John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works: Twelve Sketches by Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, and Other Distinguished Authors — John Shaqi
John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works: Twelve Sketches by Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, and Other Distinguished Authors
Philosophy
John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works: Twelve Sketches by Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison, and Other Distinguished Authors
Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873; Philosophers -- Great Britain -- Biography
future is to raise the mass of the people to a higher standard of
political intelligence and material comfort. To that great end no man
has contributed so much as Mr. Mill.
Perhaps the one writing for which above all others Mr. Mill's
disciples will love his memory is his essay "On Liberty." In this
undertaking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with
greater largeness of view and perfection of work. Locke's four letters
"Concerning Toleration" constitute a splendid manifesto of the
Liberals of the seventeenth century. The principle, that the ends of
political society are life, health, liberty, and immunity from harm,
and not the salvation of souls, has taken nearly two centuries to root
itself in English law, but has long been recognized by all but the
shallowest bigots. And yet Locke spoke of "atheism being a crime,
which, for its madness as well as guilt, ought to shut a man out of
all sober and civil society." Here again, what a stride does the
_Liberty_ make? It is, once more, the difference of the times, rather
than of the men. The same noble and prescient insight into the springs
of national greatness and social progress characterizes the work of
both men, but in what different measures? Again, we must say, the
disciple is greater than the master. Closely bearing on this topic is
the relation of the two men to Christianity. Locke not only wrote to
show the "Reasonableness of Christianity," but paraphrased several of
the books of the New Testament. Mr. Mill has never written one
sentence to give the least encouragement to Christianity. But,
although a contrast appears to exist, there is really none. Locke was
what may be called a Bible Christian. He rejected all theological
systems, and constructed his religious belief in the truly Protestant
way,--with the Bible and his inner consciousness. His creed was the
Bible as conformed to reason; but he never doubted which, in the event
of a conflict, ought to give way. To him the destructive criticism of
biblical scholars and the discoveries of geology had given no
disquietude; and he died with the happy conviction, that, without
abandoning his religious teaching, he could remain faithful to reason.
Mr. Mill inherited a vast controversy, and he had to make a choice
like Locke, he remained faithful only to reason.
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