Abstract
The epigraph to John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty is a key to understanding his psychological, social, and ethical thought, for it contains an unequivocal statement on the fundamental value of human development. I want to unravel the meaning of this quotation from von Humboldt and explore why Mill chose it for the motto of his most important and enduring essay. My thesis is that the concepts of progress, development, and improvement (what I call ‘growth’) are crucial for apprehending Mill’s philosophy and value system, and that he cannot be understood properly unless the role of these concepts is taken into account. In this study I will examine his comprehensive notion of growth and show how it elucidates his life and work.
The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.
Wilhelm von Humboldt: The Limits of State Action
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Endnotes
John Grote, An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, J. B. Mayor, ed. ( Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Company, 1870 ).
See Oskar Kurer, John Stuart Mill: The Politics of Progress (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991); Wendy Donner, The Liberal Self John Stuart Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy (Cornell University Press, 1991); Janice Carlisle, John Stuart Mill and the Writing of Character (University of Georgia Press, 1991); and, John Robson, The Improvement of Mankind: The Social and Political Thought of John Stuart Mill (University of Toronto Press, 1968). See also John Gibbins, “J. S. Mill, liberalism, and progress,” in Richard Bellamy, ed., Victorian Liberalism: Nineteenth-century political thought and practice (London and New York: Routledge, 1990); Abram L. Harris, “John Stuart Mill’s Theory of Progress,” Ethics, 66:3 (April, 1956), pp. 157–75; and, Maurice Mandelbaum, History Man, & Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought ( Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971 ).
See Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 179–80. Holmes writes that Mill considered political participation to be personally rewarding—a way to cultivate one’s feelings, widen one’s horizons, exercise one’s higher faculties, and enrich one’s character. But his central argument was less focused on the personal than on the social or collective advantages of civic engagement. Free speech is valuable less because of the chance it affords the individual to hone his sensibilities or unbosom his innermost convictions, than because of its beneficial influence on the quality of collective decisions. Indeed, participation in politics has a rewarding effect on individual character itself only when citizens pursue a goal less personal than self-improvement. Their principal end in view should be the intelligent governance of the community. Character development will then be a welcome by-product, not an achieved aim. I do not dispute Mill’s recognition of political participation and free speech as instruments of social progress, or his appreciation of the ‘hedonic paradox.’ (See text, corresponding to endnote 28.) My contention is that Holmes’ interpretation of Mill’s “central argument” underestimates the centrality of self-improvement and character development. He downplays the fundamental role of individual, personal growth, which leads him to decouple self-improvement from collective improvement. On this point, see John Robson, The Improvement of Mankind (op. cit. above), p. 127. (See also below, chapter two, endnote 29 and corresponding text.)
Alan Gewirth, Self-Fulfillment (Princeton University Press, 1998), esp. pp. 13–15. Dividing the ideal of self-fulfillment into these “two modes” forms the basis of his outstanding analysis. As I will show, Mill’s growth ethic includes the elements of what Gewirth terms “capacity-fulfillment.”
John Skorupski, John Stuart Mill (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 29 (see also p. 303). Other examples include Stefan Collini’s introduction to On Liberty, with The Subjection of Women and Chapters on Socialism (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. xvii; Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 95; and, David L. Norton, Democracy and Moral Development: A Politics of Virtue (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), p. xi.
Whigs and Liberals: Continuity and Change in English Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 82, 84. Peter Gay writes that “Mill found it difficult, almost impossible, to overcome his ambivalence about progress,” while at the same time noting: “It was Mill’s lifelong, earnest effort to advocate improvement.” The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud,Volume I, Education of the Senses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 61. On my reading of Gay, he explains Mill’s ambivalence about progress in terms of Mill’s ambivalence about rapid change.
In addition to the standard text, edited by Helen Taylor and published in 1873, there is also The Early Draft of John Stuart Mill’s “Autobiography,” edited by Jack Stillinger (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961). Both are found side by side in Volume I of Mill’s Collected Works, Autobiography and Literary Essays, eds. John Robson and Jack Stillinger (University of Toronto Press, 1981 ).
Autobiography of John Stuart Mill (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), p. 1 (Collected Works I,p.5).
John M. Robson, ed., John Stuart Mill: Autobiography (London: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 15. In the last paragraph of his introduction, Robson writes that Mill was constantly in search of ways to help in the improvement of humankindchrw(133). His major deeds are discerned in his careful attention to the what, why and how of his major writings, which detail his self-realization. Mill’s Autobiography serves his purposes well, and also, if quietly, demonstrates his greater growth from the roots he eulogizes. (p. 23.)
John Morley, Recollections (New York: Macmillan, 1917), Vol. I, p. 53. The full quotation reads: His perfect simplicity and candour, friendly gravity with no accent of the don, his readiness of interest and curiosity, the evident love of truth and justice and improvement as the standing habit of mind—all this diffused a high, enlightening ethos that, aided by the magic halo of accepted fame, made him extraordinarily impressive.
This designation of Mill is eloquently explained by Stefan Collini in his Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain 1850–1930 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). See also Bruce L. Kinzer, Ann P. Robson, and John M. Robson, A Moralist In and Out of Parliament: John Stuart Mill at Westminster 1865–1868 (University of Toronto Press, 1992).
Stephen L. Esquith, Intimacy and Spectacle: Liberal Theory as Political Education ( Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1994 ), p. 143.
Of James Mill’s major works, the most widely read during the 1800’s were probably his refinement of associationist psychology, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1828), and his lengthy Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on “Education” and “Government.” He also achieved recognition and acclaim for his History of British India (1817).
See Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997), p. 113. I shall discuss associationist psychology in more detail in chapter seven.
The breadth of Mill’s learning is amply demonstrated by his published books and articles. In addition to the voluminous Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, published by the University of Toronto Press, see Bibliography of the Published Writings of John Stuart Mill, edited by Ney MacMinn, J. R. Hainds, and James McNabb McCrimmon (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1945). The bibliography was compiled by Mill himself, and so it does not include his posthumous works. A more extensive reference work is, Michael Laine, ed., Bibliography of Works on John Stuart Mill (University of Toronto Press, 1982 ).
For more thorough (and impressive) lists of James Mill’s associates, see: Bruce Mazlish, James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1975), p. 93; S. E. Finer, “The Transmission of Benthamite Ideas 1820–1850,” in Gillian Sutherland, ed., Studies in the Growth of Nineteenth Century Government (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1972 ), p. 14; and, Henry Solly, “These Eighty Years” or, The Story of an Unfinished Life (London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1893), Vol. I, p. 148.
Autobiography of John Stuart Mill (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), p. 21 (Collected Works I,p. 33). For what it is worth, a team of psychologists rated Mill as the greatest childhood genius, with the highest estimated IQ. See Lewis M. Terman, ed., Genetic Studies of Genius,Vol. II, The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses,Catherine Morris Cox, ed. (Stanford University Press, 1926), esp. ch. XXIII, pp. 707ff.
For Mill’s detailed account of this period, see his “Journal and Notebook of a Year in France” (Collected Works, XXVI). The interested reader should also see John Stuart Mill’s Boyhood Visit to France, Anna Jean Mill, ed. ( University of Toronto Press, 1960 ).
The interested reader should see William Thomas, The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice 1817–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979); Joseph Hamburger Intellectuals in Politics: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965); and, Elie Halévy’s three volume classic, La Formation du Radicalisme Philosophique (Paris: F. Alcan, 1901–1904), [in English, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism (New York: Macmillan, 1928)]. For a recent re-examination of this work’s ‘classic’ status, see Francisco Vergara, “A Critique of Elie Halévy: Refutation of an important distortion of British moral philosophy,” Philosophy 73:283 (Jan., 1998), and the rejoinder by Philippe Mongin and Nathalie Sigot, “Halévy’s Bentham Is Bentham,” Philosophy 74:288 (April, 1999). See also, Fred Rosen, Bentham, Byron, and Greece: Constitutionalism, Nationalism, and Early Liberal Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 3–5, 7, 14–15, 290–91. I will also discuss the political agenda of the philosophic radicals briefly in the first part of chapter three.
Autobiography,pp. 157–58 (Collected Works I, p. 233).
Correspondences between James Mill and Jeremy Bentham support this point. See The Works of Jeremy Bentham,J. Bowring, ed. (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), v. X, pp. 472–73; Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians (London: Duckworth & Co., 1900), v. III, p. 3. Also see Alexander Bain, James Mill, A Biography (London: Longmans, Green, 1882), pp. 119–20, and Hugh S. R. Elliot ed., The Letters of John Stuart Mill (London: Longmans, Green, 1910), v. I, intro., pp. xv-xvi.
John Stuart Mill. A Criticism: with Personal Recollections (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1882), p. 147. Another noteworthy feature of Mill’s professional career is the apparent conflict between his professed values and his support for British colonial policy in India. In nineteenth-century England, Mill was considered to be a radical reformer. He was an advocate of civil liberties, diversity, and tolerance. Furthermore, he stood for the cause of equal rights for men and women. Hence, it seems odd that he served as a high-ranking official in the East India Company. As I will discuss in chapter six, Mill justifies colonialism and despotism by reference to human growth and progress.
Trevor Lloyd, “John Stuart Mill and the East India Company,” in A Cultivated Mind: Essays on J. S. Mill Presented to John M. Robson, Michael Laine, ed. (University of Toronto Press, 1991), p. 74. See also Henry Solly, “These Eighty Years” (op. cit., endnote 16), p. 204. In the same passage quoted in the text above, Lloyd explains that Mill’s post was not a sinecure. For a prominent example of those describing Mill’s position as a “sinecure,” see Bruce Mazlish, James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the Nineteenth Century (op. cit., endnote 16), p. 144. See also, p. 199.
Autobiography, p. 109 (Collected Works I, p. 163).
Ibid., pp. 58–59 (Collected Works I, pp. 85, 272). Also see Mill’s letter to John Pringle Nichol, 29 January 1837 (Collected Works XII, pp. 322–24). See also, Trevor Lloyd, “John Stuart Mill and the East India Company,” in A Cultivated Mind (op. cit., endnote 23), pp. 56–57; and, Janice Carlisle, John Stuart Mill and the Writing of Character (op. cit., endnote 2).
Michael St. John Packe suggests that: “the very time when he says he had no feeling was the time when he was feeling most acutely and for the first time in his life.” The Life of John Stuart Mill ( New York: Macmillan Co., 1954 ), p. 79.
Autobiography, p. 98 (Collected Works I, p. 143).
Ibid., p. 100 (Collected Works I, pp. 145, 147). See also Utilitarianism (Collected Works X, p. 217). The same idea can be found in the ‘anti-selfconsciousness theory’ of Thomas Carlyle and the Fifteen Sermons of Bishop Joseph Butler. Mill implies that he came to this conclusion independently of other thinkers. See also Alan Gewirth, Self-Fulfillment (op. cit., endnote 4), pp. ix, 50.
Ibid. (Collected Works I, p. 147).
Ibid., p. 118 (Collected Works I, p. 175).
In the Autobiography, Mill writes: “The train of thought which had extricated me from this dilemma, seemed to me, in after years, fitted to render a similar service to others.” (pp. 119–20 [Collected Works, p. 177].) In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (Collected Works IX, pp. 465–66); A System of Logic (Book VI, chapter ii, section 3 [Collected Works VIII, p. 840]); as well as Three Essays on Religion (Collected Works X, p. 397), Mill stresses the importance of altering one’s character and improving it.
For detailed accounts see Christopher Turk, Coleridge and Mill: A Study of Influence (Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1988); and, Emery Neff, Carlyle and Mill: An Introduction to Victorian Thought,second edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926). See also Robert Scott Stewart, “Utilitarianism Meets Romanticism: J. S. Mill’s Theory of Imagination,” History of Philosophy Quarterly,10:4 (October, 1993).
See Coleridge’s On the Constitution of the Church and State, according to the idea of each; with aids towards a right judgment on the late Catholic Bill (London, 1830). Mill cites this in a letter to John Sterling, Oct. 20–22, 1831 (Collected Works XII, pp. 75–77.) Lynn Zastoupil argues that Mill acquired the idea of a national clerisy from his exposure to Indian traditions of patronage and education, while working at the East India Company. See Zastoupil’s “India, J.S. Mill, and ‘Western’ Culture,” in Martin I. Moir, Douglas M. Peers, and Lynn Zastoupil, eds., J.S. Mill’s Encounter with India (University of Toronto Press, 1999), esp. pp. 130–31, 135ff.
See Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History,1841. I should add that Mill did not believe in hero-worship, nor did Carlyle subscribe to the Millian growth ethic.
See, Autobiography,p. 117 (Collected Works I,p. 175).
Ibid. See also, Logic, Bk. VI, ch. x, s. 3 (Collected Works VIII, p. 914 ).
Ibid., p. 129 (Collected Works I, p. 193).
John Taylor died of cancer on July 18, 1849, nineteen years after Mill fell in love with Mrs. Harriet Taylor. John and Harriet were married on April 21, 1851. They waited twenty-one months out of respect for John Taylor and to lessen the animadversion of gossips. (Cf. Jonathan Riley, Mill on Liberty [London and New York: Routledge, 1998], p. 22.) For the interested reader, a detailed account of their relationship (as well as Mill’s relationships with other women, such as his mother and step-daughter Helen Taylor) is found in Josephine Kamm, John Stuart Mill in Love (London: Gordon & Cremonesi, 1977 ). For an analysis of John and Harriet’s correspondences, see F. A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor: Their Correspondence and Subsequent Marriage ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951 ).
Autobiography,p. 132 (Collected Works I, p. 197). For Harriet Taylor Mill’s epitaph, John Mill wrote: “Her Influence has been Felt In Many of the Greatest Improvements of the Age, And will be in Those still to Come.” See Ruth Borchard, John Stuart Mill the Man (London: Watts, 1957), p. 125; or Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill (op. cit., endnote 26), pp. 407–13.
See Mill’s journals of his walking tours from 1827–1832 in Journals and Debating Speeches (Collected Works XXVII).
R. P. Anschutz, The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 59. In the Early Draft of his Autobiography, Mill writes of his decision to move toward eclecticism, but this passage does not appear in the final draft (Collected Works I, p. 156). See also Charles Lockhart and Aaron Wildaysky, “The ‘Multicultural’ Mill,” Utilitas, 5:2 (Nov., 1993), pp. 255–73; Walter Bagehot, “The late Mr. Mill,” The Economist, Vol. XXXI (May 17, 1873), pp. 588–89 (reprinted in The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, Norman St John-Stevas, ed. [London: The Economist, 1968], pp. 555–59; Graeme Duncan, Marx and Mill: Two Views of Social Conflict and Social Harmony (Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 209–12; John Morley, “Mr. Mill’s Autobiography,” Fortnightly Review, new series 85 (Jan., 1874); D. A. Hamer, John Morley: Liberal Intellectual in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 40; and J. A. Hobson, “John Stuart Mill,” The Speaker, May 26, 1908, p. 177.
See Autobiography,p. 161 (see also p. 139) [Collected Works I, p. 237 see also p. 207]. Cf. Mill’s “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy,” (written anonymously for Edward Lytton Bulwer’s England and the English [London: Bentley, 1833], v. II, appendix B., pp. 321–44 [Collected Works X, pp. 3–18]) and “Bentham,” London and Westminster Review,August, 1838, pp. 467506, reprinted in Dissertations and Discussions, v. I (Collected Works X, pp. 77–115).
See Kinzer, Robson, and Robson, A Moralist In and Out of Parliament: John Stuart Mill at Westminster 1865–1868 (op. cit., endnote 11).
Here, I use ‘pragmatic’ to mean realistic and practical, and to suggest that Mill’s philosophical efforts were not limited to an abstract, theoretical, intellectual domain. However, I must also point out that one of the founders of philosophical pragmatism sees a strong connection between himself and Mill. William James dedicates his major work Pragmatism. William James dedicates his major work Pragmatism, “To the memory of John Stuart Mill from whom I first learned the pragmatic openness of mind and whom my fancy likes to picture as our leader were he alive today. ” Cf. the disparaging remarks made by C. S. Peirce. See, for example, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965), Vol. V, sec. 167, pp. 102–3; Vol. VI, sec. 297, p. 199; and, Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), Vol. I, pp. 164–66. Also of interest is, Richard Smyth, “Peirce’s Examination of Mill’s Philosophy,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, XXI:2 (Spring, 1985 ), pp. 157–99.
For Mill’s discussion on this point, see “Alison’s History of the French Revolution,” Monthly Repository,n.s. VII, Aug., 1833 (Collected Works XX, pp. 119–20); and, Considerations on Representative Government,chapter two. See also “Stability of Society,” Leader (Aug. 17 1850) p. 494 (Collected Works XXV p. 1181). See below, chapter two, footnotes 24 and 40.
The letter is dated 7 November, 1829 (Collected Works XII, pp. 42–43).
John Stuart Mill. A Criticism: with Personal Recollections (op. cit., endnote 22), pp. xii, 159.
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Habibi, D.A. (2001). Introduction. In: John Stuart Mill and the Ethic of Human Growth. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 85. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2010-6_1
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