John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

32 WRITINGS IN THE WESTMINSTER. 1820-1840.
now to Logic). Articles in the Westminster : review of God
win s Commonwealth (?); Whately s Logic (in number for
Jan., 1828).
1828. Speculative Society. Last article in Westminster
Scott s Life of Napoleon. Acquaintance with Maurice and
Sterling. Reads Wordsworth for the first time. (At some later
return of his dejection, year not stated, he was oppressed with
the problem of philosophical necessity, and found the solution
that he afterwards expounded in the Logic.) Is promoted
from being a clerk to be Assistant Examiner in his office.
Attends John Austin s Lectures on Jurisprudence in Univer
sity College.
1829. Readings at Grote s on his father s Analysis of the
Human Mind. Withdraws from Speculative Debating Society.
Macaulay s attack . on his father s Essay on Government pro
duces a change in his views of the Logic of Politics. Attends
Austin s second Course of Lectures.
With regard to these nine years, I will first remark on his
articles in the Westminster Review. He says he contributed
thirteen, of which he specifies only three. Of the whole, he
says generally, they were reviews of books on history and
political economy, or discussions on special political topics, as
corn-laws, game-laws, laws of libel. I am able to identify the
greater number of them.
His first contribution is the article in the second number, on
the Edinburgh Review, which continued the attack made by
his father in the first number : he puts this down as
"
of little
or no value," although to himself a most useful exercise in
composition ; it is, nevertheless, in respect of his biography, an
interesting study. No doubt the opinions are for the most part
his father s, though independently and freshly illustrated. The
demonstration of the truckling of the Edinburgh
Review to
sentiment and popularity ; the onslaught against lubricated
phrases ; the defectiveness of the current morality as reflected