Context
One of the most important thinkers and writers
of the Victorian era, John Stuart Mill was also a political activist, involved
in struggles for social reform throughout his life. 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 a strict regimen to be properly trained and
educated. Accordingly, young John was isolated from boys his own
age and kept under the austere eye of his father, who saw to it
that his son was learning Greek by the age of three and had mastered
Latin by the age of eight. Mill’s day was filled with intellectual
work, and he was allowed only one hour of recreation, which consisted
of a walk with his father—who used the opportunity to conduct oral
exams. By the age of fourteen, he 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. For a utilitarian, the
best actions or laws are those that produce the greatest good for
the most people, and the greatest good over the least amount of
pain. The influence of utilitarianism launched Mill on a lifelong
pursuit of social reform.
Mill visited France in 1820 and was thoroughly enchanted
by the country and its culture, history, and literature. This enchantment would
last his entire life. 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.
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, and by this time
had adopted the views of Thomas Malthus, who had argued that the human
population would eventually outgrow its food supply, leading to
a dire catastrophe. Consequently, in 1824, Mill was arrested for
distributing birth control literature to the London poor. In 1826, he
suffered a severe bout of depression, which he attributed to the emotionally
restricted life he had led as a child. 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.
In 1830, at the age of twenty-four, Mill met the woman
he would love for the rest of his life. This woman, Harriet Taylor,
was already married to a wealthy London merchant. The two waited
patiently until the death of Taylor’s husband in 1849, finally marrying
two years later, in 1851. Harriet was Mill’s constant companion
from the time they met, and she 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.
Mill’s philosophy is based on an empiricist 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 theorizing, and his thought tends
to be inductive (drawing general conclusions from particular instances)
rather than deductive (drawing conclusions by extrapolating from
general principles).
Although Mill was influenced by utilitarianism, a theory
that directs people to work for the greatest happiness for the greatest number
of people, 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 may 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 meddle in an individual’s
affairs, even when they enact laws that are designed for the good
of the individual. In fact, the only viable reason for any government
to exist in the first place is to protect the individual so that he
or she experiences safety in peacetime, defense in times of war, and
security from fraud and cheating.
Mill’s thoughts on individual liberty led him to discover
the power of emotion in human life and thought. Through the tutelage 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 reflect 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.
