John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

STORAGE OF PRINCIPLES.
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whether in the physical, or in the mental world. He did,
nevertheless, show a considerable wakefulness to what went on
within his circle, yet with decided limitations. He could have
imbibed physical facts with avidity, if his circumstances had
been favourable ; but his opportunities were very few. He was
perhaps all the more disposed to notice mental and social facts;
and it is wonderful how many of these he took hold of, in the
remissions of book study. Of course, the larger mass of
sociological details had to be gathered through books ; yet a
certain quantity of personal observation was needed as a basis
for comprehending those that came by the other sources. His
power of psychological observation was also good, and served
him both as a theoretical psychologist, and as a practical philo
sopher, more especially in ethics, and in politics.
We come finally to the great distinguishing feature of such a
mind as his: the rich storage of principles, doctrines, generalities
of every degree, over several wide departments of knowledge.
Principles had to be imbibed in copious draughts all through
his education ; the collision, combination, harmonizing, of these
constitutes speculative insight, and conducts to original
thinking. To read the productions of scientific men, to enter
into the discussion of abstract themes with kindred minds, to
excogitate and to reduce to writing new attempts at generalising
from the facts, such are the exercises of the discursive or
scientific mind ; and the natural avidity for those exercises is
the test of the scientific endowment. Mill laid up
in his
capacious mind a variety of things ; but, with all his getting,
he got this special understanding the understanding of prin
ciples. If you wanted, at any time, to commend yourself to
his favourable regards, you had but to start a doctrinal dis
cussion to bring a new logos to his view.
With what success he plied his speculative faculty, what were
the lines of his peculiar force, how far he rose above or fell
below other speculators, his books alone will testify ; and all
of them have been freely and almost exhaustively criticized for