[Transcriber's note: between brackets [ ] some fragments are included, which are not present in all editions, mostly commentaries concerning Mr. Mill's wife and stepdaughter (Helen Taylor)--an html ed. of this e-text, including index is pending.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY by JOHN STUART MILL CONTENTS CHAPTER I 1806-1819 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION CHAPTER II 1813-1821 MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH--MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS CHAPTER III 1821-1823 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION, AND FIRST OF SELF-EDUCATION CHAPTER IV 1823-1828 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDISM--THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW" CHAPTER V 1826-1832 A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY--ONE STAGE ONWARD CHAPTER VI 1830-1840 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE--MY FATHER'S DEATH--WRITINGS AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840 CHAPTER VII 1840-1870 GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY LIFE.--COMPLETION OF THE "SYSTEM OF LOGIC"--PUBLICATION OF THE "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY" --MARRIAGE--RETIREMENT FROM THE INDIA HOUSE--PUBLICATION OF "LIBERTY" --"CONSIDERATIONS ON REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT"--CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA --EXAMINATION OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY--PARLIAMENTARY LIFE --REMAINDER OF MY LIFE CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION It seems proper that I should prefix to the following biographical sketch some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate can be interesting to the public as a narrative or as being connected with myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education and its improvement are the subject of more, if not of profounder, study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward, equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or from those of others. But a motive which weighs more with me than either of these, is a desire to make acknowledgment of the debts which my intellectual and moral development owes to other persons; some of them of recognised eminence, others less known than they deserve to be, and the one to whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no opportunity of knowing. The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind that for him these pages were not written.