The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 (of 3): James Mill — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 (of 3): James Mill
John Stuart Mill · en
Mill's propaganda of Benthamism was for some time obscure. He helped
to put together some of Bentham's writings, especially the book upon
evidence. He was consulted in regard to all proposed publications,
such as the pamphlet upon jury-packing, which Mill desired to publish
in spite of Romilly's warning. Mill endeavoured also to disseminate
the true faith through various periodicals. He obtained admission to
the _Edinburgh Review_, probably through its chief contributor,
Brougham. Neither Brougham nor Jeffrey was likely to commit the great
Whig review to the support of a creed still militant and regarded with
distrust by the respectable. Mill contributed various articles from
1808 to 1813, but chiefly upon topics outside of the political sphere.
The _Edinburgh Review_, as I have said, had taken a condescending
notice of Bentham in 1804. Mill tried to introduce a better tone into
an article upon Bexon's _Code de la Législation pénale_, which he was
permitted to publish in the number for October 1809. Knowing Jeffrey's
'dislike of praise,' he tried to be on his guard, and to insinuate his
master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm. Jeffrey,
however, sadly mangled the review, struck out every mention but one of
Bentham, and there substituted words of his own for Mill's. Even as it
was, Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.[7]
Mill continued to write for a time, partly, no doubt, with a view to
Jeffrey's cheques. Almost his last article (in January 1813) was
devoted to the Lancasterian controversy, in which Mill, as we shall
directly see, was in alliance with the Whigs. But the Edinburgh
Reviewers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial
company for a determined Radical. They would give him no more than a
secondary position, and would then take good care to avoid the
insertion of any suspicious doctrine. Mill wrote no more after the
summer of 1813.