 | The autobiography of John Stuart Mill |  |
NOTES:
In a subsequent stage of boyhood when these exercises had ceased to be compulsory, like most youthful writers I wrote tragedies; under the inspiration not so much of Shakespeare as of Joanna Baillie, whose "Constantine Paleologus" in particular appeared to me one of the most glorious human compositions. I still think it one of the best dramas of the last two centuries.
. The continuation of this article in the second number of the review was written by me under my father's eye, and (except as practice in composition in which respect it was, to me, more useful than anything else I ever wrote) was of little or no value.
The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to here were far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the subject would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, that my strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political, social and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and women, may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far from being the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest results of the application of my mind to political subjects, and the strength with which I held them was, as I believe, more than anything else, the originating cause of the interest she felt in me. What is true is, that until I knew her, the opinion was in my mind, little more than an abstract principle. I saw no more reason why women should be held in legal subjection to other people, than why men should. I was certain that their interests required fully as much protection as those of men, and were quite as little likely to obtain it without an equal voice in making the laws by which they are to be bound. But that perception of the vast practical bearings of women's diabilities which found expression in the book on the "Subjection of Women" was acquired mainly through her teaching. But for her rare knowledge of human nature and emprehension of moral and social influences, though I should doubtless have held my present opinions, I should have had a very insufficient perception of he mode in which the consequences of the inferior position of women intertwine themselves with all the evils of existing society and with all the difficulties of human improvement. I was indeed painfully conscious how much of here best thoughts on the subject I have failed to reproduce, and how greatly that little treatise falls short of what would have been if she had put on paper her entire mind on this question, or had lived to revise and improve, as she certainly would have done, my imperfect statement of the case.
The only person from whom I received any direct assistance in the preparation of the "System of Logic" was Mr Bain, since so justly celebrated for his philosophical writings. He went carefully through the manuscript before it was sent to press, and enriched it with a great number of additional examples and illustrations from science; many of which, as well as some detached remarks of his own in confirmation of may logical views, I inserted nearly in his own words.
My obligations to Comte were only to his writings — to the part which had then been published of his "Système de Philosophie Positive": and, as has been seen from what I have said in the Narrative, the amount of these obligations is far less than has sometimes been asserted. The first volume, which contains al the fundamental doctrines of the book, was substantially complete before I had seen Comte's treatise. I derived from him many valuable thoughts, compicuously in the chapter on Hypotheses and in the view taken of the logic of algebra: but it is only in the concluding Book, on the Logic of the Moral Sciences that I owe to him any radical improvement in my conception of the application of logical methods. This improvement I have stated and characterized in a former part of the present Memoir.
A few dedicatory lines acknowledging what the book owed to her, were prefixed to some of the presentation copies of the Political Economy on the first publication. Her dislike of publicity alone prevented their insertion in the other copies of the work.
The saying of this true hero, after his capture, that he was worth more for hanging than for any other purpose, reminds one, by its combination of wit, wisdom, and self-devotion, of Sir Thomas More.
The first was in answer to Mr Lowe's reply to Mr Bright on the Cattle Plague Bill, and was thought at the time to have helped to get rid of a provision in the Government measure which would have given to landholders a second indemnity, after they had already been once indemnified for the loss of some of their cattle by the increased selling price of the remainder.
Among the most active members of the Committee were Mr P.A. Taylor, M.P., always faithful and energetic in every assertion of the principles of liberty; Mr Goldwin Smith, Mr Frederic Harrison, Mr Slack, Mr Chamerovzow, Mr Shaen, and Mr Chesson, the Honorary Secretary of the Association.
At one time I reckoned that threates of assassination were received at least once a week; and I remarked that threatening letters were always espcially numerous by Tuesday's morning post. I inferred that they wre meditated during the Sunday's leisure and posted on the Mondays. It might be worth while to collect evidence as to the proportions of crime committed on the different days of the week. It may be observed however that in England Sunday is generally used for all kinds of letter writing, innocent as well as guilty. Helen Taylor.
One which deserves particular mention is a letter respecting the Habitual Criminals Act and the functions of a police generally, written in answer to a private application for my opinion, but which got into the newspapers and excited some notice. This letter which was full of original and vauable thoughts was entirely my daughter's; the fertility and aptness which distinguishes her practical conceptions of the adaptation of means to ends is such I can never hope to rival.
| The autobiography of John Stuart Mill | |