one reason for commencing with the remark that john stuart mill was born on may 20, 1806, at no. 13, rodney street, islington, london, is to notify the coincidence that gladstone, another man of contemporaneous distinction, was born in rodney street, liverpool, three years later. rodney street, london, where mill was born, was a small, narrow, second-rate, odd, out-of-the-way suburban thoroughfare. but in those days islington had the characteristics of a rural retreat a little above this rodney street, in what is now known as the pentonville road, stood the "angel," a favourite hostelry, where thomas paine wrote part of one of his famous books, near the period of mill's birth.
the familiar books concerning j. s. mill,* treat mainly of his eminence as a thinker.
* notably those of professor a. bain and mr. courtney.
i concern myself with those personal characteristics which won for him the regard and honour of the insurgent industrial classes—insurgent, not in the sense of physical rebellion against authority, but of intellectual rebellion against error, social inferiority and insufficiency of means. mill regarded the press as the fortress of freedom. all his life he gave money to establish such defences, and left the copyright of his works to mr. john morley, to be applied in aid of publications open to the expression of all reasoned opinion, having articles signed by the names of the writers. mr. mill was the first who made provision for the expression of unfriended truth. it would be a surprising biography which recorded the causes he aided and the persons whom he helped. he was not one of those philosophers, "selfish, cold and wise," who, fortunate and satisfied with their own emancipation from error, leave others to perish in their ignorance. mill helped them,* as did place, bentham, grote, roebuck, molesworth, and other leaders of the great utilitarian party. for ten years i knew mr. mill to receive and write letters of suggestion from the india house. he would see any one, at any hour, interested in the progress of the people. as mr. john morley has said in the fortnightly review, "it was easier for a workman than for a princess to obtain access to him."
* like samuel morley, he took trouble to aid honest
endeavour, often irrespective of agreement with it.
a pamphlet by me on the "liberal situation" in 1865* being sent to mr. mill, he wrote me the following letter:—
* it was in the form of a letter addressed to joseph cowen.
"avignon,
"april 28, 1865.
"dear sir,—i have received your pamphlet (the 'liberal situation') which i think is one of the best of your writings, and well calculated to stir up the thinking minds among the working classes to larger views of political questions. so far as i am myself concerned i cannot but be pleased to find you in sympathy with some of the most generally unpopular of my political notions. for my own part, i attach for the present more importance to representation of minorities, and especially to mr. hares plan, combined with opening the suffrage to women, than to the plural voting which, in the form proposed by mr. buxton, of attaching the plurality of votes directly to property, i have always thoroughly repudiated. but i think what you say of it likely to be very useful by impressing on the working people that it is no degradation to them to consider some people's votes of more value than others. i would always (as you do) couple with the plurality the condition of its being accessible to any one, however poor, who proves that he can come up to a certain standard of knowledge.—i am, yours truly,
"j. s. mill.
"g. j. holyoake."
one night when a great reform league meeting was held in the agricultural hall, islington, i accompanied him from the house of commons to it. there were rumours of danger in attending it. this did not deter him. the meeting itself was ill spoken of by the press—still he went. the crowd about the place made it perilous for one so fragile-looking as he, to force a way in. he never hesitated to try it when we arrived on the thronged platform, it was a struggle to get to the front. the vast amphitheatre, with its distant lights and dense crowds—the horsepit presenting a valley of faces, the higher ground hills of men, the iron rafters overhead were alive with hearers who had climbed there—was a strange miltonic scene. no sooner did the stout voice of manton—which alone all could hear—announce the arrival of mr. mill than every man was silent; though few would catch the low, wise, brave words he uttered. afterwards i returned to the house of commons with him, he being interested in an expected division.
the islington meeting that night had been denounced as illegal. he went to justify the right of public meeting by his presence, and to share the responsibility of those who convened it. what man eminent as a thinker, save he, or mr. john morley, would incur the odium, peril, and discomfort of attending, for such a purpose, a workman's meeting such as that?
the first time he made a speech at a public meeting was at the whittington club, before a gathering of co-operators. i asked him to address them. i was as glad as surprised when he consented. had it not been for the presence of women taking interest in co-operative economy, he probably had not spoken then. in a sentence he defined the higher co-operation. he never spoke in vain.
when in business in fleet street i signed bills for the convenience of a city friend, who, like william ellis—mill's early associate—was a munificent supporter of progressive endeavour. by putting my name on his bills i incurred a liability beyond my means of meeting. my more than imprudence was indefensible because it involved the business in which the money of others was invested. learning that my resources fell short by ￡70 of the amount for which i was answerable, mr. mill sent me the ￡70 from himself and a friend. when the bills were repaid me from the estate of him for whom i had signed them, i sent the ￡70 to mr. mill, who returned me half as a gift, on the condition that i did not sign another bill, which i never did, unless i was able to pay it if my friend did not, and i was willing to pay it if he could not.
mr. mill had quoted portions of my "history of the rochdale pioneers," in his "political economy," which was a great advantage to a cause whose success i much desired. in many ways i was much indebted to his friendship, and have never changed in my regard for him. yet this did not involve spontaneous acquiescence in all his views. upon the ballot i dissented from him. it seemed to me a just condition that the people should be, for one minute in seven years, free to vote for their political masters (as members of parliament are) without control, intimidation, or fear of resentment mr. bright himself and mr. berkeley were impressed by my view as stated to a meeting of the reform league. mill thought it conduced to manliness that the elector should withstand adverse influences at whatever peril—which assumed the universal existence of a heroic spirit of self-sacrifice. since the elector by his vote subjects his fellow-citizens, it may be, to perilous mastership, mill inferred every man had a right to know from whose hand came the blessing or the blow. there is still force in mill's view which commands respect. on the other hand, secret voting is not without its disadvantages. the citizen may be surrounded by disguised adversaries. the fair-seeming dissembler he trusts may stab him at the poll. the independence given by the ballot may betray the state, and the traitors be shielded from responsibility. the secret vote also rests on a vast assumption—that of the universal paramountcy of conscience and honesty in electors—which paramountcy is as scarce as political heroism. those who so trust the people incur the greater and ceaseless responsibility of educating them in political honour. they who have shown their trust in the people, alone have the right of claiming their fidelity. mr. mill was foremost in teaching the duty of independent thought, and, to do him justice, my dissent from a principle he had come to hold strongly, made no difference in his friendship. he was once a believer in the ballot himself.
mr. mill was an instance which shows that even the virtues of a philosopher need, as in lesser men, good sense to take care of them, lest the operation of lofty qualities compromise others. his unguarded intrepidity in defence of the right cost him his seat for westminster. things were going well for him, on his second candidature, when one morning it appeared in the newspapers that he had sent ￡10 to promote the election of mr. bradlaugh. that ￡10 was worth ￡10,000 to his tory opponent, and cost mill's own committee the loss of ￡3,000, which was contributed to promote his election. when i was a candidate in the tower hamlets, mr. mill sent a similar sum to promote my election; but i prohibited the publication of an intrepid act of generosity, which might prove costly to mr. mill at his first election dean stanley nobly urged christian electors to vote for mr. mill; but at the second election, when it became known that mr. mill was subscribing to bring an atheist into parliament, most christians were persuaded mr. mill was himself an atheist, and only the nobler sort would vote for him again. it was right and honourable in mr. mill to stand by his opinion, that an atheist had as much right as a christian to be in parliament, and that ecclesiastical heresy was no disqualification for public or parliamentary service. to maintain your opinions at your own cost is one thing, but to proclaim them at the cost of others, without regard to time, consent or circumstance, is quite a different matter.
mr. mill had refused on principle to contribute to the expense of his own election, on the ground that a candidate should not be called upon to pay for his own election to a place of public service, i though it was perfectly consistent that he should contribute to the election of others. but his committee could not convert the electorate to this view. there is nothing so difficult as the election of a philosopher. mr. mill was in favour of the civil equality of all opinions, but it did not follow that he shared all opinions himself. but the electors could not be made to see this after the ￡10 sent to northampton became known, and england saw the most famous borough in the land handed over for unknown years to a tory bookseller, without personal distinction of his own, and a book writer of the highest order rejected by the electors in favour of a mere bookseller.
mr. mill's father, openly advocating the limitation of families in the interest of the poor, bequeathed to his son a heritage of disadvantage—of liability to frenzied imputation. no man is to be held responsible save for what he himself says and what he himself does. no man is answerable, or ought to be held answerable, for the construction others put upon his conduct, or for their inference as to his opinions. no writer ever guarded his words and conduct more assiduously than j. s. mill. yet few have been more misrepresented by theological and conservative writers. upon the question of "limitation of families," mr. mill never wrote other or more than this:—
"no prudent man contracts matrimony before he is in a condition which gives him an assured means of living, and no married man has a greater number of children than he can properly bring up. whenever this family has been formed, justice and humanity require that he should impose on himself the same restraint which is submitted to by the unmarried."*
* "principles of political economy," book ii.
further instruction of the people upon this subject j. s. mill might not deprecate, but he never gave it he never went so far as jowett, who wrote: "that the most important influences on human life should be wholly left to chance, or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform to an external standard of propriety, cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things."*
* "dialogues of plato." introduction to "republic," vol. ii.
mill's views, or supposed views, naturally excited the attention of wits. moore's amusing exaggeration, which, like american humour, was devoid of truth, yet had no malice in it, was:—
"there are two mr. mills, too, whom those who like reading
what's vastly unreadable, call very clever;
and whereas mill senior makes war on good breeding,
mill junior makes war on all breeding whatever."
the way in which opinions were invented for mill is shown in the instance of the london debating club (1826-1830), which was attended by a set of young men who professed ultra opinions. mr. j. a. roebuck was one. it was rumoured that at a meeting at which mr. mill was present, a pamphlet was discussed entitled, "what is love?" attributed to a man of some note in his day, and of | unimpeachable character in private life. mr. mill might have been present without knowledge of the | subject to be brought forward, and may have been a listener without choice.
but in those days (and down to a much later period) the conventional fallacy was in full vogue—that civility to an opponent implied a secret similarity of opinion. courtesy was regarded as complicity with the beliefs of those to whom it was shown. he who was present at an unconventional assembly was held to assent to what took place there—though neither a member, nor speaker, nor partisan.