33 John Stuart Mill

Dr. Neeru Tandon

CONTENTS

32.1    Learning Outcome

32.2    Short Biography of John Stuart Mill

32.3    His Marriage

32.4     His Obituary

32.5     Works of John Stuart Mill

32.6     What Is Poetry?

32.7     Subjection of Women, Part One

32.8     His Contribution to English Literature

32.9     His Philosophy

32.10:   Critics Commenting on Mill

32.1 LEARNING OUTCOME: The students will learn about John Stuart Mill, his essays and his prose style. The students will grasp the basic essentials about Mill‘s philosophy and his concern about women and literature. Multiple-choice exercises will help them in assessing their knowledge and understanding of the work. Bibliography and list of websites will help them in their in-depth study and further reading. Critical quotes and quotes from the book will also help them in understanding various literary aspects of his essays.

32.2 Short Biography of John Stuart Mill

Born in 1806 in London, Mill was the son of the prominent philosopher and historian James Mill. James Mill believed that the mind of a child is a blank slate that requires an authoritarian schedule to be properly trained and educated. Accordingly, young John was secluded from boys of his own age and kept under the stern discipline of his father. According to his plan young John learnt Greek by the age of three and had mastered Latin by the age of eight. Throughout the day Mill was preoccupied with his intellectual work, and he was allowed only one hour of leisure, which consisted of a walk with his father—who used the occasion to manage oral exams. By the age of fourteen, John Stuart Mill had read deeply in history, logic, mathematics, and economic theory. When he was fifteen, he began studying the radical English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the founder of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the theory that laws and actions should be judged as good or bad based on their utility, meaning the results they produce. When he was seventeen, Mill‘s father secured for him a position in the East India Company, where he worked until he retired in 1858.

We know John Stuart Mill as a great thinker and one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era, but he was also a political activist. He devoted his life for social reform. The influence of utilitarianism launched Mill on a lifelong pursuit of social reform.

Mill visited France in 1820 and was thoroughly captivated by the country and its culture, history, and literature. This fascination would last his entire life. John Mill documented later that his father‘s method tempted only his intellect and overlooked the refinement of his practical and emotional life. The strenuous effort and stern behaviour of his father affected his physical health as well. James Mill‘s method seems to have been intended to make his son‘s mind a first rate-thinking machine, so that the boy might become a prophet of the utilitarian gospel. And, no doubt he succeeded in his mission.

Mill began publishing in 1822, and in 1823 he helped form the Utilitarian Society, which met at Jeremy Bentham‘s house. He took regular part in the London Debating Society. In 1824, Mill was arrested for distributing birth control literature to the London poor.

Every action has its own reaction, and at the age of 21 Mill suffered a nervous breakdown; as he explained in chapter V of his Autobiography, this was caused by the great physical and mental rigorousness of his studies which had curbed any feelings he might have developed normally in childhood. This depression ultimately began to dissolve, and the poetry of William Wordsworth had a great role to play a he found a great solace in that. He recovered and began an active intellectual life, but with a changed outlook. He now made room for a human dimension in his thought that offset the starkness of utilitarianism, stressing an intellectual approach to life at the expense of emotions.

His capacity for emotion reappeared. Mill commented that the “cloud gradually drew off.”

In 1835 Sir William Molesworth founded The London Review and he was made editor of it and he continued as editor when it was combined with The Westminster into The London and Westminster Review, until 1840. After 1840, he published several articles in the Edinburgh Review.

32.3    His Marriage

In 1830, at the age of twenty-four, Mill met the woman of his dream Harriet Taylor, who was already married to a wealthy London merchant. The two waited uncomplainingly until the death of Taylor‘s husband in 1849, finally marrying two years later, in 1851. Harriet was Mill‘s unceasing companion. She always took an active interest in his writing. The couple‘s years of happiness were brief, for Harriet died in 1858. Thereafter, Harriet‘s daughter from her first marriage, Helen, was Mill‘s companion. He remained a committed social reformer all his life, and in 1865 was elected to Parliament, where he actively campaigned for women‘s rights and suffrage. He spent his last years in Avignon, France, with Helen, and died there in 1873. He was buried beside his wife.

32.4    His Obituary

•  The Guardian looks back on the life of Mill.
•  ‘Mr. John Stuart Mill, whose death at Avignon was recorded to-day, was born in 1805. Those who love to trace the qualities of distinguished men in their immediate ancestry will find their task easy in the present case. James Mill, the father of the subject of our memoir, was not only an historian but a philosopher, and something more than a philosophic historian. It has been said of him that no English writer since Locke has shown so much acuteness in the branch of metaphysics to which his inquiries were devoted. John Stuart Mill, like some other men who have risen to the highest intellectual eminence in our generation, was educated at home.‘‘(BEGINNING LINES)
•  In 1873, Hayward published a polemical obituary in the Times and in Fraser‘s Magazine.
•  He not only criticized Mill for his views on the rights of women and land reforms, but also suggested that Mill and Harriet had committed adultery. The obituary was an exercise in character assassination.
• The publication of his autobiography became an excuse for his critics to be even more vituperative.

32.5     Works of John Stuart Mill

List of works

•  (1843) A System of Logic
•  (1844) Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
• (1848) Principles of Political Economy
• (1859) On Liberty
•  (1861) Considerations on Representative Government
• (1863) Utilitarianism
• (1865) Examinations of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy
• (1865) Auguste Comte and Positivism
• (1867) Inaugural Address at St. Andrews – Rectorial Inaugural Address at the University of St. Andrews, concerning the value of culture.
• (1869) The Subjection of Women
• (1873) Autobiography
• (1874) Three Essays on Religion

32.6     What Is Poetry?

John Stuart Mill begins his search for a definition of what poetry is and explains by telling us what it is not. Poetry is not “matter of fact or science.” Poetry aims to “act upon the emotions.” Science “addresses itself to the belief” (conforming to Shelley’s classification of reason), while poetry ‗addresses itself to the “feelings” (Shelley’s classification of imagination). Mill makes it clearer and compares poetry with novel. According to him poetry isn’t the only thing, which acts on the emotions. Novelists also try to make an emotional impression on readers just as poets do. Find from the pen of Mill : “there is a radical distinction between the interest felt in a novel . . . and the interest excited by poetry; for the one is derived from incident, the other from the representation of feeling.” Poetry works internally; novels work externally. Mill calls these the appeals of poetry and of expression. That which is eloquent aims primarily to achieve a desired effect on other people; that which is poetic is “feeling confessing itself to itself . . . in symbols which are the nearest possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it endures in the poet’s mind.” Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard.

Let me sum up Mill‘s concept of poetry:

• Poetry is not a “matter of fact or science.”
•  Poetry’s purpose is to “act upon the emotions.”
•  The interest felt in a novel . . . and is derived from incident. The interest excited by poetry comes from the representation of feeling.
• Poetry works internally–this is the appeal of poetry. Novels work externally–this is the appeal of eloquence.
• That which is eloquent aims primarily to achieve a desired effect on  other people.
• That which is poetic is “feeling confessing itself to itself . . . in symbols.
• Eloquence is heard; poetry is overheard.

32.7    Subjection Of Women (Part One)

In John Stuart Mill’s 1869 book, ‘The Subjection of Women’, Mill debates for female equality in a Victorian society that disallowed women many social and political rights.

Written in 1860-1861, The Subjection of Women first emerged as a pamphlet in 1869, just after John Stuart Mill finished his three-year term as a member of the British parliament. During his tenure as a parliamentarian, Mill presented a petition for woman‘s suffrage (1866) and supported the Married Women‘s Property Bill (1868). The article is an argument for the law that Mill supported: for example, allowing women to own property and to vote. In the 1868 election, Mill could not secure his position and had to leave. Then he revised his early draft of the essay and published it. Mill‘s primary activity in Parliament was aimed at the empowerment of women and their right to vote and right to retain their self-respect intact. The Subjection of Women makes clear Mill‘s liberal feminism and his pledge to work for gender equality.

The Subjection of Women is divided into four chapters, each chapter presenting and supporting an aspect of Mill‘s argument.

Chapter One: Mill encounters the common notion that women are by nature unequal to men. He explains that ―the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself, and one of the chief hindrances to human improvement,‖ and the methodical demotion of women by men ―ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.‖ He draws our attention towards the fact that since ancient times we find women harmonizing with men in a state of oppression, and this gave rise to laws and customs which justified and elaborated this reality. He says the bondage was to make things easy for men who attached value to the woman as a companion (when she served him as he wanted). Respecting the mental characteristics of women, he denies men know much about her. Men writing about women see them from their own interest: would she make the wife I want or could use?

Mill acknowledges that his views challenge accepted views and practices, but he counters by pointing out the historical foundations of subjection, that is, the conversion of ―mere physical fact into a legal right. The subjection of women is based on a law of force, not on the use of reason. Since no other system has been tried, the then-present system of subjugation of the ―weaker‖ female sex to the ―stronger‖ male sex rests upon unproven theory, says Mill. As gender equality is nowhere to be found in practice, Mill expected to have an innovative system of equality, based on theory.

Mill compares women‘s subordination to men to that of the slave to his master. He explains the system of a kind of domestic slavery to the family. Unlike the slave, however, the woman‘s master not only wants her toil but also her feelings, and he schemes to fix nature and education to complete his desire for the loving, submissive, domestic slave over whom he, as husband, has absolute control.‘

Mill further argues that women are not represented in the true colors for a variety of reasons. Either they are suppressed or elevated as goddesses, thus never allowed to take their normal self. Women have rarely been allowed to prove to their own natures; because the men who exercise power over them have described them. The more problematic situation appears when we find that to those with power over others, their domination appears natural, perhaps even good, and appears owing to the nature of the dominated. This issue was known as Woman Question.

Mill‘s Comments on Victorian Customs and Gender Roles

According to Mill, Victorian culture or society asserts that a woman’s primary duty is to gratify and serve others and to put her own desires on hold. That means women were expected and taught to attract a suitable husband, and, once married their lives should be confined to just stay at home, raise the children, submit to husbands, and attend to household affairs. This concept of female gender roles was also referred to as the cult of domesticity. Mill overruled all of this and debated that such custom kept women from reaching their full potential. Mill claimed that women should be permitted more political and legal rights, as well as given more social and economic opportunities.

Mill’s Opinion on Women and Marriage

In Victorian society, women had to depend on their husbands for everything. Mill argued that this dependence of a wife on a husband generated a type of slavery. Just as a slave is frightful of annoying his master because his or her livelihood is dependent upon the master, a wife is also fearful of displeasing her husband because she depends on her man entirely for her safety, food and shelter. Mill was of the view that this uneven relationship between husband and wife cannot possibly make for‘ a truly open, supportive, and affectionate marriage and home life. ‗Therefore, Mill argued that marriages and families would actually be healthier if women were better educated and socially empowered. ‗Slaves had already been freed from bondage by this time, why not women, too?‘

Chapter Two: Mill begins this chapter with marriage. He confirms his view that sex has nothing to do with marriage, but in fact it is what women are forced to do to find safety and respect. Sex is viewed by Mill as a commodity, desired by men and offered by women as an exchange in marriage.

Chapter Three :In the third chapter Mill is apprehensive to repel orthodox ideas about women. The natural desire of being respected is as strong in a woman as in a man; but society has arranged things in such a way that normally respect and status are associated with her husband or her male relations.

Chapter 4: concentrates on freedom of women from household routine and set standards. ―Mill begins ―. What good are we to expect from the changes proposed in our customs and institutions? Would mankind be at all better off if women were free?

32.8    His Contribution To English Literature

•  An influential liberal thinker of the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill polished and developed Utilitarianism, which was originally formulated by Jeremy Benthem, his godfather and a close friend of his father James Mill.
•  As a logician, in A System of Logic, Mill describes the five basic principles of induction, which have come to be known as “Mill’s Methods.”
•  Mill was an outspoken critic of the flaws, which he perceived in Parliament and in the British legal system.
•  Mill‘s father had little use for poetry, friendship and private emotions.
•  John Stuart Mill began to change his views and to have a more moderate and practical approach to political ideals and the meaning of human happiness.
•  Mill formulated the ―greatest happiness principle,‖ which held that one must always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people
•  His Principles of Political Economy, published in two volumes in 1848, 1849, and 1852, showed more originality and independent thought, proposing the creation of peasant proprietorships as a solution for the poverty and social disorder in Ireland.

32.9: His Philosophy: Mill‘s philosophy is based on an experimenter approach to the world. Mill sees experience as the only true foundation of knowledge, and thus his philosophy allows no place for traditional or received ideas of right and wrong. As an empiricist, Mill continually privileges observation and experiment over the orizing, and his thought tends to be inductive rather than deductive .

Although Mill was influenced by utilitarianism, Mill nevertheless worked to protect the rights of individuals, particularly women. Mill‘s interest in social reform stemmed from his belief that the majority often denies liberty to individuals, either through laws or through moral and social judgments.

The theme of individual liberty recurs throughout Mill‘s writings. Mill believed that an individual might do anything he or she wishes, as long as that individual‘s actions do not harm others. He maintained that governments have no right to interfere in an individual‘s affairs. Mill‘s thoughts on individual liberty led him to discover the power of emotion in human life and thought.

Through the guidance of his father, his mind had been trained to think in a rigid and mechanical manner, leaving no room for emotion. Following his mental breakdown, Mill came to feel that his father‘s stress on the contemplative life over the physical was wrong and that emotion allows us to connect in a real and valid way with nature and with our natural self. Moreover, emotions bind individuals in a unique bond, and Mill‘s relationship with Mrs. Taylor provided him the opportunity to redirect on this idea. This transformation in Mill‘s thinking led to his humanizing the inherent severity of utilitarianism, as practiced by his father and Jeremy Bentham, which sought only to lay bare the principles of pleasure and pain, as they became evident through the negative and positive associations of punishment and praise. Consequently, Mill was a strong activist of socialist views, women‘s rights, political reforms, labor unions, and farm cooperatives.

32.10: Critics Commenting on Mill

•  T H Green on his deathbed, ‗Mill was such a good man.‘
•  One who knew mill only through his writings knew but half of him, and that not the best half.‘-Fitzjames Stephen
•  The best  philosophical  writer-if  not  the  best  philosopher-England  has produced since Hume.‘-     Sidgwick

32.11: Excerpts from What Is Poetry?

•  That, however, the word ‘poetry’ does imports something quite peculiar in its nature, something which may exist in what is called prose as well as in verse, something which does not even require the instrument of words, but can speak through those other audible symbols called musical sounds, and even through the visible ones, which are the language of sculpture, painting, and architecture;
• All this, as we believe, is and must be felt, though perhaps indistinctly, by all upon whom poetry in any of its shapes produces any impression beyond that of tickling the ear.
• To the mind, poetry is either nothing, or it is the better part of all art whatever, and of real life too; and the distinction between poetry and what is not poetry, whether explained or not, is felt to be fundamental.
• The object of poetry is confessedly to act upon the emotions; and therein is poetry sufficiently distinguished from what Wordsworth affirms to be its logical opposite, namely, not prose, but matter of fact or science.
• The one addresses itself to the belief, the other to the feelings. The one does its work by convincing or persuading, the other by moving. The one acts by presenting a proposition to the understanding, the other by offering interesting objects of contemplation to the sensibilities.
• If a poet is to describe a lion, he will not set about describing him as a naturalist would, nor even as a traveller would, who was intent upon stating the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
•  He will describe him by imagery, that is, by suggesting the most striking likenesses and contrasts which might occur to a mind contemplating the lion, in the state of awe, wonder, or terror, which the spectacle naturally excites, or is, on the occasion, supposed to excite.

32.12 :EXCERPTS FROM :Subjection of Women (part one:) The Question can be raised

 From the dawn of human society every woman was in a state of bondage to some man, because she was of value to him and she had less muscular strength than he did.

•  Laws and political systems always begin by recognising the relations they find already existing between individuals, converting a mere physical fact into a legal right, giving it the sanction of society; their main aim is to replace the assertion and protection of these rights by irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength.
• The subjection of women hasn‘t lost the taint of its brutal origin.
•  Also, the possessors of the power provided by the subjection of women are better placed than any absolute monarch to prevent any uprising against the system
•  Every one of the subjects lives under the very eye. . . .of one of the masters, in closer intimacy with him than with any of her fellow-subjects; with no means of combining against him, no power of even locally overmastering him; and with the strongest motives for seeking his favour and avoiding giving him offence.
• that women don‘t complain, and are consenting parties to it.
• Well, the first point to make is that a great number of women do not accept it. Ever since there have been women able to make their sentiments known by their writings, increasingly many of them have protested against their present social condition; and recently many thousands of them, headed by the most eminent women known to the public, petitioned Parliament to allow them the vote.

Reference

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• Mill, John Stuart: What is Poetry? In: The Monthly Repository. New Series, Bd. 7, 1833, Januar, S. 60-70.
• URL: https://archive.org/details/newmonthlyreposi07londuoft
• Mill, John Stuart: The Two Kinds of Poetry. In: The Monthly Repository. New Series, Bd. 7, 1833, Oktober, S. 714-724.
• URL: https://archive.org/details/newmonthlyreposi07londuoft
• URL: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011569828
• Mill, John Stuart: Tennyson’s Poems. In: The London Review. 1835, Juli, S. 402-424.
• URL: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008893085