John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

HIS WIFE S GENIUS.
had prepared him for writing a defence of Free-thought that
would be sure to take rank with the first expositions of the
subject. The book has unsurpassed excellencies, and, as I
think, some defects. How far these are to be partitioned be
tween the two co-operating minds, there is probably no means
of discovering.
The Subjection of Woman is said to have been the result of
their joint discussions for many years ; Miss Helen Taylor
assisting in the composition. No doubt this was his wife s
subject by pre-eminence ; it is the only subject that she actually
wrote upon with her own pen. Her influence upon Mill, and
upon the world through him, lay unmistakably here. Apart
from her, he probably might have continued to hold his original
opinions as to the equality of the sexes, but he might not have
devoted so much of his life to the energetic advocacy of them.
If Mill had been content with putting forward these explana
tions as to his wife s concurrence in his labours, the world
would have accepted them as given, and would have accorded
to her a reputation corresponding. Unfortunately for both,
he outraged all reasonable credibility in describing her match
less genius, without being able to supply any corroborating
testimony. Such a state of subjection to the will of another,
as he candidly avows, and glories in, cannot be received as a
right state of things. It violates our sense of due proportion,
in the relationship of human beings. Still, it is but the natural
outcome of his extraordinary hallucination as to the personal
qualities of his wife. The influence of overweening passion is
most conspicuous and irrefragable in this particular. He
does not tell us that he set aside other interests on her account ;
what he does tell shows that his mode of estimating her must
have been partial to a degree that will create lasting astonish
ment. The remark was made by Mr. Goldwin Smith, that
Mill s hallucination as to his wife s genius deprived him of all
authority wherever that came in ;
17 x
but he was still to be treated
with the deference due to his great powers, where that did not