第11章 James Mill(11)

Mill appeared as the advocate of the company,defended their policy,and argued against the demands of the commercial body which demanded the final suppression of the old trading monopoly of the Company.The abolition,indeed,was a foregone conclusion;but Mill's view was not in accordance with the doctrines of the thoroughgoing free-traders.His official experience,it seems,upon this and other matters deterred him from the a priori dogmatism too characteristic of his political speculations.Mill also suggested the formation of a legislative council,which was to contain one man 'versed in the philosophy of men and government.'This was represented by the appointment of the legal member of council in the Act of 1833.Mill approved of Macaulay as the first holder of the post.It was 'very handsome'of him,as Macaulay remarks,inasmuch as the famous articles written by Macaulay himself,in which the Edinburgh had at last retorted upon the Utilitarians,must still have been fresh in his memory.The 'Penal Code'drawn by Macaulay as holder of the office was the first actual attempt to carry out Bentham's favourite schemes under British rule,and the influence of the chief of Bentham's disciples at the India House may have had something to do with its initiation.

Macaulay's chief subordinate,it may be remarked,Charles Hay Cameron,was one of the Benthamites,and had been proposed by Grote for the chair at the London University ultimately filled by Hoppus.

After 1830Mill wrote the severe Fragment on Mackintosh ,which,after a delay caused by Mackintosh's death,appeared in 1835.He contributed some articles to the London Review ,founded by Sir W.Molesworth,as an organ of the 'philosophical Radicals,'and superintended,though not directly edited,by J.S.Mill.

These,his last performances,repeat the old doctrines.It does not appear,indeed,that Mill ever altered one of his opinions.He accepted Bentham's doctrine to the end,as unreservedly as a mathematician might accept Newton's Principia.

Mill's lungs had begun to be affected.It was supposed that they were injured by the dust imbibed on coach journeys to Mickleham.He had a bad attack of haemorrhage in August 1835,and died peacefully on 23rd June 1836.

What remains to be said of Mill personally may be suggested by a noticeable parallel.S.T.Coleridge,born about six months before Mill,died two years before him,the two lives thus coincided for more than sixty years,and each man was the leader of a school.In all else the contrast could hardly be greater.If we were to apply the rules of ordinary morality,it would be entirely in Mill's favour.Mill discharged all his duties as strenuously as a man could,while Coleridge's life was a prolonged illustration of the remark that when an action presented itself to him as a duty he became physically incapable of doing it.Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished,often in the face of enormous difficulties.Coleridge never finished anything,and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to ambitious schemes.Mill worked his hardest from youth to age,never sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his path.Coleridge dawdled through life,solacing himself with opium,and could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy.Mill preserved his independence by rigid self-denial,temperance,and punctuality.Coleridge was always dependent upon the generosity of his friends,Mill brought up a large family,and in the midst of severe labours found time to educate them even to excess.Coleridge left his wife and children to be cared for by others.And Coleridge died in the odour of sanctity,revered by his disciples,and idolised by his children;while Mill went to the grave amidst the shrugs of respectable shoulders,and respected rather than beloved by the son who succeeded to his intellectual leadership.