Autobiography, John Stuart Mill [best fiction books of all time txt] 📗

of a person of feeling

obtains a credit for desert, which he thought only due to actions, he

had a real impatience of attributing praise to feeling, or of any but

the most sparing reference to it, either in the estimation of persons or

in the discussion of things. In addition to the influence which this

characteristic in him had on me and others, we found all the opinions to

which we attached most importance, constantly attacked on the ground of

feeling. Utility was denounced as cold calculation; political economy as

hard-hearted; anti-population doctrines as repulsive to the natural

feelings of mankind. We retorted by the word "sentimentality," which,

along with "declamation" and "vague generalities," served us as common

terms of opprobrium. Although we were generally in the right, as against

those who were opposed to us, the effect was that the cultivation of

feeling (except the feelings of public and private duty) was not in much

esteem among us, and had very little place in the thoughts of most of

us, myself in particular. What we principally thought of, was to alter

people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know

what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we

thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one

another. While fully recognising the superior excellence of unselfish

benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of

mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect

of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings. Although this

last is prodigiously important as a means of improvement in the hands of

those who are themselves impelled by nobler principles of action, I do

not believe that any one of the survivors of the Benthamites or

Utilitarians of that day now relies mainly upon it for the general

amendment of human conduct.

 

From this neglect both in theory and in practice of the cultivation of

feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing of

poetry, and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature. It

is, or was, part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are

enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham himself; he used to

say that "all poetry is misrepresentation": but in the sense in which he

said it, the same might have been said of all impressive speech; of all

representation or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a

sum in arithmetic. An article of Bingham's in the first number of the

_Westminster Review_, in which he offered as an explanation of something

which he disliked in Moore, that "Mr. Moore _is_ a poet, and therefore

is _not_ a reasoner," did a good deal to attach the notion of hating

poetry to the writers in the _Review_. But the truth was that many of us

were great readers of poetry; Bingham himself had been a writer of it,

while as regards me (and the same thing might be said of my father), the

correct statement would be, not that I disliked poetry, but that I was

theoretically indifferent to it. I disliked any sentiments in poetry

which I should have disliked in prose; and that included a great deal.

And I was wholly blind to its place in human culture, as a means of

educating the feelings. But I was always personally very susceptible to

some kinds of it. In the most sectarian period of my Benthamism, I

happened to look into Pope's _Essay on Man_, and, though every opinion

in it was contrary to mine, I well remember how powerfully it acted on

my imagination. Perhaps at that time poetical composition of any higher

type than eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a

similar effect upon me: at all events I seldom gave it an opportunity.

This, however, was a mere passive state. Long before I had enlarged in

any considerable degree the basis of my intellectual creed, I had

obtained, in the natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of

the most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for the lives

and characters of heroic persons; especially the heroes of philosophy.

The same inspiring effect which so many of the benefactors of mankind

have left on record that they had experienced from Plutarch's _Lives_,

was produced on me by Plato's pictures of Socrates, and by some modern

biographies, above all by Condorcet's _Life of Turgot_; a book well

calculated to rouse the best sort of enthusiasm, since it contains one

of the wisest and noblest of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and

noblest of men. The heroic virtue of these glorious representatives of

the opinions with which I sympathized, deeply affected me, and I

perpetually recurred to them as others do to a favourite poet, when

needing to be carried up into the more elevated regions of feeling and

thought. I may observe by the way that this book cured me of my

sectarian follies. The two or three pages beginning "Il regardait toute

secte comme nuisible," and explaining why Turgot always kept himself

perfectly distinct from the Encyclopedists, sank deeply into my mind.

I left off designating myself and others as Utilitarians, and by the

pronoun "we," or any other collective designation, I ceased to

_afficher_ sectarianism. My real inward sectarianism I did not get rid

of till later, and much more gradually.

 

About the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, Mr. Bentham, having lately

got back his papers on Evidence from M. Dumont (whose _Traité des

Preuves Judiciaires_, grounded on them, was then first completed and

published), resolved to have them printed in the original, and bethought

himself of me as capable of preparing them for the press; in the same

manner as his _Book of Fallacies_ had been recently edited by Bingham.

I gladly undertook this task, and it occupied nearly all my leisure for

about a year, exclusive of the time afterwards spent in seeing the five

large volumes through the press. Mr. Bentham had begun this treatise

three time's, at considerable intervals, each time in a different

manner, and each time without reference to the preceding: two of the

three times he had gone over nearly the whole subject. These three

masses of manuscript it was my business to condense into a single

treatise, adopting the one last written as the groundwork, and

incorporating with it as much of the two others as it had not completely

superseded. I had also to unroll such of Bentham's involved and

parenthetical sentences as seemed to overpass by their complexity the

measure of what readers were likely to take the pains to understand. It

was further Mr. Bentham's particular desire that I should, from myself,

endeavour to supply any _lacunae_ which he had left; and at his instance

I read, for this purpose, the most authoritative treatises on the

English Law of Evidence, and commented on a few of the objectionable

points of the English rules, which had escaped Bentham's notice. I also

replied to the objections which had been made to some of his doctrines

by reviewers of Dumont's book, and added a few supplementary remarks on

some of the more abstract parts of the subject, such as the theory of

improbability and impossibility. The controversial part of these

editorial additions was written in a more assuming tone than became one

so young and inexperienced as I was: but indeed I had never contemplated

coming forward in my own person; and as an anonymous editor of Bentham I

fell into the tone of my author, not thinking it unsuitable to him or to

the subject, however it might be so to me. My name as editor was put to

the book after it was printed, at Mr. Bentham's positive desire, which I

in vain attempted to persuade him to forego.

 

The time occupied in this editorial work was extremely well employed in

respect to my own improvement. The _Rationale of Judicial Evidence_ is

one of the richest in matter of all Bentham's productions. The theory of

evidence being in itself one of the most important of his subjects, and

ramifying into most of the others, the book contains, very fully

developed, a great proportion of all his best thoughts: while, among

more special things, it comprises the most elaborate exposure of the

vices and defects of English law, as it then was, which is to be found

in his works; not confined to the law of evidence, but including, by way

of illustrative episode, the entire procedure or practice of Westminster

Hall. The direct knowledge, therefore, which I obtained from the book,

and which was imprinted upon me much more thoroughly than it could have

been by mere reading, was itself no small acquisition. But this

occupation did for me what might seem less to be expected; it gave a

great start to my powers of composition. Everything which I wrote

subsequently to this editorial employment, was markedly superior to

anything that I had written before it. Bentham's later style, as the

world knows, was heavy and cumbersome, from the excess of a good

quality, the love of precision, which made him introduce clause within

clause into the heart of every sentence, that the reader might receive

into his mind all the modifications and qualifications simultaneously

with the main proposition: and the habit grew on him until his sentences

became, to those not accustomed to them, most laborious reading. But his

earlier style, that of the _Fragment on Government, Plan of a Judicial

Establishment_, etc., is a model of liveliness and ease combined with

fulness of matter, scarcely ever surpassed: and of this earlier style

there were many striking specimens in the manuscripts on Evidence, all

of which I endeavoured to preserve. So long a course of this admirable

writing had a considerable effect upon my own; and I added to it by the

assiduous reading of other writers, both French and English, who

combined, in a remarkable degree, ease with force, such as Goldsmith,

Fielding, Pascal, Voltaire, and Courier. Through these influences my

writing lost the jejuneness of my early compositions; the bones and

cartilages began to clothe themselves with flesh, and the style became,

at times, lively and almost light.

 

This improvement was first exhibited in a new field. Mr. Marshall, of

Leeds, father of the present generation of Marshalls, the same who was

brought into Parliament for Yorkshire, when the representation forfeited

by Grampound was transferred to it, an earnest Parliamentary reformer,

and a man of large fortune, of which he made a liberal use, had been

much struck with Bentham's _Book of Fallacies_; and the thought had

occurred to him that it would be useful to publish annually the

Parliamentary Debates, not in the chronological order of Hansard, but

classified according to subjects, and accompanied by a commentary

pointing out the fallacies of the speakers. With this intention, he very

naturally addressed himself to the editor of the _Book of Fallacies_;

and Bingham, with the assistance of Charles Austin, undertook the

editorship. The work was called _Parliamentary History and Review_. Its

sale was not sufficient to keep it in existence, and it only lasted

three years. It excited, however, some attention among parliamentary and

political people. The best strength of the party was put forth in it;

and its execution did them much more credit than that of the

_Westminster Review_ had ever done. Bingham and Charles Austin wrote

much in it; as did Strutt, Romilly, and several other Liberal lawyers.

My father wrote one article in his best style; the elder Austin another.

Coulson wrote one of great merit. It fell to my lot to lead off the

first number by an article on the principal topic of the session (that

of 1825), the Catholic Association and the Catholic Disabilities. In the

second number I wrote an elaborate Essay on the Commercial Crisis of

1825 and the Currency Debates. In the third I had two articles, one on

a minor subject, the other on the Reciprocity principle in commerce,

_à propos_ of a celebrated diplomatic correspondence between Canning

and Gallatin. These writings were no longer mere reproductions and

applications of the doctrines I had been taught; they were original

thinking, as far as that name can be applied to old ideas in new forms

and connexions: and I do not exceed the truth in saying that there was a

maturity, and a well-digested, character about them, which there had not

been in any of my previous performances. In execution, therefore, they

were not at all juvenile; but their subjects have either gone by, or

have been so much better treated since, that they are entirely

superseded, and should remain buried in the same oblivion with my

contributions to the first dynasty of the _Westminster Review_.

 

While thus engaged in writing for the public, I did not neglect other

modes of self-cultivation. It was at this time that I learnt German;

beginning it on the Hamiltonian method, for which purpose I and several

of my companions formed