John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

ESTIMATE OF HIS STUDIES. 23
while at Toulouse, scarcely any portion of his reading could be
called recreative. His lightest
literature was in French, and
was intended as practice in the language. Probably at home
his reading-day may have often been longer ;
it would scarcely
ever be shorter. For a scholar, in mature years, eight or nine
hours reading would not be extraordinary ; but then there is
no longer the same tasking of the memory. Mill s power of
application all through his early years
was without doubt amaz
ing ; and, although he suffered from it in premature ill-health,
it was a foretaste of what he could do throughout his whole
life. It attested a combination of cerebral activity and consti
tutional vigour that is as rare as genius ; his younger brothers
succumbed under a far less severe discipline.
That the application was excessive, I for one would affirm
without any hesitation. That his health suffered, we have
ample evidence, which I shall afterwards produce. That his
mental progress might have been as great with a smaller strain
on his powers, I am strongly inclined to believe, although the
proof is not so easy. We must look a little closer at the facts.
I cannot help thinking that the rapid and unbroken transi
tions from one study to another must have been unfavourable
to a due impression on the memory. He lost not a moment
in passing from subject to subject in his reading : he hurried
home from his music-lesson, or fencing-lesson, to his books.
Now we know well enough that the nervous currents when
strongly aroused in any direction tend to persist
for some time :
in the act of learning, this persistence will count in stamping
the impression ; while part of the effect of a lesson must be
lost in hurrying without a moment s break to something new,
even although the change of subject is of the nature of relief.
By his own account, his lessons from masters at Toulouse, with
the exception of French and Music, took no effect upon him.
Nor is this the worst feature of Mill s programme. According
to our present notions of physical and mental training, he
ought to have had a decided break in the afternoon. Con-