John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

CHAPTER V.
CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE.
ON Mill s general character, little remains for me to say.
His writings, his career, his numerous critics, and last,
but not least, his Autobiography, have sufficiently shown what
manner of man he was. Any additional contribution is jus
tifiable mainly on the supposition of enabling us better to seize
the central features, and to make the whole more consistent
throughout. There are, moreover, some anomalous passages in
his life, upon which the last word has not yet been said.
Mill had, I believe, a very fine constitution physically. His
father s brain was encased in an admirable framework. His
muscle was good to the last ; and his nutritive powers failed
only in consequence of a strain that they should never have
been subjected to. The nervous system was habitually kept at
a high tension all through ;
this cannot be done for nothing.
The general cast of his mental powers was high in all the
regions of mind. With a predominance of Intellect, he had
great power of Will, and unusual depth of Feeling. He had pre
eminently the sanguine temperament. Whenever the general
system was in working order, enjoyment was with him the
natural result. He was, I think, born for a happy life, if
he had got only tolerably fair play. It was not the fault of
nature that he was so often in the depths : his power of
recovery attests the vital force of the system.
There can be little hesitation as to the specialities of his
Intellect. These were soon brought out by his early education,
so far as books could do it. Every species of literature was