John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

90 SOCIALISM. 1841-1848.
of many, that while his estimate of pure sentimental affection
was more than enough, his estimate of the sexual passion was
too low.
The strong leanings towards some form of Socialism, indi
cated in the Autobiography, would have led us to believe that
his opinions nearly coincided with those of the socialists com
monly so called. The recent publication of his first draft of a
projected essay on the subject, shows the wide gulf
that still
separated him and them. The obstacles to the realizing of
socialistic schemes could not be more forcibly expressed.
Above all, the great stress that he always put upon Individuality
would be impossible to reconcile with the constructions of
Fourier, Owen, Louis Blanc, and the American communists.
His socialism is thus to be the outcome of a remote future,
when human beings shall have made a great stride in moral
education, or, as Mr. Spencer would express it, have evolved a
new and advanced phase of altruism.
The publication of the Political Economy was followed by
another very serious breakdown in his health. In the summer
of 1848, he had a bad accident. Inside the Kensington Grove
gate of Hyde Park, there is a pump by which he used to cross
in order to walk on the grass. One day
he trod on a loose
brick, and fell heavily on the hip. In treating the hurt, a
belladonna plaster was applied. An affection of his eyes soon
followed, which he had knowledge enough at once to attribute
to the belladonna, and disused the plaster forthwith. For some
weeks, however, he was both lame and unable to use his eyes.
I never saw him in such a state of despair. Prostration of the
nervous system may have aggravated his condition. His
elasticity of constitution brought him through once more ;
in the following year, 1849, he was still in an invalid condition.
I introduced to him that year Dr. Thomas Clark, of Marischal
College, himself a permanent invalid from overwork, who
spoke a good deal to him about regimen, and endeavoured to
induce him to try the water-treatment, then just started. He
but