第21章 Chapter I(21)
His friend and colleague in the India House,W.T.Thornton,was writing about the same time his Plea for Peasant Proprietors.(60)Thornton was one of the few who from this period saw much of Mill;and his influence at a later time was remarkable.The Political Economy represents essentially a development of the Ricardo doctrine.One point requires notice here.Mill tells us that he had turned back from his 'reaction against Benthamism.'(61)At the height of that reaction he had become more tolerant of compromise with current opinions.By degrees,however,he had become more than ever opposed to the established principles.He was less of a democrat,indeed,because more convinced of the incapacity of the masses;but more of a Socialist,in the sense that he looked forward to a complete,though distant,revolution in the whole structure of society.In the first edition of the Political Economy he had spoken decidedly against the possibility of Socialism.The events of 1848seemed to open new possibilities for the propagation of novel doctrines.He accordingly modified this part of his book,and the second edition (1849)represented a 'more advanced opinion.'(62)How far Mill could be called a Socialist will have to be considered hereafter.This tendency,at any rate,marks one characteristic.Mill points out,as one condition of its very remarkable success,that he regarded political economy,not as a 'thing by itself,but as part of a greater whole.'Its conclusions,he held,were valid only as conditioned by principles of,social philosophy,in general;(63)and the book,instead of being ostensibly a compendium of abstract scientific principles,is therefore written with constant reference to wider topics and to the application of the doctrines to concrete facts.
How far Mill succeeded in giving satisfactory theories is another question,but one thing at least he achieved.The Political Economy became popular in a sense in which no work upon the same topic had been popular since the Wealth of Nations;and it owed its success in a great degree to the constant endeavour to trace the bearings of merely abstract formulae upon the general questions of social progress.He stimulated the rising interest in those important problems,and even if his solutions did not carry general conviction,they brought to him in later years a following of reverent disciples.
These two books,the Logic and the Political Economy,contain in fact a nearly complete statement of Mill's leading position.
Although in later years he was to treat of political,ethical,and philosophical topics,his leading doctrines were now sufficiently expounded;and the later writings were rather deductions or applications than a breaking of new ground.None of them involved so strenuous and long-continued a process of mental elaboration.The success of these two books gave him a position at the time unrivalled.He was accepted as the Liberal philosopher;and could speak as one of unquestioned authority.
Professor Bain thinks that Mill's energy was henceforth less than it had been.The various attacks from which he had suffered had probably weakened his constitution.It must be noticed,however,as Professor Bain also remarks,that there were sufficient causes for some decline of literary activity,and he certainly did an amount of work in the remaining twenty-five years of his life which would have been enough to absorb the powers of most men even of high ability.The publication of new editions of his great books,which involved revision and replies to criticism,and the composition of occasional review articles,occupied some of the leisure from his official duties.The severe illness of 1854made necessary a long foreign tour.In 1856he became head of his department,and more work was thrown upon him.
On the extinction of the East India Company in 1857,he drafted a petition to parliament on their behalf.It is remarkable that,like his father in 1833,he became the apologist of a system generally condemned by the Liberals of the day.His belief --whatever its value --was that the government of India could not be efficiently carried on by the English parliament;that Indian appointments would become prizes to be won by jobbery;and that the direct rule of English public opinion would imply a disregard of native opinions and feelings.The company,however,came to an end;and Mill,refusing to accept a place on the new councils,retired at the beginning of 1858on a pension of ?500a year.
V.MINOR WRITINGS
A great change was now to take place in his life.Mr Taylor had died in July 1849;and in April 1851his widow became Mill's wife.They co-operated in one remarkable work,which is to be connected with the development of his opinions at the time.Mill had welcomed the French revolution of 1848with enthusiasm.He saw in it the victory of the party to which he had been most attached from his youth;and in 1849he wrote a vigorous vindication of its leaders against the criticisms of Brougham.(64)He spoke with much sympathy even of the Socialism of Louis Blanc,though,of course,admitting that it contained many grave errors.The,success of an unprincipled adventurer in December 1851,put an end to his hopes for the immediate future.
He felt painfully that even the recognition of many opinions for which he had contended in his youth had brought less benefit than he had anticipated.He became convinced that a great change in the 'fundamental conditions of (men's)modes of thought'was essential to any great improvement in their lot.(65)During 1854he had planned an essay upon Liberty,which was essentially an attempt to point out certain conditions of such improvements.