Show John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) originally wrote the Translator/Editor William J. Ashley, ed. First Pub. Date1848 PublisherLondon; Longmans, Green and Co. Pub. Date1909 Comments7th edition. CopyrightThe text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of John Stuart Mill courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.
by W. J. AshleyIntroductionThe best Introduction to the
After a year in France, during which he “passed some time in the house of M. Say, the eminent political economist, who was a friend and correspondent” of the elder Mill,
This was soon after reaching the age of fifteen. Four years later, in 1825, he made a systematic survey of the field for the third time. Though he was still only nineteen, he was now fully embarked upon his career as an economist, and was contributing articles on currency and commercial policy to the
The figure of James Mill has been singularly obscured by the more attractive personality of his son. It may possibly be open to discussion how far James Mill was a trustworthy interpreter of Ricardo. But what cannot be doubted is the extent and penetrating character of his influence. The evidence of his son may certainly be relied upon:
What was true of James Mill’s personal influence on the entire circle of young
Philosophic Radicals and over the whole range of their beliefs, was peculiarly true of his influence on the economic opinions of his son. The impress was deep and indelible. For good or for ill,—and it is not the purpose of this Introduction to interpose between the reader and the author and to assign either praise or blame—John Mill’s economics remained those of his father down to the end of his life. His economics, that is to say, in the sense of what he himself afterwards described as “the
theoretic principles,” Yet John Mill certainly thought, when he was writing his book in
1848, and still more evidently when he wrote his To make this clear, we must return to Mill’s mental history. Though eminently retentive of
early impressions, he was also, in a very real sense, singularly open-minded; and the work of his life cannot be better described than in a happy phrase of his own coinage: it was a constant effort to “build the bridges and clear the paths” which should connect new truths with his “general system of thought,” In Coleridge and in the Coleridgians—such as Maurice and Sterling, whose acquaintance he made in 1828—he recognised the English exponents of “the European reaction against the philosophy of the eighteenth century,”
What Coleridge helped him to realise was, firstly, the historical point of view in its relation to politics, and secondly, and as a corollary, the inadequacy of
And again
Similarly, after pointing out that Coleridge was
he remarks that it was
It is not wonderful that the Bentham
and Coleridge articles should “make a temporary alienation between Mill and his old associates and plant in their minds a painful misgiving as to his adhering to their principles,” as we learn from Professor Bain, who became an intimate friend of Mill shortly afterwards. The letter was that in which Mill introduced himself to Comte, the first of a remarkable series which has only recently seen the light. By the time he wrote it, the influence of Coleridge had been powerfully supplemented by that of the French philosopher. Indeed, with that tendency to run into extremes which was seldom
quite absent from him, Mill even declared, in addressing Comte, that it was the impression produced as far back as 1828 by the reading of a very early work by Comte which had “more than any other cause determined his definite withdrawal from the Benthamite school.” In his eager enthusiasm, he probably ante-dated Comte’s influence. It seems to have been the first two volumes of the However this may have been, it is abundantly clear that during the years 1841-3, when he was engaged in completing his great treatise on
such as he hoped to engage Comte in. It was for this reason that he ventured to put himself into communication with “that one of the great minds of our time which I regard with most esteem and admiration,” and believed that their correspondence might be “of immense value” for him. And in the first edition of his Comte’s ultimate object was, of course, the creation of “the Social Science” or “Sociology.” To-day there are almost as many different conceptions of the scope of “sociology” as there are eminent sociologists; so that it is perhaps worth while to add that Comte’s ideal was a body of doctrine which should cover the life of human society in To this social science of his vision Comte applied the distinction he had already applied to the preliminary sciences, between the static and the dynamic. Comte’s attitude towards political economy, as it was then taught was the natural result of his views as to the proper method of creating a science of society.
Now Mill was immensely attracted, and for the time possessed, by Comte’s general conception of the Social Science or Sociology; and in the concluding chapters of his
How, then, about political economy, which Comte had criticised in precisely the same spirit ? Mill was not at all disposed to throw overboard the Ricardian economics
received from his father. In the first place, he maintained that a distinction could be drawn between the
In spite of the “for example” with which political economy is introduced, it is clear that the generalisation was formulated for the sake of that one subject, subject to a qualification to be shortly mentioned.
But Mill was not content with this “departmental” view, taken by itself: he proceeded to build two further “bridges” between his new and his old opinions. In an essay, written for the most part in 1830, and published in the The other bridge was to be a new science, or couple of sciences, still to be created. Mill explained at length in his
In spite once more of the introductory “for instance,” it is clear that it is only political economy that Mill has in his mind; and it is primarily to remedy It is no part of my task to criticise either Mill or Comte: all I am seeking to do is to make clear the intellectual relations between them. And whether, in particular, a Science of National Character is possible, and, if possible, on what sort of lines it may be constructed, I “would not here undertake to decide.” I go on now to the purely biographical facts,—which need the more emphasis because they have dropt altogether out of the It was in this mood of recoil that he began to think of composing “a special treatise on political economy, analogous to that of Adam Smith.” Writing to Comte in April, 1844, he remarked that for him “this would only be the work of a few months.”
After what we have seen of his mental history, it is easy to anticipate that Mill would no longer be satisfied with the kind of treatment that economics had received at the hands of his father, or in subsequent years of McCulloch or Senior. The “principles” of abstract political economy, as he had inherited them, he entertained no sort of doubt about. As has been well said, within that field “Mill speaks as one expounding an established system.”
It must be left to the reader to judge how far this “application” was successful,—how far, indeed, the nature of the abstract science lent itself to application. But the character of the undertaking will be rendered clearer by noticing certain of its characteristics. Ethology, as we have seen, had receded from Mill’s mind. But the thoughts which had given rise to the project have left their traces in the chapter on “Competition and Custom.”
The language in which he goes on to formulate an explanation and relative justification of their practice is of the utmost significance.
But, as the ascription to Competition of an unlimited sway is, as a matter of fact, “a great misconception of the actual cause of human affairs.”
After this it might perhaps be expected that Mill would himself embark on a quantitative estimate of the extent of the divergence of the “laws” of “the science” from the facts of life. But certainly no such attempt is made within the covers of his treatise—and he makes it clear that the application of his warning is to be left to the reader:
To discuss the conception of “science” and its relation to “law” which underlies such passages; to compare it with that implied by Mill elsewhere; or to enter into the question whether a systematic ascertainment and grouping of actual facts, guided by the ordinary rules of evidence, might not deserve to be called “scientific,” even if it did not result in “law”—would take us too far afield. By confining, as he did, the term “science” to the abstract argument, and by leaving the determination of its relation to actual conditions to what he himself in another connexion calls “the sagacity of conjecture,” Mill undoubtedly exercised a profound influence on the subsequent character of economic writing in England. Another result, in the And now we come finally to what
Mill himself regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of his work; and with it we reach the third of the influences that affected the movement of his mind after his early education. I refer, of course, to the distinction which Mill drew between the laws of the Production and those of the Distribution of wealth.
It would be interesting,
had I space, to try to distinguish the various currents of thought which converged at this time upon Mill and his wife. They were both people of warm hearts and generous sympathies; and the one most important fact about Mill’s
Then followed a curious interchange of letters. Comte replied politely that he was glad to learn of Mill’s project, and that he did not doubt that it would be very useful, by contributing to the spread of the positive spirit.
Mill wrote in return that he was pleased to get Comte’s approbation, since he was afraid Comte might have thought his project “essentially anti-scientific”;
Comte once more replied that he thought Mill’s project a happy one.
It is sufficiently apparent that the correspondents are at cross purposes. By “provisional” Comte means Since Mill’s time there has been a vast amount of economic writing. The German Historical School has
come into existence, and has reached a high point of achievement in the treatise of Gustav Schmoller. On the other hand, other bodies of theory have made their appearance, quite as abstract as the Ricardian which they reject: and here the names of Jevons and Menger stand out above the rest. An equally abstract Socialist doctrine, the creation largely of Marx, has meantime waxed and waned. But Mill’s
It remains now to describe the character of the present edition. The text is that of the seventh edition (1871), the last revised by Mill; and it is hoped that the occasional but misleading misprints which had crept into it have now all been corrected. It has not seemed desirable to add anything in the way of editorial comment. But in the one case where Mill
himself publicly abandoned an important doctrine of his The
characteristic feature, however, of this edition is the indication in the notes of all the significant changes or additions made by Mill in the course of the six editions revised by himself. The dates of these editions, after the first in 1848, were 1849, 1852, 1857, 1862, 1865, and 1871. In every one of these Mill made noteworthy alterations. Rewriting, or the addition of whole sections or paragraphs, takes place chiefly in the earlier editions;. but even in the last, that of 1871, the “few
verbal corrections” of which Mill speaks in his Preface were sufficient, in more passages than one, to give a different complexion to the argument. My attention was called to this interesting feature in the history of the Mill’s punctuation is not quite so preponderatingly grammatical as punctuation has since become. As in all the books of the middle of last century, it is also largely rhetorical. The printers had already, during the course of six editions, occasionally used their discretion and dropt out a misleading comma. I have ventured to carry the process just a little further, and to strike out a few rhetorical commas that seemed to interfere with the easy understanding of the text. The Index has been prepared by Miss M. A. Ellis. I must express my thanks to the proprietors of the W. J. ASHLEY. EDGBASTON, September, 1909. [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [Reprinted in [
[Alexander Bain, [L. Lévy-Bruhl, [Bain, [ [Mill’s [ [Mill’s [Reprinted in [Besides Bain’s account, Mill’s letters to Comte, printed by Lévy-Bruhl, pp. 260, 285, are of interest.] [P. 235 (Pop. ed. p. 135).] [Leslie Stephen, [ [ [See the concluding paragraphs in the Preliminary Remarks, and book ii, chap. i. § 1.] [P. 246 (Pop. ed. p. 141).] [ [April 3, 1844. Translated from the French text in Lévy-Bruhl, p. 309.] [May 1, 1844. [June 6, 1844. [July 22, 1844. Preface What three systems make up the political economy of a country?The three types of political economy are capitalism, socialism, and communism. In communism and socialism, resources are owned by the government and society, respectively; while for capitalism, resources are owned by private individuals.
What is classical economics quizlet?Classical economics is the body of theory about how a market economy works. The most famous classical economists are Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill. The basic belief of classical economics is that markets work well and deliver the best macroeconomic performance.
What are the four economic theories?The 4 economic theories are supply side economics, new classical economics, monetarism and Keynesian economics.
What is political economy quizlet?political economy. the study of how politics and economics are related and how their relationship shapes the balance between freedom and equality. markets. interactions between the forces of supply and demand and the allocation of resources through the process of those interactions.
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