John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections
John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections
John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections
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LORD DURHAM S RETURN. 53<br />
<strong>Mill</strong> inherited his father s disposition to think Shakespeare<br />
over-rated ; which, to say the least, was unfortunate when he<br />
came to theorize on poetry at large.<br />
In August, appeared the review of Bentham, which I will<br />
advert to presently.<br />
The next number is December, 1838. It closes <strong>with</strong> <strong>Mill</strong> s<br />
Lord Durham s Return vindi<br />
second article on Canada :&lt;<br />
cating his policy point by point, in a way that only <strong>Mill</strong> could<br />
have done. It concludes<br />
"<br />
If this be failure, failure is bu<br />
the second degree of success ;<br />
the first and highest degree may<br />
be yet to come".<br />
The succeeding number appears in April, 1839, and contains<br />
the last, and in one view the greatest, of <strong>Mill</strong> s political series.<br />
Liberalism in Parliament is now at its lowest ebb : and only<br />
some new and gratid expedient can be of any avail. Departing<br />
from his old vein of criticism of Whigs and Radicals, he plans<br />
the Reorganisation of the Reform Party, by an inquiry into<br />
the origin and foundations of the two great parties in the State.<br />
He inquires who, by position and circumstances, are natural<br />
Radicals, and who are natural Tories ; who are interested in<br />
progress, and who in things as they are. I strongly recommend<br />
this article as a piece of admirable political philosophy, and I<br />
do not know any reason for his not preserving it, except that<br />
it is so closely connected <strong>with</strong> the passing politics of the time.<br />
The following summary is worth giving ; the theme is one<br />
that will often be written upon :<br />
"In order to estimate the strength of the two parties, we<br />
must consider the permanent causes which are operating upon<br />
each of the separate divisions that compose the nation, and<br />
determining it towards the one party<br />
or the other : and these<br />
permanent causes (speaking as we are of bodies of men, and not<br />
of remarkable individuals) are for the most part to be looked<br />
for in their personal interests, or in their class feelings. We<br />
are the last persons to undervalue the power of moral con<br />
victions. But the convictions of the mass of mankind run
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