John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

105
tensions of Christianity to be a divine
revelation; and this ought not to be done
in a passing remark. The proofs that Mill
offers of the alleged one-sidedness may
have been very satisfactory to himself,
yet everyone of them might be plausibly
set aside. His strongest point is the
passive character of the Christian pre
cepts. "Tht^ idee 1 of Christianity is
negative rather than positive; passive
rather than active; Innocence rather
than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil,
rather than energetic pursuit of good; in
its precepts (as has been well said) f thou
she It not 1
predominates unduly over f thou
shalt 1 ." Now,
I
there m&y not be
do not mean to say that
some truth in all this; I
merely say that it is exceedingly open to
reply. For example, activity in virtue
depends quite as much on individual
temperament as on creed. The typical
Anglo-Saxon /hen highly virtuous, is
almost sure to be actively so. Did Mill
not remember his father s friend, William
Allen? I give this simply as one of the
many ways that such a thesis as Mill s
could be counter-argued. The whole sub
ject is extraneous to his treatise, and
impedes rather than assists the effect
that he desires to produce.
In the Crimean campaign, a Russian
officer is reported to have characterized
our noted cavalry charge as "splendid,
but not war". So, Mill, in venturing upon
such bold criticism as the foregoing,
recklessly exposes himself on every side
to his enemy s guns. He seeias to think
thet he can now and then drop the polemic