John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

152 BOTANY: LOVE OF SCENERY. 1849-1872.
character joyous by nature, and therefore easily amused ; or
perhaps nothing more stimulating is to be had. It no doubt
adds an interest to pedestrian exercise. The mental effort is
very small ; the scientific outcome still smaller. Of Botany as
a science, Mill knew very little ; indeed, when he began, there
was not much to be known, beyond the description of plants in
detail, and the classifications of Linnaeus and Jussieu. Plant-
hunting was to him what sports are to other persons. I doubt
whether, under any circumstances, he could have brought
himself to be a sportsman. Hunting and shooting would, I am
pretty certain, have been abhorrent to him ; and, while his excur
sions often brought him into opportunities for fishing, he never
availed himself of these. The chase for plants was all that he
desired. In my chapter, in The Emotions and the Will, on
Plot-Interest, I endeavoured to describe the situation of pursuit
in the sports of the field. When Mill revised the MS. of the
work, before publication, he added the note, which is given in
connexion with the passage
the botanist ".
"
All this eminently applies to
Reverting to his interest in natural scenery, we may recall
his great anxiety lest the enclosure of Commons should go the
length of effacing natural beauties and diminishing the scope
of the picturesque tourist. This was one of the
"
"
five points
of his charter in reforming the Land Laws. He was also
very much concerned (and so was his father) at the possible
havoc that the railways might make in the beauties of our rural
districts. Thus, writing in 1836, on the measures of Reform
then pending, he adverts to the progress of the railways, and
observes
"
it is far from desirable that this island, the most
beautiful portion perhaps of the earth s surface for its size,
should be levelled and torn up in
And
a hundred unnecessary
"
In the choice
directions by these deformities ".
again :
of a line it is disgraceful that not one thought should be
bestowed upon the character of the natural scenery
which is
threatened with destruction. It is highly desirable that there