MILL, James, author of the History of British India, and various other valuable works, was born on the 6th of April 1773, in the parish of Logie Pert, in the county of Forfar, at a place situated about seven miles from Montrose. His father united the occupations of shoemaker and small farmer. He received the first part of his education at the parochial school of Logie Pert, and afterwards at the grammar school of Montrose.

Some pious ladies, amongst whom was Lady Jane Stuart, wife of Sir John Stuart, Bart, of Fettercairn, a place situate a few miles distant from that of his birth, having established a fund for educating one or two young men for the Church, Lady Jane^[1. We ought here to add, that Sir John Stuart continued till his death (about 1820), to correspond with Mr Mill, and to take the most friendly interest in him, and was the only person of station from whom, in his arduous struggles, he ever received the smallest help or encouragement. ] applied to the Rev. Mr Foote, minister of Fettercairn, to recommend one for that profession. Mr Foote in his turn applied to the Rev. Mr Peters, minister of Logie Pert, who recommended James Mill, both on account of his own abilities, and the known good character of his parents. He was accordingly sent to the university of Edinburgh, where he went through the course of study necessary for admission into the Church of Scotland, and was, in due time, licensed as a Preacher in the usual form. He did not obtain any living in the church, and never, perhaps, had any particular liking for the profession, into which he was thrown more by accident than choice. The study which chiefly delighted him, and exercised his thoughts, during the period of his academical course, was that of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy. The class of Moral Philosophy, which, in the arrangements of the university of Edinburgh, embraces the whole field of the philosophy of mind, was then taught by Mr Dugald Stewart, to whose noble eloquence, and animated exhortations to mental study, Mr Mill always listened with profound attention, and rapturous admiration. In a letter to one of his friends, written long after this period, namely, in 1821, when he had himself become greatly distinguished, he thus expresses his obligations to the lectures of that illustrious Professor:— “All the years I remained about Edinburgh, I used, as often as I possibly could, to steal into Mr Stewart’s class to hear a lecture, which always was a high treat. I have heard Pitt and Fox deliver some of their most admired speeches; but I never heard any thing nearly so eloquent as some of the lectures of Professor Stewart. The taste for the studies τvhich have formed my favourite pursuits, and which will be so to the end of my life, I owe to him” This acknowledgment was the more creditable to Mr Mill, that he had by this time widely separated from that metaphysical school of which Mr Stewart was the greatest ornament.

Mr Mill removed to London soon after the commencement of the present century; but before doing so, he seems to have officiated for a considerable time as a private tutor in the families of one or two gentlemen of fortune and consideration; and he appears also to have formed friendships with some young men, who afterwards distinguished themselves in science and literature. From the period of his arrival in the metropolis, till the year 1819, when he received, much to the honour of the donors, a valuable appointment in the India House, he supported himself and his growing family (for he married in 1805) entirely by his pen. We scarcely know any similar instance of a mere literary adventurer, without any profession or calling of any sort, maintaining himself and a large family for such a length of time, and preserving, as he unquestionably did, a character of the highest respectability, and lofty independence of thinking and writing. He not only supported his family without ever asking a favour,, or incurring a debt, but contrived, in the midst of his toils and cares, to educate them thoroughly; and, in fact, they never had any other teacher. Much of his time was employed in writing for periodical publications. For several years he was an occasional contributor to the Edinburgh Review, which is indebted to his pen for some very able articles. He also wrote in many other periodical publications, among which were the British, the Eclectic, and Monthly Reviews. One of the works to which he was a large contributor was the Philanthropist, a periodical journal established by the Quakers and other benevolent promoters of education, the reform of the criminal code, prison discipline, &c. With these excellent persons Mr Mill actively co-operated in the exertions to which the Lancasterian schools, and Infant schools, owed their origin; and, at a later period, he was one of the founders of the London University.

His principal work, the History of British India, had been commenced as far back as the year 1806. His venturing even to think of so great an undertaking, whilst [7:15:78]writing for his daily bread, and burdened with the maintenance and domestic education of a numerous family, furnishes one of the noblest proofs of intellectual ardour, and confidence in the resources of industry, that can be found in the whole history of literature. Nor were his labours confined to this work, and the other daily calls we have mentioned; for he found time, besides, to write more than one pamphlet upon subjects of interest at the moment; particularly a very conclusive answer to Mr Spence’s celebrated tract, entitled Britain independent of Commerce. The answer was published in 1808. His steady industry brought him at last in sight of the goal of which he never lost sight, though sometimes almost sinking under the toils which the pursuit had imposed upon him, we mean, the completion of his History. In a letter written in October 1816, he thus expresses himself:—“Thank God, after nearly ten years since its commencement, 1 am now revising it for the press. Whatever else it may contain, it will at least contain the fruits of a quantity of labour, of which nobody who shall not go over the same ground, and go over it without the assistance of rny work, can form an adequate conception. Had I foreseen that it would have been one half, or one third, of what it has been, never should I have been the author of a History of India.” It was at last published in five volumes octavo, in the winter of 1817-18. It is the smallest merit of this book, that it was, and still is, the only single work calculated to convey to the general reader any intelligible notion whatever of India, or Indian affairs as a whole, and which is therefore indispensable to all Englishmen who would possess even the most general knowledge of one great department of their country’s interest. This is much; but it achieved far more. We are only saying what will be confirmed by the most eminent of those who have administered Indian affairs for the last ten years, when we say, that Mr Mill’s work was the beginning of sound thinking on the subject of India. It gave a new turn to the thoughts of all the most thinking men amongst those who filled the most important posts in the local administration of India; and the measures of government in that country have for many years borne, and are every year bearing, more and more the impress of his views.

Although he had very freely censured the conduct of the East India Company, yet the powers of mind and knowledge of the subject which he displayed induced the Court of Directors, in the spring of 1819, when they were desirous of strengthening their home establishment, to introduce him into it (though personally unknown to most of them, and having little or no interest), and to intrust to him the chief conduct of their correspondence with India, in the revenue branch of administration. This is one of the most remarkable, as well as honourable instances of success in life, ever achieved by any literary man. Mr Mill had the rare fortune of being not only the first person who showed how India ought to be governed, but of being called upon to be a leading instrument in executing his own views. And not only in that situation, but in the higher one to which he rose in the course of promotion, viz. head of the department of correspondence with India in the India House, or, in other words, chief minister for Indian affairs to the East India Company, he lived to see almost all the great principles which he had advocated not merely recognised, but a commencement made in carrying them into practice in the government of India.

Mr Mill’s official duties mig⅛t well have furnished him with an excuse for relinquishing his pen as an author. But his mind was not of a cast to stop short in the career of inquiry, or to allow the calls of business to suppress the fruits of his reflections. It was observed of Lord Brougham, by the late Sir Samuel Romilly, that he could find time for every thing. So was it with Mr Mill. Never behind in his official duties, and mixing largely in the society of intelligent men, he was all the while engaged, just as if his daily bread yet depended on the employment of his pen, in literary labour. To this noble ardour the present work is much indebted. He became a contributor to the Supplement to its former editions, about three years before his appointment to the India House; but his contributions were continued nearly till the completion of that work in the year 1824; and he never sought an excuse, in his official labours, for any refusal to write what he thought might be useful. The extensive circulation of the work made it, in his eyes, a precious instrument for the diffusion of knowledge; and on this, and other accounts, he always took a strong interest in its character and success. Without enumerating the whole, we may mention the articles on Colonies, Education, Government, Jurisprudence, Law of Nations, Liberty of the Press, and Prison Discipline, as the most remarkable. These essays, all of which are incorporated in the present edition, were so widely disseminated by means of the work in which they appeared, and by separate republications of them, at a very cheap rate, as to make them by much the best known of his productions; and, we believe we may add, the most effective in stirring the thoughts of his contemporaries.

In 1821-22 he published his Elements of Political Economy, a treatise in which the science, as remodelled by Ricardo, was for the first time brought into a systematic and logically arranged form. In some of the criticisms on this work it seems to have been forgotten, that here Mr Mill made no pretensions to originality; that he “professed,” to borrow his own words, “to have made no discovery his object having been simply “to compose a school-book of political economy.”

Mr Mill’s ingenuity as a very acute and original metaphysician was abundantly displayed in his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, published in 1829. In this work he evinced analytical powers rarely, if ever, surpassed; and which have placed him high in the .list of those subtile inquirers who have attempted to resolve all the powers of the mind into a very small number of simple elements. Mr Mill took up this analysis where Hartley had left it, and applied the same method to the more complex phenomena, which the latter did not attempt to explain. From the general neglect of metaphysical studies in the present age, this work, which, at some periods of our history, would have placed its author on a level, in point of reputation, with the highest names in the republic of letters, has been less read and appreciated than any of his other writings.

Mr Mill’s last work was the Fragment on Mackintosh, published anonymously in 1835, but of the authorship of which he made no secret.. This is a criticism of a very severe kind, upon the Dissertation on the History of Ethical Philosophy, contributed by Sir James Mackintosh to the present publication. Most even of those who agree in the general opinions expressed by Mr Mill, have admitted, that the degree of bitterness which he manifested towards this eminent and singularly candid writer was altogether uncalled for. With all our strong respect for his abilities and character, we confess that we never could look into this publication without feelings of wonder and mortification, that Philosophy sometimes can leave her votaries so bereft of sentiments which, in their cool moments, they never fail to inculcate as constituting the primary conditions of all true, manly, and useful inquiry. But no one can doubt Mr Mill’s sincerity, nor question the attention due to any thing which proceeded from his pen on the subjects adverted to in the Fragment.

Mr Mill wrote several of the principal articles in the early numbers of the Westminster Review, and resumed the pen, after an interval of some years, to write the celebrated[7:15:79] article on the Ballot. After the junction of the Westminster with the London Review, he wrote some other articles for that journal, which, though rougher, are perhaps more racy and characteristic than his earlier contributions. The last of them, entitled Aristocracy, was the last of his literary labours. It was written during the illness of which he died.

Before taking leave of the writings of this remarkable man, we ought perhaps to mention, as descriptive of his mental character and pursuits, that he had at one time resolved, after finishing his History of India, to write a History of English Law. He speaks as follows of this project, in a letter written in 1818 :—“You do not know, perhaps, what is my presumption on the subject of* law. The next work (after the History) which I meditate, is a History of English Law, in which I propose to trace, as far as possible, the expedients of the several ages to the state of the human mind, and the circumstances of society in those ages, and to show their concord or discord with the standard of perfection; and I am not without hopes of producing a book readable by all, and if so, a book capable of teaching law to all.” We do not know whether he ever made any progress in the execution of this design, or by what circumstances he was induced to abandon it. His intimacy with Mr Ricardo, and his strong bias towards metaphysical speculations, probably induced him to endeavour, in preference, to systematize the science of political economy, and to prosecute the inquiries which led to the publication of his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Mind.

Mr Mill, from an early age, was subject to gout; a disease which not unfrequently in old age affects the chest. For some winters previously to his death he had an obstinate cough, which, however, went off as the summer advanced. But in the summer of 1835 it did not go off, and the symptoms of pulmonary consumption by degrees manifested themselves. He declined slowly, and died on the 23d of June 1836. His remains were buried in Kensington Church, having lived at Kensington during the last five years of his life.

If we were called upon to state what, beyond all others, was the distinguishing characteristic of Mr Mill’s mind, we should answer, his power of generalization. To have this power in a high degree, three qualities of mind, each of them rarely to be met with in a high degree separately, still more rarely together, are requisite—the observing faculty, the analytical faculty, and the ratiocinative faculty. Thus, in Aristotle the observing and ratiocinative powers, and in Bentham the ratiocinative, existed in considerable force, whilst the former had but little, and the latter still less, of the analytical. They made enumerations and catalogues with wonderful minuteness, which, however, from want of analysis, were often inaccurate or imperfect; rendering, moreover, the question treated unnecessarily complicated, in proportion to that imperfection. The very complication in which a patient but un-analytical mind is sure to involve any large subject, frequently obtains for such men the character of possessing and displaying a vast knowledge of and command over details, when in truth the display and enumeration of endless details arises from their inability to penetrate into the heart of , their subject,—to take it to pieces, and then separate from it what is extrinsic, bringing out the real core of the question into naked and broad light. He who can do this will generalize accurately. But to do this is given to few; whilst, on the other hand, to generalize inaccurately, requires neither labour in collecting facts, nor penetration in analysing them, nor logic in treating the results of the analysis; and is unfortunately one of the commonest of the qualities that belong to men. And, as the mass of mankind seldom give themselves the trouble to seize distinctions, they are in the habit of applying to generalization, in the true sense of the word, and as Mr Mill possessed it, the censure deserved only by such slovenly generalizations as those which commonly pass under the name. Of the three faculties necessary for correct generalization, Mr Mill had the observing faculty in a smaller proportion than the other two; but it would be difficult to name any writer who possessed a larger share of all the three together.

Mr Mill was wont to attribute a considerable share of influence in the formation of his intellectual character to his reading the works of Plato. And, no doubt, to read with understanding the writings of Plato, must produce extraordinary effects upon the mind of any man. In the style, however, in which Mr Mill developed and embodied his speculations, he bears more resemblance to Aristotle than to Plato. At the same time, this was rather in the form than the matter; for he had little of Aristotle’s vast power of observation, and he had much of Plato’s dialectical and analytical powers, though altogether wanting the poetical qualities of his mind. Of modern philosophers, he whom Mr Mill most resembles is Hobbes. There is in both the same clearness, the same condensation, the same simplicity of style, the same utter abjuration of all rhetorical ornament, or any thing else that might lead either the mind of the writer or of the reader away, even for a moment, from the point under discussion. There is often, however, a quiet dry humour lurking in Hobbes’s sentences, which is not to be found in Mr Mill’s. Hobbes’s language, too, is more idiomatic. In the boldness and originality of the tone of thought the resemblance is striking.

∙' It has been usual with certain persons to consider Mr Mill as a disciple of Bentham. It seems worth while to say a few words on this point. Mr Mill, in his Fragment on Mackintosh, having occasion to state that no man ever derived Tais opinions from the conversation of Mr Bentham, inasmuch as, with him, conversation was relaxation purely, adds, “It is also a matter of fact, that till within a few years of the death of Mr Bentham, the men of any pretension to letters who shared his intimacy, and saw enough of him to have the opportunity of learning much from his life, were in number two. These men were familiar with the writings of Mr Bentham; one of them, at least (Mr Mill himself), before he was acquainted with his person. And they were neither of them men who took any body for a master, though they were drawn to Mr Bentham by the sympathy of common opinions, and by the respect due to a man who had done more than any body else to illustrate and recommend doctrines which they deemed of first-rate importance to the happiness of mankind.” So far, and no farther, was Mr Mill a disciple of Mr Bentham.

A trait of Mr Mill’s character which well deserves to be commemorated, was the warm interest he always took in the intellectual progress of any young man known to him as possessing some capacity and inclination to improve himself. His enlarged and philosophical view of the subject of education leading him to regard nearly the whole of man’s life as a course of education, he endeavoured, with great earnestness and energy, to impress upon the minds of such young men the importance of educating themselves after a different standard from the vulgar one of their age; and of rendering even those studies which their various professions or modes of life obliged them to pursue, as much as possible the means of invigorating and improving their intellectual and moral nature. In enforcing his precepts, Mr Mill was aided by the extraordinary nerve and clearness with which he expressed himself in conversation. He was, indeed, one of the best discoursers, on grave subjects, that we ever met with; and he spoke with an amenity and ease, and even with a degree of point and animation[7:15:80], that could not have been anticipated from acquaintance merely with the dry and emotionless character of his written productions.

In a word, the tendency of all Mr Mill’s writings was to lead men to trust for their opinions neither to the authority of a name, however renowned, nor to the dogmatical assertions of a man or a body of men, however powerful; but to the evidence of their senses and their reason. To do this he deemed of first-rate importance to produce good morals, good legislation, good government, in a word, human happiness; and he enforced his precepts with an earnestness proportionate to so momentous an end. In like manner, he regarded all attempts to corrupt the springs of government, and thereby to “strike at the well-being” to use his own words, “of all the myriads of whom the great body of the community is composed, from generation to generation,” with a severity of indignation that might be expected from his earnest and energetic character. His comprehensive mind, long habituated to large views, and to dealing with classes rather than individuals, sympathized as keenly with the bulk of mankind as an ordinary mind does with the hero or heroine of a well-told tale. Such ought to be, but how seldom has it been, the character of the legislator and the statesman:

patriae impendere vitam, Non sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo.

Mill, John, a very learned divine, was born at Shap in Westmoreland, about the year 1645, and became a servitor of Queen’s College, Oxford. Upon his entering into orders he became an eminent preacher, and was made prebendary of Exeter. In 1681 he was created doctor of divinity; about the same time he was made chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II.; and in 1685 he was elected principal to St Edmund’s Hall in Oxford. His edition of the Greek Testament, which will render his name ever memorable, was published abouta fortnightbefore his death, which happened in June 1707. Dr Mill was during thirty years employed in preparing this edition.