on any London or General Committee. I suppose that, for the University, the Committee must consist of members of the constituency, which I am not; but if any others are eligible, I should be glad to be one.

Edition: current; Page: [1326]

I have read and been duly edified by the paper you mention in the Journal of the Society of Arts.3 I think there is a chance that Ireland may be tried as a corpus vile for experimentation on government management of railways and telegraphs, as well as of other things. Certainly there is little to spoil there: the worst that could happen would but be one more failure, and there is no necessity to fail.

Your first paper read to the Academy, I have lately received, and will read, as well as the one which is yet to come.4 There is no difficulty of principle in legislating for trades’ unions, but a great deal in detail. For example on that question of picketting. The principle is that they may persuade, but must not intimidate. But who is there to be persuaded, in case of a strike, but those who have accepted work? and how are they to be got at, except by watching to see who they are? and if persuasion is permitted, can the persuader be withheld from expressing disapprobation, and strongly too? while, as we all know, this expression of disapprobation easily degenerates into illegitimate intimidation. But how or where is the line to be drawn? Can more be done than to prohibit threats? and not even that, if the mischief threatened is not physical, but mere ill will, with its natural expression? Hardly any one who has written on the practical question seems to me to have faced this difficulty.

Ever, dear Chadwick,
yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

6th November 1867

Avignon

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

1155.

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON1

Avignon

6th November 1867

.

Dear Sir,—

A few months ago I took the liberty of introducing Lord Amberley to you. I now venture to give an introduction to another friend of Edition: current; Page: [1327] mine, of great capacity and promise, Mr John Morley,2 one of our best and most rising periodical writers on serious subjects—moral, social, and philosophical, still more than political—and at present editor of the Fortnightly Review. I should not thus presume did I not feel confident that you would find Mr Morley worthy of your attention and interest, both as man and as a thinker.—I am, dear Sir, very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 10. 1867

Avignon

E. W. Young

Young, E. W.

1156.

TO E. W. YOUNG1

Avignon

Nov. 10. 1867

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 23rd ulto.

I do not claim any greater latitude of making exceptions to general rules of morality on the utilitarian theory than is accorded by moralists on all theories. Every ethical system admits the possibility & even frequency, of a conflict of duties. In most cases the conflict occasions no great difficulty, because one of the duties is in general obviously paramount to the other. The difficulty arises when the choice is between a very great violation of a duty usually subordinate & a very small infringement of one ordinarily of more peremptory obligation. In such a case the former, I cannot but think, may be the greater moral offence. When I mentioned, as a case of this kind, the case of stealing or taking by force the food or medicine necessary for saving a life,2 I was thinking rather of saving another person’s life than one’s own. A much stricter rule is required in the latter case than in the former, for the obvious reason, that there is more probability of self deception or of dishonesty. But I am far from saying that the rule shd never be relaxed even when the case is one’s own. A runaway slave by the laws of slave countries commits a theft: he steals his own person from his lawful owner. If you say, this is not morally theft, because property in a human being ought not to exist, take the case of a child or an apprentice who runs away on account of intolerable ill usage. There is in the doctrine I maintain nothing inconsistent with the loftiest estimation of the heroism of martyrs. There are times when the grandest results for the human race depend on Edition: current; Page: [1328] the public assertion of one’s convictions at the risk of death by torture. When this is the case martyrdom may be a duty; & in cases when it does not become the duty of all it may be an admirable act of virtue in whoever does it, & a duty in those who as leaders or teachers are bound to set an example of virtue to others, & to do more for the common faith or cause than a simple believer. I do not know whether what I have written will do anything towards removing your difficulty, but I have not leisure to enter further into the subject.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 16, 1867

Avignon

John Henry Bridges

Bridges, John Henry

1157.

TO JOHN HENRY BRIDGES1

Avignon

Nov. 16, 1867

Dear Sir—

The question which you put to me is one which, I think, every sincere reformer of advance opinions, must have put to himself since the outbreak of Fenianism. The answer which I have given to it for my own guidance is this: To declare openly on all suitable occasions that England is bound either to govern Ireland so that Ireland shall be satisfied with her government, or to set Ireland free to govern herself. This doctrine I have already publicly professed. At one of the Reform Union meetings at St James’s Hall last summer I put the question to a multitudinous assemblage composed in great part of working men, “Do you think England has a right to retain Ireland in subjection unless she can make her government satisfactory to the Irish?”2 & the enthusiastic shout of “NO” from apparently the whole body of the meeting, might have been heard, I think, outside the building. The time, therefore, is fully come for holding this language. But having said thus much, I must now add that I think it would be extremely wrong to say or do anything that would give fresh encouragement to the Irish to seek separation from England. I think so, because, for many reasons which to you need not be stated, G. Britain & Ireland are capable of making jointly a much better government for Ireland than Ireland alone is likely to make: but still more because I believe that in the present state of English opinion an attempt at separation even if supported by the mass of the Irish people would be put down by the strong hand, would cause immense misery in Ireland & greatly embitter the feelings between Irish & English & between the two parties in Ireland. And the Irish of the class which furnishes separatists Edition: current; Page: [1329] are so excitable & so devoid of common sense that a very little encouragement from any reputable quarter in G. Britain might have a stimulating effect on them such as we cannot limit or calculate. The responsibility therefore of giving even a single word of encouragement is such as I shd be very sorry that any English liberal shd assume.

The parallel of Hungary3 seems to me to fail in the most essential particulars. The Hungarian people have shewn throughout a most remarkable amount of the esprit de conduite—a good sense, a calm & judicious appreciation of means & ends, which prove them to be highly qualified both for acquiring & for preserving national independence & free institutions. In this respect they are a complete contrast to the Irish. Moreover, the Hungarians are a full match in military qualities or resources, for the whole remainder of the Austrian empire & therefore any terms of accommodation deliberately agreed upon between them & the other half has a considerable chance of being kept and after all the success of the experiment of two independent legislatures & governments under the same crown royal is as yet very doubtful, & it is far too soon to predict its results. Still less likely is it that this Dualism shd succeed in Ireland. The question there is not Repeal but Separation. There is not a Fenian who would be content with a separate legislature. They all seem to want total separation, & a republic, and total separation is what I think we must make up our minds to if after having done full justice to the Irish in church & land matters & done all we can do for their educational & economical interests we find that their aversion to union with us remains unabated. But for their friends in England to begin already pointing to separation even in the distance, would be the very way to make the Irish separately resolve that nothing else shd succeed.

At present the Irish members of the H. of C. of the extreme party instead of “regarding the efforts of English radicals with antipathy,” are on such terms of cordial alliance & cooperation with them as I do not believe ever was the case before: they are, apparently for the first time, convinced that the popular party in England really feels to them as fellow countrymen, & really wishes to do them complete justice, & are fixing their hopes more & more on helping that party to acquire the power of doing so. They seem to dread Fenianism extremely, & some of them have said to me that if the two countries were separated, there would be a civil war in Ireland. The only important point on which most of the advanced liberals differ from the representatives of the Irish party is the question of denominational education: If we escape quarreling on that point there is every prospect of a closer & closer alliance between us. I look therefore with more hope on the cultivation of that alliance than on any proceeding by English liberals which would give gain de cause to the Separatist party in Ireland.

Edition: current; Page: [1330]

This is the way in which the subject presents itself to my mind. If it adds anything to your materials of thought on the question I shall be very glad that you have done me the honour of writing to me about it.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 19. 1867

Avignon

William E. Gladstone

Gladstone, William E.

1158.

TO WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE1

Avignon

Nov. 19. 1867

My dear Sir

As I am at present fully engaged upon work in which I think it desirable to employ all the time of the Parliamentary recess, it is not my intention to be in England for the short autumn session2 unless it should be absolutely necessary. My apology for troubling you with this letter is, that I should consider myself bound by your judgment as to what constitutes necessity; that is to say, the importance of any particular point at issue, and the probable closeness of the division upon it. More especially if the Government should propose to provide for the expenses of the Abyssinian expedition3 by an ordinary loan, or by bonds of long date, and you should think it advisable to take the sense of the House on a counter proposition to raise the whole of the supplies within the year, or partly by bonds to be paid off in a year or two years; which would probably be in accordance with your opinions, and would be entirely so with mine; and if the House were almost equally divided so that every vote was of importance; I should feel it an absolute duty to be present. My object, therefore, in taking the liberty of troubling you with this letter, is to say that if I could receive a telegram from Mr Glyn4 any day before twelve o’clock (which I believe I could do if it were sent off from London early in the morning) I could be in London by eight or nine o’clock of the night of the following day. I am

My dear Sir
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

The Right Honourable

W. E. Gladstone M.P. &c &c

Edition: current; Page: [1331]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 20. 1867

Avignon

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1159.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Avignon

Nov. 20. 1867

Dear Mr Christie

Electoral corruption will, as you say, be the most important subject of the next session,2 and we should endeavour to induce those who have thought on it with a view to practical legislation, to bring their suggestions into a common stock, that they may be sifted, and a selection made of all which are likely to be efficacious, to be made the basis of a Bill, such as the advanced Liberals might in a body support. Few have taken so much pains with the subject as you have, and I hope you will draw up the heads of such a measure as you would yourself propose if you were a minister. Those, whether in or out of Parliament, who have contributed to this stock of suggestions might meet together as soon as Parliament reassembles in February and produce an outline of a Bill which might be circulated among the Liberal party. It might be possible to prevail on Mr Gladstone to introduce it: but whoever may do so, the Bill will only be a rallying point: the fight will not be on that, but on the attempt to engraft its provisions on the bill of the Tory Government. I have already spoken or written to several of those who have most considered the subject, and I hope we shall succeed in getting together really good materials for a Bill.

I quite agree with you on the importance, on all accounts, of including municipal elections in the measure.

I am
Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

W. D. Christie Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 25. 1867

Avignon

Walter Lovell

Lovell, Walter

1160.

TO WALTER LOVELL1

Avignon

Nov. 25. 1867

Dear Sir

I moved an amendment on the Reform Bill, for the admission of women to the suffrage, on the 20th of May last, and my speech was fully reported Edition: current; Page: [1332] in the papers of the next day, and in Hansard.2 It has been published separately by Trübner, 60 Paternoster Row. I have not written any book expressly on the subject, but it is one of the points which I have discussed in a volume entitled “Considerations on Representative Government” of which there are both a Library and a People’s Edition.

I am
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

Walter Lovell Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 6. 1867

Avignon

Alexander Bain

Bain, Alexander

1161.

TO ALEXANDER BAIN1

Avignon

Dec. 6. 1867

Dear Bain—

I have received your letter & the packet of MS. The death of Clark2 is a painful surprise to me. I had heard from him several times since I left England & his last letter dated as late as the 15th of November was more than usually lively & varied, discussing Berkeleianism, the psychology of the senses, &c. It was very unlike a person so near his end. Of what illness did he die?

I shall be happy to nominate Mr Findlater as my Assessor for the remainder of the term,3 if you will be kind enough to ascertain for me whether he will accept the office & to give me his complete name & the designation by which I shd describe him to the St Andrews people when they write to me on the subject. Any probability of a vacancy in the Moral Philosophy chair during the period makes it extremely important to have in the University Court a man whose views on that subject are likely to agree with ours. No doubt you will be on the look out for a fit person to fill that professorship if the vacancy occurs. I shall probably have to depend chiefly upon your knowledge of available Scotchmen for the purpose.

I am very thankful to you for having found, & indeed made, time to do so much for the Analysis.4 I like all your notes very much & they all supply valuable matter most of which I could not have made out by myself. The only case in which we have gone over the same ground is the case of Association by Resemblance, on which I have also written, to the same general Edition: current; Page: [1333] effect as you; & I propose to retain both, as they do not repeat, but enlarge & strengthen one another. Yours is, I think, one of the very best of the present batch. I also have been working pretty vigorously, & have exactly got through the first volume. I have written (as far as regards the rough draft) a great number of minor notes & several long ones, the two longest being on the subjects that you particularly recommended to me, Belief & Nominalism. I have no doubt that I shall get through the second volume in the same manner by the meeting of Parlt. What will remain for the next recess will be the rewriting, which will probably involve much enlargement as well as improvement. But I shall not commence this until your part of the work is finished & before me. I shall be particularly glad of any notes on the chapter on Memory as that phenomenon is still to me the great unresolvable fact of Psychology. It seems to me that it & the problem of Belief are in fact the same, viz. that which I have stated in the chapter on the Ego in my book on Hamilton5—the distinction between recognising something as a mere thought & as an actual fact.

There are two subjects which my knowledge is unequal to, & on which I hope you will give me further assistance. One of them is the direct relation between Ideas & states of the nerves. You must have observed that the source of some of the chief imperfections of the Analysis is the author’s steady refusal to admit any production of ideas by physical causes except through the medium of sensations raising up ideas already associated with them. He carries this so far, as to explain the fact that chronic indigestion excites feelings of anxiety by the circumstance that anxiety disorders the digestion. You have just touched this topic in one of your notes, but in a very summary manner. The other point is one which I could, if necessary, get up from your Grammar without troubling you: it is the distinctive characters of the Subordinate Parts of Speech. Your view of the Adjective I believe coincides with my father’s, that it serves for making cross divisions. You could however help me very much if you had time to annotate those sections. There is one point which I am quite unequal to. The philology of the Analysis on the subject of prepositions, conjunctions, &c. though right in principle is now obsolete in detail & I do not know who is the best person to ask to amend it. Can you suggest the right person?6

I have not found any help in Bailey7 for dealing with Nominalism though he objects to the same points in my father’s exposition which I object to. I have however derived some benefit from reading again Bailey’s four volumes; Edition: current; Page: [1334] but how very, very shallow he is! He not only cannot seize any of the less obvious applications of the principle of association, but he is unfeignedly unable to make out what the writers who speak of such things can possibly mean. Yet at the same time, how plausible! He has scarcely his equal in skimming over the hollow places in philosophy, & putting a smooth face on unsolved difficulties. If he had been in the Forum at the time of Curtius he would not have leaped into the gulf,8 but would have thrown a platform over it, by which people might walk across without noticing it. When he attempts to confute those who are trying to resolve difficulties which he does not see, he usually does it by formally stating & developing at great length some elementary truth which he fancies to be all there is in the matter. As elementary truths are very often lost sight of, these elaborate enforcements of them are, in many cases, useful, but are seldom at all germane to the particular controversy. The best thing about him (except his chapters on the moral sentiments) is that he is a decided supporter of the “experience hypothesis”: but he is so in a way, & in a sense, peculiarly his own: What used to be called the mundus intelligibilis, consisting of all the obscurer notions which have wearied & divided metaphysicians, he disposes of by maintaining that the Intelligible world is all perceived through the senses. Why puzzle ourselves about the necessity of any of our beliefs? Necessity is a quality of outward facts, & can be seen. We see that the theorems of geometry are necessary. How absurd to seek for an explanation or a definition of Cause! We see one thing cause another.

How different Herbert Spencer whose Psychology9 I have been reading for the third time! The second of his four parts is admirable as a specimen of analysis. It is a great satisfaction to find how closely his results coincide with ours. I hope he will not make the book worse instead of better in the projected rewriting, as I am afraid he is going to do with his Social Statics.10

The long miscellaneous chapter with which the 2nd volume of the Analysis commences will give us a great deal of occupation—for under the guise of explaining names it contains the author’s solutions of most of the great questions of metaphysics proper. I shall hope by & by for a full note from you on the Will whether I write one myself or no. The original generation of Will which Hartley had the first glimpse of11 but which you have been the first to understand thoroughly, will be much better treated by you than by me. I may perhaps add something of my own on the polemics of the subject.

Edition: current; Page: [1335]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 22. 1867

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1162.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Dec. 22. 1867

Dear Chadwick

I received your letter and proof2 yesterday afternoon and I read the proof immediately on receiving it. Like most things you write, it is full of instructive and important details, but I differ from you on the point of its being impossible for Trades Unions to raise wages. The only reason I can find assigned in the article for this opinion is that if they do raise wages, they increase the cost of production and price of the product, and thereby lessen the demand and bring wages down again. But increased wages do not necessarily raise the price of the article (nor even make competition with foreigners more difficult) so long as there is any margin of profits to take the increase from. Of course neither Trades Unions, nor anything else can permanently raise wages so high as not to leave a rate of profit sufficient to encourage accumulation. But if they limit their attempt within reasonable bounds, I do not see why they should not in many cases succeed, both in raising wages, and in (what is equivalent) diminishing the hours of labour. The rules laid down by some Unions against piecework, or against machinery, or against the admission of more than a limited number of persons into the trade, and so forth, appear to me as noxious as they do to you, though I do not see how legislation can interfere with people for annexing these conditions to the acceptance of work, provided they do not use force, or threats of force, to prevent other workmen from accepting it. I have marked in pencil, on the margin of the proof, one or two places where something seems omitted which is necessary to the grammar.

I infer from the newspapers that the public are half crazy about Fenianism.3 Gladstone’s Lancashire speeches4 will, however, I hope have some effect in recalling some of them to common calmness and ordinary good feeling.

I am Dear Chadwick
yours ever truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1336]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 22. 1867

Avignon

F. Kidell

Kidell, F.

1163.

TO F. KIDELL1

Avignon

Dec. 22. 1867

Sir

You will find in the Parliamentary reports on Petitions for the session 1867 the statement of the number of signatures to petitions sent up to Parliament, begging for the extension of the suffrage to women. The number, as far as my memory serves me, was about 13000. Of these, many were men; there does not exist, that I am aware of, any statement of what proportion: probably, however, considerably less than half. A petition was also presented the year before, for the same object, signed by 1500 persons, all women.

I am Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

F. Kidell Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 22. 1867

Avignon

William Longman

Longman, William

1164.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

Avignon

Dec. 22. 1867

Dear Sir—

I shd be glad to know at once what proposal you are prepared to make for a new edition of the Logic2 supposing that no cheap edition is issued; also on what conditions you would propose to issue a cheap edition3 & in case of my acceding to them what difference this would make in your proposals for a new library edition. I shd be obliged if you will be so good as to send me the sheets of the last ed. of the Logic here as soon as possible.

Edition: current; Page: [1337]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 28. 1867

Avignon

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1165.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Avignon

Dec. 28. 1867

Dear Mr Christie

I am glad that your ideas for a Bribery Bill are put on paper, and will soon be published.2 I quite agree with you as to the importance of including Municipal elections. Your other point, that of having an enquiry as a matter of course after all elections, I had not thought of. One can at once see many reasons in its favour, but it will be a difficult thing to get carried, owing to the habitual objection to “fishing” enquiries, and to enquiries when there is no complaint. It is, however, evident that the absence of complaint is, in such a case, no evidence of the absence of mischief.

I forget if you have ever expressed any opinion on requiring a declaration on honour from members of parliament, and if so on the terms in which it should be drawn up. Other points are, What should be the punishment of the convicted briber? Should not all persons proved to have been agents of bribery, be for ever interdicted from acting as election agents? Should not all monies expended for election purposes pass through a public officer, so that the mere fact of incurring expenditure in which he is passed over should be legal proof of an unlawful purpose? If so, what should be the definition of election purposes?

Further, it is quite as necessary to deal with what are at present lawful expenses as with actual corruption. They are as mischievous, and even as demoralizing politically, though not so depraving privately. The Liberals ought to force on both subjects in the approaching session.

As Disraeli means to bring in his Bill on the very day of reassembling,3 I think it will be wiser to try to get a conference after than before that time. If it were tried before, some desirable people would be absent, and others would say “Let us wait till we see the Bill.” But the Bill being almost sure to be grossly inadequate, it will then be easier to get people to join in an effort to extort something better.

I am
Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1338]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 28, 1867

Avignon

Horace White

White, Horace

1166.

TO HORACE WHITE1

Avignon

,

Dec. 28, 1867

Dear Sir:

I am much obliged by your kind offices to Lord Amberley2 and Mr Morley,3 both of whom will, I am convinced, not only derive great benefit from any knowledge they acquire of America as it really is, but will make excellent use of that knowledge, and will help to spread it more widely when they return home.

I am afraid we differ rather fundamentally in our opinions on the justice and policy of exclusive taxation on what is called realized property. I have gone very fully into the question in the chapter on Taxation in the concluding work of my Principles of Political Economy,4 and it would not be possible in a letter to explain myself so fully or so clearly. But it seems to me contrary both to the rule of equal justice and to economical policy, to tax one person because he has saved, and leave another untaxed, because he has spent all his gains on himself and family, without adding anything to the accumulated means of further production. The contribution you propose to levy for the payment of the national debt would be simply taking away from everybody who had laid by anything for distant purpose, the greater part of the whole of his savings, while the self-indulgent who have spent all in present pleasures would escape altogether, though benefitted as much as any one else by the protection of government. It seems to me a very narrow view of the purposes of government to suppose that it is only of use to the possessors of accumulated capital. It protects, or at least is bound to protect, every body’s life, person and dignity from injury and insult; and even as regards pecuniary matters, those who spend all they get have as much objection to its being taken from them by malefactors as those who save. You say that those who would be left untaxed would, in consequence, have more means of saving; but being already persons who are less frugal in their disposition than others of the same means, they are still less likely to save when a large part of their savings would not be at their own disposal, but would be taken by the State.

On the mere economic question, “is there any way in which an annual tax may be collected from capital without leaving to the latter an opportunity to collect it back from labor?” I should answer that capital will not have this opportunity. I do not believe that the burthens laid on the capitalist ever fall on labor, except in one way, viz: if the burthens are so heavy as to Edition: current; Page: [1339] check the accumulation of capital, and prevent it from keeping up with the increase of population; in which case, without doubt, wages would fall, unless the increased numbers migrated to a less crowded field for the employment of labor, such as your Western Territories.

The objections to special taxes on capital accumulated by personal frugality, do not in the same degree apply to inherited property; and I am quite in favor of some special taxation of all inheritances above a small amount—and graduated taxation too; a percentage rising with the amount of the inheritance.

I would also have no direct tax on such incomes as are only sufficient to give mere necessaries of life and health to an average family; nor would I have any indirect taxes on the necessaries of life and health; though I would on the luxuries, even of the poor; especially luxuries which are apt to be noxious, such as intoxicating drinks. Your cotton tax comes within the class of taxes on necessaries, and is therefore, I think, a bad tax; but not knowing in which manner it is levied, I do not feel certain as to its exact incidence. I should suspect that it is partly a tax on the laborer; not however by depressing money wages, but by making them not go so far as they otherwise would, in the purchase of clothing.

I am
Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Horace White Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 29, 1867

Avignon

Mary Carpenter

Carpenter, Mary

1167.

TO MARY CARPENTER1

Avignon

Dec. 29, 1867

Dear Madam

I have to thank you for your letter of Aug. 112 which a journey of some length on the Continent and much occupation ever since have prevented me from answering before now.

If you think that to give your name in aid of the movement for political enfranchisement of women might be in any degree injurious to the work you have chosen, I cordially agree that those who are working in another department than your own for the public good have no claim upon you. Whether giving your name to our Society would have any such mischievous effect you are far better qualified to judge than I am, and I will not therefore Edition: current; Page: [1340] venture an opinion. I will content myself with thanking you for the pleasure with which I learn from your letter that you are with us in principle, and with expressing the hope that the time may not be very far distant when the progress of events and of public opinion may remove the obstacles which prevent you from joining us.

There are however one or two points in your letter in which I cannot agree with you. To take the most important first, most important because it is a point of moral obligation. You say you do not desire a vote for yourself. I have too great a respect for you not to venture to say that in my opinion this is a dereliction of the duty you owe to your fellow creatures. If your vote could affect only yourself, that is to say if you only could be the sufferer, materially speaking, from allowing yourself to be governed by others, it would still be a question whether unless those others govern you with perfect justice, you are morally entitled to forego the right and power which a vote would give you to force them to do justice, and thereby become themselves better moral creatures. But it is not the fact that the possession of a vote would enable you only to protect yourself. Every citizen possessed of a vote is possessed of a means of protecting those who cannot vote, such as infants, the sick, idiots &c. as well as of a means of helping others who can vote to do good in every conceivable way in which just and provident legislation can affect human happiness. I am deeply persuaded that nothing but a most regrettable absence of thought on this subject can account for or even partially excuse, for wholly excuse it cannot, the very common neglect of the power of voting which prevails among gentlemen and educated persons. I am certain that a time will come when it will be felt that a man, and I need not add a woman too, because any rational creature, is committing a most gross dereliction of duty when he habitually neglects to make use of this power conscientiously and at any cost of labour to himself. He owes it as a return to the civilisation to which he owes not only all the security and peace, all the highest enjoyments of his life, but also the possibility of attaining refinement and moral elevation. He owes it therefore by the deepest debt that man can owe to his fellow creatures. Nor is it less imperative that he should pay it because if the duty of voting is not fulfilled from virtuous and public motives the power of voting will be left to people who are induced to exercise it by the spur of selfish interest or ambition. Thus I can conceive no duty not even the most primary duties of private and personal morality, that it is more absolutely essential to the happiness of mankind that every virtuous and rational citizen should fulfill steadily and carefully. The right of voting is in my opinion not only a power to be coveted (although it is a legitimate power which may be honestly coveted by an honourable ambition) but it is still more essentially an obligation to be dutifully fulfilled.

You will see from this that I cannot agree in the wish you express that the Edition: current; Page: [1341] right should rather be “given to woman by those who deprived her of it than from her own demand.” Because even if any sentiment of generosity should make one feel that it is a more beautiful thing to receive a legitimate power unasked than asked, there can be no generosity and nothing noble or beautiful in waiting to have a duty thrust upon one instead of asking to be allowed to take it upon oneself for the good of every one concerned.

In regard to the third point on which you express yourself uncertain—whether the time has yet come for agitation—there are several reasons which concur to make me think it has. In the first place to agitate for the change in the law is not to obtain it; and therefore even if any of us think that women are not yet prepared to exercise the suffrage, that will still not be a reason against agitating for it, because much smaller changes than this can never be obtained until after the agitation for them has lasted some time, and the agitation itself will be the most effectual means of preparing people for the change whenever it comes.

The great change now taking place in the right of voting among men3 is however the main reason for bringing forward this question at this particular time. The subject of the right of voting is under discussion, and people’s minds are comparatively open to receiving new ideas on the subject. If it is true that women ought to vote, it is wrong to lose the present opportunity of spreading this truth as far and wide as possible. By doing so we are only sowing seed to bear fruit in due time if it is good seed suited to the soil and the climate. We do not dream of reaping the harvest directly.

I have troubled you, dear Madam, with a very long letter, but I agree too much with you not to wish to agree still further.

I am, &c.

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 30. 1867

Saint Véran

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1168.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Saint Véran

Dec. 30. 1867

Dear Mr Hare

It gave me great pleasure to hear from you. The news you give of the acceptance by the Reform League of the proposed conference2 may turn Edition: current; Page: [1342] out very important. There are a number of the most intelligent leaders of the working men in the League, and even in the Council; men who have not the silly aversion of most of the well-to-do people to anything new in politics, and who are capable of understanding, and accustomed to requiring, general principles of some sort as a basis of their convictions. If you could make an impression on two or three of these—if you could make a convert of even one such man as Odger,3 or Cremer,4 or Howell5—the gain would be immense.

I am glad you have seen Dudley Field,6 and I hope your communications with him will continue. I was asked some time ago to meet him at Paris, but as I did not go to Paris during his stay, nothing came of it.

Mr Rathbone’s Lecture7 was calculated to be very useful to the people it was addressed to. Though the philosophy of it is not profound, its tendency and spirit, and many of its practical recommendations, are very valuable. It indicates a good kind and type of person: in addition to which he seems either to hold, or to be much inclined to, many right opinions, among others the enfranchisement of women, and Personal Representation. There are a great number of signs, of which this lecture is one, that the general moral and social condition of the country and of the world are inspiring many people with serious reflections of a very novel kind, and especially with an anxious interest about the future; as a consequence of which we may hope to see a great increase of efforts to deal with the primordial sources of national evils, and at all events a far greater willingness to listen to suggestions of improvement the grounds of which do not lie on the surface.

I was glad to hear about the Philomathic society,8 but I am obliged to decline all invitations like the one in question.

I should say something about the proposal to change the petition for women’s suffrage into one for a Declaratory Act, if Helen had not gone so fully into that question in her letter to Miss Hare. Her reasons seem to me conclusive, and I quite share her fear lest talking extrajudicially about a right which Parliament does not wish women to possess, should lead to removing all doubts by a declaratory Act the wrong way. I am

Dear Mr Hare
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1343]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 31. 1867

Avignon

Florence Nightingale

Nightingale, Florence

1169.

TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE1

Avignon

Dec. 31. 1867

Dear Madam

You will readily believe that only the pressure of constant occupation has prevented me from replying earlier to the interesting letter I received from you in August. If you prefer to do your work rather by moving the hidden springs than by allowing yourself to be known to the world as doing what you really do, it is not for me to make any observations on this preference (inasmuch as I am bound to presume that you have good reasons for it) other than to say that I much regret that this preference is so very general among women. Myself—but then I am a man—I cannot help thinking that the world would be better if every man, woman, and child in it could appear to others in an exactly true light; known as the doer of the work that he does, and striving neither to be under nor overvalued. I am not so “Utopian” as to suppose that bad people will very readily lend themselves to this programme; but I confess to considerable regret that good women should so often be almost as fond of false appearances as bad men and women can be; seeking as much to hide their good deeds as the others do to hide their bad ones; forgetting probably the while that they are putting somebody—more or less willing—in the position of a false pretender to merits not his own, but belonging legitimately to the lady who delights to keep in the background.

I know that it often appears, in practical matters, that one can get a great deal of work done swiftly and apparently effectually, by working through others; securing perhaps in this way their zealous cooperation instead of their jealous (or perhaps only stupid) obstruction. In the long run, however, I doubt whether any work is ever so well done as when it is done ostensibly and publicly under the direction or at the instigation of the original mind that has seen the necessity of doing it. Whether this is the fact or not, I am quite certain that were the world in general to know how much of all its important work is and always has been done by women, the knowledge would have a very useful effect upon it, and I am not certain that any woman who possesses any talent whatever could make a better use of it in the present stage of the world than by simply letting things take their natural course, and allowing it to be known just as if she were a man. I know that this is not pleasant to the sensitive character fostered by the present influences among the best women; but it is to me a question whether the noble, and as I think, Edition: current; Page: [1344] heroic enthusiasm of truth and public good ought not in this age to nerve women to as courageous a sacrifice of their most justly cherished delicacy, as that of which the early Christian women left an example for the reverent love and admiration of all future time. I have no doubt that the Roman ladies thought them very indelicate.

In regard to the questions you do me the honour to ask me—first, “Are there not evils which press much more hardly on women than not having a vote?” 2dly “May not this, when obtained, put women in opposition to those who withhold from them these rights, so as to retard still further the legislation necessary to put them in “possession of their rights?” 3dly “Could not the existing disabilities as to property and influence of women be swept away by the legislature as it stands at present?”

To answer these questions fundamentally would require only to state fundamental principles of political liberty, and to reiterate that debate so nobly carried on in our own history whether social happiness or dignity, commercial liberty, religious freedom, or any form of material prosperity, is or is not best founded on political liberty.

It may be granted in the abstract, that a ruling power, whether a monarch, a class, a race, or a sex, could sweep away the disabilities of the ruled. The question is, has it ever seemed to them urgent to sweep away these disabilities, until there was a prospect of the ruled getting political power? More than this, it is probably a question whether it is in human nature that it ever should seem to them urgent.

In the same way it may often be a question whether painful symptoms do not press more hardly upon a patient than the hidden disease which is the cause of them. And undoubtedly, if the symptoms themselves are killing, the physician had better address himself to them at once, and leave the disease alone for a time. But if the oppressions and miseries under which women suffer are killing, women take a great deal of killing to kill them. God knows I do not undervalue these miseries; for I think that man, and woman too, a heartless coward whose blood does not boil at the thought of what women suffer; but I am quite persuaded that if we were to remove them all tomorrow, in ten years new forms of suffering would have arisen; for no earthly power can ever prevent the constant unceasing unsleeping elastic pressure of human egotism from weighing down and thrusting aside those who have not the power to resist it. Where there is life there is egotism, and if men were to abolish every unjust law today, there is nothing to prevent them from making new ones tomorrow; and moreover, what is of still greater importance, new circumstances will constantly be arising, for which fresh legislation will be needed. And how are you to ensure that such legislation will be just, unless you can either make men perfect, or give women an equal voice in their own affairs? I leave you to judge which is the easiest.

Edition: current; Page: [1345]

What, however, constitutes an even more pressing and practical reason for endeavouring to obtain the political enfranchisement of women, instead of endeavouring to sweep away any or all of their social grievances, is, that I believe it will be positively easier to obtain this reform, than to obtain any single one of all the others, all of which must inevitably follow from it. To prefer to sweep away any of these others first, is as though one were to prefer to cut away branch after branch, giving more labour to each branch than one need do to the trunk of the tree.

The third question, whether there is not danger of political partisanship and bitterness of feeling between men and women, is also a question which I think has been asked and answered in other departments of politics. It has been asked and answered, too, though the answer has been different from that which we most of us approve of in politics, in the case of marriage. To prevent quarrels, it has been thought best to make one party absolute master of both. No doubt, if women can never do anything in politics except for and through men, they cannot be partisans against men. No doubt, where you have death, you have none of the troubles of life. But if women were to prove possessed with ever so great a spirit of partisanship, and were they to call forth thereby ever so intense partisanship on the part of men, and were they, as the weakest, to be driven to any extremities, I don’t see that the result would be very different from what it is at present, inasmuch as I apprehend that the present position of women in every country in the world is exactly measured by the personal and family affections of men, and that every modification for the better in women’s absolute annihilation and servitude is at present owing not to any sense of abstract right or justice on the part of men, but to their sense of what they would like for their own wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters. Political partisanship against the mass of women will not, among civilized men, diminish the sense of what is due to the objects of their private affections. But I believe, on the contrary, that the dignity given to women in general by the very fact of their being able to be political partisans, is likely to be itself a means of raising men’s estimation of what is due to them. So that, if men come to look upon women as a large number of unamiable but powerful opponents and a small number of dearly loved and charming persons, I think men will think more highly of women, and will feel less disposed to use badly any superior power that after all they themselves may still possess, than if they look upon women as I think men generally do at present, as a few dearly loved, preeminently worthy and charming persons, and a great number of helpless fools.

On the whole, then, I think, firstly, that political power is the only security against every form of oppression; secondly, that at the present day in England it would be easier to attain political rights for such women as have the same claims as enfranchised men, than to obtain any other considerable reform in Edition: current; Page: [1346] the position of women; thirdly, I see no danger of party spirit running high between men and women and no possibility of its making things worse than they are if it did.

Finally, I feel some hesitation in saying to you what I think of the responsibility that lies upon each one of us to stand steadfastly and with all the boldness and all the humility that a deep sense of duty can inspire, by what the experience of life and an honest use of our own intelligence has taught us to be the truth. I will confess to you that I have often stood amazed at what has seemed to me the presumption with which persons who think themselves humble set bounds to the capacities of improvement of their fellow creatures—think themselves qualified to define how much or how little of the divine light of truth can be borne by the world in general; assume that none but the very élite can see what is perfectly clear to themselves, and think themselves permitted to dole out in infinitesimal doses that daily bread of truth upon which they themselves live, and without which the world must come to an end. When I see this to me inexplicable form of moderation in those who nevertheless believe that the truth of which they have got hold really is the truth, I rejoice that there are so many presumptuous persons who think themselves bound to say what they think true—who think that if they have been fortunate enough to get hold of a truth, they cannot do a better service to their fellow creatures than by saying it openly; who think that the truth that has not been too much for themselves will not be too much for others; who think that what they have been capable of seeing, other people will be capable of seeing too, without a series of delicately managed gradations. I even go so far as to think that we owe it to our fellow creatures and to posterity to struggle for the advancement of every opinion of which we are deeply persuaded. I do not, however, mean to say that there is any judge but our own conscience of how we can best work for the advancement of such truths, nor do I mean to say that it may not be right for any of us, endowed with special faculties, to choose out special work, and to decline to join in work for which we think others better qualified and which we think may impede us for our own peculiar province. Therefore, while I have seen with much regret that you join in so few movements for the public good, I have never presumed to think you wrong, because I have supposed that your abstinence arose from your devotion to one particular branch of public-spirited work.

I am Dear Madam
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1347]

1868

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 8. 1868

S[aint] V[éran]

1170.

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

S[aint] V[éran]

Jan. 8. 1868

Messieurs—

Par une lettre du 27 Novembre 1863 vous avez bien voulu me concéder la ceppe de 50 arbres sur le chemin vicinal No. 1 et voisin de ma propriété moyennant une redevance annuelle de 25 francs, soit 50 centimes pour chaque arbre.2 Depuis quelques jours les employés de votre administration ont coupé et enlevé sept de ces arbres, qu’ils disaient être morts. En conséquence, j’ai à vous proposer soit de diminuer dans la même proportion le paiement annuel soit de m’accorder d’autres arbres pour compléter le nombre primitif. Je préfèrerais que la concession fût modifiée de manière à la borne à 43 arbres ou même à 42 ce qui donnerait la pierre milliaire du premier kilomètre du chemin comme borne très commode de la concession. Mais si des difficultés administratives s’opposent à ce que vous m’accordiez cette modification je vous prierais alors, messieurs, de me concéder sept arbres de plus le long du chemin du côté de l’est, c’est à dire jusqu’au huitième arbre au delà de la pierre milliaire inclusivement.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 8. 1868

Avignon

Leopold John Bernays

Bernays, Leopold John

1171.

TO THE REV. LEOPOLD JOHN BERNAYS1

Avignon

Jan. 8. 1868

Dear Sir

I thank you for the opportunity of reading the little pamphlet on education.2 All that the author says against centralizing the education of the country in the hands of government is very just, & I entertain the strongest objections to any plan which would give a practical monopoly to schools under government control. But I have never conceived compulsory education in Edition: current; Page: [1348] that sense. What I understand by it is that all parents should be required to have their children taught certain things, being left free to select the teachers, but the sufficiency of the teaching being ensured by a government inspection of schools & by a real & searching examination of pupils. The actual provision of schools by a local rate would not necessarily be required if any schools already existed in the locality which were sufficient for the purpose or which could be made so by aid from the local funds & by inspection. Moreover, a mere consolidation of the already existing school endowments, now mostly jobbed or, at best, very inefficiently applied, would probably enable good instruction to be provided in all localities in which it is not already afforded by private exertions. Of course there must be a Government department to control the employment of these funds, but it does not follow that the teachers need be appointed or directly controlled by any public office. The control might rest in a school committee chosen from the locality itself, perhaps by a mixed system of election & nomination & entrusted with considerable latitude as to all details. These are all points for mature consideration; but a thorough system of instruction for the whole country we must have; & I do not see anything short of a legal obligation which will overcome the indifference, the greed, or the really urgent pecuniary interest of parents.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 8. 1868

Avignon

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1172.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Avignon

Jan. 8. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I am very much obliged to you both for your letter and for sending me your pamphlet2 and the Bill. In order not to delay returning you the pamphlet (which goes by this post) I have copied out its list of recommendations. I think almost all of them excellent. Above all, you seem to me to be right in having everywhere one public officer who shall perform all the duties connected with elections, and who shall be specially responsible (as far as it is possible to make him so) for doing everything that can be done to keep them pure. You have also perceived the necessity of having an appeal from his decision; since otherwise he would acquire, in the cases not contested before Edition: current; Page: [1349] him by the parties, & would carry into the others a habit of indulgence and laisser-aller which would make him as little to be relied on as the Poor Law Inspectors have come to be. But do you not think that the jurisdiction in appeal should be (as the Select Committee propose that the original jurisdiction should be) with one of the Judges, rather than with five M.P.’s named by the Speaker, and a legal Assessor? These M.P.’s would never be impartial. It could not be hoped that they would be better selected than the present Chairmen of Election Committees, and the evidence which you quote from the Corrupt Practices Report shews how confidently parties rely on the partiality of these.

I am acquainted with the Blue Book of 1860,3 having gone carefully through it some time ago. I am aware of the failure of the Election Auditors; but they were sure to be a failure like Railway Auditors, unless a great deal more was done to ensure their fidelity than was provided for by the Act which created them. I see that we quite agree on the subject, as you give all the powers of the Election Auditor to your Returning Officer, who, if your plan were adopted, would be a very different sort of person from the Election Auditors, and far more in the public eye. I am glad that you require all election expenses to pass through the Returning Officer. I would make him the direct dispenser even of all charities on the part of the member or candidate; otherwise these are sure to be so bestowed as to “keep up the . . . interest.”

The Bill, as altered by the Select Committee, has more good points than I expected. But the £1000 security is a bar to its making much practical improvement. Some such provision is perhaps necessary on Disraeli’s plan,4 to prevent frivolous petitions by men of straw who could not be made to pay costs. But all such necessity would be obviated by your plan of having an enquiry and scrutiny after every election, by a special officer whose business it would be to watch over elections.

The Bill provides a better system of penalties for bribery than I expected. It is perhaps better that the disqualifications (being so comprehensive and severe as they are) should be for seven years, as proposed, rather than for life; since if they were for life there would be much danger that opinion would be indulgent to every excuse for not inflicting them.

I am
Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

W. D. Christie Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1350]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 8, 1868

Avignon

Henry Solly

Solly, Henry

1173.

TO HENRY SOLLY1

Avignon

,

Jan. 8, 1868

. . . I should be very happy to be of use to you in your new undertaking;2 but . . . there is very little that I can say in recommendation of you that is not already known to the public, and especially to the working men, of whose claims and interests you have so long been a consistent and zealous supporter . . . .3 My absence from England would in any case prevent me from being able to attend the meeting on the 15th. . . . Very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 9. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1174.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Jan. 9. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I quite agree with you as to the inutility of the Cobden Club2 unless it makes itself an instrument for diffusing good opinions, and several members of the Club have already expressed to me the same feeling. Mr Potter3 who, I believe, is the real founder of the Club, has told me that he very much wishes to make it useful as a political organ. I think it very desirable that your suggestions should be brought before the managing Committee. This I could do, either by writing them a letter enclosing yours, or by attending a meeting of the Committee (for I am a member, though I have never acted as such) as soon as possible after my return to England, and bringing the subject regularly before them. I will do whichever of the two you prefer. Some good will be done if the Club can be prevailed on to take even a small step in the direction of your proposals. The largest measure you suggest, that of pressing for a Congress to reconsider the international law of Europe on the subject of the commencement of hostilities, has not the smallest chance of leading to anything practical, but the value of the demonstration might be considerable.

Edition: current; Page: [1351]

I think with you that Mr Leslie’s article on Military Systems4 is very important, and ought to be made widely known if possible.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 9. 1868

Avignon

William Longman

Longman, William

1175.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

Avignon

Jan. 9. 1868

Dear Sir—

I thank you for your letter. After consideration I have made up my mind not to print a cheap edition of the Logic at present, but to propose to you to publish a new edition in the same form & on the same terms as the last viz. £500 per an edition of 1500.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 9. 1868

Avignon

1176.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Avignon

Jan. 9. 1868

Dear Sir

I am very sorry to say that I have no means of procuring any situation, but I shall most willingly recommend books to you, and after you have read Mr Bain’s treatises I should be glad to hear what sort of impression they make on you, as it would be some help to me in making further recommendations.

I am
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1352]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

January 16, 1868

Avignon

1177.

TO SECRETARY, UNIVERSAL FRANCHISE ASSOCIATION1

Avignon

January 16, 1868

Dear Madam—

I have watched the progress of opinion in favor of the enfranchisement of women in America with deep interest, believing that your country is destined to lead the way in this great question, as it has already done in so many others. I learn with great pleasure the formation of your association at Washington, and feel much honored that you have included my name in your Consulting Committee. I inclose a credit of £2 on New York, not having been able to obtain one [on] Washington, being one from myself and the same amount from my step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, as subscriptions to your association, and should I have any likely opportunity I will not fail to mention your association among our friends in England, but the cause has in this country, as yet, so few supporters that those among us who are able to give pecuniary help find all their available means absorbed by the expenses necessary for diffusing the principles in our own country. You will hear with interest that a society has been formed in England for the same purpose.2

I am, dear Madam, yours, very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 17. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1178.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Jan. 17. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I have inclosed your two letters to Mr Potter with one from myself, pressing on him the consideration of them.2

I have read the extracts from the Medical Mirror, and I quite feel with you against circulating among the electors, from you or your friends, a mere attack on Lowe.3 If one candidate puts forth a personal attack upon another Edition: current; Page: [1353] (a thing it is seldom wise to do) it should be a weightier, and better considered one than this. But if any one in no way connected with your candidature chooses to circulate it, I do not think you need concern yourself about the matter.

I shall always be ready to put in a timely word for competitive examinations; but I do not know that the present is a particularly favourable time for a motion in Parliament to extend them, and it is still more uncertain whether I have not already quite as much on my hands as I can manage.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 17. 1868

Avignon

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1179.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Avignon

Jan. 17. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

The same post which brought your letter, brought the proof from the Law Magazine.2 The article will do much good, and I wish it were circulated widely among the liberal members of Parliament. It does not, however, remove the few difficulties which your pamphlet had left in my mind. The Chairmen of Election Committees have been less grossly partial since they were a fixed body selected on the responsibility of the Speaker, but they are still believed and expected to lean to their own party. The corruption which was so flagrant as to cause the disfranchisement of Yarmouth,3 did not make void the seats of the Conservative members, for the Chairman of the Committee was a Conservative. At present what I prefer is the plan you propose, of an investigation after every election, parliamentary or municipal, by a special officer, with the addition of an appeal from that officer to one of the Judges. It is possible indeed, that to make the appeal be to a Committee of the House with legal assessors, might facilitate the passing of the measure. But it is our business to demand what is best, and not to propose a splitting of the difference, though we may accept it if forced.

Edition: current; Page: [1354]

Unfortunately none of the Members you mention as specially interesting themselves in this subject belong to the advanced Liberal section: unless Pollard Urquhart may be so regarded, and he does not carry weight. They may be made useful, but we shall need others. If you have an opportunity, I think you should try to stir up M’Cullagh Torrens. I mean to do so, but he should be attacked on more sides than one. He is clever, and I have found him dependable upon for things requiring work.

With regard to your personal grievance,4 I sympathize sincerely and heartily in your feelings respecting it, and it is painful to me to say anything which may look like indifference to the subject. But I think you will enter into the reasons which compelled me, on going into Parliament, to lay down a rule not to take up personal cases. My sole purpose in consenting to be elected, was to do what I could for my opinions on questions of a purely public nature and on which there is no one else in Parliament to speak: and for no object but this should I have thought myself justified in giving up time which was already usefully employed. Now it is quite impossible for me to give my time and labour to the many public questions which have a claim on me, unless I abstain from any other parliamentary business. To get up thoroughly a subject like that of your conduct of the Brazil negociations, so as to be invulnerable to criticism, and certain of not being unjust to any one, would be enough to occupy me almost a whole session. It would not, I think, be wise or right that I should postpone my own proper business in Parliament, for the sake of which alone I am there, in order to do what could be done as well by almost any member of parliament who would take the pains, and by many much better than by me. But I shall be truly glad if the subject is taken up in Parliament, and properly discussed and canvassed so as to bring out all the truth.

I am

Dear Mr Christie
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 20. 1868

S[aint] V[éran]

1180.

TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE HOSPICES D’AVIGNON1

S[aint] V[éran]

Jan. 20. 1868

Messieurs—

Permettez-moi de vous exprimer mes sincères remerciments de l’accueil favorable que vous avez bien voulu donner à ma proposition au sujet des arbres en réduisant la redevance annuelle à 21 fr.50.2

Edition: current; Page: [1355]

Il y a pourtant dans votre lettre un petit malentendu, que je dois probablément attribuer à l’insuffisance de mes explications. La concession primitive de 50 arbres ne s’arrêtait pas à la pierre milliaire mais comprenait le premier arbre au delà en sorte que la modification que vous m’avez accordie ne donnerait pas plus qu’auparavant comme borne la pierre milliaire. Pour faire de cette pierre la limite de la concession, ce que serait en effet fort commode, il faudrait comme je l’indiquai dans ma lettre du 8 janvier, réduire le nombre des arbres concédés à 42 au lieu de 43, ce qui entraînerait la réduction de la redevance à 21 fr. par an. Il est vrai que je n’ai tiré jusqu’ici aucun avantage de mon droit au dernier arbre, dont la ceppe a été exploitée par le concessionaire voisin, par suite de l’incertitude de la limite.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 27. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1181.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Jan. 27. 1868

Dear Chadwick

It would be a very good thing if you could get into Parliament for Bristol even for the present session,2 but one of the great evils of the present mode of election is that a local man is almost always the one preferred unless some one else is willing to pay a great deal more money. Even Radical Bradford elects a semi-Tory, because he is a local man, in preference to Miall.3

I have written to Mr Gladstone expressing in strong terms my sense of the importance of your being in Parliament, with the reasons of it, and of the desirableness of your being on Mr Glyn’s list (Mr George Glyn, the younger of the Glyns, is Mr Brand’s successor as whip).4 I do not think Mr Gladstone is likely to take the suggestion amiss, and it will at any rate place the matter before his mind.

Can I anywhere find a summary of your recommendations for a legislative measure against corruption at elections? and if not, could you find time to send me one? This subject is to come on, the very day of the reassembling of Parliament.5

Ever, my dear Chadwick
yours truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1356]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 27. 1868

Avignon

Joanny Chapé

Chapé, Joanny

1182.

TO AUGUST JOANNY CHAPÉ1

Avignon

Jan. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

I much regret to hear of the state of your health. But I hope you are not relying in any degree upon the pecuniary results of the paper you sent me. It is very creditable as the first essay of a beginner, but I believe it to have no chance of being accepted either by a bookseller or by the editor of any paying periodical. Its opinions alone would exclude it from almost every periodical which can afford to pay its contributors. And the opinions & arguments are presented rather as they would be written down for the writer’s own satisfaction, than in the manner of one who is trying to convince or persuade others. I am very sorry if this causes you any disappointment, but I am convinced that to attempt to derive pecuniary fruits from this first attempt would only add to disappointment the loss of time & trouble. Regretting that I have nothing more agreeable to communicate.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 27. 1868

Avignon

Theodor Gomperz

Gomperz, Theodor

1183.

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

Avignon

Jan. 27. 1868

Dear Mr Gomperz—

It gave me very great pleasure to see your handwriting once more. But I greatly regret that you should have had the causes of unhappiness to which you allude & respecting which you hold out the hope that I shall hear something from Mr Wessel.

I am truly glad that your labours on the System of Logic will now produce Edition: current; Page: [1357] fruits.2 I am just now revising the book for the seventh edition. There will not be many, nor very important alterations; but I shall be happy to send you the sheets of the new edition, with the alterations marked if it is possible for you to receive them in time.

With respect to the Inaugural Address, I have given permission to a young geologist, Dr Anton Dohrn,3 of Jena, to translate it into German, & perhaps Mr Grosser would be good enough to communicate with him.

A Dr Sattler4 has just written to me from Madeira to propose translating the essay on Comte. He refers to Gervinus5 as a voucher. I have referred him to Mr Grosser.

Dr Wille’s translation of “Considerations on Representative Govt”6 seemed to me when I looked through the first pages of it, to need a good deal of correction.

With respect to introductory matter I should prefer, on every account, that anything of the sort should be written by you. It would be sure to be both valuable in itself and much more fitted to explain and recommend the series of Works to the German public, than anything I could write.

I am unable to give any opinion as to including the “Essays on Unsettled Questions of P. E.” but if a new ed. of them were called for here I should alter the first Essay considerably.7 It is probably prudent to keep back the book on Hamilton for the present.

I have written a few lines to Mr Grosser8 in answer to his letter, & have referred him for particulars to you.

I have to thank you for your publications of & respecting the Herculanean MSS9 which are always very interesting to me.

[P.S.]

I shall be at Blackheath on & after the 12th of February.

Edition: current; Page: [1358]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 27. 1868

Avignon

Julius Grosser

Grosser, Julius

1184.

TO JULIUS GROSSER1

Avignon

Jan. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

Excuse my writing to you in my own language on account of my want of practice in writing German. It gives me much pleasure to hear of your proposed publication2 & to know that a person so eminently qualified as my friend Mr Gomperz will furnish some of the translations & exercise a general superintendance over others. I have written to Mr. Gomperz3 on a few minor particulars for which I beg to refer you to him.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Jan. 27. 1868

Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1185.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Avignon

Jan. 27. 1868

Dear Sir

I thank you for your note, and the very satisfactory intelligence it contains respecting your prospects. I wish I had known sooner that the articles in the Daily News on East London distress were written by you,2 as I should then have been much more particular in reading them. I am glad the Blue Books3 have been useful. I have no doubt that your Lectures4 will be instructive to the working men on the points which most concern them. When you feel in doubt on any point of principle on which it is necessary for you to touch, I should at any time with pleasure give you any assistance I could in clearing Edition: current; Page: [1359] it up. We shall arrive at Blackheath only just in time for the reassembling of Parliament. Pray give our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer.

I am Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 3, 1868

Avignon

Mary Carpenter

Carpenter, Mary

1186.

TO MARY CARPENTER1

Avignon

Feb. 3, 1868

Dear Madam—

I am glad to find that the letter I sent2 in answer to yours on the question of Women’s suffrage is thought likely to have a useful influence on the minds of those who read it, and I should be glad to see it printed, as well as more from the same hand, but I should not like to be a party to its being printed with my name, because it was written (as is the case with no inconsiderable portion of my correspondence) by my step-daughter Miss Helen Taylor. Without this help it would be impossible for me to carry on so very voluminous a correspondence as I am at present able to do: and we are so completely one in our opinions and feelings, that it makes hardly any difference which of us puts them into words. It is often with regret that I see attributed to myself work which I think good and which is chiefly hers. In this case (by no means a solitary one) it happened to be entirely hers; what she wrote expressed so perfectly all I could have wished to say, that I transcribed it unaltered. I am sure therefore that you will appreciate the dislike I feel to consenting that it should be published or even printed under my name. If everything said in a private letter is the real opinion or feeling of the person who signs it, it is indifferent whether it is written by him or for him, especially if it is as well done as he could do it. But anything printed comes into the class of literary performances, and I should feel (only in a less degree) as if I were to publish a book written by my daughter with my own name instead of hers prefixed to it.

I am &c

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1360]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 4. 1868

Avignon

John Venn

Venn, John

1186A.

TO JOHN VENN1

Avignon

Feb. 4. 1868

Dear Sir

I am late in acknowledging the gift of your very valuable work “The Logic of Chance.”2 As I perceived at once, as well as heard from others who read it, that it well deserved consecutive study, for which pressing occupations left me at the moment no leisure, I laid it by till the time should come when I must necessarily take up the subject in revising my System of Logic for another edition.3 This time has only recently arrived, and I have availed myself of your criticisms to make several alterations in the corresponding chapters of the book,4 which alterations however are rather in the mode of expression than in the substance of the opinions expressed.

I think your book very important, both as a contribution to the theory of the subject, and as a corrective to prevalent errors. Your general mode of viewing this class of questions is by far the best and most philosophical I have met with; and while there is evidence of a great agreement between us in our mode of regarding the great problems of inductive philosophy, you have, on this particular subject, thrown light upon many more points than space and time had allowed me to enter into. Your book is one of the highest compliments which could have been paid to mine; for I have scarcely met with any thinker who seems to have so completely assimilated the best thoughts and principles of my book, thereby affording strong indication that your own thoughts had flowed in much the same direction, independently of any external suggestion.

There are, however, some points on which we differ, and on which your book has not convinced me.5 For one thing, you seem to go farther in rejecting Edition: current; Page: [1361] the doctrines of mathematicians on the subject than even I do. If I understand you rightly, you attach little value to the rule for determining the probability by which of several causes a known event has been produced, which rule seems to me to rest on solid grounds, and to be quite reconcileable with the principle that all evaluation of probabilities must depend on appropriate statistics. But our chief difference (not unconnected with this last) consists in your not recognising what I regard as one of the fundamental distinctions in philosophy, that between causal and empirical laws.6 The root of this difference seems to be the opinion you express that the entire sum of the circumstances which make up the unconditionally invariable antecedent of any effect, is hardly ever repeated. This seems to me, if I may be allowed to say so, a less well-considered opinion than most of yours. If the exact combination of antecedents that is connected with the effect, did not reappear, neither would the effect itself ever reappear, except so far as it might be an effect which had several independent modes of production.

If I had time to enter fully into the subject I should perhaps trouble you with a detailed examination of the arguments in your chapter on Causation.7 But, from the general evidence of your book, I shall be surprised if you do not end by agreeing with me on this point, by the progress of your own thoughts. On my side, I promise myself that when I have more time to devote to the subject, I shall have still more to learn from your book than I have yet learnt from it, and that at some future time it may help me to expand and improve materially those parts of my Logic.

Again thanking you for the pleasure and instruction you have given me, I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Venn Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 15. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Charles Hayes

Hayes, Charles

1187.

TO CHARLES HAYES1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb. 15. 1868

.

Dear Sir—

I shd be happy to support almost any feasible plan which would ensure the regular appropriation of a surplus revenue to the reduction of the Edition: current; Page: [1362] national debt.2 The mode you propose of effecting this is strongly recommended by the close connexion of the subject with the limitation of our coal supply, & plans similar to it have sometimes been suggested. For my own part I am unable to see the force of the strong objection which many public men entertain to any tax on coals. As for the iron manufacturers, Mr Plimsoll has shewn in his letters in the Times3 that the coal they waste amounts to as great a quantity as their Belgian rivals consume altogether & it would do good instead of harm to compel them by a tax to be more economical. No plan for reducing the debt has a better claim to consideration than yours, but until it has been more discussed it is impossible to come to a positive opinion in favour of it.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 15. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Tallack

Tallack, William

1188.

TO WILLIAM TALLACK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Feb. 15. 1868

Sir

In reply to your communication I beg to say that I would rather not sign the form recommending the Address of the Howard Association2 “to the consideration of influential persons,” because the form, though not expressly declaring, would be understood to imply, an adhesion, not only to the opinions expressed in the Address, but to the objects of the Association, some of which I highly approve, but from others of which, I dissent.3

I am Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

William Tallack Esq

Edition: current; Page: [1363]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 16. 1868

Blackheath Park

David Masson

Masson, David

1189.

TO DAVID MASSON1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Feb. 16. 1868

Dear Mr Masson

I must apologize for giving you further trouble on the subject of my daughter’s article2 which you were so kind as to forward to Mr Macmillan,3 but as she has no other copy, and as we observe that Mr Macmillan does not undertake to return articles unless the name and address are written on them, a condition which was not complied with in this instance, we hope you will excuse our having recourse to your good offices to obtain the return of the article, if it should not be found to suit the Magazine.

I hope that your anxiety about Mrs Masson’s health is now over. I am

Dear Mr Masson
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 19. 1868

Thomas Joseph Haslam

Haslam, Thomas Joseph

1190.

TO THOMAS JOSEPH HASLAM1

Feb. 19. 1868

Dear Sir

I am very happy to hear of so decided an improvement in your state of health, and of the progress of the movement for women’s suffrage in Dublin.

I thank you for your pamphlet.2 Nothing can be more important than the question to which it relates, nor more laudable than the purpose it has in view. About the expediency of putting it into circulation, in however quiet a manner, you are the best judge. My opinion is that the morality of the matter lies wholly between married people themselves, and that such facts as those which the pamphlet communicates ought to be made known to them by their medical advisers. But we are very far from that point at present, Edition: current; Page: [1364] and in the meanwhile every one must act according to his own judgment of what is prudent and right. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

T. J. Haslam Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 19. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1191.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 19. 1868

Dear Sir

I have received your two letters (under one cover) and have read them with the same pleasure which all your former letters have given me. On all the subjects on which you have yet given me the benefit of an expression of your opinions, they appear to me not only sound and rational, but comprehensive; and what you call your “besetting weakness”, that of always referring questions to first principles, and treating them as wholes, or in other words looking at all the cases together which fall under the same or similar principles, seems to me to be the source of your strength.

I hope that you will continue to favour me with similar communications at your leisure, and that you will let me know when there is anything I can do to help you. I might be sometimes useful in lending you books that you may not have access to at Hanley. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Mr William Wood.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 23. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Lindsey Middleton Aspland

Aspland, Lindsey Middleton

1192.

TO LINDSEY MIDDLETON ASPLAND1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Feb. 23. 1868

Dear Sir—

I am sorry that the resolution adopted by the Jamaica Committee2 shd deprive them of the benefit of your cooperation. But the fact Edition: current; Page: [1365] that it does so reveals a fundamental difference of opinion between you & the majority of the Cee as to the mode in which a struggle like that which they have undertaken, shd be carried on. This is not like a contest for some political improvement, in which the only question is whether it shall be obtained a little sooner or a little later. Ours is, morally, a protest against a series of atrocious crimes, & politically an assertion of the authority of the criminal law over public delinquents. This protest & vindication must be made now or never: & to relinquish the effort while a single unexhausted chance remains would be, in my estimation, to make ourselves to some extent participants in the crime. Suppose it to be certain that we shall fail in bringing the criminal to justice, still there will be a portion of the nation that will have held out to the last & refused to condone the guilt, & it is better for the future that even one person should have done this than that the national judgment shd go in favour of the criminal with universal, at least passive acquiescence. You talk of leaving Eyre to contempt. What he would be left to is boastful triumph, followed by the fruits of victory in the shape of lucrative Government employment, probably with power to do again what he has done, & with undiminished if not increased disposition to do it. He has, after years of skulking, come over & defied us3 doubtless for this express purpose, & were we not to accept his challenge we shd be justly reproached for our past conduct toward him since we shd shrink from meeting him before the tribunal which we have been invoking as the proper judge of his guilt or innocence.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 23. 1868

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1193.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 23. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I have received the inclosed note from Louis Blanc. Can you give his friend2—who is a man of some distinction—any help in the matter?

After I wrote to you the other day, the inclosed slip of paper was handed Edition: current; Page: [1366] to me from Mr Gladstone. I suppose you are by this time in communication with Mr Glyn.3

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 23. 1868

Blackheath Park

Lord Hobart

Hobart, Lord

1194.

TO LORD HOBART1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 23. 1868

My dear Lord

There are few persons whose complete adhesion to the opinions expressed in my pamphlet2 could have given me more pleasure and encouragement than yours. I am truly glad to find the deep sense I entertain of the necessity of a radical change in the relations of the people of Ireland to the soil and the formidable and growing danger of the attempts to palter with the subject by measures which scarcely touch the evil, confirmed by an equally strong conviction on your part. Though every day shews more and more the incapacity of our governing classes to use their minds to any purpose on the subject, there is a hopeful change taking place in the minds of some other portions of the public; and if the Reform Act, when it comes into operation, fulfils in other respects the hopes that have been founded on it, we may hope that it will lead to a less prejudiced consideration of the measures necessary for Ireland. If not, I agree with you in thinking that the ultimate issue (after a period of great suffering, crime, and national disaster) will be separation.

I am my dear Lord
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

The Lord Hobart.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 26. 1868

Blackheath Park

George Walker

Walker, George

1195.

TO GEORGE WALKER1

Blackheath Park

Feb. 26. 1868

Dear Sir

Sir Robert Collier’s2 application for a warrant against Mr Eyre will be Edition: current; Page: [1367] made tomorrow (Thursday) as the case has never yet been brought before the public in a manner satisfactory to those who consider Eyre as a great public criminal, it is of great importance that Sir Robert Collier’s speech should be correctly and fully reported. The Jamaica Committee will therefore employ a short hand writer to take it down, and a copy of the report, corrected by Mr Shaen3 and with mere surplusage cut out, will be sent to the Daily News in the course of the evening. I hope that you will think it desirable and find it practicable to insert the report in your paper. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

George Walker Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 29 février 1868

Blackheath Park

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

1196.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Blackheath Park

Kent

le 29 février

1868

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

Je me suis addressé à celui de mes amis qui est le plus au courant du personnel de l’éducation militaire, à M. Chadwick,2 pour avoir des renseignements sur le Conseil, et j’ai reçu de lui la réponse ci-jointe. Comme lui, je crois qu’il y a peu à espérer pour votre ami d’une recommandation libérale quelconque. Celle des autorités de Sandhurst College3 pourrait être plus efficace, en supposant qu’il n’y a pas de parti pris de nommer quelqu’un par faveur, ou par intérêt politique.

votre tout dévoué

J. S. Mill.

Edition: current; Page: [1368]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Feb. 29 [1868]

Blackheath Park

M. E. Grant Duff

Duff, Grant M. E.

1197.

TO M. E. GRANT DUFF1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Feb. 29 [1868]

Dear Sir

I have just received an answer2 from Heligoland which I have the pleasure of forwarding to you.

The long adjournment of the House3 seems to be a mere expedient of the the Government to gain time. It will help towards making the present session of Parliament a useless one. I am

Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

M. E. Grant Duff Esq. M.P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 1. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1198.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

March 1. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

I was disappointed that your letter did not report a further progress in the improvement of your health. It is something, however, that your letter is in your own handwriting, which it was a great pleasure again to see.

I thank you for Mr Nesbitt’s paper,2 which I was very glad to have an opportunity of reading. My opinion on the Education question is exactly what it was, namely, entirely with you, up to the limits of practicability. What either Disraeli or Gladstone intend or desire on that subject will probably appear in the debate on the state of Ireland,3 which has been, probably with set purpose, staved off till next week by the adjournment of the House. The question is now getting involved with that of the endowment or disendowment Edition: current; Page: [1369] of the churches, and it is impossible to foresee what may be proposed. But I fear that whatever is done, the change will be for the worse.

I hope you received a pamphlet of mine on the land question,4 with the practical conclusions of which I am afraid you will not agree. But all the public signs, and all the authentic private information I have access to, tend to shew that nothing short of what I propose would now tranquillize Ireland, or reconcile the Irish people to the Union. And I am sure that nothing less than some very startling proposal would have any chance of whipping up the languid interest of English public men in the subject, and making them feel the critical nature of the situation, or exert their minds to understand it. On the whole I have met with more approbation, and not more abuse, than I expected.

About our relations with the United States, there seems less cause of uneasiness than there was some time ago. The principal newspapers on both sides have grown, in comparison, conciliatory, and I do not despair of a quiet settlement both of the Alabama claims5 and of the naturalization question.6

Ever, my dear Mr Cairnes
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 5. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1199.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 5. 1868

Dear Sir

Your letter of the 2nd inst. gave me the pleasure your letters always do. Were I to enter into the subjects on which it touches, there would be much to be said; but it is not necessary to do so in order to express my agreement Edition: current; Page: [1370] with the opinions stated in your letter, which appear to me thoroughly sound and enlightened.

I am, unfortunately, very poor in recent treatises on practical science, of which I hardly possess one. In regard to works of general literature, you would oblige me by mentioning those which you say you would like to possess. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Mr William Wood

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

William Allingham

Allingham, William

1200.

TO WILLIAM ALLINGHAM1

Blackheath Park, Kent

March 8, 1868

Dear Sir—

I duly received the copy of Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland,2 and the pressure of occupations alone prevented me from thanking you for it. I had read all of it previously as it came out in Fraser’s Magazine,3 and was much pleased with its spirit and tendency.

I hope there may be a chance that the same ability and the same principles may be employed in a prose discussion of the remedies for Irish evils.

I am Dear Sir,
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

W. Allingham, Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1201.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 8. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

Thanks for your explanations. I inclose a recommendation in the form of a letter to you,2 which I hope may answer your purpose.

Edition: current; Page: [1371]

I said nothing on the second reading of the Bribery Bill,3 as the House were evidently unwilling to discuss the subject until they see the promised alterations. But the going into Committee pro forma next Thursday, or more seriously on a later day, may afford a better occasion; and we shall, I hope, have had our meeting before that time. I am

Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8. [1868]

Blackheath Park, Kent

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1202.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park, Kent

March 8. [1868]

Dear Mr. Christie,—

I am extremely glad that you intend to present yourself as a candidate to the electors of the Stirling Burghs.2 The Scotch burghs have long supplied the House with some of the best and most to be depended on of the advanced Liberals, and I believe that you, if elected, would be worthy of a place among the number. There would, moreover, be a peculiar propriety in your return to Parliament by a constituency so free from electoral corruption as those of Scotland have proved themselves to be; since you have thought to greater purpose on the means of preventing electoral corruption, and are likely to be of more service in passing measures for that vitally important end than any other person whom I could name. Your diplomatic experience, and your knowledge of the mode in which our foreign affairs are conducted, would be of great value in Parliament, acquired as that knowledge was in the course of an honourable service, of the rewards of which you have been deprived for no obvious reason but that an interested clamour was raised against some parts of your official conduct,3 the authors of which, by general admission, failed to make good any imputation against you, unless it be an imputation to have made yourself disagreeable to those who were endeavouring to evade the fulfilment of their national obligations.—I am, dear Mr. Christie, very truly yours,

J. S. Mill

W. D. Christie, Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1372]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 8. 1868

Blackheath Park

Thomas Hare

Hare, Thomas

1203.

TO THOMAS HARE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 8. 1868

Dear Mr. Hare

I send you a paper I have received from Mr. Boyd Kinnear.2 He seems a good deal shaken in his opposition. And he is a person well worth gaining over to the plan, if possible.

The article in Tuesday’s Times3 (I suppose by Mr. Courtney) will give the question a new and much more advanced position than it has yet had. Your proposal for a Conference4 is producing splendid fruits. The perfectly intelligent adhesion of so many leaders of the working men at the meeting,5 is most encouraging.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 10. 1868

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1204.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

March 10. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

The pamphlet2 may have missed you through being directed Poste Restante, as I did not then know your address at Nice. I send another copy by this post. You will not find in it much argument, of a nature to remove any Edition: current; Page: [1373] difficulties which you are likely to feel. The object was to strike hard, and compel people to listen to the largest possible proposal. This has been accomplished, and now the time is come for discussing in detail the manner in which the plan, if adopted, would work. I do not share your hopes that anything much short of what I have proposed, would give peace or prosperity to Ireland in union with England: but if there is any intermediate course which would do so, its adoption is likely to be very much promoted by frightening the Government and the landlords with something more revolutionary; as even the Saturday Review admits.3

The great Irish debate begins tonight,4 and in the course of it I shall probably have an opportunity of answering the practical objections to my proposal.

I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 11, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Mary Somerville

Somerville, Mary

1205.

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

Blackheath Park, Kent

March 11, 1868

Dear Madam

I must beg of you to excuse my addressing you, which I do on account of the very great interest I take in the matter on which I write, and the earnest desire I feel that you may accede to the request I am commissioned to make to you.

I believe you have already heard that a Society was formed last year for endeavouring to extend the franchise to women,2 and in this Society I take a warm interest, and have been glad to see many of my friends join it.

Looking upon your own justly honoured name as the one which, before all others, the Society would be proud to include among its members, I was much gratified when, some months ago, I heard that you had consented to join it. But I am now informed by Mrs Taylor,3 the Secretary of the Society (to whose disinterested zeal and energy we are all much indebted) that on Edition: current; Page: [1374] enquiring of Miss Cobbe, from whom she received the notification of your willingness to join us, whether she should put down your name and those of your daughters as members of the General Committee, or as members of the Society, she finds some uncertainty on this matter, and that Miss Cobbe hesitates to say more than that she is certain of your “approval.” In this uncertainty, I am commissioned by Mrs Taylor to express to you her deep regret if unwittingly your name has been made use of without your own full sanction; and at the same time, to beg of you to permit your name and those of Miss Somerville and Miss M. Somerville4 to be placed on the General Committee. I greatly regret if there has been any misunderstanding, but Mrs Taylor tells me that she was under the impression that you had received copies of the Circular of the Society, and had given your consent to become a member after having seen them: and it is only when printing a list of the subscribers that she finds her friend unwilling to define in which list your name is to be inserted, though quite certain of your approval of the aims of the Society.

You will see by the papers I inclose, that the Society consists, besides the Executive Committee: Firstly, of a General Committee, consisting of annual subscribers of one guinea, who are not responsible for the management; who, in giving their names, are considered to give in an adhesion only to the specific object of the Society, the extension of the franchise to women. Secondly, of ordinary members, consisting of all subscribers of one shilling or upwards, less than one guinea. Some of our most valued members belong to this latter portion, and I beg that you will allow your name to be included in one of the two: certain as I am that in doing so you will give the weight and dignity of the living name to which English-women justly look up with the greatest pride, to help a movement better calculated than any other to enable women in general to attain a position more worthy of them than that which they now hold, and one better fitted to make them of use to the world.

I am Dear Madam with the greatest respect

Yours sincerely

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Theodor Gomperz

Gomperz, Theodor

1206.

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 18. 1868

My dear Mr Gomperz—

I hope you received the sheets of the First Book of the new edition of the “System of Logic.”2 There were no alterations in it Edition: current; Page: [1375] that were at all worth being attended to by a translator, except a correction (suggested by Mr Grote) in the statement in the chapter on Verbal & Real Questions regarding a passage of Porphyry.3

I have directed the printer to send you immediately the remaining sheets of the first volume & I now inclose the only pages of the old edition (as far as the printer has yet reached) which contain any alterations worth attending to. They are, as you will see, mostly of little importance. I will make sure that the sheets of vol. 2 are sent to you without any avoidable delay.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nicholas Kilburn

Kilburn, Nicholas

1207.

TO NICHOLAS KILBURN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

March 18. 1868

.

Dear Sir—

I have to thank you for your enclosure & inquiry. It is the first time I have ever heard that I was a believer in Spiritualism, & I am not sorry to be able to suppose that some of the other names I have seen mentioned as believers in it are no more so than myself.

For my own part I not only have never seen any evidence that I think of the slightest weight in favour of Spiritualism but I shd also find it very difficult to believe any of it on any evidence whatever: And I am in the habit of expressing my opinion to that effect very openly whenever the subject is mentioned in my presence.

You are at liberty to make any use you please of this letter.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1208.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Blackheath Park, Kent

March 18, 1868

Dear Sir

It is a worthy act on the part of the New England Loyal Publication Society,2 to resume its operations for the purpose of contending against the Edition: current; Page: [1376] deplorable doctrines now afloat in the United States about currency and the obligation of contracts. A breach of faith with the national creditor by the people of the United States, under whatever disguise, would be, in my estimation, the most unfortunate event for the morality of the world, and for the reputation and progress of free institutions, which at the present time could possibly happen; and of all modes of defrauding the public creditor, that of cancelling the debt by handing over to him a vast quantity of paper depreciated to worthlessness by excessive issue, would be, in its practical operation, the worst. If, as you do me the honour of thinking, anything that I could write on the subject could in the smallest degree aid your exertions to ward off this calamity from your country and from mankind, I should feel bound in duty to what little I can for the purpose. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to write anything requiring care and concentration of thought during the session of parliament. But to the extent of a letter, or a short article adapted for a newspaper, I could promise:3 and if you would kindly let me know the form and mode of publication which you would prefer I will do my best to meet your wishes. I am Dear Sir

very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

Charles Eliot Norton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 18. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Venn

Venn, John

1208A.

TO JOHN VENN1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 18. 1868

Dear Sir

I thank you very sincerely for your further remarks in illustration of the matters treated in your book. I shall keep them by me for a fuller and more deliberate consideration than it is in my power to give them during the session of Parliament. I will merely, at present, say a few words on a single point; the flaw which seems to you to exist in the theory of the predictability of human history, from the influence which the foresight itself may have in modifying the facts foreseen.2 This influence is real, but does not seem to me to affect the theory; for the self-consciousness of mankind, and their foresight of their own future, is itself a foreseeable and calculable element. It Edition: current; Page: [1377] might have been predicted by a superior being that at such and such an epoch in the development of the human mind, mankind would begin to perceive the law of their own future, and that their perception would modify the future in such and such a way.

There is an inconsistency though only a verbal one, between the two passages which you cite3 from my Political Economy.

Your examination papers in Political Economy are very thorough and searching.

You are most welcome to use any part of my letter4 as a testimonial, provided it is so used as to shew that it was not written with a view to the present vacancy in the Examinership in Logic; as, with regard to that vacancy any influence it is in my power to exercise is preengaged in favour of another highly qualified candidate.5

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

J. Venn Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 22, 1868

Florence May

May, Florence

1209.

TO FLORENCE MAY1

[after

March 22, 1868

]

Dear Madam—

I am much interested by the observations in your letter & by the evidence it affords of how very deeply you feel the consequences of the subordination of women although you have not been in the habit of tracing them to their cause. Women of every age & of every position in life with very few exceptions suffer from some one or other of the evils that are the natural results of political subordination. There are some few women who can scarcely be said to suffer personally from these evils, & who are even so fortunate that their intellect itself is freed by happy accident from the numbing effects of the education & position of women. But that indignation & fervent desire of redress which these few do not feel on their own account, they will be likely to feel all the more deeply for the sake of others; and suffering themselves from no one particular grievance, may be perhaps the Edition: current; Page: [1378] better qualified to see what is the common root of the many grievances from which others are suffering.

Those two which you particularly mention, the want of education & the want of a career,2 are probably those most deeply & pressingly felt at present in our own country among educated women of the class of ladies. And although I think it would be easy to trace the still more sad & bitter sufferings of married women & women among the poor to a political cause, still these two are among the evils which are most evidently the consequence of political defranchisement [. . . ?] would be most speedily & easily removed by opening the suffrage to women.

How very quickly public attention to the education of a class follows upon opening the franchise to that class we have all of us seen within the last year in the sudden & universal interest in the education of the poor which has followed upon our new Reform Bill. It is not going too far to say that six months have done more with the aid of the Reform Bill to ripen public opinion in the matter of popular education than 20 years with the aid of all the most enlightened thinkers & writers among us. On the other side we see how very little extensive endowments will do if those for whose benefit they have been made have not the power of insuring their application; since there is scarcely one if one of all the educational endowments in the country, most of which were originally made for poor boys & girls, which have not been long ago appropriated to the boys of those classes which possess political influence. And I am persuaded that if women in this country urged by a strong feeling of the importance of the education of women to found magnificent institutions for that object, and to train women without any votes, a century or two hence would see them all silently lapsed into the hands of those who possess by the vote the power of attending to their own interests. It is not by accident that this has happened hitherto with all our endowments, nor is it by any extraordinary perversity or wickedness. It is by the steady & invariable pressure of self interest in all human affairs, for make what regulations you will, somebody must enforce them; they will not enforce themselves; & those among the persons affected who have the power to enforce them will be active in enforcing what concerns themselves, & will by Edition: current; Page: [1379] mere forgetfulness & negligence, if from nothing worse, let what does not, lapse into the oblivion & neglect which have been the fate of the regulations concerning the poorer scholars in almost all our magnificent endowments for education. Give to women a vote & it will be worth while to educate them, as it is now thought worth while to educate the working classes. Give to women a vote & they will begin to ask what has become of the funds for the education of girls in our existing endowments & when a voter asks a candidate a question, the question will not be pooh poohed as feminine talk. Give to women a vote, & new institutions arising from the new sense of the importance of women in the world will not be turned aside from the objects for which they were intended.

The closing of all careers to women is still more obviously the consequence of their political insignificance. A lady who takes much interest in this subject3 has taken some pains to point out the many ways in which the mere fact of having no vote causes women applicants for employment to be passed over. The daughters & widows of farmers have the greatest difficulty in inducing, & only can induce a few philanthropic landlords to permit them to retain the farms of their fathers & husbands because a woman has no vote & the landlord likes all his tenants to vote for his own candidates. Postmistresses & other little functionaries are disappearing to the level at which voters begin because all these little places are given through the influence of members of Parlt, who naturally give them to voters. In France some years ago many hundred women were employed as clerks in telegraph offices; since the lowering of the suffrage in that country to all the men, no fresh women clerks have been appointed. I need scarcely point out to you how all these things throw hundreds of women upon such few means of earning their bread as men cannot keep for themselves, & make the pressure of competition greater & the chance of success less even in these few. But it is evident that these same principles are at work in all those departments of life which might furnish what may properly be called a career as distinguished from a mere living. Parliament decides the rules by which entry into all professions is governed & a parlt consisting of men elected by men only, either expressly excludes women or more often leaves the drawing up of those rules to a body of professional men who shut out women with all the jealousy of rivals. Thus it is that the medical profession threatens to be closed against women as well as all public employments.

But I feel sure that as you come to reflect on these subjects you will be peculiarly able to see the working of several principles, & I will do myself the pleasure of forwarding some of the papers & publications of the Society for Women’s Suffrage.

Edition: current; Page: [1380]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

24 March, 1868

John A. Elliott

Elliott, John A.

1210.

TO JOHN A. ELLIOTT1

24 March, 1868

If my circumstances permitted me to help all who want aid, or even all authors who want aid, and if I had the pleasure of knowing anything of yourself otherwise than through your writings, the repugnance I feel to the opinions expressed in those writings would very likely be no bar to sympathy and interest in your individual self. But as my own motive for writing has always been the desire to defend and to excite sympathy for that which I hold to be the highest of all causes, that liberty against which the system of Slavery is the deepest outrage, I can never see any attempt to hold up Slaveholders to sympathy without deep regret.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 29, 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1211.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 29, 1868

Dear Mr Christie

You will have seen that in Thursday’s debate2 I broke ground on the subject of the two or three most important of your suggestions respecting a bribery bill. I think my doing so has done some good. There seems so much difficulty in bringing the various MP’s who have been spoken to on the subject to meet together, that I have determined to act without reference to any meeting, and have therefore given notice of an amendment for the prohibition of paid canvassers, and have suggested several other amendments which I am endeavouring to induce suitable members to move. I am told that I may expect a good deal of support even from Tories on the subject of paid canvassers.

I am sorry that you found no opening at Stirling, but since you think my letter3 calculated to be of use, I am glad it was published, since it helps to make you generally known as a candidate. I am Dear Mr Christie

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1381]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 31. [1868]

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1212.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 31. [1868]

Dear Chadwick

To write a paper on the education question, or to open a debate on it, are more than I can at present undertake; but when the day is fixed for renewing the discussion,2 I will attend, and probably speak.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 31. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1213.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

March 31. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I much regret that I have given my order for Friday—and could have given many others if I had had them to give. The demand for orders this week is the greatest I have known.

Mr Torrens has undertaken one of the amendments, and I am in communication with other members. In drawing up my clause prohibiting paid canvassers, I shall include another important suggestion of yours, the limitation to one paid agent. Otherwise, as has been well remarked to me, the canvassers would simply be retained as agents.

I shall put the clause or clauses on the paper on Friday, and should be very glad of any suggestions from you in the meantime as to the wording of it. I suppose I must take some lawyer into counsel.

I will either ask, or get some one to ask, the question you suggest about Municipal Elections.2

I at once set down the very useful article in the Pall Mall Gazette to you.3 Edition: current; Page: [1382] I wish it had been some one else, as any one else would probably have mentioned your pamphlet4 as the source from which my proposals were taken. I am

Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

March 31, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Mary Somerville

Somerville, Mary

1214.

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

Blackheath Park, Kent

March 31, 1868

Dear Madam

Your letter2 gave me very great pleasure, both personally, and for the sake of the cause in which I am glad to know from yourself that your interest is already of old date. I now write to ask of you a further service to that cause—a service the value of which will probably be less in your own eyes, than in those of any other person connected with the movement. Petitions in considerable numbers are coming in; a dozen or more have already been presented, and many others are in the hands of members, from various places, great and small; but there will be one, promoted by the London Branch of the Society, to be presented by myself in May signed both by women and men which far exceeds in number of signatures all hitherto presented.3 It has already nearly 14000 signatures, many of them names of great weight, and many more are expected. Now it would not only be felt a great honour by the promoters, but would also be of great value to the cause, if you would allow the first signature to this petition to bear your name.4

In the hope that you will not refuse us this favour, I inclose what will, in that case, be the first sheet of the voluminous document, and I beg you to return it to me at the address which heads this letter. I am

Dear Madam
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

Mrs Somerville

Edition: current; Page: [1383]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 2. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1215.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 2. 1868

Dear Sir

Your letter dated March 16 was like all your letters, very interesting to me. It is a real pleasure to receive them.

I do not happen to have in my possession spare copies of any of the books in your list but I have little doubt of being able to procure some of them. Milton’s Prose Works however are not easy to be met with. Some of the books you mention are French: is it translations that you wish for, or have you been enabled to learn to read French books in the original?

The Mr De Morgan2 who died lately is, I am sorry to say, a son of the eminent mathematician with whom you have corresponded.

I inclose a petition3 which is in course of signature, and as I know you agree with its sentiments, should be glad if you would sign it or get it signed by men or women who agree with it and send it back to me. It has already been signed by 14,000 persons, and it is found that working women are very often willing to sign it. I am Dear Sir

yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Mr William Wood

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 3. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1216.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 3. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

Many thanks for your very valuable cautions. I shall not finally draw up my clauses until I receive your further suggestions. It is only too clear that we have plenty of time.

Mr Disraeli’s answer to my question was civil but in no degree satisfactory.2 In fact the enquiring into municipal corruption in any effectual manner Edition: current; Page: [1384] seems to depend on the creation of the permanent officers proposed by you which is inconsistent with the general plan of his Bill. I am afraid this main principle of your plan will have to wait for the rejection of the Government Bill, or for the failure of it in practice if adopted. Perhaps you can suggest some mode of bringing it before the House by way of amendment. I am quite ready to do so if you think it expedient.

Mr Hibbert,3 who is rather clever as well as careful in framing amendments will probably propose at least one amendment carrying out one of your proposals. Mr Fawcett is willing, if wanted, to propose other amendments besides those of which he has given notice,4 & I have other members in view. So that, among us, we have the subject well in hand and shall be able to force on a series of discussions.

Dear Mr Christie
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

[P.S.] Serjeant Pulling has sent me his two articles from the Law Review.5 His plans seem to agree very much in principle with yours.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 7 avril 1868

Avignon

An Unidentified Correspondent

Correspondent, An Unidentified

1217.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

Avignon

le 7 avril 1868

Mademoiselle

Je n’avais pas fait tirer à part des exemplaires de mon discours sur l’Irlande,2 mais puisque vous me faites l’honneur d’en désirer un, je l’ai commandé exprès pour le Journal des Economistes, qui, je l’espère, le recevra prochainement.

Quant à la traduction,3 je n’ai pas pu faire un erratum en temps convenable pour le Journal. Du reste, je ne tenais à faire des corrections à la Edition: current; Page: [1385] traduction que dans le cas où par hasard on aurait l’intention de la publier séparément.

Ma fille me charge, Mademoiselle, de vous transmettre ses salutations amicales, et je vous prie d’agréer l’hommage de mes sentiments de haute estime et d’amitié.

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 14, 1868

Avignon

Lucy Stone

Stone, Lucy

1218.

TO LUCY STONE1

Avignon

April 14, 1868

Dear Madam

I have had the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 23rd ult. I beg to express not only my earnest wishes, but my confident hopes for the success of the efforts which the American Association for Equal Rights is carrying on to obtain the full rights of citizenship for every subject of the United States, and especially for that moiety of the nation who, though the imaginary disqualification of difference of race and blood cannot be alleged in their case, are denied a voice in those public interests which concern them in the same manner and in the same degree as the other moiety. In this country the political enfranchisement of women is gaining ground rapidly in public opinion, and if the cause is thus prospering in the old country, which has never yet professed to ground its political institutions on principles of equal justice, but chiefly on historical precedent, how much more ought it to prosper in the United States, the very foundation of whose institutions is the equality of all human beings in the eye of the law and of the constitution, and who proclaimed that great devotion in the memorable document by which they first attested their existence as a nation. There is no true democracy where large classes of the community are denied equality of political rights. Every Government which permanently divides its people into a governing part and a governed part is an aristocratic Government, by whatever name it may be called, and I am convinced that the people of the United States of both political parties are capable of seeing this, and, attached as they both are to the general principles of democratic government, only need a persevering appeal to their reason and good feelings to induce them to free their constitution from the remains of the old system of privileged Edition: current; Page: [1386] orders and arbitrary disqualifications.—I am, dear Madam, sincerely and respectfully yours,

J. S. Mill

Mrs. Lucy Stone

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 16. 1868

Avignon

Lyon Playfair

Playfair, Lyon

1219.

TO LYON PLAYFAIR1

Avignon

April 16. 1868

Dear Sir

I shall certainly oppose the attempt to reduce the four Scottish universities to one representative in Parliament when Trinity College, Dublin, has two.

Scotland owes much more to her universities than either England or Ireland to theirs, and they have been far greater diffusers of a Liberal education. To treat the people’s universities so much worse than the universities of the higher ranks is quite according to custom, but ought to be resisted to the utmost.

In the same spirit, the present Irish Reform Bill gives no representation at all to the Queen’s University. I am

Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

Prof. Lyon Playfair

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 20, 1868

Blackheath Park

Professor Carl Adolf Buchheim

Buchheim, Professor Carl Adolf

1220.

TO PROFESSOR CARL ADOLF BUCHHEIM1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 20, 1868

Mr Mill presents his compliments to Professor Buchheim, and feels honoured by the request made in his note of the 18th inst.2 If the extracts Edition: current; Page: [1387] were voluminous, the consent of the publishers, Messrs Longmans and Co, would be necessary, as well as that of Mr Mill, which he would be most willing to give: but for extracting “a short passage”, it is a proof of delicacy of feeling on Professor Buchheim’s part that he should have deemed any permission to be required.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 20. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1221.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 20. 1868

Dear Mr Christie—

The Bribery Bill2 stands for Thursday, after the Budget; and as the Budget is not likely to afford much matter for discussion, it may leave time for beginning the passage of the Bribery Bill through Committee. This, however, it will be hardly possible to know till the time comes. I will endeavour to learn what the Government intend or expect, but I do not believe they will be willing, or probably able, to tell me. Unless they do, I can hardly avoid putting my clauses on the paper before Thursday. But they can be altered or enlarged afterwards, a thing continually done.

I should be sorry if I thought we really differed about extradition treaties.3 I am quite in favour of extradition of real criminals, but I hold strongly the necessity of so defining the crimes for which it can be demanded, that offences really political may not be included, under cover of the names of ordinary crimes: e.g. Louis Napoleon’s shooting the sentinel at Boulogne under the crime of murder.4 I would adopt a proviso to except cases in which the offence formed part of an armed insurrection, or of an attempt to excite an armed insurrection for the purpose of effecting changes in the government. The preliminary enquiry previous to extradition must of course go fully into this question. I am

Dear Mr Christie
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

W. D. Christie Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1388]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 20. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Longman

Longman, William

1222.

TO WILLIAM LONGMAN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 20. 1868

Dear Sir—

It is a very difficult thing to find a person competent to edit Hume’s Philosophical Works2 as the editor ought to be highly instructed both in the deepest philosophical speculations & in their history & capable besides of original thinking & writing of a high order of philosophy. This applies even to the Essays, apart from the Treatise on Human Nature. But, with a little more time to think about it I may be able to suggest some one who could perform the work at least not discreditably.

I am much obliged by your answer to my question about my father’s copyrights. The “Elements of Political Economy” were first published at the end of 1821 or beginning of 1822: the third edition, (considerably altered & enlarged) came out in 1826. The “Analysis” was published in 1829 & the “Fragment on Mackintosh” in 1835.

Can there be any unauthorized publication of selections from my writings, to which the order you have received has reference? or what can be the nature of the misunderstanding?

I have had an application, which will probably be made to you, for permission to reprint some chapters or parts of chapters of the P. of P. Econ to be used in Victoria against the Protectionists. I have answered that I myself shd be very happy, but it cannot be done without your consent.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 22. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1223.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 22. 1868

Dear Mr Christie—

I have ascertained that the Bribery Bill2 will certainly not be brought on this week.

Hibbert has undertaken to move an amendment providing that all payments shall be made through the returning officer.3

Edition: current; Page: [1389]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 22, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Peter Deml

Deml, Peter

1224.

TO PETER DEML1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 22, 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 14th inst.

Your purpose of endeavouring to improve the popular discussion of the remedies for poverty, by substituting reason & science for vague declamation, is most laudable & commands my strongest sympathy. You will render a great service by diverting the attention of thinkers & of the working classes to the close connexion between the rate of wages & the ratio of population to the means of subsistence & employment. At the same time you doubtless agree with me in thinking that this is only one of several causes which conspire to determine the good or bad material condition of the labourer. It would not be a correct view of my opinions to suppose that I think everything wrong in the doctrines of Socialism; on the contrary I think that there are many elements of truth in them, & that much good may be done in that direction, especially by the progress of the Cooperative movement, now so successfully commenced in most of the leading countries of Europe. Since you do me the honour to be a reader of my writings, I may be permitted to refer you, on this subject, to the chapter of my “Principles of P.E.” entitled “The Probable Future of the Labouring Classes,” which expresses in a sufficiently distinct manner the position I take up with regard to this class of questions.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 22. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

James Trask

Trask, James

1225.

TO JAMES TRASK1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 22. 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 20th inst. & its inclosures.

Even labourers who have the means of saving from their wages, (which cannot be said of the first person mentioned in your letter) must if they Edition: current; Page: [1390] have not done so, be relieved at times of temporary inability to work; but there ought to be legal means of recovering the amount from their wages as soon as they are again able to earn. By the poor law of 1834 power was I believe, given to guardians to grant temporary loans to persons in distress: certainly this power was given in the original bill & I am not aware of its having been struck out though I am surprised at never having heard of its being used.

I do not think it beyond the competence of a government to compel all its subjects to insure against the various evils of life—which is the principle of your proposed National Friendly Society. But I think it much better simply to afford them facilities for doing so without employing compulsion, and I do not believe that a compulsory measure would be carried unless long & thorough previous discussion had led the working classes themselves to demand it. Neither, I think, would it ever be felt to be just to take compulsory measures against the improvidence of the labouring classes, leaving that of all other classes free.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 23. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1226.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 23. 1868

Dear Sir

My daughter desires me to say, that she would be most happy to be in any way of use to the Review, but that she is at present too much occupied to be able to undertake the work you propose,2 and that moreover she has not sufficient knowledge of the subject to feel competent to it. She thinks that a more capable person for the work, if she would consent to undertake it, would be Mrs Fawcett.3

The inclosures in your note are very interesting. I hope your professional prospects continue to improve. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

Edition: current; Page: [1391]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 23, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Theodor Gomperz

Gomperz, Theodor

1227.

TO THEODOR GOMPERZ1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 23, 1868

My dear Mr Gomperz—

Many thanks for your letter. All that you have done and are doing in respect to the edition of my writings2 seems to me highly judicious. I am most happy in accepting Mr Wessel’s offer to translate the Dissertations & Discussions & to retranslate the Representative Govt.3 It is a rare good fortune to find a translator with such a union of eminent qualifications certified by such a witness as you. And it is the greater satisfaction to me on account of his intimacy with yourself, & of the sincere esteem which I conceived for him personally during the short period of our intercourse.

In the case of Dr Sattler4 I hope I did not omit to mention that I know nothing of his qualifications except that he referred to Gervinus as an authority for them. I am therefore very glad that you intend to make corrections if they shd be needed. I hope Dr Soetbeer has brought up his translation of the Pol. Econ.5 to the latest edition.

With respect to the Inaugural Address assuming that Dr Dohrn6 who holds my written authority for translating it, waives that authority, I gladly place it at your discretion as well as the “Utilitarianism” & I inclose on a separate piece of paper an authority for the translation by any person whom you select. With regard to the passage you mention in the Utilitarianism7 I have not had time regularly to rewrite the book, & it had escaped my memory that you thought that argument apparently though not really fallacious which proves to me the necessity of, at least, further explanation & development. I beg that in the translation you will kindly reserve that passage to yourself, & will remove the stumbling block, by expressing the real argument in such terms as you think will express it best.

I am very curious to know your answer to Mr Grote’s arguments about the Platonic Canon & I hope you will have time to write it out & communicate Edition: current; Page: [1392] it to himself.8 I am certain of being very much interested by your researches on the state of Egypt under the Ptolemies as I was by your “Traumdeutung und Zauberei.”9 I learnt with great pleasure from Mr Wessel the favourable reception of your labours, the growth of your reputation & the prospect of your obtaining increased means of usefulness by being appointed to a Professorship, to which in the present state of opinion you cannot long remain ineligible while I most truly sympathize with you on the heavy blows which have fallen on your family10 & especially on the lady to whom we had so much pleasure in being introduced at Vienna in 1862. She has indeed suffered two of the greatest calamities with which human life, full of suffering as it is, can strike anyone & we can only hope that one of these calamities may not be lasting & irreparable, as unhappily the other is.

I inclose a few lines to Mr Wessel. With kindest regards,

ever yours truly

[Added, at the end of the MS draft:]

Dear Mr Gomperz I hereby give my fullest consent to the translation of my “Inaugural Address” and “Utilitarianism” by any person authorized by you. I am

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 25. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1228.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

April 25. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

The Notice paper distributed today omits to give the amendments to the Bribery Bill2 referring for them to former papers. Of these I send you the only one I can now recover, along with a copy of the Bill. Probably you have Edition: current; Page: [1393] later information than this paper gives. I will write to you more fully tomorrow. I am Dear Mr Christie

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 26, 1868

Blackheath Park

George Howell

Howell, George

1229.

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

Blackheath Park

April 26, 1868

Dear Sir

I think the plan of the Club2 a very good one and beg to be put down as a member. I enclose the subscription of 2/6d and a contribution of £1 for the purpose mentioned in your note, and I have directed my publishers to send copies of my writings for the Library.

I am
Dear Sir
Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

April 27. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

James Trask

Trask, James

1230.

TO JAMES TRASK1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

April 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 25th.

No doubt houserents & some of the necessaries of life are cheaper in the country than in large towns; but clothing, & in most country districts in the S. of England food, are distressingly dearer; the working people being completely at the mercy of the tradespeople, a thraldom from which only co-operative stores can relieve them. Would not this be a still more important movement to help forward in the rural districts, than for a National Friendly Society?2 I am glad that you do not propose making subscription to the Society compulsory. I have no objection to any use you may like to make of my letter.

Edition: current; Page: [1394]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 2, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Mary Somerville

Somerville, Mary

1231.

TO MARY SOMERVILLE1

Blackheath Park, Kent

May 2, 1868

.

Dear Madam

By a negligence I do not know how to account for, I find that I sent you a printed copy of the petition to which you so kindly gave your signature,2 whereas it ought to have been in writing. We are therefore constrained either to lose the honour and advantage of having your signature first, or else once again to trouble you, after you have already shewn so much kindness.

I am
Dear Madam
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Mrs Somerville

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 2. 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1232.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park, Kent

May 2. 1868

.

Dear Sir

From the interest you took in the Reader, and again last year in another proposal for founding a weekly paper,2 I infer that you agree with me in thinking that some good might be done by a thoroughly liberal well written paper. I have now been applied to by Mr Boyd Kinnear, who is very earnestly desirous of establishing something of the sort, a prospectus of which I inclose. He tells me that although the contributions, being signed by the writers, will be allowed considerable latitude in the expression of opinion, and place is to be given in “Correspondence” for opinions contrary to those of the paper, yet the general tendency of the paper is “not to be extreme—only pretty much mine (J. S. Mill) in politics and philosophy.” It is with some surprise that I hear I am a model moderate man, but I have no objection to accept the position, if all my opinions are to be accepted as moderate too. From what I see it appears to me that Mr Boyd Kinnear and his proposed associates Edition: current; Page: [1395] have much more definite ideas on politics than on any of the other topics that interest us; and I have told them that I think the paper, to be successful either among thinking working men or really liberal thinkers in any class, must include good writing with advanced opinions on science and philosophy. He demurred a little at first to this, apparently disliking to give up much space to anything but politics, because he proposes that the paper should be small, about half the size of the Saturday Review, with good print and paper, and costing only a penny. He seems to propose the pay of contributors to average about £2 a page. He has got a considerable staff of young men—such as those who wrote the two volumes of Essays on Reform last year3—to whom he looks for regular contributions. But he wishes to have articles from writers of high standing, one or two every week, and to be able to give their names as regular contributors. He proposes to be editor himself, but does not make a point of this: but I should prefer his being so, because I think it would ensure the thing not being carried on merely as a money speculation. I have recommended to him to apply to yourself and Mr Huxley and Sir John Lubbock, and he has asked me to do so. Do you think the plan promises well, and that you yourself, and those of your friends who were thinking of some such scheme last year, would be disposed to amalgamate with Mr Boyd Kinnear? For myself, I will do my best, which is not very much, to help the scheme, if I can see persons like yourself connected with it, who are likely to keep it in a good school in philosophical matters: but I do not feel inclined to do so if it is likely to be, like some of the daily papers, pretty good in politics, but altogether gone-by in other matters. Among the persons Mr Boyd Kinnear has mentioned to me as having promised to write are Mr Roundell,4 the two Trollopes,5 Dean Alford (!)6 Lord Amberley, Baynes and Masson.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1396]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 5, 1868

Blackheath Park

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1233.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 5, 1868

Dear Mr Plummer

The writer of the article signed L.2 is as profoundly ignorant of everything that belongs to his subject, as it is possible for a person who reads newspapers and can write English to be. Being the dupe of all the most exploded nonsense of the old Mercantile System, he is not one of those who can have been misled by the passage he quotes from my book or who could be influenced by any further disclaimer on my part of the conclusions drawn from it. One of the curious absurdities in his letter is, that he says he wants protection only for articles which can be produced cheaper than they can be imported, that is, only for things which do not need protection. It is a bad sign of the political backwardness of New South Wales if arguments like his need answering; but, as it appears they do, I applaud your intention of refuting him.

I am very glad you find the parliamentary papers useful. It will be very disgraceful if Mr Hughes3 is not reelected. His determination not to spend money ought of itself to give him the warm support of every honest Radical.

I am
Dear Mr Plummer
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 6, 1868

Blackheath Park

Stuart Grace

Grace, Stuart

1234.

TO STUART GRACE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 6, 1868

Dear Sir

I beg to acknowledge your communication of the 4th instant, and to say that it will not be in my power to attend the University Court. I am unacquainted with the particular circumstances of Dr Cook’s2 case, except as Edition: current; Page: [1397] stated in his letter, but the grant of retiring allowances as a means of facilitating the retirement of aged professors appears to me highly beneficial.

I am Dear Sir
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Stuart Grace Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 8, 1868

1235.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

[Before

May 8, 1868

]

I am very happy to hear that you have formed at Birmingham a branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, and I wish you most cordially all success in your important work. There is no movement to which I should be more happy to devote my time and labour than to this one, the consequences of which are likely to be so momentous and so beneficial to both sexes. The pressure of my occupations will, however, make it impossible for me to be present at the meeting to which you do me the honour to invite me.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 8. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1236.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

May 8. 1868

Dear Mr Christie—

I have put on the notice paper the whole of the amendments which you wrote on the margin of the Govt Bill;2 & also my own amendment, forbidding paid canvassers, & solicitors’ agents or subagents other than the one recognized by the Act of 1854.3 This clause has been revised for me by Serjeant Pulling.

On Monday I shall probably put on the paper other clauses.

The Bribery Bill is not to be proceeded with, I understand, until after the Boundary Bill4 & the Scotch & Irish Reform Bills; but I shall do what little I can to prevent its being put off to another Parliament.

Edition: current; Page: [1398]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 11. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1237.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 11. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I thank you for your letter. Not being a member of a Club, I may have some difficulty in referring to the Pall Mall Gazette of April 242 but if you would kindly suggest what you consider an unexceptionable wording for the passage in my amendment, there is plenty of time to alter it.

I will keep in view what you suggest respecting questions to Disraeli. I expect that every possible question will be put to him about his intentions, every member of the House being interested in knowing them: but the intentional vagueness of his answers makes the extorting of clear information very difficult. I am

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

W. D. Christie Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 14, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1238.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Blackheath Park, Kent

,

May 14, 1868

.

Dear Mr Spencer

I thank you very much for your kind attention to my note.2 Greatly as your personal cooperation would have increased the chances of usefulness for the proposed publication, I can only regret the very sufficient reasons which compel you to withhold it. Any cooperation whatever from Mr Huxley and Mr Tyndall will be of great value, even though they be unable to promise so much of it as would help to determine the philosophical character of the periodical.

It is to be hoped that Sir John Lubbock may be disposed to join.

I duly received the second edition of “First Principles”3 and have only delayed Edition: current; Page: [1399] thanking you because I have as yet been obliged to exercise the self denial of postponing the study of it. It will however be one of the first things I do after the end of the Session.

I am
Dear Mr Spencer
very truly yours

J. S. Mill.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 17, 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1239.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

,

Kent

.

May 17, 1868

Dear Mr. Christie,

I thank you much for the two numbers of the Pall Mall Gazette,2 which I will keep for the present and return to you. The latter of them I had seen.

I find by the annual return of expiring acts of Parliament, that the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act (1854) expires this very summer. Does this circumstance affect any of our amendments?3

I found it would be entirely useless to suggest the abandonment of the Boundary Bill.4

I am,
Dear Mr. Christie,
Yours very truly,

J. S. Mill.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 20. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1240.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 20. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

The “Register of Temporary laws now in force” just distributed states the duration of the 26 & 27 Vict. c. 29 to be until the 8th June 1868 and the Edition: current; Page: [1400] “end of the next session”; which I understand to mean the session (if any) then pending.

I yesterday put on the paper Serjeant Pulling’s clauses2 providing for a scrutiny of all elections before the return of the writ, and extending that scrutiny to municipal elections, and likewise two of your clauses (but by some mistake the clerk has omitted one) allowing Election Committees to inquire into corruption committed at municipal elections within the two years previous. After consideration I thought this better than moving an instruction to the Committee. It brings the subject in a practical way before the consideration of members, which is all we can hope to do this year on a proposal which deviates so far from the system of the Government Bill. Next year we must have a Bill of our own, drawn up on your principles. These particular amendments will serve this year as a peg for discussion, but our previous efforts had better, I think, be reserved for the anti-canvassing clauses, which there is no likelihood of arriving at tomorrow, and on which I shall be very happy to receive your further suggestions. I am

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 20, 1868

Blackheath Park

William Fraser Rae

Rae, William Fraser

1241.

TO WILLIAM FRASER RAE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 20, 1868

Dear Sir

The project which you have heard of is not mine, but Mr Boyd Kinnear’s;2 but I think sufficiently well of it to be desirous of giving it what help I can. I will tell you more about it when we meet. If it goes forward, your aid as a contributor will be very valuable.

Yours is the first report which has reached me of the Conference last Saturday at the Working Men’s College.3 I was myself invited to attend it, but was not able. We saw with great pleasure your presence at the Birmingham meeting,4 and your general activity in the cause.

Edition: current; Page: [1401]

I seldom see the Express and have not seen the articles you mention,5 but I saw your leaders in the Daily News.

I am Dear Sir
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

W. F. Rae Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 20th 1868

Blackheath Park

Jules Simon

Simon, Jules

1242.

TO JULES SIMON1

May 20th 1868

Blackheath Park

Monsieur

J’ose espérer que vous voudrez bien ne pas trouver déplacée la liberté que je prends en vous recommandant le nom de mon ami M. Chadwick pour le fauteuil d’Associé Étranger à l’Académie des [sciences morales et] Pol. vacant par la mort de Lord Brougham.2 Vous n’ignorez pas les rares qualités de M. Chadwick, & les services importants qu’il ne cesse de rendre à quelques-uns des intérêts les plus importants et jusqu’à lui les plus négligés de l’humanité.

On peut dire avec vérité que sa vie est consacrée au progrès de l’administration publique, et qu’il apporte à presque toutes les branches de cette étude si négligée parmi nous, des pensées aussi vraies, et fécondes qu’originales. Lié avec lui depuis le commencement de sa carrière publique, je sais mieux que personne l’ardeur désintéressée qui l’a de tout temps caractérisé et le rôle qu’il a joué dans la préparation de tous les importants progrès administratifs qui se sont réalisés de nos temps en Angleterre, sans parler de ceux encore plus nombreux qui restent encore à réaliser. Vous savez M[onsieur] les contributions que M. Chadwick a faites aux travaux de l’Académie3 depuis qu’il a l’honneur d’en être un des correspondants,4 contributions qui seraient déjà un titre à l’honneur encore plus grand auquel il Edition: current; Page: [1402] aspire actuellement. Si l’Académie le jugeait digne d’une marque si éclatante de son estime, pour lui cette haute appréciation de la part d’un corps si illustre ne pourrait manquer d’accroître encore la considération dont il jouait déjà, parmi ses compatriotes les plus éclairés, et par là d’augmenter ses moyens de rendre service à son pays et au monde, à quoi il tient beaucoup plus qu’à toute distinction personnelle quelque honorable qu’elle soit.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 21st 1868

Jules Simon

Simon, Jules

1243.

TO JULES SIMON1

May 21st 1868

Cher Monsieur

Il me serait difficile d’exprimer combien je me sens reconnaissant de votre lettre. Je vous avoue qu’ordinairement je suis très indifférent aux honneurs et dignités de toute espèce. Mais je suis déjà fier du titre de Correspondant de l’Académie,2 et je le serais encore plus de l’honneur que vous et vos amis m’avez destiné,3 et cela pour une excellente raison, puisque cet honneur aurait été conféré par des hommes que je respecte [et] s’il n’y avait aucune chance pour mon ami M. Chadwick, je regrettrais d’avoir perdu l’honneur d’être même proposé par la partie de l’Académie qui selon moi consiste des hommes les plus distingués. Mais s’il y a quelque chance pour mon ami je préférais de lui céder la place. M. Chadwick est un homme très désintéressé et pas assez apprécié, et cet honneur en ajoutant à son influence serait encore une récompense pour ses travaux, la dignité d’associé de l’Académie étant comme de raison, très hautement appréciée chez nous. Ce serait donc pour moi un grand plaisir que de la voir obtenir par M. Chadwick, et aussi d’avoir été pour quelque chose là dedans. Et il me serait de l’autre côté très pénible d’être moi-même l’obstacle même apparent à son succès.

Sachant d’ailleurs que mes opinions philosophiques sont mal reçues par une grande partie de l’Académie j’ai cru que peut-être M. Chadwick pourrait obtenir beaucoup de suffrages qui ne me seraient pas donnés, et qu’en ajoutant à ceux-là les suffrages que j’aurais pu obtenir, il aurait d’excellentes chances de réussir. Permettez-moi de vous remercier de tout mon coeur de l’extrème bonté que vous montrez pour moi. Il n’y a que peu de personnes dont l’estime me serait aussi précieuse. Pardonnez-moi aussi que je ne réponds pas d’une manière plus [illegible word] à votre lettre. Je crois de vous avoir suffisamment exprimé le mélange de sentiments que j’éprouve.

Edition: current; Page: [1403]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 22. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1244.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 22. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

You will have seen the debate on the first amendment,2 which however is a good deal abridged in the report. The minority of 74 is not discouraging, as Whitbread,3 Melly,4 and (I believe) many others who voted against the amendment will vote for it when it is moved in a separate clause. The bill cannot well be brought on again before next Thursday, and in the meantime if you would draw up a clause embodying the purpose of the rejected amendment, I will put it on the paper. I ask you to take this trouble because you would do it much better than I can myself.

I send you the full list of amendments as it now stands. I have never had a spare copy before. Hibbert’s5 is not yet among them, but he intends to give it in. I shall this evening substitute the clauses you last sent (with one or two slight verbal changes) for my original notice on the subject of paid canvassers.

The feeling of the House is better than I expected. Many, especially of the advanced liberals, seem really to take up the subject seriously. I am

Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 25. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1245.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 25. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I propose to bring up the new clause in Committee. As the new clauses are not discussed until after the bill has been gone through, we are still a long way from them.

It is probable however that the Government will bring up a new clause Edition: current; Page: [1404] providing for an easier and prompter enquiry into complaints of general corruption. But they object to having this done by their tribunal, viz. the Judges. There can be no similar objection to its being done by our tribunal: and the reason why we cannot come to an agreement with them, is that our plan fits into our general system, but does not fit into theirs.

Many voted against the amendment for the reason which you mention in the case of Grant Duff: some of them moved by the fact that Ayrton2 (who, they think, wants to defeat the Bill) supported the amendment. But Ayrton means to propose an amendment of his own, for the same general purpose as your and Serjeant Pulling’s plans, though differing from them in its machinery.

Bain promises to do all he can for your candidature.3 I will take the first opportunity of speaking to Mr Morrison.4

I am Dear Mr Christie

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 27, 1868

Blackheath Park

Frederick W. Chesson

Chesson, Frederick W.

1246.

TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON1

Blackheath Park

May 27, 1868

. . . . Mr. Garvie’s2 chronological classification of the executions3 will be very useful . . . to those of us who may have to speak on the subject. . . .

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 28, 1868

B[lackheath]P[ark]

Goldwin Smith

Smith, Goldwin

1247.

TO GOLDWIN SMITH1

B[lackheath]P[ark]

May 28, 1868

My dear Goldwin Smith—

Many thanks for your valuable suggestion.2 There will probably be an opportunity of using it on Friday evening, as a West India proprietor of the Edition: current; Page: [1405] name of Lamont3 means to move a resolution that Eyre’s expenses ought to be borne by the public.

It would be difficult to find any one less likely to be discomposed by the abuse heaped upon him than myself, or, I believe, than Taylor.4 The worst of all this is the indication which it gives of the spirit of our higher classes & of a considerable portion of the public.

A propos, I receive abusive letters, at the rate of three or four a week, & the other day I received one threatening me with assassination. They are all anonymous, and as ineffably stupid as one might expect.

It is almost superfluous to thank you for the last part of your letter.5 It is like yourself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 29. 1868

Blackheath

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1248.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath

May 29. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

Before receiving your most welcome letter, I had seen the Queen’s University delegates (of whom Professor Nesbitt was not one) and had promised them all the help I could give to their application for a representative in Parliament.2

Fawcett has put off his motion from tonight to this day fortnight,3 there Edition: current; Page: [1406] being no hope of a good discussion when people were eager to get away for the holidays. McKenna, the Tory Irishman,4 has given notice of an amendment which would turn the debate into one between the Catholic project and Fawcett’s; a thing which Monsell5 was anxious to avoid. But this issue must be faced if need be. A greater practical difficulty is this: As both Monsell and Pim6 remark, the parallel case to Maynooth7 is not the Irish Church, but Trinity College: and there will not be complete religious equality if Maynooth is abolished, and any Divinity School at all kept up for the Anglican Church, however Trinity College may be freed from denominationalism in every other respect. Now it is doubtful if the public are yet prepared to support a proposal for abolishing the Divinity School altogether at Trinity College, any more than at Oxford and Cambridge: and they certainly would refuse to admit a Catholic Divinity School by the side of it.

You will have heard of, if not seen Provost Lloyd’s pamphlet.8 The movement in Trinity College itself against his proposal and in favour of Fawcett’s is very auspicious.

I am glad you at last got my pamphlet.9 Bright’s land plan10 would, like any plan for creating a class of peasant proprietors in Ireland, do a certain quantity of good: but I do not believe it would get over the main difficulty since it would give no security to the actual tenantry of Ireland.

Laveleye has sent me his book on Holland11 for the sake of an interesting account it contains of a system of landlords with tenants under them at a fixed rent, which obtains in the province of Groningen. It appears to work well there; but the recent rise of general prices is now enabling the tenants to sublet at a profit to tenants who will not enjoy the same advantages. This is provided against in my plan.

The cause of women is indeed making progress, and is now, probably, past all danger of retrogression.

Edition: current; Page: [1407]

I most earnestly hope that you will derive benefit from the mud baths. If you pass through London, pray let me know beforehand if possible, that I may not miss the chance of seeing you.

I am Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

May 29. 1868

Blackheath Park

George W. Julian

Julian, George W.

1249.

TO GEORGE W. JULIAN1

Blackheath Park

Kent

May 29. 1868

.

Dear Sir

I have read your speech on the Land question2 with great interest. I have no doubt that you are right in endeavouring to prevent the sale of the public lands to mere speculators who buy to resell at a profit: but it seems to me that the land in the hands of its actual cultivators is a perfectly legitimate source of revenues. I often think that it would be much better if a new country retained all its lands as state property, giving, as we do in India, leases renewable for ever at rents guaranteed against any augmentation except by a general measure. But perhaps jacta est alea, and the people of the United States would not take land except on the same terms of absolute property on which it has been hitherto acquired. According to my own notions, absolute property in land, even when owned by the cultivators, is a prejudice and an abuse. I am

Dear Sir
Yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Hon. Geo. W. Julian.

Edition: current; Page: [1408]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 6, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

George Capel

Capel, George

1250.

TO GEORGE CAPEL1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 6, 1868

Dear Sir—

I have already made use of your testimony (though without naming you) in a note to the new edition of my Logic just published.2

I do not feel the confidence you appear to do in Messrs. Longmans’ willingness to publish the Common Place books,3 (at least at their own risk): but if published they would doubtless be very valuable & I will sound Messrs. Longmans on the subject.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 6. 1868

Kent

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1251.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 6. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I have been delayed in answering your letters by absence from town.

The paragraphs in the Daily News on the two occasions you mention are certainly ominous, and there was another (I forget whether in the Daily News or in some other paper)2 which appeared while you were at Aberdeen and stated that Sir James Clark’s son3 was expected to stand for the second seat.

I will take an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gladstone, when he is a little less occupied with the Irish Church contest and its incidents than he is at present.

I will send you the Extradition Evidence in a day or two.

Edition: current; Page: [1409]

I am afraid the Radicals do not care enough about a Bribery Bill to agitate out of doors for it, placing their reliance wholly on the Ballot, which whatever it might do against intimidation, would, I am convinced, do little or nothing against Bribery.

I am
Dear Mr Christie
yrs very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 8. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Miss Nicholson

Nicholson, Miss

1252.

TO MISS NICHOLSON1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 8. 1868

Madam—

I have the pleasure of enclosing the papers of the Nat. Soc. for Women’s Suffrage, & of being able to inform you that on application to the Hon. Secretary Mrs P. A. Taylor, A[ubrey] H[ouse] N[otting] H[ill] London she will supply you with all the information which I am happy to hear you desire with reference to the suffrage.

Miss Nicholson

[

Thelwall Lawn

?]

Southport

.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 9. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1253.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 9. 1868

Dear Mr Plummer

The Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market Bill2 has passed the second reading, has been once committed pro forma for Government amendments, and Edition: current; Page: [1410] is to be discussed in Committee next Monday the 15th, if the Irish Reform Bill, which stands before it allows time.3

Many thanks for “The Oak.”4

In haste
yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 9, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Sims Pratten

Pratten, William Sims

1254.

TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 9, 1868

.

Dear Sir—

I regret deeply that any one who has ever done me the honour to vote for me can disapprove of the course I thought it my duty to take in regard to Mr Eyre’s proceedings in Jamaica,2 because I have never in the whole course of my life felt myself called upon to take practical action on any matter on which I felt more clear as to the course indicated by the principles which I hold & have always endeavoured to promulgate. In regard to Mr Eyre personally my feelings towards him, so far as I can be said to have had any, before I knew of his conduct in Jamaica, were favourable, inasmuch as I knew of him only as a traveller whose narrative I had read with interest.3 Neither has anything ever occurred directly or indirectly in the whole course of my life to arouse the smallest personal feeling of any sort in me towards Mr Eyre as a private man. But I cannot say that it is possible to me as a man to regard Mr Eyre’s conduct in Jamaica without the deepest indignation, or as an Englishman without a sentiment of humiliation: nor can I pretend that I can regard without abhorrence & contempt the man who knowing himself to be guilty in the eyes of many disinterested persons, of the wanton torture & death of many hundred men & women, can be content to shelter himself under any shield whatever Edition: current; Page: [1411] against a judicial examination & does not eagerly challenge and earnestly invite the closest possible scrutiny into whatever justification he thinks he can urge. To me it appears that the conduct of Mr Eyre since his return to England shews a callousness to human suffering & a contempt for his fellow men which alone go far to shew his total unfitness for any station of authority over them.

Yet if all human sympathies could be cast aside altogether, the importance of instituting a judicial enquiry into the proceedings in Jamaica would still be paramount in the eyes of all thinking persons who look upon law & justice as the foundation of order & civilisation. If the majority of any nation were willing to allow such events to pass unquestioned I have no hesitation in saying that all the ties of civil society would in that nation be at the mercy of accident. There would be no principle in the minds of men to bind civilized society together. Happily I am fully convinced that the great majority of the English nation does desire judicial enquiry into these events. Were I not so convinced I shd be ashamed of my country. Nevertheless even if I were not convinced of this I shd think it my duty to express in the clearest, the most public & the most practical way in my power my opinion of the importance of checking the lawlessness of which Mr Eyre’s conduct in Jamaica appears to my humble judgment a flagrant example. I believe from a perfectly calm & disinterested examination of the subject that Mr Eyre has either been guilty of, or has tolerated under his authority, crimes of violence & cruelty which no man of even ordinarily tender conscience or good heart could be capable of. The detestation of the right judging among his fellow creatures might however in some circumstances be a sufficient punishment for this. At all events, while the world is as full of crime as it is, I do not suppose that however strong my feelings about it, I shd have considered myself as peculiarly called upon to interfere against him. But I do consider myself as an Englishman called upon to protest against what I believe to be an infringement of the laws of England; against acts of violence committed by Englishmen in authority, calculated to lower the character of England in the eyes of all foreign lovers of liberty; against a precedent that could justly inflame against us the people of our dependencies; & against an example calculated to brutalize our own fellow countrymen. Nor would any amount of declamation, public or private, political or literary, have been to my mind a proper mode of chastising what I believe to be the offence committed, so long as it was uncertain whether the laws of England are not competent to restrain such lawless proceedings for the future, or punish them in the past. The humblest & obscurest English man or woman, animated with that respect for law & love of liberty on which the greatness of England has been founded in past times & depends in the future, ought in my opinion to contribute his part towards calm & legal settlement of this question. And it is at once Edition: current; Page: [1412] amazing & humiliating to me that anyone who has done me the honour to read, much less to approve, of any of my writings could for one instant doubt that I shd think so. I can understand that anyone might doubt what might be my opinion of Mr Eyre’s conduct. I can understand that those who have not examined it as carefully as I have done might expect me to approve of it. But I cannot understand that anyone shd expect me not to desire an examination of it, conducted in the fairest & most open manner that could be attained. That the real or supposed crimes of men in authority should be subject to judicial examination, is the most important guarantee of English liberty, & I am not aware that any reason has ever yet been brought forward why Mr Eyre shd be the sole & solitary exception to this liability.

In regard to the petition concerning which you ask my opinion (that of one of the Foreign Affairs Committees against the Abyssinian war)4 I did not present it because I agreed in it but because I think members of parlt shd extend as widely as possible the limits within which they accept petitions to present. The power of petitioning is very important, especially to all unrepresented citizens & as it can only be exercised through members of parlt, I think they shd throw as few obstacles as possible in the way. Those who approve of my little book on Liberty can scarcely think me inconsistent in this opinion.

I have always thought & often said that this country was bound to recover its envoy even by war if necessary & the manner in which the war has been carried on by Sir R. Napier does honour to him & to our country.5 Its success is probably owing in great measure to the spirit of law & order which reduced the sufferings of war to the lowest possible point amongst the people in whose country it was carried on. The continuance of hostilities after the prisoners had been surrendered is the one point which requires, & which will probably receive, explanation.6

Edition: current; Page: [1413]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 10. [1868]

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1255.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

June 10. [1868]

Dear Chadwick

As soon as I received your message, I sent a telegram to the office saying that I should be at home this afternoon but to my surprise was told that telegrams could not be sent to Richmond at nine on Saturday evening. If it is so it is a strong argument for the radical reform you want in the management of telegraphs.2 I am disappointed, for I have so much on my hands this week that I can fix no time for seeing you (unless at the House) till next Sunday; but if you can come on that forenoon, I will be at home. Could you manage to come by the 10.10 train from Charing Cross, as I have an engagement at half past two?

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 10. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

1256.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 10. 1868

Dear Madam—

Your petition and its supplementary signatures reached me in time and I had the great satisfaction of presenting them on Tuesday.2 The Bill passed the second reading today, (after an interesting debate of which all the honours were on our side) by the casting vote of the Speaker,3 & is to be referred to a Select Committee.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 13. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Henry Jones

Jones, Henry

1257.

TO HENRY JONES1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 13. 1868

Dear Sir,—

I shd be most happy were it in my power to further your wishes in regard to independent employment in which I most heartily sympathize: Edition: current; Page: [1414] but there are few persons less able than myself to do so, & although I can sincerely say that I shall not forget your name shd any occasion offer itself to me, yet I cannot hold out any hope that I am likely to meet with one.

In regard to the points on which you say that the convictions in which you were brought up have been shaken I fully agree with you that it would not be right for you to attempt to inclucate those convictions. I think, however, that you will find them, at least as stated in your letter, as difficult to disprove as to prove: Except indeed in the case of prayer. I think you have omitted to mention one effect that prayer may reasonably be said to have on the mind, & which may be granted to it by those who doubt as well as by those who admit divine interposition in answer to it: I mean the effect produced on the mind of the person praying, not by the belief that it will be granted but by the elevating influence of an endeavour to commune & to become in harmony with the highest spiritual ideal that he is capable in elevated moments of conceiving. This effect may be very powerful in clearing the moral perceptions & intensifying the moral earnestness. It may be so powerful as to leave it open to question whether it is produced solely by the internal action of human nature itself or by a supernatural influence, & this question will have to be resolved by each individual from his personal experience. I know of no proof sufficient to entitle psychologists to assert it as certain that the whole of this influence is reducible to the known elements of human nature, however highly probable they may think it. As to the other two points, the existence of a Deity & the immortality of the soul, it would be still less possible to bring negative proof to bear upon such questions that would be conclusive to all minds. You might perhaps find much to interest you on these matters in Mr Herbert Spencer’s First Principles2 & in Mr Grote’s work on Plato.

As to the sentence you quote from my “Utilitarianism”;3 when I said that the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons I did not mean that every human being’s happiness is a good to every other human being; though I think, in a good state of society & education it would be so. I merely meant in this particular sentence to argue that since A’s happiness is a good, B’s a good, C’s a good, &c., the sum of all these goods must be a good.

Edition: current; Page: [1415]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 13, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Sims Pratten

Pratten, William Sims

1258.

TO WILLIAM SIMS PRATTEN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 13, 1868

Dear Sir—

I did not receive your former letter until late on Tuesday night & my reply to it therefore was written very hurriedly as well as without any view to publication. There are consequently in it one or two expressions which although I think them perfectly warrantable in a private communication, I shd not wish to make use of in print, however I think too great care cannot be taken to avoid what might be felt as violent language in all public discussions. If however you would kindly erase the words “abhorrence & contempt” & substitute “profound disapprobation” for them in one sentence & in another further on would substitute “the moral condemnation of the right judging among his fellow creatures” for “the detestation of &c” I could have no objection to the publication of the letter, provided you would state that it was not written with a view to publication, but in answer to a letter from one of my constituents.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 13. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

1259.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

June 13. 1868

Dear Sir—

The report you kindly sent had been sent to me already by (I believe) Mr G. Jenkinson2 & I had read your speech with interest & pleasure. Such enlightened views as it expressed are not common among agriculturists but I think they are in a way rapidly to become so, & the Farmer’s Clubs are a very valuable means of diffusing them.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 16. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1260.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 16. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

I could not see Alderman Lusk2 yesterday till too late for the mail. But he promised me to send the letter to you at the Tontine3 today, and I presume Edition: current; Page: [1416] you will receive it at the same time with this. I found he had written to his brother by Saturday’s post in recommendation of you,4 and he seems disposed to give you all the help he can.

In haste
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 19, 1868

Blackheath Park

Frederick W. Chesson

Chesson, Frederick W.

1261.

TO FREDERICK W. CHESSON1

Blackheath Park

June 19, 1868

. . . it is much better that Disraeli be reduced to do it in this sort of underhand way, than that the House should be committed more deeply.2 . . . If the money is not paid to Eyre before Mr Goldwin Smith’s address.3 . . . [induce] our friends in the provinces to write to their representatives. . . .

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 20 juin 1868

Blackheath Park

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

1262.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Blackheath Park

Kent

le 20 juin 1868

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

Merci de votre lettre, et de l’article de l’Etoile Belge.2 C’est triste à dire, mais je n’ai jamais espéré, dans cette affaire un meilleur résultat. On ne trouve un sentiment honnête et energique sur des crimes de cet ordre que dans la classe ouvrière. Cependant la protestation n’a pas été inutile. Elle est un obstacle à ce qu’on réintègre M. Eyre dans les fonctions publiques. Et les journaux Eyristes se plaignent que les gouverneurs n’oseront plus “sauver une colonie” de la même manière.

Edition: current; Page: [1417]

Autant que je comptais sur votre sympathie entière dans l’affaire Eyre,3 autant j’étais sûr de votre dissentiment sur la peine de mort. Heureusement c’est une différence qui peut exister entre amis. Nos principes sont les mêmes, et nous ne différons que sur leur application.

votre bien dévoué

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 28. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1263.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 28. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

From what I hear from Mr Nesbitt2 and from Fawcett, I am in hopes that you are by this time arrived or arriving in London and I write to ask you to give me a line saying when it will best suit you to allow me the great pleasure of calling on you. Any time when the House is not sitting I would make convenient, but the most convenient time would be in the hour or two before the House meets. There are now morning sittings on all Tuesdays, and sometimes on Fridays. I most earnestly hope that I shall find a material improvement in your health. I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
every yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 28. 1868

Blackheath Park

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1264.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 28. 1868

Dear Mr Fawcett

My daughter has read Mrs Fawcett’s article,2 and is extremely pleased with it. She says, the two chief feelings that it arouses in her are, pleasure that so good a new woman writer has arisen, so fundamentally right in opinions, so judicious in their exposition, and so efficient in style; and desire Edition: current; Page: [1418] that she should be induced to write as much as possible. I have also read the article myself, and quite concur in Helen’s opinion, and we therefore hope that you will take all possible steps to get it published. I do not suppose that I am likely to have influence when you have not, for this purpose, but if you think so you have only to let me know, and I shall be glad to use it whereever I can.

I do not feel quite sure whether there may not be a distinct use in a College for the study of midwifery only (which function might be filled by Dr Edmunds’ College)3 supposing that there really is a need, as he asserts, for keeping this branch of practice apart from others. If this is really the case, it might perhaps be worth while to insert some sentence into the article, to the effect that “space will not allow of entering into the question whether there should exist a College for midwifery distinct from other branches of medical science, which may perhaps prove a useful innovation on established practice; but in that case the title Female Medical College would be a misnomer, as the purpose of the College would be to qualify practitioners for one branch only of medical practice.”4 I do not suggest these words, but I merely put them to indicate in what direction I think, so far as I am at present informed, a concession might be made to Dr Edmunds (that is, to Dr Chapman) without departing from the principles so ably advocated in the article and which we so thoroughly agree in; for it is not inconsistent with these to think that midwifery ought to be a special branch of medical science, and that facilities ought to be created for enabling women to study it by itself. I do not know whether Mrs Fawcett takes this view: if she does, it is perhaps possible that a qualification of this sort introduced into the article might meet Dr Chapman’s wishes: and if Mrs Fawcett does take this view, it would perhaps be fair to Dr Edmunds to say something of the sort, and repay him good for evil.

I return Cairnes’ very interesting letter. I am happy that he speaks hopefully of some improvement in his health: and if there is some improvement, we may hope that there will be more. I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1419]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

June 28. 1868

Blackheath Park

Enoch C. Wines

Wines, Enoch C.

1265.

TO ENOCH C. WINES1

Blackheath Park

Kent

June 28. 1868

Dear Sir

Allow me to express the high sense I entertain of the honour conferred on me by being appointed a Corresponding Member of the Prison Association of New York. My occupations are not likely to allow of my contributing, like several others of your Corresponding Members, important papers to your Transactions;2 but, as far as I can judge from such attention as I have been able to give to the Annual Report of which you have favoured me with a copy, the objects and principles of the Association are worthy of all approbation: and all experience shews the value of such organizations in preventing or checking the growth of abuse in the management of prisons, reformatories, or workhouses.

I have the honour to be, Dear Sir,

very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

Rev. Dr Wines.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 5. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

George Kenyon Holden

Holden, George Kenyon

1266.

TO GEORGE KENYON HOLDEN1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

July 5. 1868

Dear Sir—

I hope you will pardon me for the delay in acknowledging your letter dated as long ago as February. Parliamentary business is so exacting & I receive such a multitude of letters which require an immediate answer that I am often obliged to put aside for a time those which admit of delay.

Your impression is quite correct that I was applied to from Victoria in consequence of the use made by Protectionists of the passage in my Pol Econ Edition: current; Page: [1420] which speaks of the occasional benefit in a young country of aiding the naturalization of an industry suited to its circumstances. I did, at that time, return an answer,2 which was published in a Victoria newspaper, to the effect that if this encouragement took the form of a protecting duty, it should be strictly limited to a moderate number of years & not continued beyond. I have not altered the opinion that such encouragement is sometimes useful & that in many cases the most just mode in which it could be given is that of a temporary protecting duty, on condition that it should be known & declared to be merely temporary, & of no very long duration. But I confess that I almost despair of this general understanding being ever practically established. I find that in Australia, protection is not advocated in this form or for this purpose, but that the vulgarest & most exploded fallacies are revived in its support. As far as I can perceive, those who contend for protection in Australia mean it to be as permanent as any other legislative arrangements & hold to all the false theories on the subject, of which Europe is rapidly ridding itself & which are declining even in America.3 In such a state of opinion as this I shd resist, with my utmost strength, any protection whatever, because it is far easier to withstand these false & pernicious doctrines before they have been carried into practice to any serious extent, than after powerful protected interests have been allowed to grow up under their influence.

Allow me to express my high sense of the ability & effectiveness of your letter, signed H., on this question.4 Such clear expositions of the principles of the subject are what can alone be trusted to for combating any natural prejudices in a free & popularly governed country.

I well remember your exertions for the adoption of Mr Hare’s system in the election of the Legislative Council & the very valuable report in which you discussed the subject.5 The debates in the British Parlt which have since occurred may well have struck you by the amount of ignorance they disclosed; but great & daily progress is making in the correction of that ignorance, & many political men, including some of the most active & intelligent leaders of the working classes, are now converted to Mr Hare’s system, in principle at least, & frequently even in its detail.6 The doctrine of personal representation is making the same rapid progress among thinking minds on the Continent & in America. But as you are probably in correspondence with Mr Hare you have access to the best source of information on this subject.

Edition: current; Page: [1421]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 7. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1267.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 7. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

The papers you have from time to time sent me, have given me a good view of the situation, and the highest hopes for your success.2 The Scotch constituencies are keeping up their high character for political honesty.

When you read the Bribery debate of last night, do not suppose that I have abandoned, even temporarily, the advocacy of our plan of a jurisdiction. I told the House (though this is not reported)3 that I should bring that forward before clause 10 is disposed of: and it will come on at the beginning of the next discussion.

I will attend to your wish about referring only to the article in the Law Magazine.4 I did mention the pamphlet5 (though your name was not put to it) because it is so much fuller and more explanatory than the article.

I am Dear Mr Christie
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 10, 1868

Blackheath Park

John Nichol

Nichol, John

1268.

TO JOHN NICHOL1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 10, 1868

Dear Sir

My friend Mr Edwin Chadwick who is looking out for a seat in the House of Commons, and who would be one of the greatest acquisitions to the new Parliament that it could possibly receive has been told there might be a chance for the third seat at Glasgow to a candidate who could appeal as he can to great services rendered to the working classes (as the author of the first Factory Acts, a most efficient worker for Short Time, the great promoter of sanitary measures etc.) and at the same time might be less obnoxious to the higher classes of electors than a firmly working class candidate. Mr Chadwick presided at the Health section of the Social Sciences Association when Edition: current; Page: [1422] it met at Glasgow and delivered an address there,2 which may have made him in some degree locally known. There is no person living whom I am so anxious to be in Parliament as Mr Chadwick, and I know not any one at Glasgow so likely as yourself to be able to give an impartial opinion as to the possibilities of the case. It is of no use taking the opinion of the usual party leaders as to what are the opinions of the working men; but you, perhaps, have the means of knowing something about them from the working men themselves. If you have, I should feel it a personal favour as well as a public service if you would give Mr Chadwick the benefit of your knowledge, and of your help if he should resolve to stand.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Professor Nichol Litt. D.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 14, 1868

Blackheath Park

William Cox Bennett

Bennett, William Cox

1269.

TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 14, 1868

Dear Sir

I am most happy to hear that the proposal to elect Mr Gladstone, which does so much honour to the constituency of Greenwich, meets with so much success there. I thank you much for your kind invitation to be present at your meeting, tomorrow night, but as I am not an elector of Greenwich and as the spontaneity of this movement among the electors themselves is one of its marked characteristics, I will not, on this occasion at least, avail myself of the invitation.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

W.C. Bennett Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1423]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 16 1868

John Nichol

Nichol, John

1270.

TO JOHN NICHOL1

July 16 1868

Dear Mr Nichol

I am making enquiries about the Bombay Directorship of Education, and will write to you as soon as I have received the information I have asked for.

I thank you very much for your letter. Bouverie is a very doubtful liberal; he was reckoned an Adullamite2 in 1866, and made a speech early this session attacking the liberal party and its leaders and reproaching Disraeli for not having coalesced with the backward Whigs.3 Chadwick would have no scruple about standing against him if he were invited by a sufficient number of electors.4 Should you be able and willing to sound any of your friends in the Kilmarnock boroughs as to the possibility of a requisition? No words I could use would overstate the value of a thoughtful and contriving administrative mind like that of Chadwick in the new Parliament, which seems likely to contain few new men of much originality or value. The papers I enclose containing information respecting what he has done, may be shewn to anybody at your discretion.

I am Dear Mr Nichol
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 26, 1868

Blackheath Park

John Colam

Colam, John

1271.

TO JOHN COLAM1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 26, 1868

Dear Sir

I am much honoured by the wish of the President and Committee of your Society2 to include me in the list of its Vice Presidents; but though I think Edition: current; Page: [1424] the Society very useful, and have been for many years one of its members and subscribers,3 I do not feel it consistent with my principles of action to identify myself to any greater extent with the management, while it is thought necessary or advisable to limit the Society’s operations to the offences committed by the uninfluential classes of society. So long as such scenes as the pigeon shooting exhibitions lately commented upon in the newspapers,4 take place under the patronage and in the presence of the supposed élite of the higher classes, male and female, without attracting the notice of your Society, this respect of persons, though it may be prudent, is too foreign to my opinions and feelings, to allow of my sharing in any even indirect responsibility for it. I can not help thinking that anything of the sort is peculiarly to be regretted, because the Society really includes so many of the upper classes (and does them so much honour) that an attack upon the cruelty of the less enlightened among themselves would come with the best possible grace from them, who cannot be accused of class feeling.

I am
Dear Sir
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

John Colam Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 26. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1272.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 26. 1868

Dear Mr Plummer

You are too well aware how much I am occupied to have been surprised at my not answering the interesting notes I have repeatedly received from you. The same pressure of occupations is also alone responsible for our not having asked you and Mrs Plummer to come down here and tell us more fully of your proceedings and prospects. What your notes tell of them is very pleasant and satisfactory. We were very glad to find you an established contributor to the Daily News and to observe that you are active in the Committee of the Social Science Association on the Labour Question. I have also to thank you for your very interesting biography of a remarkable man.2 I am very glad that the Parliamentary papers continue to be useful.

Edition: current; Page: [1425]

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am

Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 27. 1868

Blackheath Park

William Dougal Christie

Christie, William Dougal

1273.

TO WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 27. 1868

Dear Mr Christie

From the papers you have sent, I have had a good notion of what was going on at Greenock, and am very glad that your prospects there are so good.2

You will have seen that after many days and nights of hard fighting, all our efforts to improve the Bribery Bill have been defeated,3 even Fawcett’s clause being at last negatived. Good however has been done by the discussion, and a foundation laid for future success, as even the Saturday Review acknowledges.4 The Bill has, as you see, been extended to Scotland and Ireland. But its good effects, as it stands at present, will not be very great

I am Dear Mr Christie
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 27. 1868

Blackheath Park

George Jacob Holyoake

Holyoake, George Jacob

1274.

TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 27. 1868

Dear Sir

I always look through the Social Economist2 and had been struck with the great improvement in its quality.

Edition: current; Page: [1426]

There is nothing I desire more than that attention should be drawn to my opinions on the Ballot (or on any other important subject) whether it be by attack or defence. I am

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

G. J. Holyoake Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 28, 1868

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1275.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 28, 1868

Dear Chadwick

It is very lucky that you have family connexions at Dumfries. The chance seems better there than anywhere else that we have heard of. Scotch electors, besides that they have more intelligence, are not open to bribes, and in the present electioneering, are shewing in many places a strong feeling against canvassing and election expenses. But I would suggest to you whether you had not better go down yourself at once. Already chances which you might have had in constituencies, have been intercepted by some one else merely by his being beforehand, and the same thing has happened to other excellent candidates within my knowledge. For this reason, and because I doubt if the Secretary of the Reform League at Glasgow would be able to go about to the different boroughs of the district, I return your cheque; but if you wish it, I will send £10 to Professor Nichol to be expended at his discretion.

If there is a subscription, the £50 I formerly promised is at your service; as well as a letter of the strongest recommendation.

Noel’s2 probable best card against you is not his money, but his evangelicalism, he being the son of Baptist Noel.3

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

The correct and complete report of my speech at St James’s Hall is that of the Star.4

Edition: current; Page: [1427]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 28, 1868

Blackheath Park

William Wood

Wood, William

1276.

TO WILLIAM WOOD1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 28, 1868

Dear Sir

I was not aware that any letter of yours had remained unacknowledged. On reference, however, to my papers, I have found one; and I now remember that I put it aside, in hopes that when I answered it I might be able to send you some of the books on your list. For want, however, of time to look out, I have not yet succeeded in procuring any of them. I have seen more than one in booksellers’ catalogues, but on enquiring at the shops, found they were already sold.

I have read your letter with the pleasure your letters always give me, and I am very glad to hear that you are so justly appreciated by your fellow workmen as to have been put on the Council for the selection of candidates. There is some probability that real working men will be in some places elected to the House. In your own county, at Stafford, Mr Odger,2 one of the very best leaders of the London working men, has started, with, I am told, very good prospects of success.

The signatures you obtained for Women’s Suffrage formed an important addition to the very numerously signed petition which I presented soon after I received them. The signatures to the different petitions for Women’s Suffrage this year have nearly reached 50,000, of whom probably more than one half were from women. The cause is prospering beyond all hope, and will prosper more and more if taken up by the enlightened among the working men. I am

Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

Mr William Wood.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 29 1868

Blackheath Park

John Nichol

Nichol, John

1277.

TO JOHN NICHOL1

Blackheath Park

Kent

July 29 1868

Dear Sir

Mr Chadwick thinks it possible that your correspondent whose letter you kindly sent to me (and which I forwarded to Mr Chadwick) might be willing Edition: current; Page: [1428] to go to Dumfries, and, if he judges well, also to Kilmarnock,2 and take whatever steps he thinks might be favourable to Mr Chadwick, or at least to get a clear notion of the chances at either place, if his expenses were paid. As Mr Chadwick is very desirous of this being done, he has asked me to beg you to suggest this, and has also asked me to inclose £10 to be expended in this manner, or, if you should not judge this feasible, at your discretion or at that of your correspondent, in his behalf.

I do not know whether this will be asking too much of your correspondent (I have forwarded his letter to Mr Chadwick and cannot call his name to mind) and I fear that perhaps I may be trespassing on you in asking so much of yourself. But I know you are willing to take much trouble for a public object, and you know how much value I attach to Mr Chadwick’s possible services in Parliament.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Professor Nichol

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

July 29. [1868]

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn

1277A.

TO ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY1

July 29. [1868]

My dear Sir

I am sorry I was engaged when you called. Possibly you wished to speak to me concerning the Memorial2 in favour of Dr. Tulloch, which I did not see till this afternoon (having only just returned home) but which I have already sent off to Mrs. Tulloch. If however there is any other subject on which you wish to speak to me, and you will let me know in time, I can call at your house either on Saturday morning between 11 and 12 or at any time before 5 on Monday or Tuesday.

I am
My dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

The Very Reverend

The Dean of Westminster

Edition: current; Page: [1429]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 1. 1868

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1278.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Aug. 1. 1868

Dear Chadwick

The inclosed came this morning from Prof. Nichol. Perhaps what it communicates about Kilmarnock may compensate for your correspondent’s unfavourable report from Dumfries.2

Mr Beales having returned to town, I called on him yesterday. He was quite aware of the strength of your claims to a seat in Parliament, and expressed his desire to help you. He does not think it necessary that you should join the League.3 He would like to have some conversation with you, if you could call on him any day at his Chambers, Stone Buildings Lincoln’s Inn, between 10 and 4. I think he wishes to know how far your opinions on specially radical points are such as would be satisfactory to the working men. At his desire I told him of what your views have been in regard to the London University, Kilmarnock, and Dumfries, and he said there would probably be places in England where the League could help you.

We leave this evening for Avignon, where letters will find us.

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 8th [1868]

Avignon

J. Bailey

Bailey, J.

H. Armistead

Armistead, H.

1279.

TO J. BAILEY AND H. ARMISTEAD1

Avignon

August 8th [1868]

Gentlemen—

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution passed at the meeting of the St Anne’s Electoral Association on the 4th inst. I entirely agree with the Association in their condemnation of the law by which the goods of the lodger who has paid his rent to his immediate landlord may be seized to meet the claims of the head landlord. It is discreditable to Parliament that the unjust state of the law should have continued so long, and I would advise that petitions for its repeal should be signed by the numerous Edition: current; Page: [1430] class who are aggrieved by it, and presented to the new Parliament as soon as possible after it meets. The grievances which are the most petitioned against are likely to be the soonest redressed.

I am, Gentlemen,
very sincerely yours

John S. Mill

Mr. J. Bailey & Mr H. Armistead

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 12. 1868

Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1280.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Avignon

Aug. 12. 1868

Dear Sir

I regret that your note was not received until I had left England, otherwise I should have been happy to confer with you on any matter you might wish to consult me upon; and I shall with great pleasure give you my opinion in writing on the matter in question, if you think it worth while to write to me respecting it. I am Dear Sir

very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 22. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1281.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Aug. 22. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I have written a rather full letter to Mr Henderson,2 with liberty to make any use he pleases of it. I need not say how much I hope that you have found a favourable passport. In haste

Yours ever

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1431]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Aug. 22. 1868

Avignon

James Henderson

Henderson, James

1282.

TO JAMES HENDERSON1

Avignon

Aug. 22. 1868

Dear Sir

I have heard with much gratification that it is under the consideration of some of the advanced Liberals to put forward my old friend Mr Chadwick for one of the districts of Scottish boroughs;2 for not only do I deem Mr Chadwick eminently qualified for a seat in the House of Commons, both for the work he would himself do, & for that which he would be the cause of in others, but I should consider his absence from the next Parliament as a public misfortune. Any constituency that returns him to Parliament will in my opinion be doing a public service of great value & would do itself still further honour if he were to be returned free of expense.

I have known Mr Chadwick with considerable intimacy from the time when both of us were very young men.3 He was then quite unknown to the public, but was already active in a quiet way in standing up against jobbing & oppression; & it is within my knowledge (for I was aware of every step in the proceedings) that within a very short interval he had the principal share in defeating two different attempts to commit great public and private wrong. He had even then bestowed much thought & study on the details of administration, & some papers which he wrote on administrative subjects4 attracted the notice of Mr Senior, who appointed him an Assistant Commissioner under the original Commission of Poor Law Inquiry, in which capacity he displayed such superior ability that he was made a member of the Commission itself,5 for the express purpose of assisting in drawing up the New Poor Law. No one, except Mr Senior, had so great a share as Mr Chadwick in originating all that was best in the Poor Law of 1834; & had his counsel been taken in all respects as it was in some, had his clauses respecting the education of Pauper Children not been rejected in the House of Lords—had his plans been accepted for the separation of the sick, the lunatic, the old, & the young from one another & from the able-bodied, & their distribution in different houses with a view to totally different modes of treatment, not Edition: current; Page: [1432] only would the vast expense of constructing the Union Workhouses have been in a great measure saved, but the greatest blots upon our present Poor Law Administration would have been effectually provided against.

The next of Mr Chadwick’s great public services was as a member of the Factory Commission6 which proposed & carried the limitation of the labours of children in factories to six hours. From that time Mr Chadwick has never ceased to occupy himself with the improvement of the condition of factory operatives. He was the proposer, & has been the indefatigable apostle of the half time school system by which the education of the children of the operative classes has been made compatible with the necessities of the family. He proposed but did not succeed in carrying a measure for the protection of the operatives, by making masters pecuniarily responsible for accidents. He has been, from the beginning, the leading mind of the sanitary movement,7 which has done so much, & will do so much more to improve not only the health but the moral & economical condition of the working population generally & especially of its most neglected portions. Almost as much of his time & thoughts has been employed upon the great question of public education in its most difficult department, its business details, & I know of no one capable of being of so much use to our future ministers and legislators in forming an organized plan by which the most efficient education can be given to the whole people at the smallest sacrifice either to the public or to individuals. I have touched only on main points; for, to go through all the minor, but still important matters of public interest which he has helped forward, would take up far too much time & space. I may say in brief, that he is one of the organizing & contriving minds of the age; a class of minds of which there are very few, & still fewer who apply those qualities to the practical business of government. He is, moreover, one of the few persons who have a passion for the public good; and nearly the whole of his time is devoted to it, in one form or another.

With respect to political questions in the narrower sense of the word, I may say that Mr Chadwick was highly esteemed by Mr Bentham,8 the father of enlightened Radicalism; that throughout life I have seldom had occasion to differ from him on subjects of that nature; & should we be returned to Edition: current; Page: [1433] Parliament there are few whose vote I should expect oftener to agree with mine on all subjects involving the principles of popular government.

You are at liberty to make any use you think well, of this letter

Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

James Henderson Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

August 28, 1868

Avignon

Austin Holyoake

Holyoake, Austin

1283.

TO AUSTIN HOLYOAKE1

Avignon

,

August 28, 1868

Dear Sir,—

I enclose a subscription of £10 to the fund for defraying the expenses of Mr Bradlaugh’s election to the House of Commons.2 I do so in the confidence that Mr Bradlaugh would not contest any place where by so doing he would risk the return of a Tory in the room of a supporter of Mr Gladstone, and of the disendowment of the Irish Church.—

I am, dear Sir, yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 11, 1868

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1284.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Sept. 11, 1868

Dear Sir

I regret that your arrival in England should have taken place just after I had left for the Continent with no prospect of returning until the eve of the general election. Should you still be in the neighbourhood of London at that time, I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing and conversing with you.

Edition: current; Page: [1434]

The changes in the opinions and feelings of large bodies of Englishmen and Englishwomen even within the last few years, are as striking to me as they are to you.2 The old fetters of prejudice and routine seem to be giving way on all sides, and what is wanted now is clear and well considered positive opinions. All the great subjects, political, social, and religious, are brought into question; and there is a preparation going on in England, as there is in the United States, for a much better settlement of them than the world has yet had: but, naturally, the evidences of this are not so obvious on the surface as are those of the breaking up of old doctrines.

You probably think that I have forgotten my promise3 to write a letter on the Repudiation question, for publication in America.4 I have always kept it in mind; but as long as the session lasted, I never found time, nor was able to turn my mind to the subject with sufficient steadiness. Since I have been here, I have written the draft of a letter which now only requires revision, and when it is finished I will forward it to you, to be made use of in any manner which in your judgment it may be fitted for. Will you kindly let me know if it should be sent to your present, or to what other, address?

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

C. Elliot [sic] Norton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 12. 1868

A[vignon]

Charles Gilpin

Gilpin, Charles

1285.

TO CHARLES GILPIN1

A[vignon]

.

Sept. 12. 1868

.

Dear Sir—

I shd be sorry indeed if your election could be perilled, but I do not think it can be. I understood from Mr Bradlaugh not only that he had no intention of standing against you, but that he considered your election certain:2 & I hope you will not allow yourself to be persuaded that one of Edition: current; Page: [1435] the mere rank & file Liberals can be as valuable in the H of C. as yourself. But (although for totally different reasons) I think Mr B. also would be a very valuable member of Parlt. He also holds opinions not cut after the pattern of some 300 or so other liberal members of Pt, & I think him able to sustain them with ability which would give them effect. This is what we want in the H of C., & while it is most important to uphold honest & honorable men, faithful supporters of our own party, like Lord Henley3 against Tories & lukewarm Liberals, I do not think that their claims ought to be allowed to prevail against the claims of exceptional men. Where there are two men to sustain one opinion & only one man to sustain another, the one is a more valuable man than either of the two: & after all, the men willing to vote against the Irish Church4 are at least 200 to one as against men holding original opinions of their own like yourself & Mr Bradlaugh. Moreover, the good average liberal, especially if he is a man of rank, is likely to have a better chance for a larger number of constituencies than such a man as Mr Bradlaugh: you will see that I urged upon Mr B. the importance of not allowing a Tory to step in, & this seems to me the only important consideration in the matter. You will perhaps let me add that I could scarcely forbear smiling at the modesty which could let you suppose that you were the candidate against whom Mr B’s efforts are likely to have the greatest effect, even if he did oppose you, which I sincerely believe he would not do.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 13. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1286.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Sept. 13. 1868

Dear Chadwick

As I have not heard from you since your letter of Aug. 28, and as I see that another candidate2 is in the field against Bouverie, I suppose you are now at Richmond. I am a good deal disappointed that nothing came of your Edition: current; Page: [1436] visit to Scotland. In your place, I think I should have run the chance.3 I should have tried whether, by holding meetings, without spending much money, a sufficient impression might not have been made, to obtain the warm support of the working classes: Nichol’s opinion is worth more than twenty discouragements from members or candidates or their middle class partisans, who are sure to be against disturbing any member, who is nominally of their party, in his seat. The main consideration is, whether you are likely to find any better opening elsewhere. If so, it will be either through Glyn4 or Beales,5 Beales the more likely of the two. There is still time before you, but not much more than enough, as all the constituencies are getting fitted with candidates. Your best chance is in the recalcitrancy of the new electors against the wealthy nobodies who are imposed on them by the old party managers. But you need to be ready to seize these opportunities at once, before some unwealthy or popularity-hunting nobody has got the start. Many an opportunity has been missed by good candidates in this general election already, for want of promptitude.

Let me know when there is anything I can do. My letter6 can be used with a few verbal changes in the first sentence, for any opening that presents itself. As soon as a subscription list is open, I will send mine. I am

Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 13. 1868

Avignon

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

1287.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Avignon

Sept. 13. 1868

Dear Sir

I am much obliged to you for your letter, which I shall place among the Edition: current; Page: [1437] papers to be referred to at the next revision of my Logic. I was not aware of the antiquity of the phrase ars artium2 as applied to Logic. I had marked the humourous doggrel from Molière3 to be quoted correctly, instead of incorrectly, as I had done on the authority of Whewell. The words I used in p. 71 were probably also quoted at secondhand from some writer who retained the pith of the satire without remembering its words. I may have followed many modern authorities in speaking of occult causes when I ought to have spoken of occult qualities.4 Who was the introducer of the former phrase? Was it Descartes?

Probably I had better substitute some other phrase for “second intention” in my illustration of no meaning.5 I know the meaning, indeed more than one Edition: current; Page: [1438] meaning, of “second intention,” and it is best not to stumble against possible sense when one wants to exemplify nonsense.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

A. De Morgan Esq.

Virtus Dormitiva

In the article ‘Physique’ of the Dict. de Phil. Schol. of the Abbé Migne’s collection,6 after noting the virtutes and essentiae as scholastic faults, which is only true of their abuses, the author proceeds thus:—

‘Arnauld7 lui-même, Arnauld le Cartésien, pratiquait les vieux erremens de la scholastique, lorsqu’il disait à Malebranche,8 “Il est insensé de se demander pourquoi l’âme humaine pense à l’infini et au nécessaire. Elle y pense parce que c’est dans son essence d’y penser.”

‘Aujourd’hui encore l’école écossaise et l’école éclectique expliquent exclusivement les phénomènes psychologiques par des facultés qu’on multiplie et qu’on distingue parfois avec une ridicule subtilité; et on s’imagine qu’en plaçant ainsi sous les faits intimes des facultés que la conscience n’a jamais perçues on a fait de la science.

‘L’école rationaliste commet la même erreur dans la question de l’origine du langage. L’homme parle parce qu’il a la faculté, donc il a pu inventer la parole.’

The Schoolmen never generalised a quality until they had at least two instances. As long as there was only A which had a certain virtus, they said nothing about it; it was occult, i.e. unknown. But when B was found to have the same they had such knowledge as comes of classification, being almost all they had.

The moderns invented a name upon one instance, and made it a cause. They said that magnetism was the explanation of the magnet. The Schoolmen would have waited until the amber showed its quality, and then the distinction of magnetism and electricity would have been specific knowledge, the genus being virtus attractiva. It is something to know two phenomena with a generic agreement and a specific difference.

Edition: current; Page: [1439]

If the medical candidate had known the mind of those who classed, he would have said, I do not know why except in that I can refer the phenomenon to a class. We note agreements and differences and arrange them. Arnauld, &c., might have a similar answer made for them, but not for those who inferred power of invention of languages from possession.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 13. 1868

Avignon

J. R. Ware

Ware, J. R.

1288.

TO J. R. WARE1

Avignon

Sept. 13. 1868

Dear Sir

The numbers of the Illustrated Weekly News which you were so kind as to send, were only quite recently forwarded to me here. The articles on Trade Unions2 to which you call my attention seem to me very sensible, and I agree in all essentials with them. I am quite of opinion that the various forms of Cooperation (among which the one most widely applicable at present to production, as distinguished from distribution, is what you term the system of small percentage partnerships) are the real and only thorough means of healing the feud between capitalists and labourers; and, while tending eventually to supersede trade unions, are meanwhile a natural and gradually increasing corrective of their operation.

I look also with hope to the ultimate working of the foreign competition, on the effects of which you dwell in the first of the two articles. The operatives are now fully alive to this part of the case, and are beginning to try how far the combination principle among labourers for wages, admits of becoming international,3 as it has already become national instead of only local, and general instead of being confined to each trade without help from other trades. The final experiment has thus commenced, the result of which will fix the limits of what the trade union principle can do. And the larger view of questions which these considerations open up, and which is already visibly enlightening the minds of the more advanced workpeople, will dispose them more and more to look for the just improvement of their condition rather in Edition: current; Page: [1440] becoming their own capitalists, or allying themselves on fair conditions with the owners of capital, than in their present uncomfortable, and often disastrous, relations with them. I am

Dear Sir
yours very sincerely

J. S. Mill

J. R. Ware Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 14. 1868

Avignon

William Cox Bennett

Bennett, William Cox

1289.

TO WILLIAM COX BENNETT1

Avignon

Sept. 14. 1868

Dear Sir

Mr Dickson,2 whom I understand to be the Secretary for Deptford, wrote to me during your absence, asking me either to attend or to write a letter; and as I was unable to attend, I sent him a letter for the purpose of being read at the meeting,3 the receipt of which he has acknowledged. It would be too late now for me to write to Mr Bright4 with a view to the meeting of the 16th, even if I felt entitled to indicate to him the course I should think best, which I am not sure that I do. I am very glad to hear of the powerful support which has been promised for the meeting. The success of the movement seems certain, and will do lasting honour to the borough of Greenwich. I am

Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

W.C. Bennett Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1441]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 22 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1290.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

,

Sept. 22 1868

Dear Chadwick

The question of standing against Mr Bouverie is, of course, entirely for your own consideration. But, after Mr. Bouverie’s attack on Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party in the early part of last session,2 he certainly cannot be counted on for allegiance to the party, and can only be considered as aiming at the character of an independent member.

The question, therefore, is solely between your opinions and public services, and Mr Bouverie’s: and I am not aware of any such services rendered by him to the public, and to the cause of improvement, as need give you the smallest scruple in asking any Liberal Constituency to give you the preference. I am

Dear Chadwick
very truly yours

(Signed) J. S. Mill

Edwin Chadwick Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 24, 1868

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1291.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Sept. 24, 1868

Dear Sir

Along with this, I send you the letter which I have written for publication.2 I have, on consideration, thought it best not to address it to an American newspaper, which would be too like arrogating to myself the right of lecturing the American people. I have given it the form of an answer to a private friend who has asked my opinion on the question. If you will honour me so far as Edition: current; Page: [1442] to be that private friend, please fill up the blank at the beginning with your own name.3 In any other case, three stars must stand for a name.

Should there be any mistake of fact, or anything that seems to you injudicious, or otherwise objectionable in the letter, you would do me a favour by pointing it out. It is unnecessary in that case to send the letter back, as I have kept a copy.

There is no doubt that the feeling of the mass of the working classes in England is very much alienated from the propertied classes.4 They are very strongly imbued with a sense of the opposition of interest between the receivers of wages and the payers of them. But I do not think that this feeling has reached the point of personal hatred between classes. I think that the operatives have confidence in the good will towards them of many persons in the higher and middle ranks, and that experience has taught them to expect that the others will be brought round gradually by the joint influence of conviction, persuasion, and prudence. The intelligent, who are the politically active part of the working classes, are not impatient; they have a sincere dread of the mass of brutal ignorance behind them, and have consequently set themselves to demand very vigorously a real national education. This they will soon obtain, & it will alter, in an incalculable degree, all the bad elements of the existing state of things. Already the aspirations of the workmen to the improvement of their physical condition are pointing not so much to anything to be done directly by the State, as to what they can do for themselves by cooperation. Revolution and civil war will not come from their side of the question; for, when their minds are sufficiently made up, the existing political institutions are sufficient to carry into execution their will. The political enfranchisement of women, whenever it takes place, will further strengthen the influences opposed to violence and bloodshed. The only question which may possibly become dangerous is that of the land. There are signs of a rapidly growing conviction in the operative classes that the land ought not to be private property but should belong to the State. This opinion, which has always seemed to me fundamentally just, may perhaps come to maturity before the landholding classes are prepared even to listen to it; & in that case there will be bad blood and violent class animosities: but even then, as far as I am able to anticipate the future, it seems to me that the probabilities Edition: current; Page: [1443] are in favour of the settlement of the question by a succession of compromises without coming to blows. I am

Dear Sir
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill.

C. Elliot [sic] Norton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 24, 1868

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1292.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Sept. 24, 1868

.

Dear Mr . . .

You ask me what I think of the controversy now going on in the United States respecting the rightfulness of paying off a portion of the national debt contracted in cash, in a depreciated paper currency, and of taxing, in violation of an express compact, the interest of the national bonds. It is painful, even to have to answer such a question. It is already a great calamity that two such proposals should have been inscribed in the electoral programme of a great political party,2 and not unanimously rejected even by its opponents. The success of either proposal would, in my estimation, be one of the heaviest blows that could be given to the reputation of popular governments, and to the morality and civilization of the human race.

This is one of those vital questions which send us back to the first principles of social existence, and compel us to ask ourselves what are the conditions which enable mankind to dwell together in nations and communities, to work together in joint undertakings, and exchange the privations of the savage for the blessings of civilized life. The very first and most essential of these conditions is, that they should be able to trust one another’s engagements. Even savage life could not be carried on unless the savages frequently helped one another: in civilized life every human being depends for comfort, for security, often for life itself, upon things done for him by other people. If he could not rely upon other people for doing what they undertake; if his experience taught him that a man who makes a promise, does so with Edition: current; Page: [1444] the intention of only keeping the promise if it happens to be quite convenient; he would have to look to himself alone for all protection, and for the supply of all his wants. He would be below the condition of most savages. If we cannot trust each other’s word (was the saying of an eminent man) we may as well go back to the woods.

But if there is one case more than another in which it is indispensable that men should keep their promises—should do what they pledge themselves to do—it is the case of money contracts. All the complex fabric of our civilization rests upon the paying and receiving of money; every one’s plans of life, and almost every one’s assurance of living at all, are built upon the expectation of receiving, at the appointed time, the money or money’s worth due to him from others. If any one buys a thing, and then does not pay for it; or sells a thing, and then does not deliver it; if any one hires services, and does not pay the wages agreed on, or receives wages, and does not perform the service; if any one borrows money or money’s worth, and, though able, does not repay it at the time agreed on, or withholds the equivalent which he had bargained to give for its use; the defaulter not only proves himself a dishonourable and dishonest man, he not only inflicts an injury, which may be serious, which may be even irreparable, upon the individual who has trusted him, but he does what lies in him to dissolve and put an end to that trust in one another, without which there would be no exchange of commodities, no separation of employments, and no man would have any satisfaction for his wants except what his own labour or craft could directly provide. The impossibility of carrying on human society, even in an almost rudimentary state, without holding men to the fulfilment of their engagements, has always been so obvious that there is not a single known community, past or present, in which provision has not been made for enforcing those engagements, by laws and tribunals, supported either by a public force set apart for the purpose, or, in ruder societies, by the collective strength of the community.

Can any reason be given why the obligation of good faith, which holds between one man and another, is not equally binding between the entire community and any person who has trusted them? Is a promise made by the whole people through their authorized agents less sacred than a promise made by a private person, which also may have been made through his agents? Ought the fact that there is a tribunal which can compel individuals to keep their contracts, and no tribunal which can coerce a nation—ought the fact, that the debt of a nation is a debt of honour; ought the fact that a nation can be a swindler and a knave if it chooses—ought this to make any civilized people think that it can dispense in its own favour, with the duty which its own tribunals enforce against its citizens? Unless it be a sufficient license for committing a crime, that it can be committed without any immediate Edition: current; Page: [1445] penalty except the disgrace, there is no other difference between the two cases but such as makes the criminality greater, of a nation which robs its creditors, than of an individual. For, in the first place, a nation always can pay its creditors if it chooses; which cannot always be said of an individual. And, in the next place, a breach of faith by a whole people involves everybody in the guilt, except such as with their whole heart and strength denounce and protest against it. It is an example of fraud displayed in the sight of mankind, and penetrating into every family in the country. It is a direct sanction of the like dishonesty to every citizen in his private transactions. Let any one be really persuaded that a whole people may break its word, and refuse to pay in full the money it has borrowed—is he likely to think that he himself is culpable for doing the same in his own private affairs, if he can manage to evade the legal punishment which is the only real distinction between the two cases?

The detractors of democratic government on this side of the Atlantic have been accustomed to say that however specious may be the arguments for it, in its actual working it would turn out to be a retrogradation towards barbarism. Until now, the example of the great American Republic, notwithstanding the dishonourable conduct of several of the States3 (mostly—would that I could say always—among those which had been demoralized by slavery) has generally been deemed a practical refutation of these sinister prophecies. But the charge against democracy of being a return to barbarism would be made out, if its effect were to be the public repudiation of pecuniary engagements. It is a remarkable fact, that what the people of the United States are now urged to do with respect to the five-twenty bonds4—urged by the programme of a political party (happily not by every member even of that party) bears an almost exact likeness to some of the most disgraceful misdeeds of the European despots in the middle ages. Read the history of the most profligate Kings of France and other European countries, not excepting England, and see who were those whose conduct excited the greatest public indignation during their lives, and left the deepest stain on their memory when dead. They were those who debased the coin. What was their motive for debasing it? To put off their creditors with the same nominal sum of money, but a less quantity of the precious metal. Even the despots were so conscious and so much afraid of the infamy of this fraud, that they generally endeavoured to commit it secretly and in silence. They made it a capital offence to betray the secret. Would they have been less guilty if they had impudently brazened it out? Living in a rude age, the only means at their Edition: current; Page: [1446] disposal for committing the fraud was the coarse expedient of altering the coin. Their ingenuity had not reached the contrivance of putting forth pieces of paper which pretended to be money and were not, inducing people to take them by a promise printed on the paper to give for it on demand real money of the same nominal value, and then breaking that promise and issuing them in such numbers as to be only worth half the money which they purported to represent. But this roundabout way, and the direct way, have the self-same purpose; to get rid of debts, by paying, instead of what one has engaged to pay, what is called the same sum of money, but is really a much smaller sum. And this example, set by the despots of barbarous ages, the people of the United States, in the ninety-second year of their national freedom, are invited by many of their active politicians to imitate!

Observe, too, that none of the apologies, poor and weak as they are, which have been suggested to the nations of Europe by the same sort of bad advisers, have any applicability to the case of the United States. The Democracy of European countries have sometimes been told that they are not bound to pay their national debts, because the money was borrowed by Kings and aristocracies who did not represent the people, and was expended in keeping the people in subjection or in carrying on foreign wars which the people had not authorized. None of these lame excuses can be alleged by the American repudiators. The most audacious pleader for dishonesty cannot deny that the money was borrowed by a Congress and a President elected by, and fully responsible to, the people—borrowed for the service of the American Republic in its utmost need, for a war which was emphatically a war of the people, and in which the stake involved was the preservation of their collective existence as a nation. The only persons in whose mouths any other doctrine can possibly be sincere, are the ex-rebels and their favourers. To all but them, it is impossible even to conceive a case in which the obligation to pay the debt, principal and interest, to the full extent of the contract, could be more binding.

A plea which imposes upon some people, who would shrink from anything which they themselves regarded as repudiation, is this: Greenbacks,5 however they may be depreciated, are legal tender—are the lawful currency of the United States: other persons are obliged to receive this currency in payment of all their dues, and why should the public creditor be an exception? This seems to have been the argument which prevailed with the upright, but not always clearsighted or discerning mind of the late Thaddeus Stevens.6 Edition: current; Page: [1447] But the answers to it are manifold. The first is, that almost all persons except the public creditor have the remedy in their own hands. Those who have goods to sell can and do demand a higher price; those who sell their services can and do require a higher remuneration. Even in loan transactions that are yet to come, the lenders know the chances they are exposed to—are aware that the medium they are to be paid in is of uncertain value, and can and will require a rate of interest sufficient in their estimation to cover their risks. To all these persons the uncertainty of the measure of value is a source of great inconvenience, but to none of them is it an injustice. Injustice is done to those who had lent their money, or had otherwise become entitled to fixed annual incomes, before specie payments were suspended. Among these are the old creditors of many of the States. All persons thus situated are grievously injured, by being paid their interest in depreciated greenbacks, and would be still further defrauded if the principal were repaid to them in a similar medium. But at least the nation collectively had incurred no obligation to those persons, beyond the general obligation of good government. It had not specifically pledged the national honour to them. Even the separate States never, I believe, pledged their faith to their creditors that they should not suffer this particular injury; however binding the obligation ought to have been felt in honour and conscience. That pledge has been given to the creditors of the United States. I make no distinction between payment of the interest, and repayment of the principal. The bonds themselves, it is not denied, stipulate expressly that the interest shall be paid in cash, but are silent as to the principal. That the obligation, however, applied to principal as well as interest, was universally understood; was expressly declared by the authorized agents of the nation whenever the question was asked; was not then gainsaid by any of those who are now attempting to shake off the obligation, and was only not declared in expressed terms because nobody thought that such a declaration was necessary, or could add any strength to the pledge. In consequence of this understanding the loans were obtained at rates of interest very low under the circumstances; far lower than would otherwise have been possible. Governments which pay their creditors in inconvertible paper always borrow, if able to borrow at all, on much more onerous terms than other Governments. If those who lent their savings to the United States had been told at the time, that every thousand dollars they lent should be repaid to them in greenbacks which might then be worth not more than a thousand cents (the depreciation of the French assignats amounted to that and more) nobody, unless he could afford to make the nation a present of his money, would have parted with it unless at a rate of interest sufficient to ensure him against this extreme risk. The United States obtained these great sums of money in their extreme necessity, at an interest (all things considered) not very much exceeding what the high value of capital in a new country compels them to pay in ordinary times; and after having reaped the Edition: current; Page: [1448] benefit—having by that indispensable help, saved their national existence, they are now exhorted to withhold the price, at the cost of the national honour.

The same reasons of justice and good faith apply still more obviously to the condition, expressly stipulated by the lenders, that the interest on the bonds should not be subject to direct taxation. Some people imagine that the breach of this stipulation would not be robbery provided that the bonds are not taxed at a higher rate than other property.7 Now I find it stated as a known fact, that they are already subject to the same direct taxation as other property; that the income they yield is subject to income tax. But even if they were not, of what consequence would it be if exemption from all direct taxation were a condition of the contract? An exemption expressly stipulated for, is not an unjust advantage conceded to them over other people, since for every advantage so obtained, value has been given by those who enjoy it, in the shape of a diminished interest. The only difference in respect of taxation between them and the rest of the public is, that they have paid down their taxes in advance, while other people wait for the visit of the tax-gatherer. To make them pay over again, under pretence that they had not already paid, would be one of the most flagrant forms of the iniquity of breaking a contract and keeping the pecuniary consideration received for it.

But there is little danger that these immoral counsels will prevail. It has been shewn by many examples in the recent history of the United States, that an agitation for something wrong and mischievous may go on for a certain length of time without visibly stirring up the good sense and honesty of the country to resist it; and many such agitations commence, culminate and decay, without disturbing public tranquillity, or leaving any permanent traces of their existence: but that when one of these agitations attains a sufficient height to begin to be dangerous, a mass of opinion which ordinarily remains quiescent rouses itself into activity, puts down the wrong thing with a vigorous hand, and peremptorily demands the right thing instead. So, I doubt not, it will be with this pernicious and discreditable, but, as I firmly believe, chiefly factitious movement, set up by political adventurers for the chance of gaining the few stray votes which, in the present state of the parties, might suffice to turn the balance of many an election.

I am
Dear Mr.
very sincerely yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1449]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 27. 1868

A[vignon]

Thomas Beggs

Beggs, Thomas

1293.

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

A[vignon]

Sept. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

I am exceedingly sorry that you should have had any trouble or annoyance in consequence of my subscription for the election of Mr Bradlaugh.2 When, some time ago, I was asked to allow my name to be put on Mr B.’s Commee I declined, giving as my reason that I thought myself bound to consider the possible wishes of my friends in W[estminste]r. But when it came to a question of refusing any support whatever to Mr B. to whom I shd certainly have given some had I never been put forward for W, it appeared to me that it would be inconsistent with the footing on which I stand with the constituency, as well as not altogether open on my part, were I to act otherwise as member for W. than I shd have done before W. did me the honour to choose me. In giving this aid to Mr B. I did not take at all into consideration his religious opinions, with which as practical politicians we have nothing whatever to do. Though, like yourself I know his career only by report, I have understood that he was formerly violent & intemperate in his language, a defect which it is to be hoped may disappear with time but which if it does not he will share with some of the best known men in the H. of Commons, for there are several members of Parlt whom few working men at all events would be disposed to consider models of temperance in speech, yet whom all parties are willing to see in the House because they are forcible exponents of a particular point of view. It may be said for Mr B. in palliation that persecution naturally provokes violence, & at the time when he commenced men were still put in prison for expressing his opinions, indeed, if I remember right, he himself has been imprisoned for them.3

But with regard to Mr B’s political opinions & conduct all that I know is greatly in his favour, No one who is active in politics on the radical side seems to me less open than he is to the much lavished accusations of being Edition: current; Page: [1450] a demagogue or a panderer to popular prejudice. He seems to me a thinking man, who forms his opinions for himself, & defends them with equal ardour whether they attract or alienate those whom he seeks to influence. I may mention as one example, that he is a strenuous supporter of representation of minorities which whether right or wrong (a thing I do not now discuss) at least proves him to be no friend to the despotism of the greater number; & as a second example his earnest Malthusianism which places him in opposition to a vast mass of popular prejudice, supposed to be particularly rife among the radicals of the working classes. If the capability of taking & the courage of maintaining such views as these is not a recommendation, to impartial persons, of an extreme radical politician, what is?

With regard to his standing against Liberals, or rather against a Liberal, for to my excellent friend Mr Gilpin he disclaims all opposition,4 I am extremely desirous that you should fully understand my opinion on that subject. Undoubtedly the point of first importance at the present juncture, is to return to Parlt supporters of Mr Gladstone & of the disendowment of the Irish Church. This object ought not to be sacrificed to any other & a member whose vote can be relied on for this purpose ought not to be opposed at any risk of bringing in a Tory. You are aware that I have cautioned Mr B. on this point as I do everyone to whom I give any advice about the approaching elections. But the importance of the immediate struggle ought not to make us forget that the Parlt we are going to elect has much other work to do besides this—that we are looking to it for a general revision of our institutions & for making a commencement of effort against the many remediable evils which infest the existing state of society. Already the too exclusive attention to one great question has caused it to be generally remarked, by friends & enemies, that there will be very little new blood in the future Parlt, that the new H of C will be entirely composed of the same men, or the same kind of men, as the old one. Now I do not hesitate to say that this is not what ought to happen. We want, in the first place, representatives of the classes, now first admitted to the representation. And in the next place we want men of understanding whose minds can admit ideas not included in the conventional creed of Liberals or of Radicals, & men also of ardent zeal, even if not always according to discretion, for it will all be wanted to make every impression against the force of at least negative resistance of those who are satisfied with their own position in life, & without meaning any harm are careless of evils because they do not feel them. Were Mr B in Parlt, his zeal and ability would be of great use & his violence, if he were still violent, could do no harm except to himself: & he is a much less able man than I take him for if he ever again repeats such errors of violence as those he is accused of.

These are the reasons why I shd be glad to see Mr B in the H. of C. & Edition: current; Page: [1451] why, though I shd have preferred to see him displace a Tory, I still desire his success even against Lord Henley; who, moreover, would probably have much less difficulty than Mr B. in obtaining another seat.5 I can say most sincerely that no one more thoroughly disapproves than I do any conduct or expressions needlessly offensive to the reverential feelings of any one even if I had less sympathy of feeling with him than I have with many pious minds.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 27. 1868

Avignon

George Thatcher

Thatcher, George

1294.

TO GEORGE THATCHER1

Avignon

Sept. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

The works which contain most matter adapted to your purpose in a small compass are a pamphlet entitled “Enfranchisement of Women” reprinted from the W[estminster] R[eview],2 another pamphlet by Miss Helen Taylor entitled The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage,3 & my own speech on the subject in the H. of C.4 All these are published by Messrs. Trübner 60 P[aternoster] R[ow]. There are a few pages devoted to the question in Mr. S. Bailey’s Rationale of Representation5 & in my own “Consid on Repr. Govt” of which there is a People’s Edition.6

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 27. 1868

A[vignon]

1295.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

A[vignon]

Sept. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

I thank you for your proposal to translate my writings into French. All of them, however, with the exception of a collection of essays in Edition: current; Page: [1452] periodicals entitled “Dissertations & Discussions” have either been already translated & published in the French language, or are in course of being translated at the present time, with my concurrence & sanction: & I am therefore precluded from closing with your gratifying offer.

With many thanks for the kind & flattering expressions in your letter, I am

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Sept. 28. 1868

A[vignon]

1296.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

A[vignon]

Sept. 28. 1868

Dear Sir—

I am much obliged to you for your book which I expect to read with interest & instruction when leisure permits. I thank you also for your kind invitation but am unable to avail myself of it having no other time than the recess of parlt for many important occupations.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 1, 1868

Avignon

Samuel Warren Burton

Burton, Samuel Warren

1297.

TO SAMUEL WARREN BURTON1

Avignon

,

Oct. 1, 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your communication of the 23rd ult.

I have subscribed to the fund for the election of Mr. Bradlaugh,2 because, in my opinion, the change which has been made in the constitution of Parliament will be a comparative failure unless the opinions and feelings of the working classes are represented in it; and because the persons representing those opinions and feelings who seem likely to obtain seats in the new Parliament are far less numerous than I think it desirable they should be.

We are looking to the new House of Commons, not solely for putting the Liberal party in office and disestablishing the Irish Church, but for making a commencement of measures calculated to improve the material and social condition of the mass of the people. This cannot be expected unless the suffering as well as the prosperous classes are represented in the House, and represented by men who are capable of making their voices heard.—I am, dear sir, yours very faithfully,

J. S. Mill

S. W. Burton, Esq

Edition: current; Page: [1453]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 1. 1868

A[vignon]

1298.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

A[vignon]

Oct. 1. 1868

Dear Sir—

I have had the honour of receiving your letter of the 15th ulto respecting the Marylebone Penny Readings. It gives me sincere pleasure that so useful a work as these readings should be so successful. I am, however, as a general rule, averse to connecting my name with any undertaking to which my occupations prevent me from giving any portion of my time & attention; & the many distinguished names already on the list of patrons & which are more than sufficient to give the Readings every advantage that can be obtained by that mode of adhesion, render the addition of my name quite superfluous.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 4. 1868

Avignon

Edward P. Bouverie

Bouverie, Edward P.

1299.

TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE1

Avignon

Oct. 4. 1868

Dear Mr Bouverie

It is of so much importance to the public good that the very best man each party possesses should be sent to represent it in the House of Commons, that it is much to be desired that every constituency should consider, not merely whether a man will do to represent it, but whether he is the best man to be had; and that every candidate should consider first, not his own claims and wishes, but the public interest. For my own part I can fairly disclaim acting ungenerously towards yourself when I warmly support the candidature of Mr Chadwick, because I would very gladly put him in my own place if I saw a probability of success. I consider Mr Chadwick to be an altogether exceptional man, to whom it would be an honour to any other man to give way; because, however superior he may consider himself, or might actually be, to Mr Chadwick in some things, there are others (of extreme importance in Parliament) in which Mr Chadwick has not his equal in England, nor, so far as I know, in Europe.

In regard to the matter of sowing dissensions among the Liberal party, I could say a great deal, which I am sure would meet with sympathy in the Edition: current; Page: [1454] advanced portion of it at least, and would shew to all portions that I am not acting without very cogent reasons. I need not enter into these at present, because, as you will see from what I have already said, there exist reasons enough peculiar to Mr Chadwick, to decide my line of conduct towards him, even without reference to more general considerations. I am

My dear Sir
Yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

The Right Honourable

E. P. Bouverie M.P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 4, 1868

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1300.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Oct. 4, 1868

Dear Sir

I am truly glad that you are pleased with the letter,2 and that you think its publication will be of service. On the matter of fact as to the liability of the bonds to income tax, my original impression was what I now learn to be the correct one; but I found the contrary so positively stated in articles and letters in newspapers, that I supposed I had been mistaken, and altered my first draft accordingly. The rectification3 you have been so kind as to make will perfectly meet the case.

I should have been glad if your name could have appeared in the first line, but on that point your judgment and feelings must decide.

I have no uneasiness as to the future of England from the two points in its condition which you mention in your letter. Those “who would work if they could find work to do,” will, I think, find their field of employment greatly widened by the rapid progress of industrial improvement, and such of them as the growth of the national wealth does not provide employment for, will be more and more taken off by emigration. “Those who would not work even if work were abundant and wages fair” are a comparatively limited class of the lowest of the population, and whatever they make it necessary to do in order to keep them in obedience to law will have the fullest support from the respectable working people. “The ignorance and hopelessness of the mass of the agricultural labourers” are in a fair way to be removed. The movement will soon be irresistible for a national education which will include them; Edition: current; Page: [1455] and as soon as they have intelligence to know that better wages are to be had in the manufacturing towns, or in the United States or the Colonies, they will flock thither. Emigration, already so great an element in the social economy of Ireland, is only beginning to reach the agricultural districts of England. It will be the great safety valve, and will, I think, prevent the stir that is sure to take place in the minds of the agricultural labourers from having any other than a wholesome effect.

In the United States, ever since the North shook off the yoke of the South, the most favourable prophecies are always those which are verified. Allow me to say with what pleasure and instruction, always increasing, I read the North American Review.4 The July number is perhaps the best I have yet read. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

C. Eliot Norton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 9. 1868

A[vignon]

Edmond Beales

Beales, Edmond

1301.

TO EDMOND BEALES1

A[vignon]

Oct. 9. 1868

Dear Sir—

You are no doubt aware that Mr Chadwick has gone down to the Kilmarnock burghs, that he has been very successful, has been generally accepted by the working men as their candidate & that they are very confident of being able to return him as their member. I hear from Mr C. that in the opinion of his supporters, the only thing which gives Mr Bouverie a chance is the candidature of Mr McDonald, who is Secretary to the Miners Union & is expected to carry with him the miners of one of the five burghs, Rutherglen, which is a mining place, but who, it seems, has very little support in the other four burghs, & though he has an encouraging letter from Professor Beesly,2 is not thought to have any chance of success, but may perhaps take from Mr C. a sufficient number of votes to turn the scale in favour of Mr Bouverie if the Whigs & Tories unite as they probably will. Both Whigs & Tories prefer any one of the old set of backward politicians to any man with troublesome new ideas. The inclosed report from the Glasgow Herald shews the complete failure of Mr McDonald at Kilmarnock. At Mr Chadwick’s meeting at K it Edition: current; Page: [1456] was estimated that he had more than a thousand workmen for him, but his supporters, not to offend the miners, & to let them do the best they could, did not move an amendment at Mr McD’s meeting. It would be a great triumph of advanced opinion if Mr C. were elected & it will be a great pity if McD’s candidature shd prevent it. Mr C. was put forward before Mr McD. was known to be in the field, & he would be more listened to in the House even on the subject of the miners, than Mr McD; having paid special attention to their condition, as was shewn in his report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population in 18423 as well as on subsequent occasions.4 I write this to you because if you are able to bring any influence to bear on Mr McD. either directly or through Prof Beesly that might induce him to retire you may perhaps think it desirable to do so.5 No one man that I know is likely to do so much in the House for the interests of the working people as Mr C. & now when he seems to have a good chance it would be sad indeed that such a hindrance as this shd defeat it.

You are yourself encumbered by an obstacle of a similar kind, though from a much more considerable person, Mr Newton.6 I earnestly hope he may be induced to postpone his candidature or to try his chance with some other constituency. No radical or working class candidate ought to place himself in competition with you though it was of course quite right & no more than was to be expected from your public spirit that you should as you did set an example of willingness to be governed by any [illegible word] like a division of the liberal electors.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 9. 1868

A[vignon]

P. Callerall

Callerall, P.

1302.

TO P. CALLERALL1

A[vignon]

Oct. 9. 1868

Dear Sir—

The letter of which you enclose a copy was written by me. I believe there can be no doubt that Mr Bradlaugh is a very fair representative of the opinions of a very large & important portion of the working men of England. I, who have always maintained that the working classes do not form Edition: current; Page: [1457] a homogeneous mass all exactly like one another, as we have been often told they do by their opponents, of course admit most readily that Mr B. is no fair representative of other large & important sections of the working class. But as there are in the H. of C. & ought to be, representatives of the Quakers, the R. Catholics, many of the various Dissenters as well as of the C. of England, & the Jews, so I do not see why the working classes may not have one representative of opinions which are indisputably extremely rife among many of them however distasteful these opinions may be to many others.

I say all this as regards what if I understand rightly is the main objection to Mr B. because I would fully face the most serious difficulty: & I do not hesitate to say that if Mr B. chooses to take his stand upon what are called secularist principles in religion, & can succeed nevertheless in inducing any constituency to send him to Parlt, he ought not to be prevented from doing so by want of funds: for in that case it is plain that he must represent a class of opinions sufficiently considerable to have a right to be represented. But I am not aware that Mr B. does take his stand upon these principles. I understand him to come forward as a representative of purely political opinions & in that case I do not think that any one is entitled to object to him on the ground of religious opinions: for to do so is contrary to the principles we follow when Jews &c. are admitted to Parlt. If Mr B. were a rich man, I shd not have taken any steps to forward his election; had he been a rich man, I think no one would have blamed me if I had taken any such steps. As a matter of fact I have done nothing whatever to forward Mr B.’s election except to help to remove in a very small degree whatever obstacle poverty may be to his chances. I pronounce no opinion upon his merits but leave them to be judged by those who are better qualified to judge them than I can profess to be myself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 9. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1303.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Oct. 9. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I have received your two letters of Sept. 30 and Oct. 4. We are, as you may well imagine, highly delighted at your excellent prospects. For the purpose Edition: current; Page: [1458] of getting Mr McDonald out of your way,2 I should have more faith in the influences of the constituency itself than in any others, for it is only local opinion that will make him think he has no chance of success. I have, however, written a long letter to Beales on the subject. Mr Beesly, though I believe I was once introduced to him, I hardly know even by sight, and have no reason to think that I have any influence with him. For aught I know, he might even be disposed to go against any recommendation of mine. Beesly belongs, I fancy, to one of the advanced Comtist sets, and they, you know, do not at all go along with me. Mr Beales may have influence with him or with McDonald, and may be willing to exert it; it is, however, just possible that McDonald represents the Potter section of the Trades Unionists,3 and I rather believe there is a split between that and the League. I am not, however, quite sure of this, and so I have written to Beales.

Some days ago I received a mild expostulation from Mr Bouverie. I wrote to him in reply,4 saying, among other things, that I must be acquitted of acting ungenerously towards him in supporting your candidature, because I would gladly give up my own seat to you, if I thought I were able to do it: and I told him that any man might be proud to give way to you, and hinted pretty plainly that public spirit called upon him to do so. I thought it best, however, not to open upon any of my personal grievances against him (e.g. his attack upon Gladstone,5 and Adullamite proclivities) to himself. I am rather surprised at his writing to me, and cannot think what his motive was; but I do not think he is likely to make use of my letter, because it was the most glowing eulogium of you that I could well get into the space.

There is nothing that I can do, beyond what I have done, in the matter of the election for the Institute.6 It would be hopeless to attempt to influence the time of the election.

I think it is a mistake to suppose that my support of Bradlaugh7 at all diminishes my weight. The sort of people with whom it does so have had to put up with my Women’s Suffrage, Jamaica Committee, representation of minorities, and other “crotchets”, and probably have long ago given me up, or more properly speaking, have never taken me up at all. You know that my Malthusian and religious heresies, and my accusing the working people of not speaking the truth, were all brought up against me at the Westminster Edition: current; Page: [1459] election,8 and all increased my popularity. I am quite convinced that nothing more increases a man’s influence than his having decided opinions of his own, and sticking to them, provided he has got good reasons to give for them. No doubt, this will give handle to his enemies to laugh at him, attack him, or abuse him, as the case may be. But people’s enemies will always have something to say against them; and those who side with you in some things are delighted to see that you have the pluck to stand to your colours even when they do not altogether agree with you. See how great has been the influence of mere pluck, even in such a case as Roebuck’s;9 surely this should be a lesson to men not to be afraid when they are sure they are in the right. Working men, in particular, hate hesitation, and anything approaching to smoothing away differences, and have so much of it from Tories and Whigs that nothing makes them more sure that a man is what they think “of the right sort” than his speaking and acting plainly and decidedly with them when he is with them, and against them when he is against them. I doubt whether my opposition to the ballot will cost a single vote at Westminster, and I believe that what I have done in the matter of Bradlaugh is likely to gain quite as many as it will lose; although this had nothing whatever to do with my doing it. I am Dear Chadwick

ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 14. 1868

A[vignon]

1304.

TO AN UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT1

A[vignon]

Oct. 14. 1868

. . . but the landlord has now no motive for allowing him to do this, & generally does not allow it.

For any further information I would suggest your applying to some English member who took an active part in the discussion of the rate paying clauses; Mr Hibbert, for example, or Mr Hodgkinson.2

Edition: current; Page: [1460]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 16. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1305.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Oct. 16. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I hope you received my telegram. I must beg you not to take any public notice of my correspondence with Bouverie,2 as, being private, though on a public subject, I do not think it right to give publicity to it, or to anything contained in it, without the consent of the other party concerned. I am still in correspondence with him.

I do not remember anything done by Bouverie to obstruct the Reform Bill of 1866.

I have read all your speeches in the papers you sent and I think them very telling. I am

Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 19, 1868

Avignon

Edward P. Bouverie

Bouverie, Edward P.

1306.

TO EDWARD P. BOUVERIE1

Avignon

,

Oct. 19, 1868

Dear Mr Bouverie

Though a great deal surprised I am far from dissatisfied at seeing our correspondence up to this point in the papers, as I had not thought myself at liberty to publish it without your previous consent.

Your observation that choosing the best man to be had “would be fatal to the mutual confidence between represented & representative” is a misanthropical sentiment which I shd scarcely have expected to hear from you, since I can see no meaning in it unless it be that the constituencies so seldom get a good man that they can scarcely ever be expected to be faithful to the man they have got: I do not look upon the matter from so cynical a point of view. It seems to me that in this as in other matters in life the more particular people are in choosing, the less likely they are to change their minds after they have chosen. In the particular case also in which you deprecate inconstancy Edition: current; Page: [1461] it would appear that the constituency of K[ilmarnock] has been constant for the last five & twenty years, from whence one may fairly infer that they made a very good choice 5 & 20 years ago. But 5 & 20 years & a new Reform Act make a great change in men & in politics, & if the constituency of K makes as judicious a choice now as it did when it last changed its representative, I sincerely hope it will be 5 & 20 years before it changes again. Still, with the fullest regard to the consideration due to past services, one must admit that there ought to be some limit to it. You would not, I presume, maintain that a seat in Parlt ought to be a seat for life, unless the member has given some violent offence to the constituency. The urgency of an infusion of new blood is as good a reason for making a new choice, as dissatisfaction with an existing representative: & there is no time at which giving the preference to a new candidate is so little of a reflection on the former member as when a change has been made in the Constitution, admitting new electors often much more numerous than the old.

I am sorry that the occasions on which people have asked my advice or help in their electioneering affairs should have caused me so often to incur your disapprobation by expressing opinions so very different from yours as to the sort of men that would be of most use in the H of C. But I do not see that the fear of being disagreeable to one class of candidates ought to prevent me from giving my opinion, when asked, in favour of another class or that there is anything presumptuous either in answering questions that are addressed to me, or in giving testimony which I am told will be of use to those in whose favour it is given, & which, if as you say it has no weight, will at least be innocuous to their rivals.

I have no objection to receiving the advice you tender in the last sentence of your letter,2 although I did not invite it by opening up any communications between us. For my part I never presumed to give you any advice, nor did I “incite” you to retire in Mr C[hadwick]’s favour, because I had no idea that you were in the least likely to do so; I merely, in reply to a communication from yourself, shewed how very public spirited a proceeding I shd consider it if you did. I shd not however have troubled you with this opinion if you had not been the first to write to me.

Writing to yourself, what at the time I wrote it, I supposed was to be a private letter, I did not think it necessary to raise the question how far the present member for K. is entitled to claim the support of liberals on the ground of fidelity to the liberal party. But to the public or to the constituency Edition: current; Page: [1462] I have no hesitation in saying that no untried man can be looked upon as less a member of the liberal party than the man who at the beginning of this present year, called the liberal party a rabble & declared that their leader was incapable of leading.3 I do not know that any one is likely to do more than this to sow dissension among the liberal party nor do I see what possible claim this gentleman can have upon party fidelity, or what pledge he can give his constituents that he will not at a critical moment turn round again upon this same “leader who cannot lead” & shew himself even more a conspicuous example of a “follower who will not follow.” Whatsoever claims he may have upon his constituency can only be those of his own individual personal merits; he is the last man who has a right to the sympathy of his whilom party or who can appeal against me on the ground of his high sense of the claims of party organisation.

Even in the most ordinary circumstances, the efficiency of representatives can only be kept up by a keen rivalry, & a probability that if they fall below the standard they have ever attained, their constituents will look out for new men who come up to it. But we are not now in ordinary times. There are not only new electors to be represented, but new questions to be decided, requiring men deeply impressed with the wants of the country, & who have exercised their minds on the means of remedying the most pressing existing evils. The liberal electors have a right to a choice between their present members & any others who may seem to them better qualified in this respect & such choice is denied them if it is regarded as treason against liberalism for a new liberal candidate to offer himself in competition with an old member.

I am keenly sensible of the importance of not dividing the liberal party: but it is not a very hopeful way of keeping the party united, for the representatives of the old electors to engross all the representation, leaving none for the new: & if a reasonable number of men of advanced opinions, or possessing the confidence of the working classes, are not to be included among the recognised candidates of the party, they cannot be blamed if they sometimes stand against those who are. Just as we are often told that to secure the unity of a married couple what is the man’s is his own, & what is the woman’s is the man’s, so now we are being told every day that to secure the unity of the liberal party which is threatened by a division between the old men & the new, the old men should be represented by themselves, & the new men by the old. With the solitary exception of the advice which you supposed me to give to yourself, I have not heard of any instance in which it has not been proposed to resolve the difficulty by the new men retiring, & the old men magnanimously accepting their retirement. And this in many cases is very naïvely put upon the ground that as the old men will not consider the public interest & retire, for fear of letting in a Tory, the new men must.

Edition: current; Page: [1463]

The real danger, in my opinion, of the liberal party, is not what you consider it to be. It is in the renewal of the tactics which made the last H of C a spectacle of dissension & want of principle, shewing us representatives trying to slip out of the engagements their constituents conceived them to be bound by, & others yielding a shameful obedience when called to order by the dread of losing their seats, while in cases where this powerful motive was not in operation, men elected under the same banner proved by their conduct that there was as irreconcilable a variance in their intentions & political feelings as if they had sat on opposite sides of the House. What gave this deplorable character to the last H of C was that its so called Liberal members were rallied under the cry of supporting Palmerston, as we are now told they ought to be rallied under the cry of disestablishing the Irish Church. Now, I am not one of those who think that the political progress of England has but one step more to make before reaching its summit, where it may rest & be thankful, & that if a man is ready to vote for the disestablishment of the Irish Church he is ready to do all that the staunchest liberalism can demand of him. But I would remind those who differ with me as to the all-sufficiency of this particular step, that our power to make even that step next session may depend upon our getting men into the H. of C. who are not merely certain to vote for that step, but who will follow their leaders loyally through all the parliamentary tactics with which our skilful opponent will try to impede the way. Days, weeks, & months may be lost if Mr Gladstone’s majority is composed of men who will keep their word in voting for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, but will thwart & embarrass their leader in every previous step by which that desirable consummation may have to be led up to. It was not the Tories but the Adullamites,4 who weakened the liberal party in the last parliament; & if a similar result should befall it in the next there will be cause for bitter regret that the liberal party did not fight out its battles at the polling booths rather than in the lobby of the H. of C. There does not appear to be any danger that Mr G[ladstone]’s nominal majority will not be greater than in the last Parlt. What the country has to look to is that his majority shall be more steadfast to genuine liberal principles. We do not want men who cast reluctant looks back to the old order of things, nor men whose liberalism consists chiefly in a warm adherence to all the liberal measures already passed, but men whose heart & soul are in the cause of progress, & who are animated by that ardour which in politics as in war kindles the commander to his highest achievements & makes the army at his command worth twice its numbers; men whose zeal will encourage their leader to attempt what their fidelity will give him strength to do. It would be poor statesmanship to gain a seeming victory at the poll by returning a majority numerically large but composed of the same incompatible elements as the last; even if we put political Edition: current; Page: [1464] principle aside & look at nothing but the exigencies of the fight we are going to sustain against a politician5 renowned for his skill in availing himself of the disunion of his opponents.

I am yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 25, 1868

Avignon

Charles Stewart Walther

Walther, Charles Stewart

1307.

TO CHARLES STEWART WALTHER1

Avignon

,

Oct. 25, 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 22nd inst. in behalf of Mr. Howell’s London provisional committee, asking my opinion respecting his candidature. It would give me much pleasure to see Mr. Howell returned to Parliament. I look upon it as of great importance that the working classes should be represented in the new House of Commons by persons possessing their confidence, and that some of those persons should be themselves working men; and, though my knowledge of Mr. Howell personally is not great, what I have seen of his public conduct has made me look upon him as one who, in point of opinions and abilities would be a valuable representative of the working classes in Parliament.

I am
dear Sir,
yours very sincerely,

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 29. 1868

Avignon

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1308.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Avignon

Oct. 29. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

It seems a long time since I heard from you, as well as since I wrote, but Fawcett sent me some weeks ago a letter of yours to him. The report of your Edition: current; Page: [1465] health, though in some respects satisfactory, shewed less improvement in the local complaint than your friends, and I suppose your medical men, had hoped for. I shall be very much interested in having later intelligence.

How weary and sick you must be of the Irish Church and all that belongs to it!2 The subject is sickening even to me, who have not been living in the atmosphere of the abominable passions which self interest and bigotry combined have kindled in those who will be losers in one way or another when justice is done. I am impatient to see that worn out subject dead and buried, that the public may get to the practical interests of Ireland—landed tenure, and education. On both these, there will be great battles to fight, and on the first, if not on both, they will be long battles. The delay of the contest on Education has, I think, thus far, been favourable to the right. There is a growing feeling against Denominationalism in State education, by which Ireland will benefit. I am glad to see the number of students in the Queen’s Colleges has not fallen off as was expected. The abolition of Maynooth3 will greatly strengthen the argument for opening Trinity College. The Catholics are quite right in saying that Maynooth is the counterpart of that, and not of the Church Establishment.

The election prospects look very favourable, as far as regards the largeness of Gladstone’s majority. You will have seen that I have brought the newspapers upon me by doing my little possible in favour of getting into that majority a small infusion of more useful elements. How impossible this is, on the old plan of leaving everything to the party managers, is shewn by the double failure of Mr Courtney’s candidature at St Ives.4 I am much more attacked for helping Chadwick against Bouverie (unfaithful as Bouverie has been to the Liberal party) than even for subscribing to Bradlaugh;5 though the latter proceeding is the more likely of the two to alienate voters in Westminster. All the opinions I hear from my supporters about the prospects there, are favourable, but their tone is not so confident as their words, and they have thought it necessary to summon me, very much against my will, to spend the fortnight before the elections in speaking at meetings. I shall therefore be in England at the very beginning of November.

You will be as indignant as I am at the attempt to turn out Fawcett. The only points on which he is attacked by Coningham6 and Coningham’s supporters, are among his positive merits; his not jobbing for the people of Edition: current; Page: [1466] Brighton; his supporting the minority clause; and Coningham actually reproached him with wanting to punish severely an elector who is bribed!

I hope some day to talk over with you the reasons pro and con about abolishing Marriage Settlements. I have been reading Mr McDonnell’s paper7 which you recommended to Fawcett. I quite agree with Mr McDonnell about the bad consequences of making the eldest son sure of succeeding independently of the will of the parents. But property might be settled so that it could not be squandered, and yet the power of bequest retained. In settlements on a wife and her children it is already common to give her the power of distributing the property among the children by will, and I do not see why property should not be settled on a person for life, with power of bequest, but not of alienation inter vivos. The great argument, however, for marriage settlements is the protection of the wife. Mr McDonnell is willing that the wife’s own property should be secured to her by settlement so long as the present law respecting the property of married women is maintained. But the alteration required would be much greater than merely not to deprive her of her ownership. As long as she is at all in the husband’s power, she is liable to be forced to surrender her rights. It would be necessary that she should not be compellable to live with him; and that anything done by him which would be unlawful if done to any other person, should be unlawful when done to her. And there must be some just arrangement about the children in case of separation. Until all this is accomplished I think it would be a great aggravation of the dependent position of women to put an end to settlements.

I hope all is now safe in America, as far as relates to the continuance of the Republican party at the head of affairs,8 and without any diminution of vigour in their councils. Since the ex-slaveholders are incorrigible, it is a good thing that they cannot help shewing themselves to be incorrigible. The danger of tampering with the rights of the public creditor seems also to be blowing over. It certainly was thought, at one time, to be serious. I was asked to write something on Repudiation, in the form of a letter that could be published in the Nation,9 and afterwards circulated in the broad sheets of the Loyal Publication Society. I have done so, and it has just come back from America, and is reprinted in last Wednesday’s Morning Star (October 28). I hope if you see it you will approve of it, as I know you will of its sentiments.

I should be delighted to hear from you. It will be best to write to Blackheath until the election is over, after which, whether I am elected or not, I shall return here.

Edition: current; Page: [1467]

I hope Mrs Cairnes’ health continues to improve.

I am
Dear Mr Cairnes
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 29. 1868

Avignon

Augustus De Morgan

Morgan, Augustus De

1309.

TO AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN1

Avignon

Oct. 29. 1868

Dear Sir

I have endeavoured, with such scanty means as are within my reach, to obtain information on the matter on which you wrote to me on the 20th of September. I have been unable to learn anything about the abbés Blanchard2 and Dumas,3 but the Abbé Pézenas4 was a mathematician and astronomer of distinction and professor of hyd[r]ography for the navy at Marseilles, whence, when age obliged him to relinquish his professorship, he returned to Avignon, his native place, and died there in 1775. The only public library at Avignon contains an early work of his, “Histoire critique de la découverte de la longitude.” The Logarithmic Tables are not in that library, but there is a Monsieur Bourges5 at Avignon who well remembers to have had them in his possession. M. Bourges has a large collection of books in an unarranged and confused state, but he has promised a friend of mine to search among them for the work in question, which perhaps may still be found there. There is a biographical notice of M. Pézenas in a dictionary in M. Bourges’ possession, but it does not say anything of the Logarithmic Tables, to which, as you mention, the editors did not put their names. M. Pézenas also published a translation of a treatise on Fluxions written in English by a mathematician with a French Edition: current; Page: [1468] name,6 but I have not been able to learn if it was Desclozeaux, or who else: probably you will know what book it must have been.

Avignon, at the time mentioned, was a place of publication (or at least printing) for all sorts of books which were published in France, licentious books, &c. which were printed in cellars and secret places, generally with extreme incorrectness: and a thing which stamped in M. Bourges’ memory the recollection of the Tables, was the singularity of the circumstance that a work requiring such punctilious exactness should have been printed in such a place.

When I obtain any further information, I shall write to you again.

I am
Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Augustus De Morgan Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 29. 1868

A[vignon]

Charles Friend

Friend, Charles

1310.

TO CHARLES FRIEND1

A[vignon]

Oct. 29. 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 26th inst.

Your difficulties & anxieties are such as the extreme imperfection of our public arrangements for education (though I am happy to say they are at last showing some signs of improvement) imposes on all parents who are at once thoughtful & conscientious, especially when, as is the case with the greater number, circumstances compel them to rely on others than themselves for a great part of the education of their children.

In regard to religion, I do not think it right either oneself to teach, or to allow any one else to teach one’s children, authoritatively, anything whatever that one does not from the bottom of one’s heart & by the clearest light of one’s reason, believe to be true. It seems to me that to act otherwise on any pretext whatever, is little if at all short of a crime against one’s children, Edition: current; Page: [1469] against one’s fellow creatures in general, & against abstract truth in whatever form it appears most sacred to one’s eyes. One has most assuredly no right to incumber the reason & entangle the conscience of one’s children, one has no right to send citizens out into the world to play their various parts for or against their fellow creatures furnished with anything less than the most honest truth that one can give them. Nor can I see that the plea of worldly interest is the smallest valid excuse, although I am well aware how many people think it so. But in the first place he would be a wise man indeed who can foresee the state of society 15 or 20 years hence. In the second place the clear intellect & the sturdy conscience which are acquired in a household where truth is reverenced above all things are as valuable to men & women pushing their way in the world as any supposed conformity with popular prejudice. In the third place, if there is one thing to which we all ought to give our allegiance irrespective of consequence it is truth, & here I look upon the ancient Christian teaching as the highest the world has yet known, & shd regard it as a misfortune indeed if this noble spirit were to die out with the prejudices which have overlaid it. But I do not believe it will, & the immense value attached to worldly prosperity by the bulk of so-called Xtians is to me the best proof that their doctrine is hollow & effete.

But I do not think that there shd be any authoritative teaching at all on such subjects. I think parents ought to point out to their children when the children begin to question them, or to make observations of their own, the various opinions on such subjects, & what the parents themselves think the most powerful reasons for & against. Then, if the parents show a strong feeling of the importance of truth, & also of the difficulty of attaining it, it seems to me that young people’s minds will be sufficiently prepared to regard popular opinion or the opinions of those about them with respectful tolerance, & may be safely left to form definite conclusions in the course of mature life.

There is one other point in which a mother may I believe be of immense use to her children, which is apt to be too much overlooked in my opinion in modern education, but on which there is a great deal of good sense in Miss Edgeworth’s stories for children,2 in Sandford & Merton,3 & in Miss Martineau’s Household Education:4 & this is, teaching children (more especially if they are not going to be rich) to respect, to enjoy, & habitually to practise manual and domestic labour. The love of this, & the sense of moral dignity in doing it, are, next to the love of truth, the very most valuable possessions with which to begin life, whether we consider happiness or the power of getting on.

Edition: current; Page: [1470]

To cultivate the intelligence, nothing perhaps is of so much value as a love of reading: & to secure this, it is essential to let young people read whatever they may come across & are disposed to read. Moreover, if careful selections are to be made for them, it becomes a most embarrassing question at what age are they to begin to be allowed to know any of the realities of life? & in many respects such knowledge is likely to be more mischievous if it comes startlingly upon them when they are of an age to understand it than if it is taken for granted in what they read when it has no particular interest for their childish minds.

I know of no schools so good as the Birkbeck schools5 & if there is one within reach I should think both boys & girls could receive an excellent education at it. I do not know precisely up to what point the education is carried on at them, nor what amount of education you contemplate giving to your children. I imagine that some of the best education to be had now, of a more advanced sort, at no great expense, is to be had by following the classes at the Working Men’s College,6 or at one of the Scotch universities. Either of these however are of course not for children, but I believe that the Birkbeck school would be a fit preparation for either of these. You are no doubt quite aware that I think it a duty to give girls as solid an education as boys, & doubly so if they are likely to have to earn their own living: & the progress now making in the education of girls is so considerable that it is not likely that 20 years hence any young woman will be able to earn by teaching who has not some solid instruction herself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Oct. 30. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1311.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Oct. 30. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I am much obliged to you for your bulletins of progress. It is a thousand pities that your path should be crossed by a mad parson;2 and that there should be another working men’s candidate in the field,3 with power to take Edition: current; Page: [1471] away votes from you, though without any chance for himself. If he can be induced to withdraw, it must be by the influence of working class opinion in the boroughs themselves. I wrote very strongly to Beales4 from whom I have had no answer: but the London chiefs of the League have probably little influence in the localities.

By publishing the correspondence,5 Bouverie did me a favour which he did not intend, by compelling me to do what would have been an impertinence if I had done it uncompelled—to put forth a manifesto on the necessity of bringing in new men in the place of some of the old. The reply appears to have produced a considerable effect, and seems likely to act on the electors even more than on the talking and writing public. The Times, though obliged to take notice of it, got off with the fewest words it could; and most spiteful words they were.6 The spite of the newspaper writers is partly against you, for getting more praise than they like you to have; partly (as the Daily News remarked7) against me, because they are angry at finding that my words have influence. One would suppose that giving a recommendatory letter to a candidate had never been heard of before, instead of being quite in the common course. The Glasgow paper you sent, mentioned Disraeli’s recommendatory letters to Wycombe.8 It might have added that Roebuck in 1832 went to Bath with a recommendation from Hume. How else are new men to make themselves known? This sort of cant is intended to keep all influence a monopoly in the hands of residents.

I have just received a letter from a surgeon in West Cornwall,9 saying that a candidate is very much wanted for that division of the county, that he would undertake within ten days to get up a numerously signed requisition to any man of mark, asking whether I can prevail upon you to go down, and saying “There would not be any doubt about his” (your) “return if he came among us. Those already in the field are of no account whatever.”

I sent you by yesterday’s post a number of Le Temps,10 containing a letter by Louis Blanc on the Bouverie correspondence, where you will see in what high terms he speaks of you.

Edition: current; Page: [1472]

I have to be in London for a meeting of electors next Monday evening, Nov. 2.11

I am
Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

November 1868

Florence May

May, Florence

1312.

TO FLORENCE MAY1

[Before

November? 1868

]

Dear Madam—

I am very glad to find that you enjoy Buckle’s History, & I suppose from what you say, that you would like to enter into a course of reading that would be a good preparation for historical & social philosophy.

Something must depend in this course on the number of hours you can give to reading every day, & on the quickness with which you are in the habit of reading. But in any case I would strongly recommend three things. First, to read every book (with few & special exceptions) straight through from the title page to the last word. 2. To read a fixed number of pages of such reading as is taken for work, every day. I do not recommend hours, but 20, 50, or 100 pages. To read the working reading of the day as early as circumstances will admit in the day: but never, unless on some very rare exceptions, to go to sleep without having read it. 3. To fix so small a quantity of reading for work, as shall never be a burden, nor weary the mind, nor interfere inconveniently with other occupations; & to fill in the many gaps of time which will be left unoccupied by this rule, with light reading, amusing & agreeable, which has the advantage of being attractive when you are tired, of being able to put aside for days together when you are otherwise occupied, & which at the same time if well chosen may end by filling the mind with a fund of valuable knowledge as to the habits & ideas of past times & foreign countries.

I recommend, therefore, dividing your reading into four courses, which shd be carried on simultaneously: the first two of them to consist of books, some small portion of which shd be read invariably every day, & every word of which shd be read steadily through. The third course shd consist of books from which you can select portions if you like, which are comparatively light reading, but which shd be read because they are standard books the knowledge Edition: current; Page: [1473] of which is necessary to any thorough knowledge of the progress of the human mind & of the history of manners. These need not be read every day if time is wanting, yet it might be a good rule to read some of them every day whenever there is time before taking up the still lighter or more exciting literature of the 4th course.

The fourth course shd consist of those chefs d’œuvre of literature which are sure to be interesting, as well as of whatever modern books you find tempting & agreeable without fatiguing the mind. For I think it of great value to acquire a habit of constant reading in order to acquire in time the power of reading quickly, & I am convinced that this cannot be done with safety to the health of those who eschew light literature. To those who mean to spend their life in study, light literature is a necessary relief, while as I have already said, it is by no means without good results. I think that in it newspapers magazines & reviews may be very usefully included, if you find them agreeable reading; but even the most valuable articles in periodical publications ought to be read for pleasure, & not as part of the work of the day, because they do not fit in to a steady course of reading.

I inclose a list of books for the four courses, which I have put in the order in which I think it would be good to read them. The first course shd have the freshest part of the day, as it requires thought; & the two first courses shd if possible be read in the order in which I have put them down. The last two need not necessarily be read in this order, but it is very desirable that in reading them you shd ascertain & [note in?] your own mind while reading, the date at which they were written, so as to observe as you read the changes of ideas & manners.

I have not put down any books in any foreign language, because unless there is any foreign language you read with as much pleasure & fluency as English, I think it waste of time at present to read its literature. But if there is any such language, it would be well to let me know, because in that case I could perhaps point out useful books in each course to read in it, supplying some want which cannot be supplied in English.

I

Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge

Berkeley’s Three Dialogues

Berkeley’s Essay on Vision

Hume’s Essays concerning Human Understanding

Brown’s Lectures on the Human Mind

Mill’s System of Logic

James Mill’s Analysis of the Human Mind

Edition: current; Page: [1474]

Bain’s Senses and the Intellect

Bain’s Emotions and the Will

Bain’s Study of Character

H. Spencer’s Principles of Psychology

II

Grote’s History of Greece

Hooke’s Roman History

Plutarch’s Lives

Merivale’s History of the Roman Empire

Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire

Hume’s History of England

Hallam’s Middle Ages

Macaulay’s History of England

[James] Stephen’s Lectures on the History of France

Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella

Robertson’s Charles V

Robertson’s America

Motley’s United Netherlands

Schiller’s Thirty Years War translated

III

Spenser’s Poems

Massinger’s Plays

Bacon’s Essays

Milton Paradise Lost, Comus, Lycidas, L’Allegro, Penseroso, Sonnets

Dryden’s Poems—Æneid

Pope’s Poems—Iliad & Odyssey

Spectator

Clarissa Harlowe

Sir Charles Grandison

Rasselas

Rambler

Goldsmith’s Poems

Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World

Gray’s Poems

Cowper’s Poems

Ellis’s Early English Prose Romances

Sydney’s Arcadia

Edition: current; Page: [1475]

Coleridge

Wordsworth

Shelley

Keats

IV

Shakespeare

Don Quixote

Gil Blas

Fielding’s Novels

Vicar of Wakefield

Sterne’s Sentimental Journey

Percy’s Reliques of Early English Poetry

Lamb’s Selections from the Dramatists

Mrs Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho

Mrs Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest

Miss Austen’s Novels—Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice &c.

Scott’s Poems

Scott’s Novels

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

November 1868

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

1313.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

Wedy 3 oclock
[

November 1868

]

Since I closed (& stamped) my letter, this has come from Miss Cobbe. I am on the whole inclined to think she had better not vote, since she believes there was an actual mistake in the name2—which makes her case different from that of the Ashford3 and other ladies who I think should vote. But whatever you think, I have no doubt your reasons will be such as I should agree with. The polling day will probably be Tuesday.

ever affectionately

J.S.M.

Edition: current; Page: [1476]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 3. 1968

B[lackheath] P[ark]

J. S. Bird

Bird, J. S.

1314.

TO J. S. BIRD1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 3. 1968

Dear Sir—

The grounds of the claim for the admission of women to the Suffrage are stated in small compass in a paper reprinted from the W. R. under the title “Enfranchisement of Women”,2 in a pamphlet by Miss Helen Taylor, “The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage”3 & in my own speech in the H. of C. all published by Trubner, 60 Paternoster Row.4 The right of women to the suffrage under the existing law, is maintained & defended in Mr Chisholm Anstey’s work on Representation5 & in a pamphlet published by him.6 The Secretary to the National Socy for Women’s Suffrage is Mrs. P. A. Taylor, Aubrey House, Notting Hill.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 4. 1868

Blackheath Park

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1315.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Nov. 4. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I have written at once to my correspondent, Geo. Gill Esq. Zion House, Marazion,2 with whom you will no doubt wish to correspond directly. It will be best to say nothing of the matter in any public manner for the present, so that the initiative may come entirely from the Cornish constituency. I hardly think that in a county, a requisition could be obtained from anything approaching to a majority of the electors; at all events not without great expense and loss of time. But of this you will judge better after further communication with Mr Gill. Meanwhile I send you his letter, that you may know what are the opinions which he himself wishes the member for West Cornwall to hold on matters interesting to the locality. Some of them are not the most enlightened; but the main points are such as you could take up and work with great effect. It is the cause of working miners against mine-owners.

ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1477]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

James Edwards

Edwards, James

1316.

TO JAMES EDWARDS1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 5. 1868

.

Dear Sir—

As a good opportunity did not present itself at the meeting yesterday evening2 for answering your questions, I now answer them by letter.

The first question you ask raises a difficulty which will exist at whatever sum we fix the limit to the Income Tax: for whether the tax begins at £100 at £200 or at £500, that sum will represent a larger real means of support in some places than in others. But I am very much disposed to think that the limit of £100 is too low; and that it would be an improvement to make the income tax begin at £150 (as it did at first), if not higher. If all taxation were direct, it ought to come down to the limit of income just sufficient for the necessaries of life, & everyone ought to pay in proportion to the surplus of the income he possesses beyond those mere necessaries. But so long as the larger part of our revenue is raised by indirect taxation on articles of almost universal consumption, & of which the poor consume more, in proportion to their small means than the rich, so long I think that the incomes between £50 and £150 or £200 pay more than their fair share of indirect taxation, & this requires to be made up to them by levying a tax on the higher incomes, from which they should be exempt.

In answer to your second question, my opinion is that in justice the same amount of income should pay the same amount of tax, whether it be a fixed annual income or a variable sum paid weekly. But it would be extremely difficult to check fraudulent concealment of income in the latter case.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

J. H. Fletcher

Fletcher, J. H.

1317.

TO J. H. FLETCHER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 5. 1868

.

Dear Sir—

In answer to your letter dated yesterday, I beg to say that Mr Edition: current; Page: [1478] Gilpin2 is a distinguished and valuable member of the advanced Liberal party, no opposition to whom I shd for a moment countenance, & that Lord Henley has always been faithful, & I have no reason whatever to doubt that he will remain faithful to the party & to Mr. Gladstone. In subscribing, therefore, towards the expenses of another candidate, I was not influenced by any hostility to either of the present members. The motive by which I was actuated was a strong sense, that the working classes have a just claim to a fair number of the men of their choice in the reformed H. of Commons, which fair share, I regret to say, there is from present appearances extremely little prospect of their obtaining. I am also of opinion, & in this I hope you will agree with me that the Liberal electors have a right to be allowed to decide which among any number of candidates who are willing to offer themselves, they prefer to be represented by. After they have had time to weigh the pretensions of the various candidates & to make up their minds whom they intend to support then if a Tory has offered himself, & the division among Liberals renders at all probable his return, my opinion is, that some means should be adopted of deciding which two of the Liberal candidates are the strongest,3 & that the remainder should withdraw. I may add that Mr. Bradlaugh is aware that this is my opinion.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5. 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Richard Marshall

Marshall, Richard

1318.

TO RICHARD MARSHALL1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 5. 1868

Dear Sir—

When I was first proposed as a candidate for the representation of Westminster, an attempt was made to raise the same religious cry against me,2 which you inform me, is now being repeated. But I publicly announced my determination, on principle, to answer no questions respecting my religious belief, because I would not give any encouragement to a practice the effect of which would be that when no objection could be made to a candidate either on the ground of character or of political opinions, his opponents would endeavour to extract from himself materials for raising a religious prejudice against him. You will, I hope, pardon me for adhering to the resolution I then declared. But if there really are persons who, in good faith & honesty, conclude me to be an atheist because I subscribed to the Edition: current; Page: [1479] fund for the election of Mr Bradlaugh,3 such persons merely shew that they are ignorant or regardless of the principles I have openly proclaimed especially in my book on Liberty,4 viz that atheists as well as the professors of any, even the worst religions, may be & often are, good men, estimable & valuable in all the relations of life, & are entitled like all other persons to be judged by their actions (“By their fruits ye shall know them” are the words of Christ)5 & not by their speculative opinions. My subscription was not given for Mr B as an atheist but for Mr B as a politician; just as we may presume that the working men of Northampton selected him as their candidate,6 & the Reform League as a member of its Council not as an atheist, but as a politician.7

P.S. You are at liberty to make any use you please of this letter.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 5. 1868

Blackheath

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1319.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Blackheath

Nov. 5. 1868

Dear Mr Plummer

I am truly glad of the improvement in your hearing. That is indeed a gain. I sometimes think I recognise you in the Daily News.

About the expense of elections and the difficulty of getting working men’s candidates into Parliament, I said a good deal at the meeting yesterday,2 but it was not reported. I take every opportunity I can of dwelling on this great evil, both in speaking and in my correspondence. The Liberal party will have cause to repent of not having adopted the best leaders of the working men and helped them to seats. But the old school of politicians only learn wisdom when it is too late.

With kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am

Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1480]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 7. 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

J. Dawson Burns

Burns, J. Dawson

1320.

TO J. DAWSON BURNS1

Blackheath Park, Kent

,

Nov. 7. 1868

Dear Sir,—

It is quite true that my answer to the question,2 about the Permissive Bill3 was very inadequate, but it did not pretend to be adequate; it was only intended to give a general notion of the kind of objection I have to the Bill—viz., that the use or non use of alcoholic liquors is a subject on which every sane and grown-up person ought to judge for himself under his own responsibility, and that interference with that private responsibility from known good motives, and with however much apparent justification is not, in my eyes, made allowable by the fact of its being sanctioned by the vote of the majority.

My reason for not accepting the proposal of an interview4 was merely that, each side being already well aware of what the other side has to say, it was probable that any oral discussion would be lost time. For the same reason I hope you will excuse me from replying to the arguments in your letter. But I will not conclude without saying that a much better licensing system might easily be had than that of leaving all to the discretion of the magistrates, and that I should not necessarily be opposed to any proposal on the subject because it might involve ‘a reduction in the number of drinking-shops.’ This, of course, does not affect my opposition to a Bill for allowing a two-thirds majority in a locality the power of prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors.

Allow me, at the same time, to say that I have never expressed myself otherwise than most respectfully concerning the intentions of those who support the Bill, and the great moral value of the end they pursue.

I am, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1481]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 7. 1868

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1321.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Nov. 7. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I send you another letter from Mr Gill,2 which, as you will see is most encouraging, except as to the shortness of the time. He writes like the kind of man to make such a thing succeed. And it is very pleasant to find that, among the attacks on you3 and the pretences of ignoring you, proofs of the high opinion entertained of you start up in such unexpected quarters.

I had already addressed one of my meetings on election expenses, and in compliance with your suggestion I did so again last evening.4 But the papers have given only the most trumpery reports of any of my speeches except the first, which was comparatively commonplace; and of that, the only good report that I saw was in the Telegraph.5 All have been immensely successful.

Pratten,6 one of my local chairmen, says it is all nonsense employing paid agents for election purposes, and that the whole thing is much better managed by the local committees. Even at the registration, he says, the thing would have been boshed if it had been left to the agents; it was only by the exertions of the Committees that they got on a greater number of lodgers than have been got on in almost any other place.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yrs truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

November 7, 1868

Helen Taylor

Taylor, Helen

1322.

TO HELEN TAYLOR1

[?

November 7, 1868

]2

Dear—

I send a note from Miss Shirreff3 which is important.

I saw what seemed a superior custom house officer, who said that nothing whatever is necessary but to sign a declaration, when bringing the plate from Edition: current; Page: [1482] the Continent, that I have not received any drawback upon it: and that the form of declaration is kept at the Charing Cross custom house. I told him what the officer there had told us the last time: he said he still did not understand how that can have been said but that I may absolutely depend on nothing being necessary but to sign the declaration, & that no paper from the Custom House is required nor any steps to be taken before taking the plate out of England.

I had a short shower or two in going through the City but a fine walk across the heath afterwards and it is now very fine as I hope it will remain as long as you need it.

Your ever affectionate

J.S.M.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 8. 1868

Blackheath Park

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1323.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Blackheath Park

Kent

Nov. 8. 1868

Dear Mr Fawcett

During our short conversation the other evening, I had not time to speak to you about the Wolverhampton Plate Lock Cooperative Association.2 The Secretary of the Association wrote to me at Avignon that they were in difficulties, which threatened their existence, but that the state of their affairs was such as would justify the friends of cooperation in making advances to them, and that they had placed a statement in your hands. I told them in reply that I would when I had an opportunity, consult with you on the subject. I know how your time must be filled up, between your Lectures and your election work, but if at any casual moment you could briefly give me your opinion as to the state of their affairs, and as to whether anything can be done, or should be done, to help them, it would enable me to give them an answer. It is but little that I could in any case do to aid them, but even a little is sometimes useful: it is however an unthrifty mode of using one’s means of doing good, Edition: current; Page: [1483] to bolster up particular experiments of social improvement, if they have not in themselves the conditions of success.

I return Cairnes’ letter which you kindly sent to Avignon. It formed the ground of a long letter which I afterwards wrote to him,3 but which I do not know if he ever received. Perhaps you can tell me whether he has yet gone to Nice, and some more recent news of his health.

With kind regards to Mrs Fawcett I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 9, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Frederick Bates

Bates, Frederick

1324.

TO FREDERICK BATES1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 9, 1868

Dear Sir—

I suppose the persons who call me an Atheist are the same who are impudently asserting that Mr Gladstone is a Roman Catholic. I shd think my friends in W[estminster] must by this time be aware that Tories, in election times, stick at nothing. An attempt was made to raise the same cry against me at my first election, & the defence which I did not choose to make for myself was made for me by several eminent dignitaries of the C[hurch] of England.2 At that time I declared my deliberate determination, on principle, not to answer any questions whatever respecting my religious creed, because I acknowledge no right in any one to ask them, and because I owe it to future candidates & to the interest of future constituencies not to encourage a practice, the effect of which would be that when no objection can be found to a candidate’s character or political opinions, attempts would be made to extract from himself materials for raising a religious prejudice against him, which is often easiest stirred up against the best men. I think I shall act most rightly, & most in conformity to my principles by adhering to this declaration. If any one again tells you that I am an atheist, I would advise you to ask him, how he knows and in what page of my numerous writings he finds anything to bear out the assertion. You will find that he has Edition: current; Page: [1484] nothing at all to say. If he talks about my subscription for Mr Bradlaugh, he shd be asked whether he thinks that the working men of Northampton who adopted Mr B. as their candidate, or the members of the Reform League who elected him one of their Council, are all atheists.3 You are free to make any use you please of this letter.

I am, dear sir,
Yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 10. 1868

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1325.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Nov. 10. 1868

Dear Chadwick

Your prospects at Kilmarnock seem brightening. The newspapers have not reported what I said about election expenses and I have no note of it.

Meanwhile Mr Gill is very confident of returning you for West Cornwall.2 I inclose two letters from him. I have told him that you alone can judge between the two modes of proceeding which he has in view, and I hope you will write to him direct on the subject. I fear he is not a person of much influence, or he need not have asked for the loan of two or three pounds for travelling expenses. I have risked £5 on the venture. In haste

yrs ever

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 10. 1968

B[lackheath] P[ark]

William Randal Cremer

Cremer, William Randal

1326.

TO WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 10. 1968

Dear Mr Cremer—

I greatly regret that the onerous engagements connected with my own contest for W[estminster] as well as work relating to other elections nearer at hand, & not less important to the public interest than even yours put it out of my power to go down to Warwick & give you my personal assistance there.2

Edition: current; Page: [1485]

I have long felt, & I expressed the feeling on the second reading of Mr Gladstone’s reform bill in 1866, that one of the most desirable consequences of parly reform would be the presence in the H. of C. of some of the élite of the working classes. It is not for the sake of class interests that I desire this. Class legislation for the working classes is as much to be deprecated as class legislation for any other class. But the most numerous of all classes ought not to be without, what every other class has—representatives in Parlt who can speak from their own knowledge of the wants, the grievances, and the modes of thought & feeling of their class—of all which, Parliament ought to be fully informed, to enable it to legislate wisely and justly not for class interests but for the general interest; & no other persons however deservedly trusted by the working classes can speak on these subjects with either the same knowledge or the same authority as those who, being in other respects qualified, are themselves working men. I regret that so few working men have offered themselves as candidates at the present general election; & that one of the ablest & worthiest of them3 has had to retire from Chelsea in order not to risk the return of the Tory candidate.4 I am the more desirous on that account that a man like yourself, who possesses, & as I believe, fully deserves the confidence of a large & intelligent portion of the working classes, should succeed in his candidature. The importance of the contest is still further increased by the fact that your competitor is a Tory,5 who will vote against Mr Gladstone & in support of that great & old standing iniquity, the Irish Church Establishment.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 15, 1868

Blackheath Park, Kent

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1327.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Blackheath Park, Kent

Nov. 15, 1868

Dear Sir

I received your letter when on the point of setting out for England on account of the elections; with which I have been fully occupied ever since. I regretted much to hear of your illness, from which I hope you have, long ere this, completely recovered.

We may congratulate ourselves and each other on the political prospect in Edition: current; Page: [1486] both our countries. The election of Grant and Colfax2 will, to all appearance, be followed by the return to Parliament of a large majority to support a Gladstone government. Your anticipations have proved true as to Butler,3 but that is of very minor consequence.

I return to Avignon in a few days, and I fear I shall not be able within that time to pay my respects to you at Keston; but if you are passing anywhere near Blackheath and can find time to look in upon me, it would give me much pleasure to see and converse with you. I am

Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

C. Eliot Norton Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

le 19 Novembre 1868

Blackheath Park

Louis Blanc

Blanc, Louis

1328.

TO LOUIS BLANC1

Blackheath Park

le 19 Novembre 1868

Mon cher Monsieur Louis Blanc

Ne nous décourageons pas.2 La Réforme Parlementaire a donné à beaucoup d’ouvriers des droits électoraux, mais ils ne sont pas encore organisés, ni unis entr’eux. Aucun de leurs candidats n’a été nommé. Et comme je suis maintenant regardé comme voué à leur cause, tandis qu’à ma première élection en 1865, quelques-uns, je crois, espéraient de moi autre chose, j’ai succombé comme tout d’autres.

M. Gladstone aura une très grande majorité, et pour le moment c’est là l’essentiel. Quant à moi, je n’attendrais probablement pas longtemps une autre occasion, si j’en voulais une: en deux jours j’ai déjà reçu trois invitations; dont deux pour des comtés. Mais je serai probablement aussi utile, et certainement plus heureux, en écrivant au coin de mon feu.

J’ai lu avec grand plaisir ce que vous avez écrit au sujet de Chadwick. On a traduit et imprimé votre article à Kilmarnock.3 Mais Chadwick n’a pas eu Edition: current; Page: [1487] plus de succès que moi,4 et c’est un malheur, car il eût été très utile à la Chambre.

votre tout dévoué

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 19, 1868

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Charles Bradlaugh

Bradlaugh, Charles

1329.

TO CHARLES BRADLAUGH1

B[lackheath] P[ark]

Nov. 19, 1868

Dear Sir—

I may have lost some votes by my subscription for you, but neither that nor any one thing is the cause of my losing the election. Many things have contributed to it, & I shd very likely have been defeated if my name had never been coupled with yours. In any case it was a right thing to do & I do not regret it.

I am very sorry that you, as well as all other candidates who would have especially represented the working classes, have been unsuccessful. But their time will come. Your perseverance at N[orthampton] is fully justified by the result as notwithstanding the large number who voted for you have not, as was predicted, brought in a Tory.2

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 19. 1868

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1330.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Nov. 19. 1868

Dear Chadwick

When your telegrams arrived, I was at the Declaration of the Poll,2 where I was detained longer than I expected. When I got back it was past five, and Edition: current; Page: [1488] I thought you would be at Glasgow and telegraphed there. I do not suppose it made any difference. I am not surprised at your defeat.3 The new candidates of advanced opinions have been defeated everywhere. Not one working men’s candidate (whether a working man himself or not) and not one of the University Liberals has been returned. The only new men worth anything whom I have heard of that have succeeded, are Brewer,4 Pochin,5 and (some say) Dilke.6 I am extremely sorry for the money it has cost you. I should much like to see you member for Greenwich—far rather than myself. But I suspect neither of us could get in there without spending a considerable sum of money. After subscribing for Gladstone, people will not like to put their hands in their pockets immediately for somebody else.7 When Gill heard of my defeat, he telegraphed to ask if they might put me up for West Cornwall, but I answered “Chadwick if anybody.” I have just had an earnest entreaty to stand for Buckinghamshire. It would be funny to meet Disraeli on the hustings. But I am not tempted by it.

I am Dear Chadwick
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 19. 1868

Blackheath Park

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1331.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Blackheath Park

Nov. 19. 1868

Dear Sir

I thank you for the spine bag2 (I had never yet seen one) though my cold has got so much better that I shall not have occasion to make use of it this time.

The persons to be spoken to about cases of bribery are Mr Beal3 or Mr Edition: current; Page: [1489] Malleson.4 I believe they have information of some already. I cannot do anything myself in the matter.

If it suits you to call here on Saturday or Sunday, at any time before 3 or 4 in the afternoon, you are pretty sure to find me. If I know beforehand, I will remain at home.

I am Dear Sir
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 21. 1868

Blackheath

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1332.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Blackheath

Nov. 21. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I am sorry to hear of your cold (I too have had a bad one) and the more so because it will prevent my seeing you, as I start for Avignon on Monday.

There is no opening at Greenwich for either of us.2 I had a numerous deputation here, which I supposed had come to ask me to stand, in which case I should have declined, and, if I saw any chance should have recommended you. But they came to ask me not to stand, inasmuch as Baxter Langley’s3 supporters will not suffer him to retire, as he had voluntarily said he would if either Bright or I needed the seat. They were so bent on having Langley and only Langley, that it would have been waste of breath to have talked to them of any one else. You are quite in error if you think Tories would not oppose you. The Kilmarnock affair has classed you along with me as an extreme radical. A Tory is considered certain to start, and will probably come in, as there are expected to be three Liberals in the field: Langley as a radical, General Codrington4 as a mild Whig, and a Mr Soames,5 a local man, who has already started as a liberal unattached. I am

Dear Chadwick
yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Edition: current; Page: [1490]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 27. 1868

Avignon

John Buckle

Buckle, John

1333.

TO JOHN BUCKLE1

Avignon

Nov. 27. 1868

Dear Sir

I and my daughter (who as you know has undertaken the task for which I myself had not time, of preparing Mr Henry Buckle’s papers for publication)2 are very desirous to obtain materials by the aid of which Miss Emily Shirreff would be able to draw up some account of the life of Mr Buckle.3 I should be greatly obliged to you if you would assist me in this object, both by confiding to my care any papers in your possession that you think would be of use, and by using your influence with Mrs Allatt4 to induce her to do the same. Letters, and his journal, would of course be invaluable: and as Mrs Allatt would doubtless be able to furnish some reminiscences of her own, I should be also much obliged if you would kindly let me have her present address, that I may write requesting her help.

Mr Longman is willing to publish a volume containing Mr Henry Buckle’s fragments,5 along with something of the sort I suggest. I hope that Mr Longman’s arrangements with the family respecting the fragments already published in Fraser’s Magazine,6 have been satisfactory.

I am Dear Sir
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Buckle Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 27. 1868

Avignon

Edwin Chadwick

Chadwick, Edwin

1334.

TO EDWIN CHADWICK1

Avignon

Nov. 27. 1868

Dear Chadwick

I inclose a cheque as my subscription for your contest at Kilmarnock.2 No defeat grieved me so much; but of course all feeling about individual defeats is lost in that we have about the result of the elections as a whole: And after all, in your case as well as in mine, there is plenty of work to be done outside Edition: current; Page: [1491] the House of Commons, and therefore there is not so much cause for regret as in the case of those whose work lies only within it. Still I should have been glad if you, like myself, had had the opportunity of propounding some of your principal Heresies in the face of the House itself, and making it listen to them. I do not doubt but that, in that case, you, like myself, would have been very glad after a year or two to be dismissed from the work. I am

Dear Chadwick
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 27 1868

Avignon

Mrs. Rachel Chadwick

Chadwick, Mrs. Rachel

1335.

TO MRS. RACHEL CHADWICK1

Avignon

Nov. 27 1868

Dear Mrs Chadwick—

I have been unable earlier to acknowledge your reproachful & you must excuse me for saying, I think unreasonable letter. You appear to consider me as the adviser & instigator, & sole cause of Mr Chadwick’s offering himself as a candidate for the H. of Commons. I however have been aware that to be elected to Parlt. has been a strong desire of his for a great number of years, & one which he was almost certain to act upon, believing as he does on very good grounds that his public usefulness would be in an extraordinary degree increased by a seat in Parlt. Being in the habit of considering Mr C. to be a competent judge of his own affairs I by no means thought myself called on to dissuade him from the attempt, & when he had undertaken it of himself, & not by any advice of mine, I felt it my duty to give him all the help that could be given by my strongest testimony in his favour.

I regret to find that you do not support Mr C in a matter in which I am sure your encouragement would give him so much pleasure. One of the grounds of my high respect for Mr C has always been his willingness to [postpone?] private interests to public; & sympathy in his own home in such a willingness is the best source of repose & strength that a man can find. Of course you are a better judge than I am of what may or not be prudent in Mr C. to do in the matter of expense; but for this very reason I shd never dream of presuming to give him advice on such a subject, & I hope you will excuse me if I continue to say to yourself that the more you shew him that you sympathize in his public interests, the more insight will he be likely to Edition: current; Page: [1492] attach to your advice on those private concerns on which you are the best judge except himself.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 28. 1868

Avignon

Mrs. Elizabeth Lambert

Lambert, Mrs. Elizabeth

1336.

TO MRS. ELIZABETH LAMBERT1

Avignon

Nov. 28. 1868

.

Dear Madam—

Mr Bradlaugh is a man who has been guilty of the very great fault of using insulting language towards those who differ from him in religious opinions: a fault which he appears to share with your friend the clergyman who calls Mr B “the prince of scoundrels” in a country abounding in murderers, thieves, &c., &c. I am not aware that any accusations are made against Mr B’s moral character while I am quite certain that no such accusations could be substantiated, as if they could they would have been brought forward against him in the bitterness of the recently contested elections.2 The violence of the language which has been made use of by Mr B has been very greatly exaggerated by his opponents, & I believe that it was in his younger days that he made use of it but at the same time I have no excuse to offer for that. I myself know nothing of him except that he has put himself very boldly forward to advocate with considerable ability a great number of unpopular opinions; some of them unpopular among the upper classes, such as religious scepticism & democracy, others unpopular among working men, such as representation of minorities & the equality of women. If you will do me the honour to read my little book on Liberty, you will at once understand why I think such men as Mr B ought to be allowed to say what they have got to say, & not be abused for their opinions so long as they do nothing wrong.

I cannot easily express to you, & I will not take the trouble to try to express, the contempt I feel for a man who calling himself a Xtian can call another man the prince of scoundrels because of differences on religious opinion. If Mr B is wrong, a clergyman ought to be the first to pity him, the first also to recognise with humility that men with such opinions as Mr B can behave honourably & uprightly while men who call themselves Xtians are daily guilty of any crime against the laws of their country, of religion, & of the human conscience. Let such clergymen apply themselves to the improvement of their own flocks, & they will have neither time nor energy to spare for abusive language.

Edition: current; Page: [1493]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 28, 1868

Avignon

Charles Eliot Norton

Norton, Charles Eliot

1337.

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON1

Avignon

Nov. 28, 1868

Dear Mr Norton

If you do not leave England early in the spring, we may still have an opportunity of meeting, as, although I shall not hurry away from here as I have been obliged to do when in Parliament, while the weather is still wintry in England, I shall be at Blackheath, most likely, in the course of the month of March. My absence from the House of Commons is personally a very great relief to me, and therefore I have declined the invitations I have received to stand elsewhere. I accepted the invitation made to me three years ago, partly because of the reproach which has often been made against the literary men of America, that they would not enter into political life; a reproach, however, which I do not think well founded. Moreover, there were at that time some points which I thought could be usefully brought before the public through the House of Commons. Nor were the relations of America and England so settled then as now. At present I am very glad to be free from parliamentary work, much of which is a great waste of time, more especially during the height of the violent party contest on such a point as the Irish Church, the final result of which does not admit of a doubt, and yet which will cause a deplorable waste of time and energy. There are always periods of this sort in the practical working of politics, when those whose taste or talent lies rather in principles than in details can be of more use in literary than in political life.

I regret the defeat of the radical party throughout the country.2 It seems to have been owing to the want of organisation on their side, and to the great expenditure of money on that of our opponents. It remains to be seen, and I cannot venture to predict, how far our friends will be discouraged by the result. Those with whom I am myself in communication seem to be stimulated rather to more efforts; but perhaps they may be the most energetic among us. It is in any case satisfactory to find that if these elections have been carried by money, there is at all events so much money on the moderate liberal side; since after all, as a question between Gladstone and Disraeli, Gladstone is triumphant. When we consider how slow the English mind is to move, we must look upon this as a success, and trust to the Press to prepare the way for more progress hereafter. I am

Dear Mr Norton
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

C. Eliot Norton Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1494]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Nov. 30. 1868

Avignon

Lord Amberley

Amberley, Lord

1338.

TO LORD AMBERLEY1

Avignon

Nov. 30. 1868

Dear Lord Amberley

I regret exceedingly to hear today by the papers I have just received, that your contest has been unsuccessful.2 Had you been in the House this session, you would have been one of the exceedingly few men there in whom I should have felt thorough confidence; and there are some points, such as that of religious liberty, which you alone are willing to work. Your conduct on this matter has been so brave and generous that it will infallibly bear good fruit in the future. I see that the Times (model of piety!) snarls at you,3 as the Daily News did at me!4 but these snarls are the best testimony that one is doing work which really requires to be done, and which all the world is not ready to do.

I deferred writing, in the hope, growing slighter however from day to day as I saw how persistently the elections continued in one direction, that I might be able to congratulate you on a success at the same time that I thanked you for your kind letter on my defeat. I should myself be so far from willing to accept your kind suggestion5 [? as to say] that you are the candidate whom I should like to see for Westminster. If you have family influence there, I am sure the present state of affairs might remove all scruple in using it: and you are certainly the only man who could have, who would be really welcome to the advanced Liberals. I am recommending to them to make up their minds about their next candidate and set things in hand at once; I confess that though not mortified at present, I should be mortified if a Tory continues to represent Westminster,6 unless indeed it should turn out that the Tories have a fair and genuine majority there, which I do not expect.

The result of the elections seems to justify the opinion of those who said Edition: current; Page: [1495] that these elections would go by money. It is satisfactory, from this point of view, that there is so much money in the country read to stand by Gladstone. In some respects your defeat is, like my own, less a subject of regret to me than some others, because you have it in your power to use influences in other ways, and do not, I believe, personally find pleasure in the life of the House of Commons. Some of the reasons which made me most wish to see Mr Chadwick in the House do not apply to us. Mr Chadwick’s age and health do not give good promise for the future; he does not do justice to his ideas by the pen; and I believe he would personally like to be in the House.

I have no idea whatever of taking advantage of any opportunities that might present themselves of going into the House this session. I expect that it will be so much given up to the Irish Church debates that to me it would be particularly wearisome, for I do not think that anything I could say on the subject would have the slightest effect, since any one who would be amenable to any reasoning of mine must have made up his mind long ago. I hope I may not think it necessary to accept any future invitations to enter the House—I feel tolerably sure I shall not, until the time has come for pushing forward more advanced topics than are on the tapis there for the present. I am glad to have been in for the little time I was, as some of the questions I most wish to see discussed out of the House have been in some measure popularized by what I was able to do in it.

With our kind regards to Lady Amberley

I am Dear Lord Amberley
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

December, 1868

Alphonse Esquiros

Esquiros, Alphonse

1339.

TO ALPHONSE ESQUIROS1

[

December, 1868

]

Cher Monsieur,—

Je crois que les causes de mon insuccès à Westminster se réduisent principalement à trois:—1o, une grande supériorité d’organisation et d’habilité dans le parti opposé, les opérations dirigées par un homme d’affaires dans son propre intérêt étant ordinairement mieux conduites que celles qui dépendent d’un comité d’amateurs; 2o, une très grande Edition: current; Page: [1496] abondance d’argent du côté opposé, tandis que du nôtre il y avait à peine le strict nécessaire; 3o, l’hostilité de presque tous les vestrymen et autres notabilités locales qui sont les chefs ordinaires de l’action politique dans les localités, et à qui j’ai fortement déplu par la proposition que j’ai faite d’une meilleure constitution municipale.

Plusieurs autres circonstances sont venues se joindre à celles-là, mais je crois que celles que j’ai signalées sont les seules réellement importantes, et qu’elles auraient suffi pour empêcher ma réélection. Du reste, sauf l’échec porté par ma défaite au parti libéral avancé, qui d’ailleurs a tant souffert dans ces élections-ci, je n’ai rien à regretter. J’espère exercer en faveur de mes opinions une activité tout aussi grande, et beaucoup plus agréable pour moi, comme écrivain que comme député au parlement.

L’échec essuyé par notre parti (l’extrême gauche pour ainsi dire de l’Angleterre—le parti radical) est beaucoup plus à regretter et moins facile à expliquer, que le mien. Cependant il a été prévu comme vous le savez, par notre ami M. John Morley;2 et lui, avec beaucoup d’autres personnes qui sont dans le cas d’en bien juger, semble croire que c’est tout simplement affaie d’argent. Vous savez qu’un million a été retiré de la Banque dans la semaine avant les élections; et la prédominance des hommes d’argent a été tellement remarquable que le Standard même a fait l’observation que peut-être l’insuccès des hommes de talent et des jeunes hommes est dû tout simplement à ce que ni les uns ni les autres ne sont ordinairement des hommes riches.

Non seulement l’argent a été employé pour la corruption sur une echelle déplorable, mais encore, dans un pays comme le nôtre, tellement porté à respecter la fortune et la position sociale, l’influence qu’on peut appeler légitime de la fortune est extrêmement grande. Plus encore que tout cela, il y a une raison qui explique la grande importance de l’argent dans les élections chez nous, et surtout dans ces dernières élections, et cela est la lenteur de l’intelligence britannique qui a grand besoin d’être aiguillonnée par tous les moyens possibles avant qu’elle se décide à se mouvoir. Ces moyens tels que le canvass d’une maison à l’autre, les circulaires imprimées, les comités dans chaque paroisse, les dépenses de la registration même, et aussi des réunions publiques, demandent beaucoup d’argent. Plus il y a d’argent et mieux tout cela est organisé. Les classes ouvrières n’ont pas encore des organisations Edition: current; Page: [1497] électorales assez importantes. Il n’y a pas encore eu le temps. La Reform League a fait son possible, et cela a été bien peu. L’expérience apprendra aux hommes d’élite de la classe ouvrière ce qu’il y a à faire, et tôt ou tard on le fera.

Puis on a regardé ces élections un peu comme un duel entre M. Gladstone et M. Disraeli: et beaucoup ont cru qu’il suffisait d’envoyer au parlement un fidèle adhérent du premier et que cela était de la première urgence. Vous savez combien le peuple est souvent sujet à se laisser prendre par une seule idée; idée juste au fond, mais à laquelle on donne plus d’importance relative que peut-être elle ne mérite.

Ces dernières raisons ne s’appliquent pas à ma défaite, qui a été au profit d’un Tory. Mais celle-là je crois, comme je l’ai dit, était plutôt une question d’argent que de toute autre chose. . . . Je n’ai que trop à me louer de zèle et de l’enthousiasme avec lesquels j’ai été appuyé; mais, pas plus en Angleterre qu’ailleurs, le zèle et l’enthousiasme ne peuvent toujours lutter victorieusement contre l’intérêt. En fin de compte, nous pouvons nous réjouir que dans une lutte d’argent comme les dernières élections, il se soit trouvé assez d’argent et d’intérêts matériels prêts de se ranger du côté de la raison et de la justice pour donner la victoire à Mr. Gladstone et à l’abolition des privilèges de l’église protestante en Irlande. C’est déjà beaucoup, et bien fait pour nous encourager, quoique notre progrès soit lent.

Agréez, cher Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments de respect et d’amitié.

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

December, 1868

John Morley

Morley, John

1340.

TO JOHN MORLEY1

[

December, 1868

]

[“He (JSM) told one who was speaking of Condorcet’s Life of Turgot, that in his younger days whenever he was inclined to be discouraged, he was in the habit of turning to this book, and that he never did so without recovering possession of himself. (Cf. also Autobiog., chap. iv.) To the same friend (Morley), who had printed something in this Review (“The Chamber of Mediocrity”, n.s. IV [Dec. 1, 1868], 681-94) comparing Mr. Mill’s repulse at Westminster with the dismissal of the great minister of Lewis XVI, he wrote:]

I never received so gratifying a compliment as the comparison of me to Turgot; it is indeed an honour to me that such an assimilation should have occurred to you.

Edition: current; Page: [1498]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec.1. 1868

Avignon

Thomas Dyke Acland

Acland, Thomas Dyke

1341.

TO THOMAS DYKE ACLAND1

Avignon

Dec.1. 1868

Dear Mr Acland—

There are few if any of my friends in the H. of C. from whom such an expression of good opinion and of kind & friendly feeling as your letter contains, would have given me greater pleasure. I have been in strong sympathy with you on most or all of the subjects in which you have shewn a special interest during the time I was in the House, & I am heartily glad that you are still there to continue working for them.

Among those subjects, that of the most just & fair mode of raising taxes for local purposes is one of the most difficult & puzzling. It is quite true that Lopes2 was playing, to a great extent, a landlord’s game, & in my speech on his motion3 I contended that the peculiar pressure of the local rates on the rent of land was, as to a considerable part of it, just. At the same time, I believe we (you & I) agree in thinking that money is wanted for important local purposes now neglected or insufficiently provided for; that the difficulty of putting further pressure on the ratepayers is at present a serious obstacle to important public objects; & that the pecuniary resources required will have to be sought, entirely or partially, at the expense of kinds of property & income which now, in the main, escape from local rates. Your suggestion of transferring the assessed Taxes wholly or partially to local purposes, amounts in fact to allowing taxes on male servants, & on horses and carriages in aid of local rates; for the house tax falls entirely on the present ratepayers & the minor assessed taxes are not worth taking into account. I do not think that taxes on male servants or on horses & carriages not employed in business, are at all objectionable on grounds of political economy. They are fair taxes on luxuries, & the luxuries of all classes are fit objects of taxation. E contra, I would not tax any kind of public conveyance: post-horses, stage coaches, railways, &c, nor horses or carts used in trades; nor perhaps the carriage of a medical man; & even a private carriage is, to many persons in weak health, a luxury so nearly amounting to a necessary, that I would tax the first carriage much more lightly than the second or any greater number. And the same reason applies in some circumstances to the first man-servant. It must Edition: current; Page: [1499] be remembered in abatement from the efficacy of such taxes, in affording relief to the rates, that they would be, in a large proportion, paid by the same persons. But falling impartially on all who expend large incomes in the ordinary way, they would be in themselves a mode of raising money unobjectionable as to fairness.

What you say about the growing intelligence of the yeomen & the younger tenant farmers is one of the most gratifying things I have heard for a long time. If that improvement is general in the rural districts, political & social progress are safe even where the obstacles to them are strongest.

What you say of the possibility of reaction arising from religious feeling is very true, & it has long been a subject of grief to me that those feelings of religion which belong to the best parts of human nature shd not only be turned to mischief by their association with dogmas confusing to the intellect & very often, I am sorry to say, perverting the moral sense, but that also they shd actually be themselves the cause of dissension between the very persons who are most deeply imbued with them; those who feel them most strongly disliking most just those who also feel them most strongly, with whom they ought to be the firmest allies. Thus the most genuinely pious among the Catholics are often the most bitter against the Protestants, those among the C[hurch] of E[ngland] against Dissenters, those among the Dissenters against Deists &c &c. This is comparatively speaking an old evil, & one which it is comparatively difficult to remove, because when people hold very strongly particular dogmas it is natural that they shd specially dislike those who hold with equal intensity to other dogmas specifically contradictory to their own.

But I have long thought that what we now want in the present stage of the world is a union among all those men (& women) who are deeply impressed with the fundamental essence of religion, in so far as religion affects this world. To you I need scarcely point out that the special characteristic of Xtianity as opposed to most other religions is that it insists that religion does affect this world; making charity to our fellow-creatures & good actions the criterion of a good man. Now this is also the fundamental doctrine of those who are called Atheists as well as of those whose religious opinions are founded on individual convictions & are not therefore altogether in accordance with any of the sects. Honesty, self sacrifice, love of our fellow-creatures, & the desire to be of use in the world, constitute the true point of resemblance between those whose religion however overlaid with dogmas is genuine, & those who are genuinely religious without any dogmas at all. I have often been amazed that there are not more Xtians who perceive that Xtianity (I do not myself think however that any Xtian sect comes up to this ideal) forms a point of union for all men in this point of view. Now if those men who from any peculiarities of mental constitution—whether superiority or inferiority to the general average—find themselves unable to accept any dogmatic religion Edition: current; Page: [1500] whatever, not even the dogmas of natural religion, are to continue to wrap up their doubts in mystery, to be afraid to speak out, & to be the object of abuse whenever they do, a strong premium is put upon dishonesty on their part, & those among them who have a great deal of natural energy of character are drawn into a violence of language which hurts the feelings of other people & arouses in themselves something of that very intolerance from which they are sufferers. They are led to speak without respect & without tolerance of the religious convictions they do not share. In doing so they excite just resentment on the part of genuinely religious people, who would be the best qualified to sympathise in their honesty & disinterestedness, & those who really profit by the result are the hypocrites of all parties. Those who make religion a matter of worldly success & profit take care to draw the moral from all this that if a man once gives up the formal dogmas there can be no unison of feeling between him & pious men; those who have not a trace of religious feeling or religious conviction of any kind whatever but who have not the smallest wish to sacrifice a particle of worldly consequence & success are confirmed in the opinion that if they allowed the world in general to know the true state of their mind on religious matters they would become objects of opprobrium & deep seated dislike such as they see the outspoken men of their own opinions to be.

Now you will see how all this applies to Bradlaugh.4 Few people feel more dislike than I do to anybody who can use insulting expressions to that which excites the respect of their fellow creatures, or who treats with ingratitude those influences to which the world owes so much. A tender respect for every worthy & pious feeling, & a pious tenderness towards the past, constitute to my mind important elements of the religious character without which no character can be complete or altogether worthy of respect. But a courageous willingness to face opprobrium, an urgent need to speak the truth, a kind of necessity to fight against all falsehood & hypocrisy, are no less important elements of true religion. Some men will excel in some of these elements, some in others. “A diversity of gifts, but the same spirit.”5 I do not doubt in my own mind that many Ritualists6 who are or who fancy themselves ready to go to the stake for the cause of smart dresses in Church; Dissenters who will go to prison rather than pay Church rates; C[hurch] of E[ngland] missionaries who distribute Bibles among the Chinese, are the true brothers in spirit of Mr Bradlaugh. Like him they rush to excess in following out their opinions, but like him they act upon the principle that there are other things in this world better worth exertion than this world’s goods. I myself know Edition: current; Page: [1501] very little of Mr B. but I do happen to know that he has taken up several points of opinion which it is to be supposed are obnoxious to the working classes, although it is from the working classes alone that he can look for support & influence. I know that he offends the upper classes by his democracy, the middle classes by his atheism, & the working classes by Malthusianism, not to speak of the representation of minorities & of women—not very popular ideas either of them. How far Mr B. supports any of these opinions in the same manner or on the same grounds that I shd do myself I have not watched his career sufficiently closely to know. I do know that he supports some of them very differently from the way I think right. But I do not see how one can escape from the conviction that he is a brave man: & nobody can have heard him speak without believing him to be a clever one; so that he could probably push his way by more commonplace means if he chose to give up his opinions. I cannot say that I volunteered to support him as I did Odger (the only man I have volunteered to support) but when I was asked to do so, it seemed to me that it would have been fundamentally irreligious, because fundamentally cowardly & self-interested, to shrink back. We want now to establish a bond of union—public spirit & practical good deeds—between all disinterested men. They ought all to stand by one another, whatever their opinions, on this ground, & on this ground alone. Again & again, since this doctrine was taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan & in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, the battle has had to be fought for it; it is not half so bitter a struggle now as it was in former times, but there is a good deal of bitterness left, most of which bitterness however is imported into it by the hypocrites, who use it as a weapon for their own purposes.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 1. 1868

Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

1342.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Avignon

Dec. 1. 1868

My dear Grote

I am extremely obliged to you for your kindness about the note on Aristotle’s theory of Universals,2 to which I look forward with great pleasure,3 and which will be a contribution to the value of the book such as no one but yourself could give. I am very grateful also for the kind things you say about my defeat in Westminster. Except as a part of the general rout Edition: current; Page: [1502] of men of brains or of strong opinions at these elections, I doubt if my rejection is to be regretted even on public grounds, and on private it is most heartily to be rejoiced at. I do not gather from my friends in Westminster any very clear accounts of the cause of my defeat, but I put it down myself mainly to three causes: the inferiority of the organisation directed by a Committee to that which is pushed by one individual; the immense influence of money; and the dislike of the Vestries to the Metropolitan Bill.4 With such good causes as these, every little helps to swell the general result, and with Disraeli for a leader the Tories are better fitted to take advantage of every possible chance than they have been for a long time. Of course, if my own rashness cost the seat, I should not the less have done what I have done, for after all Gladstone can better afford to lose one vote than I and those who care for me can afford that I should not act up to my principles. But, as a matter of fact, I greatly doubt whether Bradlaugh, Bouverie, &c. are at all accountable for my defeat.

Helen thanks you very much for your kind mention of her in your letter. But she feels the relief if possible with even more pleasure than I do. Her health suffers very much from the English climate, and she is very deeply imbued with the conviction that one true principle set afloat in the world does more for progress than a hundred points of practical detail. I am not sure whether she did not dislike my being in Parliament more than I did myself, as she certainly suffered more from it in health: but she would not give in, and made it a point of pride to encourage me to stay at the post as long as there seemed any chance of my doing anything at it. On the whole, we both feel that circumstances have decided well for us. We think I was able to do some good work while I was in the House, and we look forward with delight to being able now to work in a much pleasanter manner. I shall soon have the Analysis ready for the press and have other projects in view.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, whose health we hope continues to improve, I am

My dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

George Grote Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1503]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

1st December 1868

Avignon

S. Alfred Steinthal

Steinthal, S. Alfred

1343.

TO S. ALFRED STEINTHAL1

Avignon

,

1st December 1868

.

Dear Mr Steinthal,—

The result of the new elections, now that they are complete, appears to be on the whole unfavourable to the cause of women’s suffrage. The new members in favour of it are but few, and there have been losses among both its Tory and Liberal supporters. It appears therefore improbable that any efficient stand can be made on this subject in the House of Commons this session; and I have long been of opinion, and expressed myself strongly to that effect last year, that it would be injurious to the cause if a division should take place leaving us with smaller numbers than in the former division. It would be doubly injurious, first by seeming to show a reaction in public opinion against us, and secondly, by depriving us, as it very probably would, of the prestige of Mr John Bright’s name,2 which at present we are able to boast.

Shortly before the late elections I received (and I suppose other expected Members of Parliament received also) a circular which I enclose, which was addressed to me in a blank cover. The announcement it contained seemed singularly injudicious at a moment when it was quite unknown what would be the character of the new House, and the question ill timed, being addressed to men who might not be, and some of whom have not proved to be, in it. I cannot help thinking that you will agree with me that the most judicious way of bringing the subject before the House of Commons is by petition, and if possible, by a petition on a far greater scale than has been yet attempted. A really extensively signed petition on the part of the women of the kingdom, with those men who desire with them an alteration of the law in their favour, is the proper reply to the authoritative decision that the law is now against them. Indeed, if it were a good occasion for bringing forward a Bill in the House of Commons, and if all promised favourably for an influential increase of the votes on our side, it would still be most desirable to show that out of the House as well as in it, and among women as well as men, there exists a strong desire for their representation. And while the feeling is still fresh among those women who have been disappointed of the power to vote, is the time for asking them to petition. It would show but little perseverance in Edition: current; Page: [1504] women if they cannot go on year after year asking for this change of the law, when we remember with what patience these sorts of petitions are continually renewed for the various political objects which men desire. If we compare the amount of petitioning that women have yet had patience for, with the numbers sent up year after year on the comparatively small grievance of Church rates, it would almost seem to justify the assertions of those who say that women are not yet fit for political rights if they are already wearied out. The desire to produce éclat and great results with small means, and effects that should tell at once rather than that should prepare the way silently for the future, are indeed what we have to fear from inexperienced politicians. It seems very advisable to show women that they have a means in their own hands of quietly and steadily pressing their claims upon the legislature, and encourage them to begin that great lesson of steady, silent, persevering effort by which every class and nation has to be fitted for freedom.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 2. 1868

Avignon

John Plummer

Plummer, John

1344.

TO JOHN PLUMMER1

Avignon

Dec. 2. 1868

Dear Mr Plummer

I thank you for your kind letter of Nov. 18. It is a great gratification to me that so many of my friends thought me sufficiently useful in the House of Commons to regret my absence from it. But, with the command I now have of my time I hope to be of more use by writing than I had any prospect of being in the Parliament just elected.

With our kind remembrances to Mrs Plummer, I am

Dear Mr Plummer
very truly yours

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 2. 1868

Avignon

Herbert Spencer

Spencer, Herbert

1345.

TO HERBERT SPENCER1

Avignon

Dec. 2. 1868

.

Dear Mr Spencer

I had the pleasure of seeing your friend Dr Youmans2 before leaving Edition: current; Page: [1505] England. I have told him that your letter, combined with his Prospectus, made me look upon his projected publication as one which I should be very glad to aid, and that I may be able to send an occasional contribution, but that, even when out of Parliament, I have so little time for periodical writing, that I cannot hold out any definite expectation. Dr Youmans expressed a desire to make arrangements for the publication in America, simultaneously with England, of any future books I may publish,3 and in this respect it is probable that I may be able to meet his wishes.

I have been wanting to write to you ever since I read carefully through the new edition of your First Principles4 and the whole of your Biology,5 which formed a very interesting part of my occupations during the last recess. But I had to get to other work, and meanwhile many things which I had it in my mind to say to you have escaped my memory. If worth saying they will again occur to me when I refer to your books, which are not of a kind to make one rest contented with a single reading. This I may say, that I have seldom been more strongly impressed by any scientific treatise than by your Biology; that it has greatly enhanced my sense of the importance of your philosophical enterprise as a whole; and that, altogether apart from the consideration of what portion of your conclusions, or indeed of your scientific premises, have yet been brought into the domain of proved truth, the time had exactly come when one of the greatest services that could be rendered to knowledge was to start from those premises, simply as a matter of hypothesis, and see how far they will go to form a possible explanation of the concrete parts of organization and life. That they should go so far as they do, fills me with wonder; and I do not doubt that your book, like Darwin’s, will form an era in thought in its particular subject, whatever be the scientific verdict ultimately pronounced on its conclusions; of which my knowledge of the subject matter does not qualify me to judge.

I look forward with great delight to occupations for myself, more allied to yours than those to which so much of my time has been devoted for the last three years; and I share your doubt whether the quieter mode of usefulness which is so much more agreeable to myself, is not also, in my case, the most Edition: current; Page: [1506] efficacious. I am on the point of sending to press a new edition of my father’s Analysis of the Mind,6 with copious notes and additions by Bain and myself, which, bringing up the doctrines of the book to the present level, will give one more classical work to the Experience Psychology. I am

Dear Mr Spencer
Yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Herbert Spencer Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 4. 1868

Avignon

John Elliot Cairnes

Cairnes, John Elliot

1346.

TO JOHN ELLIOT CAIRNES1

Avignon

Dec. 4. 1868

Dear Mr Cairnes

I had the great pleasure of receiving your letter of Nov. 9 while I was in England for the elections, and I afterwards saw a letter from you to Thornton written on the news of my defeat. From this last I learnt that your health was somewhat better since your return to Nice. It is very pleasant that the climate of Nice seems to suit you, and to be at least not unfavourable to Mrs Cairnes, of whose improvement in health you report so satisfactorily.

I am very grateful for the kind interest you shew in my health and feelings, but for neither need you feel the smallest anxiety. It must be remembered that I am not alone to do my work, and that it is the work not of one but of two persons. The cold I had when on the hustings soon abated, and is now, I may say, gone; leaving me in every respect in my usual health. And I really have much difficulty in feeling as I ought to do about what is a real defeat to advanced Liberal opinions, so great and fresh is the pleasure of the feeling of freedom, and the return to the only occupations which agree with my tastes and habits. I hope to be quite as active for my opinions out of the House as I was in it, and more usefully so than I probably should have been during the next Session (if not Sessions) during which the Irish Church will engross nearly all the activity of Parliamentary men. You are the only person who seems to me to feel about the Irish Church exactly as we do.2

There is discouragement in the general rejection by the constituencies, of candidates whose claims were either those of culture or of democracy. But when one looks into the circumstances, the case is not so bad as it seems. Edition: current; Page: [1507] Things had so fallen out, through management or neglect of management, that almost all the new University Liberals, and almost all the working class candidates were sent to the forlorn hopes. How could a Liberal expect to carry Woodstock, or Chippenham, or even Abingdon? and how could a working man come in for Warwick, or the hundreds of Aylesbury? When one adds to this that the new electors were not likely to get into organised concert until they were sure that they were on the register, which numbers of them were not till the very eve of the dissolution, there is nothing in this part of the results so ominous of the future as it at first appears. On the other hand, the unanimity of Scotland, and the great Liberal gains in Ulster, are of excellent augury, as shewing that a large portion of the Presbyterians, even in the North of Ireland, are going in for disestablishment. The lukewarmness on the subject which you observed in the Catholic priests,3 makes the greatness of the gains in the Irish elections more remarkable, since it must be ascribed mainly to the laity.

I quite agree with you that the best chance of resisting the retrograde step of making Irish education denominational, lies in delay.4 If two or three years can be gained, we may hope that England will have entered so decidedly into undenominationalizing education, that it will be difficult to make a change in Ireland the reverse way. This is the one question on which it seems to me that I might perhaps have been of some use in this Parliament; because mischief may be done, which might be at least mitigated by any one person’s raising his voice against it, or even sometimes by mere lobby work among the members. However, we must look to Lowe.

I regret very much the rejection of Chadwick who seemed latterly to have a good chance of success, and who would have been a more valuable acquisition to the House than any one man I can think of. Bradlaugh is, as you say, not a working man: but if he had been repudiated generally by the artisan class, he could hardly have obtained upwards of 1000 votes. I feel an interest Edition: current; Page: [1508] in him not merely because of the religious cry raised against him, but because he is as willing to stand up for opinions disliked by the working classes, as for those by which he might hope to recommend himself to them: witness his earnest Malthusianism, his support of women’s suffrage, and his intelligent and thorough advocacy of Hare’s system.

I shall be very glad to see any further remarks of Mr McDonnell on the subject of [his] essay.5 The difficulty of establishing a d[emocratic?]6 government in the Southern States is, no doubt, considerable, the white population being what it is. But every month’s experience makes me feel more and more, what an evil it would have been to have left a nucleus of legal and recognised slavery even in the smallest corner of the Union.

Helen is in at least her usual health, and is likely to get much better now, for the relief to her from our return to more healthy circumstances is such as any one would hardly believe possible. She bore up most heroically and wished me to remain in harness while it seemed a duty to do so, but it was at the cost of gradually drying up her springs of life.

With our kind regards to Mrs Cairnes, I am

Dear Mr Cairnes
ever truly yours

J. S. Mill

J. E. Cairnes Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Decr 4. 1868

Avignon

Mrs. Philippine Kyllmann

Kyllmann, Mrs. Philippine

1347.

TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN1

Avignon

Decr 4. 1868

My dear Mrs Kyllmann

I have just received yours of the 2nd which must have crossed my answer to your former letter and from which I learn with regret that my delay in answering was mistakenly attributed by you to reluctance to enter on the subject. My delay was caused by my wish to shew your letter to Mr Mill before I answered it, by his absence in England at the time I received it & by the press of other business causing one or two days delay after his return.

Edition: current; Page: [1509]

I am sure no one could think your letter other than most delicate, & the request in it most reasonable. Had we known at the time I answered it that you felt as strongly as from your last letter we see you do, in which feeling we most fully sympathize, I shd not have hesitated myself to enter more fully into the subject.

The letter I mentioned to you in my last was very far from the first of the same sort I have received, & if I may judge by the apparently studied discourtesy which has been shewn to us, of the habitual manner in which friends & subscribers are treated by the Manchester branch of the National Society, I believe that exceedingly few persons but ourselves would have continued in spite of it to be as liberal as we have been. That such habits must have the effect of alienating friends from the cause I have long felt with regret. I was not aware, of course, until I heard from you, that the urgent requests for money by which the M. Committee has been distinguished from all the other branches of the Society, were not authorized by the Committee meetings. However much offended & pained we have felt by many things we did not choose to withdraw altogether our pecuniary support when we supposed it was urgently needed: but we did, by insisting that the larger part of it shd be given entirely in your name, endeavour to secure its application to the purposes we desired.

We were greatly pleased to find that you are again Treasurer, as we had hoped to be able to communicate with you occasionally on these matters in future, & our last subscn to the M. Comee would have been considerably smaller in amount had we not wished to secure you against loss. We never for a moment supposed that you were cognizant of any of the letters we received unless when they had been directed to be written by the Comee. How far this last was the case we were of course unable to judge, but we supposed that although the particular terms were not dictated by the Cee, the request was made by its directions. We certainly thought that as our subscns had been made for two trials & only one came on, there would have been more delicacy shewn if some part had been returned, or some statement of the expenses incurred had been forwarded to us. Our experience however did not lead us to expect anything of the sort.

It is with very great sorrow I find that my unfortunate delay shd have caused you to think that we in any degree attributed any of all this to you. We have often deeply regretted the loss of our friend2 & his invaluable services in this as in every other good cause & that it should have brought with it what seemed the very natural consequence that your own health shd keep you out of the active part of the Cee. I am sure you will understand that we cannot for a moment think of accepting your generous inclosure. We have felt from the first moment of seeing your name in the newspapers that in giving your name Edition: current; Page: [1510] & being willing to take the responsibility of expense if need be you have done fully your part. I therefore beg of you to allow us to share with you as we wished to do in the enterprise, & if your share of the expenses of the appeal have amounted to £50, we shd wish to pay it all. Moreover I do not understand what complications may have arisen with the M. Cee and we are most anxious that you shd not be involved in any misunderstandings in the matter. If the funds we subscribed for the expenses of your appeal have been applied to any other purpose, we will not consent to your making it good to us. If we consented to this, our purpose would be doubly thwarted. Money would have been applied to objects for which we had no intention of advancing it & the final result of the whole transaction would be that you are a loser.

There is so much that is unsatisfactory for some time past about the management of the M Cee that we feel we had better not be concerned in it for the present.3 For while we feel that we have ourselves been the objects of marked rudeness, we feel that as long as our names are connected with it we might be held responsible in some measure for rudeness of the same sort towards other people. But as it appears to us most desirable for the interests of the cause that there should be no dissensions among its supporters, we have not chosen to express our feelings to the Cee as a body, even shd we wish to withdraw our help when it is engaged in doing useful work which we alone are willing to help effectually. For this reason it is that we have gone on subscribing & have asked no questions about the application of our last subscriptions.

But if you judge that by the Committee or any of its members being aware of our feelings any good purpose could be served we are quite willing that anything I have said shd be made use of for the purpose.

H. Taylor

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec 4 1868

Avignon

Mrs. Philippine Kyllmann

Kyllmann, Mrs. Philippine

1348.

TO MRS. PHILIPPINE KYLLMANN1

Avignon

Dec 4 1868

My dear Mrs Kyllmann

May I ask you to inform your Committee that it is my own and Miss Taylor’s desire to withdraw our names from the Manchester So[ciety] for W[omen] S[uffrage]

J. S. Mill

Mrs Max Kyllmann

Edition: current; Page: [1511]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7, 1868

A[vignon]

John Candlish

Candlish, John

1349.

TO JOHN CANDLISH1

A[vignon]

Dec. 7, 1868

Dear Mr Candlish—

A thousand thanks for your kind & warm hearted letter. It is not altogether a selfish pleasure to be glad to be so regretted; for the assurance that friends like you think after trial that my presence was really useful in the H. of Commons is an evidence I could ill spare that I did not commit an error of judgment when I exchanged another mode of usefulness for the far less congenial one of a seat in Parlt. In returning to my older & more natural mode of activity I shall not lose the feeling which my three years in Parlt have given me, of brotherhood in arms with those who are still there fighting the battles of advanced liberalism, & I shall always be happy & proud to cooperate with them out of the House, either by my pen or otherwise.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7. 1868

Avignon

Henry Fawcett

Fawcett, Henry

1350.

TO HENRY FAWCETT1

Avignon

Dec. 7. 1868

Dear Mr Fawcett

You will, I am sure, understand that my not having acknowledged your letter of Nov. 20 until I have nearly brought up the arrears of my correspondence, was not because I felt little, but because you do not need any fresh assurances to know how much I do feel. I am not the less touched at the regrets of my friends because I myself have no need of consolation. On the contrary, we are in the first flush of enjoyment of our recovered freedom, and in better cue than we have been a long while for working hard and efficiently for our opinions. The elections, though so unfavourable to candidates of advanced opinions, have given us a House capable of the immediate work it had to do, viz. to make Gladstone minister, and disestablish the Irish Church. Between this and the next General Election, the working classes will have time to organize their political action, and to insist upon having an equal share of influence in the choice of candidates: and it is then, and not before, that Chadwicks will prevail over Bouveries and Odgers over Henry Hoares.2 Edition: current; Page: [1512] Meanwhile it is a great satisfaction to me that you are still in the House to assert great principles, and that you are as unlikely a man as any one there to be easily discouraged. I need hardly say that I am always at your command for any help I can give you out of the House, and that not meeting you there, I shall hope to see you oftener at Blackheath.

Mrs Fawcett’s article has given us as much pleasure in the Fortnightly as it did when we first had the opportunity of reading it.3 Pray give her Helen’s and my kind regards. I am

Dear Mr Fawcett
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

Henry Fawcett Esq. M.P.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7. 1868

Avignon

Henry G. Mackson

Mackson, Henry G.

1351.

TO HENRY G. MACKSON1

Avignon

Dec. 7. 1868

Dear Sir

Your letter of the 29th ulto has just reached me.

The “Analysis of the Mind” has long been out of print, but a new edition will shortly be published with notes and additions by myself and others.2 I am not aware that the History of British India is out of print, and I should suppose that the edition which was published with a continuation by the late Professor Wilson,3 could be procured from Allen4 in Leadenhall Street, formerly bookseller to the East India Company. The publisher of the edition, Mr Madden,5 has, I am almost sure, given up business, but I do not know into whose hands his copyrights passed.

I thank you sincerely for your kind condolences on my defeat at Westminster; which was, I believe, mainly due to superior organisation and lavish expenditure of money on the other side, and only in a very minor degree to Edition: current; Page: [1513] any prejudice against myself, religious or other. To me the recovery of my freedom, and return to more congenial and I hope quite as useful occupation, is wholly a good. I am

Dear Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

H. G. Mackson Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7. 1868

A[vignon]

R. C. Madge

Madge, R. C.

1352.

TO R. C. MADGE1

A[vignon]

Dec. 7. 1868

Dear Sir—

The earnest & kindly letter which I have just received from the Committee of the Chelsea Working Men’s Parliamentary Electoral Association gives me very great pleasure. That the élite of the working classes should think so kindly of me & should attach so much importance to my political services, I feel to be a subject of just pride, since it has been given to me not in spite of, but, as I believe partly in consequence of, my having made no sacrifices of my honest convictions to obtain it. It is because I have never concealed from the working classes, any more than from any other class, my differences of opinion with them, & my determination not to be the organ in parliament of any opinions not my own, that they have had confidence in my sincerity when I professed to agree with them, & have never failed to give me a patient, a respectful, & even a sympathetic hearing on the points on which we differed.

If the electors of the working classes continue to guide themselves in the choice & treatment of their representatives by the same principles & feelings which have governed their conduct towards me, the progress of democracy will soon cease to give uneasiness to any sincere & reasonable minds.

There is much which is gratifying & something which is disappointing in the results of the General Election. It has decided, thoroughly & irrevocably, the question of religious equality in Ireland, in the only way which could be tolerated in the present age, the impartial disendowment of all sects: & has to that extent lightened the burthen of the reparation due to the people of that ill-treated country for centuries of misrule. It has also raised to the place Edition: current; Page: [1514] of highest power the one English minister2 of past or present times who has best deserved, & has obtained in largest measure, the confidence of the labouring classes. On the other hand, those classes, though to their votes the liberal party principally owes its victory, are far from having had their just influence in the selection of the members who represent the party in the new H. of Commons. No working man has been a successful candidate; even so distinguished a member of the working class as Mr Odger, the ignorant attacks on whom have only served to bring forth from all sides additional tributes to his worth has found, even in your metropolitan borough, that the zeal of his supporters could not compete with the greater wealth & superior organization of other candidates & when this was ascertained, he honourably consented to withdraw. Those new candidates who though not working men, possessed the special confidence of the working classes, or who combined high education & culture with advanced opinions, have in general been equally unsuccessful.

It was not to be expected that there could be much organisation & concert among voters who, when the election took place, had only just been put on the electoral roll. But if these things happen a second time, the new electors will have chiefly themselves to blame.

Public opinion will in time demand the only complete remedy, the adoption of Personal Representation, by which the electors would be enabled to group themselves as they pleased, & any electors who chose to combine could be represented, in exact proportion to their numbers, by men of their own personal choice. But as this great improvement in representative Govt is not yet ripe for adoption, what should be done now is that the working classes should assert their right to an equal voice with the Liberals of the higher & middle classes in the choice of Liberal candidates. Where a place returns two members, one of these should be a candidate specially acceptable to the working classes: where there is but one, he shd be selected in concert by both sections of liberals. Thus much the working classes are fairly entitled to, & thus much if they insist, they will obtain; for liberal candidates can in most places no more be elected without their cooperation, than elected by them alone, without the cooperation of others.

There is one thing more which demands the immediate & most strenuous efforts of the working classes & of all who wish the recent change in our representative institutions to be more than nominal. The real cause of the failure of working class candidates & of so many other advanced liberals in the late contests, is the inordinate expense of elections. In a great majority of these cases, if money had had no influence, or if the expenditure of it had been Edition: current; Page: [1515] equal on both sides, the popular candidate would in all probability have succeeded. If the working classes ever wish to be more genuinely represented than they are, they should make a united & energetic appeal to Parlt to clear away this obstacle to their representation. They should demand that the necessary expenses of elections be made a public charge, & that the useless & noxious expenses be made illegal & punishable. Some of their best friends vainly exerted themselves to extort measures for this purpose from the last Parliament, but Tories & lukewarm Liberals were too strong for them. Mr. Gladstone however made known both by speech & vote his approbation of the attempt; & we may feel confident that if properly supported by the people he will be no reluctant leader in the accomplishment of this, one of the most urgent as well as essential of remaining Parliamentary reforms. But when there is so great a mass of interested or timid resistance to be encountered, a reform is not properly supported unless it is strenuously urged.

Once more thanking your Committee for their gratifying expression of feeling towards me, I am, &c

J. S. Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7. 1868

Avignon

Archibald Michie

Michie, Archibald

1353.

TO ARCHIBALD MICHIE1

Avignon

Dec. 7. 1868

Dear Sir

I am much honoured by your thinking it worth while to write so long and interesting a letter for the purpose of convincing me that the people of Victoria are not so far gone in Protectionism as they are thought to be. I have never laid stress on anything contained in the article in the Westr Review,2 which did not, to my judgment, look like a fair representation. I need not say how glad I should be to believe that the Victoria Protectionists are Protectionists only within the limits of my excepted case, i.e. that they only wish for temporary protection to try the experiment of naturalizing foreign branches of industry. Unfortunately, the writings I have seen on their side of the question Edition: current; Page: [1516] (I admit that they are not numerous) make no reservation of the kind, but advocate the general theory of Protection, on the old ignorant grounds, support it by the old stock fallacies, and refer to the stupidest authorities, British, American, and Continental, as a sanction for it. All this is very natural. The Protectionist theory appears plain common sense to persons thoroughly ignorant of the subject; and industries artificially fostered, even though it be professedly for a time only, raise up private interests which combine, as they have done in the United States but too effectually, to convert what was intended as a temporary expedient into a permanent institution; (though the thick end of the wedge seldom follows the thin end at so short an interval as three years). These considerations have greatly shaken the opinion I expressed in my book; and though I still think that the introduction of a foreign industry is often worth a sacrifice, and that a temporary protecting duty if it was sure to remain temporary, would probably be the best shape in which that sacrifice can be made, I am inclined to believe that it is safer to make it by an annual grant from the public treasury, which is not nearly so likely to be continued indefinitely to prop up an industry which has not so thriven as to be able to dispense with it.

I can readily believe that the Free Trade party in Victoria is swelled by the private self interest of importing merchants; but a cause seldom triumphs unless somebody’s personal interest is bound up with it. It would have been long before the corn laws would have been abolished in Great Britain if, besides the public interests concerned, those laws had not been contrary to the private interests of nearly the whole of the manufacturing and mercantile classes.

It gives me extreme pleasure that you approve of what I have said and done to promote the admission of women to the political franchise. If your important and rising community could be induced to adopt this great social improvement (if I am rightly informed, it is adopted already at your municipal elections) it would not be the first time that a colony has outstripped the mother country in the introduction of improved principles of legislation.

With many thanks for your [offer]3 of information which it may be a great advantage to me to be able to obtain from so good a source, I am

Dear Sir
yours very faithfully

J. S. Mill

Hon. Arch. Michie.

Edition: current; Page: [1517]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 7. 1868

Avignon

Alexander T. Teetgen

Teetgen, Alexander T.

1354.

TO ALEXANDER T. TEETGEN1

Avignon

Dec. 7. 1868

Dear Sir

Though your poetry2 had been equal to Shelley’s, it probably would not have covered the original sin of your opinions in the eyes of such critics as the one in the London Review.3

Even he, however, gives you credit for “some poetic ability.” But I am inclined to think that at the present period of the world, ability (except perhaps in the case of the very highest order of poetic genius) is thrown away when it addresses itself to the world by means of verse. The time for poetic composition may come round again; but it will be a quieter time, after several great battles have been fought and won. Both the instruction and the exhortation necessary for winning them, is much more effectually given in prose.

With respect to your wish that I should review your poem, I can only say, as before, that I have not time; nor is poetic criticism in the line of my pursuits. I am

Dear Sir
yrs very faithfully

J. S. Mill

A. T. Teetgen Esq

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 9. 1868

A[vignon]

Dr. Edward Livingstone Youmans

Youmans, Dr. Edward Livingstone

1355.

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

A[vignon]

Dec. 9. 1868

Dear Sir

I have communicated to my publishers, Messrs Longmans, that I had received a proposal from an American house2 to take moulds from the types Edition: current; Page: [1518] of the forthcoming new edition of my father’s Analysis of the Mind with a view to the simultaneous publication of an edition in America; & they have consented to my reserving this right. Should you therefore still be of the same mind on this subject I shall be very glad to hear further from you in relation to it.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 10. 1868

A[vignon]

Dr. Edward Livingstone Youmans

Youmans, Dr. Edward Livingstone

1356.

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

A[vignon]

Dec. 10. 1868

Dear Sir—

Since I wrote to you I have received a more definite letter from Mr Longman, in which he says “with regard to the stipulation as to the American publisher of the Analysis,2 we are quite ready to supply them with stereotype plates, but I think they ought to pay something more than the mere cost of casting. It would be fair that they should also pay a proportion of the cost of setting the type. About 15 per cent on this cost would probably be sufficient. It is to be remembered that the cost of setting the types of a book intended to be stereotyped is greater than when this is not the case.”

It is for you to consider whether you regard Mr Longman’s proposal as acceptable.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 11. 1868

A[vignon]

Thomas Beggs

Beggs, Thomas

1357.

TO THOMAS BEGGS1

A[vignon]

.

Dec. 11. 1868

Dear Sir—

Pray excuse my long delay in answering your letter.2 I have no doubt that as you say our defeat in W[estminster] is owing to the good organisation & discipline of the Tories, to their lavish expenditure, much of which according to your account must have come within the legal penalties of treating, & to their having on their side a large number of practised electioneers, & perhaps some of them vestrymen, offended by the municipal bills. It is of great importance that W[estminster] shd redeem itself, & I heartily wish you Edition: current; Page: [1519] success in your endeavours. At the same time, if we take a large view of the subject, it appears to me that it is more conducive to the growth of high political principle in the electors & consequently to the permanent political progress of the nation, that the liberal party in any constituency shd occasionally suffer defeat from the scrupulous purity of the means it employs, than that it shd practise tactics unworthy of a good cause & thereby win a seeming success by means subversive of the principles to which the party owes its life. It is very painful to all true liberals to see their own constituency represented by a Tory in Parlt. Yet I think that this sometimes may be a wholesome humiliation if it stimulates them to redoubled efforts to arouse the political energies of the constituency by all morally legitimate & honorable means. The true humiliation is when honorable men become in the words of the Psalm, “emulous of evil doers,”3 & despairing of serving a good cause by good means, fancy that a temporary discomfiture is a permanent defeat & have recourse to methods of achieving success which are quite as humiliating as, & infinitely more mischievous than, defeat itself. It is much to be hoped that the advanced liberal party which has to a certain extent, owing partly to its want of organisation & partly to the results of its scrupulous adherence to perfectly honourable means, sustained a comparative defeat all over the country, will not despair of future success by such means, but will remember that so great & so important a reform as purity of election cannot be won at once nor until after having sustained many partial reverses.

I must take this opportunity of thanking you & the other kind friends who supported me in W. for their zealous support & for the thorough manner in which they carried out the principles on which I stood: & I can assure you that although I had not personally any desire to be in the H. of C. I did not on that account neglect anything that I thought it right for me to do or not to do for the purpose of securing my election. I can sincerely say (& it is due to the electors of W. that it shd have been so) that I acted in all things as I shd have done had my career been dependent upon my success. Whatever I did that might seem to have perilled my return, I did not do because I was indifferent to my return, for as an honorable politician I could never be indifferent to the return of any liberal candidate, & as candidate for W. I was doubly bound in honor to exert myself for the liberal representation of the constituency: which motive I am sure you will do me the justice to believe, was fully as strong in my mind as the desire to be in Parlt could be in the mind of any ambitious young politician. If, therefore, I felt myself obliged to do some things which it is very likely. . . .4

Edition: current; Page: [1520]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 11. 1868

A[vignon]

Edward William Stafford

Stafford, Edward William

1358.

TO EDWARD WILLIAM STAFFORD1

A[vignon]

Dec. 11. 1868

Dear Sir—

When I had the honour of receiving your letter of Sept. 4 my time was so fully occupied with our great electoral struggle & other things, that I have been obliged to defer answering it till now.

I have had a rather extensive correspondence with various persons in Australia respecting the sanction supposed to be given by the passage which you quote from my Pol. Econ. to the Protectionist doctrines there afloat. One of my most recent explanatory letters which was addressed to Mr Holden,2 Member of the Legislative Council of N. S. Wales, has been printed in the newspapers of that Colony, & it is not unlikely that since writing your letter you may have seen it.3

The Protecting Duties which I thought might sometimes be advisable in a young country for the purpose of ascertaining by experiment the suitability of its circumstances for the naturalisation of foreign branches of industry, are duties expressly imposed for a limited time, not exceeding a few years (say from five to twelve or thereabouts according to the case) & to cease peremptorily at the end of the period unless it could be conclusively shewn that the facilities given by the duties had been fairly used, but required some further & still more strictly limited time to make the experiment a fair one.

Some Australians have assured me that the Australian Protectionists do not carry their Protectionist proclivities beyond this point. I observe however that the protectionist interests which are fostered by the protecting duties, are raising up as they have always done elsewhere, protectionist theories of the old type & that the most exploded fallacies of the mercantile system are revived, with a simple ignorance of all that has been written & proved against them, which is strange to minds accustomed to the subject as usually discussed in Europe.

There is great danger that the duties even if imposed ostensibly for a time only, would at the expiration of the time, or before it, have been made permanent: that they were not, I believe, in any case, imposed as temporary duties but were as permanent as any Acts of the Colonial Parliaments.

I am now much shaken in the opinion, which has so often been quoted for purposes which it did not warrant; & I am disposed to think that when it is advisable, as it may sometimes be, to subsidize a new industry in its commencement, Edition: current; Page: [1521] this had better be done by a direct annual grant, which is far less likely to be continued after the conditions which alone justified it have ceased to exist.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 12. 1868

A[vignon]

Priscilla McLaren

McLaren, Priscilla

1359.

TO PRISCILLA McLAREN1

A[vignon]

.

Dec. 12. 1868

Dear Madam—

Few things could be more gratifying to me than the letter with which I have been honoured by you and your Committee, & I beg you to accept & to convey to the Cee my warmest acknowledgments.

Of all my recollections connected with the H of C that of my having had the honour of being the first to make the claim of women to the suffrage a parliamentary question,2 is the most gratifying as I believe it to have been the most important public service that circumstances made it in my power to render. This is now a thing accomplished & the cause has a sufficient number of supporters among the best men in the H of C. to carry on as much of the contest as can be conducted there. It remains for the intelligent women of the country to give their moral support to the men who are engaged in urging their claims, & to open the minds of the less intelligent to the fact that political freedom is the only effectual remedy for the evils from which most women are conscious that women suffer. Whatever power I may have to promote this cause outside the H of C I shall not fail to exert to my utmost.

Your expressions of sympathy with my feelings & approbation of my conduct on the subject of the Jamaica atrocities3 are peculiarly grateful to me, for it has been with especial sorrow that I have seen so many women cold & unmoved at the recital of sufferings which it might have been supposed would at least have aroused some womanly pity, & generous indignation against the perpetrators. It is peculiarly among women who are not aware that it is their duty to use their intelligence on matters of politics, that the severest condemnation of Mr Eyre & his instruments shd have been found, for if such Edition: current; Page: [1522] women had possessed the warmth of heart which all women ought to have, their feelings would have been revolted at the tortures inflicted, & they would have considered the reasonings by which they were attempted to be palliated as beyond their province. As it is, the conduct of so many among them has afforded one more evidence that the renunciation of masculine intelligence gives no security for womanly kindness.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 13. 1868

A[vignon]

John Hayward

Hayward, John

1360.

TO JOHN HAYWARD1

A[vignon]

Dec. 13. 1868

Dear Sir—

I beg to say that in the first place to wish for a man’s success as a parly candidate is not to identify oneself with him: if it were, how could a Catholic vote for a Protestant, a Churchman for a Dissenter, or a Xtian for a Jew? In the second place I did not go out of my way to subscribe to Mr Bradlaugh’s expenses (expenses for which had my own & Mr Fawcett’s amendments to the Bribery Bill2 been carried last session no subscription would have been needed) but I did not consider myself justified in refusing when asked to lighten the iniquitous expenses which would have prevented an otherwise eligible man from even taking the sense of the electors of Northampton concerning him, merely because either I or other people did not approve of his being, as I have been told he has been, as insolent towards Xtians in general as excellent Xtians have often been towards one another. If you think that the man who will vote for the perpetuation of the oppression of one sect of Xtians by another, as Mr Smith will do,3 represents you better than I could have done, you did your duty. If not, you must excuse my saying that you appear to me to have allowed an unreflecting displeasure at an unpractical evil to overcome your sense of what as an elector you owe not only to your own country but to a nation which your countrymen have long oppressed.

If Mr B is only generally known for blasphemy, it must be because the facts concerning him are not generally known. I who do not know that he has stood forward as the advocate of many other opinions, the advocating of Edition: current; Page: [1523] which must be contrary to his interests, was bound to act upon my better knowledge, and if a long-established character is worth anything, those who have done me the honour to approve of my general line of conduct & my published writings for 30 years & more, might fairly be expected to suppose that I was not likely to support any man for no other reason than that he had made himself remarkable by blasphemy.

The fact that you approved my conduct in the proceedings against Mr Eyre makes me hope that, on further reflection you will see that I was not so much to blame as you imagine about Mr B.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 14. 1868

A[vignon]

James Beal

Beal, James

1361.

TO JAMES BEAL1

A[vignon]

Dec. 14. 1868

Dear Sir

I have not gone deeply into the subject of the treatment of prisoners, tickets of leave, &c. but from all that I have seen & heard upon it I am under the impression that I shd place great reliance upon the opinion of Sir Walter Crofton.2

There are, however, some points respecting criminals & the police, on which I have formed a decided opinion of my own, which in each case, were it necessary, I think I could support by a very wide induction. I will not go at length into any of these, but I will just note them down.

1. I observed with satisfaction that one point was judiciously insisted on by Mr Edwin Hill3 at the meeting at which you attended. It is that there shd be a great increase of efforts to root out the receivers of stolen goods. The receivers are the solid support & foundation of all professional theft, & without them a criminal class, as a class, could not exist. If there were no receivers Edition: current; Page: [1524] there could be no professional or habitual thieves; but only casual acts of theft from necessity or temptation, with which it is comparatively easy to deal. Receivers being persons of some pecuniary means, & permanent habitation, it is possible to make them accountable. I am not in a condition to say what means shd be adopted for making receivers of stolen goods more amenable to justice: it requires some one more familiar than I am with the criminal law & with the practice of the criminal courts to say at what point the failure now takes place, but I am satisfied that this is a direction in which the law requires either to be strengthened or to be more vigorously enforced.

2. A great effect in checking crime would be produced by simply abrogating the rule of our criminal procedure which forbids putting questions to the prisoner. I doubt if public opinion is yet prepared for abolishing this rule: yet it might be done without any danger of introducing the evils of the French criminal procedure, which mainly arise from making the judge instead of the counsel the interrogator of the prisoner & witnesses.

3. I am clearly of opinion that the attempt to place criminals who have worked out their sentences under the permanent surveillance of the police, is wrong in principle, & would not work well in practice, necessarily carrying along with it a number of abuses which it would be impossible efficiently to control, besides involving the decision of some other large questions for the decision of which the time is not yet ripe. The difficulty of dealing with those who pick up a livelihood by odd jobs; & with those whose employers know their antecedents but whose fellow workmen do not; would be in its own nature very great, while it would give great scope either for connivance or for oppression by the police. It would be necessary to decide what are lawful means of livelihood & the law would either have to recognise prostitution as a legitimate profession, or to put it down by force. I believe many of those who wish for the permanent surveillance of criminals are desirous also of establishing prostitution on a legitimate basis. I think them completely wrong in principle, & mistaken as to the practical benefits which seem to arise from such a plan; but whether or no, the one change cannot be made without the other, & I believe that a more efficient police force, greater rigour against receivers, greater certainty of conviction & greater steadiness & uniformity in the treatment of convicts, would be much more efficient in reducing crime than any surveillance that it is humanly possible to practise over criminals.

4. The first, the most obvious, & the most important condition of an efficient police is an exceedingly simple one, which while it recommends itself at first sight to every impartial person, has been of late years totally neglected among ourselves, although the insisting upon it alone, without any other reform, would I believe do more to improve the character of the force than all the other measures put together.

This condition is, that no person in the police force be permitted to receive Edition: current; Page: [1525] money or gifts of any sort whatever from any private individual. This rule shd be absolute & inflexibly applied. No services of any sort, whether within or without the routine of regular duty, shd be permitted to receive any reward, either honorary or pecuniary, openly or privately, from individuals or from public bodies, except from the superior authorities of the force itself, & then in the way only of avowed promotion & increase of pay. Also the mere acceptance of food or drink or shelter while on duty from any person whatever shd be ipso facto sufficient to ensure expulsion from the force.

It is obvious that employing policemen for private purposes must draw off their time, their attention & their interest, from their public duty. It is a mere sophism to say for instance that if you give a man whose duty it is to watch over the safety of a whole street a few pounds a year to watch more peculiarly over the safety of a few houses in it, it only quickens his zeal for them without diminishing his zeal for the rest. The work for which he receives no extra pay is certain to be considered of minor importance, & to be neglected in favour of that for which he expects special remuneration.

The insidious working of the system of perquisites is even more mischievous than its direct & obvious effects. It may be laid down as a rule of pol. economy that what people get by way of gifts connected with their profession or mode of earning their living, comes in the end to be counted as part of their earnings. Hence, however little they themselves may desire such a result, perquisites invariably have the effect of lowering men’s legitimate & regular pay. This has been found both in higher & lower examples than that of the police force. The working of this rule is well known to all political economists with regard to the agricultural labourers under the old poor law system; it is well known to all reforming politicians with regard to the perquisites of public servants of the highest ranks. I believe it to have acted injuriously upon the moral character of the police force. The fall in the value of money which should be met by increase of pay, is apt to be, I believe has actually been, chiefly met by the increased urgency & ingenuity of the men in eking out their pay by perquisites. This is a natural tendency which can only be combated by liberality in pay on the part of the employers, accompanied by inflexible severity in putting down the perquisite system. This combined liberality & severity is essential precisely in proportion to the responsibility of any employment, and the importance of honesty in it. When the perquisite system is allowed to prevail the best men get the fewest gifts: for they neither are so impudent in putting themselves in the way of gifts, nor so willing to neglect their proper duty for the sake of them. Hence the best men get the worst pay, are disgusted with the force, gladly take other places when they can get them, & leave only the worst men behind. The same reasons apply of course to the enlistment of new men: & step by step the men get worse & worse, carry on the system of favour more openly & impudently year by year, until the disgraceful Edition: current; Page: [1526] state of things of the Haymarket is arrived at,4 while the increasing difficulty of the superiors in finding trustworthy men to replace the untrustworthy causes them to go on tolerating abuses, the toleration of which in its turn makes the men more encroaching, & creates a vicious circle which nothing but a complete change of system can break through.

I am glad to hear the Tory is not to sit for Westr without at least an attempt to protest against it,5 & I hope the attempt will result in opening the way for a liberal. I can say this the more freely as I am no longer a party concerned.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 15. 1868

Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

1362.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Avignon

Dec. 15. 1868

My dear Grote

I thank you most heartily for your very valuable contribution to the new edition of the Analysis.2 It is not a particle too long. The strictures it contains on the substantive doctrine of the chapters on Classification and Abstraction, coincide generally with, though they are not in the least superseded by, my own remarks on those chapters; and it is not only very pleasant but a great advantage, to have views substantially similar expressed in a decidedly different manner and propounded under the sanction of your name.

The feeling you have in making dissentient criticisms on the Analysis, I fully share. I have had to express difference of opinion on a number of points, some of them important; and so great a part of my notes is taken up with justifying the dissent that I have an uncomfortable feeling as if I should appear too much in the character of an assailant. I have endeavoured to obviate this by the Preface (or Introduction). I think I ought to quote from it a passage in which I have mentioned your name, which if it meets otherwise with your approbation, you will see may conduce to the same purpose with regard to yourself:3

“Such was the effect of his conversation, and of the tone of his character, on those who were within reach of its influence, that many, then young, who Edition: current; Page: [1527] have since made themselves honoured in the world by a valuable career, look back to their intercourse with him as having had a considerable share in deciding their course through life. The most distinguished of them all, Mr Grote, has put on record, in a recent publication,4 his sense of these obligations, in terms equally honourable to both.”

I have entered fully into the distinction between my father’s use of the term cannote and my own, and into the reasons for preferring mine;5 but there will be no need to cancel more than a few words (if any) of your note in consequence.

I will give orders that a proof be sent to you.

I have always felt the same doubt which you express as to my comparative power of usefulness in and out of the House of Commons. But it was worth giving three years of life to bring the question of Women’s Suffrage to the point it has now reached.

We are delighted to hear so good an account of Mrs Grote’s improved health. Pray give her our kindest regards.

May I request your acceptance of the inclosed cheque, not however as any return for your kindness in turning aside from your work to help in this, for which I am very much indebted to you. I am

My dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

George Grote Esq.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 18, 1868

Avignon

Princess Marie Stcherbatov

Stcherbatov, Princess Marie

1363.

TO [PRINCESS MARIE STCHERBATOV AND ASSOCIATES]1

Avignon

,

Dec. 18, 1868

Mesdames:

I have learned with pleasure, mingled with admiration, that there are found in Russia, women sufficiently enlightened and courageous to demand for their sex a participation in the various branches of higher historical, philological and scientific education, including the practical art of medicine, Edition: current; Page: [1528] and to gain for this cause important support from the scientific world. That is what the most enlightened persons are asking, without having yet attained it, in the other countries of Europe. Thanks to you, Mesdames, Russia is perhaps about to surpass them in speed; it would be a proof that civilization relatively recent, sometimes accepts before the older civilizations great ideas of amelioration. The equal advent of both sexes to intellectual culture is important not only to women, which is assuredly a sufficient recommendation, but also to universal civilization. I am profoundly convinced that the moral and intellectual progress of the male sex runs a great risk of stopping, if not receding, as long as that of the women remains behind, and that, not only because nothing can replace the mother for the education of children, but also because the influence upon man himself of the character and ideas of the companions of his life cannot be insignificant; woman must either push him forward or hold him back. I applaud with all my heart your efforts and those of the enlightened men who support them, and I reckon upon the perseverence of which you have already shewn proof, as a guarantee that you will not become discouraged, and that you will assert by every means the justice of your cause, which, in an enlightened age, bids fair to meet in a short time an assured success.

Pray receive, Mesdames, the sincere expression of my high esteem and lively sympathy.

J. Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 20. 1868

A[vignon]

Dr. Edward Livingstone Youmans

Youmans, Dr. Edward Livingstone

1364.

TO DR. EDWARD LIVINGSTONE YOUMANS1

A[vignon]

Dec. 20. 1868

Dear Sir—

Owing to the peculiar sensitiveness which both of us are aware of in Mr Spencer, it is to be feared that he would be displeased at anything that would look like an advertisement or a testimonial; & it would be well if the purpose you have in view & which I greatly wish to promote, could be attained by something written ostensibly for a different purpose. Your suggestion of putting something quotable into the book I am now editing,2 is of this nature, & there are already passages in it respecting Mr Spencer that would serve for quotation; but they refer to the Psychology, not to the First Principles or the Biology, & it would be difficult to find a good occasion for Edition: current; Page: [1529] referring to either of these in a book exclusively psychological. There is in the 13th chapter of my Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy the following sentence: “This last extract is from Mr Herbert Spencer whose Principles of Psychology in spite of some doctrines which he holds in common with the intuitive school, are on the whole one of the finest examples we possess of the Psychological Method in its full power.” Mr Spencer is mentioned with honour in several other parts of the same work. If none of these passages will serve the purpose, or if you think it desirable in addition to have something from me, in which the First Principles & Biology are spoken of to the same effect as in my letter to Mr Spencer, I think the best way would be for you, or some one else, to write me a letter asking my opinion on those works, as if for private satisfaction.

From the date of your letter I am afraid you must have left England before receiving two letters which I wrote to you from Avignon on the 9th & 10th,3 respecting the conditions in which Messrs Longmans were willing to consent to the proposal you made for taking moulds from the type of the new edition of the “Analysis of the Human Mind.” If you have returned to America there will not now be time to make any such arrangement for the present book as it is now partly in the printer’s hands & I wish to bring it out as soon as possible. But as the same question may occur again, & as my letters may not have been forwarded to you from the Langham hotel, I will quote Mr Longman’s words

“With regard &c4

I did not mention your name to Mr Longman but only spoke of “an American house.”

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

25th December 1868

Avignon

William T. Malleson

Malleson, William T.

1365.

TO WILLIAM T. MALLESON1

Avignon

,

25th December 1868

.

Dear Sir,—

When I received your letter I was on the point of writing to you to say that when I wrote to M. Esquiros2 I had not the remotest idea that my letter would be published; for had I intended it for publication, as perhaps you supposed I did from the manner in which it was inserted in the Star, I should not have omitted to make honourable mention of your name. Edition: current; Page: [1530] I was greatly surprised to see it, and still more to see the manner in which it was inserted in the Star. I do not know how my friend M. Esquiros came to consent to its publication, for I am sure he would not have done so had he known my feeling against the publication of private letters without the permission of the writer. I certainly did infer from your published letter that you thought me wrong,3 not in the things I did, but in doing them without sufficient consideration for my constituents. I am therefore very glad to hear from yourself that that was not your feeling.

Although I think it is to be regretted that you thought it necessary to give publicity to any difference of opinion between us, I might have been tempted to reply publicly to your letter myself, but I think it better to abstain than to give a handle for those who would be delighted to see anything like apparent dissension.

If I have not written to you before now, thanking you for your exertions in the election,4 it has been from the tendency to say least to those in whom one feels the fullest confidence. I felt so sure of your public spirit that I have thought you could not possibly doubt my esteem nor care for any expressions of gratitude from me for services to the cause in which we are fellow-workers.

I had occasion some little time ago to write to Mr Beggs5 in reply to a letter from him, and in doing so I said what I would have been far more willing to see published than anything else I have written on the subject, inasmuch as I assured him that I had omitted nothing that conscience and sense of public duty would allow me to do to secure my return for Westminster. However little I personally wished to be returned, I felt that I owed it to my constituents to do all that lay in my power to succeed; but I did not feel that I owed it either to them or to myself to go against the very principles upon which I was standing. Those for whose sake I most cared to succeed, among the foremost of whom was yourself, would not have had a true representative in me if I had after all succumbed to that temptation to time-serving, the very prevalence of which, and my protests against which, were their original Edition: current; Page: [1531] reason for choosing me. It is better to have a man who has never made any pretence of disliking it, than one who, after having protested strongly against it, has finally fallen a victim to the many temptations to practise it. In fine, I thought that my constituents as well as myself would rather have Mr Smith as he is, than myself false to my professions. It is, of course, a subject of regret to all who feel as you and I do that absolute purity of principle in electioneering, and perfect independence on the part of candidates, cannot be made to succeed better than it generally does at present, yet I think I have done more to draw attention to the need of it by my failure than I could have done if I had allowed it to be possible to reproach me with the smallest tergiversation. The slightest example of anything of the kind would of course have been eagerly seized by our opponents, and nothing that they can say now can be so mortifying to you or myself as such accusations would have been had they had a shadow of foundation. Could it have been said that I turned my back upon old friends or shrunk from any associations that were not likely to be popular with the mass of my constituents, neither society nor the press would have failed to say it.

P.S.—As I have very unexpectedly seen so many of my letters lately in print, may I beg you to consider my letters as not intended for the public. Pray excuse my making this request to you, with whom I have every reason to believe it unnecessary.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 26. 1868

A[vignon]

Philip Henry Rathbone

Rathbone, Philip Henry

1366.

TO PHILIP HENRY RATHBONE1

A[vignon]

Dec. 26. 1868

(Private)

Dear Sir—

I am much honoured by the renewal of the invitation from the Philomathic Socy,2 & could I be sure of any definite result, more particularly of any definite political result, that could be obtained by my acceding to it, I would not hesitate to come to England for the purpose & to undertake the labour of preparing something for the occasion, although to do so would require me to put aside avocations in which I am now engaged & which I expect will fully occupy my time for some months to come so that my present plan is not to be in England until the beginning of March. But I am very distrustful Edition: current; Page: [1532] of the good that can be effected or at all events of my own power to effect much good, by merely social means, or even by eliciting sympathies chiefly literary or scientific: Knowing as I do how many of the slaveholders approved of & admired my writings, I know how little any practical political results need necessarily follow from this sort of approval: & although I am aware that the enthusiasm produced by oratory is among many, perhaps among the majority of men, warmer than that felt for any literary works, still I doubt whether it is more lasting & I am quite sure that it is not within my own power to excite so much of it. Could I within the compass of an after dinner speech carefully calculated to touch upon no points which could hurt the feelings of any who differ from us most radically both in principles & in their applications, produce any appreciable effect in reuniting & stimulating the liberal political opinions of Liverpool? Were you proposing to discuss any especial political topics (for example such as the representation of minorities) which I have made the object of study, the case might be different, for it might then be in my power to advance arguments & to put them in a point of view not usual. But from what you say I imagine that you think politics shd be eschewed & even the political aspect of such subjects as education avoided. Nor am I quite sure whether just at present my views on personal representation, on the applications of endowments, on the land laws, on trades unions, & other topics partly politico-economical & partly political, might not be somewhat too startling for those who shrink even from the disendowment of the Irish Church.

Thanking you for your kind offer of hospitality I am

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 27. 1868

Avignon

John Chapman

Chapman, John

1367.

TO JOHN CHAPMAN1

Avignon

Dec. 27. 1868

Dear Sir

I am very glad to hear that you found so much disposition at Manchester and Liverpool to support the Review:2 though the fact of there being now a deficit of between 1100 and 1200 pounds, shews a deterioration in its position in the last two years which is discouraging as to its prospects.

I inclose, in the form of a letter to yourself,3 a statement such as you expressed a wish to have; which you are at liberty to shew, but which I do not wish to be published.

The widow of my friend the late Mr. Max Kyllmann is warmly interested Edition: current; Page: [1533] in all the subjects in which her late husband exerted himself, and I will write to ask her whether it would be possible to furnish a list of those from whom he obtained subscriptions for the Review.4 I am Dear Sir

yours very truly

J. S. Mill

Dr Chapman

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 27. 1868

Avignon

George Grote

Grote, George

1368.

TO GEORGE GROTE1

Avignon

Dec. 27. 1868

My dear Grote

I am particularly obliged to you for the further matter you have been so kind as to send.2

Your last note coincides in its general purport with a short one I had written on the same passage. But mine will stand very well with yours as a brief summary of the philosophical portion of it, apart from the historical.

If anything else, either great or small, occurs to you which you feel disposed to put down and send, I shall be only too glad to have it, and I hope you will not be deterred by thinking it unnecessary. Even if it is to the same effect as something written by Bain or me (Findlater’s notes are mainly philological) it will be more or less from a different point of view, and will not be a repetition, but valuable as a confirmation.

I am glad you approve of the passage in the Preface.3 I think, when you see the remainder, you will regard the historical and philosophical place assigned in it to the Analysis as the right one. The new edition will now be a monument collectively raised to the memory of the author by the principal inheritors of his philosophy, while it will also authenticate, and in part exhibit, the progress since made in the paths which he opened up.

With our kind regards to Mrs Grote, I am

My dear Grote
ever yours truly

J. S. Mill

George Grote Esq.

Edition: current; Page: [1534]

John Stuart Mill

Mill, John Stuart

Dec. 27. 1868

A[vignon]

George Howell

Howell, George

1369.

TO GEORGE HOWELL1

A[vignon]

Dec. 27. 1868

Dear Sir—

I cannot leave unacknowledged the concluding sentence of your letter of the 19th inst.2 If you had been returned for Aylesbury & had made the public spirited offer of retiring in my favour I could not possibly have accepted it. I attach far too much importance to the representation of the working classes, in some cases at least, by the elite of themselves, to have consented to put myself in the place of one of them if he had fortunately been elected. The defeat of all the working class candidates & of most of those of any other class in whom the working classes took special interest, would have made my presence in the H of C of far less use than it might perhaps have been if I had been one of a phalanx of men of advanced opinions. I hope the working classes will learn from their present failure a lesson of organisation, & as the liberal party can never succeed at a general election without their active support, will henceforth make such support conditional on being allowed an equal voice in the selection of the liberal candidates, so that, whenever a constituency returns two members one of these may be a man designated by, & specially acceptable to, the liberals of the working classes.

1.

MS at LSE; published in part in Principles, pp. 1088-89.In reply to Cairnes’s letters of Dec. 23 and 25, MS copies also at LSE, and published in part in Principles, pp. 1074-75 and 1086-88.

2.

See Letter 709, n. 4, and Letter 728, n. 2.

3.

Cairnes gave permission for this use of his notes in his letter to JSM, Jan. 9, 1865. JSM used Cairnes’s material twice; see Principles, pp. 332-33n., and 334-36. For JSM’s emendations of these passages, see Principles, p. 1077, n. 41, and p. 1082, n. 43.

4.

An Irish Landlord, “Twenty-five Years’ Work in Ireland,” Gardener’s Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, Dec. 4, 1864, pp. 1162-64.

5.

Jonathan Pim (1806-1885), of Pim Bros. and Co; MP for Dublin, 1865-74; author of The Condition and Prospects of Ireland . . . (Dublin, 1848) and On the Connection between the Condition of Tenant Farmers and the Laws respecting the Ownership and Transfer of Land in Ireland (Dublin, 1853).

6.

Benjamin Moran (1820-1886), assistant secretary and secretary of the United States Legation in London, 1857-74. It was Moran who, in Dec., 1863, had transmitted silver medals from the Union League of Philadelphia to JSM, Cairnes, and W. E. Forster.

7.

Henry Ashworth, author of A Tour in the United States, Cuba, and Canada (London and Manchester, 1861).

8.

See Letter 733.

9.

“Co-operation in the Slate Quarries of North Wales,” Macmillan’s, XI (Jan., 1865), 181-90, reprinted in Cairnes’s Essays in Political Economy, pp. 166-86.

10.

Samuel Laing (1812-1897), author of, among other works, Atlas Prize Essay, National Distress, its causes and remedies (London, 1844), which JSM quotes in Principles, pp. 769-70.

11.

Presumably the letter headed “America,” Daily News, Dec. 28, 1864, p. 5. JSM had earlier sent to Cairnes the letter from Brace. See Letter 739.

12.

Rowland G. Hazard.

1.

MS in Osborn Collection, Yale.

William Tallack (1831-1908), author, prison reformer, Quaker; secretary of the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment (1863-66), and of the Howard Association (1866-1901).

2.

A Royal Commission, which included among its members Lord Stanley, John Taylor Coleridge, John Bright, William Ewart, and Gathorne Hardy, had been appointed on July 8, 1864. Its findings were published in 1866 in Report of Commission on the Provisions and Operations of the Laws of Capital Punishment in the United Kingdom.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 724, n. 2.

3.

George Peacock (1791-1858), mathematician; Lowndean professor of astronomy and geometry, Cambridge, 1839-58; Dean of Ely, 1839-58; author of Treatise on Algebra (2 vols., Cambridge, 1842-45), referred to by JSM in his Logic (8th ed.), II, 156 (III, xxxiv, 6), in conjunction with De Morgan’s work.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Address on Railway Reform (London, 1865), read at the first meeting of the Department of Economy and Trade, of which Chadwick was president, of the NAPSS, on Jan. 31, 1865. Chadwick was critical of competition in the railway system, and “argued in favour of consolidation and unity of administration, to be attained through part purchase or compensation to the shareholders. . . .” (Daily News, Feb. 1, 1865, p. 2).

3.

The meeting of the Political Economy Club, held Feb. 3, 1865, for which Chadwick presented the question: “What are the leading principles of Political Economy applicable in this Country to the initiation, construction, and working of Railways for public use?”

1.

MS at LSE, published in part in Principles, p. 1091. In reply to Cairnes’s letter of Jan. 9, MS copy at LSE, and published in part in Principles, pp. 1089-90.

2.

The 6th ed.

3.

Principles, p. xciv.

4.

See Letter 741, n. 3.

5.

In Book V, chap. x, sec. 1, three long paragraphs were added to the text of the previous edition. Principles, pp. 919-21.

6.

William Frederick (later Sir Frederick) Pollock (1815-1888), barrister and author, served for a time as literary editor of the Reader. For his account of his connection with the paper, see his Personal Remembrances (2 vols., London, 1887), II, 128-33.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letter 646, n. 2.

3.

Functional diseases of the stomach, Part I. Sea-sickness: its nature and treatment (London, 1864).

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

The Election of Representatives (1865), 3rd ed.

3.

Thomas Walker (1822-1898), sub-editor, 1851, editor, 1858-69, of the Daily News.

4.

John Russell, Viscount Amberley (1842-1876), son of Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell; Liberal MP for Nottingham, 1866-68; father of Bertrand Russell.

The speech referred to, in favour of parliamentary reform, was addressed to the electors of Leeds, Jan. 31, 1865. For an account of its reception, by both politicians and press, see The Amberley Papers, eds. Bertrand and Patricia Russell (2 vols., London, 1937), I, pp. 358-63. See also The Times, Feb. 2, p. 5. The Times carried full reports of this speech and later ones: March 17, p. 10; March 18, p. 10; March 20, 1865, p. 6.

1.

MS in Wellesley College Library, as is also Hazard’s of Feb. 6, to which this is a reply.

2.

See Letter 738, n. 2.

3.

Language; its connexion with the present condition and future prospects of man. By a Heteroscian (Providence, R.I., 1836).

1.

MS in the Norcross Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Joseph Henry Allen (1820-1898), American Unitarian minister, associate editor (1863-65) of the Christian Examiner.

2.

“Doctrine and Theory of Inspiration,” Christian Examiner, LXXVII (Nov., 1864), 265-85.

3.

“The Later Writings of John Stuart Mill,” Christian Examiner, LXXIV (Jan., 1863), 1-43, which includes remarks on Dissertations, and “Review of Current Literature,” LXXVII (Nov., 1864), which also includes a notice of Dissertations, pp. 370-72.

4.

“Democracy on Trial,” Christian Examiner, LXXIV (March, 1863), 262-94.

5.

In chap. xv, “Of Local Representative Bodies.”

1.

MS at LSE. Published in part in Principles, p. 1092. In reply to Cairnes’s letters of Jan. 24 and Feb. 5, MS copies of both of which are at LSE, and are also published in part in Principles, pp. 1090-92.

2.

See Letters 728 and 761, and Principles, pp. 414-15.

3.

The decree removing the second décime (1/10 of a franc, a war surtax) from the registration fee was announced in the legislative assembly on April 16, 1864. (The first décime-de-guerre had been adopted in 1799.) See The Times, April 19, 1864, p. 12. The French forces were conducting a successful campaign of pacification of Mexico at this time.

4.

Charles Edward Brown-Séquard (1817-1894), eminent physiologist and physician; head of the national hospital for the paralysed and epileptic, London, 1859-63; professor of physiology and pathology at Harvard University, 1863-67; of pathology at Paris, 1869-72; of physiology at Geneva, 1877; and of experimental medicine at the College of France, 1878-94. Cairnes had reported in his letter of Feb. 5 that he had met Brown-Séquard, “who had just returned from America full of enthusiasm for the [Northern] cause, and represents the state of opinion there as highly satisfactory and still progressive.” In his Logic, 6th ed. (1865), JSM introduced a section (III, xiii, 3; 8th ed., I, 555-56) drawing on Brown-Séquard’s Lectures on the Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous System (Philadelphia, 1860).

5.

Cairnes had written (Feb. 5): “Goldwin Smith . . . is advocating peace on the basis . . . of reconstruction with an admission of the right of secession, which seems much like as if one were to rebuild a house whose foundation had given way, having just given the architect directions that on no account were the foundations to be restored.” These remarks referred to two letters by Goldwin Smith, “The Prospects of Peace in America,” Daily News, Jan. 28, 1865, p. 4, and Feb. 4, 1865, p. 4.

6.

Cairnes reported in his letter that he had sent the Reader a review of R. H. Patterson’s The Economy of Capital; or, Gold and Trade (Edinburgh and London, 1864); the review appeared in the number for Feb. 18, pp. 189-90.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

Probably the Lancet, Dec. 3, 1864, in which on p. 651 a surgeon of the Cunard Line, Sam M. Bradley, testifies to the efficacy of Dr. John Chapman’s spinal bag for curing seasickness.

3.

John Henry Bridges (1832-1906), positivist philosopher. “There has also appeared very recently, under the title of ‘A General View of Positivism’, a translation by Dr. Bridges, of the Preliminary Discourse in six chapters, prefixed to the Système de Politique Positive.” “Later Speculations of Auguste Comte,” WR, n.s. XXVIII (July, 1865), 2 (reprinted in Collected Works, X, 328-68). Bridges’ translation was published in London, 1865.

4.

So noticed under “Politics, Sociology, Voyages, and Travels,” WR, n.s. XXVII (April, 1865), 590.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Not located.

3.

On Jan. 5, 1865, a Mrs. M’Dermott appeared before a Westminster magistrate to complain that her daughter Eliza, age 16, had been improperly induced to enter a Catholic nunnery by Father Bowden of the Brompton Oratory. The Daily Telegraph reported the case on Jan. 6, p. 6; on Jan. 9, pp. 4-5, in its second leader it attacked the Brompton Oratory, summarized the case, and called for governmental visitation and inspection of conventual establishments for both males and females. The resultant controversy brought forth many letters both pro and con and several more leaders in the Telegraph in January.

1.

MS at LSE .

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of Feb. 10, also at LSE.

2.

Longman had proposed that he should hold the right to publish the cheap editions of three books until 8000 copies of each were sold, and if further agreement could not be reached at that time the stereotype plates should be destroyed.

3.

Longman next proposed a five-year term, which JSM accepted (see Letter 756).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also a letter by Kyllmann of April 22, 1865. Published in Elliot, II, 16-18.

2.

See Rep. Govt., chap. viii.

3.

See Letter 734, n. 10.

4.

Robert Mohl (1799-1875), professor of law at Heidelberg, and statesman. One of his articles may have been that cited by Hare as of Dec. 10, 1861, in his The Election of Representatives, 3rd ed., p. 328.

5.

For an abstract of one article by Louis Blanc, see Hare’s The Election of Representatives, App. I, 3rd ed., pp. 340-43.

6.

Edouard René Lefebvre de Laboulaye (1811-1883), politician, editor, historian, and legal expert, professor of comparative law at the College of France. See his “De La Constitution des Etats Unis. Le Droit Electoral,” Revue Nationale, XVIII (Oct. 10, 1864), 500-515; reprinted in Histoire des Etats-unis (3 vols., Paris, 1855-66), III, 315-42.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of Feb. 15, also at LSE.

2.

See Letter 754.

3.

See Letter 715, n. 2.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

James Beal (1829-1891), auctioneer and land agent, radical politician and reformer, particularly interested in municipal reform. See his obituary in The Times, June 12, 1891, p. 9, and also J. M. Davidson, Eminent Radicals in and out of Parliament (London, 1880), pp. 191-99.

3.

A circular letter was to be sent on each candidate to each of the electors of Westminster and back to an umpire. (Letter from James Beal, March 4, 1865, MS at Johns Hopkins.)

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

At the Ridgeway, at Shere, Guildford, Surrey, the country home of the Grotes from 1863.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

“Clerical Subscription in the Church of England,” North British Rev., XXXIX (Nov., 1863), 399-428.

3.

“Education at Public Schools,” North British Rev., XLI (June, 1864), 105-33.

1.

MS draft at Northwestern. In reply to Spencer’s of Feb. 28 (MS also at Northwestern), expatiating on the troubles of The Reader magazine under the editorship of Frederick Pollock.

2.

The adjourned annual general meeting of the Reader Company, in which JSM held a share (see Letters 733 and 741).

1.

MS at LSE; published in part in Principles, p. 1093. A MS copy of Cairnes’s letter of March 1, also at LSE, is published in part in Principles, p. 1092. The other letter JSM was answering does not appear to have survived.

2.

See Letter 741, n. 5.

3.

See Letters 709 and 734.

4.

See Letter 741, n. 7.

5.

July 7, 1865: “Does the high rate of Interest in America and in new Colonies indicate a correspondingly high rate of profits? and if so, What are the causes of that high rate?”

6.

W. E. Gladstone became an honorary member later in 1865.

7.

Charles Mackay was special correspondent of The Times in the United States from Feb., 1862, through Dec., 1865. For a sample of his pro-Southern, war-scare reporting, see his dispatch in The Times, Feb. 8, 1865, p. 9.

8.

See Letter 760.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See preceding Letter.

3.

Not identified.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letter 814.

3.

The translation into French was by Georges Clémenceau (1841-1929), later the famous political leader of the Third Republic: Auguste Comte et le positivisme, par J. Stuart Mill, traduit par M. le Dr G. Clémenceau (Paris, 1868). The translation went through six editions. Emile Littré apparently did not arrange for the translation, which Clémenceau undertook after meeting JSM in the spring of 1865. See J. Hampden Jackson, Clémenceau and the Third Republic (London, 1946), pp. 12-13. Littré reviewed the work on Comte, “Auguste Comte et Stuart Mill,” Revue des Deux Mondes, LXIV (Aug. 15, 1866), 829-66. See also D. R. Watson, “Clemenceau and Mill,” Mill News Letter, VI (Fall, 1970), 13-19.

4.

See Letter 767.

5.

See Letter 759.

1.

MS draft at Northwestern, written on Spencer’s letter of Sunday [March 5] reporting a second adjournment of a meeting of the shareholders of the Reader Company (see Letters 761 and 762).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 18-21; in the Morning Advertiser, March 23, 1865, p. 3; the Daily News, March 23, p. 5; and The Times, March 24, p. 5.

2.

On Feb. 13, 1865, a meeting of Liberal electors and Liberal members of vestries of the City of Westminster took place. Dr. William Brewer (d. 1881), physician, and church warden of St. George’s, presided. The meeting agreed to solicit eminent men to run for one of the seats for Westminster, since Sir George de Lacy Evans (1787-1870) was retiring. JSM and Viscount Amberley were suggested. See The Times, Feb. 14, 1865, p. 6.

3.

See Letter 757.

4.

The supporters of Captain Robert Wellesley Grosvenor (1834-1918), who won the other seat for Westminster in 1865 as a Liberal. For struggles between supporters of Grosvenor and those of JSM, see The Times, Feb. 18, p. 12; March 9, p. 12; March 28, 1865, p. 14.

5.

John Romilly, later first Baron Romilly, an acquaintance of JSM for many years (see Earlier Letters, p. 72).

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot.

2.

See Letter 759.

3.

Amberley’s “Political Economy” appeared in WR, n.s. XXVIII (July, 1865), 106-33, as a review article on the People’s ed. of JSM’s Pol. Econ.

1.

MS at LSE. MS of the list also at Canberra.

2.

The preceding Letter.

3.

See Letter 532, n. 2.

1.

MS at LSE. First two paragraphs published in Principles, pp. 1093-94. Cairnes’s reply of March 13, MS copy at LSE, is published in part in Principles, p. 1094.

2.

On Ireland. See Letters 728 and 761.

3.

See Letter 761.

4.

Principles, p. 414.

5.

Not identified.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates (3 vols., London, 1865).

3.

“Grote’s Plato,” ER, CXXIII (April, 1866), 297-364; reprinted in Dissertations, Brit. ed., III, 275-379, Am. ed., IV, 280-384.

4.

See Letter 763.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Published in Duncan, I, 155-56. Spencer’s reply of March 13, MS also at Northwestern, is in Duncan, I, 156.

2.

Especially in Spencer’s pamphlet, The Classification of the Sciences: to which are added reasons for dissenting from the philosophy of M. Comte (London, 1864). For an index of JSM’s references to Spencer in Auguste Comte and Positivism, see Collected Works, X, 557.

3.

Hamilton.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of March 13, MS copy also at LSE, and published in part in Principles, p. 1094.

2.

See Letters 741, 745, 760, and 762.

3.

See Letters 761, n. 5.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Morning Advertiser, April 19, 1865, p. 3, and in the Daily News of the same date, p. 6.

The newspaper article is entitled “Mr. Cobden’s Last Letter.” Potter had asked Cobden for his opinion of JSM’s statements on representation in his letter of March 16. Cobden in his reply, dated March 22, the last letter he wrote before his death on April 2, stated his objections to proportional representation and said, “Instead of the 50,000 returning five in a lump, I would have five constituencies of 10,000, each returning one member.” Potter received JSM’s permission to print his letter with Cobden’s reply. See Letter 794.

2.

At least three meetings of working-class and middle-class leaders interested in the reform of Parliament were held in London, on Feb. 23, March 11, and March 16. These were reported in The Times: Feb. 24, p. 9; March 13, p. 9; March 17, p. 8. At the meeting of March 16 at St. Martin’s Hall, agreement was reached between the workers and the middle-class reformers in arranging a joint union for a new Reform League upon a platform of manhood suffrage and the ballot.

3.

Potter had founded the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester, 1861-66.

4.

See Letter 755.

5.

Presumably the meeting of that night.

1.

MS draft at Northwestern. In reply to Spencer’s of March 13, MS also at Northwestern, published in Duncan, I, 156.

2.

See Letter 770.

3.

See Letter 771.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot. Bears note in another hand: “23 / 3 / 65 sends Hare” and “23 / 3 Invite to Rodborough.”

2.

The 3rd ed. (London, 1865).

3.

Delivered to the electors of Leeds, March 16, and reported in the Daily News, March 18, p. 6. The speech was on the extension of the suffrage.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Co-operator, May 1, 1865, p. 181.

2.

The Wolverhampton Plate-Locksmiths, a co-operative manufactory formed in Feb., 1864, was subjected to below-cost price-cutting by the capitalist lock makers. The co-operative survived with great difficulty until 1879. See Benjamin Jones, Co-operative Production (Oxford, 1894), chap. xx, 437-43.

1.

MS at Arsenal.

2.

Charles Duveyrier (1803-1866), earlier, one of the leading writers among the Saint-Simonians. See Earlier Letters.

3.

Apparently d’Eichthal did not complete this work. See Letter 628, n. 2.

1.

MS not located. Published in Newcastle Daily Chronicle, May 23, 1865, p. 3.

William Todd, identified only as a grocer of Gateshead, and author of Parliamentary Reform. The Franchise. Being a series of articles originally published in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1865). The main principle of Todd’s plan was to base the franchise on payment of a house tax rather than of the poor-rate, and he offered a scheme for the machinery to carry out his proposal.

1.

MS at LSE; published in part in Principles, p. 1095. In reply to Cairnes’s of March 13, MS copy at LSE, published in part in Principles, p. 1094.

2.

See Letter 791.

3.

In his letter of March 13, Cairnes said: “I see my observations on American wages and profits in their connexion with the theory of profit did not hit the mark; and I fear I must now relinquish the hope—I might say the ambition—of doing this, as on the assumption that the exposition I gave was correct—which you concede to me—I am unable to perceive where the difficulty lies: in short the scientific problem seems to me to be solved.”

4.

Principles, p. 619.

5.

A debate on “Defences of Canada,” on March 13. See Hansard, CLXXVII, cols. 1539-1637.

6.

See The Times, March 15, p. 8, and “England and the United States,” SR, March 18, 1865, p. 298-99.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 776.

3.

Such a letter appeared under the heading, “Another Glimpse of Masters and Men,” Sp., April 8, 385-86. It was written by Thomas Hughes, fellow Christian Socialist with J. M. Ludlow and F. D. Maurice. Maurice was a good friend of Richard Holt Hutton, editor of Sp. See Letter 793.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 21-22, in the Beehive, April 15, 1865, p. 5; Co-operator, May 1, 1865; in part in the Sp., April 8, 1865, p. 373; and in Benjamin Jones, Co-operative Production, p. 438. Jones’s reply of March 24 is at Johns Hopkins.

Thomas Jones was the secretary of the Co-operative Plate Lock Manufactory.

2.

See Letter 776, n. 2.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

“An Appeal in the Metropolitan Constituencies for a Larger Choice,” Daily News, March 20, 1865, p. 5.

3.

The meeting took place on April 10, 1865, at the offices of the Social Science Association, Adam Street, Adelphi. Lord Stanley presided, and JSM participated in the discussion of Hare’s paper, “Such an organization of the Metropolitan Elections as would call into exercise the greatest amount of the knowledge and judgement of the constituencies, and as far as possible discourage all corrupt and pernicious influences.” See The Times, April 11, p. 10, and National Reformer, April 16, 1865, pp. 250-51.

4.

John, Earl Russell, An Essay on the History of the English Government and Constitution from the Reign of Henry VII to the Present Time (new ed., London, 1865). In the “Introduction,” pp. xxxii-xxxiii, and p. li, Russell attacked JSM and Hare for advocating plural voting.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

Not located.

3.

Lettres sur l’Angleterre, 1st ser. (Paris, 1865-66); 2nd ser. (Paris, 1866-67).

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Of his first article on Comte.

1.

MS and MS copy at UCL. In reply to De Morgan’s letters of Feb. 5 and March 26, published in Sophia De Morgan, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan, pp. 328-31.

2.

See Letter 724, n. 3 and n. 4.

3.

George Campbell De Morgan (1841-1867), also a gifted mathematician, died of consumption.

4.

“I see you are in England again by your complimentary letter to the Westminster electors [Letter 765, which had been published in the newspapers on March 23 and 24]. You pay them a higher compliment than they pay you. I am always in doubt about the origin of the word compliment. It looks like a formation from comply, but I doubt it. I suspect that complément is the original, though the present spelling and usage is as old as the Academy’s Dictionary. I suspect that old forms of civility were at last described as complements, fillings up; and that complimts, at the end of a letter, meant that all usual forms are to be understood. My theory receives a little support from comply not being a French verb.”

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mr. S. M. Colman. See Letters 542, 645, and 792.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot.

2.

See Letter 775.

3.

The London home of Lady Amberley’s parents, Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley, was at 40 Dover St.

1.

MS at LSE.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Probably a draft manifesto by Chadwick inviting support of Liberal electors for his and JSM’s candidacies for Westminster. Later Chadwick drew up an address on his own candidacy (see Letter 832). See also Letter 804. JSM and Robert Wellesley Grosvenor became the Liberal candidates. See Letter 765, n. 4.

3.

Charles Westerton (1813-1872), bookseller and librarian; churchwarden of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge. As such he had been party to a famous anti-ritual suit brought against the Rev. Robert Liddell, of St. Paul’s.James Beal participated in a similar suit as an inhabitant of the parish served by St. Barnabas, also under the cure of Liddell. The judgment, in favour of Westerton and Beal, directed the removal of crosses, altars, and candlesticks inconsistent with the practices of the Church of England. See The Times, March 23, 1857, p. 10. Subsequently to this letter, Westerton became chairman of JSM’s election committee, and Beal its hon. secretary.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of March 27, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

See Letter 779.

3.

William Fraser Rae (1835-1905), a barrister and journalist, specialist in Canadian affairs.

4.

“Taine’s History of English Literature: Contemporary Writers,” WR, n.s. XXVII (Jan., 1865), 1-34.

5.

Thomas Hughes, one of the original proprietors of the Reader.

6.

Letter 765.

7.

Howell, James & Co., silk mercers and jewellers, of Regent St.

8.

The well-known grocery firm.

9.

The firm founded in 1837 by Robert Debenham (1786-1854).

1.

MS at LSE. See Letter 787.

1.

MS at LSE.

Richard Holt Hutton (1826-1897), miscellaneous writer who had become joint-proprietor and editor of Sp. in 1861.

2.

See Letter 776 and 780.

3.

See Letter 781.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Morning Advertiser, April 19, 1865, p. 3, and in the Daily News of the same date, p. 6.

2.

Potter succeeded Cobden as MP for Rochdale.

3.

Letter 772.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

John Lubbock, 4th baronet and later 1st Baron Avebury (1834-1913), banker, man of science, and author. Lubbock was defeated in his attempt to gain the seat for West Kent, but was returned for Maidstone in 1870.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letter 763.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letters 780, n. 3, and 793.

3.

They were not published.

4.

See Letter 782, n. 3.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 22-26, in Daily News, April 21, 1865, p. 4, Morning Advertiser, April 21, p. 3, and The Times, April 21, p. 7. In reply to Beal’s of April 12, 1865, MS also at Johns Hopkins. Elliot dates as of April 19, but see Letter 800. The MS copy in the Chadwick collection at UCL is in Helen Taylor’s hand; the last page of the MS copy contains JSM’s letter to Chadwick of April 17.

A statement purporting to be by JSM, in response to the request that he be a candidate, in W. D. Christie’s article “Mr. John Stuart Mill for Westminster” (Macmillan’s, XII [May, 1865], 92-96), is apparently Christie’s paraphrase based upon JSM’s letter of March 7 and this one.

2.

The meeting of Liberal electors was held in St. James’s Hall on Thursday, April 6. JSM was not present, and was represented by Chadwick. Others who spoke included John Roebuck, W. D. Christie, and Henry Fawcett. See the Daily News, April 8, 1865, p. 6. JSM must have known the results of the meeting before he left for France on Tuesday, April 11.

3.

Sir Edward Baines (1800-1890), journalist and economist, MP for Leeds, 1859-74; his bill to reduce the property qualification for electors in parliamentary elections from £10 to £6 in the boroughs of England and Wales was defeated at its second reading, May 8, 1865.

4.

Peter John Locke King (1811-1885), reformer, MP for East Surrey, 1847-74; his bill to extend the franchise to all £10 occupiers in the counties of England and Wales was defeated at its second reading, April 13, 1864.

5.

In 1859 Austria ceded Lombardy to the kingdom of Sardinia as a result of France’s intervention.

6.

On July 3, 1849, the French Army occupied the Republic of Rome, which had been organized as a republic on Feb. 9, 1849. The French remained in occupation until Sept. 20, 1870, and thereby strengthened the power of Pope Pius IX in Rome and the other Papal states.

7.

On Jan. 23, 1863, an insurrection broke out in Russian Poland; in the fall of 1863, it collapsed because it lacked support from abroad.

8.

On Feb. 19, 1864, the forces of Austria and Prussia invaded Denmark proper over the question of Schleswig and Holstein. On June 25, 1864, the British cabinet resolved not to interfere in Denmark’s behalf. See JSM’s letter, “England and Europe,” Daily News, July 1, 1864, p. 5, in which the British government is praised for having objected to the plundering of Denmark without intending to resort to war.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See preceding Letter.

3.

The cheap editions of JSM’s works.

4.

The Morning Advertiser had already on April 5 carried an announcement by Longman’s of the publication on April 11 of “People’s Editions” of Rep. Govt. at 2s., On Liberty at 1s.4d., and Pol. Econ. at 5s. But see Letter 807, n. 2.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

“Mr. Mill on the Philosophy of Comte,” SR, April 15, 1865, pp. 431-33, a review of JSM’s first article on Comte.

3.

Trübner published JSM’s two WR articles with the title Auguste Comte and Positivism in November.

1.

MS at LSE.

Joshua Fayle (1834?-1888), B.A., Cambridge, 1869; schoolmaster; author of a biography of the Quaker philanthropist, William Allen, The Spitalsfields Genius (London, 1884).

2.

Possibly the annual meeting of the Peace Society on May 23, 1865, in Finsbury Chapel, Darlington.

3.

Letter 799.

1.

MS at Huntington. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also the MS of Hickson’s reply of April 29. Part published in Elliot, II, 27.

2.

L’istruzione elementare nell’Inghilterra e nella Scozia: relazione (Turin, 1864).

3.

Alberto Mario (1825-1883), journalist and revolutionary, husband of Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), English advocate of Italian republicanism. In the event, the first translation of On Liberty into Italian was by G. Marsiaj (Turin, 1865).

4.

Cobden died April 2, 1865.

5.

Samuel Lucas (1811-April 16, 1865), journalist and politician, husband of John Bright’s sister Margaret and brother of Frederick Lucas, Roman Catholic journalist and politician. Not the Samuel Lucas (1818-1868), journalist, author, barrister, contributor to The Times and founder of the Shilling Magazine, 1865, to whom JSM refers. Hickson in his reply of April 29 made the identification.

1.

MS at UCL, as is also a MS copy in an unidentified hand. Attached to the MS copy is a draft in JSM’s hand of a statement evidently intended to be sent to the electors of Westminster.

2.

Edwin R. Lankester (1814-1874), medical scientist and writer; coroner for Central Middlesex, 1862-74.

3.

See Letter 799.

4.

The Times of April 24, p. 9, carried the letters exchanged between Grant and Lee arranging for the surrender of Lee’s army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Lincoln died on April 15, 1865.

1.

MS draft at LSE. Published in G. J. Holyoake, Bygones Worth Remembering (2 vols., London, 1905), I, 261. A slightly variant printed copy is in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester. In reply to Holyoake’s of April 21, MS at LSE.

2.

The Liberal Situation: necessity for a qualified franchise (London, 1865).

3.

See Letter 734, n. 10.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in Gomperz, pp. 405-406.

2.

Theodor Gomperz, Herkulanische Studien, Erstes Heft: Philodem über Induktionsschlüsse, nach der Oxforder und Neapolitaner Abschrift (Leipzig, 1865).

The second section in the series Herkulanische Studien (April, 1866) is dedicated to JSM: “Herrn John Stuart Mill zum sechzigsten Geburtstag 20. Mai in Ehrfurcht und Liebe zugeeignet.” Gomperz, p. 418.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of April 28, 1865, MS at LSE, as is Longman’s reply of May 3.

2.

Longman had reported that Rep. Govt. had been advertised in error at two shillings instead of 2s.6d as the agreement specified, and Pol. Econ. at 5s instead of 7s (on the first four thousand copies, after which the price was to be reduced to 5s).

3.

Longman reported that he had been too cautious in printing the cheap editions. After printing only 1000 each of Liberty and Rep. Govt., he found it necessary to order 2000 more of each, and before these were received, to order another 2000 of each.

4.

I.e., those sold to the booksellers in advance. The original printing was 1000 copies.

5.

Longman reported that only 137 copies remained on hand. The 6th ed. was published later this year.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival (London, 1893), p. 279. In reply to Ward’s letter of April 28, 1865, ibid., pp. 278-79.

2.

Ward had written: “I fear that since we last corresponded our divergence is even greater than it was before. I am now editor of the Dublin Review, and if you ever happen to cast your eye on it I cannot doubt that you will think it as simply mischievous . . . as any production can possibly be.” Referring to his own article on the Encyclical and Syllabus in the April number, Ward hadsaid: “you will admit (I think) that the statement is clear of principles which you will regard as detestable.”

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

This letter, dated April 22, is in the Daily News, April 24, 1865, p. 2. In it Francis Henry F. Berkeley (1794-1870), MP for Bristol, 1837, 1841-70, and a tireless advocate of the secret ballot, wrote in support of his contention that a secret ballot was necessary to protect electors from coercion. Berkeley’s letter is a commentary on Letter 799. Hare replied to Berkeley’s letter inthe Daily News, May 2, 1865, p. 6.

1.

MS at the Pierpont MorganLibrary. Not in JSM’s hand.

2.

Probably the address of condolence to Andrew Johnson adopted May 13, 1865, by the Central Council of the International Workingmen’s Association, London. The text of the address is in the Beehive (May 20, 1865), the New York Daily Tribune, June 1, 1865, p. 4, and the Liberator, XXXV (June 16, 1865), 93. The Beehive lists 37 signatories, headed by George Odger, president, and W. R. Cremer, hon. secretary, of the Central Council.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published, except for penultimate paragraph, in Elliot, II, 27-28, and in part in C. H. Chomley, Protection in Canada and Australasia (London, 1904), pp. 81-82. In reply to Soden’s of Feb. 25, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Soden has been identified only as a resident of Melbourne.

2.

Soden in his letter informed Mill that the paragraph on the protection of industry in a new country (paragraph beginning “the only case in which,” Pol. Econ., Book V, chap. x, sec. 1) was being used as a theoretical defence for protective tariffs in Australia. He enclosed clippings from Australian newspapers on this point.

1.

MS at Huntington. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Hickson’s letter of April 29, to which this is a reply. Part published in Elliot, II, 28.

2.

See Letter 803, n. 5.

3.

Probably the sister of JSM’s longtime colleague at the India House, Horace Grant, who like Hickson lived at Fairseat, Wrotham, in Kent.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in part in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 202-203, and in Cosmopolis, pp. 781-82.

2.

John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), professor of Greek at Edinburgh, 1852-82; author of books on and translations from Greek literature and life.

3.

“Far from it, indeed, since more than anything I would wish to.”

4.

Victor Duruy (1811-1894), French historian, whose books include two on Greek history.

5.

A new constitution was adopted Oct. 29, 1864. Among its provisions was one abolishing the Senate and establishing an advisory body called the Council of State. See The Times, Nov. 2, 1864, pp. 7, 10.

6.

De l’Usage pratique de la langue grecque (Paris, 1864).

7.

One of d’Eichthal’s publications was given a paragraph notice: Étude sur les Origines Bouddhiques de la Civilisation Américaine, in WR, n.s. XXIX (Jan., 1866), 229.

8.

George James Pennington, An essay on the pronunciation of the Greek language (London, 1844).

9.

Sir George Ferguson Bowen, who, at the time of JSM’s trip to Greece in 1855 was chief secretary to the government of the Ionian Islands. See Letter 231.

10.

“St. John’s Gospel,” WR, n.s. XXVII (April, 1865), 406-45. Among books under review were some by the following German theologians: Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860); Adolf Hilgenfeld (1823-1907); and Albert Schwegler (1819-1857).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 30-31. In reply to Littré’s of May 5, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

See Letter 763, n. 3.

3.

A summary of the relation of Littré’s Auguste Comte et la philosophie positive (Paris, 1863) to the writing of JSM’s Auguste Comte and Positivism is to be found in the Textual Introduction to Collected Works, X, cxxxi-cxxxiii.

4.

Paul Louis Courier (1772-1825), soldier, Hellenist, and pamphleteer.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Maurice’s letter of May 2 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 29-30.

2.

Hamilton.

3.

Chap. vii, “The Philosophy of the Conditioned, as Applied by Mr. Mansel to the Limits of Religious Thought.” A bitter controversy between Maurice and Mansel had followed the publication in 1858 of the latter’s Bampton Lectures, The Limits of Religious Thought. Maurice replied in What is Revelation? (Cambridge, London, 1859). Mansel responded with An Examination of F. D. Maurice’s Strictures on the Bampton Lectures of 1858 (London, 1859). Maurice then published a reply to this in A Sequel to the Enquiry What is Revelation? (Cambridge, London, 1860).

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letter 772, n. 1.

1.

MS at NLS.

Henry Bowie (d. Jan. 31, 1885), secretary and cashier of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution from 1847 until his death.

2.

The Edinburgh Philosophical Institution was founded in 1846 to provide popular lectures on science, literature, and art. For an account of its history, including the session of 1865-66, see W. Addis Miller, The “Philosophical” (Edinburgh, 1949).

1.

MS at UCL. MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 33-34. In reply to Chadwick’s of April 29, 1865, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

Chadwick reported in his letter of April 29 that Charles Westerton and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, dean of Westminster, had decided to support JSM. Chadwick also reported on the contradictory opinions stimulated by Letter 799, and on the need for a photograph of JSM for campaign purposes.

3.

William Henry Smith (1825-1891), newsagent and politician, son of the founder of the firm of W. H. Smith and Son. He led the poll for Westminster in the election of 1868 in which JSM was defeated.

4.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton Lytton, who led the election for Hertfordshire as a Conservative.

5.

See Amberley’s letter in support of JSM, dated April 30, 1865, in The Times, May 6, 1865, p. 9.

6.

For the members of the committee for JSM, as of May 27, see The Times, May 27, p. 5.

7.

Probably the one reproduced in Elliot, II, opp. p. 233.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in the Liberator, June 30, 1865, p. 101, and in Elliot, II, 31-33. In reply to Godwin’s of April 8, MS at Johns Hopkins, as is also his rejoinder of June 27.

2.

The day before Lee’s surrender to Grant.

3.

The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, passed by Congress on Jan. 31, 1865, was ratified by the States before the end of the year.

4.

See Letter 440, n. 3.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Probably Frederic Harrison, “The Iron-Masters’ Trade-Union,” or the first instalment of Walter Bagehot, “The English Constitution,” FR, I (May 15, 1865), 1-23, 96-116.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in part in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 203-205, and in Cosmopolis, pp. 782-83.

2.

See Letter 813, n. 6.

3.

One of these was probably the periodical referred to in n. 6.

4.

“The general management of Greek steamships informs . . . .”

5.

Probably “Hugues Capet,” a review of Hugues Capet, Chanson de Geste, publiée pour la première fois d’après le manuscrit unique de Paris, par M. le Marquis de la Grange (1864), in Journal des Savants (Feb., 1865), pp. 88-105. In this article, Littré is primarily concerned with linguistic changes in the French language as they can be deduced from the original of the epic through various changes made by contemporary and later copyists, and thus the article may have been of special interest to d’Eichthal at the time he was working on the evolution of the Greek language.

6.

Clio was a Greek paper published in Trieste.

7.

John Stuart Blackie.

8.

Victor Ambroise Lanjuinais (1802-1869), politician and economist, an old friend of d’Eichthal. See Earlier Letters, p. 38. Lanjuinais then held a seat in the Chamber of Deputies.

9.

See Letters 838 and 839. In the event, JSM went to four electioneering meetings: on July 5, 6, 8, and 10. See the advertisements placed by his committee in The Times, July 5, p. 10; July 8, p. 5; July 10, p. 8. JSM also met with his committee on July 3, 1865. The meeting attracted many other than those on the committee and turned into a public meeting. See The Times, July 4, 1865. See also Letter 842.

1.

MS at Harvard; MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Godkin’s letter of April 1, to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 35-36, and in Rollo Ogden, Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin (2 vols., London, 1907), II, 42-44.

Edwin Lawrence Godkin (1831-1902), editor and author, who emigrated to the United States in 1856. In July, 1865, he became the first editor of the Nation; he was later editor of the New York Evening Post.

2.

“Aristocratic Opinions of Democracy,” No. Am. Rev., C (Jan., 1865), 194-232. A review of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (Cambridge, 1863), 3rd Am. ed., and of JSM’s review of Tocqueville in Dissertations, Brit. ed., II, 1-83, Am. ed., II, 79-161.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Whewell’s letter of May 15 acknowledging JSM’s gift of a copy of his Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. Published in Elliot, II, 36-37.

2.

JSM in 1863 wrote Motley that Whewell was so strongly for the North that he would not suffer TheTimes to be in his house. See Letter 581, n. 11.

1.

MS at LSE. Cairnes’s reply of June 2 is in a MS copy at LSE.

2.

See Letters 809, 812, and 819.

3.

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), president of the Confederacy, was captured May 10, 1865, and kept in prison until May 13, 1867, when he was released on bail. He was never tried.

4.

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the vice president, had become president upon the death of Abraham Lincoln.

5.

“Liberalism and Democracy,” Reader, V (May 20, 1865), 566-67. On a speech in the House of Commons on May 3 by Robert Lowe, attacking de Tocqueville and the advance of democracy. Robert Lowe, later 1st Viscount Sherbrooke (1811-1892), politician, MP for Kidderminster, 1852-59, for Calne, 1859-67, and for London University, 1868-80; chancellor of the exchequer, 1868-73.

6.

“Emancipation—Black and White” (signed T.H.H.), Reader, V (May 20, 1865), 561-62. An appeal for the emancipation and education of women.

7.

JSM probably means the new editor of the Reader. William Fraser Rae, rather than John Douglas Cook (1808?-1868), editor of SR, 1855-68.

8.

The July 7 meeting of the Political Economy Club. See Letter 761, n. 5.

1.

MS at UCL. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Chadwick’s of May 25, to which this is a reply.

2.

Chadwick had reported that it was the unanimous opinion that JSM should return to London for meetings with the Committee and with electors.

3.

Letter 765.

4.

Harriet’s article of 1851. See Letter 28, n. 2.

5.

John Robinson McLean (1813-1873), engineer, later (1868-73) MP for East Staffordshire, in 1864-65 president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a professional organization chartered in 1828. Chadwick had reported that McLean’s only son had introduced JSM’s books to the family, and that McLean, though differing with JSM on the franchise, had subscribed £100 to his election.

6.

Grosvenor had written to Westerton protesting that “Mr. Mill’s party appeared to be joining with the Tories against him [Grosvenor] in the Saturday Review, and also in the Standard.”

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

See Letter 782, n. 3.

3.

The meeting was reported in the Daily News, April 11, 1865, p. 2. There was also correspondence on the subject: a letter signed Publicola, one signed W. L. Clay in the issue of April 12, 1865, and a letter from Hare in the issue of April 18, 1865.

4.

See Letter 795, n. 2. For extracts from Lubbock’s speech, see The Times, April 21, 1865, p. 10. On plural voting he is reported to have said: “The plan suggested by Mr. Hare, and advocated by Mr. Mill, of giving members to minorities, was worthy of consideration; but he could not say that he was ready to support such a plan at present.”

5.

Thomas Hughes’s address to the electors of Lambeth on May 6, 1865, in which he endorsed Hare’s plan, was published in the Beehive, May 13, 1865, p. 6.

6.

“Mr. F. W. Newman on Mr. J. S. Mill” (a letter to James Beal), Daily News, May 3, 1865, p. 5. Newman’s chief reason against supporting JSM was the latter’s opposition to the Permissive Bill, which would permit local governmentsto control or prohibit the liquor traffic.

7.

See Letter 769.

8.

See Letter 761, n. 6.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. In reply to Spencer’s of May 26, MS also at Northwestern. First paragraph of JSM’s letter is in Spencer, Autobiography, II, 141, and most of the second paragraph in Duncan, I, 154-55.

2.

It appeared with the title “Mill versus Hamilton—The Test of Truth,” in FR, I (July, 1865), 531-50.

3.

See the Reader, April 22, 1865, p. 452, and April 29, 1865, p. 473.

4.

The article, so noted in April 22, 1865, p. 452, of the Reader, was “The Law of Patents,” ER, CXXI (April, 1865), 578-610, identified in the Wellesley Index as by T. E. Cliffe Leslie.

5.

See Letter 791, n. 3.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 39-40.

2.

See Letter 826, n. 5.

3.

See ibid., n. 6.

4.

The following passage has been cancelled in the draft at this point: “But this affair has greatly increased my influence: it has opened a communication between me & the general mind of the country: thousands will look to me now who knew nothing of me before: I am getting the ear of England, & I have already that of America. & between the two I have no anxiety but how to make the best use of my influence during such years of life & work as remain to me.”

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

An article by Helen Taylor, Reader, V (May 13, 1865), 539-40.

3.

Appeared as “The Election of Representatives,” Reader, V (June 10, 1865), 651-52.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in The Life of Charles Loring Brace chiefly told in his own Letters, edited by his Daughter (New York, 1894), p. 333. Reprinted from Charles L. Brace, “A reminiscence of John Stuart Mill,” in the N. Y. Christian Union (June, 1873) and the Victoria Magazine, XXI (1873), 265-70.

2.

Brace reports that, on reaching England just after the close of the Civil War, he had written JSM how disgusted he was “at the sudden conversion of many Englishmen to the side of the North after the defeat of General Lee.”

1.

MS at Rhode Island Historical Society. MS copy at Columbia University.

2.

See Letter 738, n. 2.

3.

Book II of Hazard’s treatise is entitled “Review of Edwards on the Will” (Jonathan Edwards’ A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will which is Supposed Essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame, first published in 1754).

4.

Chap. xvi, “Sir William Hamilton’s Theory of Causation.”

5.

JSM’s criticisms in this letter were replied to at length in Hazard’s Two Letters on Causation and Freedom in Willing, addressed to John Stuart Mill. With an Appendix on the existence of matter, and our notions of infinite space (Boston, 1869).

6.

President Lincoln, at the beginning of his second term, had chosen as Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch (1808-1895), formerly comptroller of the currency.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letters 765 and 799.

3.

Chadwick’s proposed address to the electors of Westminster.

1.

MS draft at Yale. Partly published in Mrs. Harriet Grote, The Personal Life of George Grote (London, 1873), p. 276. Mrs. Grote also published portions (pp. 274-75) of Grote’s letter to Mill to which this is an answer.

2.

Vol. III, chap. xxxvii, of Grote’s Plato.

3.

Chap. xxxviii, “Other Companions of Sokrates,” and chap. xxxix, “Xenophon.”

4.

See Letter 769.

5.

“Grote’s Plato,” Reader, V (June 10, 1865), 644-45.

6.

“The whole fabric of the Hamiltonian philosophy is not only demolished, but its very stones are ground to powder.” M[ark] P[attison], “J. S. Mill on Hamilton,” Reader, V (May 20, 1865), 562-63.

7.

“The Record on the Westminster Election,” Sp., June 10, 1865, pp. 631-32.

8.

“The Religious Views of Mr Mill—Representation of Westminster,” Morning Advertiser, June 3, 1865, p. 5.

9.

“The Philosophy of the Conditioned, as applied by Mr. Mansel to the Limits of Religious Thought,” Hamilton, chap. vii. See Letter 847, n. 2, for the passage which aroused most criticism.

10.

The Record, June 2, p. 3,and June 14, 1865, p. 2.

1.

Copied in Letter 836 to Chadwick, MS at UCL. Published in The Times, June 24, 1865, p. 5, and in the Reasoner, XXVIII (July 1, 1865), 34.

2.

Letter 825.

3.

See the leading articles in the Record, June 19, p. 2, and June 26, 1865, p. 2. See also preceding Letter, n. 10.

4.

“Mr. J. S. Mill and his Supporters,” Morning Advertiser, June 28, 1865, p. 2. See also preceding Letter, n. 8.

5.

Connop Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David’s, in the Sp. (June 17, 1865) pp. 667-68. For the sentence in question, see Letter 847, n. 2.

6.

“Mr. J. S. Mill on Sir William Hamilton” (the first of a three-part review), Sp., May 27, 1865, pp. 584-85.

7.

For JSM’s opinion of Mansel’s theology, see Hamilton, chap. v.

1.

Copied in letter to Chadwick of June 22, 1865 (Letter 836), MS at UCL.

2.

But see Letters 837 and 838.

3.

At the meeting of the Political Economy Club, for which JSM had proposed the question. See Letter 761, n. 5.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See 834, n. 3, and n. 4.

3.

Sir John Villiers Shelley (1808-1867), MP for Westminster, 1852-65.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

For JSM’s meetings with his committee and the electors, see Letters 821, n. 9, 838, and 839.

1.

MS at NYP. Envelope addressed: Angleterre / Charles Westerton Esq., / 27, St. George’s Place / Hyde Park Corner / London. Postmark: AVIGNON / 26 JUIN 1865.

1.

MS in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of Mrs. Hugh Gemmel of East London. Envelope addressed: Miss Harriet Mill / 2 Langton Grove / Upper Sydenham / S.E. Endorsed in another hand: “On signing of last Legal Document for Sale of Lund in July 1865.”

Harriet I. Mill was the executor and beneficiary of the estate of James Bentham Mill, included in which was the farm named Lund, in the island of Unst, where he had settled after his retirement from the East India Co. See Letter 542.

2.

John Paterson, of the firm of Dymock and Paterson, solicitors-at-law, 56 George St., Edinburgh.

1.

MS in the Hollander Collection, University of Illinois.

Edwin (later Sir Edwin) Arnold (1832-1904), poet and journalist; from 1861 a leader writer on the Daily Telegraph.

2.

See next Letter, n. 2.

3.

See Letters 833, n. 8, and 834, n. 4.

4.

Possibly JSM’s Malthusian instead of religious views. On July 8, at a meeting in the Pimlico Rooms, questions on population were put to JSM. The Standard, on July 10, published a strong attack on him for his “dangerous and disgusting” theories on population and marriage. The attack was reprinted as “Mr. J. S. Mill on Marriage,” in Public Opinion, July 15, 1865, pp. 55-56.

5.

See Letter 834, n. 5 and n. 6.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

For JSM to meet the electors of Westminster, at St. James’s Hall, Wednesday, July 5, at 8 p.m. See The Times, July 6, p. 9.

3.

The committee for R. W. Grosvenor, the other Liberal candidate, and JSM’s committee agreed to work together against W.H. Smith, the Tory candidate. The coalition was announced in The Times, July 10, p. 5.

4.

On Monday, July 3, 1865, at St. James’s Hall, for JSM to meet with his committee. The gathering was far larger and more public than he had anticipated. In his speech, he paid tribute to the radicalism learned from his father. See The Times, July 4, 1865, p. 14.

5.

Daily News, July 6, 1865, p. 2; Daily Telegraph, July 6, 1865, p. 3.

6.

The Times, July 6, 1865, p. 9. But The Times, July 10, 1865, p. 5, summarized JSM’s remarks, made at the meeting of July 8, on the costs of election and the consequent restriction of candidates to the wealthy.

7.

Tuesday, July 11, was nomination day; Wednesday, July 12, election day. Grosvenor and JSM were elected with votes of 4,534 and 4,525 respectively; W. H. Smith with 3,824 votes was defeated. For a young American’s contemporary account of JSM’s July 10 meeting at St. Martin’s Hall, see Moses Coit Tyler, “John Stuart Mill as a Stump Speaker,” in Glimpses of England (New York and London, 1898), pp. 13-23, reprinted from the Independent, vol. XVII (Aug. 17, 1865), 1.

1.

MS not located. Published in The Times, July 17, 1865, p. 7. W. L. Harvey Esq. of 47, Bessborough Gardens, is named as a member of JSM’s committee, the list of which takes up two columns of The Times, May 27, 1865, p. 5.

2.

In his letter of transmittal to The Times, Harvey explained that JSM had been asked the following: “Would the demand for the ballot by a very large number of tradesmen and employés, who are, or are duly qualified to be, on the electoral register, on the ground they object to being canvassed by any person or party whatever, and many of the latter of whom, as is well known, keep their assessed taxes unpaid until after the 20th of July to avoid being on the register and so escape being canvassed, justify exceptional legislation in the form of the ballot being permitted in boroughs in conjunction with open voting, each elector having the option of using which of the two modes he preferred?”

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in the Co-operator, VI (Aug. 1, 1865), 92.

2.

Matthew Davenport Hill (1792-1872), reformer of the criminal law; MP for Hull, 1832-34; recorder of Birmingham, 1839-65; commissioner in bankruptcy for Bristol, 1851-69; active in the NAPSS and the co-operative movement. In a letter of May 21, 1865 (published in the Co-operator, June 15, 1865, p. 37), to Henry Pitman, Hill expressed his disagreement with the position of the Wolverhampton Plate Lock Makers’ Co-operative. See also the Co-operator, Aug. 15, 1865, p. 99 and Letters 776 and 781.

3.

The report in the Birmingham Gazette has not been located, but it was probably the letter headed “The Co-operative Plate-Lock Makers,” reprinted in the Beehive, April 22, 1865, p. 5, and in abridged form in the Co-operator, June 15, 1865, pp. 36-37.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907), American Unitarian minister and man of letters, from Feb., 1864, pastor of South Place Chapel, London. His lodgings were in the same house as those of Cairnes, Notting Hill Square, and through Cairnes Conway met JSM. See Mary Elizabeth Burtis, Moncure Conway (New Brunswick, N.J., 1952).

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Helen Taylor in a letter to Chadwick of July 19, 1865, MS at UCL, reported that JSM had agreed to sit for a photograph but had not yet made an appointment.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, p. 281, as part of JSM’s reply to Ward’s letter of July 17, 1865, pp. 279-81. Passage in brackets is Wilfrid Ward’s summary.

2.

Wilfrid Ward (pp. 280-81) cites the passage from JSM’s Hamilton chap. vii (in which he attacks the views of Hamilton’s disciple, Henry Mansel, on the limits of religious thought): “If, instead of the ‘glad tidings’ that there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government, except that ‘the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving’ does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go” (pp. 102-103).

3.

W. G. Ward, On Nature and Grace. A Theological Treatise (London, 1860), which JSM cited with praise in his Hamilton, pp. 174-75n. See also Letter 423.

4.

Ward had written in his letter of July 17, 1865: “That I am not simply a ‘bigot’, in the ordinary sense, I persuade myself, were it only from my great interest in everything you [JSM] write. I may take the opportunity of saying how heartily I agree with the drift of that passage about God which has so excited the bitterness of many Christians.” (See n. 2 above.)

5.

Ward had asked for help from JSM in preparing an essay on Galileo, which appeared with the title “Doctrinal Decrees of a Pontifical Congregation.—The Case of Galileo,” in Dublin Review, n.s. V (Oct., 1865), 376-425. Ward quotes from JSM’s Hamilton in a footnote on p. 397.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

On his election to Parliament.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 41. In reply to Franks’s letter of July 14, also at Johns Hopkins. He has not been identified.

2.

Franks had raised the question apropos of JSM’s statement in On Liberty (chap. ii): “No reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in the Roman Empire.”

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Lyttelton’s letter of July 8 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 40-41.

William Henry Lyttelton (1820-1884), rector of Hagley, Worcester, later canon of Gloucester.

2.

The Testimony of Scripture to the Authority of Conscience and of Reason, No. 12 in the series Tracts for Priests and People, 14 Nos. plus Supplement (Cambridge and London, 1861-62).

3.

In his Bampton Lectures of 1858. See Letter 815. Lyttelton charged Mansel with advocating “complete philosophical scepticism. . . . If human morality and Divine are different in kind, we had better leave off speaking of the Divine attributes at all. If ‘just,’ ‘merciful,’ ‘true,’ as predicated of God, do not mean what they do when predicated of men, they are evidently utterly unmeaning to us.”

4.

Including F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley.

5.

See Letter 833.

6.

Probably one of several letters in an exchange between Lyttelton and the Rev. S. C. Malan, published in the Guardian from April to June, 1865. Lyttelton’s letters appeared on April 19, pp. 387-88; May 10, p. 459; June 7, p. 579; and June 28, p. 659.

The controversy had arisen over a sermon preached by Frederick Temple (1821-1902), then headmaster of Rugby, later Archbishop of Canterbury, as the fifth of the Lenten Sermons in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. As reported in the Guardian, April 5, 1865, Temple had said that attempts to reconcile the account of the Creation in Genesis with the discoveries of modern science were doomed to failure. “It was clear . . . that the first chapter of Genesis was not the same thing they learned from geology. . . . They had, in all probability, in that account of creation a poem, just as the whole of the Apocalypse was a poem.” Lyttelton defended Temple’s position.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

Gladstone was elected for South Lancashire on July 20, after having lost for the University of Oxford on July 18, for which he had been MP since 1847. He was defeated by non-resident electors, many of them disturbed by his attitude towards the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, which he had proposed. See Philip Magnus, Gladstone (London, 1954), pp. 165-77.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letter 801.

3.

See Letters 746 and 751.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

3.

Chapman did secure a reviewer; “Mr. Grote’s Plato,” WR, n.s. XXVIII (Oct., 1865), 459-82.

4.

Bain reviewed it in Macmillan’s: “Grote’s Plato: The Negative or Search Dialogues,” XII (July, 1865), 193-208, and “Grote’s Plato: the Affirmative, or Exposition, Dialogues,” XII (Oct., 1865), 457-72.

1.

MS copy (possibly incomplete) at UCL.

2.

The 6th, 1865. For the correction JSM made, see Letter 861, n. 3.

1.

MS at Johns Hopkins. Envelope addressed: Miss Helen Taylor / Blackheath Park / Kent / S. E. Postmark: PENZANCE / E AU 2 / 65.

2.

No letter to W. T. Thornton at this time appears to have survived.

3.

No doubt from W. H. Smith, the defeated Tory candidate for Westminster.

4.

See Letter 469, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 42. In reply to Congreve’s of Aug. 3, 1865, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Congreve had been converted to positivism in 1848, had resigned his fellowship at Oriel in 1855, and had established a positivist community that year.

2.

Congreve’s letter of Aug. 3, 1865, was one of courteously worded complaint about JSM’s treatment of Comte and his ideas in the two essays on Comte, published earlier this year. Congreve quoted as an example the following sentence: “We cannot go on any longer with this trash.” The sentence is in “Later Speculations of Auguste Comte,” WR, n.s. XXVIII (July, 1865) p. 39. When reprinted in Auguste Comte and Positivism, the sentence was changed to, “We cannot go on any longer with this.” (Collected Works, X, 365.)

1.

MS in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester.

2.

Joseph, later Sir Joseph, Cowen (1800-1873), a mine owner and firebrick and clay retort manufacturer; MP for Newcastle, 1865-73.

3.

Cowen, alarmed at newspaper attacks on Holyoake’s radicalism and atheism, did not appoint him his private secretary as he had originally planned. See Joseph McCabe, Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake (2 vols., London, 1908), II, 19-20.

4.

A bill to permit all persons to make affirmations “where there is inability to take an oath from defect or want of religious knowledge or belief.” If JSM was referring to Trelawny’s Affirmations (Scotland) Bill, it had finally been adopted the previous March and had received Royal Assent (see The Times, April 8, 1865, p. 5). What JSM may well have had in mind, however, was the continuing struggle to modify the Parliamentary Oath, which was accomplished in the 1866 session. Not until 1888, in the famous Bradlaugh case, was the Oath modified so as to permit an atheist to take it. See W. L. Arnstein, The Bradlaugh Case (Oxford, 1965), pp. 66-67, 317-18.

5.

Sir John Salusbury Trelawny, 9th baronet (1816-1885), MP for Tavistock, 1843-52, 1857-65, and for East Cornwall, 1868-74. Sir John had been the original sponsor of the Affirmations Bill. He did not run for Parliament in 1865.

1.

MS at the Imperial College of Science, London. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Huxley’s letter of Aug. 1, to which this is a reply.

2.

A society founded in response to a prize offered at the Paris Universal Exposition for the best essay on the advantages of educating children of different nationalities together. Richard Cobden was the first chairman. The Society’s most important work was the establishment of schools in Paris, Godesberg, and London. The one in London, International College, opened in 1866 and lasted until 1889. Its curriculum stressed the study of science and modern languages, and its student body included French, Germans, Spaniards, Indians, and North and South Americans. The schools on the Continent, however, failed because of the Franco-Prussian war. The plan was outlined in “International Education,” the Reader, V (June 17, 1865), 678-79. For further details, see Cyril Bibby, T. H. Huxley (New York, 1959), pp. 168-72.

3.

For James Lorimer’s views on education, see G. E. Davie, The Democratic Intellect (Edinburgh, 1961), pp. 47-56.

4.

In his letter of Aug. 1, Huxley had said, “The object of its founders may be concisely stated to be to create a system of education in which modern literature and science on the one hand, and theology, on the other, shall occupy their proper places.”

1.

MS and MS copy at UCL.

2.

Of these letters only De Morgan’s of Aug. 3, 1865 (MS copy at UCL) appears to have survived.

3.

Logic (8th ed., 1872), II, 135-36 (III, xxiii, 6, para. 4).

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Plummer’s article, “Remarkable Men: Members of the New Parliament No. I. John Stuart Mill,” Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper, Sept. 16, 1865, pp. 87-88. A pen and ink sketch accompanied the article.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Published in Duncan, I, 156-58.

2.

See Letter 827, n. 2.

3.

See Spencer’s article, pp. 534-35.

4.

See ibid., p. 535, and Hamilton, p. 150.

5.

See Spencer, pp. 539-40.

6.

Spencer, p. 550.

7.

“Mr. Spencer on Mr. Mill,” SR, XX (Aug. 12, 1865), 199-201, attributed to James Fitzjames Stephen by Merle M. Bevington in his The Saturday Review, 1855-1868 (New York, 1941), p. 379.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. Peter M. Jackson.

Edward Wilson (1813-1878), journalist and philanthropist, publisher of the Melbourne Argus, 1847-64.

2.

Possibly Enquiry into the Principles of Representation: a reprint of several letters and leading articles from the Argus newspaper. With an introduction by E. Wilson (Melbourne, 1857). Wilson later published “Principles of Representation,” FR, IV (April 1, 1866), 421-36; reprinted as a pamphlet, London, 1866.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York.

2.

John Jacob Edwin Mayall (1810-1901), an American photographer in London, highly successful in making and selling daguerreotypes.

3.

Probably the London Stereoscopic Company, founded in 1858, and specializing in stereoscopic slides.

1.

MS at Imperial College of Science, London. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Huxley’s letter of Aug. 14, to which this is a reply, and Huxley’s rejoinder of Aug. 20. Published in Elliot, II, 43-44.

2.

See Letter 860.

3.

George Birkbeck (1776-1841), physician and philanthropist, contributed to the founding and endowing of Mechanics’ Institutions in London and Glasgow to provide instruction in science for working men. The name of the London establishment was later changed to the Birkbeck Institution (or College).

4.

A school opened in 1830, attendant upon the founding of the London University in 1828. It did not teach theology.

5.

See Letter 860.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Kinnear’s letter of July 7, to which this is a reply. Published, except for first two paragraphs, in Elliot, II, 44-45.

John Boyd Kinnear (1828-1920), Scottish advocate and English barrister, MP for East Fife, 1885-86. During the 1860’s he worked as a leader writer on various London papers, including the Daily News, the Morning Star, and the Pall Mall Gazette.

2.

Principles of Reform: Political and Legal (London, 1865).

3.

Ibid., chap. ii, “Foreign Policy and Non-Intervention.”

4.

Ibid., chap. i, “The Franchise on the Basis of Education.”

1.

MS at LSE. The address has been cut off. In reply to Cairnes’s of Aug. 20, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

“Irish Education,” Economist, Aug. 19, 1865, pp. 1000-1002. The occasion for the letter was an attack upon the university system of Ireland by Daniel O’Donoghue, MP for Tipperary, 1857-65, for Tralee, 1865-85. “The O’Donoghue,” as he was known, in effect charged the system with being discriminatory against Roman Catholics. For the attack and the ensuing debate in Parliament, see Hansard, CLXXX, cols. 541-55.

3.

Queen’s University was established in 1850 as the degree-granting institution for the Queen’s Colleges, Belfast, Cork, and Galway, established in 1845 by the administration of Sir Robert Peel. For details, see T. W. Moody and J. C. Becket, Queen’s Belfast (2 vols., London, 1959).

4.

That is, mixed religiously, with both Roman Catholic and Protestant students.

5.

To permit students to take degrees from Queen’s University through examination only rather than through residence at one of the Queen’s colleges and through examination. The concession was granted by the home secretary, Sir George Grey, in response to The O’Donoghue’s attack. See n. 2 above.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

The 6th ed., 1865.

3.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

4.

John Grote (1813-1866), younger brother of George Grote, in 1855 succeeded William Whewell as Knightbridge Professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. The book referred to was his Exploratio Philosophica: Rough Notes on Modern Intellectual Science (Cambridge, 1865).

5.

See Logic, 6th ed. (1865), Book I, chap. iii, sec. 8, p. 67, n.

6.

Henry Reeve, editor of ER.

7.

Leonidas Sgouta or Sgoutas (1820-1878), Greek jurist, founder in 1846 of the law journal Themis, to which he contributed on many subjects. None of his correspondence with JSM has been located.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Sic. Robert Lowe in 1859 became vice-president of the Council of Education and was placed in charge of the distribution of public grants to the schools of the kingdom. He was responsible for the “Revised Code” of 1862 and a system of “payment by results” by the administration of examinations in the three R’s. In 1864 Lowe was accused of altering the reports of school inspectors (of whom Matthew Arnold was the best known) to support his own views on education. Lowe was censured in the House of Commons and resigned his office on April 18, 1864 (see Hansard, CLXXIV, cols. 897 ff. and 1203 ff.). In the spring of 1865 a select committee was appointed to investigate the matter and a report was issued on June 19, 1865 (see Parl. Papers, 1865, Reports of Committees, vol. VI). This is probably the “official correspondence” to which JSM is referring.

3.

Probably a draft of an address on the dangers and difficulties for lives and property in the merchant marine. See “Address on Economy and Trade,” NAPSS, Transactions, 1865, pp. 77-101.

4.

Hugh Fortescue, 3rd Earl, Viscount Ebrington, Public Schools for the Middle Classes (London, 1864).

1.

MS at Yale. Published in William M. Dickson, Absolute Equality before the Law, the Only Basis of Reconstruction. An Address, delivered at Oberlin, Ohio, October 3, 1865, with an Appendix, containing John Stuart Mill’s Letter on Reconstruction, and the Correspondence Therewith Connected (Cincinnati, 1865), pp. 21-24. Also published in the Liberator (Oct. 6, 1865), p. 157, in various other newspapers, and in Littell’s Living Age, LXXXVII (Oct. 7, 1865), 46-48, and Yale University Library Gazette, XXX (April, 1956), 163-66.

William Martin Dickson (1827-1889), a judge of Cincinnati, Ohio, and a Unionist politician.

2.

Jacob Dolson Cox (1828-1900), major-general in the Union army, governor of Ohio, 1866-68. In response to a question on Negro suffrage, Cox, then starting his campaign for governor, had written on July 20, 1865, that he favoured separating Negroes from whites by establishing a federal dependency in the south where the Negroes would live and govern themselves. See George H. Porter, Ohio Politics during the Civil War Period (New York, 1911), pp. 210-12.

3.

Dickson’s letter, published in the Cincinnati Commercial, Aug. 11, 1865. See Porter, Ohio Politics, p. 212.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of Aug. 28, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

In his letter of Aug. 28, 1865, Cairnes doubted whether JSM’s suggestion (in Letter 868) not to permit anyone to serve on the Senate of Queen’s University who did not believe in the mixed educational system was a feasible solution to the Irish university problem. Cairnes further pointed out that if entirely Roman Catholic institutions were placed under Queen’s University, that too would change the mixed system.

3.

A degree-granting institution, which would have the advantage of not confusing the issue between mixed and denominational colleges.

4.

The Irish Roman Catholic prelates wished to have the Catholic University placed on a footing of equality with the Queen’s colleges and endowed by the government.

5.

“The die is cast.”

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale. Mounted on the fly-leaf of Howell’s copy of JSM’s Pol. Econ. (6th ed., 1865).

George Howell (1833-1910), originally a bricklayer, became an influential labour leader and writer on workers’ causes. Secretary of the Reform League, 1864-67; member of the council of the International Workingmen’s Assoc., 1865; for years a successful parliamentary lobbyist; MP for Bethnal Green, 1885-95.

2.

These probably included an early article by Howell on strikes, but it has not been identified.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Kinnear’s letter of Sept. 11 to which this is a reply. Published, except for last paragraph, in Elliot, II, 45-46.

2.

In his letter of Sept. 11, Kinnear argued for his beliefs on race, the representation of minorities, and classes in England. See also Letter 867.

3.

Since 1846.

4.

1 Corinthians, 10:15.

5.

See Letter 867, n. 2.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Edward Walford (1823-1897), bibliographer, antiquarian, subeditor and editor of Once a Week from 1859 to 1865, and of the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1866-68.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Of English Language and Literature, University College, London, in succession to David Masson, who held the chair from 1852 to 1865. See Letter 897, n. 2.

3.

The Reader had been purchased in Aug., 1865, by Thomas Bendyshe (1827-1886), Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and barrister, who ran it until Jan., 1867, when it was suspended. Bendyshe had been expelled from the Conservative Club for voting for JSM in July, 1865.

1.

MS not located. From facsimile of MS reproduced in Moncure Daniel Conway, Autobiography, Memories and Experiences (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1904), II, 16.

2.

Probably copies of speeches printed in numbers of the Liberator or the National Anti-Slavery Standard rather than the 1863 collected edition of Phillips’s speeches, which does not contain speeches referred to in this letter. Four of these have been located: one of Oct. 20, 1864, on “The Presidential Election,” at the Tremont Temple, Boston, published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Nov. 5, 1864; two on Jan. 26, 1865, at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, published in the Liberator, Feb. 10 and 17, 1865; one on May 9, 1865, at the 32nd anniversary meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society at the Church of the Puritans in New York City, published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard of May 13 and in the Liberator of May 19. Major emphasis in all four speeches was upon advocating the immediate extension of the suffrage to the emancipated slaves as well as to poor whites.

3.

In his speech of May 9 Phillips had said: “In Revolutionary times, every man in this country, black and white, who was born free, except in South Carolina, voted—with the limitation, in some of the States, of a property qualification. Our fathers were too wise to require book learning as a preliminary condition of the ballot. I am surprised, and marvel greatly, that so masterly a mind as Stuart Mill should proclaim that in his theory a man must read before he votes. Does he not remember that for four men out of five, education does not come from books? Does he suppose there was no education in the world before printing was invented? . . . The mass of men have their faculties educated by work, not by reading. . . .”

4.

As early as Oct., 1851, at a convention at Worcester, Mass., Phillips had presented resolutions on women’s rights in part framed from Mrs. Mill’s WR article, “Enfranchisement of Women.” See “Woman’s Rights,” in Phillips’s Speeches, Lectures, and Letters (Boston, 1863), pp. 11-34.

In his speech of May 9, 1865, Phillips had advocated a constitutional amendment that “ ‘No state shall ever make any distinctions in civil privileges among those born on her soil . . . on account of race, color, or condition.’ I hope in time to be as bold as Stuart Mill, and add to that last clause ‘sex’. But this hour belongs to the Negro.”

5.

The Liberator.

1.

MS at Bodleian; the bracketed portions indicate defects in the MS.

2.

One of these is presumably De Morgan’s letter of Sept. 28, 1865, which survives in a MS copy at UCL.

3.

See Letter 861. JSM inserted a passage in the 6th ed. (1865) of the Logic as a result of this correspondence, but later transferred the passage, in altered and reconsidered form, to a footnote. See 8th ed. (1872), II, 135-37.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Wakeman’s letter of Sept. 29 and rejoinders of Nov. 17 and 23. Published in Elliot, II, 46-48.

Maurice Wakeman (1801-1870), earlier in the flour business in Boston, at this time resident in Southport, Conn.

2.

Wakeman did not remain good-tempered towards JSM. The following quotation from Wakeman’s letter of Nov. 23, 1865, is typical of his attitude towards all Englishmen and of the tone of all his letters: “I have just got through reading your essay on liberty, or the right of thought and free discussion. You certainly have indulged this right with a vengeance. You appear to be a man of education, and some reading, yet lack the great essentials of manhood, namely sound morals, common sense, and honesty.”

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in part in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 205-206, and in Cosmopolis, p. 783.

2.

Etude sur les origines bouddhiques de la civilisation américaine (Paris, 1865).

3.

The Ethnological Society, founded in 1843, met several times a year to listen to papers. Its president at this time was John Crawfurd (1783-1868), orientalist, best known for his History of the Indian Archipelago (3 vols., London, 1820).

4.

See Letter 777.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Published in Duncan, I, 160-61. In reply to Spencer’s of Oct. 11 (MS at Northwestern), also published in Duncan, I, 158-60.

2.

For JSM’s disagreements with Spencer, see JSM’s Logic, Book II, chap. vii. For Spencer’s side, see “Mill versus Hamilton - the Test of Truth,” FR, I (July 15, 1865), 531-50. See also Letter 863.

3.

Logic, Book II, chap. vii, sec. 3. JSM introduced a footnote and a few minor changes in this passage in the 7th ed. See 8th ed., I, 312.

1.

MS and MS copy at NLI.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt quoted in 1962 catalogue of Collectors’ Corner, The Folio Society, 6, Stratford Place, London, W.1.

John Macrae Moir (1827-1881), journalist; editor, Illustrated Times, London; secretary of the Scottish Corporation, 1862-81.

2.

David Masson had been appointed successor to William Edmonstoune Aytoun (1813-1865) as professor of rhetoric and English literature.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

To Christine Graff, a German.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in John, Viscount Morley, Recollections (2 vols., New York, 1917), I, 52.

John Morley, later Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838-1923), author and statesman. See also Letter 1155.

2.

Morley’s article, “New Ideas,” SR, XX (Oct. 21, 1865), 508-509. From this point a close friendship developed between JSM and Morley.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt quoted in Leroy H. Fischer, Lincoln’s Gadfly, Adam Gurowski (Norman, Okla., 1964), pp. 188-89, from a letter by Gurowski to Horatio Woodman of April 9, 1866, published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, LVI (Jan., 1923), pp. 238-39. According to Fischer, the passage was also quoted in a letter to Gerrit Smith, Nov. 16, 1865 (MS in Archives and Museum, Polish Roman Catholic Union of America). Gurowski wrote Woodman: “Before I published this third volume [of his Diary] I asked advise [sic] of John Stuart Mill. He is impartial and disinterested. Herewith an extract from his letter, for such use as you will find proper. I asked the opinion of Mill, because I was puzzled by the abuse showered upon me [because of the first two volumes of his published Diary] . . . (Mill is my friend of more than thirty-five years standing and I asked his advice as that of a physician for a disease.)” The Diary contains a number of highly laudatory comments on JSM, including this one, under the date of Feb. 8, 1864: “I wish every American would read and learn J. S. Mill’s book on Liberty, in the same way as most of them learn the Scriptures. Many, very many verses of Mill’s gospel are more full of life than some of the worshipped Hebrew hallucinations” (Diary, III, p. 96).

Count Adam Gurowski (1805-1866), Polish author and agitator, in exile from his native country. JSM had become acquainted with him in Paris in the 1830’s, possibly through Mazzini, Godefroi Cavaignac, or mutual Saint-Simonian friends. In 1849 Gurowski emigrated to the United States, where he engaged chiefly in journalism.

2.

In England. The first two volumes of Gurowski’s Diary had been published in America (vol. I, Boston, 1862; vol. II, New York, 1864). Gurowski had sent JSM a proof copy of vol. III before publication in Washington, 1866. The Diary concerns chiefly the Washington political scene during the Civil War, and contains many severely critical comments on Lincoln and his secretary of state, William Seward. JSM declined either to edit an English edition or to write an introduction to it (see next Letter), and no English edition appears to have been published.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library.

2.

See preceding Letter.

3.

Trübner was publishing JSM’s articles on Comte in book form.

4.

Gustave Germer Baillière (1837-1884), French publisher.

5.

JSM’s book on Comte was eventually translated as Comte und der Positivismus by Elise Gomperz, and published in Theodor Gomperz’s edition of JSM’s Gesammelte Werke (12 vols., Leipzig, 1869-80), vol. IX.

6.

John Stephens Storr (1829-1895), son of a proprietor of the Great Metropolitan Auction Mart, at 26 King St., Covent Garden, known as the firm of Debenham, Storr and Sons. Storr had been active in the campaign to elect JSM as MP, and had served as treasurer of his election fund.

7.

William Brewer (d. 1881), prominent physician and medical writer; MP for Colchester, 1868-74.

1.

MS at Yale, as is Grote’s answer of Nov. 20, 1865.

2.

In Plato, and the other Companions of Sokrates, vol. I, chap. vii, p. 281, n.a., Grote refers to the opinions of Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768-1834) and Friedrich Ueberweg (1826-1871).

3.

Xenophon, Socrates’ Defence, 2-19.

4.

Plato, Phaedo, 59 B.

5.

Socrates’ Defence, 20-23.

6.

Xenophon, Socrates’ Defence, 26; Plato, Apology, 41. Palamedes, one of the heroes who besieged Troy.

7.

A “difficulty” for which I greatly need “someone to provide a solution.”

8.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

9.

See Letter 855.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In envelope labelled in JSM’s hand: W. O. Adams / (schoolboy). Published in Elliot, II, 48. In reply to Adams’s undated letter, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Adams has not been identified.

2.

Adams had written in his letter: “ ‘Is flogging good or bad for boys?’

“A few lines, written in your usual clear, lucid manner, would form the staple of an essay, on the above subject, which I am about to compose, in competition for a Prize offered by the Publisher of the ‘Boys’ Own Magazine.’ ”

1.

MS at Rhode Island Historical Society, as is also MS copy of Hazard’s of July 1. MS copy at Columbia.

2.

The so-called Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica had broken out on Oct. 11; Governor Edward John Eyre (1815-1901) had proclaimed martial law on Oct. 13. The first announcement of the revolt did not appear in The Times until Nov. 3, and the news of the trial and the execution on Oct. 23 of the Negro leader, George William Gordon, had not yet reached London on the day of this letter. For an account of JSM’s activities in this controversy over Eyre’s conduct of his office, see Bernard Semmel, The Governor Eyre Controversy (London, 1962); Am. ed., Jamaican Blood and Victorian Conscience: The Governor Eyre Controversy (Boston, 1963).

3.

George Luther Stearns (1809-1867), radical abolitionist, a supporter of John Brown, and a recruiter of Negro regiments during the Civil War. On Oct. 24 he published an account of a September interview with President Andrew Johnson, which indicated a favourable attitude toward Negro suffrage.

1.

MS at Harvard. Published in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (1916-17), 11-12.

Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American scholar and man of letters; ed. with James Russell Lowell of the No. Am. Rev., 1864-68; professor of history of the arts, Harvard, 1874-98; ed. of Carlyle letters.

2.

“American Political Ideas,” No. Am. Rev., CI (Oct., 1865), 550-66.

1.

MS at Yale. In reply to Grote’s letter of Nov. 20, also at Yale.

2.

See Letter 887.

3.

This sentence summarizes Grote’s letter of Nov. 20, 1865. For JSM’s treatment of Socrates as described by Xenophon, see “Grote’s Plato,” ER, CXXIII (April, 1866), 319-20.

4.

“John Stuart Mill on the Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton,” WR, n.s. XXIX (Jan., 1866), 1-39.

5.

On pp. 4-5 of the review Grote pays tribute to James Mill. The paragraph begins as follows: “Mr. John Stuart Mill has not been the first to bestow honour on the surname which he bears. His father, Mr. James Mill, had already ennobled the name. An ampler title to distinction in history and philosophy can seldom be produced than that which Mr. James Mill left behind him.”

6.

Autobiography, published posthumously in 1873, edited by Helen Taylor.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

The Working Man, A weekly record of social and industrial progress, published from Jan. 6, 1866, through Dec. 22, 1866.

3.

See Letter 874.

1.

MS in St. Andrews University Library. Envelope addressed: Charles K. Watt Esq. / St Mary’s College / St Andrews / N.B. Published by Dr. Anna J. Mill in “The First Ornamental Rector at St Andrews University,” Scottish Historical Review, XLIII (Oct., 1964), 135-36.

Charles Kinnear Watt, a theological student at St. Andrews, and chairman of the committee for the election of JSM as rector of St. Andrews. JSM had been elected on Nov. 23 by 95 votes against 48 for George William Fox Kinnaird, 9th Baron Kinnaird (1807-1878).

2.

On Feb. 1, 1866.

3.

He subsequently accepted. See Letter 899.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

“Lettre de Londres,” Le Temps, Nov. 30, 1865, p. 1. An earlier “Lettre” had appeared on Nov. 24, p. 2.

3.

Jean Baptiste Carrier (1756-1794), French Revolutionist and Terrorist, notorious for the Noyades of Nantes, the drowning of large numbers of prisoners.

4.

Jean Marie Collot (1749-1796), French Revolutionist, known especially for his savage administration of the Terror in Lyons in 1793.

5.

The squadron maintained there to block the slave trade.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also MacCormac’s letter of Nov. 29 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 48-49.

Henry MacCormac (1800-1886), visiting physician to the Belfast District Lunatic Asylum, from 1832 head of the Cholera Hospital at Belfast, and author of works on medical and other topics.

2.

In his letter of Nov. 29, MacCormac had objected to the following statement as being inconsistent with JSM’s theories: “The laws which, in many countries on the Continent, forbid marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the state: and whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly dependent on local circumstances and feelings), they are not objectionable as violations of liberty.” On Liberty (London, 1859), p. 194 (chap. v).

1.

MS not located. Published in The Times, Dec. 20, 1865, p. 6, and in the Journal of Social Science, I (1866), 207.

2.

For the motion presented by Beal, see “Metropolitan Government,” The Times, Dec. 5, 1865, p. 7.

3.

Aided by Beal, JSM on May 21, 1867, presented to the Commons a measure to establish municipal corporations in the several districts of London. See Letters 1342, n. 4 and 1388, n. 2.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Henry Morley (1822-1894), author, professor of English literature at University College, London, 1865-89. See also Letter 875.

3.

David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries, and of the discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864 (London, 1865).

4.

See Letter 889, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also White’s letter of Nov. 3 to which this is a reply. Published in part in Elliot, II, 49-50.

Horace White (1834-1916), journalist; editor of the Chicago Tribune, 1864-74; later, editor of the New York Evening Post.

2.

In his letter of Nov. 3, 1865, White had said, “I therefore beg leave to propose that you write a letter or essay suitable for the columns of a daily newspaper, to explain in the simplest manner how it is that low wages in England, for instance, do not give the English manufacturer an advantage over the American manufacturer who pays high wages.”

1.

MS in St. Andrews University Muniments. Published by Dr. Anna J. Mill in the Scottish Historical Review, XLIII (Oct., 1964), 136-37.

2.

Tulloch himself was then the vice-chancellor.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Francis Richard Charteris, Lord Elcho, and later 10th Earl of Wemyss (1818-1914), MP for Haddingtonshire, 1847-83.

After the House of Commons had voted down, on May 8, 1865, an attempt to reduce the borough franchise from £10 to £6, Lord Elcho asked that a royal commission be appointed to inquire how many of the “wage-paid” class have the franchise, how many are excluded, and the reasons for exclusion, and how far the franchise can be extended in relation to the various classes in boroughs and the relative value of money and property. The royal commission was not appointed during the session of 1865. See the Annual Register, 1865, Part I, p. 115.

3.

Whether Chadwick visited Algeria has not been ascertained. He had been interested for some time in the marked improvement in sanitary conditions there, and in 1864 had persuaded the minister of war to direct a special committee bound for Gibraltar to include Algeria in its itinerary.

1.

MS at LSE. MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published, with one omission, in Elliot, II, 51-53.

2.

The Economic Position of the British Labourer (Cambridge and London, 1865).

3.

Fawcett delivered the lectures which made up the book at Cambridge in the autumn of 1864. See Letter 710.

4.

“Strikes: their Tendencies and Remedies,” WR, n.s. XVIII (July, 1860), 1-23. Cf. chap. v, “Trade Unions and Strikes,” The Economic Position of the British Labourer.

5.

Chap. iv, “The Causes which regulate Wages.”

6.

Organized for the workers by the Provisional Government of 1848. The dispersal of the workers in June, 1848, led to the abortive insurrection of that month.

7.

Pierre Thomas Marie de Saint-Georges Marie (1795-1870), member of the Provisional Government of 1848.

8.

A large lending organization, founded in 1852 by Isaac and Emile Pereire.

9.

Arsène Houssaye (1815-1896), French playwright, poet, novelist.

10.

See Letter 889, n. 2.

11.

Parliamentary reform, both of the franchise and of the distribution of seats, was not achieved until the act of 1867, though the session of Parliament which opened on Feb. 1, 1866, concerned itself greatly with the problem.

12.

V. H. Hobart [Baron Hobart], “Parliamentary Reform,” Macmillan’s, XIII (Jan., 1866), 259-72.

13.

Reform of municipal government was to become one of JSM’s leading concerns during his term in Parliament. He introduced bills on the subject on May 21, 1867, and May 5, 1868. See Letters 896, 1342, and 1388.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

Not found.

3.

See preceding Letter, n. 12.

4.

See Letter 557, n. 6.

5.

Jules Ernest Naville (1816-1909), philosopher, author of books on philosophical and political subjects.

6.

For an account of attempts to change the electoral laws of Geneva, which adopted proportional representation in 1892, see François Ruchon, Histoire Politique de la République de Genève (2 vols., Geneva, 1953), II, 207-208.

1.

MS draft at LSE.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letters 868 and 872. See also Cairnes, “University Education in Ireland,” Theological Review, III (Jan., 1866), 116-49. The rest of this paragraph is a good summary of Cairnes’s position.

3.

William Torrens M’Cullagh Torrens (1813-1894), politician and social reformer, MP for Dundalk, 1848-52, and for Finsbury, 1865-85.

4.

Charles Neate (1806-1879), professor of political economy, 1857-62, at Oxford, and MP for Oxford City, 1863-68.

5.

Cairnes wrote a series of letters entitled “Ireland in Transition” to the Economist which were published in the issues of Sept. 9 to Nov. 4, 1865, inclusive. The following are on problems of land cultivation and land-holding in Ireland: Sept. 23, pp. 1146-47; Sept. 30, pp. 1173-75; Oct. 7, pp. 1204-1205; Oct. 14, pp. 1238-39; Oct. 21, pp. 1268-69; Oct. 28, pp. 1301-1303; Nov. 4, pp. 1333-34.

1.

MS in the possession of W. Rosenberg, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 53-56.

2.

On Jan. 11, four days after this letter, Mrs. Chapman and two of her sons and a daughter were drowned in the wreck of the S.S. London in the Bay of Biscay.

3.

Probably Frederick (later Sir Frederick) Revans Chapman (1849-1936).

4.

Henry Brewer Chapman, drowned with his mother.

5.

Henry S. Chapman left New Zealand in 1851, but returned in 1864.

6.

H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. I, chap. ii, “The influence exercised by physical laws over the organization of society and over the character of individuals.”

1.

MS draft at LSE.

2.

The first number of this periodical, which for years thereafter reflected a liberal position within the Church of England, appeared in Jan., 1866. The Jan. and Feb. numbers each carried a review-article on JSM’s Hamilton which JSM correctly assumed to be written by Henry Mansel (see Letter 915): “The Philosophy of the Conditioned: Sir William Hamilton and John Stuart Mill,” Contemporary Review, I (Jan. and Feb., 1866), 31-49, 185-219.

3.

See Letter 886.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

John Bright, in 1866, advocated the lowering of property qualifications for electors to the exclusion of other kinds of parliamentary reform, including the redistribution of seats.

3.

“Individual Responsibility in Representative Government,” FR, IV (March 15, 1866), 350-58.

4.

The Times, Dec. 28, 1865, p. 7, carried anotice that the Indépendance Belge was forbidden entry into France by order of the minister of the interior. The Times, Dec. 30, 1865, p. 10, reported that one of the motives, which their correspondent doubted, was complaints from the French press that foreign newspapers were given far more freedom than domestic ones to criticize the government of Louis Napoleon. The ban was lifted on Feb. 1, 1866. See The Times, Jan. 16, 1866, p. 4.

5.

James Lorimer, Constitutionalism of the Future, or Parliament the Mirror of the Nation (Edinburgh, 1865). For JSM’s comments on Lorimer’s former book, Equal Representation, see Letter 366.

6.

James Beal.

7.

Possibly Local Government in the Metropolis (London, 1862).

1.

MS draft at LSE.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 56-57. In reply to a letter of Jan. 19, 1866, from Lankester as Secretary of the Commons Preservation Society, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Lankester has not been otherwise identified.

2.

The Commons Preservation Society met Jan. 24, 1866, at the Mansion House. John Locke (1805-1880), legal writer, and MP for Southwark, 1857-80, was the principal speaker. The organization was formed to seek means of preventing the enclosure of commons and open spaces within fifteen miles of the metropolis. See The Times, Jan. 25, 1866, p. 12. The Society was influential in securing the adoption of the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866. It continued in existence for many years, the reports of its Proceedings being published from 1869 to 1912.

1.

MS draft at Yale. See Letter 661.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor Joseph Dorfman of Columbia University. The MS is bound into a copy of the first edition of JSM’s Logic, which bears Beggs’s note that it had been presented to him by his friend William Lovett in 1856.

Thomas Beggs (1808-1896), engineer and brass founder, temperance reformer, and writer on social and political questions. He had been one of the early supporters of JSM’s candidacy for Westminster.

2.

“The House Accommodation of the People, in relation to their Domestic and Social Condition . . .” delivered at the Oct., 1865, meeting of the NAPSS and printed in the Journal of Social Science, I (1866), No. 4.

3.

Not identified.

4.

John Stephens Storr.

1.

MS in collection of autographs formed by Mrs. Richard Ford, sister of Sir William Molesworth. Collection in 1945 in the possession of Sir John Molesworth-St Aubin, Pencarrow, Washaway, Bodmin, Cornwall. Addressed: H. Reeve.

2.

See Letters 576 and 577.

3.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of Jan. 25, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

See Letters 868, 872, and 904.

3.

The Club met on Friday, Feb. 2.

4.

Presumably on the question of a revised charter for Queen’s University, Ireland.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Not found.

3.

Probably “The Great Westminster Canvass,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, XXXI (Nov., 1865), 732-45, identified in the table of contents as by Moncure Conway.

1.

MS at Yale. Envelope addressed: George Grote Esq. / The Ridgeway / Shiere / Guildford. Postmarks: LONDON / FE 5 / 66 and GUILDFORD / FE 6 / 66.

2.

See Letter 891, n. 4.

3.

“When a father, . . . , declining to send his son either to school or college, constituted himself schoolmaster from the beginning, and performed that duty with laborious solicitude . . . , it would be surprising if the son thus trained had not reached an even higher eminence than his father. The fruit borne by Mr. John Stuart Mill has been worthy of the culture bestowed, and the volume before us is at once his latest and ripest product.” p. 5.

4.

See Letter 891, n. 5.

5.

See Letter 906.

6.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Published in Spencer’s Autobiography, II, 156-57, as is also his answer of Feb. 7 (MS at Northwestern).

2.

Spencer had begun publication of his Principles of Biology in numbers in Jan., 1863; the number for Dec., 1865, announced that the series would cease on completion of the volume.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York. Neither the correspondent nor the Bill in question has been identified.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

To judge from contemporary accounts, these exhibitions were designed for the display of artifacts created during the leisure hours of working men. They were also for the promotion of “union and good feeling between rich and poor.” See Morning Advertiser, March 24, April 3, and April 5, 1865. Working men did not always find to their liking the condescension implicit in the exhibitions. See the Working Man, Jan. 3, 1866, p. 5.

3.

Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper. See Letter 862.

4.

Not located.

5.

See Letter 892.

6.

Possibly “The American ‘Radicals’ and their English Censors,” FR, III, (Feb. 1, 1866), 705-20, but more probably the article referred to in Letter 914, n. 3.

7.

See Letter 906, n. 2.

8.

“J. S. Mill on our Belief in the External World,” Blackwood’s, XCIX (Jan., 1866), 20-45. The Wellesley Index identifies the author as William Henry Smith, philosopher and frequent contributor to Blackwood’s.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

The Cattle Diseases Bill, to which royal assent was given on Feb. 20, 1866, was debated at first reading on Feb. 12. During the debate on the second reading, Feb. 14, 1866, JSM spoke, objecting to the method of compensation proposed for owners whose diseased cattle had to be slaughtered. This was JSM’s maiden speech. See Hansard, CLXXXI, cols. 488-92.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of Feb. 10, MS copy also at LSE, as are two of Feb. 14.

2.

In his letter of Feb. 10, 1866, Cairnes reported that the Presbyterian General Assembly of Ulster, at a special synod held on Feb. 6, had passed resolutions in favour of mixed rather than denominational education in Ireland. See also Letters 872 and 904.

3.

The Irish educational system remained a continuing problem for British governments. By the Irish University Act of 1879, Queen’s University was abolished and replaced by the Royal University of Ireland, organized on the model of London University. For the controversies on the Irish educational system and the various attempts to resolve the problems, see Moody and Becket, Queen’s Belfast, I, pp. 280-89.

4.

Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff.

5.

Robert Lowe.

6.

Sir Hugh McCalmont Cairns, later 1st Earl Cairns (1819-1885), barrister and politician, MP for Belfast, 1852-66.

7.

Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 57. Bears note: In answer to invitation to dinner. H.T. & J.S.M.

Alfred Denison, Esq., probably Alfred Robert Denison (b. 1817); B.A. Cambridge, 1839; later a settler in New South Wales. He was the brother of John Evelyn Denison, later Viscount Ossington (1800-1873), who became Speaker in 1857 and retired from the office in 1872.

2.

The tradition of the Speaker’s dinners appears to have been established in the late eighteenth century. To be invited to one was generally regarded as constituting full social recognition. Convention for attending such dinners required the wearing of uniform or Court dress. John Bright at the opening of the session on Feb. 1 had protested against the requirement (see Hansard, CLXXXI,cols. 8-11). Later in the century as working-class representatives became common in Parliament more protests were made. For a full account of the traditions of the Speaker’s dinners, see Arnold Wright and Philip Smith, Parliament Past and Present (2 vols., London [1902, etc.]), I, chap. vi.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins; in reply to Edge’s letter of Feb. 15, also at Johns Hopkins. Published in the Chicago Tribune, March 18 and 19, 1866, and, except for last paragraph, in Elliot, II, 57-58.

Edge was the London representative of the Chicago Tribune and author of a number of books on the Civil War.

2.

“Doctrine of Protection to Native Industry,” Pol. Econ., Book V, chap. x, sec. 1.

3.

See Letter 811.

4.

See Principles, pp. 919-21.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mr. Gerald Finzi of Ashmansworth, N. Newbury, Berks.

2.

As reported to the national conference of the Reform League, Feb. 28, 1866, at St. Martin’s Hall, London, the draft bill called for one member of Parliament for every 50,000 inhabitants; a residential requirement for electoral districts determined by municipal, parochial, and county boundaries; a superintendent of elections as a permanent officer of the House of Commons; universal suffrage, except for criminals and paupers; relief from electoral expenses for all candidates; the secret ballot. Montague Leverson introduced the bill and gave it to a committee of twelve, which was charged with reporting it to the conference. See the Commonwealth, March 3, 1866; see also Montague Leverson, The Reformers’ Reform Bill: being a proposed complete code of electoral law for the United Kingdom (London, 1866).

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of March 14, also at LSE.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Diplomatic Review, July 4, 1866, p. 91, under the title, “Mr. John Stuart Mill on the Right of Search,” with a note on Mawby’s letter to JSM to which this is a reply, and Mawby’s rejoinder of July 1, 1866.

Mawby was evidently the secretary or chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of Bamford, near Hathersage, from which his letters to JSM were addressed. Such committees, composed of working men, had been formed in a number of communities under the stimulus of David Urquhart, owner and editor of the Diplomatic Review.

2.

William Henry Gregory, later Sir William, K.C.M.G. (1817-1892), MP for Galway (1857-71), on March 2, 1866, moved in Commons an address to the Queen “for the purpose of making the principle that private property should be free from capture by sea a maxim of International Maritime Law.” At the end of the debate he withdrew the address and its amendments. See Hansard, CLXXXI, 1407-80.

3.

The Declaration of Paris, adopted in 1856 at the conclusion of the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris, was signed by England, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sardinia, and Turkey. The Declaration dealt with maritime neutrality; it declared privateering abolished and ruled that blockades in order to be binding must be effective. The most important articles, 2 and 3, declared that the neutral flag covers an enemy’s goods, with the exception of contraband of war, and that neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under an enemy’s flag.

4.

The right of search. See Letter 994.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Parliament recessed from March 23 to April 9. No reform meeting appears to have been held in Westminster during this period, though many such meetings were held throughout the country in March and April.

3.

David, later Sir David Salomons (1797-1873), banker and politician; alderman for Cordwainer ward, 1847-73; MP for Greenwich, 1851, 1859-73; lord mayor of London, 1855-56.

4.

Possibly the reform bill proposed by the Reform League (see Letter 923, n. 2), rather than the bill before Parliament.

1.

MS at the Imperial College of Science, London. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Huxley’s letter of March 23, to which this is a reply.

2.

See Letter 916. JSM, Huxley, and others arranged to take up a number of subscriptions to Spencer’s writings and hoped to have others purchase them so that he could continue to publish. Meanwhile some Americans arranged to establish a fund of $7,000 for Spencer. For his reactions to both arrangements and for details, see Spencer, Autobiography, II, 154-67, 573-75.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 58-59, and in the Journal of Social Science, I (June, 1866), 416, as having been read at a recent meeting of the Town Council of Liverpool. In reply to Campbell’s of March 31, MS at Johns Hopkins, as is also Campbell’s rejoinder of April 9.

Campbell has been identified only as a resident of Liverpool and a friend of William Rathbone.

2.

The Labouring Classes’ Dwelling Bill, to which royal assent was given May 18, 1866. The act permitted local authorities, public companies, and private individuals to borrow up to one half of the cost of building from the Public Works Commissioners, at a rate of four per cent. The bill was sponsored by Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Hugh Childers, MP for Pontefract and financial secretary to the treasury.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of March 29, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

William Kirby Sullivan, University Education in Ireland. A letter to Sir J. D. Acton, Bart., M.P. (Dublin, London, 1866).

3.

See Letter 904, n. 2.

4.

James Lowry Whittle, Freedom of Education: What it means (Dublin, 1866).

5.

The debate was on the second reading of the Tests Abolition (Oxford) Bill, a bill to permit nonconformists to take the M.A. and thus become members of Convocation, the governing body of Oxford. The debate took place March 21, 1866, and though the bill passed the second reading, it was later withdrawn. A similar bill became law in 1871. Among the Tories who spoke against the bill were the two from Stamford—Sir Stafford Northcote and Viscount Cranbourne—and the two from Oxford University—Gathorne Hardy and Sir William Heathcote. See Hansard, CLXXXII, cols. 659-715.

6.

University Education in Ireland, a Letter to J. S. Mill (London, 1866).

1.

MS draft at NLS, with a typed copy, headed by the following note, presumably by Alexander Carlyle: “The lost letter of Mill’s [sic] to Carlyle, which gave some offence to JWC [Jane Welsh Carlyle]. This copy is from Mill’s rough draft which was, and I suppose is, among Carlyle’s Letters to Mill, now in the Carlyle House in Chelsea.” How this draft could have been preserved among Carlyle’s papers remains a mystery. The letter was in answer to Carlyle’s of March 13, 1866, published in Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mill, John Sterling and Robert Browning, ed. A. Carlyle, pp. 185-86. Jane Carlyle’s letter of April 13 to her husband is in Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, ed. J. A. Froude (2 vols. in one, New York, 1883), II, 384-85.

2.

Wilhelm Löwe (1814-1886), liberal German politician, active in the 1848 National Assembly in Frankfurt, and president of the Stuttgart rump Parliament in 1849; in exile in New York, 1849-61.

3.

François Arnold Wille (1811-1896), of Swiss-French parentage, editor of Hamburger Literarische und Kritische Blätter; writer on political subjects; active in the Revolution of 1848, he moved to Marienfeld, near Zürich. His translation of JSM’s Rep. Govt. appeared with the title Betrachtungen über Repräsentativverfassung. Aus dem Englischen von F. A. Wille (Zürich and Stuttgart, 1862).

4.

Jane Welsh Carlyle died suddenly ten days later, on April 21, before Carlyle’s return from Scotland.

5.

In the second paragraph of his Inaugural Address as Rector of Edinburgh University on April 2 Carlyle had mentioned his weak health.

6.

The last paragraph is cancelled in the draft, but perhaps it was retained in the fair copy.

1.

MS at London Library.

The Earl of Clarendon was president of the London Library from its opening in 1841 until his death in 1870.

2.

This appears to refer to a volume “Pamphlets 261” in the London Library, which contains among others Judge W. M. Dickson’s Absolute Equality (see Letter 871) and two pamphlets by E. B. Elliot, both inscribed by the author to JSM.

1.

MS at Yale. Envelope addressed: Hon. S. S. Cox / Post Office Box 5660 / New York City. Postmark: LONDON / AP 16 / 66.

Samuel Sullivan Cox (1824-1889), congressman and writer, frequently in Congress from Ohio after 1857, prominent in 1868 and thereafter as a reformer of the tariff.

2.

Thomas Tooke, A History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation from 1793 . . . (6 vols., London, 1838-57). Newmarch collaborated with Tooke on vols. 5 and 6.

3.

Commercial History and Review of 1865, “Supplement” to the Economist, XXIV (March 10, 1866), 64 pp.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

JSM’s review of Grote’s Plato.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

“Such terms as Nature, Law, Freedom, Necessity, Body, Substance, Matter, Church, State, Revelation, Inspiration, Knowledge, Belief, are tossed about in the wars of words as if everybody knew what they meant and as if everybody used them exactly in the same sense; whereas most people, and particularly those who represent public opinion, pick up these complicated terms as children, beginning with the vaguest conceptions, adding to them from time to time, perhaps correcting likewise at haphazard some of their involuntary errors, but never taking stock, never either inquiring into the history of the terms which they handle so freely, or realising the fulness of their meaning according to the strict rules of logical definition.” “Grote’s Plato,” ER, CXXIII (April, 1866), p. 326 n. Quoted from Friedrich Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, ser. 2 (London, 1861-64), pp. 526-27.

3.

“Grote’s Plato,” Fraser’s, LXXIII (April, 1866), 411-23. Whewell had died on March 6, 1866.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Co-operator, May 15, 1866, p. 262.

2.

Thomas Dyke Acland. See Letter 940.

3.

This was the earliest English experiment in agricultural co-operation. In 1832 John Gurdon had let a farm at Assington, Suffolk, to twenty labourers; after thirty years he reported that the co-operative experiment was a success and that he was extending it to another farm. See Gurdon’s account in the Co-operator, III (1862-63), 147, and his article “Agricultural Co-operators,” ibid., VI (1865), 67-68. William Howitt contributed five letters on “The Necessity for Agricultural Co-operation” to the Co-operator, VI (1865), 81-83, 131-34, 137-39, 148-50, 161-63.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of April 25, also at LSE.

2.

Longman had predicted that, with only 150 remaining on hand, the supply would be exhausted in two or three months; 911 had been sold since June, 1865.

3.

The 2nd ed. was published in April, 1865, and the 3rd in June, 1867.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

Gladstone, as chancellor of the exchequer, presented the budget for 1867 to the House of Commons, sitting as a Committee of Ways and Means, on May 3, 1866. See Hansard, CLXXXIII, cols. 365-421.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

Probably William Rathbone, Jr., of the Liverpool merchant family.

3.

Not identified.

4.

Mill delivered the rectorial address on Feb. 1, 1867.

5.

The meetings of the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government, which submitted two reports during the session of 1866. JSM was present at the thirteen meetings held subsequent to May 4. The committee did not meet on Monday, May 7. Hare gave testimony on plural voting for metropolitan elections on May 10 and May 28. See Parl. Papers, 1866 (Session Feb. 1 to Aug. 10), XIII, 2nd Report, 50-63. Acton Smee Ayrton, MP for Tower Hamlets, was chairman of the Select Committee.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Co-operator, May 15, 1866, p. 262.

2.

See Letter 936.

3.

Thomas (later Sir Thomas) Dyke Acland, 11th baronet (1809-1898), MP for West Somerset, 1837-47 and 1885-86, and for North Devon, 1865-85. An original member of the council of the English Agricultural Society, established in 1838, and of the council of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1855-98.

4.

See Letter 776.

5.

Pitman, while continuing to edit the Co-operator, had taken on work for the United Kingdom Alliance, an organization founded in Manchester in 1853 to promote the abolition of the liquor traffic.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elliot, II, 60-61. Labelled by Elliot as by Helen Taylor. A letter of May 28, 1866, to Helen Taylor from Mrs. Liddell, who has not been identified, is at LSE.

2.

JSM presented the first petition in behalf of women’s suffrage to the Commons on June 7, 1866. The petition bore 1499 signatures.

1.

MS not located. Published in Motley, II, 218-20.

2.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), who was to become the famous associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Holmes met JSM and Henry Fawcett at the House of Commons and accompanied them to the June 1 meeting of the Political Economy Club, where Holmes later recalled meeting Sir Rowland Hill, John Elliot Cairnes, and Sir George W. W. Branwell. See Mark De Wolfe Howe, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (2 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1957-63), I, 226-27.

3.

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), essayist, poet, teacher of anatomy.

4.

Andrew Johnson.

5.

The bill giving Negroes civil rights was passed over President Johnson’s veto by the Senate on April 6, 1866, and by the House of Representatives on April 10, 1866.

6.

Such a bill was introduced Jan. 8, 1866, and became law June 21, 1866. It provided for the acquisition of certain lands in the South by ex-slaves.

7.

In the summer of 1862. See Letter 555.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 938.

3.

See Letter 939, n. 5.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Co-operator, VII (1 June, 1866), 6.

Edward Owen Greening (d. 1911), from about 1863 a lifelong associate of G. J. Holyoake in the co-operative movement.

2.

Greening and Co., wire-netting manufacturer, Manchester, was organized in 1865 as a limited company with a profit-sharing plan for its employees. JSM was invited to the first half-yearly meeting. The company failed in 1868. See Benjamin Jones, Co-operative Production (Oxford, 1894), pp. 444-46.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York.

John A. Leatherland (1812-ca. 1877), shoemaker, weaver, journalist, and poet; author of Essays & Poems, with a brief autobiographical memoir (London, 1862).

1.

MS not located. Published under heading “Reform Tactics,” together with a letter from John Bright, in The Times, May 23, 1866, p. 10.

2.

The meeting took place Monday, May 21, 1866, on Primrose Hill, London. See Sp., May 26, 1866, p. 565.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

A far-reaching investigation of all schools in England, with the exception of the nine public schools already studied by the Clarendon Commission of 1861 and the schools for the working class, was conducted by the School Inquiry Commission appointed in 1864. It was known as the Taunton Commission after its chairman, Henry Labouchere, Baron Taunton (1798-1869). See H. C. Barnard, A History of English Education (2nd ed., London, 1961), pp. 128-34.

3.

Sir Thomas Acland.

4.

The trustees of public charities in Faversham had consolidated some educational endowments of the district to establish a set of schools connected together in a regular gradation for the training of children of all classes.

5.

Chadwick in 1862 had made a report to another royal commission on education: “Half-time Teaching and Military and Naval Drill,” and “On the Time and Cost of Popular Education on a Large and Small Scale” Parl. Papers, 1862, XLIII. For a report on the Faversham Schools system, see part II: On the Application of an Educational Division of Labour, or of the Principle of Improved Teaching on a Large Scale to Popular Education, ibid., pp. 52-56.

6.

See Letter 953.

1.

MS in the papers of the 3rd Earl Grey, at the Prior’s Kitchen, The College, Durham, England. In reply to Grey’s of May 15, MS at Yale, and MS draft at Durham. Bears note in another hand: Mr J / S. Mill May 21 / 66 / “Cumulative Vote” Ansd. 23d.

2.

In his long letter of May 15 Grey had urged JSM to propose an amendment to the Reform Bill to provide for the cumulative vote: “You would very materially contribute to the settlement of this question, if you would make the proposal for adopting the ‘cumulative vote’, & my recollection of the very decided approval of it you have expressed in your writings, leads me to hope that you may be prevailed upon to do so. . . .

“. . . I am certain that your making the suggestion, wd afford by far the best chance for getting it adopted.—It wd come with an authority from you that no one else cd give it, & I cannot but think that if you were previously to communicate with the Ministers on the subject, you might induce them to agree to it. . . .”

3.

Such as John Bright.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

In the debate on the Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland) Bill, May 17, 1866 (see Hansard, CLXXXIII, cols. 1087-97).

3.

In 1851. See Letters 38, 39, 40.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

Henry Bouverie William Brand was then chief party whip for the Liberals.

3.

Gladstone’s Budget Message, which had been delivered in the Commons on May 3 (Hansard, CLXXXIII, cols. 365-411). In the Message Gladstone had expressed regret (col. 389) at JSM’s absence because of illness (see Letter 938). A major portion of the Budget Message (cols. 387-407) had been devoted to the problem of retiring the national debt. JSM’s comments here refer to Gladstone’s proposed plans for dealing with the debt.

4.

For Gladstone’s “Operations A and B” to reduce the debt, see ibid., cols. 403-407.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

The year has been added in the upper right corner by a different hand.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 948, n. 2. For JSM’s written reply, dated Aug. 9, 1866, to the Commission’s questions on the best uses of endowment for education, see Parl. Papers, 1867-68 (Nov. 19, to July 31), XXVIII (Part II, vol. II), 61-66.

3.

Not identifiable.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor John M. Robson. Cover addressed: C. Ross Esq, / Reporter to The Times.

Charles Ross (1800-1884), a parliamentary reporter for The Times for over sixty years. From about 1853, chief of the parliamentary staff. For further information, see W. J. Carlton, “Dickens and the Ross Family,” Dickensian, LI (March, 1955), 58-66.

2.

See Letter 956.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

A bill to permit the Gas Light and Coke Company to concentrate three plants in one at Hackney Marsh. The opposition feared the contamination of the areas near Victoria Park. The bill passed third reading in Commons on June 18, 1866, but was defeated on second reading in the House of Lords, June 29, 1866. See Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 706-10.

3.

The committee appointed to consider the provisions of the Gas Bill reported in favour of the site at Hackney Marsh.

4.

William Francis Cowper-Temple, later Baron Mount-Temple (1811-1888), MP for Hertford, 1835-63, and for South Hampshire, 1868-80; Commissioner of Works, 1860-66. During the debate of June 12, 1866, Cowper so expressed his opposition to the site. Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 228-29.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Rae was not elected to the Political Economy Club until 1885.

3.

See Letter 954.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot.

Katherine Louisa, Lady Amberley, née Stanley of Alderley (1842-1874); mother of Bertrand Russell.

2.

June 4, 1866, when for the fourth night the Representation of the People Bill and the Redistribution of Seats Bill were to be debated.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elliot, II, 62.

Christopher Darby Griffith (b. 1805), MP for Devizes, 1858-68.

2.

A notice that he would bring in a motion calling for a return on the numbers of women who fulfilled the property qualifications for the vote and were therefore ineligible solely because of their sex. See Letter 964, n. 2.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Mary Morris Hamilton, granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton, and later the second wife of George Lee Schuyler.

3.

Georgina Schuyler and Louisa Lee Schuyler, daughters of George Lee Schuyler and Eliza Hamilton. Louisa Schuyler (1837-1926), who spent seven years (1864-71) abroad for her health, later became well known as a leader in welfare work in America. The Mill-Taylor Collection at LSE includes seven letters by Mary, Louisa, and Georgina to Helen Taylor, 1868-73.

4.

George Lee Schuyler (1811-1890), internationally known yachtsman, one of the founders of the America challenge cup race. JSM was mistaken at this point; Schuyler was the father of the two Miss Schuylers, not the husband of one of them. See Letter 978, in which the information is correct.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letter 955, n. 2. The crucial debate, for consideration of the Bill for third reading, took place on Tuesday, June 12, 1866.

3.

See Letter 958, n. 2.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letters 955 and 960.

3.

William, later Sir William, Tite (1798-1873), architect, antiquary, politician, MP for Bath, 1855-73.

4.

The 14th Earl of Derby.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of June 28, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

A copy of Gladstone’s letter is in Brit. Mus., Add. MSS 44,536.

3.

Chichester Samuel Parkinson-Fortescue, later 1st Baron Carlingford (1823-1898), MP for Louth, 1847-74; chief secretary for Ireland, 1865-66, 1868-70.

4.

The government, upon advice from its law officers, had decided to issue a supplemental charter to Queen’s University, Ireland. This action, taken on June 25, 1866, empowered the university to hold a matriculation examination different from that of the Queen’s Colleges, to grant degrees to persons thus matriculated and considered qualified by the Senate of the University, even though they had not studied at one of the Queen’s Colleges. See Moody and Becket, Queen’s, Belfast, I, 280-81.

5.

See Letter 930, n. 6.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Probably the evidence already given before the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government, of which JSM was a member, and to which both Chadwick and Hickson were to give evidence, Chadwick on July 23, 1866, Hickson, on July 26, 1866. See the Second Report from the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government, Parl. Papers, 1866 (Feb. 1 to Aug. 10), XIII, 223-37, 241-57. See also Letter 939.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot.

2.

On Tuesday, July 17, 1866, JSM brought in, and the House accepted, the following motion for an address for “Return of the number of Freeholders, Householders, and others in England and Wales who, fulfilling the conditions of property or rental prescribed by Law as the qualification for the Electoral Franchise, are excluded from the Franchise by reason of their Sex.” Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 996-98.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

See Letter 962.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 963, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Martineau’s letter of July 4, to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 62-63.

2.

This probably refers to Martineau’s review of the first two volumes of JSM’s Dissertations, in the National Review, IX (Oct., 1859), 474-508, which was reprinted in Martineau’s Essays, Philosophical and Theological (2 vols., London, 1883), I, 63-120. See Letter 415.

3.

Martineau in his letter of July 4 had requested JSM to write a recommendation to support his application for the chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic at University College, London, which had become vacant with the resignation in June of John Hoppus (1789-1875), who had held the chair since it was established in 1829. At the College Council meeting on Aug. 4 unexpected opposition to Martineau developed, and he was not appointed. Martineau described the circumstances in a letter to Francis Newman, published in J. Estlin Carpenter, James Martineau (London, 1905), pp. 432-33.

4.

George Croom Robertson (1842-1892), philosopher, and protégé of Alexander Bain. With George Grote’s support at the College Council in December, Robertson was appointed. For Grote’s account of the Martineau-Robertson contest, see Mrs. Grote’s Life, chap. xxxiv.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Diplomatic Review, Sept. 5, 1866, p. 116, under the title, “Mr. J. S. Mill on the Power of a Nation to repudiate the illegal Acts of its Servants,” with Mawby’s rejoinder of Aug. 23, 1866.

2.

Lord Clarendon, the foreign minister in Palmerston’s cabinet, was given wide latitude in the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris and for the Declaration of Paris. Charles Abbot, 2nd Baron Colchester, moved censure against him in the House of Lords, May 22, 1856, for acceding to article 2 (see Letter 926, n. 3) of the Declaration. The motion was lost. See Hansard, CXLII, cols. 481-549.

3.

A quotation from Mawby’s letter of July 1, 1866, in the Diplomatic Review, July 4, 1866, p. 91.

4.

See Letter 926, n. 3.

1.

MS at Harvard. Endorsed in pencil in another hand: To Francis Bowen. For Bowen, see Letter 125, n. 6.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 7, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

Sir Robert Peel (1822-1895), 3rd baronet, eldest son of Sir Robert Peel, the Tory statesman. Politician, MP for Tamworth, 1850-80, for Huntingdon, 1884-85, and for Blackburn, 1885. The Queen’s Colleges were founded in 1845 as part of his father’s policy toward Ireland. Sir Robert gave notice on July 9, 1866, that he would ask Gladstone, the leader of the recently resigned government in the Commons, whether it was true that Queen’s University had been issued a supplemental charter. See Letter 962, n. 3. The debate on Peel’s question came on July 16, 1866. See Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 842-910.

3.

The Senate of Queen’s University, of which Sir Robert Peel was a member, met on July 11, 1866, and voted to postpone a meeting to consider the supplemental charter.

4.

Letter 965.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 12, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

See preceding Letter, n. 3. The Senate eventually met on Oct. 6, 1866, and voted 9 to 5 to accept the supplemental charter, the majority vote being accounted for in part by the six new members who had been added to the Senate after the supplemental charter was issued. The provisions of the supplemental charter, however, were not put into effect. For details, see Moody and Becket, Queen’s Belfast, I, 280-83.

3.

A leading article, The Times, July 14, 1866, p. 8. See also the leading article on the same subject, July 17, 1866, p. 7. Robert Lowe had once been a writer of leaders for The Times, and still retained influence there.

1.

MS at the Imperial College of Science, London. Envelope addressed: Professor Huxley / 26 Abbey Place / St John’s Wood / per favour of Monsieur Barrère.

2.

Perhaps Pierre Barrère, Professor of French, author of Les Ecrivains français, leur vie et leurs œuvres, ou histoire de la littérature française (London, 1863).

3.

See Letters 860 and 866.

4.

Dr. Leonhard Schmitz (1807-1890), classical scholar; tutor to the Prince of Wales, 1859; rector of Edinburgh High School, 1845-66; principal of London International College, Isleworth, 1866-74.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 18, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

The dinner took place Saturday, July 21, 1866, at the Star and Garter Hotel, Richmond. At this inaugural meeting of the club about 150 members were present; Gladstone presided, and JSM was one of the speakers. See The Times, July 23, 1866, p. 6.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

On Monday, July 23, 1866, Chadwick testified before the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government. See Letter 963, n. 2.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

The preceding Letter.

3.

The address of the publishing firm of Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, for whom Plummer worked. See Letter 997, n. 3.

1.

MS in the George Howell Library, Bishopsgate Institute, London.

Edmond Beales (1803-1881), barrister and political agitator; president of the Reform League, which he helped to organize, throughout its existence, 1864-69.

2.

To permit a meeting of Reformers to be held Monday, July 30, in Hyde Park. A government prohibition of such a meeting, originally scheduled for July 23, led to rioting by a crowd that remained behind after Beales and many of his fellow reformers went off to Trafalgar Square, after finding the gates of Hyde Park locked and guarded by police. In the ensuing riot many were injured. Beales and other officers of the Reform League called on Spencer Walpole, the Home Secretary, on July 25; they left with the impression that Hyde Park would be open to them for the meeting on July 30. In the event, however, the park was prohibited, and the meeting was held at Agricultural Hall, Islington. See The Times, July 26, p. 12, July 31, p. 3. For JSM’s description of the meeting and his confrontation with the workingmen, see Autobiog., chap. vii.

3.

Spencer Horatio Walpole (1806-1898), MP for Midhurst, 1846-56, and for Cambridge University, 1856-82; Home Secretary, 1852, 1858, 1866-68.

4.

To aid those tried for various offences allegedly committed during the riot of July 23. For one defence in Magistrate’s Court, see The Times, Aug. 2, 1866, p. 11.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

July 30, Agricultural Hall, Islington. See preceding Letter, n. 2.

3.

See Letter 959.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

On July 30, 1866. See Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 1679-87.

3.

See Letter 963, n. 2.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

His statement for the Taunton Commission. See Letters 948 and 953.

3.

See preceding Letter.

4.

Probably the Public Health Bill, the clauses of which were debated on July 24, 27, 30, and Aug. 2. JSM joined the debate on clause 39, which concerned the evidence necessary to establish that those in an overcrowded house belonged to the same family. See Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 1376-84, 1644-52, 1679-87, 1905-10.

1.

MS at LSE.

Henry Cholmondeley Pennell (1837-1915), government official; miscellaneous writer, particularly on angling and ichthyology; editor, Fisherman’s Magazine and Review, 1864-65. His projected publication at this time has not been identified.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

JSM had consented to act as a judge in an essay contest for workingmen sponsored by the Working Man, with which Plummer was associated. Ten prizes of £5 each and ten of £3 were offered for papers on such topics as trades unions, strikes, co-operation, and working-class housing. The other judges included Lord Houghton, Lord Milton, Charles Buxton, Charles Kingsley, and F. D. Maurice. JSM awarded first prize to Peter Malcolm, a mason, for an essay on “Trades Unions”; it was published in the Working Man, II (Aug. 18 and 25, 1866), 79-80 and 91-92. Second prize went to John Wilson, a pen-blade grinder of Sheffield, for the essay published in ibid., Sept. 8 and 15, 115-16 and 127-28.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Partridge’s letter of Aug. 1, also at LSE.

J. Arthur Partridge (d. 1891), Birmingham liberal who presided at a reform meeting of the National Reform League, Nov. 23, 1865, at Birmingham. See The Times, Nov. 24, 1865, p. 7. Author of a number of books and pamphlets on reform questions.

2.

On Democracy, Its Factors and Conditions (London, 1866).

3.

Partridge in his letter had proposed the establishment of an organization for advanced liberalism, with JSM as its chairman.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

For his statement to the Taunton Commission. See Letters 948, 953, and 980.

3.

JSM had attended the inaugural dinner of the club on July 21. See Letter 973.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

The manufacturers and writers on economic theory of Birmingham, including the members of the Chamber of Commerce, were generally for the inconvertibility of bank notes and against the gold standard. See Frank W. Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 177-78, 232-33.

1.

MS at NLI. Published in Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, My Life in Two Hemispheres (2 vols., New York, 1898), II, 272.

1.

MS copy at Northwestern.

2.

On July 9, JSM had become chairman of the Jamaica Committee, which was to attempt to prosecute Governor Eyre for murder (see Letter 889). The first chairman, Charles Buxton, resigned because he disapproved of prosecuting Eyre. For the meeting of the committee at which JSM became chairman, see The Times, July 10, 1866, p. 5. For other details, see Semmel, The Governor Eyre Controversy, pp. 70-71.

3.

The Jamaica Committee had such a letter published. See the Examiner, Oct. 13, 1866, p. 647. Spencer was among the signatories. A formal statement of the Committee, dated July 27, 1866, and signed by JSM, Peter Taylor, and F. W. Chesson, was reprinted in the Diplomatic Review, Sept. 5, 1866, pp. 118-19.

4.

Frederick William Chesson (ca. 1833-1888), on the staff of the Morning Star, editor of the Dial, pamphleteer on the American Civil War, South Africa, anti-slavery legislation, and contagious diseases acts.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 207-208 and in Cosmopolis, p. 784.

1.

MS in the Library of the Borough of Hove.

2.

At Birmingham on Aug. 27, 1866, reform meetings were held both during the day from nine to four, and in the evening at eight. At the evening meeting John Bright, who together with Scholefield represented Birmingham in Parliament, gave the principal address. See The Times, Aug. 28, 1866, p. 4.

1.

MS in Davidson Collection at Yale.

Thomas Davidson (1840-1900), philosopher and wandering scholar. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1867.

2.

Thomas Hewitt Key.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in the National Reformer, Sept. 28, 1884, p. 214 (reprinted from the Wanganui Freethought Review), and in part in Elliot, II, 63-64. Pharazyn’s letter of April 14, to which this is a reply, is also reprinted in part in the National Reformer cited, pp. 213-14.

Robert Pharazyn (1833-1896), sheep farmer, writer, politician, of Wanganui, New Zealand.

2.

George Henry Lewes.

3.

“On the whole it seems to us that though Mr. Mill will consent to worship only a God of goodness, he has thrown no light on the grave problem . . . how such a conception of God is to be reconciled with the extent of evil and suffering actually prevailing throughout the earth.” From George Grote’s review: “John Stuart Mill on the Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton,” WR, n.s. XXIX (Jan., 1866), p. 18.

4.

Pharazyn had written: “The conclusion at which I have long since arrived is this: ‘That no proof of the existence of a God can be given, nor of the nature of his attributes; in short that the question is an insoluble one in any strictly scientific sense.’ But of course it is objected, if there is no proof of there being a good God there may be a bad one, and so we fall back on orthodox myths, or at best ‘intuitions’, to avoid this shocking possibility of belief, of the effects of which African fetichism and American psychomancy are examples and warnings. There is something of this argument not only in the ‘Eclipse of Faith’ sort of books, but in the ‘Phases’ of the one Newman and the ‘Apologia’ of the other, and indeed it gives a tinge to all Theistic as well as Theological reasoning, and constitutes the half-conscious philosophy of popular religion. Now it seems to me that the real answer to all this is not logical at all, but practical, though in a wide sense it is logical too, as ‘is the proof of the principle of utility,’ ‘for questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.’ ” (Pharazyn is quoting, inexactly, from chap. I of JSM’s Utilitarianism.)

5.

Samuel Revans (1808-1888), co-founder of the Daily Advertiser in Montreal in the 1830’s. He joined E. G. Wakefield in the colonization of New Zealand, and published its first newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published, except for final paragraph, in Gomperz, p. 426, and in part in Stamp.

2.

Herkulanische Studien (2 vols., Leipzig, 1865, 1866). The second volume is dedicated, with reverence and love, to JSM on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, May 20.

3.

On the 26th of July, the so-called “Seven Weeks’ War” between Prussia and Austria over the perennial Schleswig-Holstein question had terminated after the defeat of Austria at Königgrätz. The two duchies became part of the German Federation by the Treaty of Prague, which was concluded the day after this letter was written. For details, see A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918, pp. 142 ff.

4.

The Reichsrath, the Imperial parliament of Austria established in 1861, had been made inoperative by the Hungarian refusal to send delegates. The Reichsrath was abolished in 1866. For details, see Charles Seignobos, A Political History of Europe, pp. 522-28.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Commonwealth, Sept. 22, 1866. Inserted in the paper by Langley as Hon. Sec. of the Committee of the Beales Testimonial Fund.

John Baxter Langley, originally a physician, then a publicist, writer for and editor of various newspapers including the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, radical politician, trade union leader; president of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, 1872-73. In the latter year, as Chairman of an Artisans’ Dwelling Company, he was found guilty of fraud in financial transactions in land, and sent to prison at hard labour. Thereafter he disappeared from the public scene. A biographical sketch of him was published in the Commonwealth, Oct. 13, 1866, p. 5.

2.

Beales had been dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice from his post as a Revising Barrister because of his radical political activities as President of the Reform League. A biographical sketch of Beales was published in the Commonwealth on the same page as JSM’s letter.

3.

An official appointed to revise the list of persons qualified to vote for members of Parliament.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Diplomatic Review, Oct. 3, 1866, p. 131, under the title, “Reversal of the Declaration of Paris,” and reprinted in Views of Mr. John Stuart Mill on England’s Danger through the Suppression of her Maritime Power [Speech delivered in the House of Commons, Aug. 5, 1867] (London: Diplomatic Review Office, 1874), p. 1. A footnote in the latter indicates that the text of the speech was taken from a revised copy contributed by JSM to the Diplomatic Review of Feb. 5, 1868.

2.

See Letter 968, n. 1.

3.

The Circassian tribes, who inhabited the northwestern sections of the Caucasus, were subdued by the Russians in 1863-64.

4.

See Letter 926, n. 3. Russia was charged with violating articles 2 and 3 of the Declaration of Paris because she blockaded the coast so that the Circassians could not receive supplies.

5.

“Mr. Disraeli on the Resumption of the Right of Search,” Diplomatic Review, Aug. 1, 1866, p. 106, which includes a letter from Montagu Correy, Disraeli’s private secretary, dated July 25, 1866, stating that Mr. Disraeli “has the matter . . . under consideration.”

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

“Philosophical Politicians,” Working Man, Aug. 28, 1866, pp. 73-74.

3.

See Letter 82.

4.

JSM had given evidence on June 6, 1850, before R. A. Slaney’s Select Committee on the Savings of the Middle and Working Classes; see Parl. Papers, 1850, XIX, 77-90, reprinted in Collected Works, 407-29. He also gave a written reply to Slaney’s Select Committee on the Law of Partnership in 1851, Parl. Papers, 1851, XVIII, Appendix, p. 160, and reprinted in Collected Works, V, 461-62. Both these enquiries contributed to the passing of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1852.

5.

See Letter 862.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Largely published in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 208-209, and in Cosmopolis, p. 784.

2.

William Eyton Tooke (1808-1830), son of the economist Thomas Tooke, committed suicide in Jan., 1830. For JSM’s letter to d’Eichthal on the loss of their friend, see Earlier Letters, p. 44.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letters 862 and 995.

3.

Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, publishers, a firm founded by John Cassell (1817-1865). For details, see Simon Nowell-Smith, The House of Cassell, 1848-1958 (London, 1958).

4.

The Working Man ceased publication in Dec., 1866. See Nowell-Smith, p. 77.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Morley’s of Sept. 21, MS also at Johns Hopkins. Published, with slight omissions, in Elliot, II, 64-66.

2.

“England and the Annexation of Mysore,” FR, VI (Sept. 15, 1866), 257-71.

3.

The Times of Aug. 11, 1866, p. 6, reported the Petition “presented by Mr. Mill, from General Briggs, the First Commissioner of Mysore; Sir John Low, late member of the Supreme Council of India; General Fraser, late resident at Hyderabad and at Mysore; Colonel Haines, late Judicial Commissioner at Mysore; General Jacob, late Commissioner of the Southern Mahratta Country; Sir Robert Hamilton, late agent to the Viceroy in Central India; and about 50 others, praying that the House will take steps for preventing the annexation of Mysore, and for maintaining that tributary state with every possible security for British interests and for the prosperity of the people of the country.” Morley quotes from the Petition in his article, pp. 268-69.

4.

James Andrew Broun Ramsay, 10th Earl and 1st Marquis of Dalhousie (1812-1860), Governor-General of India, 1848-56, was criticized by many for his annexation policy. He extended British dominion both by conquest and by taking over native states when their rulers died without natural heirs.

5.

After the decline of the Mogul empire in the eighteenth century, Mohammedan courtiers and Mahratta generals carved out their own kingdoms.

6.

Lord Canning, as Governor-General of India, 1856-62, in his Adoption Despatch of 1860 guaranteed the right of native rulers to adopt heirs if they had no children of their own. See Morley’s article, p. 265.

7.

The Mohammedan rulers of Mysore were defeated by Cornwallis in 1792, and finally by Wellesley in 1799. Then, after more than half a century of Mohammedan rule, the British revived the Hindu state of Mysore. In 1831, Lord William Bentinck removed Mysore from native rule. It remained under British rule until 1867.

8.

Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquis Wellesley (1760-1842), Governor-General of India, 1798-1805.

9.

The “present chief minister of the Rajah of Travancore, although a native, was brought up at a Government school in Madras, has been penetrated with European ideas . . . .” Morley, p. 268.

10.

The Hindu equivalent of harem.

1.

MS at NLI. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Duffy’s letter of Aug. 25 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 66-68, and in Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, My Life in Two Hemispheres, II, 317-19.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Urquhart’s letters of Sept. 27 and 29 to which this is a reply. First two paragraphs published in Elliot, II, 68-69. Enclosed with Urquhart’s letter at Johns Hopkins are letters from S. E. Rolland, R. Poore, and a copy of a letter from Mrs. Urquhart.

David Urquhart (1805-1877), diplomat and author; participant in Greek war of independence, 1827-28; secretary of embassy at Constantinople, 1835-37; founder and editor of the Portfolio and of the Free Press, afterwards the Diplomatic Review; MP for Stafford, 1847-52; author of books on Turkey and the Near East, and on international law.

2.

Urquhart had married Harriet Angelina Fortescue in 1854. She was a constant contributor to the Diplomatic Review under the pseudonym “Caritas,” and helped in her husband’s literary and political labours.

3.

See n. 1. above.

4.

To the Jamaica Committee.

5.

Probably his speech on the Jamaica question in Parliament, July 31, 1866. See Hansard, CLXXXIV, cols. 1797-1806.

6.

Lord Canning was even severely criticized for trying to moderate the ferocity of the reprisals by British civilian and military officers in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny. See Letter 313, last paragraph.

7.

“. . . that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave Trade.” The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. (4 vols., London, 1840), III, 429.

8.

See Autobiog., chap. vii, and the appeal and statement issued in Oct., 1866, by the Jamaica Committee, Examiner, Oct. 13, 1866, p. 647. In raising a question on the government’s intentions with respect to the prosecution of those responsible for the outrages in Jamaica, JSM in the Commons on July 19, 1866, specifically named various officials in Jamaica in addition to Governor Eyre.

9.

See Letter 540, n. 9.

10.

Presumably the Preston Foreign Affairs Committee (see Letter 926, n. 1).

1.

MS in the Perronet Thompson papers at the University of Hull.

Thomas Perronet Thompson, general, politician, and writer. For JSM’s relations with him in the 1830’s, see Earlier Letters. Thompson represented Bradford, Yorkshire, 1857-59.

2.

Joseph Wall (1737-1802) executed for murder on Jan. 28, 1802, for having caused the death by flogging of Sergeant Benjamin Armstrong, on July 10, 1782. Wall, then a lieutenant colonel and governor of Goree (an island off Senegal, Africa), had ordered the punishment for Armstrong, who had headed a group of soldiers protesting the planned departure of the garrison paymaster. The paymaster had not settled with the soldiers for a period of short allowances. For details see T. B. Howell and Thomas Jones Howell, compilers, A Complete Collection of State Trials (34 vols., London, 1816-28), XXVIII, 51-178.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Manchester Examiner and Times, Nov. 1, 1866, p. 3.

Daniel O’Donoghue (“The O’Donoghue”) (1833-1889), Liberal, Home-Ruler, MP for Tipperary, 1857-65, for Tralee, 1865-85. He presided at a testimonial dinner for John Bright in Dublin on Oct. 30, 1866. Letters of regret were also read at the dinner from Duncan McLaren, Henry Fawcett, Thomas B. Potter, and others, some of them addressed to O’Donoghue.

2.

In the House of Commons on Feb. 17, 1866. The speech was reprinted in Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by John Bright, M.P., ed. James E. Thorold Rogers (2 vols., London, 1868), I, 349-60.

3.

Bright’s speech on the occasion is reprinted in Speeches, I, 361-76.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Urquhart’s letter of Oct. 18 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 69-71.

2.

See Letter 1000.

3.

Justly or unjustly.

4.

In Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform. See also Autobiog., chap. vii.

1.

MS at Yale; MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Grote’s letter of Nov. 6 to which this is a reply. Part published in Elliot, II, 71.

2.

Grote was one of the founders of London University and served on its Council from 1826 to his death. He had been Vice-Chancellor since 1862.

3.

Bain had held the chair of Logic at Aberdeen since 1860.

4.

Grote subsequently asked for and received Spencer’s permission to nominate him for the Council. Nothing, however, came of the matter. See Spencer, Autobiography, II, 172.

5.

See Letter 967.

6.

Ibid.

7.

Richard Holt Hutton.

8.

The Chancellor, the Duke of Richmond, cast the deciding vote in favour of Mountstuart Grant Duff, MP for Elgin, and against Grote in the election for Rector, Dec., 1866. See The Times, Dec. 22, p. 8, and Dec. 25, p. 7.

1.

MS at Rhode Island Historical Society. MS copy at Columbia.

2.

The first of two letters to JSM eventually published as Causation and Freedom in Willing (see Letter 831, n. 5). Hazard had printed the letter for private circulation among his friends.

3.

See Hazard, sec. 2, pp. 7 ff.

4.

David Hartley (1705-1757), philosopher and physician, best known for his Observations on Man (London, 1749), the origin of associational psychology.

5.

See Hazard, sec. 4, pp. 17 ff.

6.

Logic, Book III, chap. v.

7.

Ibid., Book III, chap. v, sec. 5 (p. 378 in 1865 ed.).

8.

Hazard, p. 44.

9.

The privately printed version of Hazard’s letter probably read thus; in the published edition, cf. p. 46.

10.

Hazard, p. 56.

1.

MS not located. Published in John Mills’s From Tinder-Box to the “Larger” Light (Manchester, 1899), pp. 302-303.

John Mills (1821-1896), banker.

2.

The Bank Charter Act and the late Panic. A paper read before . . . the National Social Science Association at Manchester, Oct. 5, 1866. With notes added (London, 1866). For a brief summary, see NAPSS, Transactions 1866 (London, 1867), p. 761.

3.

Mills had written (p. 11): “In the case of the Bank Act, however, it has been forcibly argued by Mr. John Stuart Mill that this authorized departure from the letter of the Act in times of crisis is in reality a more effectual carrying out of its spirit.” Then Mills cites this passage from JSM: “The opportune relief thus afforded to credit . . . and almost all the losses and failures attended on it are consummated.” (Pol. Econ. [6th ed.], Book III, chap. 24, sec. 4.) In a footnote on pp. 18-19 Mills defended his citing of the passage from JSM, on the ground that he had quoted from the latest edition of the Pol. Econ.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

At the tenth annual meeting of NAPSS, held Oct. 3-10, at Manchester, Hare delivered the papers, “What conditions or limitations ought to be imposed upon the power of disposing in perpetuity of Property, Real or Personal, for charitable or other Purposes?” and “A grouping of Parliamentary Electors that combines a Just and Equal Distribution of Seats, and the Free Expression both of Individual and Public Opinion, with the smallest degree of Disturbance from Corrupt Influences.” He also participated in the discussions on these papers and on one on middle-class education. See NAPSS, Transactions 1866 (London, 1867), pp. 189-94, 202-208, 265-76, 403-404.

3.

Lord Robert Montagu (1825-1902), independent and controversial politician, conservative MP for Huntingdonshire, 1859-74, and for Westmeath, 1874-88. Montagu’s contribution to the discussion on plural voting will be found in Transactions of NAPSS, 1866, p. 271-72.

4.

“Bribery at Elections,” Macmillan’s, XV (Nov., 1866), 14-21. For Lord Hobart’s remarks on Hare’s plan, see pp. 20-21.

5.

George L. Schuyler. See Letter 978.

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

“The Ladies’ Petition. Petition presented to the House of Commons by Mr. J. Stuart Mill, June 7th, 1866,” WR, n.s. XXXI (Jan., 1867), 63-79, reprinted, with Helen’s name, as The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage Constitutionally Considered (London, 1867). The article begins by discussing the petition, submitted by JSM on June 7, to Parliament, on women’s voting rights in relation to property. See Letter 958.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of Mr. W. H. Browning, London. Envelope addressed: Monsieur Robert Were Fox / Poste Restante / Hyères / Var. Postmark: AVIGNON / 24 NOV/66.

Robert Were Fox (1789-1877), scientific writer. See Earlier Letters, pp. 425, 436.

2.

Anna Maria Fox (1816-1897), and Caroline Fox (1819-1871). See Earlier Letters, p. 425.

1.

MS copy at Northwestern.

2.

Emile Honoré Cazelles (1831-1907), physician and government administrator, translator of JSM’s Hamilton, The Subjection of Women, Three Essays on Religion, and the Autobiography, as well as of works by Spencer, Bain, and Grote.

3.

Cazelles translated Jacob Moleschott’s Der Kreislauf des Lebens . . . as La Circulation de la Vie . . . (Paris, 1866).

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

For heading used, see Letter 1008, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Grote’s letter of Nov. 30 to which this is a reply. Part published in Elliot, II, 71-72.

2.

See Letter 1004, n. 4.

3.

See Letter 293.

4.

See Letters 967 and 1004. For one such attack see “Mr. Martineau and University College,” SR, XXII (Dec. 1, 1866), 672.

5.

Morning Star, Nov. 28, 1866, p. 4.

6.

Justin McCarthy (1830-1912), journalist and politician, from 1864 to 1868 editor-in-chief of the Morning Star.

7.

“Voltaire’s Romances and their Moral,” WR, n.s. XIX (April, 1861), 363-80, and “Mr. Buckle’s History of Civilisation in England,” WR, n.s. XX (July, 1861), 187-207.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Sanders and Co., booksellers, Oxford.

Vance has not otherwise been identified than as the author of Romantic Episodes of Chivalrie and Mediaeval France (London, 1862), and The Authorized Version of the Old Testament Scriptures Harmonized (London, 1864).

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 1008, n. 2.

1.

MS in the Thomas W. Hughes Collection of the William Allen White Library, Emporia, Kansas. One excerpt published in Edward C. Mack and W. H. G. Armytage, Thomas Hughes (London, 1952), p. 150.

2.

The project seems not to have been carried out.

3.

George Horton, in 1866 a junior clerk of the General Register Office, author of The Municipal Government of the Metropolis (London, 1865).

4.

The Liverpool Financial Reform Association, of which Robertson Gladstone, brother of W. E. Gladstone, was a leading member, advocated these objects: “1. To use all lawful and constitutional means of inducing the most rigid economy in the expenditure of government, consistent with due efficiency in the several departments of the public service. 2. To advocate the adoption of a simple and equitable system of direct taxation, fairly levied upon property and income, in lieu of the present unequal, complicated, and expensively collected duties upon commodities.” Economist, Sept. 30, 1848, p. 1111.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus. On verso in another hand [Mrs Grote’s ?]: J.S.Mill / 25 Decr / 1866 / are the men of this time inferior to 1820-1832 / G.G. “yes” / J.S.M. doubtful. / (Judgement of Solomon / good suggestion of / H. Taylor). In reply to Grote’s of Dec. 13, of which Mrs. Grote prints extracts, Life, pp. 282-83.

2.

To the professorship of moral philosophy at University College (see Letters 967, 1004, and 1012). Grote had written: “I, for my part, expected that we should be beaten: and we only escaped adjournment by the casting vote of Belper. After that, Robertson was appointed, by a majority of 8 against 6.

“This decision has been the means of preserving the Chair from being suppressed.

“If the appointment had been deferred for another month, we should have had incessant agitation during the interval, and the matter would infallibly have ended in a compromise, suppressing the Chair outright” (p. 282).

3.

Mrs. Grote omits the quotation marks, thereby attributing the sentence to JSM rather than to her husband (p. 283). She also omits the sentence from her version of Grote’s letter.

4.

The 3rd ed., 1867.

5.

See Letter 906, n. 2.

6.

London, 1866.

7.

See Letter 891, n. 4.

8.

Grote’s Aristotle, ed. by A. Bain and G. C. Robertson, was published posthumously (2 vols., London, 1872), and reviewed by JSM (see Letter 1706, n. 5).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in part in Elliot, II, 72-73. In reply to letter of Dec. 25, MS at Johns Hopkins, written for Chadwick by his daughter Marion (1844-1928).

2.

An address before NAPSS on Feb. 1, 1867, “Education of the Young for Military Service.” Excerpts from it are reprinted in Benjamin W. Richardson, The Health of Nations, vol. I, pp. 201-21. The address is not listed in Finer’s bibliography of Chadwick.

3.

Gabriel Claude Jules Favre (1809-1880), lawyer, republican politician.

4.

Lazare Hippolyte Carnot (1801-1888), politician, minister for instruction in the provisional government of 1848.

5.

Louis Antoine Garnier-Pagès (1803-1878), liberal politician and writer.

6.

Victor Lanjuinais.

7.

Karl Twesten (1820-1870), Prussian politician. In 1866, a co-founder of the National Liberal Party.

8.

Herman Schulze-Delitzsch.

9.

Sic. Johann Jacoby (1805-1877), Prussian liberal politician.

10.

Louis François Michel Raymond Wolowski (1810-1876), French economist, journalist, and politician. From 1855 a member of the Institute.

11.

Eugène Rouher (1814-1884), statesman, bonapartist. From 1849 served French governments in many capacities.

12.

No record has been found of JSM’s discussion of military drill and education.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

On the current financial difficulties of the WR, see also Letters 1019, 1021, 1024, 1026, 1035, 1045.

3.

Among the most prominent of these were Thomas Barnes (b.1813), MP for Bolton, 1852-57, 1861-68; Thomas Bazley, MP for Manchester; Edmund Potter, MP for Carlisle; and Thomas Bayley Potter, MP for Rochdale.

4.

James Stansfeld, MP for Halifax.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

See preceding Letter.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor Joseph Hamburger of Yale University.

2.

Submitted in a competition for a prize of £25, for the best essay on a topic in philosophy. JSM, as had his predecessor, donated the money, and acted as judge. For details, see Anna Jean Mill, “The First Ornamental Rector at St Andrews University: John Stuart Mill,” Scottish Historical Review, XLIII (Oct., 1964), 131-44.

3.

JSM delivered his Inaugural Address as Rector on Friday, Feb. 1, 1867.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

See Letters 1018 and 1019.

3.

Octavius Henry Smith (1796-1871), wealthy distiller, uncle of Florence Nightingale. For Chapman’s previous dealings with Smith, see Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot and John Chapman (New Haven, 1940).

4.

Another cure for the spinal bag. See Letter 751, and Haight, p. 114.

5.

“Social Reform in England,” WR, n.s. XXXI (Jan., 1867), 150-71. The author has not been identified.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in part in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 209-10.

2.

Charles Loyson (1827-1912), known as Père Hyacinthe, eloquent liberal preacher and member of the Carmelite order. Later involved in controversy, Loyson was dismissed from the priesthood and excommunicated. D’Eichthal had probably sent one of P. Hyacinthe’s discourses delivered at Notre Dame entitled “De la sociétédomestique dans le plan général de la société humaine” and “De la société conjugale, base de la société domestique,” published in Revue des Cours Littéraires de la France et de L’Etranger, IV (Dec. 8 and 15, 1866), 17-24 and 40-46.

1.

MS in the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

The name of the recipient is not clear, and he has not been identified.

2.

See Pol. Econ., Book V, chap. xi, sec. 14.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 1021.

3.

See Letter 840, n. 3.

4.

William Brinton (1823-1867), well-known physician and physiologist. He had died on Jan. 17, and Chapman was probably seeking appointment to his post.

1.

MS at LSE.

Walpole was then Home Secretary.

2.

As a result of a gunpowder explosion in a non-unionist’s house in Sheffield in Oct., 1866, and of other signs of difficulty among the unions, a Royal Commission was appointed in Feb., 1867, to report on all matters related to trades unions. The Commission met frequently between Feb., 1867, and Dec., 1869, when it issued its eleventh and final report. For details, see Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (London, 1911), chap. v, and G. D. H. Cole, A Short History of the British Working-Class Movement (London, 1947), chap. v., sec. 2.

3.

Neither Fawcett nor JSM became a member of the Commission.

4.

Sir William Erle (1793-1880), barrister, had just retired in 1866 as Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas. He later wrote The Law relating to Trades’ Unions (London, 1868).

1.

MS at Canberra.

2.

See Letters 1021 and 1024.

3.

See Letter 1008.

1.

MS not located. Published in Arnold Ruges Briefwechsel und Tagebuchblätter aus den Jahren 1825-1880, ed. Paul Nerrlich (2 vols., Berlin, 1886), I, 291-92.

2.

“Fragment on the Reign of Elizabeth. From the Posthumous Papers of Mr. Buckle,” Fraser’s, LXXV (Feb., 1867), 163-86.

3.

The project eventually grew to the three large volumes of The Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle, ed. with a biographical introduction by Helen Taylor (London, 1872).

4.

Ruge in 1864 had published a translation into German of Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, and at this time was preparing a third edition of it. Upon receipt of this letter he wrote Helen Taylor, addressing her as Miss Mill, on Feb. 11 (MS at Yale), requesting permission to translate her edition of Buckle’s fragments.

5.

Mary Buckle Allatt, one of the historian’s sisters. She disapproved of much of his work (see G. St. Aubyn, A Victorian Eminence, pp. 101-102).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 73. In reply to Brandreth’s of Feb. 2, 1867, also at Johns Hopkins.

Henry Samuel Brandreth (1841-1919), barrister.

2.

In his letter Brandreth had asked: “Would the pleasure of telling the truth in the face of danger square with the Utilitarian system?”

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

A Daily News leader of Feb. 7, 1867, p. 4, advocated the suffrage for women who satisfied the property qualifications for voting.

3.

Frank Harrison Hill (1830-1910), journalist, assistant editor of the Daily News, 1865-69, and editor, 1869-86.

4.

JSM’s Inaugural Address at St. Andrews on Feb. 1 was reported at length in The Times, Feb. 4, p. 4, and published as a book in the same week.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Fowle’s letter of Feb. 7 (to which this is a reply) and his rejoinder of Feb. 12. Published in Elliot, II, 74, but with the correspondent named as Towle.

Thomas Welbank Fowle (1835-1903), theologian and writer on the poor law, responsible for having new schools built while curate of Holy Trinity, Hoxton, 1863-68.

2.

Fowle had been moved to write JSM by this sentence from his Rectorial Address, as reported in The Times of Feb. 4: “Christianity being an historical religion, the sort of religious instruction which seems to be most appropriate to a University is the study of ecclesiastical history.”

In his letter, Fowle proposed to extend this principle to the schools: “The Bible whatever else it may be contains the two first volumes of religious history. It should therefore be taught . . . not dogmatically but historically, and exactly under the conditions and in that spirit which you [JSM] have prescribed as legitimate in national Universities.”

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letter 997, n. 4.

3.

See Letter 1025, n. 2. Plummer is not listed as a witness before the Commission.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. In reply to Spencer’s letter of Feb. 6, MS at Northwestern, thanking him for a bound copy of his Inaugural Address at St. Andrews and suggesting the possibility of starting another periodical to take the place of the unsuccessful Reader.

2.

In part, JSM said, “In cultivating, therefore, the ancient languages as our best literary tradition, we are all the while laying an admirable foundation for ethical and philosophical culture.”

3.

Nothing came of these plans. The next semi-popular periodical to be established which included news of scientific interest was Nature, first published in Nov., 1869, by Macmillan as a weekly. See Cyril Bibby, T. H. Huxley, pp. 101-102.

1.

MS in the Hollander Collection, University of Illinois.

Robert Herbert Story (1835-1907), Scottish minister; co-founder, in 1865, of the Church Service Society, which in the course of years modernized ancient practices of the Scottish Church; later (1886) professor of Church History and (1898-1907) principal of Glasgow University.

Story met JSM on the occasion of his inauguration as Rector of St. Andrews University.

2.

The book may have been Story’s biography of his father, Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Robert Story . . . (Cambridge, 1862).

1.

MS draft copy at Johns Hopkins. Published in part in Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival (London, 1893), p. 283. In reply to Ward’s of Feb. 7, published in ibid., pp. 282-83.

2.

“Jamaica,” Dublin Review, n.s. VII (Oct., 1866), 362-414, identified by Ward in his letter of Feb. 7 as by Henry Wilberforce.

Henry William Wilberforce (1807-1873), Roman Catholic journalist and author, youngest son of the great abolitionist William Wilberforce. Subsequent to the publication of the article he joined the Jamaica Committee.

3.

“Science, Prayer, Free Will, and Miracles,” Dublin Review, n.s. VIII (Apr., 1867), 255-98. Ward promptly offered to send the proofs for JSM’s criticism (see Wilfrid Ward’s book, p. 284). See also Letters 1036 and 1039.

4.

Hamilton, 3rd ed.

1.

MS at Columbia.

2.

See Letters 1018, 1019, 1021, 1024, and 1026.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins.

2.

See Letter 1034, n. 3.

3.

See ibid., n. 4.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Leonard Henry Courtney, not elected until 1869.

3.

John Welsford Cowell (1795-1867), barrister and banker, pamphleteer on currency and the poor law. Treasurer of the Political Economy Club, 1831-34, Hon. Secretary, 1821-54.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York.

Perhaps Walford had asked for JSM’s photograph for Hardwicke’s Shilling House of Commons, of which he was editor.

2.

To John Watkins, doing business at Watkins Brothers, 34 Parliament St., in the summer of 1865.

3.

Ernest Edwards (1837-1903), London portrait photographer, introducer of the heliotype.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 74-76, and in Wilfrid Ward, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival, pp. 292-94.

2.

See Letter 1034, n. 3.

3.

To elucidate Ward’s point on divine premovement. See Ward’s article, pp. 267-69.

4.

The note is at the end of Ward’s article, beginning on p. 296.

5.

Logic, Book VI, chap. ii.

1.

MS at Indiana. Endorsed: J.S.Mill / 16 Feb. 1867

1.

MS in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester.

2.

JSM introduced the deputation to Spencer Walpole, the Home Secretary. It consisted of George Odger, secretary of the London Trades Council; a Mr. Danter, president of the Amalgamated Engineering Society; Edwin Coulson, general secretary of the “London Order” of Bricklayers; and Daniel Guile, secretary of the Moulders’ Society. They sought to persuade Walpole to appoint a working man to the Royal Commission on Trades Unions, and to arrange for the presence of a representative of each trade union to explain any difficulty which might arise. See the Report of the Various Proceedings taken by the London Trades Council and the Conference of Amalgamated Trades, in Reference to the Royal Commission on Trades Unions and other Subjects in Connection Therewith (London, 1867).

3.

Frederic Harrison.

1.

MS in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

2.

Possibly Moncure D. Conway’s Lecture, “New England,” delivered at the Royal Institution, Friday, Feb. 22, 1867.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts. About half of the first page has been torn off and is lost.

2.

See Letters 1044 and 1086, n. 2.

3.

Probably W. R. Ware, author of The Machinery of Politics and Proportional Representation, published by the Representative Reform Association (London, 1872).

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

On Personal Representation. See preceding Letter, and Letter 1086, n. 2.

3.

The Conservative government of Derby and Disraeli introduced a series of resolutions on reform as a means of testing opinion on the subject before bringing in a bill. This method of introducing the subject was debated Feb. 18, 1867, and Gladstone gave his approval. See Hansard, CLXXXV, cols. 480-91.

4.

That evening he gave notice that, in Committee on the subject of the representation of the people, he would move, “That in order to secure to the utmost extent possible the real and equal representation of every elector, it is expedient that when the electors amount to a certain number they shall have the power of voluntarily combining with one another to elect their own representative.” See The Times, Feb. 20, 1867, p. 6.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

Jacob Bright (1821-1899), radical politician, John Bright’s brother. MP for Manchester, 1867-74, 1876-85, and southern division, Manchester, 1886-95.

3.

See Letters 1018, 1019, 1021, and 1024.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

In the Commons over the proposed Reform Bill.

3.

Gladstone, in his comments on the Queen’s Address at the opening of Parliament on Feb. 5, 1867, deplored the omission from the Address of any reference to the need to reform corrupt practices in elections. See Hansard, CLXXXV, col. 71.

1.

MS at Cornell. Tipped in in a first-edition copy of JSM’s Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrews, Feb. 1st, 1867. The book bears the stamp of R. Gary Barnard, Dartlow, [B]rockhampton, Cheltenham, and the title page bears the signature, C. S. Barnard.

2.

Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), the famous headmaster of Rugby. JSM had referred to him in the Inaugural Address, p. 14, as the most eminent of the “few practical reformers of school tuition.”

1.

MS not located. Published in the Co-operator, VII (March 15, 1867), 315. The letter was preceded by this statement: “Mr. H. J. [sic] Rowntree, the chairman of the late Reform demonstration in York, has received communications from Earl Russell and Mr. J. S. Mill, M.P., acknowledging the vote of thanks passed to them at the meeting above referred to.”

Henry Isaac Rowntree (1838-1883), businessman; son of Joseph Rowntree (1801-1859), prominent Quaker businessman, alderman, mayor-elect of York; younger brother of Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925) with whom he was in partnership in the cocoa manufacturing business which carried the family name. The latter was the founder of the Liberal Association in York.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 77-79. A letter of March 2, 1867, from Edmond Beales concerning this letter is also at Johns Hopkins.

William Randal Cremer (1838-1908), trade unionist and radical politician, secretary in 1865 of the British section of the International Workingmen’s Association; secretary from 1871 until his death of the Workingmen’s Peace Association; winner in 1903 of the Nobel Peace Prize.

2.

As reported in “The Government Reform Bill,” the Star, Feb. 28, 1867, p. 2, the speakers (Charles Bradlaugh and Lt.-Col. L. S. Dickson) at the Reform League rally, held the preceding evening in Sussex Hall, Bouverie Street, London, were demagogic in their utterances. They proposed that a demonstration be held on Good Friday in Hyde Park and that a general strike be called as a means of obtaining votes for the working class.

3.

The Reform League was largely, though not exclusively, a working-class organization, formed in 1865 by the Trade Unions. Its principles reflected the Chartists’ demands for “One Man, One Vote.” Its president was Edmond Beales; its secretary, George Howell. W. R. Cremer of the Carpenters and Joiners Society was a member of the General Council. See F. E. Gillespie, Labor and Politics in England 1850-1865 (Durham, N.C., 1927) and G. D. H. Cole, British Working Class Politics 1832-1914 (London, 1941), pp. 25-28.

1.

MS at King’s.

2.

George Hammond Whalley (1813-1878), MP for Peterborough, 1852-53, 1859-78. Whalley both bored and amused the House by persistent and bitter attacks on the Jesuits, whom he considered conspirators against the government. See Justin McCarthy, Reminiscences (2 vols., London, 1899), II, 181-83.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

See Letter 1055.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, later 1st Earl of Cranbrook (1814-1906), conservative politician and statesman. In 1866 he was president of the Poor Law Board, in 1867, Home Secretary. He sponsored the Metropolitan Poor Bill, to increase the facilities and other care available in the metropolitan areas for the poor, especially for the sick among the poor. See “English History,” Annual Register 1867, pp. 16-17, and Reports from the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government, etc. (London City Improvements Bill), 1867, XII.

3.

Joshua Harrison Stallard, physician, writer on paupers and sanitation.

4.

James Beal. See Letter 896.

1.

MS draft at Yale, as is Longman’s letter of March 4, 1867, to which this is a reply.

2.

The People’s edition of the Inaugural Address was first advertised for sale in the March 30, 1867, Athenaeum.

3.

Possibly an employee of John Radford of the address given, who was listed in the Post Office Directory for London (1871) as a medieval mounter.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Russell’s letter of March 4 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 79-80. The letter is in Helen Taylor’s hand, and the envelope in which it is filed is marked: “by H.T.”

Russell is identified only as living at 11 Vincent Terrace, Islington.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published, with minor omissions, in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 210-11, and in Cosmopolis, p. 785.

2.

See Letter 1051.

3.

The Paris Universal Exhibition of April-Nov., 1867. The Committee of the Working Men’s Excursion to Paris, of which Austin Henry Layard was chairman, sponsored trips for groups of working men to the Exhibition.

4.

Rowland Detrosier (1800?-1834), workingmen’s leader, secretary of the London Political Union. See Earlier Letters, p. 147.

5.

Probably Georges d’Eichthal, who came to Britain to enter business (see Letter 1514); but possibly Eugène d’Eichthal (1844-1936), journalist and economist, author of many articles on political and economic subjects and editor of John Stuart Mill, Correspondance inédite avec Gustave d’Eichthal, 1828-1842, 1864-1871 (Paris, 1898).

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts. Envelope addressed: Thomas Hare Esq. / 8 York Street / St. James’s Square, S.W. Postmark: CHARING CROSS WC / 5 / MR 8 / 67.

2.

JSM did not give notice until Thursday, March 14, that he would, in committee or at some other stage of the Reform Bill, call the attention of the House to the plan of personal representation. See The Times, March 15, 1867, p. 4, and Letter 1086.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Letter 1055.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Gathorne-Hardy moved on Thursday, March 7, that the House go into Committee on the Metropolitan Poor Bill so that the Amendments might be printed in time for discussion on the following night, March 8. See Letter 1052, n. 2.

3.

JSM spoke on the administration of the Metropolitan Poor Law. See Hansard, CLXXXV, cols. 1608-10.

4.

See Morning Star, March 9, 1867, p. 3.

5.

Monday, March 11. For JSM’s remarks, see Hansard, CLXXXV, cols. 1678-79, 1680, 1685, 1696.

6.

Paper No. XVI in Report of the Committee appointed to consider the cubic space of metropolitan workhouses; with papers submitted to the Committee (London, 1867), pp. 64-79. Reprinted in Lucy Ridgely Seymer, ed. Selected Writings of Florence Nightingale (New York, 1954), pp. 271-309.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

For quotations from and references to Thomas De Quincey’s The Logic of Political Economy, see Collected Works, III, 1107-1108, and V, 783-85.

1.

MS at UCL. See also Letters 1052 and 1058.

2.

Although JSM urged the necessity of large rather than small districts and correspondingly large asylums, and of an administrative board for the whole metropolitan district, which would supervise the districts and report to the Poor Law Board, he offered these points as suggestions, not as amendments at the third reading of the Metropolitan Poor Bill, which passed on March 14, 1867. See Hansard, CLXXXV, cols. 1861-63.

3.

“This time” refers to JSM’s remarks of March 11 (see Letter 1058, n. 5); “than last” refers to his remarks of March 8 (see ibid., n. 3 and n. 4).

4.

Clause 50, Metropolitan Poor Bill, gave the Poor Law Board the authority to send the poor from one district to a workhouse in another. Parl. Papers, 1867 (Feb. 5 to Aug. 21), vol. IV, Bill 66.

1.

MS in the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

2.

The “Representation of the People” Bill had its first reading on Monday, March 18, 1867. Its provisions did not include cumulative voting (Hansard, CLXXXVI, cols. 16-25). JSM’s amendment to clause 9 was not presented until May 30, and, after brief debate, was withdrawn the same day (Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1344-56, 1362). The final version of the Reform Bill was passed on July 15, 1867 (Parl. Papers, 1867 [Feb. 5 to Aug. 21], vol. V).

3.

In part 5 of JSM’s amendment of May 30 the Speaker of the House of Commons was to be empowered to frame rules governing the application of the system for proportional representation (Hansard, CLXXXVII, col. 1344).

4.

See Letter 1056, n. 2.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood. Not in JSM’s hand.

William Wood, a pottery worker of Hanley, with whom JSM subsequently corresponded from time to time. For JSM’s comments on Wood, see Letter 1107.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, signed H.T. Note in JSM’s hand on envelope containing draft confirms her authorship. See Letters 1054 and 1071.

1.

MS in Bodleian. In a 3-vol. collection of autographs made in 1865-74 by H. R. H. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.

2.

Froude was to spend the spring of 1867 working in the national archives of Spain at Simancas.

3.

“Fragment on the Reign of Elizabeth. From the Posthumous Papers of Mr. Buckle. IV.—Clergy,” Fraser’s, LXXVI (Aug., 1867), 135-50.

4.

Beginning in Nov., 1866, almost every number of Fraser’s for the next year carried an article on some aspect of Reform. A number of articles were devoted to military reform.

1.

MS in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester.

2.

Holyoake’s petition for universal suffrage was presented by JSM in the House of Commons on March 22. The petition sought to reassure the middle class that the working class was not in search of power, but of justice. For the text, see Daily News, March 25, 1867, p. 6.

1.

MS not located. Typed copy in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester.

2.

See preceding Letter, n. 2.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

See Letter 1069.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

Hare must have confirmed this fact, for JSM made use of the point in his speech on the representation of women on May 20. See Hansard, CLXXXVII, col. 827.

3.

“Minorities, Cumulative Voting and Personal Representation,” Daily News, March 25, 1867, p. 3.

4.

The debate took place on May 20, 1867. See Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 817-45.

1.

MS copy at Northwestern.

1.

MS at Arsenal.

2.

Henry (later Sir Henry) Studdy Theobald (1847-1934), barrister and author of treatises on law.

3.

William Theobald (1798-1870), of the Inner Temple and the Calcutta Bar, author of legal works.

1.

MS draft in Helen Taylor’s hand at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 80. In reply to Russell’s answer of March 29, also at Johns Hopkins, to JSM’s of March 20. See also Letter 1054.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

“On the Chief Methods of Preparation for Legislation, especially as applicable to the Reform of Parliament,” Fraser’s, LXXV (May, 1867), 673-90.

3.

Benjamin Scott (1814-1892), chamberlain of the city of London, testified March 6, March 28, April 1, April 11, and April 30, before the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government, of which JSM was a member, for the London City Improvement Rates Bill. Parl. Papers, 1867 (Feb. 5 to Aug. 21), vol. XII.

1.

MS in the Stanley Withers Collection of the Manchester Public Libraries, Central Reference Library.

2.

Probably the meeting held at Radley’s Hotel, Blackfriars, on April 6, 1867, to give middle-class and working men a chance to confer on the Reform Bill. See The Times, April 8, p. 9.

3.

For those living in boroughs a £10 lodger franchise was part of the Reform Bill of 1867.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

Edward Truelove (1809-1899), bookseller and publisher. Once a member of Robert Owen’s communistic settlement at New Harmony, Hants., Truelove in 1858 was indicted but not tried for publishing a pamphlet [by William E. Adams] entitled Tyrannicide, is it justifiable? JSM contributed £20 to the Defence Fund raised for Truelove at that time.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus. Envelope addressed: Angleterre / F. J. Furnivall Esq. / 3 Old Square / Lincoln’sInn / London W.C.

2.

The next Letter.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

Thomas Vardon, librarian of the House of Commons since 1831, had died on April 12. Furnivall, who had lost his fortune in the failure of the Overend and Gurney bank earlier this year, had to seek a remunerative position. The librarianship appointment, however, went to the assistant librarian, George Howard.

3.

Furnivall had founded the Early English Text Society in 1864.

4.

He had been one of two honorary secretaries of the Society since 1853 and was sole secretary from 1862 to his death.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Hughes’s granddaughter, Mrs. Carolyn Hughes D’Agostino of Lakeside, Conn.

2.

A co-operative producers’ association, of which Hughes became a director in 1867. The association had some success until 1875; thereafter, it declined and was voluntarily liquidated in 1885. For details, see Benjamin Jones, Co-operative Production, pp. 676-83.

1.

MS draft at Yale. Chapé’s reply of Oct. 10 is also at Yale.

August Joanny Chapé was possibly the son of Achilles Chapé, 2 Brewer Street, Goswell Road, E.C., listed in the Postal Directory of 1871 as a general printer. Chapé’s letter of Jan. 18, 1868 (see Letter 1182), was written from that address.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Henry Fawcett married Millicent Garrett on April 23, 1867.

3.

See Letter 1068, n. 4.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood. Not in JSM’s hand.

2.

The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal (3rd ed., London, 1865).

3.

Rep. Govt.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Manchester Daily Examiner and Times, May 9, 1867, and in the Manchester Weekly Times, May 11.

Hare read the letter at the grave as a part of the funeral service for Max Kyllmann on May 7.

2.

The final discussion of the “compound-householder” question under Clause 3, which was then in Committee. Controversy on May 6 concerned several smaller issues (Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 15-56); but the entire debate of May 9 centred on an ambiguous four-word amendment offered by Disraeli (Hansard, ibid., cols. 266-357). JSM opposed the amendment on the ground that it would lead to expensive politicking and perhaps to traffic in votes; the amendment passed, however, with a majority of 66.

1.

MS at Cornell. See preceding Letter.

1.

MS at Cornell. In Helen Taylor’s hand but signed by JSM.

2.

Clause 5 of the original bill: “Educational Franchises for Voters in Counties and Boroughs,” Proviso 4, “Is, and has been during the Period aforesaid, a Serjeant-at-Law or Barrister-at-Law in any of the Inns of Court in England, or a Certificated Pleader or Certificated Conveyancer. . . .”

3.

On May 20 JSM and on May 21 Henry Labouchere, MP for Middlesex, and Capt. Grosvenor, MP for Westminster, presented petitions to Parliament from the residents of Chelsea requesting fuller access by the public to both the outer and inner gardens of Chelsea Hospital. For the reply of the First Commissioner of Public Works to Labouchere’s questions, see Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1026-27.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

See Letters 1035 and 1045.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

This Parliament was not formally dissolved until Nov. 11, 1868.

3.

It was divided into Tower Hamlets and Hackney.

4.

Frederick Doulton (1824-1872), manufacturer, MP for Lambeth, 1862-68.

5.

Robert, later Sir Robert Nicholas Fowler (1828-1891), banker and politician, MP for Penryn and Falmouth, 1868-74, and for the city of London, 1880-91. Robert Lowe was elected unopposed for the University of London in 1868.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Spencer in his reply of May 28, MS also at Northwestern, partly published in Duncan, I, 180-81, politely refused permission to publish the chapter on “The Rights of Women,” because in the seventeen years since its original publication his views had changed.

2.

See Letter 28.

3.

Social Statics (London, 1851), Part II, chap. xvi.

4.

The Rationale of Political Representation (London, 1835).

5.

Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the admission of women to the electoral franchise, spoken in the House of Commons, May 20, 1867. Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 817-829. Reprinted by Trübner (London, 1867).

6.

“Of the Extension of the Suffrage,” Rep. Govt., chap. viii.

7.

Lydia E. Becker, “Female Suffrage,” Contemp. Rev., IV (March, 1867), 307-16.

Miss Becker (1827-1890) was secretary of the Manchester Women’s Suffrage Society, and editor of the Women’s Suffrage Journal, 1870-90.

8.

Barbara L. S. Bodichon (1827-1891), feminist and educational reformer, read her paper on “Middle-Class Schools for Girls” at the 1860 (Glasgow) meeting of the NAPSS. For abstract, see Transactions 1860 (London, 1861), pp. 432-33. She also read a paper on suffrage for women freeholders and householders at the 1866 (Manchester) meeting of the Association. It was printed as a pamphlet by the NAPSS, Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women (London, 1866).

9.

See Letter 1008. This article was reprinted by Trübner, 1867.

10.

Mrs. Mill’s article, JSM’s speech, and Helen Taylor’s article were reprinted by Trübner (see Letter 1093).

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of May 20, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

Cairnes had been attacked by inflammatory rheumatism in 1866; the disease was responsible for his death in 1875, at the age of fifty-one.

3.

Vol. 3 (London, 1867).

4.

See Letter 769, n. 3.

5.

The 3rd ed. (London, 1867).

6.

William Henry Cairnes (1827-1889), Cairnes’s brother, who retired from the army for reasons of health after service in the Crimean War.

7.

See Letter 1068.

8.

Thomas F. Burke, an Irish-American Fenian known as “General” Burke, had been tried for high treason and condemned to death by hanging by a Special Commission sitting at Dublin. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. See The Times, May 29, 1867, p. 12.

9.

The 14th Earl of Derby, prime minister from June, 1866, to Feb., 1868. At the meeting with Lord Derby, JSM was one of the members of the House to speak in Burke’s behalf. He insisted that the “scaffold should not be erected for political offences.” See The Times, May 27, 1867, p. 6.

10.

The Land Improvement and Leasing Bill, withdrawn July 22, 1867, had been introduced by Richard Southwell Bourke, Lord Naas, 6th Earl of Mayo (1822-1872), chief secretary for Ireland, 1852, 1858, and 1866, and Viceroy to India, 1869.

11.

To seek Queen Victoria’s personal intercession.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

The amending resolutions to introduce Personal Representation into the Reform of Parliament Act were debated on Thursday, May 30, 1867. Following the debate, JSM withdrew the resolutions. Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1343-62.

3.

For admission to the Speaker’s Gallery; JSM would have placed Hare’s name on a list kept by the Serjeant at Arms.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library.

1.

MS at the Bodleian; MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 81-82. In reply to Allen’s of May 22, MS at Johns Hopkins, as is also Allen’s rejoinder of May 28.

2.

For a report on the bribery in a parliamentary election, see “Totnes. Report of the Election Committee.” Devon Weekly Times, March 1, 1867, p. 7. For a report on the action by the Church, see “The Totnes Independents and Bribery,” Manchester Guardian, May 20, 1867, p. 3.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Daniel O’Donoghue.

3.

See Letter 1085. For the O’Donoghue’s question and Disraeli’s reply, see Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1131-32.

4.

Sir John Gray (1816-1875), politician and journalist, proprietor of the Dublin Freeman’s Journal, knighted for scheme of supplying water from the Vartry to the city of Dublin; MP for Kilkenny City, 1865-75; active in the movement for the disestablishment of the Irish Church.

1.

MS not located. Published in The Industrial Partnership Record, No. 6 (August, 1867), of which Greening was Editor.

2.

The periodical was published monthly from March, 1867, to Feb., 1868. George Jacob Holyoake became editor on Jan. 19, 1868, and the name was changed to the Social Economist in March, 1868.

3.

The Co-operator. See Letter 575.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 82-83. In reply to Sharp’s of May 27, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Sharp has not been identified.

2.

The passage referred to, and from which Sharp in his letter quoted, reads in part: “It is necessary to punish unsuccessful revolutionists, because no man has a right to endanger the lives of his fellow creatures by raising Civil War, unless the event proves that there was such a feeling in the country at the time that he had a reasonable chance of success.”

JSM had spoken at a meeting of the National Reform Union on May 25, 1867. Although the meeting had been called in support of parliamentary reform, he had devoted most of his speech to an attack upon the government’s decision to hang the Fenian Burke. See Letters 1085 and 1089. For JSM’s speech and a report of the meeting, see The Times, May 27, 1867, p. 12.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, June 5, 1867, p. 3.

2.

See Letter 778.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Trübner’s of the same date, also at Yale, as is his answer of June 4.

2.

In his letter of the same day, Trübner informed JSM that the Society for the Extension of Suffrage to Women had ordered the speech he made in Parliament on women’s suffrage to be reprinted. See Letter 1084, n.5.

3.

See ibid., n. 9.

4.

Thomas Curson Hansard (1813-1891), 2nd proprietor and editor of the same name of Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 1833-88.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood; MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 83.

2.

See Letter 1055, n. 3.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor Leslie Marchand, Rutgers University.

2.

See Letters 695 and 949.

3.

Thomas Hughes, then MP for Lambeth.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda J. Gage, History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., Rochester, 1881-1902), II, 252, and in the New York Daily Tribune, July 23, 1867, p. 2.

Samuel N. Wood (1825-1891), populist politician of the state of Kansas.

2.

Wood had assisted in founding the Impartial Suffrage Association at Topeka on April 3, 1867, and became its corresponding secretary. The Association supported granting the suffrage to both Negroes and women. Though the amendments proposed were acted upon favourably in the state legislature, both were defeated in the referendum held the following November.

3.

The pre-Civil War conflicts between the “free-soilers” and the pro-slavery forces.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

A Select Committee was nominated on June 27, to which was committed an Oxford and Cambridge Universities Bill which sought to open both institutions to students without requiring them to be members of the constituent colleges. Another bill to revise the constitutions of the two universities was also considered by the Committee. The bills were withdrawn on July 22, 1868.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Trübner’s of June 4, also at Yale.

2.

See Letter 1084, n. 9.

3.

See ibid., n. 5.

4.

In his letter of June 4, Trübner had offered to publish JSM’s speech “at my risk on the half profit system or . . . on your account.”

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Alexander Irvine, JSM’s favourite botanizing companion in later years, no doubt was with him.

3.

Possibly the Lebern mountains, a range near Wangen on the north side of the Aare valley, in Switzerland.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

It did not publish Helen’s letter, but on June 17, 1867, p. 5, it published a summary statement on petitions in behalf of women suffrage presented to the Commons.

3.

JSM had spoken briefly on the Bankruptcy Acts Repeal Bill on Tuesday, June 4; for the debate on that occasion, see Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1556-82. The Bill was subsequently withdrawn on July 11.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in Frederic Harrison, Autobiographic Memoirs (2 vols., London, 1911), I, 302. Portion in brackets is by Harrison.

2.

Martial Law. Six Letters to the “Daily News” (Jamaica Committee, London, 1867). No. 5 of “Jamaica Papers.”

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Ireland’s letter of June 19 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 83-84.

William Wotherspoon Ireland (1832-1909), a physician in the service of the East India Co. who had been badly wounded at the siege of Delhi in Aug., 1857. After early retirement he lived for some time on the Continent, for a while in 1863 at Avignon, where he may have met JSM. Ireland’s “Town Life in the South of France,” in his Studies of a Wandering Observer (London, 1867), presents a picture of Avignon in this period.

2.

JSM had spoken in the Commons on June 14, 1867, in an acrimonious debate over a “Petition on Fenianism” presented some weeks earlier by John Bright. The Petition attempted to justify the Irish rebellion and pleaded for as lenient punishment of the Fenians as possible; it also seemed to censure the British Army for its previous conduct in Ireland (1798), India, and Jamaica. Criticism of the Petition was led by Major Augustus Henry Archibald Anson, then MP for Lichfield. Anson, who had performed distinguished service in India during the Mutiny, thought the Petition insulting to the armed forces.

JSM endorsed the sentiments of the Petition and denied that it was directed against Major Anson’s profession. He said, in part, “I have been infinitely more disgusted in reference to the Indian transactions . . . by the inhuman and ferocious displays of feeling made by unmilitary persons, persons in civil life, who were safe at home, and who, it seems to me were far more culpable than those who committed excesses under such provocation as there is no denying was given in the case of India. Even the deeds there done of inhuman and indiscriminate massacre, the seizing of persons in all parts of the country and putting them to death without trial, and then boasting of it in a manner almost disgraceful to humanity, were by no means confined to the army. . . .” For the whole debate, see Hansard, CLXXXVII, cols. 1886-1906.

1.

MS draft at Cornell.

2.

See Letter 1084, n. 5.

3.

Thomas Fitzgerald (1819-1891), American editor, publisher, playwright, and founder in 1847 of the Evening Item, which he and his sons conducted for nearly half a century.

4.

Lydia Becker.

5.

See Letters 1008, 1084, and 1093.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of June 10, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

Henry Fawcett on June 18 had presented a motion to open fellowships and foundation scholarships of Trinity College, Dublin, to persons other than members of the Established Church.

3.

William Monsell, later Baron Emly (1812-1894), politician and statesman, MP for Limerick, 1847-74, moved to amend Fawcett’s motion so as to provide for the alteration of the constitution of the University of Dublin “to enable . . . it to include Colleges connected with other forms of religion than that of the Established Church, and that the members of such colleges should be entitled to share in all the benefits now enjoyed by the members of Trinity College.” See Hansard, CLXXXVIII, cols. 58-63.

4.

As announced in the papers on July 6, 1867, it was named “The London National Society for Woman Suffrage.” As correspondence at LSE between Helen Taylor and Clementia Taylor reveals, Helen threatened that she and JSM would withdraw unless the name was altered. On July 22 the Committee yielded, and the name henceforth used was “The London National Society for Women’s Suffrage.”

5.

Clementia Taylor (1811-1908), wife of Peter Alfred Taylor, liberal MP for Leicester for many years.

6.

Caroline (née Ashhurst), (d. 1885), wife of Sir James Stansfeld, radical MP for Halifax, 1859-95.

7.

A breakfast in honour of William Lloyd Garrison, the American abolitionist, was held at St. James’s Hall, London, on June 29, 1867. John Bright spoke, followed by the Duke of Argyll, Earl Russell, JSM, and others. The text of JSM’s speech is printed in W. P. Garrison and F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879 . . . (4 vols. New York, 1889), IV, 211-13.

8.

JSM spoke at meetings of the National Reform Union at St. James’s Hall on May 25 (see Letter 1091) and on June 28, on the latter occasion when he was unexpectedly called upon.

9.

The Daily News for June 29, 1867, p. 5, reported that at the close of the meeting, before a motion of thanks to the Chairman, Jacob Bright, was put to vote, “a lady in a sailor’s hat . . . came forward and made a long oration on the subject of women’s political rights. She called for a show of hands in favour of Mr. Mill’s proposition to admit women to the suffrage, and the meeting, which had half dwindled away, cordially answered the appeal.”

The lady was Mrs. Harriet Law (1832-1897), well known as a lecturer on secularist topics. Two years earlier the National Reformer (May 28, 1865, pp. 348-49), in a piece entitled “Mrs. Law’s Provincial Tour,” had reported that her lecture at Birmingham “was a comparison of the teaching of Moses, Jesus and Mill on Political Economy, in which the wisdom of the latter and the foolishness of the former were judiciously shown. Moses and Jesus, in almost everything they said on this subject, were shown to be in direct opposition to the teachings of Mill, and other great political economists of the present time. And in everything they differed, although God-inspired men, their differences only tended to render their teachings absurd, useless, and contradictory.”

In June, 1867, Mrs. Law became the first woman member of the General Council of the International. From 1872 to 1879 she edited the Secular Chronicle (published at Birmingham), which printed a number of the writings of Karl Marx.

1.

MS at UCLA.

John Colam (ca. 1827-1910), secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1860-1905; a founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; a founder and editor of the journal of the RSPCA, the Animal World. See Letter 1271.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

George John Graham (1801-1888), member of the Utilitarian Society of the 1820’s and old friend of JSM. From 1838, Graham was Registrar General of Births and Deaths. See Earlier Letters.

2.

Perhaps a son of JSM’s friend, Andrew Bisset. No one by this name appears to have been employed at the India Office in 1867 or 1868.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

William Wood. See Letter 1062.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as also is Ollivier’s letter of July 2 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 84-85, as by Helen Taylor.

Robert Wilby Ollivier, theater ticket agent at 19 Old Bond St., as secretary of a group of tradesmen had written urging JSM to support steps to bring “to the notice of Her Majesty the social and political evils attending upon her continued retirement from public life” since the death of the Prince Consort in 1861.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Largely published in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 212-13, and in Cosmopolis, pp. 785-86.

2.

See Letter 1070.

3.

See Letter 1055.

4.

D’Eichthal was one of the founders this year of the Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France. The Association, still in existence, publishes Revue des études grecques.

5.

At a conference, held in London, May, 1867, France agreed to drop her annexation of Luxembourg, and Prussia withdrew her garrison, thereby neutralizing the Duchy. D’Eichthal had written to the Temps to protest the aggressiveness of France; his letter of April 23 was published on April 26, p. 1.

1.

MS not located. Published in New York Times, July 27, 1867.

Parker Pillsbury (1809-1898), journalist and reformer, vice-president of the New Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association, and later co-editor with Elizabeth Cady Stanton of the Revolution.

2.

The American Equal Rights Association; its first anniversary meeting was held May 9, 10, 1867, in the Church of the Puritans, New York City. It advocated equal rights for Negro men and for white women. See Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. II, pp. 182-226.

3.

Mrs. Mill’s essay. See Letter 28.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood.

2.

See Letter 1107.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Edward Henry Stanley, Foreign Secretary, 1866-68, in reply to a question by JSM, said that the appointment of Commodore Sir William Wiseman, R.N., as head of the Naval Council to the Turkish Government (a body formed to reorganize the Turkish navy) would be suspended until the hostilities caused by the Cretan insurrection against Turkey were at an end. JSM had asked whether it was consistent with Britain’s non-intervention policy to send Commodore Wiseman to the Turkish post. Stanley agreed to JSM’s interpretation only after questions at two meetings of the Commons on July 16 and 22, 1867. Hansard, CLXXXVIII, cols. 1621-22, and 1873. The further question mentioned here was not raised until Monday, July 22.

3.

On July 16, Fawcett had asked Sir Stafford Northcote, Secretary of State for India, whether a ball planned for the Sultan of Turkey should be charged to the Indian revenues. Northcote, as JSM notes, defended the policy on the grounds of Turkish assistance to telegraphic communication with India. See Hansard, CLXXXVIII, cols. 1624-26.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Joseph H. Schaffner of New York. A duplicate MS is at Cornell. Published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Sept. 7, 1867.

2.

See Letter 977.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Sir James Stansfeld, B.A., 1840, LL.B., 1844, of University College, London, had been active in urging Walter Bagehot to be a candidate for the seat in Parliament granted by the Reform Bill of 1867 to the University of London.

3.

Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), economist and journalist, man of letters and editor of the Economist, 1860-77. Graduate of London, B.A., 1846, and M.A., 1848.

4.

Report on Dwellings Characterised by Cheapness combined with the Conditions necessary for Health and Comfort—Class 93, a report which was part of a series on the Paris International Exhibition, 1867, prepared by order of the Committee of Council on Education, and published in the Illustrated London News, Supplement, July 6, 1867, pp. 22-28.

1.

MS at UCL. In reply to De Morgan’s of July 3, published in Sophia De Morgan’s Memoir, p. 370.

2.

Letter 1107.

1.

MS at LSE. MS draft at Yale. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 7, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

Cairnes had undergone a severe operation, which provided only temporary relief. He did not resign his professorship at this time, however. T. Cliffe Leslie acted as his deputy during 1867-68.

3.

Jacob Waley (1818-1873), barrister and political economist, examiner in political economy and professor, 1854-66, at London.

4.

A “Meetings in Royal Parks Bill” which sought to limit the right of free assembly by declaring “that any meeting held in Royal Parks without the permission of the Crown should be an illegal assembly.” JSM in the Commons on the day preceding this letter had spoken vigorously in defence of holding political meetings in the Parks: “And why do I desire this? Because it has been for centuries the pride of this country . . . that a man has a right to speak his mind, on politics or any other subject, to those who would listen to him, when and where he will. He has not a right to force himself upon anyone; he has not a right to intrude upon private property; but wheresoever he has a right to be, there, according to the Constitution of this country, he has a right to talk politics, to one, to fifty, or to 50,000 persons. I stand up for the right of doing this in the Parks. . . .” Hansard, CLXXXVIII, col. 1890. The Bill was further debated on July 29 and Aug. 13. On the latter occasion JSM again spoke (see Hansard, CLXXXIX, cols. 1482-84).

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Miles William Patrick O’Reilly (1825-1880), B.A., London, 1845; MP for Longford, 1862-79.

3.

Chichester Samuel Parkinson-Fortescue is not listed, however, as a member of Bagehot’s committee in an advertisement in Sp, June 29, 1867, p. 731.

4.

Sir Colman Michael O’Loghlen (1819-1877), B.A., London, 1840, barrister, MP for Clare, 1863-77; judge-advocate-general, 1868-70.

5.

In the event, Robert Lowe won the seat for London University unopposed.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 1064.

3.

“Fragment on the Reign of Elizabeth. From the Posthumous Papers of Mr. Buckle. V. Bishops,” Fraser’s, LXXVI (Sept., 1867), 284-300.

4.

At his death, Alexander Irvine left behind a collection of proverbs in MS. See the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, July 26, 1873, pp. 1017-18. See also Letter 469.

1.

MS at LSE. MS draft at Yale. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 26, MS at Johns Hopkins.

2.

See Letter 1116.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Charles Owen O’Conor (1838-1906), Irish politician, matriculated at London University in 1855, but did not receive a degree. MP for Roscommon, 1860-80. He was known as The O’Conor Don by virtue of being an “Ancient Knight.”

3.

Denis Maurice O’Conor (1840-1883), barrister, MP for Sligo, 1868-1883, M.A., London, 1861; LL.D., London, 1866.

4.

Grant Duff was a graduate of London, LL.B., 1854.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Probably the “deposit of securities” mentioned in Letter 1106.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of Mrs. Minna E. Lewin, widow of Henry Grote Lewin, of the Stone House, Bexhill on Sea.

2.

See Letters 1116 and 1119.

3.

Edward S. Beesly (1831-1915), professor of history at University College and principal of University Hall, 1860-93; also professor of Latin at Bedford College, 1860-89; one of the leading English positivists and a tireless worker for the cause of Labour.

Beesly, in a speech at Exeter Hall, July 2, 1867, tried to combat the wave of hostility towards trades unions which resulted from the Sheffield “outrages” of Oct., 1866. He in turn criticized the rich for not dissociating themselves from Gov. Eyre, and the middle classes for their indignation against unions, which could only hinder the cause of reform. Punch took to calling him “Professor Beastly,” and Sir Francis Goldsmid at a meeting of the University College Council proposed that Beesly be dismissed for his indiscretion in the speech and for two letters published in the Daily News on July 9 and 10. Grote, though annoyed by Beesly’s tactlessness, managed to shelve Goldsmid’s motion, and nothing further was attempted. See H. H. Bellot, University College, London, pp. 333-35.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of July 29, MS at Yale.

2.

Rather, of the day before yesterday. Letter 1119.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1120.

3.

See Letter 1142.

4.

See Letter 1117, n. 5.

5.

Sic. John Cheetham (1802-1886), merchant and manufacturer, MP for South Lancashire, 1852-59; and for Salford, 1865-68.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Sic. John Frederick Cheetham (1835-1916), a graduate of University College, London; MP for North Derbyshire, 1880-85, for Staleybridge, 1905-09; Privy Councillor, 1911.

3.

F. Henry F. Berkeley, MP for Bristol; leader in the Commons for the Ballot.

The other representative for Bristol was Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-1889), contractor and politician, MP for Norwich, 1847-54, for Bristol, 1865-68; after the failure of the firm of Peto and Betts in 1866, his resignation from Parliament may have been expected.

4.

Sir John Lubbock, banker, scientist, and politician, eventually in 1880 was elected for the University of London.

1.

MS in Trinity College Library, Cambridge. Published in T. Wemyss Reid, ed. The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton (2 vols., London, 1890), II, 178.

2.

See Letter 1130.

1.

MS copy at Northwestern. Spencer’s reply of Aug. 9 (MS at Northwestern), published in Duncan, I, 181-83, explained his reasons for refusing to endorse woman suffrage as an immediate measure, though approving it as an ultimate measure.

1.

MS in 1965 in the possession of Mr. Joseph H. Schaffner of New York. Miss Thompson has not been identified.

1.

MS at Cornell.

1.

MS in Trinity College Library, Cambridge. Published in Reid, Richard Monckton Milnes, II, 179.

2.

The London National Society for Women’s Suffrage. See Letter 1126.

3.

A meeting of the National Reform Union on Wed., Aug. 7, 1867, in the Queen’s Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, held to protest “the action of the House of Lords with reference to the Lodger Franchise and the three-cornered constituencies.” Thomas Hughes was one of the three principal speakers. The Times, Aug. 8, p. 5.

1.

MS copy at LSE, as is also Miss Carpenter’s reply of Aug. 11.

Mary Carpenter (1807-1877), eldest child of the Rev. Lant Carpenter; distinguished educator, prison reformer, and author.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus. MS draft in Berg Collection, NYP. Inscribed on outside: To Miss Nightingale / Aug. 9, 1867. Published in Hospitals, X, No. 7 (July, 1936), 82. Miss Nightingale’s reply of Aug. 11 (MS at Brit. Mus.) is in Hospitals, pp. 82-83, as well as in E. T. Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (2 vols., London, 1914), II, 216-17.

Miss Nightingale in her reply of Aug. 11, while expressing her belief in women’s right to the suffrage, indicated that women currently suffered even more serious disabilities than the lack of a vote. She protested that she had no time to serve the society: “Otherwise, there is scarcely anything which, if you were to tell me that it is right to do politically, I would not do. But I could not give my name without my work. This is only personal (I am an incurable invalid). I entirely agree that women’s ‘political power’ should be ‘direct and open.’ But I have thought that I could work better for others, even other women, off the stage than on it.” See also Letter 1169.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

T. Lucretii Cari de Rerum Natura libri sex, ex editione Gilberti Wakefieldi, cum notis et interpretatione in usum Delphini, etc., ed. Abraham John Valpy (4 vols., London, 1823). Part of a series known as Delphin and Variorum Classics published in 183 vols., 1819-30.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Hawtrey’s letter of July 7 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 85-86.

Stephen Thomas Hawtrey (1808-1886), head mathematics master at Eton, 1836-71; founder of St. Mark’s School, Windsor, 1851, and warden of it, 1871-86.

2.

Probably A Letter containing an account of St. Mark’s School, Windsor, and Embodying some suggestions on the Subject of Education (London, 1859), reprinted from a letter in The Times of Dec., 1858, giving an account of a visit to the School.

The other book no doubt was Reminiscences of a French Eton (London, 1867), mostly consisting of a letter of Sept. 5, 1863, to Matthew Arnold on the latter’s A French Eton. Hawtrey described his own two years in a Lycée. He quotes from JSM’s Rectorial Address: “It is beyond the power of schools and universities to educate morally or religiously” (pp. 8-9).

3.

Walter Farquhar Hook (1798-1875), dean of Chichester. In 1846, while vicar of Leeds, he had proposed a scheme of national education in a letter to the Bishop of St. David’s, a plan opposed by many churchmen. His letter, published as a pamphlet, reached nine editions in its first year: On the means of rendering more efficient the education of the people (London, 1846).

1.

MS at Columbia. Envelope addressed: Rev. M. D. Conway / Warren Farm House / Wimbledon / SW. Postmark largely illegible.

2.

In an editorial in the New York Daily Tribune, July 26, 1867, p. 4, written after a New York State constitutional convention had defeated women’s suffrage by a vote of 125 to 19, Horace Greeley (1811-1872), statesman and man of letters, proposed separate legislatures for men and women and a setting apart of matters relating to the family, marriage, divorce, and children to the women’s legislature.

3.

See Letter 1054.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Lord and Lady Amberley sailed for America on Aug. 17, 1867, and returned to England just after New Year’s, 1868.

3.

Eight years in Congress from 1857 to 1865. Memoir and speeches (New York, 1865).

1.

MS at Harvard; MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in The Amberley Papers, II, 63-64, and in Elliot, II, 86-87.

2.

The only extant letter of Emerson to JSM in these years appears to be one of May 6, 1865, listed but not published in Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. R. L. Rusk (6 vols., New York, 1939), V, 415. The letter, introducing George Walker of Springfield, Mass., was subsequently published in More Books, The Bulletin of the Boston Public Library, XV (Dec., 1940), 436-37.

3.

For an account of Lord and Lady Amberley’s visit to Emerson in Oct., 1867, see Amberley Papers, II, 64-68. Emerson did not mention their visit in his journal until Dec.; see Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1876, ed. E. W. Emerson and W. E. Forbes (10 vols., Cambridge, 1909-14), X, 222.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Probably the unsigned article, “Mr. John Stuart Mill on the Right of Seizing Enemies’ Goods in Neutral Vessels,” Albion, Aug. 12, 1867, p. 4.

3.

JSM spoke on the importance of councils in the administration of India during the debate on Aug. 12 on the East India Revenue Accounts. See Hansard, CLXXXIX, cols. 1382-87.

4.

This debate on Aug. 2 concerned the famine in Orissa (Bengal) during which it was estimated that 750,000 persons had perished. For a contemporary discussion, see “The Famine in Orissa,” Fraser’s, LXXVI (Sept., 1867), 373-82.

In the course of the debate Viscount Cranborne said of JSM that he had “by his works been a great benefactor to mankind. But there was a curious reverse to the coin. No man’s authority had been more systematically mis-used than his by unintelligent officials in propagating mischievous error. In Australia his authority had been used on the side of protection; in Bengal for starving some 750,000 persons. The doctrine of politicaleconomy had been worshipped as a sort of ‘fetish’ by officials who, because they believed that in the long run supply and demand would square themselves, seemed to have utterly forgotten that human life was short, and that man could not subsist without food beyond a few days. They mechanically left the laws of political economy to work themselves out while hundreds of thousands of human beings were perishing from famine.” See Hansard, ibid., cols. 810-11.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library. The second paragraph is published by W. A. Knight, Memoir of John Nichol (Glasgow, 1896), p. 195.

2.

Nichol was engaged in organizing the New Speculative Society, an organization somewhat like the later Metaphysical Society of London (see Letter 1414). For an account of the New Speculative Society, see W. Knight’s Memoir, pp. 193-95.

3.

As Rector of St. Andrews University.

1.

MS at the Library of Congress.

David Ames Wells (1828-1898), American economist, in 1867 went to Europe as a member of a commission to investigate costs of industrial production. Hitherto a staunch protectionist, he became converted to free trade, joined the Cobden Club, and thereafter was a leading American advocate of the abolition of the protective tariff.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Address to the Members of the Convocation of the University of London (London, 1867). It is summarized in B. W. Richardson, The Health of Nations, I, lxix-lxxii. A copy of the pamphlet is in the Jevons Collection at LSE.

3.

Chadwick’s letter of Aug. 17 is included in the pamphlet cited.

4.

The next Letter.

1.

MS at UCL. Published in the pamphlet in the preceding Letter, n. 2, and in the Medical Mirror, Nov. 1, 1867, pp. 688-89. Several excerpts are in B. W. Richardson, The Health of Nations, I, lxviii-lxix.

1.

MS at Yale.

2.

Periodical not identified. Linton worked as pictorial editor for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper sometime between his emigration to the United States in Nov., 1866, and late in 1867, when he went to Paris to the Exhibition, and visited England. See his account in his Memories (London, 1895), pp. 204-27.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

See Letters 1045 and 1082.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

Sic. See Letter 1104, n. 3.

3.

Evidently the sponsors of the “Education of the Poor Bill,” which had its first reading on April 5, 1867, its second on July 10, and was withdrawn on July 15. The sponsors of the Bill were Henry Austin Bruce, MP for Merthyr Tydvil; William E. Forster, MP for Bradford; and Algernon Egerton, MP for South Lancashire. They were called the “Manchester party” evidently because they hoped that the bill would first take effect in Manchester.

4.

Henry Austin Bruce, later 1st Baron Aberdare (1815-1895), liberal MP for Merthyr Tydvil, 1852-68; privy councillor and vice-president of committee of council on education, 1864; home secretary, 1869-73; lord president of council, 1873-74; first chancellor of the University of Wales, 1894.

5.

The Personal Representation Society, formed in July, 1867, to agitate for reform in the system of representation, “and the substitution therefor of Mr. Hare’s scheme, or a similar plan which will insure ‘personal’ representation.” See New York Times, July 18, 1867, p. 8.

6.

David Dudley Field (1805-1894), American lawyer and legal reformer, first president of the Personal Representation Society.

7.

Edward Baines, MP for Leeds.

8.

John, later Sir John Duke Coleridge, later Baron Coleridge (1820-1894), eventually Lord Chief Justice of England, at this time liberal MP for Exeter.

9.

Richard Davis Webb (d. 1872), well-known Dublin printer and anti-slavery writer.

10.

See Letter 994. JSM spoke on Aug. 5, 1867 in a debate on the Declaration of Paris. See Hansard, CLXXXIX, cols. 876-84.

11.

Sir Roundell Palmer, later 1st Earl of Selborne (1812-1895), later Lord Chancellor; at this time MP for Richmond.

12.

Vere Henry Hobart, Baron Hobart.

1.

MS not located. Published in the New York Times, Sept. 17, 1867, as From Reuter’s Telegram, Sept. 4.

In early September a deputation from the Reform League led by Edmond Beales and Ernest Jones visited Dublin to confer and hold meetings with the Irish Reform League. At a great public meeting on Sept. 3 in the Mechanics’ Institute this letter from JSM was read, expressing regret that he had not received an invitation to attend until after he had left England. The reading of his letter was greeted with loud cheering. See The Times, Sept. 5, 1867, p. 8.

1.

MS at UCL.

William Brougham (1795-1886), brother of Henry Brougham; MP for Southwark, 1831-34; master in chancery, 1831-52.

2.

See Letter 1133.

1.

MS at Arsenal. Published in part in D’Eichthal Corresp., pp. 214-15, and in Cosmopolis, pp. 786-87.

2.

See Letter 1109, n. 4.

3.

Founded in 1867, by Frédéric Passy, it was absorbed in 1883 into the Comité de Paris de la Fédération Internationale de l’Arbitrage et de la Paix. See A. C. F. Beales, The History of Peace (London, 1931), pp. 119-20, and 179.

4.

Frédéric Passy (1822-1912), prolific author, economist, one of the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

1.

MS in the George Howell Library, Bishopsgate Institute. See Letter 872 A.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 87-90.

2.

“Stray Chapters from a forthcoming work on Labour. I. The Claims of Labour, and Its Rights,” FR, n. s. II (Oct., 1867), 477-500.

3.

On Labour (London, 1869).

4.

Much of Thornton’s argument is against that of Louis Blanc, De l’Organisation du Travail (Paris, 1840).

5.

“Redistribution of the land.”

6.

James Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, with notes illustrative and critical by Alexander Bain, Andrew Findlater, and George Grote, ed. with additional notes by John Stuart Mill (London, 1869).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Browning’s letter of Oct. 14 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 90-92.

Oscar Browning (1837-1923), schoolmaster and historian. An assistant master at Eton, 1860-75. JSM’s Letter 1134 to Stephen Hawtrey provoked Browning to remonstrate.

2.

Browning had presented a 200-page plan for educational reform to the Royal Commission on Public Schools, active between 1861 and 1864. See H. E. Wortham, “Eton and Reform,” chap. iii of Oscar Browning (London, 1927).

3.

The Endowed Schools Act, adopted in 1869, gave a special commission power to reorganize the schools.

1.

MS at King’s.

2.

James Garth Marshall, The New Franchise: How to Use it. An Address to the Working Men of Leeds (London, 1867).

3.

Cumulative Voting: Speech of Charles R. Buckalew of Pennsylvania in the United States Senate, July 11, 1867 (Washington and London, 1867).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 92-94. In reply to Bain’s of Oct. 27, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

See Letter 1150, n. 6.

3.

Pierre Laromiguière (1756-1837), author of Leçons de philosophie sur les principes de l’intelligence . . . (Paris, 1815-18 and later editions).

4.

Sic. Henry Maudsley (1835-1918), author of The Physiology and Pathology of Mind (London, 1867) and other works on psychology and physiology.

5.

“In all Languages, the Verb which denotes EXISTENCE has been employed to answer the additional purpose of the Copula in Predication. The consequences of this have been most lamentable. There is thus a double meaning in the Copula, which has produced a most unfortunate mixture and confusion of ideas. It has involved in mystery the whole business of Predication; the grand contrivance by which language is rendered competent to its end. . . .” For the full discussion, see James Mill, Analysis (2nd ed., London, 1878), I, 174-78.

6.

See Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, eds. H. L. Mansel and John Veitch (7th ed., 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1882), II, Lecture 34.

7.

Hamilton, Lectures, Lectures 35 and 36.

8.

William Benjamin Carpenter, Principles of Human Physiology, ed. Francis Gurney Smith (Philadelphia, 1866), pp. 127, 210-11, 541-43, 624, 636-37. Carpenter’s book was first published in 1839 with the title Principles of General and Comparative Physiology; JSM published a notice of the 1841 ed., WR, XXXVII (Jan., 1842), 254.

9.

“Mr. J. S. Mill has made a powerful defence of the so-called Psychological Method [in his books on Comte and Hamilton]. . . . He has said all that can be said in favour of the Psychological Method, and has done what could be done to disparage the Physiological Method. . . . Physiology seems never to have been a favourite study with Mr. Mill, for it is hardly possible to conceive any one really acquainted with the present state of this science, disparaging it as he has done, and exalting so highly the psychological method of investigating mental phenomena. . . .” Maudsley, Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, p. 37, n. 6.

10.

“Culture is always assigning to the system-maker and the system a smaller share in the bent of human destiny than their friends like. . . . Culture tends always thus to deal with the men of a system, with disciples, of a school with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, or Mr. Mill. It remembers the text: ‘Be not ye called Rabbi!’ and it soon passes on from any Rabbi.” Matthew Arnold, “Culture and its Enemies,” Cornhill Mag., XVI (July, 1867), p. 51. This was originally delivered as Arnold’s last lecture as Professor of Poetry at Oxford; it was subsequently republished as part of “Sweetness and Light,” chap. i of Culture and Anarchy (London, 1869).

11.

James Hutchison Stirling, The Secret of Hegel: being the Hegelian System in origin, principle, form, and matter (2 vols., London, 1865).

12.

H. L. Mansel, “Supplementary Remarks on Mr. Mill’s Criticism of Sir William Hamilton,” Contemporary Rev., VI (Sept., 1867), 18-31. For Mansel’s earlier articles on JSM’s Hamilton, see Letter 906, n. 2.

13.

In his letter of Oct. 27, 1867, Bain reported that University College had asked him to approach JSM about participating in a course of lectures. The lectures were to be given as part of a fund-raising campaign for a new wing to the college building.

14.

Mental and Moral Science. A compendium of psychology and ethics (London, 1868).

15.

William Alexander Hunter (1844-1898), barrister; later (1869) professor of Roman law and (1878) of jurisprudence at University College, London. Under JSM’s influence, he took an active part in the movement for women’s suffrage and aided in obtaining further opportunities for them in higher education.

16.

Probably the article “Women’s Rights” in the Supplement to Chambers’s Encyclopedia (10 vols., London, 1860-68), X, 772-75.

17.

Samuel Johnson Crawford (1835-1913), Governor of Kansas, 1865-68. He had served as President of the Impartial Suffrage Assoc. (see Letter 1096).

1.

MS at UCL. MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Chadwick’s of Oct. 28, also at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 94-95.

2.

See Letter 1141.

3.

“On the Economy of Telegraphy as Part of a Public System of Postal Communication,” Journal of the Society of Arts, XV (March 1, 1867), 222-26. Chadwick argued for the nationalization of telegraphic communication through placing it under the postal system; he suggested, also, the military efficiency of the nationalization of the railroads by alluding to a declaration to that point made by the Belgian minister of war.

4.

Since Chadwick’s first paper for the Academy (on the half-time school system) had appeared as long ago as 1864, JSM presumably meant here by first the first of two papers on trades unions: “Sur les unions ouvrières et leur organisation en Angleterre,” Académie des sciences morales et politiques, LXXXI (1867), 279-303; and “Les unions ouvrières en Angleterre au point de vue criminel,” ibid., LXXXIV (1868), 161-98.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elliot, II, 95.

2.

For Morley’s own account of this introduction, see his Recollections (2 vols., New York, 1917), I, 52.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Young’s letter of Oct. 23 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II. 96-97.

Young has not been identified.

2.

JSM’s letter is an elaboration of the two concluding paragraphs of Utilitarianism, from which, in his letter of Oct. 23, 1867, Young had quoted, and about which he had posed these questions: “But how shall we know what is or is not expedient?” “Are we not still without a reliable standard of morality?”

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Bridges’s of Nov. 10, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

John Henry Bridges, medical practitioner and positivist, co-translator of Auguste Comte’s Positive Philosophy and Positive Polity.

2.

At a meeting on May 25, 1867. See The Times, May 27, 1867, p. 12. See also Letter 1091, n. 2.

3.

In his letter of Nov. 10, 1867, Bridges had suggested a parallel between Hungary and Austria, and Ireland and Great Britain.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.

2.

In the event, Parliament convened on Nov. 19, and recessed Dec. 7, 1867. JSM remained in Avignon.

3.

To rescue the British consul and other Europeans held captive by Theodore, King of Abyssinia, Sir Robert Napier with 12,000 men invaded Abyssinia in Jan., 1868, and completed the mission of rescuing the captives and defeating Theodore by capturing his capital, Magdala, on April 13, 1868.

4.

George Grenfell Glyn (1824-1887), liberal MP for Shaftesbury, 1857-73, and chief whip from 1868-73, when he became a member of the Privy Council; a personal friend of Gladstone. He became Baron Wolverton in 1873 upon the death of his father.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

Christie had long been interested in questions of electoral reform. In 1839 he had published An Argument in Favour of the Ballot, and in 1864 he began an active campaign for legislation to restrain corruption at elections. See Letters 679 and 687.

1.

MS at Cornell.

Possibly Walter Lovell, solicitor, admitted to the Law Society, Nov. 15, 1868; in partnership with his father, in Lovell, Son & Pitfield, 3 Gray’s Inn Square, W.C.

2.

See Letter 1084, n. 5.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published except for first two paragraphs in Elliot, II, 97-100. In reply to Bain’s of Nov. 30, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

Thomas Clark died Nov. 27, 1867. See Letter 660, n. 19.

3.

On the University Court of St. Andrews. Andrew Findlater (1810-1885), schoolmaster, compiler, editor of Chambers’s Encyclopedia. He contributed notes to JSM’s edition of James Mill’s Analysis.

4.

See Letter 1150, n. 6.

5.

Chap. x, “Sir W. Hamilton’s View of the Different Theories Respecting the Belief in an External World.”

6.

The “right person” turned out to be Findlater, who, said JSM in the Preface to the Analysis, p. xx, “communicated the corrections required by the somewhat obsolete philology which the author had borrowed from Horne Tooke.”

7.

Samuel Bailey, Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (London, 1st series, 1855; 2nd series, 1858; 3rd series, 1863).

8.

According to legend, when in 362 bc a gulf opened in the Roman Forum, Marcus Curtius, dressed in full armour and riding a horse, leaped into it; it closed in accord with the seers’ saying that only upon the sacrifice of Rome’s most valuable possession would it close. Curtius recognized that nothing was more precious than a Roman citizen.

9.

Principles of Psychology (London, 1855).

10.

See Letter 1084. The 2nd ed., revised, was published in two volumes, 1870, 1872.

11.

David Hartley, Observations on Man, Part I, chap. iii, sec. iii, and chap. iv, Conclusion.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1154, n. 4.

3.

The Fenians, or Fenian Brotherhood, were an Irish-American revolutionary secret society founded in America in 1858. The most notable of the recent Fenian outrages in England had been the attempted destruction of the Middlesex House of Detention in Clerkenwell on Dec. 13, 1867. A group of Fenians blew up a section of the prison wall but failed either to destroy the prison or to rescue the two Fenians held within. The explosion killed six people and injured 120, many of them inhabitants of the district. For the reaction to this event and to other Fenian demonstrations and breaches of the peace, see Sp., Dec. 14, p. 1401, and Dec. 21, 1867, p. 1437; and The Times, Dec. 16, pp. 5, 8, 9, 10; Dec. 17, pp. 6, 7; Dec. 18, pp. 5, 8, 9; Dec. 19, p. 5; Dec. 20, pp. 3, 4; Dec. 21, 1867, p. 5.

4.

Gladstone delivered five speeches within two days at Oldham, Ormskirk, and Southport, on Dec. 18 and 19, 1867. See The Times, Dec. 19, p. 7, and Dec. 20, pp. 5-6. At Oldham he said, “. . . we must not get upon the high horse and say we will entertain no questions with regard to measures of relief until what is called ‘Fenianism’ is extinguished.” The Times, Dec. 19, 1867, p. 7.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

Kidell has not been identified.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of Dec. 12, also at LSE, which reported that 271 copies of the Logic had been sold since June 1 and that only 193 remained on hand.

2.

A seventh edition was published in 1868.

3.

Not until 1884 was a People’s edition of the Logic published.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

His article “Corruption and Cost of Elections. The Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill,” The Law Magazine and Law Review, XXIV (Feb., 1868), 177-202.

3.

Disraeli’s Bill on Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections was proposed on the first day of the reassembling of the Commons, Feb. 13, 1868.

1.

MS copy in unidentified hand at LSE.

2.

Amberley in a letter of Oct. 7, 1867, recounted his reception in Chicago by White, who had never met JSM and knew him only by correspondence. See The Amberley Papers, II, 58.

3.

Morley made a brief trip to the U.S. in Nov. See Letter 1155.

4.

“On the General Principles of Taxation,” Book V, chap. ii.

1.

MS copy at LSE, as is also Miss Carpenter’s letter of Aug. 11, to which this is a reply. Written by Helen Taylor (see Letter 1186). Published in J. Estlin Carpenter, Life and Work of Mary Carpenter (London, 1879), pp. 493-95.

2.

In reply to JSM’s of Aug. 9 (Letter 1131).

3.

Approximately one million new voters were enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1867.

1.

MS in 1943 in possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

Presumably the conference held on Feb. 29, 1868, at the offices of the Reform League to consider ways of promoting the redistribution of parliamentary seats. The specific object was to discuss the principle and details of Hare’s redistribution scheme. Edmond Beales presided. Among those present were JSM, Fawcett, and Walter Morrison, MP. The conference met also on March 7 and 21, and on June 13. See The Times, March 2, p. 5; March 23, p. 7, and June 15, 1868, p. 5.

3.

George Odger (1813-1877), trade union leader. Originally a shoemaker, he was secretary of the London trades council, 1862-1872. He made five unsuccessful attempts to gain a seat in Parliament, 1868-74.

4.

William Randal Cremer.

5.

George Howell.

6.

See Letter 1145, n. 6.

7.

The lecture has not been identified.

8.

Probably the Liverpool Philomathic Society.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus. MS draft in Berg Collection, NYP. Published in Elliot, II, 100-105, and in Hospitals, X, No. 7 (July, 1936), 83-84. In reply to Miss Nightingale’s of Aug. 11, in Hospitals, ibid., 82-84.Bears note in JSM’s hand: Rejoinder Dec. 31, 1867 / dictated by H.T.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

See Letter 661.

1.

MS draft at Yale. Published in Elliot, II, 106-107. In reply to Bernays’s letter of Jan. 3, also at Yale, as is his reply of Jan. 21 to JSM.

Leopold John Bernays (1820-1882), school headmaster, 1846-60; rector in Middlesex, 1860-82; translator of Goethe’s Faust, 1839; author of The Church in the Schoolroom (London, 1851).

2.

Not identifiable, and perhaps not published, since Bernays, in his letter of Jan. 3, implies that the pamphlet is in MS. The author of the pamphlet was Ellen Julia (Teed) Hollond (1822-1884), whom Bernays identified by two of her writings: Channing, sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1857), and La vie de village en Angleterre, ou Souvenirs d’un exilé (Paris, 1862). Her Parisian salon was a centre for liberal intellectuals.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

Election Corruption and Its Remedies (London, 1867). JSM praised it in his speech in the Commons on March 26, 1868. See Hansard, CXCI, cols. 308-11.

3.

Probably Report of Committee on the Operation and Effects of the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, 1854. Evidence, Appendix, and Index, 1860.

4.

See Letter 1165.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt published in Henry Solly, These Eighty Years (2 vols., London, 1893), II, 331.

2.

Solly had announced a series of evening “ ‘Historical Lectures’ on the Political and Social History of the Roman Republic.” The project was inaugurated at Cambridge Hall on Jan. 15, 1868, with Thomas Hughes in the Chair (Daily News, Jan. 16, 1868).

3.

Solly was sometimes called the “father” of the movement to establish working men’s clubs.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 973.

3.

Thomas Bayley Potter.

4.

“The Military Systems of Europe,” North British Rev., XLVII (Dec., 1867), 404-40, reprinted in T. E. C. Leslie, Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy (Dublin and London, 1879), pp. 128-47.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Longman’s letter of Jan. 3, also at LSE.

Longman had offered £200 to print 1,000 copies of the two-volume octavo edition, and £650 for the right of publishing 10,000 copies of a cheaper edition, to sell at 7s. 6d. A cancelled passage in the draft indicates that JSM objected to the condition that if an agreement could not be reached after five years the stereotype plates should be destroyed rather than revert to JSM, as in the case of the other cheap editions.

1.

MS at LSE.

1.

MS not located. This letter was read at “the recent meeting, in Washington, of the Universal Franchise Association, to the Secretary of which it was addressed.” Published in the New York Times of June 15, 1868.

The Association, founded in 1867, in Washington, D.C., sought to secure the vote for both Negroes and women. A founder and the first president was Josephine Sophie White Griffing (1816-1872), best known for her work with the Freedman’s Bureau; she also served as the secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington.

2.

The London National Society for Women’s Suffrage. See Letter 1104, n. 4.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Probably Chadwick’s proposals to extend the usefulness of the Cobden Club in influencing public opinion; see Letter 1174.

3.

Robert Lowe was attacked in the Medical Mirror: A Monthly Magazine of Current Medical Literature and News, in the issues of Dec., 1867, pp. 762-63, and Jan., 1868, pp. 44-52, for vacillating in matters of political, educational, medical, and military reform. The Medical Mirror opposed his standing for Parliament as the candidate of London University.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

See Letter 1165, n. 2.

3.

A Royal Commission investigating the 1865 election in Yarmouth found that all the elections since the Act of 1854 had been corrupt. See Cornelius O’Leary, The Elimination of Corrupt Practices in British Elections, 1868-1911 (Oxford, 1962), p. 28.

4.

See Letter 719.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

See Letter 1170.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

One of the two seats for Bristol had been vacated in 1866 by the retirement from public life of Sir Samuel Morton Peto (see Letter 1125, n. 3).

3.

Matthew William (later Sir Matthew) Thompson (1820-1891), business man and politician, had been elected as a liberal-conservative MP for Bradford in 1867, over the liberal leader Edward Miall (1809-1881), dissenting minister, founder and editor of the Nonconformist, and founder of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control, commonly called the LiberationSociety. Miall was elected for Bradford, however, in 1869.

4.

George Glyn had nominally succeeded Sir Henry Brand as the senior liberal whip in Dec., 1866, but Brand continued to carry the main responsibility until the end of the session of 1867. See A. F. Thompson, “Gladstone’s Whips and the General Election of 1868,” English Historical Review, LXIII (April, 1948), 189-200.

5.

When Parliament reconvened on Feb. 13, an “Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill” was given its first reading. After its second reading on March 5, the bill was recommitted on March 26; JSM spoke on the latter occasion (see Hansard, CXCI, cols. 308-11).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to letter of Chapé of Jan. 18, MS also at Johns Hopkins. See Letter 1076.

1.

MS draft at LSE in reply to Gomperz’s of Jan. 9, MS also at LSE. Partly published in Gomperz, pp. 457-58, dated Jan. 28, 1868. See Letter 1227, n. 10.

2.

Gomperz had essentially completed his translation of the Logic fourteen years earlier. It was now to be published in the proposed collected edition (see next Letter).

3.

Dr. Anton Dohrn (1840-1909), German zoologist; founder of the Marine Biology Laboratory in Naples. Dohrn did not make use of JSM’s permission, and the “Inaugural Address” appeared in vol. I of Gomperz’s edition of JSM’s works in the translation of Adolf Wahrmund (1827-1913).

4.

Probably Wilhelm Ferdinand Sattler, philologist, professor of English at a Bremen Gymnasium. Sattler’s translation of the essay on Comte did not satisfy Gomperz, and the translation published in the German collected edition was by Elise Gomperz, his wife, whom he married onAug. 8, 1868. See letter by Gomperz to Helen Taylor, Nov. 25, 1873, at LSE.

5.

Georg Friedrich Gervinus (1805-1871), German historian, politician, and journalist.

6.

See Letter 931, n. 3. Gomperz disapproved of Wille’s translation, and instead used a translation by Eduard Wessel (vol. VIII of the German edition).

7.

The first essay was “On the Laws of Interchange between Nations.” The Essays were not included in the German edition, but are reprinted in Collected Works, IV, 231-339. The Essays were not republished by JSM, but were by Helen Taylor in 1874.

8.

The next Letter.

9.

See Letter 992, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Grosser’s letter of Jan. 9 (on same sheet with letter from Theodor Gomperz), also at LSE.

2.

Julius Grosser, proprietor of the Vienna publishing firm Tendler and Co., in his letter of Jan. 9 proposed bringing out a complete edition of JSM’s works in German translation. In the event, however, Grosser’s firm failed, and Fues of Leipzig in 1869 took over the publication of the edition.

3.

The preceding Letter.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Under the caption “Distress at the East End,” Plummer wrote a series of articles for the Daily News: Dec. 14, 1867, p. 6; Dec. 23, 1867, p. 3; Jan. 2, 1868, p. 4; Jan. 15, 1868, p. 5; Jan. 23, 1868, p. 2. He may also have written two leaders—Dec. 17, 1867, p. 4; and Jan. 11, 1868, p. 4—on the same topic.

Because of widespread unemployment, especially in the shipbuilding trades, the poor of East London suffered severely throughout 1867-68, the winter being especially harsh.

3.

Parliamentary reports.

4.

Not identifiable.

1.

MS draft and copy at LSE. In reply to Miss Carpenter’s letter of Jan. 27, also at LSE.

2.

Letter 1167.

1.

MS in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Envelope addressed: Angleterre / From J.S.Mill / John Venn Esq / Caius College / Cambridge. Postmarks: AVIGNON / 4 / FEVR / 1868 / PARIS / . . . / FE . . . / 68 / and . . . BRIDGE / . . . / . . . 8 /.

John Venn (1834-1923), lecturer in moral science, Cambridge, 1862-97; president of Caius College, Cambridge, 1903-23. He presented to his college a collection of about a thousand volumes of logic, a catalogue of which is at Cambridge.

2.

The Logic of Chance, an Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, with especial reference to its application to Moral and Social Science (London and Cambridge, 1866).

3.

The 7th, published later this year.

4.

In a footnote at the end of chap. xviii, Book III, JSM referred to Venn’s book as “one of the most thoughtful and philosophical treatises on any subject connected with Logic and Evidence, which have been produced, to my knowledge, for many years. Some criticisms contained in it have been very useful to me in revising the corresponding chapters of the present work. . . .”

5.

In his preface (p. xiii) Venn had said, “Almost the only writer who seems to me to have expressed a just view of the nature and foundation of the rules of Probability is Mr. Mill, in his System of Logic. His treatment of the subject is however very brief. . . . There are moreover some errors . . . in what he has written, which will be referred to in some of the following chapters.”

6.

See Venn, chap. xiv, sec. 9, p. 322.

7.

Venn, pp. 314-42.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Hayes’s letter of Feb. 12 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 107.

Hayes, a storekeeper of Leeds, in his letter advocated the imposition of a tax of 6d. per ton on coal, the revenue to be used to pay off the National Debt.

2.

JSM in a debate on the Malt Duty on April 17, 1866, had spoken on the need of paying off the National Debt before England’s coal fields should be exhausted. Hansard, CLXXXII, cols. 1524-28.

3.

Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), coal merchant, expert on mercantile shipping, Radical MP for Derby, 1868-80. He had recently published a series of four letters on “The Iron Trade” about his tour of ironworks in England and on the Continent (The Times, Jan. 31, 1868, p. 8; Feb. 8, p. 6; Feb. 10, p. 10; and Feb. 12, p. 10).

1.

MS in Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

The Howard Association, named in honour of the eighteenth-century prison reformer, John Howard, was founded in 1866 to promote the cause of penal reform. Tallack was secretary from the first. The Address of the Howard Association on the Treatment and Prevention of Crime, a 16-page pamphlet, was published this year. See Gordon Rose, The Struggle for Penal Reform. The Howard League and its Predecessors (London, 1961).

3.

Notably on the abolition of capital punishment. See Letter 742. On April 21, 1868, JSM spoke in Parliament against the abolition of the death penalty (see Hansard, CXCI, cols. 1047-55).

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

No article identifiable as by Helen Taylor appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1868.

3.

Alexander Macmillan (1818-1896), of the well-known publishing firm, proprietor of Macmillan’s Magazine, of which Masson had been editor from its founding in 1859 until 1867.

1.

MS at the University of Hull; published, all but first paragraph, in N. E. Himes, “John Stuart Mill’s Attitude towards Neo-Malthusianism,” Economic History, Supplement to the Economic Journal, I (Jan., 1929), 480-81.

Thomas Joseph Haslam (1825-1917), teacher and propagandist of Dublin.

2.

The Marriage Problem. By Oedipus [T.J.Haslam]. Printed for gratuitous circulation amongst Adult Readers only [1868]. One of the early birth-control manuals.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 107-108. In reply to Aspland’s of Feb. 19, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Lindsey Middleton Aspland (1843-1891), barrister; later (1874-80) member of the Council of London University.

2.

On Feb. 18, 1868, the Jamaica Committee had resolved to proceed further against Governor Eyre, even though at a hearing in Shropshire, in March, 1867, Eyre had been discharged as an accessory to murder, and a grand jury had refused to indict two associates of Eyre for murder in April, 1867. In his letter of Feb. 19, 1868, Aspland explained that he was resigning from the Jamaica Committee because he believed that further prosecution would make Eyre a martyr and thereby weaken the effect of the principles established by the charge which Lord Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn had given on April 10, 1867, to the grand jury, a charge which the jury had nevertheless ignored by refusing to indict. For further details, see Bernard Semmel, The Governor Eyre Controversy, pp. 147-64.

3.

In Jan. Eyre had moved from Shropshire to London, thereby coming within the jurisdiction of the Middlesex courts. In informing the Jamaica Committee of this move, Eyre was in effect challenging it to prosecute him.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Not identified. See Letter 1196.

3.

See Letter 1181.

1.

MS at UCLA.

2.

England and Ireland (London, 1868).

1.

MS at Cornell.

George Walker has not been identified. Perhaps he was related to Thomas Walker, the editor of the Daily News (1854-69).

2.

Sir Robert Collier (1817-1886), solicitor-general (1863-66), attorney-general (1868-71). On Feb. 27, Collier succeeded Fitzjames Stephen as barrister for the Jamaica Committee, and on that day applied in the Bow Street Court for a warrant against Eyre on a charge of murder. The application was denied. For the subsequent developments, see Bernard Semmel, The Governor Eyre Controversy, pp. 161 ff.

3.

William Shaen (1821-1887), of the well-known firm of solicitors, Shaen and Roscoe; solicitor for the Jamaica Committee, and active in many radical causes.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

See Letter 1193.

3.

The Sandhurst Royal Military College.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

Not located. Heligoland, a British possession from 1807 to 1890, received a reformed constitution in 1868.

3.

The House of Commons had adjourned on the preceding day until March 5.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of Feb. 15, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

William Nesbitt, “The Irish Education Question: Is the ‘National’ or ‘Denominational’ System of Education best suited to the Circumstances of Ireland?” NAPSS (Belfast meeting, 1867), Transactions, London, 1868, pp. 297-316.

3.

The debate took place on March 10, 12, 13, and 16, 1868. Neither Disraeli nor Gladstone spoke until March 16. JSM spoke mostly on the subject of land tenure. For the whole debate, see Hansard, CXC, cols. 1288-1393, 1459-1549, 1595-1675, 1688-1792; for JSM’s speech, cols. 1516-1532.

4.

England and Ireland (London, 1868). JSM proposed the creation of a commission, possessed of compulsory powers, which through judicial inquiry would establish fixed, fair rents for all lands. The state would guarantee the rent to the landlord and the holding, at the fixed, fair rental, to the tenant. See pp. 36-38.

5.

An international court of arbitration awarded the United States $15,500,000 in gold on Sept. 14, 1872, the British judge, Sir Alexander Cockburn, dissenting. For the text of the award, see The Times, Sept. 16, 1872, p. 9.

6.

The House of Representatives had begun consideration of a bill that would have granted equal rights to American citizens, whether native or naturalized. The bill would also have given the President the right to detain a subject of any foreign power that had detained an American. In part, the bill sprang from American anger over British treatment of the Fenians. This bill was eventually dropped, and a substitute bill adopted in June, 1868. For a conciliatory leader, see The Times, Feb. 12, 1868, p. 8.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood.

1.

MS not located. Published in Letters to William Allingham, ed. H. Allingham and E. Baumer Williams (London, 1911), pp. 223-24.

William Allingham (1824-1889), poet and editor.

2.

London, 1864; reissued, 1869; new edition, 1890.

3.

The poem ran each month in Fraser’s from Nov., 1862, through Nov., 1863.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

The next Letter.

3.

On March 5. See Hansard, CXC, cols. 1141-44.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Morning Star, March 19, 1868, p. 5. See preceding Letter.

2.

Christie subsequently stood for Greenock, but was defeated.

3.

See Letter 719.

1.

MS in 1943 in the possession of Mrs. K. E. Roberts.

2.

Possibly Kinnear’s paper on “Redistribution of Seats,” in the volume by various writers, Essays on Reform (London, 1867), pp. 127-53.

3.

Actually, Wednesday, March 4, 1868, p. 8. The leader was occasioned by a conference on Hare’s scheme of proportional representation first held in the rooms of the Reform League, Adelphi Terrace, on Feb. 28, 1868. JSM attended and spoke. Though generally sceptical of Hare’s plan, The Times leader did concede it some virtues: “We do not suppose the adoption of Mr. Hare’s scheme to the wide extent he himself recommends will ever be seriously contemplated; but it will be seen that its principle offers a means of reconciling the idea of equality with the maintenance of representative government. . . .”

Three further such conferences were held, on March 7, 21, and June 13. See Representative Reform. Report of the Committee appointed by the conference of members of the Reform League, and others, on Mr. Hare’s Scheme of Representation, Held 28th Feb., and 7th and 21st March, 1868 (London, Trübner [1868]).

4.

See Letter 1168.

5.

Among those present were Charles Bradlaugh, Thomas Conolly, and Thomas Mottershead.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 1198, n. 4.

3.

“Ireland,” SR, March 7, 1868, pp. 294-95.

4.

See Letter 1198, n. 3.

1.

MS at Somerville College, Oxford.

Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780-1872), the most distinguished woman scientific writer of her time.

2.

The London National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

3.

Mrs. Peter Taylor.

4.

Martha Charters Somerville and Mary Somerville.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins.

2.

The 7th ed. (London, 1868).

3.

Book I, chap. vi, sec. 2. JSM deleted a long passage at the beginning of the second paragraph, added a footnote, and made five other slight changes.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Kilburn’s letter of March 11 to which this is a reply. The draft is signed H.T. Published in Elliot, II, 108-109, and quoted in A. R. Wallace, My Life (2 vols., New York, 1905), II, 301. A MS copy in an unidentified hand is in Box 26 of Wallace’s papers at the Brit. Mus.

Nicholas Kilburn (1843-1923), author of books on music, and promoter of musical activities.

1.

MS at Harvard. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (1916-17), 12-13. The MS of Norton’s reply of April 10 is at Johns Hopkins.

2.

See Letter 703, n. 3.

3.

This promise led to the writing of Letter 1292.

1.

MS in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

2.

Cf. Venn, The Logic of Chance, chap. xv, esp. sec. 6 (pp. 347 ff.) and JSM, Logic, 6th ed. (1865) which Venn presumably used, Book VI, chap. iii, sec. 2.

3.

Not identified.

4.

Letter 1186 A.

5.

Neither the vacancy nor JSM’s candidate for it has been identified.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In JSM’s hand, but apparently intended as an answer to Florence May’s letter of March 22 to Helen Taylor, also at LSE.

Florence May (1845-1923), daughter of Edward Collett May (1806-1887), organist and singing teacher, professor of vocal music at Queen’s College, London, from 1880; she was later a student of Clara Schumann and of Brahms; concert pianist and teacher; author of biographies of Brahms (1905) and of Clara Schumann (1912).

2.

Miss May had written in her letter to Helen Taylor: “there seems to me nothing more melancholy than the waste of mind & energy wh. goes on amongst women, no more bitter thought than that of the aimless, objectless life they are compelled to lead. Then again there is their want of occupation—What can girls living at home do? Just nothing except lead, as it were, a kind of hand-to-mouth existence killing time in small daily parcels with little frivolous amusements or at most with foolish, petty pretences of work. They can have no centre, no end in their lives, nothing to strive & work & live for, & so their energies are deadened and their talents wasted & their lives thrown away so that it wd almost seem better for them never to have lived at all. I know, at least, that this is so with me. I have a most passionate longing for work, but where is the possibility of finding any? It was this problem wh. caused me to send my paper to Mr. Mill.”

3.

Possibly the paper read by Mrs. Barbara Bodichon at the meeting of the NAPSS at Manchester, Oct. 6, 1866, “Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women,” reprinted as a pamphlet (London, 1866).

1.

MS not located. Excerpt printed in the Sept., 1929, autograph catalogue of Messrs. Radford & Co., 8 Bruton St., New Bond St., London, W.1.

Probably John Arthur Elliott, author of Dewdrops of the Heart. Poems and Tales (London, 1866).

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

JSM spoke in the debate on the Corrupt Practices Bill on March 26; for his speech see Hansard, CXCI, cols. 307-11.

3.

Christie was sounding out several constituencies in the hope of running for Parliament. See Letter 1202.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

On the Public Schools Bill, referred to a select committee on March 20, 1868, given Royal Assent on July 31, 1868. JSM took part in the debates on various amendments to the bill, which set forth regulations on the endowments and government of the public schools. For the debates, see Hansard, CXCII, cols. 1631-57, 1924-42; CXCIII, cols. 812-27, and 1903-1908.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

See Letter 1216, n. 2.

3.

A discussion of the Corrupt Practices Bill being debated in Commons: “Election Petitions,” Pall Mall Gazette, March 30, 1868, p. 11.

4.

See Letter 1172, n. 2.

1.

MS at Somerville College, Oxford.

2.

In reply to JSM’s of March 11, Letter 1205.

3.

JSM presented the petition in Parliament on May 14. According to The Times (May 15, 1868, p. 6), it carried 21,757 signatures. On the same day similar petitions were presented by Peter A. Taylor, Duncan MacLaren, and Sir H. F. Davie.

4.

Mrs. Somerville consented. See Letter 1231.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood.

2.

George Campbell De Morgan.

3.

See preceding Letter, n. 3.

1.

MS at Cornell. MS draft at Yale. In reply to Christie’s of April 2, also at Yale.

2.

On April 2, JSM had risen in the Commons to inquire of Disraeli, then head of the Government, whether he intended “to propose any measure, either separately or as a provision, in the Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill, for the prevention of bribery at Municipal Elections?” Disraeli in his answer promised to try to carry the bill as it referred to Parliamentary elections, but refused to mix up that bill with the question of Municipal Elections. Hansard, CXCI, col. 702.

3.

Sir John Tomlinson Hibbert (1824-1908), MP for Oldham, 1862-74, 1877-86, 1892-95, and holder of sub-cabinet posts in Gladstone governments.

4.

Over the ensuing months, both Fawcett and JSM presented various amendments to strengthen the bill (on May 21, July 18, 22, and 23) but to little avail; the Government’s bill passed without essential change.

5.

Alexander Pulling (1813-1895), serjeant-at-law, legal author, had published on this question “The Law of England Relating to Purity of Elections,” Law Magazine and Law Review, 3rd ser., XXI (1866), 54-68 and 274-82, reprinted as a pamphlet, Our Parliamentary Elections. Can no Laws protect the Honest Voter from the Dishonest? (London, 1866); and “Electoral Bribery and Corruption,” Law Magazine, 3rd ser., XXIII (1867), 113-25.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

See Letter 1198, n. 4.

3.

“L’Angleterre et L’Irlande,” Journal des Economistes, IX (March 15, 1868), 421-49.

1.

MS not located. Published in both the Daily News and the Morning Star for May 28, 1868, and in the Beehive, May 30, 1868. The letter had been read at a meeting of the American Equal Rights Association in New York on May 14, 1868, and published in the New York Times the next day, p. 5.

Lucy Stone [Blackwell] (1818-1893), American reformer, anti-slavery and women’s rights leader. She married in 1855 a prominent abolitionist and advocate of women’s rights, Dr. Henry B. Blackwell (1824-1909), but with his approval retained her maiden name. Blackwell’s sisters Elizabeth and Emily were prominent early women physicians.

1.

MS in the Playfair Collection at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London.

Lyon Playfair, later 1st Baron Playfair (1818-1898), professor of chemistry, Edinburgh, 1856-69; MP for Edinburgh and St Andrews universities, 1868-85, and for Leeds 1885-92; postmaster general, 1873.

1.

MS in the OsbornCollection, Yale.

Carl Adolf Buchheim (1828-1900), Professor of German Language and Literature in King’s College, London. Examiner in German to the University of London.

2.

Buchheim requested permission to publish an excerpt from JSM’s “Michelet’s History of France” (Dissertations, Brit. ed. II, 120-80, Amer. ed. II, 198-259), in his Materials for German Prose Composition: or, Selections from Modern English writers, with grammatical notes (London, 1868). The excerpt published in Buchheim’s book is entitled “The Science of History” and appears on pp. 197-98 (7th ed., London, 1881).

1.

MS at Cornell. MS draft at Yale. In reply to Christie’s of April 17, also at Yale.

2.

See Letter 1216.

3.

A Select Committee had been nominated on March 19 “to inquire into the state of our Treaty relations with Foreign Governments regarding extradition, with a view to adoption of a more permanent and uniform policy on the subject.” JSM was a member. The Committee made its report on July 6, 1868.

4.

On Aug. 6, 1840, Louis Napoleon, with a small band of followers, landed at Boulogne, vainly hoping to win over the support of the regiment stationed there, as a prelude to a coup d’état. In the altercation that preceded his capture, Louis Napoleon inadvertently discharged his pistol and shot a soldier of the regiment.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

Longman eventually secured as editors T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, who published the Treatise of Human Nature (2 vols., London, 1874); The Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (2 vols., London, 1875); and The Philosophical Works of David Hume (4 vols., London, 1878).

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

See Letters 1216 and 1221.

3.

This amendment does not appear to have been presented.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 110. In reply to Deml’s of April 14, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

Deml has been identified only, as he announced himself in his letter of April 14, as Editor of the periodical Der Urwähler, the organ of the Fortschrittspartei (Progress Party). Copies of the periodical for the years 1867-74 are preserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Trask’s of April 20, also at Yale. Published in Elliot, II, 109-10.

Trask, in his letter of April 20, identified himself as a Poor Law Guardian (a local administrator) of Yeovil, Somerset. Seeking to eliminate abuses of the Poor Law by able-bodied paupers, Trask proposed the founding of a National Friendly Society—in effect an insurance programme—to compel paupers to make some contribution to their own relief.

1.

MS at Indiana.

2.

Presumably an article on medical education for women, a subject to which WR, Macmillan’s, and FR all gave space in Sept., Oct., and Nov., 1868. For WR’s, not written by Mrs. Fawcett, see “The Suppressed Sex,” WR, n.s. XXXIV (Oct., 1868), 437-62.

3.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929), wife of Henry Fawcett, suffragette, reformer of education for women. She wrote “The Medical and General Education of Women,” FR, n.s., IV (Nov. 1, 1868), 554-71. Mrs. Fawcett’s sister, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), was a pioneer woman physician.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Gomperz’s letter of March 26, to which this is a reply, and his rejoinder of May 11.

2.

See Letter 1183.

3.

Eduard Wessel’s translations eventually constituted vols. 8, 10, and 11 of the Collected German edition.

4.

See Letter 1183, n. 4.

5.

See Letter 74.

6.

See Letter 1183, n. 3.

7.

This refers to a passage in Utilitarianism, pp. 51-52, 1st ed. (audible, visible—desirable). Gomperz regretted that JSM in the later editions of Utilitarianism did not “remove the stumbling-block (to any reader, and more especially to a translator),” which, when pointed out to him, JSM had promised to remove. Gomperz says JSM’s argument “looks like a verbal quibble, far as it is from being one and has besides the serious disadvantage of being utterly untranslatable” (Gomperz to JSM, 26 March 1868). JSM did not revise the passage (see Collected Works, X, 234).

8.

Grote had contended that the “original MSS of Plato . . . were doubtless treasured up in the school [the Academy at Athens] as sacred memorials of the great founder, and served as originals from which copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made.” Plato, vol. I, chap. iv, “Platonic Canon as recognized by Thrasyllus,” p. 135. For Grote’s discussion of the existence of this school-library of manuscripts, see ibid., pp. 136-37. Gomperz believed that such a school-library in all probability had not existed, and in his Inaugural Lecture on July 10, 1867, “Die angebliche Platonische Schulbibliothek und die Testamente der Philosophen,” later published in Platonische Aufsätze, vol. II (Vienna, 1887), he had developed his reasons for his opinion. See also Gomperz, p. 459, n. 4.

9.

Traumdeutung und Zauberei. Ein Blick auf das Wesen des Aberglaubens . . . (Vienna, 1866).

10.

The death of his nephew, Carl von Wertheimstein, and the breakdown of the young man’s mother, Gomperz’s oldest sister Josephine.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

See Letters 1216 and 1221.

1.

MS in the George Howell Library, Bishopsgate Institute.

2.

The Adelphi Club, suggested by Sir James Stansfeld, for doing “something to bridge over the gulph which now exists between different classes, and thereby developing a more kindly feeling” (quoted from “Draft Appeal for the Adelphi Club” by Royden Harrison in “The British Working Class and the General Election of 1868,” International Review of Social History, V [1960], 437). The capital was to be supplied by wealthy Liberals, but the Club’s committee was to include working men. The Club enrolled a good number of professional men as well as workers.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Trask’s of April 25, also at Yale.

2.

See Letter 1225.

1.

MS at Somerville College, Oxford.

2.

See Letter 1214.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Spencer’s reply of May 8, expressing his inability to participate in the venture, is also at Northwestern.

2.

See Letter 1032.

3.

Essays on Reform (London, 1867) and Questions for a Reformed Parliament (London, 1867). Contributors to the first of these included: G. C. Broderick, R. H. Hutton, Lord Houghton, A. V. Dicey, Leslie Stephen, J. B. Kinnear, Bernard Cracroft, C. H. Pearson, Goldwin Smith, James Bryce, A. O. Rutson, and Sir George Young. Contributors to the second volume were: Frank Harrison Hill, G. Lushington, M. Townsend, W. L. Newman, C. S. Parker, Kinnear, G. Hooper, F. Harrison, Thorold Rogers, J. M. Ludlow, and Lloyd Jones.

4.

Charles Savile Roundell (1827-1906), barrister, author of pamphlets on education and the Governor Eyre case; secretary to the Jamaica Committee, 1865; later (1880-85) MP for Grantham and (1892-95) for the Skipton Division of Yorkshire.

5.

The well-known novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) and his older brother Thomas Adolphus Trollope (1810-1892), also a writer of novels and travel books.

6.

Henry Alford (1810-1871), editor of the Greek testament; first editor of the Contemporary Rev.; Dean of Canterbury, 1857-71.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

Not identified.

3.

Thomas Hughes, MP for Lambeth since 1865, was elected to represent Frome later this year.

1.

MS in the St. Andrews University Muniments. Grace was Clerk to the University Court. Endorsed: Blackheath Park 6 May 1868 / J Stuart Mill / as to Dr Cook’s proposal to retire from Professorship with allowance.

2.

John Cook, D.D. (1808-1869), Professor of Divinity and Ecclesiastical History. He retired on July 30, 1868.

1.

MS not located. Published in a report of the Birmingham conference on women’s suffrage on May 8, Daily News, May 11, 1868, p. 3, and The Times, same day, p. 10. The letter was read at the meeting.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Christie’s of May 6, also at Yale.

2.

To abolish corruption in elections; see Letters 1216 and 1228.

3.

The Elections Petitions Act, 1854.

4.

A bill to establish new boundaries for boroughs, following passage of the Reform Bill of 1867. The Boundary Bill passed on July 7, 1868, and was given royal assent on July 13.

1.

MS at Cornell. MS draft at Yale. In reply to Christie’s of May 9, also at Yale.

2.

“Amendment of Election Petitions and Corrupt practices at Elections Bill,” Pall Mall Gazette, April 24, 1868, p. 5.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. In reply to Spencer’s of May 8, MS also at Northwestern.

2.

Letter 1232.

3.

London, Nov., 1867.

1.

MS in the collection of the late Professor Jacob Viner of Princeton University.

2.

Presumably one of them was the April 24 number referred to in Letter 1237.

3.

See Letter 1216.

4.

See Letter 1236, n. 4.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

See Letter 1216, n. 5.

1.

MS in the Osborn Collection, Yale.

2.

See Letter 1232.

3.

No published report on this conference has been located, but see “The Working Men’s College Building Fund,” a leader by Rae in the Daily News, May 4, 1868, p. 4. JSM subscribed to the Fund (see Beehive, May 23, 1868, p. 4).

4.

A conference on women’s suffrage, held at the Exchange Assembly Room, Birmingham on May 8, 1868, reported by Rae in the Daily News, May 11, 1868, p. 3. Rae also no doubt wrote the leader on the conference in the same issue, p. 4.

5.

Not identified.

1.

MS copy in unknown hand at UCL. The copyist’s many errors in French have been silently corrected. The copy is on stationery bearing an embossed address: Richmond / Surrey / S.W.

Simon was later vice-president (1870) and president (1871) of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

2.

In the event, it was not Chadwick but JSM who was nominated for the seat of Associé étranger left vacant by the death of Brougham on May 9, 1868; at the meeting of the Académie on March 20, 1869, however, JSM was defeated by Count Federigo Sclopis di Salerano (1798-1878), eminent Italian lawyer and scholar. See next Letter.

3.

See Letter 674, n. 4.

4.

See ibid., n. 3.

1.

MS copy in unknown hand at UCL. The copyist’s many errors in French have been silently corrected. The copy is on stationery bearing an embossed address: Richmond / Surrey / S.W.

2.

JSM had been unanimously elected correspondent (Section d’Économie politique) of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques of the Institut Impérial de France, at the meeting of April 28, 1860, in the place of Thomas Tooke, who died Feb. 26, 1858. JSM sent a letter of thanks, which was read at the meeting of June 2, 1860.

3.

See preceding Letter, n. 2.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

For the debate on May 21, 1868, see Hansard, CXCII, cols. 657-92. JSM moved an amendment, cols. 685-86, and offered further explanation of it, col. 691.

3.

Samuel Whitbread (1830-1915), MP for Bedford, 1852-95.

4.

George Melly (1830-1894), Liverpool merchant, author, and MP for Stoke, 1868-74.

5.

See Letter 1223.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

Acton Smee Ayrton, MP for Tower Hamlets. Hansard records no amendment offered by him until July 10.

3.

Christie became a candidate for Greenock, but was defeated.

4.

Walter Morrison (1836-1921), MP for Plymouth, 1861-74; for Skipton division of Yorkshire, 1886-92, 1895-1900.

1.

Excerpt quoted in 1958 catalogue of the Carnegie Book Shop of New York City. Present location of MS not known.

2.

Possibly William Garvie, barrister.

3.

The executions ordered by Governor Eyre after the riots in Jamaica. See Letter 889, n. 2.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Smith’s of May 27, also at Yale. Published in part in Elliot, II, 111.

2.

In his letter of May 27, Smith had said: “In case they press you in the House or elsewhere about the prosecution of Eyre do not forget that the government itself ‘persecuted’ the minor offenders in Jamaica, where it was baffled by grand juries and class tribunals just as we have been here.”

3.

James, later (1910) Sir James Lamont (1828-1913), explorer, author, and sportsman, MP for Buteshire, 1865-68. Lamont appears not to have raised a question on the Government’s defraying Eyre’s legal expenses until June 9. Hansard, CXCII, cols. 1334-35.

4.

Peter A. Taylor, a leader in the Jamaica Committee.

5.

“I hope I need hardly say that I will do and contribute any thing in my power. I will arrange not to leave England till the case is at an end. This however I suppose it will soon be; for, let the judge charge as he may, no Grand Jury, I take it, will find a true bill.”

Smith did not leave England for the United States until Oct. 27, 1868. He accepted a professorship of English and constitutional history at the newly founded Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y., which opened that autumn.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of May 21, 1868, MS at Johns Hopkins.

2.

The Queen’s University of Belfast did not receive representation in Parliament until the passage of the Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act of 1918, and lost it in 1950.

3.

In the event, Fawcett’s motion to open Trinity College, Dublin, to both Catholics and Presbyterians was not presented until July 10, 1868. Sir Joseph Neale McKenna countered with an amendment urging the establishment of a Catholic university of equal status with Trinity College. After debate, both the motion and the amendment were withdrawn. See Hansard, CXCIII, cols. 1054-65.

4.

Sir Joseph Neale McKenna (1819-1906), MP for Youghal, 1865-68, 1874-85, and for South Monaghan, 1885-92.

5.

William Monsell.

6.

Jonathan Pim.

7.

In 1845 a substantial increase in the parliamentary grant to Maynooth College, the seminary for training Roman Catholic priests in Ireland, caused excessive Protestant alarm and became the great political controversy of the year.

8.

Humphrey Lloyd, The University of Dublin in its relation to the several religious communities (Dublin, 1868). Lloyd (1800-1881), scientist, was provost of Trinity College, University of Dublin, 1867-81.

9.

England and Ireland. See Letter 1198, n. 4.

10.

Bright proposed the creation of a parliamentary commission, which would undertake to complete transactions between landlord and tenant; the commission would buy up large estates from absentee landlords for division and sale to Irish proprietors. On this subject Bright delivered many speeches; an example is the one delivered at Birmingham Feb. 4, 1868 (reported in The Times, Feb. 5, pp. 8 and 12).

11.

Emile Laveleye, Etudes d’économie rurale. La Néerlande. Précédé du rapport de M. Léonce de Lavergne sur l’économie rurale de la Belgique (Paris, 1865).

1.

MS in the Giddings-Julian Collection, V, the Library of Congress. Excerpt published in Charles A. Barker, Life of Henry George (New York, 1955), p. 137.

George Washington Julian (1817-1899), American politician, a leader in the Free Soil Party and its candidate for Vice-President in 1852; congressman, 1849-51 and 1861-71.

2.

Julian’s speech in the House of Representatives on March 6, 1868, on “Our landpolicy—its evils and their remedy.” It was separately printed that year, and was reprinted in Julian’s Speeches on Political Questions (New York, 1872), pp. 365-84. Julian cites JSM on pp. 368 and 378.

1.

MS draft at LSE. Capel’s letter of June 1, 1868, to which this is a reply, is also at LSE, plus Capel’s rejoinder of June 12.

George Capel, clergyman, who conducted a small boarding school at Carshalton. He had been a close friend of Henry Thomas Buckle.

2.

In the 7th ed. (1868) of the Logic, II, 535, JSM introduced a long footnote to VI, xi, 2 (8th ed., II, 537), quoting from Capel’s letter of Nov. 3, 1866 (MS also at LSE), defending Buckle from the suggestion JSM had advanced in the 5th ed. of the Logic (1865) that Buckle had inferred in his History of Civilization that “the moral qualities of mankind are little capable of being improved, or are of little importance in the general progress of society, compared with intellectual or economic causes” (5th ed., pp. 528-29).

3.

Longmans proved to be willing, and Buckle’s Commonplace Books were included in Helen Taylor’s edition of his Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works (3 vols., London, 1872).

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

Not located.

3.

John Forbes Clark (1821-1910), son of Queen Victoria’s physician, had been in the diplomatic service. He was never elected to Parliament.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

Miss Nicholson has not been identified.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

This bill, which provided for the establishment of a market for foreign cattle in or near London with a view to prevent the transmission of the cattle plague (rinder-pest) to English stock, had passed its second reading on Feb. 13, 1868.

3.

As JSM thought likely, the discussion in committee was delayed by the debate on the Representation of the People (Ireland) Bill. The Cattle Market Bill was discussed on June 26, July 3, 16, 20, and 24, and finally was withdrawn on July 25, 1868.

4.

A new periodical which ran for only five numbers.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 111-14, and in The Times, June 15, 1868, p. 12, with the emendations suggested in JSM’s letter of June 13, 1868, to Pratten. In reply to Pratten’s letter of June 8, also at Johns Hopkins. Elliot identifies as by Helen Taylor.

William Sims Pratten, in 1865 a member of the Committee for JSM’s election, and later this year one of the local chairmen for his re-election.

2.

Pratten in his letter reported that a large number of JSM’s former supporters had been alienated by his activities on the Jamaica Committee.

3.

Edward John Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia . . . (2 vols., London, 1845).

4.

Pratten had asked on behalf of some of JSM’s constituents whether he concurred with the petition he had presented in the Commons on June 5 from the Home and Foreign Affairs Association of Macclesfield. The petition was described as “representing the injustice of the Abyssinian War, and praying that the House will not confer its thanks upon the General and the Army, and will appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the whole of the transactions relating to Abyssinia” (The Times, June 6, 1868), p. 4.

An expedition had been authorized in July, 1867, to procure the release of British prisoners, including the British consul, held by King Theodore III of Abyssinia. The expedition was efficiently conducted, gained the release of the prisoners, and overcame the fortress of Magdala in April, 1868. King Theodore shot himself during the attack on the Fortress. British troops left the country in May, 1868.

5.

General Sir Robert Cornelis Napier (1810-1890), Commander-in-Chief of the army of Bombay, when he was called to lead the Abyssinian expedition. In recognition of his success he was made Baron Napier of Magdala, and later became Field Marshal.

6.

C. R. Markham, geographer to the expedition, in chap. iv of his series “The Abyssinian Expedition,” Macmillan’s, XVIII (Aug., 1868), pp. 289-96, offered the explanation that Napier had obtained the assistance of the Abyssinian chiefs and people on the understanding that Theodore would have to be destroyed.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1154, n. 3.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

JSM on the previous day had presented a petition from Belfast “in favour of the Bill for Amending the Law respecting the Property of Married Women” (The Times, June 10, 1868, p. 6).

3.

The Married Women’s Property Bill passed the second reading by a vote of 124 to 123. For the debate, see Hansard, CXCII, cols. 1352-78. However, the bill was subsequently withdrawn without debate on July 24, 1868.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Jones’s letter of June 8 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 115-16, as all but last paragraph by Helen Taylor.

Henry Jones, identified only as a graduate of the University of London who was then a teacher in a private school in Bristol. Feeling cramped in that situation because of the loss of his religious faith, he sought JSM’s help in securing other work. As a student of JSM’s writings, he also raised some questions with regard to a passage in Utilitarianism.

2.

Presumably in Part I, “The Unknowable,” First Principles (1862).

3.

Jones had quoted from p. 53 of the 3rd ed. as follows: “No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable except that each person . . . desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have . . . all the proof which the case admits of . . . that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.” (Collected Works, X, 234)

1.

MS at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Pratten’s letter of June 11 (also at Johns Hopkins) requesting permission to publish JSM’s letter of June 9 (Letter 1254).

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

Not identified.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

Andrew, later Sir Andrew Lusk (1810-1909), a native of Scotland; London merchant; Sheriff of London, 1860-61; alderman, Aldgate, 1862-63; MP, Finsbury, 1865-85; Lord Mayor, 1873-74.

3.

The Mutual Westminster Chambers Association, Ltd., Victoria St., S.W.

4.

Presumably for Christie’s bid for a Scottish seat.

1.

MS not located. Excerpts quoted in 1958 catalogue of the Carnegie Book Shop of New York City.

The question at issue was that of Parliamentary action to pay the expenses of Governor Eyre incurred in his trial.

2.

In the event, it was not until July, 1872, that it was decided to defray Eyre’s legal expenses.

3.

No such address has been located.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

Not identified.

3.

See Letter 894.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

William Nesbitt.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

“The Medical and General Education of Women,” published later this year in FR, n.s., IV (Nov., 1868), 554-71.

3.

In 1864 a Female Medical Society for Promoting the Proper Education and Employment of Superior Women in the Practice of Midwifery and the Treatment of the Diseases of Women and Children had been established, which in turn had set up an unchartered Female Medical College, Dr. James Edmunds (1832-1911), a pioneer in the cause of women’s medical education, was a founder and hon. secretary of the society (Lord Shaftesbury was the president), and secretary and lecturer of the College. The College was later merged in the London School of Medicine for Women, founded in 1874. See “The Female Medical College,” Lancet, Oct. 14, 1865, p. 435, and the obituary of Edmunds, Lancet, Feb. 25, 1911, p. 551.

4.

JSM’s suggested sentence is adapted as a footnote in Mrs. Fawcett’s article, p. 555.

1.

MS in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Published in the Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, XXIV (1868), p. 636 (Albany, 1869).

Enoch Cobb Wines (1806-1879), Congregational minister, college president, prison reformer, corresponding secretary of the Prison Association of New York; later, honorary president of the International Penitentiary Congress, Stockholm, 1878.

2.

No record has been found of a publication of this Association entitled Transactions; the reference is probably to the annual reports.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Holden’s letter of Feb., 1868, to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 116-18, and in Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 16, 1868, p. 5.

2.

Letter 811.

3.

Contemporary developments permitted this optimistic view of the decline of protectionism; France and Germany lowered tariffs between 1860 and 1880, and the United States reduced tariffs for a period in the 1870’s. By the end of the century, however, protection was dominant in all three countries.

4.

Holden sent copies of letters he had published attacking protectionism, but these have not been preserved.

5.

See Letter 580.

6.

See Letter 1203.

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

See Letter 1245, n. 3.

3.

Hansard likewise omits any mention of JSM’s remark.

4.

See Letter 1165, n. 2.

5.

See Letter 1172, n. 2.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library.

2.

Chadwick presided over the Public Health section of the fourth annual meeting of the NAPSS at Glasgow in 1860. His address is published in the Transactions for 1860, pp. 574-606.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor John M. Robson.

William Cox Bennett (1820-1895), poet and publicist; member of the London Council of the Education League; writer and critic for the Weekly Dispatch and the London Figaro. Bennett is credited with the proposal to elect Gladstone for Greenwich, which was accomplished on Nov. 17, 1868, one week before he was defeated for Southwest Lancashire.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library.

2.

The name applied by John Bright in 1866 to seceders from the Liberal party over the issue of extension of the suffrage. For the cave of Adullam, see I Sam. 22:1 and II Sam. 23:13.

3.

Bouverie, MP for Kilmarnock, on the occasion of Disraeli’s first speech as Prime Minister to the Commons, on March 5, 1868, charged that the Liberal party did “not deserve to be called a party. . . . We have leaders who do not lead, and followers who do not follow. Instead of being an organized party, we are little better than a rabble.” Hansard, CXC, col. 1122.

4.

Chadwick subsequently ran against Bouverie but suffered a humiliating defeat. See Letters 1330 and 1335.

1.

MS at King’s. Published in Elliot, II, 118.

2.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which Colam was the secretary for many years. See Letter 1105.

3.

JSM continued to subscribe to the Society, and left it £500 in his will.

4.

Cf. “Pigeon Shooting,” The Times, July 13, 1868, p. 6, and July 20, p. 9.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

The Story of a Blind Inventor; being some account of the life and labors of Dr. James Gale . . . (London, 1868).

1.

MS at Cornell.

2.

In Christie’s campaign for a seat in Parliament.

3.

On July 24.

4.

“The Bribery Bill,” SR, July 25, 1868, pp. 110-11. JSM’s proposal is discussed on p. 111.

1.

MS in the possession of Co-operative Union Ltd., Holyoake House, Manchester.

2.

The Social Economist, Industrial Partnerships Record, which succeeded the Industrial Partnerships Record (1867), edited by Holyoake and E. R. Edger, was soon dropped to permit the Co-operative News (1871), successor to the Co-operator (1860-71), to achieve the fullest possible circulation.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Ernest Noel (1831-1931), politician, lost in his contest to represent Dumfries in 1868, but gained the seat in 1874 and held it until 1885.

3.

Baptist Wriothesley Noel (1798-1873), influential evangelical clergyman, 1827-48; chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 1841-49; became a Baptist in 1848; pastor of the John St. Baptist Chapel London, 1849-68; president of the Baptist Union, 1855 and 1867.

4.

Morning Star, July 23, 1868, pp. 2-3. The speech was also reported in The Times of the same date, p. 3. In it JSM discussed some of the implications of the new power acquired by the working classes as a result of the Reform Act of 1867, and stressed the need for improvement in the administration of government.

1.

MS in the possession of Mr. George Arthur Wood.

2.

Odger failed at Staffordshire, and, later in the year, tried unsuccessfully for Chelsea; he ran, again unsuccessfully, for Staffordshire in 1869.

1.

MS at Pierpont Morgan Library.

2.

See Letters 1270 and 1275.

1.

MS at the Public Library of Boston, Mass. Bears watermark: 1868.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881), the leading liberal theologian of his time, dean of Westminster from 1863. He gave public support to JSM in both his campaigns for election to Parliament. In 1867 Stanley and his wife had called upon JSM at Avignon.

2.

Not identified.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letters 1270, 1275, and 1277.

3.

The Reform League.

1.

MS not located. From a handbill in the Howell Collection, the Bishopsgate Institute, which also carries a letter from the St. Anne’s Electoral Association, Ryder’s Court, Leicester Square, conveying to JSM a resolution adopted on Aug. 4. Bailey and Armistead have not been identified.

1.

MS at LSE; MS draft at Yale, though with recipient not identified.

1.

MS at UCL. Chadwick’s letters of Aug. 15 and 19 are at Johns Hopkins. In the latter Chadwick had requested a letter to Henderson.

2.

The following Letter.

1.

MS copy, not in JSM’s hand, at UCL. Published in Elliot. II, 119-21.

Henderson has been identified only as Secretary of the Glasgow branch of the Reform League.

2.

See Letters 1268, 1270, 1275, 1277, 1278, and 1281.

3.

The earliest extant correspondence is of 1827. See Earlier Letters, Letters 9 ff.

4.

Notably his “On a Preventive Police,” London Rev., I (1829), 252-308, and “Medical Charities in France,” ibid., pp. 536-65.

5.

Appointed Assistant Commissioner in 1832, Chadwick was advanced to Commissioner in April, 1833.

6.

He was appointed in 1833 one of three Royal Commissioners on the Employment of Children in Factories.

7.

Appointed to the first Sanitary Commission in 1838, he subsequently became a commissioner on the first Board of Health, on which he served from 1848 to 1854. He was a persistent and effective propagandist for sanitary reform for many years.

8.

Bentham in his last years made Chadwick his protégé and offered him an income for life if he would become the official expositor of Bentham’s teachings. Chadwick declined, but became the most successful disciple of Bentham in carrying out the Utilitarian program for administrative reform.

1.

MS not located. Published in Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh (2 vols., London, 1894), I, 267. A MS copy by P. Calleral is at Johns Hopkins.

Austin Holyoake (1826-1874), younger brother and associate in various enterprises of G. J. Holyoake; active as a secularist lecturer and propagandist.

2.

Charles Bradlaugh campaigned unsuccessfully for a Liberal seat for Northampton against Lord Henley and Charles Gilpin. JSM was much criticized for his support of Bradlaugh, and some attributed to it his own defeat in November. See Letters 1285, 1293, 1336, 1341, 1360, and 1365.

1.

MS at Harvard. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Norton’s of Aug. 29 to which this is a reply. Envelope addressed: C. Elliot [sic] Norton Esq / Angleterre / Keston Rectory / Bromley / Kent. Postmarks: AVIGNON / 11 / SEPT / 68 and LONDON / 13 SP 68. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (Oct., 1916), 13.

2.

Norton had written: “England has changed very much since I was here ten years ago,—more in habit of thought and manner of expression than in externals. The change is greater than the press indicates. The present condition of feelings and thought seems to me to portend still greater, even revolutionary changes.”

3.

See Letter 1208.

4.

Letter 1292.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Gilpin’s letter of Sept. 7, also at Johns Hopkins. Envelope in which the two were filed is marked: “For publication as Helen’s. J. S. Mill.” Published in Elliot, II, 121-22.

Charles Gilpin (1815-1874), prominent Quaker philanthropist, publisher, MP for Northampton, 1857-74.

2.

The incumbents, Gilpin and Lord Henley, both Liberals, were running for re-election. Bradlaugh said that he was trying to win Lord Henley’s seat. JSM had contributed £10 to Bradlaugh’s campaign (see Letter 1283). According to Hypatia Bradlaugh (Charles Bradlaugh [2 vols., London, 1894], I, 278), Gilpin later also contributed £10 towards Bradlaugh’s election expenses and wrote a favourable letter to the Morning Star about his conduct in the election.

3.

Baron Anthony Henley (1825-1898), MP for Northampton, 1859-74.

4.

Gladstone had led the fight for the disestablishment of the Irish Church in the spring of 1868.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

Alexander Macdonald (1821-1881), miner, from 1863 president of the National Union of Miners. Macdonald retired from the contest with Bouverie to avoid splitting the liberal vote. In 1874 Macdonald was elected MP for Stafford. For his entry into candidacy against Bouverie, see The Times, Sept. 12, 1868, p. 6.

3.

JSM did not yet know that Chadwick had just announced his candidacy for Kilmarnock. See the Kilmarnock Standard, Sept. 12, 1868.

4.

See Letter 1181.

5.

As president of the Reform League.

6.

Letter 1282.

1.

MS and MS copy at UCL. In reply to De Morgan’s of Sept. 3, 1868, published in Sophia De Morgan, Memoir, pp. 378-81. The appended note on Virtus Dormitiva (MS not located, published in De Morgan Memoir, pp. 381-82) probably accompanied this letter since it also deals with some of the matters raised by De Morgan’s letter of Sept. 3, which sought to supply some corrections to JSM’s Logic, especially in Book I, chap. iii, sec. 9 (6th ed.).

2.

JSM in the Logic had attributed the phrase to Bacon. De Morgan pointed out that Ludovicus Vives (Spanish humanist and philosopher, 1492-1540) “commends Petrus Hispanus [(d. 1321), Portuguese ecclesiastic and philosopher, author of Summulae Logicales—for centuries a standard work on elementary logic] for making it his definition, and corrects those who think it only an hyperbole of praise, explaining it as the art which treats of arts.”

3.

De Morgan had written: “In p. 71 [Logic, Book I, chap. iii, sec. 9 (6th ed.)] you say that a pedantic physician in Molière accounts for the fact that ‘l’opium endormit’ by the maxim ‘parcequ’il a un vertu soporifique.’ From whom do you get your quotation marks? Not from Molière. You know the original at the end of the Malade Imaginaire:—

Mihi a docto doctore.

Domandatur causam et rationem quare

Opium facit dormire.

A quoi respondeo

Quia est in eo

Virtus dormitiva,

Cuius est natura

Sensus assoupire.

“I never read this exquisite satire without wishing for a Molière to expose the school of thinkers of our day who invert the process; and having settled that opium has not and cannot have a virtus dormitiva, will deny the sleep, or else declare that it is only a coincidence . . .” (pp. 378-79). JSM adopted the version quoted by De Morgan in the 7th ed. (1868); see 8th ed., II, 403.

4.

De Morgan: “I cannot understand how you liken the virtus dormitiva to a case of the ‘scholastic doctrine of occult causes.’ In fact, I have never been able to arrive at such causes in the Schoolmen. I know that these offenders are charged in our day, and since the time of Bacon, with upholding certain things called occult causes, but I cannot find any. Virtutes occultae and occult qualities I find enough of” (p. 379).

5.

De Morgan: “You say elsewhere [Logic, Book II, chap. vii, “Examinations of some opinions opposed to the preceding Doctrines,” I, 310, 6th ed.] that the following proposition is not intelligible: ‘Abracadabra is a second intention.’ Literally, ‘animal is a second intention’ may be held false, not unintelligible. For a second intention is a subjective use of a name. Probably you mean that the proposition ‘Abracadabra is a (name of) second intention’ is unintelligible. But why more than ‘animal’? If you mean that Abracadabra is a mere sound, you do less than due honour to the name of a medical instrument of 1,200 years’ life. . . .” JSM did not change this.

6.

Dictionnaire de théologie et de philosophie scolastiques, ou Etude sur l’enseignement philosophique au moyen âge . . . par Fréderic Morin, in Troisième et dernière Encyclopédie théologique; . . . publiée par l’abbé Migne (66 vols., Paris, 1855-66), XXI-XXII.

7.

Antoine Arnauld (1612-1694), philosopher of the Cartesian school, author of La Logique ou l’art de penser. La Logique de Port Royal (Paris, 1662) and of many other works.

8.

Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), philosopher of the Cartesian school.

1.

MS in the Berg Collection of NYP. Published, except for first two sentences, in Illustrated Weekly News, Oct. 3, 1868, p. 614.

Probably James Redding Ware, journalist and playwright.

2.

“Trade Unions” [two leaders], Illustrated Weekly News, Aug. 1 and 8, 1868, pp. 502 and 518.

3.

The International Association of Working Men, with which Karl Marx was from the first associated, had been formally established at a meeting in London on Sept. 28, 1864.

1.

MS in the possession of Professor John M. Robson. Addressed: W.C. Bennett Esq / Blackheath / London S.E. Postmarks: AVIGNON 14 SEPT 68; MARSEILLES À PARIS 15 SEPT 68; and PARIS À CALAIS 15 SEPT 68.

2.

Secretary of the committee for the return of Gladstone as MP for Greenwich.

3.

At the heavily attended meeting of the electors of Greenwich on Sept. 16, Dickson read the letter from JSM; as reported by the Daily News, Sept. 17, 1868, p. 3, JSM regarded it as “a great compliment for any statesman to be elected by the spontaneous free will of a large constituency; and he was sorry that the example had been dying out. It had been carried out with respect to Mr. Cobden and Lord Brougham, and it was an honour to the people of Greenwich that they intended to revive this example by the election of such a politician as Mr. Gladstone for Greenwich.”

4.

Probably not John Bright but Sir Charles Tilston Bright (1832-1888), civil engineer, since 1865 MP for Greenwich but not a candidate in 1868.

1.

MS copy, not in JSM’s hand, at UCL. The letter was read by Chadwick to a meeting of the electors of Kilmarnock, and was published along with Chadwick’s speech in The Times, Oct. 21, 1868, p. 7. It had previously been published in the Glasgow Herald, Oct. 19, 1868.

2.

See Letter 1270, n. 3.

1.

MS at Harvard. MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Norton’s of Sept. 17. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (Oct., 1916), 13-15, and in part in Elliot, II, 122-23. The Proceedings, p. 15 n., gives an extract from Norton’s undated reply.

2.

The next Letter.

3.

Norton chose not to add his name, and the letter was published with the recipient not named.

4.

Norton in his letter had remarked that “the breaking up of old beliefs and superstitions & institutions [in England] are much more obvious than those of the future reorganization. But the question which seems to me to underlie all others . . . is whether there is in England today a real nation—a community—or simply a congeries of individuals divided into distinct & almost hostile classes. I fear that a vast mass of the population have no reason for attachment to the existing social order, and no fear of change however subversive. . . . ”

1.

MS at Harvard. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (1916-17), 15-21, and with changes in punctuation and spelling, and one important alteration in substance (see n. 7 below), in Nation, VII (Oct. 15, 1868), 308-309. See also preceding Letter.

2.

In their 1868 party platform, the Democrats proposed that all government bonds the payment of which was not restricted to coins should be payable in lawful currency (i.e. in paper currency) and that the interest on government bonds should be subject to income tax. See James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States (8 vols., New York, 1892-1919), VI, 159-65.

3.

JSM and the Austins had all lost money when state bonds in the United States were repudiated. See Earlier Letters, p. 486, n. 2.

4.

That is, bonds which were redeemable in five years, payable in twenty. Much of the debt for the Civil War was in such bonds, which carried an interest rate of six per cent, payable in gold coin.

5.

During the Civil War, Congress in 1862 had authorized the issuance of a new type of public money, “United States notes,” popularly known as “greenbacks.” They were not supported by any collateral, but simply by the credit of the Federal government, and their value fluctuated.

6.

Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868), lawyer, politician, powerful member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 1848-53, 1858-68; advocate of a Draconian policy towards the South.

7.

For the following three of JSM’s sentences, Norton, for the Nation, substituted: “But if exemption from all direct taxation were a condition of the contract, and expressly stipulated for, it is not an unjust advantage conceded to the bondholders over other people, since for every advantage so obtained value has been given by those who enjoy it in the shape of a diminished interest.”

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published, with omissions, in Elliot, II, 123-26. In reply to Beggs’s letter of Sept. 21, also at Johns Hopkins.

An ardent supporter of JSM’s candidacy for Westminster, Beggs subsequently wrote an excellent analysis of JSM’s defeat in November; see “The Westminster Election,” Morning Star, Nov. 21, 1868. Earlier that year Beggs had published The Deterrent Influence of Capital Punishment. Being a Reply to the Speech of John Stuart Mill . . . of April 21, 1868 (London, 1868).

2.

See Letter 1283.

3.

Up to this time Bradlaugh had not actually been imprisoned though he had been widely vilified and attacked. In May, 1868, the government had sought to prosecute him as publisher of the National Reformerfor violation of an 1819 law designed to suppress cheap democratic and free-thought literature. JSM on May 25, 1868, presented to the Commons Bradlaugh’s own petition for the repeal of the law, and on June 12 spoke in support of repeal. The case against Bradlaugh was dropped on June 13 but revived the following year. See Letter 1434.

4.

See Letter 1285, n. 2.

5.

At this point Elliot prints the following sentence which is crossed out in the MS draft: “And I hope to stand acquitted, even if not justified in your eyes, and in those of the friends whom you mention.”

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Thatcher’s letter of Sept. 21, also at LSE along with Thatcher’s reply of Oct. 8.

Thatcher has not been identified. He had asked for the names of works by which he might prepare himself for a debate on women’s suffrage.

2.

His wife’s article. See Letter 28.

3.

A reprint, with a new title, of her WR article, “The Ladies’ Petition.” See Letter 1008.

4.

Speech of John Stuart Mill, M.P., on the Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise, Spoken in the House of Commons, May 20th 1867 (London, 1867).

5.

See Letter 313, n. 10.

6.

First published in 1865.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Morning Star, Oct. 29, 1868, p. 2, along with Burton’s reply.

Burton, whose address was 8, St. George’s Square, Belgrave Road, S.W., has not been identified.

2.

See Letter 1283.

1.

MS draft at Yale.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Bouverie’s letter of Sept. 26 to which this is a reply. The Times, Oct. 16, 1868, p. 10, printed Bouverie’s letter of Sept. 26, JSM’s of Oct. 4, and Bouverie’s rejoinder of Oct. 13. JSM’s further reply of Oct. 19 (Letter 1306) also was published in The Times, Oct. 22, 1868, p. 3.

1.

MS at Harvard. Envelope addressed: Angleterre / Charles Eliot Norton Esq / Keston Rectory / near Bromley / Kent. Postmark: AVIGNON / 5 / OCT / 68. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (1916-17), 21-22.

2.

Letter 1292.

3.

See ibid., n. 7.

4.

Norton had been co-editor, with James Russell Lowell, from Oct., 1863, to July, 1868.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. This letter was written at the request of Edwin Chadwick; see his letter of Sept. 30, 1868, MS at Johns Hopkins.

2.

E. S. Beesly’s letter to McDonald of Sept. 7, 1868, was printed in the Kilmarnock Standard, Sept. 12.

3.

Report of the Poor Law Commissioners to the Secretary of State, on an inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain. Parl. Papers, 1842, XXVI, 1 (House of Lords).

4.

Chadwick had made these points in his letter of Sept. 30 to JSM.

5.

McDonald eventually retired from the contest and endorsed Chadwick. See Kilmarnock Advertiser, Nov. 14, 1868.

6.

William Newton (1822-1876), of working-class origin, a leader in the establishment of the Amalgamated Engineers Society in 1851; proprietor of a local newspaper; member, Metropolitan Board of Works, 1862-76; both Beales and Newton were subsequently defeated in the contest for the Tower Hamlets.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Marked for publication as by Helen Taylor. In reply to Callerall’s of Oct. 2, MS also at Johns Hopkins, inquiring whether the letter of Aug. 28, 1868, to Austin Holyoake (Letter 1283) was really JSM’s and whether he did subscribe to Bradlaugh’s campaign.

Callerall in his letter gave his address as 69 Stanley St., Pimlico, London, and identified himself as “a Working Man, an Elector, and the representative of a considerable section of the Working Class in the District.”

1.

MS at UCL; MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Chadwick’s of Sept. 30 and Oct. 4, MSS at Johns Hopkins. Last paragraph published in Elliot, II, 127-28. Bears note in JSM’s hand: “Chiefly by H. T[aylor].”

2.

See Letter 1301.

3.

George Potter (1832-1893), a carpenter by trade, became a leader in the opposition within the Trade Union movement to the ruling group, sometimes known as the Junta. Potter was editor of the Beehive, the weekly organ of the Trade Union movement, and president of the Working Men’s Association.

4.

Letter 1299.

5.

See Letter 1270, n. 3.

6.

See Letters 1242 and 1243.

7.

See Letters 1283, 1285, and 1293.

8.

In 1865.

9.

In the 1865 election John Roebuck had won in spite of antagonizing many of his supporters by his attacks on Gladstone, his support of the Conservatives’ Reform Bill, his attitude toward Trade Unions, and his opposition to the temperance movement. In 1868, however, he lost the seat he had held for nearly twenty years.

1.

MS draft fragment at Yale.

2.

Grosvenor Hodgkinson (1818-1881), Liberal MP for Newark, 1859-74.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1299, n. 1.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Envelope marked in JSM’s hand: For publication as chiefly Helen’s. Published in Elliot, II, 128-33, and in various newspapers at the time, e.g., The Times, Oct. 22, 1868, p. 3. In reply to Bouverie’s of Oct. 13, MS also at Johns Hopkins, published in The Times, Oct. 16, 1868, p. 10. Bouverie’s rejoinder of Oct. 23 to the present letter appeared in The Times, Oct. 24, p. 3. The Times published leaders on the correspondence on Oct. 16 and 22.

2.

“You will pardon me . . . for declining your invitation to ‘give way’ for the purpose of obtaining the return of Mr. Chadwick, as unconstitutional, unwise, and not likely to be attended with success; and if you will permit me a word of advice in return I would say that the best hope of our common political adversaries lies in the Liberal constituencies being exposed to a contest among Liberals, and that those who aspire to play leading parts among us would do well not to exaggerate this evil.”

3.

On March 5; see Letter 1270, n. 3.

4.

See ibid., n. 2.

5.

Disraeli.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Daily Telegraph, Oct. 28, 1868, p. 3.

Walther, an architect, was a member of the London committee acting for George Howell, the second Liberal candidate for the borough and hundred of Aylesbury. In the final poll Howell received only 942 votes to 1,772 for Nathaniel M. de Rothschild, Liberal, and 1,468 for Samuel George Smith, Conservative.

1.

MS at LSE, as is also a MS copy of Cairnes’s reply of Nov. 9.

2.

The long controversy over the Irish Church was finally resolved in 1869 with the adoption of the Gladstone-sponsored measures for the disestablishment of the Church.

3.

By the Irish Church Act of 1869 the annual grants to the Catholic College at Maynooth were terminated. See also Letter 1248, n. 7.

4.

Leonard Courtney’s candidacy did not survive to the final poll.

5.

See Letters 1285, 1303, and 1311.

6.

William Coningham, MP for Brighton, 1857-64, failed badly in his effort to unseat Fawcett.

7.

This was a paper read by James MacDonnell, barrister-at-law, in Dublin on May 26, 1868, at a meeting of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, on “Marriage Settlements; their Social and Economic Effects”; published in the Journal of the Society, V, Part XXV (July, 1868), 31-40.

8.

Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican candidate, was elected President in Nov.

9.

Letter 1292.

1.

MS and MS copy at UCL. In reply to De Morgan’s of Sept. 20, 1868 (MS not located), published in De Morgan Memoir, pp. 382-84.

Noting JSM’s presence at Avignon, De Morgan had inquired whether any information was available about three priests who had published there in 1770 a reprint of William Gardiner’s Tables of Logarithms, for all numbers, from 1 to 102,100, first published in London in 1742.

2.

Le Père Jean Baptiste Blanchard, S.J. (1720-1788), professor of philosophy at Aix, 1750-51; professor of mathematics at Toulon until the suppression of the Jesuit order in 1773.

3.

Le Père Jean Dumas, S.J. (1696-1770).

4.

Esprit de Pézenas, S.J. (1692-1776), professor of hydrography at Marseilles; erected the observatory at Avignon, of which he became the director. He published the first translation of Gardiner in 1742, and was a co-editor with Blanchard and Dumas of the Avignon edition of 1770.

5.

Not identified.

6.

JSM was apparently misinformed as to the name. The work referred to was presumably Pézenas’s translation, Traité des fluxions, Par M. Colin Maclaurin, Professeur de Mathématique dans l’Université d’Edimbourg (Paris, 1749).

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Friend’s letter of Oct. 26, to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 134-36. Envelope bears note in JSM’s hand: Nearly all by H. T. / For publication as Helen’s. / J. S. Mill.

Identified only as a clerk in the India office, son of George Friend (whom JSM had known) in the Accountant General’s department. In his letter Charles Friend expressed concern over the education of his three children.

2.

In his Autobiog., chap. i, JSM mentions his father’s having borrowed Maria Edgeworth’s Popular Tales (1812) for him to read.

3.

Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton (3 vols., London, 1783-89, and many subsequent editions).

4.

Harriet Martineau, Household Education (London, 1849).

5.

Schools founded initially by JSM’s early friend William Ellis and named in honour of Dr. George Birkbeck, pioneer in adult education for working men (see Letter 866, n. 3). The first such school opened in 1848, and Ellis founded five more at his own expense in 1852. At one point there were seven in London, and others in the provinces.

6.

Founded in 1854 by F. D. Maurice, F. J. Furnivall, Thomas Hughes, and others.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

A Rev. Robert Thomson had entered the contest for Kilmarnock.

3.

Alexander McDonald (see Letter 1286, n. 2).

4.

Letter 1301, n. 1.

5.

Letter 1299, n. 1.

6.

See Letter 1306, n. 1. A Times leader, Oct. 21, p. 9, had derided JSM’s efforts on behalf of Chadwick.

7.

Daily News, Oct. 21, p. 4, and Oct. 23, 1868, p. 4.

8.

The Glasgow paper has not been located. Disraeli in his first campaign in 1832 for Wycombe ran as a Radical and had letters of recommendation from Daniel O’Connell and Joseph Hume. The latter, however, withdrew his endorsement when he learned that Disraeli was running for Wycombe and not, as Hume had thought, for Wendover.

9.

George Gill. His letters to JSM about securing Chadwick as a candidate for the western division of Cornwall are in the Chadwick collection at UCL. See Letter 1315.

10.

Blanc’s letter of Oct. 21, Le Temps, Oct. 29, 1868, pp. 1-2. It was translated and published in the Kilmarnock Advertiser on Nov. 14. See Letter 1328.

11.

JSM and his fellow candidate Captain Grosvenor spoke at the meeting on Nov. 2 at the Regent Music Hall, Vauxhall Bridge Road.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In answer to Miss May’s letter to Helen Taylor of Oct. 21, also at LSE. The letter is in JSM’s hand; the list in Helen Taylor’s.

1.

MS at LSE. Written on the verso of a letter of Frances P. Cobbe.

2.

Miss Cobbe wrote that by mistake her name had been entered on the voting register of Chelsea: “My name was no doubt mistaken for Francis.” She asked for JSM’s advice on whether she should take advantage of the mistake and try to vote in the coming election.

3.

The Ashford ladies have not been identified.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Bird’s letter of Oct. 29, also at LSE.

Bird has not been identified.

2.

See Letter 28.

3.

See Letters 1008 and 1084, n. 9.

4.

See Letter 1084, n. 10.

5.

Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Plea of the Unrepresented Commons for Restitution of Franchise. An historic enquiry (London, 1866).

6.

On Some Supposed Constitutional Restraints upon the Parliamentary Franchise (London, 1867).

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1311, n. 9.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Edwards’s undated letter, also at Johns Hopkins. Published in Daily News, Nov. 11, 1868, p. 6, in Falmouth and Penryn Weekly Times, Nov. 14, 1868, p. [2]; and in Elliot, II, 136-37.

Edwards has not been identified.

2.

Of the electors of the parish of St. Anne’s, Westminster, at Caldwell’s Assembly Rooms, Dean St., Soho.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Fletcher’s letter of Nov. 4 (also at Johns Hopkins) from Northampton, inquiring why JSM was supporting the candidacy of Charles Bradlaugh for that borough when the two incumbent members were faithful Liberals. Published in Elliot, II, 138-39.

Fletcher has not been identified.

2.

See Letters 1285 and 1293.

3.

Bradlaugh offered to submit to a test ballot of Liberal electors, but none was held.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Marshall’s letter of Nov. 4 to which this is a reply, and a rejoinder of Nov. 10. Published in Elliot, II, 137-38.

Richard Marshall, a builder and house agent, residing at 1 Denbigh Place, St. George’s Road, Pimlico.

2.

See Letter 834.

3.

See Letter 1283.

4.

Especially in chap. ii, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.”

5.

Matt. 7:16.

6.

In June, 1868, “at a public meeting of about four thousand persons held in Market Square, a vote was taken as to Mr. Bradlaugh’s candidature, and only one hand was lifted against it” (H. P. Bonner, Charles Bradlaugh [2 vols., London, 1894], I, 266).

7.

He was a vice-president of the Reform League throughout its existence. He resigned as a member of its Executive Council in May, 1867, but was re-elected in Dec., 1868.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

2.

The Daily News of Nov. 5, 1868, p. 2, carried a report of the meeting in Caldwell’s Rooms, Dean St., Soho, on the preceding evening.

1.

MS not located. Published in The Times, Nov. 10, 1868, p. 4, and in Falmouth and Penryn Weekly Times, Nov. 14, 1868. In reply to Burns’s letter of Nov. 6, published ibid.

2.

Whether the people in any parish or township should have the right by a two-thirds majority to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors. Asked, Nov. 2, 1868, at an electioneering meeting of JSM and Robert Wellesley Grosvenor, the liberal candidates for Westminster, JSM expressed agreement with Grosvenor’s answer that 999 people could not have his assistance in preventing one person from doing what he had a right to do. See the Daily Telegraph, Nov. 3, 1868, p. 2.

3.

Permissive Prohibiting Liquor Bill, later introduced by Sir Wilfrid Lawson (1829-1906), MP for Carlisle, on Feb. 22, 1869. Like a similar bill, Intoxicating Liquors Bill, which Lawson had introduced March 10, 1864, the Permissive Bill would have granted owners and occupiers of property within certain districts the local option of prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors. The bill was introduced many times by Lawson and as often defeated.

4.

In his letter of Nov. 4, Burns complained: “I am sorry that, unlike Captain Grosvenor and Mr. Smith [W. H. Smith, the Tory candidate], you have not consented to receive a deputation of your constituents on this subject.”

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letters 1311 and 1315.

3.

See Letter 1311.

4.

At a meeting in the Pimlico Rooms, reported in the Daily Telegraph, Nov. 7, 1868, p. 5.

5.

Daily Telegraph, Nov. 3, 1868, p. 2.

6.

William Sims Pratten.

1.

MS at Johns Hopkins. Undated letter, obviously to Helen Taylor, but in no way identified in the Hopkins file.

2.

JSM had returned to England early in November, leaving Helen in Avignon. The note from Miss Shirreff referred to in the first sentence is probably that of Nov. 6, 1868 (MS at LSE).

3.

Emily Shirreff (1814-1897), educator, author, one of the sponsors of the founding of Girton College (1869) for women. As a close friend of H. T. Buckle since 1854, she had been asked by JSM and Helen Taylor to contribute a biography of Buckle to the projected edition of his literary remains. In 1869 Miss Shirreff, largely because her research had revealed immoral behaviour by Buckle, asked to be relieved of the task, though she eventually did contribute a biographical sketch. For an account of her correspondence on the matter with Helen Taylor (MSS at LSE), see Giles St. Aubyn, A Victorian Eminence, pp. 103-12.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letters 776 and 781.

3.

Letter 1308.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In reply to Bates’s letter of Nov. 6, also at LSE. Both Bates’s and JSM’s letters were published in The Times, Nov. 11, 1868, p. 5, and Daily News, same day, p. 6.

Frederick Bates, a volunteer canvasser and committeeman (St. Anne’s District), by trade a brassfounder, residing at 20 Litchfield St., W.C.

2.

See Letter 834, n. 5.

3.

See Letter 1318, n. 6 and n. 7.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letters 1311, 1315, and 1321.

1.

MS draft at LSE.

2.

Cremer was defeated for Warwick, receiving only 260 votes.

3.

George Odger.

4.

There were two Tory candidates for Chelsea: Charles (later Sir Charles) James Freake (1814-1884), a wealthy contractor who had built Cromwell Road; and William (later Sir William) Howard Russell (1820-1907), war correspondent for The Times, founder of the Army and Navy Gazette.

5.

Edward Greaves (1803-1879), MP for Warwick, 1852-65, and re-elected, 1868.

1.

MS at Harvard. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L(1916-17), 22.

2.

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) had recently been elected President of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885), Vice-President.

3.

Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler, a Democrat but elected to Congress as a Republican, and identified with the radical element among the Republicans in Washington.

1.

MS at Bibliothèque Nationale.

2.

The vote on Nov. 17 had been: Smith, 7648; Grosvenor, 6584; and JSM, 6284.

3.

“The Bouverie-Mill Controversy from a French Point of View,” Kilmarnock Advertiser, Nov. 14, 1868.

The article opened with a tribute to JSM: “If there is one man in England today who is entitled to the respect even of his most declared enemies, it is certainly Mr John Stuart Mill. What a multitude of reasons has England to be proud of him! She does not possess a greater philosopher, economist, and moralist; or any man in whom the courage of the citizen is united in a higher degree to the calmness of the thinker. Nor can she offer to the world the example of a more thoroughly honest man. Such, however, is the blind rage of party spirit that Mr John Stuart Mill is at this moment the object of all sorts of venomous attacks and of cruel and indecent raillery; and that to such an extent that, stranger as I am in England, I blush for her. And what crime has brought upon him this storm of reproaches? Mr Mill, convinced that nobody would be better able than Mr Chadwick to plead with strength and elevation in Parliament, the cause of the people, has written to the electors of Kilmarnock and recommended them to elect him. Is not this a very black crime?”

4.

See Letter 1330.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 139. In reply to Bradlaugh’s of the same date, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

At Northampton the incumbent Liberals, Gilpin and Lord Henley, had been returned. The vote on Nov. 17 was as follows: Gilpin, 2632; Lord Henley, 2105; Mereweather, 1625; Lendrick, 1378; Bradlaugh, 1086; Dr. Lees, 485.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

On Nov. 17.

3.

The vote had been: Bouverie, 2892; Chadwick, 1148; Rev. R. Thomson, 999.

4.

William Brewer, physician, chairman of the Metropolitan Asylums Board; elected for Colchester.

5.

Henry Davis Pochin (1824-1895), Salford business man; mayor of Salford, 1866-68; elected for Stafford.

6.

Charles Wentworth Dilke (see Letter 1391). Dilke had been returned for Chelsea by a margin of nearly two to one. JSM, at this time unacquainted with Dilke, was probably unsure of his value as a “new man.”

7.

Gladstone had been elected for Greenwich, but was still a candidate for re-election to his seat for Lancashire, Southwest. That election was not to be held until Nov. 24. It was widely understood that if successful in Lancashire, Gladstone would decline the Greenwich seat, thereby creating a vacancy. In the event, Gladstone lost in Lancashire on Nov. 24 and therefore accepted election for Greenwich.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letters 635 and 751.

3.

James Beal.

4.

William T. Malleson, secretary of JSM’s election committee. An investigation was being made of possible corruption in the extravagantly expensive campaign by JSM’s successful opponent, W. H. Smith. Beal’s petition against the return of Smith was heard before Mr. Baron Martin at the Sessions House, Westminster, on Feb. 12 and 15, 1869. Fitzjames Stephen was the chief counsel for the petitioners. At the final session on Feb. 19 Smith was declared elected.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1330, n. 7.

3.

See Letter 993.

4.

Sir William John Codrington (1804-1884), general and politician. He had been elected for Greenwich in 1857 but had subsequently become Governor of Gibraltar.

5.

James Soames, soap manufacturer of East Greenwich.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

See Letter 1250.

3.

See Letter 1322, n. 3.

4.

Mrs. Mary Allatt, sister of H. T. Buckle, and the wife of Dr. C. J. R. Allatt, who practised in Boulogne, France.

5.

See Letter 1250.

6.

See Letter 1027.

1.

MS at UCL.

2.

See Letter 1330.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Mrs. Chadwick’s letter of Oct. 18 (MS also at Johns Hopkins, as is also her rejoinder of Nov. 30) protesting bitterly JSM’s encouraging her husband to run for Parliament.

Mrs. Chadwick (née Rachel Dawson Kennedy) had been Chadwick’s wife since 1839.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Mrs. Lambert’s letter of Nov. 20 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 139-40. In JSM’s hand but attributed by Elliot to Helen Taylor.

Mrs. Lambert, who wrote from Tunbridge Wells, has not been identified.

2.

See Letter 1329, n. 3.

1.

MS at Harvard. Published in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, L (1916-17), 22-23.

2.

See Letters 1330 and 1346.

1.

MS in 1944 in the possession of the Hon. Isaac Foot. In reply to Amberley’s of Nov. 18 (MS at Yale) on JSM’s defeat.

2.

Amberley had been defeated for Devonshire, Southern Division, by Sir Massey Lopes and Samuel T. Kekewich.

3.

“It is true that Lord Amberley is not . . . a powerful candidate. He has contrived, moreover, to shock many of the constituents he sought to win by the strangeness of his opinions, and he could not overcome this prejudice by force of character.” The Times, Nov. 28, 1868, p. 9.

4.

A leader in the Daily News, Nov. 28, 1868, p. 4.

5.

Amberley in his letter of Nov. 18 had written: “I wish I had a seat for a Liberal borough, & constituents willing to accept you as a member, as I should have been proud to resign in your favour. Unfortunately the Tories are very strong here, & if I can succeed in beating them at all it will still be a very close contest. . . . Indeed it will be a wonderful thing if a Liberal can be brought in at all for S. Devon, the territorial influence being nearly all against us, & likely as you may guess to be unsparingly used.”

6.

W. H. Smith, JSM’s victorious opponent, continued to hold the seat for Westminster until his death in 1891.

1.

MS not located. Published in the Morning Star, Dec. 19, 1868, and the first two paragraphs (with slight variations) in footnote, p. 981, Alphonse Esquiros, “Les Elections de 1868 en Angleterre,” Revue des Deux Mondes, LXXVIII (Dec. 15, 1868), 957-89.

Henri François Alphonse Esquiros (ca. 1812-1876), writer and liberal politician. Exiled in 1851 for his opposition to the Empire, he lived in England until 1869. Among his more important books was L’Angleterre et la vie anglaise (5 vols., Paris, 1859-69).

2.

Probably a reference to Morley’s prediction: “The election of 1868 at this moment promises to be the most corrupt and dishonourable in our annals, and to give us for rulers some of the richest and stupidest men that ever entered the Chamber. The British Empire is going to be handed over to the tender mercies of iron-masters, brewers, bankers, landlords, and ship-owners.” (“The Political Prelude,” FR, n.s. IV [July 1, 1868], p. 111). See also two other articles by Morley on the 1868 elections: “Old Parties and New Policy,” FR, IV (Sept. 1, 1868) pp. 320-36; and “The Chamber of Mediocrity,” FR, IV (Dec. 1, 1868), pp. 681-94.

1.

MS not located. Excerpt in John Morley, “The Death of Mr. Mill,” FR, n.s. XIII (June 1, 1873), 671. The portion in brackets is Morley’s introduction to the excerpt, with editorial additions.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 142-47. In reply to Acland’s of Nov. 25, MS also at Johns Hopkins. The envelope containing both bears note: “The letter partly by H.T. / For publication / as nearly all Helen’s. J. S. Mill.”

2.

Sir Lopes Massey Lopes (1818-1908), politician and agriculturist; MP for Westbury, 1857-68, and for South Devonshire, 1868-85; supporter of the agricultural interest.

3.

Deploring the injustice of imposing taxation for national objects on real property only, Lopes on May 12, 1868, had moved to lower local taxes on real estate. JSM’s speech in opposition to the motion may be found in Hansard, CXCII, cols. 151-54.

4.

Acland had written: “I suppose your generosity to Bradlaugh alienated many of your friends.”

5.

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” I Cor. 12:4.

6.

Adherents of the Anglo-Catholic party in the Church of England.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus.; MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 147-48.

2.

JSM’s edition of his father’s Analysis of the Human Mind, I, chap. viii, 271-87, n. 79.

3.

Grote’s letter of Dec. 11 accompanying his note is printed in part in Harriet Grote, The Personal Life of George Grote, pp. 295-96.

4.

In 1866 and 1867 JSM had been an active member of a Select Committee headed by A. S. Ayrton “to inquire into the Local Government and Local Taxation of the Metropolis.” Though the Committee brought in reports and proposals favouring municipal government, no progress was made. On May 5, 1868, JSM had introduced two bills, one providing for the establishment of Municipal Corporations in the Metropolis, and the other for the creation of a Corporation of London. He contended that with one exception “the local government of the Metropolis was a parish government,” and that government “by means of vestries had endured long enough” (Hansard, CXCI, cols. 1859-63). Not until 1870, however, was substantial progress achieved.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elliot, II, 141-42. Elliot labels it as by Helen Taylor.

Rev. S. Alfred Steinthal (1826-1910), Unitarian minister, then at Platt Chapel, Manchester; later co-pastor with William Gaskell, husband of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester. Steinthal was active in such causes as co-operation and Negro emancipation, and had been one of seven members (including Max Kyllmann and Jacob Bright) of a provisional Manchester suffrage committee (the first of its kind in the United Kingdom); he was later an officer of the Manchester National Society for Woman Suffrage.

2.

John Bright had voted for JSM’s amendment to the Representation of the People Bill in favour of women’s suffrage on May 20, 1867, but had later wavered in his support.

1.

MS at Melbourne.

1.

MS draft and MS copy at Northwestern. Part of second paragraph published in Duncan, I, 200-201. In reply to Spencer’s of Nov. 19, MS at Northwestern.

2.

Edward Livingston Youmans (1821-1887), American scientist, chemist, M.D., and propagandist for science. Closely associated with the publishing firm of D. Appleton and Co., Youmans had been responsible for the American publication of Spencer’s writings. In the fall of 1868 Youmans had travelled to England to secure contributions for a new periodical he was to edit, Appleton’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, which first appeared on April 3, 1869. In the first volume Youmans published an abstract of the opening argument of JSM’s Subjection of Women, June 19, 1869, pp. 372-74, and also an article, “Mill on the Woman Question,” July 24, 1869, pp. 536-37.

3.

The proposed simultaneous publication arrangement by the Appleton firm did not materialize. Appleton published an edition of the Pol. Econ. in 1870, based on the 5th (1862) English edition, and an edition of the Subjection of Women in 1870, following one in 1869 by Lippincott of Philadelphia.

4.

The 2nd ed., 1867.

5.

Vol. II had been published in 1867.

6.

See Letter 1150, n. 6.

1.

MS at LSE. In reply to Cairnes’s of Nov. 9, MS copy also at LSE.

2.

Cairnes had written: “The Irish Church is indeed becoming a weariness and heart sore, and it will be a mercy when it is dead and buried out of sight.”

3.

Cairnes: “The rancour of the clergy and their adherents is only what one might have expected, but I was when in Ireland a good deal surprised to find great lukewarmness on the subject on the part of such priests as I came in contact with. . . . The truth is I believe they all begin to feel that they are parting with a valuable grievance which has not been exploité yet to the extent of its capabilities; and I think something like resentment is felt towards the liberals who have unexpectedly taken them at their word.”

4.

Cairnes had noted that all the Irish Liberal candidates had “declared for denominational education, or, what in their mouths means the same thing, ‘freedom of education.’ The simple truth is that the priests make this a test question; the masses are indifferent, and therefore obey the priests. Nevertheless, I believe that sounder views are growing amongst the educated Catholic laity; and I am in hopes that the settlement of the Church question may do something to bring these better views into prominence. For this reason as well as for that you mention [‘the growing feeling against Denominationalism’ (Letter 1308)], everything is to be gained by delay: in fact it constitutes our only hope of a sound settlement.”

5.

See Letter 1308, n. 7.

6.

Page torn.

1.

MS draft at LSE. In JSM’s hand except for last paragraph, which is in Helen Taylor’s. In reply to letters by Mrs. Kyllmann of Nov. 20, and Dec. 2, 1868, also at LSE.

Mrs. Kyllmann had claimed a vote as a freeholder and had appealed the case. On Oct. 31 Mill sent £30 and Helen Taylor £20 to Mrs. Kyllmann to be applied to the expenses of the Freeholder’s appeal. They sent also £10 towards the expenses of the occupier’s case.

2.

Her husband, Max Kyllmann, who had died in 1867.

3.

See next Letter.

1.

MS draft at LSE, in Helen Taylor’s hand. Written on verso of preceding letter of Dec. 4, signed Helen Taylor. This was presumably intended as an official notice to Mrs. Kyllmann as Treasurerto present to the Committee.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 150. In reply to Candlish’s of Nov. 27, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

John Candlish (1815-1874), shipbuilder, landowner, and bottle manufacturer; founder of the Sunderland News; MP for Sunderland, 1866-74.

1.

MS at LSE. Published in Ray Strachey,Millicent Garrett Fawcett (London, 1931), p. 38.

2.

Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare (1824-1894), MP for Chelsea, 1868-74.

3.

See Letter 1264, n. 2.

1.

MS at LSE, as is also a letter of May 25, 1873, to Helen Taylor which enclosed this letter for her possible use.

Mackson has been identified only as a cashier residing at 57 Cliff Road, Leeds.

2.

See Letters 1150 and 1153.

3.

The History of British India, by James Mill. Fourth edition with Notes and Continuation by Horace Hayman Wilson (9 vols., London, 1840-48).

4.

William H. Allen and Co., publishers of Allen’s Indian Mail and Official Gazette.

5.

James Madden, 3 Leadenhall St., bookseller who specialized in oriental books.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 151-53. In reply to letter of Nov. 27 from R. C. Madge, the Secretary of the Committee of the Chelsea Working Men’s Parliamentary Electoral Association, MS also at Johns Hopkins.

2.

W. E. Gladstone

1.

MS at University of Buffalo. Published, except for last paragraph, in Elliot, II, 149-50.

Archibald (later Sir Archibald) Michie (1813-1899), London-born Australian jurist and politician.

2.

Presumably the article by an unidentified writer on “Democratic Government in Victoria,” WR, n.s. XXXIII (April, 1868), 480-523. JSM’s relation to the Australian controversy over Protection is discussed on pp. 514-15. For earlier discussion of the Protection issue in Australia, see Letters 811 and 1266.

3.

Letter torn.

1.

MS in the possession of Prof. Joseph Hamburger of Yale University. MS is accompanied by an envelope addressed in JSM’s hand to A. T. Teetgen Esq / Augustus Villa / Richmond Road / Hackney, N.E., and bearing in another hand a note: J. S. Mill “Palingenesia” / Friday 13 Nov. 1868; Postmark: LONDON S.E. / NO 13 / 68.

Teetgen has not been identified.

2.

Palingenesia; or the Modern Apostate (London, 1868).

3.

“Four Singers,” London Rev., XVII (Nov. 7, 1868), 528-29. “Mr. A. T. Teetgen, burning to be the laureate of Rationalism, has . . . produced only a hideous jumble of bad rhymes, commonplace thoughts, and pretentious philosophy.”

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

Presumably D. Appleton and Co., with which Youmans was associated (see Letter 1345).

1.

MS draft at Yale.

2.

See preceding Letter.

1.

MS draft (incomplete) at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Beggs’s of Nov. 19, MS also at Johns Hopkins. Envelope containing the letters is marked in JSM’s hand: “For publication / as Helen’s.” All but last incomplete sentence published in Elliot, II, 155-57.

2.

For Beggs’s published letter on JSM’s defeat for Westminster, see Letter 1293, n. 1.

3.

An inaccurate quotation from Ps. 37:1: “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.”

4.

The draft ends here.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 154-55.

Edward William Stafford (1819-1901), at this time colonial secretary of New Zealand, later prime minister.

2.

Letter 1266.

3.

It was published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 16, 1868, p. 5.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to her letter of Dec. 1, also at Johns Hopkins, as President of, and on behalf of, the Edinburgh Branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage. The letter expressed regret for JSM’s defeat at Westminster. Published in Elliot, II, 157-58, and in The Times, Dec. 23, 1868, p. 9, along with her letter of Dec. 1. Elliot identifies as by Helen Taylor.

Mrs. Priscilla McLaren (1814-1906), sister of John and Jacob Bright, wife of Duncan McLaren; an organizer and president of the recently formed Edinburgh Branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

2.

He had presented a petition to the House of Commons on June 7, 1866, and on July 17 had offered an amendment to the Reform Bill. His most extensive speech on the subject in Parliament was delivered on May 20, 1867.

3.

See Letter 1254.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as are also Hayward’s letters of Nov. 12 and Dec. 4 and his rejoinder of Dec. 19 to this letter. Published in Elliot, II, 158-59. The draft is in JSM’s hand, but the envelope in which it is contained bears note: “reply by H. T.”

Probably of the firm of John Hayward and Co., Woollen Drapers of St. Martin’s Lane. He had written to protest JSM’s support of Bradlaugh.

2.

See Autobiog., chap. vii, and Letter 1216, n. 4.

3.

On the presumption that W. H. Smith, the successful Tory candidate, would vote against disestablishment of the Irish Church, as he eventually did on May 31, 1869.

1.

MS draft at Yale. In reply to Beal’s of Dec. 9, also at Yale. Envelope in which the two letters were filed bears note in JSM’s hand: “For publication as Helen’s.” Largely in JSM’s hand, but with emendations and one paragraph in Helen Taylor’s hand. See Letter 1495. Published in Elliot, II, 159-63, and, except first and last paragraphs, in the Morning Star, Dec. 23, 1868, p. 6.

Beal in his letter of Dec. 9 reported that at a meeting of vestrymen that day he had appointed a committee to prepare a memorial to the Home Office on improvements in the management of the London police force, and on the punishment of offences. He requested JSM’s advice.

2.

Sir Walter Frederick Crofton (1815-1897), soldier and prison administrator; chairman of the directors of convict prisons in Ireland, 1854-62; privy councillor of Ireland, 1868; chairman of the Prisons Board in Ireland, 1877-78; author of various works on the convict question.

3.

Edwin Hill (1793-1876), inventor and author, between 1870 and 1872 published pamphlets entitled Criminal Capitalists attacking landlords who harboured criminals or rented shops for stolen goods. Hill had attended the meeting of vestrymen that led to Beal’s letter.

4.

The Haymarket for years had been the centre of much of the most dissolute night life of London.

5.

Beal in his letter had reported that he had filed petitions against W. H. Smith’s return on charges of corruption and that he was about to deposit the £1000 required to try the action. See Letter 1331.

1.

MS at Brit. Mus. In reply to Grote’s of Dec. 11, one paragraph of which is published in Harriet Grote, The Personal Life of George Grote (London, 1873), pp. 295-96.

2.

See Letter 1342.

3.

The passage that follows appears in the Preface (I, xv) to the revised edition of the Analysis.

4.

In his review of JSM’s Hamilton, WR, n.s. XXIX (Jan., 1866), 1-39. See Letter 891, n. 5.

5.

See JSM’s note, Analysis, I, 299-305.

1.

MS not located. Printed in the Revolution, III (Feb. 11, 1869) p. 87, and in Le Temps, Jan. 14, 1869, from La Gazette de l’Académie.

In Oct., 1868, a Russian Princess, Marie Stcherbatov, and twenty other Russian ladies, a number of them of high rank, had issued two public letters, published in French in L’Invalide Russi, on the need of Russian women for higher education. These letters were translated and published by the American journal of the cause of women, the Revolution, II (Dec. 24, 1868), 389-90. JSM may have read them in L’Invalide Russi or copies may have been sent to him.

1.

MS draft at Yale. Published in part in Elliot, II, 163-64. In reply to Youmans’s of Dec. 10, also at Yale.

2.

His father’s Analysis.

3.

Letters 1355 and 1356.

4.

The passage omitted in this draft is in Letter 1356.

1.

MS not located. Published in Elliot, II, 164-66. Identified by Elliot as by Helen Taylor.

2.

Letter 1339.

3.

Malleson in a letter to The Times, Dec. 21, 1868, p. 5, on “The Defeat of Mr. Mill,” commenting on the published letter to Esquiros, remarked that JSM had omitted to mention one of the chief causes of his defeat, “namely, the apparent incapacity, on the part of a large portion of the constituency to admire or even to understand the rigid independence which led him, on the eve of an important election, to act and write precisely as he would have done had he not been a candidate. . . .

“No doubt, reckless expenditure of money on the other side, and the perfect organization which unlimited means make possible, told against us, but all this we were prepared for and meant to beat, as we had beaten it before, by the strength of popular enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the full wind upon which we had counted to fill our sails fell away under the influence of the Bouverie correspondence and the Bradlaugh subscription.”

4.

Malleson had served as honorary secretary to the Grosvenor and Mill Committee.

5.

Letter 1357.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins. In reply to Rathbone’s of Dec. 22, also at Johns Hopkins. Published in Elliot, II, 166-67.

Philip Henry Rathbone (1828-1895), third son of the prominent Liverpool business man, William Rathbone (1787-1868), had just succeeded his father as partner in a firm of insurance brokers.

2.

It had held its meetings at the Liverpool Royal Institution since 1826.

1.

MS at LSE.

2.

The Westminster, of which Chapman was proprietor and editor.

3.

Not located.

4.

See Letters 1045 and 1376.

1.

MS at Yale.

2.

This additional matter cannot now be identified with certainty. All the notes added to the Analysis, however, carry the initials of the respective authors. See Letter 1362.

3.

See ibid.

1.

MS draft at Johns Hopkins, as is also Howell’s letter of Dec. 19 to which this is a reply. Published in Elliot, II, 168, and in The Times, Jan. 4, 1869, p. 7, dated Dec. 30, 1868, with slight variations.

2.

“I wish I had been successful, to have had the honour of placing the seat at your disposal.” JSM had contributed £11 to Howell’s election expenses in contesting Aylesbury.

Liberty Fund, Inc.

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

The Foundation develops, supervises, and finances its own educational activities to foster thought and encourage discourse on enduring intellectual issues pertaining to liberty. This is done through the implementation of different programs:

Each year, Liberty Fund conducts over 150 conferences throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

Liberty Fund has a book publishing program. There is an online catalog where these books can be ordered <http://www.libertyfund.org/books.aspx>.

Liberty Fund has produced a series of videos called The Intellectual Portrait Series which are conversations with some of the most significant contemporary thinkers about individual liberty.

Liberty Fund hosts several websites which contain books, articles, discussion, and podcasts about liberty.

These programs focus on the place individual liberty has in an intellectual heritage evident from ancient times and continuing through our own times. The programs are intended to enrich understanding and appreciation of the complex nature of a society of free and responsible individuals and to contribute to its preservation.

Liberty Fund also sponsors the following websites:

Liberty Fund’s main website <http://www.libertyfund.org>

LF online catalog <http://www.libertyfund.org/books.aspx>

The Online Library of Liberty <http://oll.libertyfund.org/>

The Library of Economics and Liberty <http://www.econlib.org/>

The Library of Law and Liberty <http://www.libertylawsite.org/>

As a tax-exempt, private operating foundation, Liberty Fund’s purposes are educational. It does not, therefore, engage in political action of any kind. It fulfills its mission by conducting programs, not by awarding grants to outside organizations or individuals.

The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and websites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

LIBERTY FUND, INC.
8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300
Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684
U.S.A.
Phone no.: 1.800.955.8335

Liberty Fund’s Collection of ePub Titles on Liberty

The text you are currently reading comes from Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty (OLL) <http://oll.libertyfund.org>. Additional titles in ePub format can be downloaded from the main OLL website from each title’s Table of Contents page or from this list <http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/epub/>. One convenient way to load titles directly into your iPad is to email yourself this link, click on the title of your choice, and open it directly in iBook on your iPad (thus circumventing the need to load titles from your laptop or desktop computer.

ePub and Kindle versions of books published by Liberty Fund are not available for free download. They can be purchased from Amazon.com.

The Online Library of Liberty

The OLL was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc, namely “to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals”. It is a multi-award winning website which makes available at no charge to the public outstanding resources for teaching and learning about the humanities and the social sciences.

Awards

The OLL has won a number of international awards for its outstanding collection of online material in the humanities and social sciences. It has been recognised by

the Library of Congress for its Minerva archiving project

the National Endowment for the Humanities

the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, and

the International Political Science Association.

copyright symbol Copyright and Fair Use Statement

There are four different types of texts which Liberty Fund has made available as part of the Online Library of Liberty website:

public domain texts published before 1923. These texts are no longer under copyright and are in the public domain. We have put them online in order to further the educational aims of Liberty Fund.

texts to which the Liberty Fund has electronic rights, such as the books published by Liberty Fund in both print and online formats

other texts to which Liberty Fund has acquired the electronic rights from third parties, such as the journal Literature of Liberty (from the Institute for Humane Studies)

titles which are put online under license from third parties, such as the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (from the University of Toronto Press).

For titles in the first three categories listed above, no special permission from Liberty Fund is required for quoting material in papers and essays, or for limited photocopying and distribution for academic or other educational or non-profit purposes. The only requirements are that you include proper attribution on the first page of the document being distributed - e.g. for John Locke’s The Two Treatises of Government you would say one of the following:

if using the OLL website - “This material originally appeared on the Online Library of Liberty hosted by Liberty Fund, Inc. URL: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/222 and accessed on 2016-04-26.” This information can be found in the section called “Edition used” on the title’s table of contents page.

or if using the ePub version on a portable reading device: “This material is part of the collection of ePub titles in the Online Library of Liberty website hosted by Liberty Fund, Inc. Source Text URL http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/222 accessed on 2016-04-26.” This information can be found on the “Introduction to the Book” page in this file.

For titles in category two and three, any reprint of material “for profit”, such as a chapter or a substantial section of an online book for inclusion in a book or other publication for sale, requires written permission from Liberty Fund.

For titles in the fourth category you must follow the specific requirements of the copyright holder whose work we publish online under license. This information can be found in the “Introduction to the Book” page under the section “Copyright Information.” In the case of the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill published under license from the University of Toronto Press, for reprint or copying permission you need to contact UTP directly. Under our contractual obligations with UTP we have placed the following declaration on the front page of every book and section of the online version of the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill:

The online edition of the Collected Works is published under licence from the copyright holder, The University of Toronto Press. ©2006 The University of Toronto Press. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or medium without the permission of The University of Toronto Press.

Thus, for reprint or copying permission you need to contact UTP directly. Liberty Fund cannot grant you this permission because it is not the copyright holder.