CHAPTER III

THE BENTHAMITES

THE history of any definite "school" of philosophic or political opinion will generally show that its foundation was made possible by personal friendship. So few men devote themselves to continuous thought, that if several think on the same lines for many years it is almost always because they have encouraged each other to proceed. And varieties of opinion and temperament are so infinite, that those who accept a new party name, and thereby make themselves responsible for each other's utterances, are generally bound by personal loyalty as well as by intellectual agreement.

The "Benthamite," or, as it became later, the "Utilitarian" school, which adopted Bentham's formula of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" as its motto, was no exception to this rule. Bentham's writings from the year 1776, when he published the "Fragment on Government," would in any case have had their effect. But the enormous influence which, towards the end of his life, he exerted upon liberal thought in England, was very largely due to the care which he then took to secure that a few able men should always enjoy the most complete intellectual intimacy with himself and each other. Of these men the ablest was James Mill.

Mill was introduced to Bentham in 1808, and from thenceforward dined from time to time at his house in Queen Square.1 Place about that time came to know 1 Cf. "James Mill: A Biography," by Alexander Bain (London, 1882), page 72.

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Edward Wakefield,' the writer of several good but now forgotten books on social economics. "Soon after we became intimately acquainted Mr. Wakefield introduced Mr. James Mill to me. Mr. Mill at this time resided at Stoke Newington, whence he came occasionally, generally once a week, I believe, to dine with Mr. Bentham, who lived in Queen Square Place, Westminster. Our acquaintance speedily ripened into friendship, and he usually called on me on his way to Mr. Bentham's, when we spent an hour together." 2

3

Mill and Place worked hard during 1813 and 1814 on the British and Foreign School Society at the West London Lancastrian Association, and wrote to each other in a tone of warm affection. Thus Place in a letter of October 1814 wrote: "I do not know when I experienced more delight than your letter has this day given me. Somehow or other I have all my life long, and in all circumstances, met with so much of what was excellent, and even exquisite, that I have had a happy life, one enjoyment scarcely passing away before another presented itself. At present they crowd upon me; to be esteemed and confided in by the wise and good was the great end I always pursued, and your letter tells me that I have both deserved and obtained it from one whom everybody considers pre-eminently good and wise. . . . Could I advise or perform anything which tended to promote your comfort, how inexpressibly happy should I be." And again: "You tell me to write soon, and I obey. It is a great pleasure to me to write to you, and were it not that you are too learned in men and things for me to venture any speculation I should indulge in some. I am perfectly contented to be a learner, and am eagerly desirous of instruction. Every one of your letters is to me

4

1 e.g. "An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political" (London, 1812. 2 vols.). 2 27,823 (84).

3 See Chap. IV. pp. 96, 106–110.

4 Place to Mill, October 17, 1814.

a lesson. Anxious as I have always been to obtain information, careful as I have likewise been to examine myself and to divest myself of prejudices, yet intensely occupied, as poverty compelled me to be, in a disagreeable and for some years unhealthy business, my opportunities for mental improvement have been comparatively few. It is true I have at all times had the acquaintance of some men of superior intellect, and have, I know, profited by it. But till I became happily acquainted with you I had no person with whom I could compare myself in the beneficial manner I can now do. I am upwards of forty years of age, but mind has little to do with age except in infancy and dotage, and I would fain persuade myself that I am about twentytwo or twenty-three years old, with a good prospect of health and leisure for improvement before me." 1

Mill himself drops his habit of reserve, and writes with stiff goodwill: "Your place of a friend to me shall not be a sinecure. You had no occasion for this declaration to satisfy you respecting my opinion of you, to which I should have been far from alluding, had it not been for the malignity with which I see your character pursued,2 and which makes it my duty to declare on all occasions that I have met with few men in my whole life of whom I think so highly." 3

Mill even writes of his own money affairs, and confesses that "The History of India," on which he had been at work since 1806, had "kept him as poor as a church mouse,” that he "practises much economy, a good school for himself and his children," but that he "hopes to be at his ease when the work is finished." He passes from the subject with the words, "so much for these affairs into which few are so far admitted, and as few care whether I have little or

1 Place to Mill, November 27, 1814.

2 With reference to the accusation that Place was a Government spy. See pp. 54-56.

3 James Mill to Place, July 30, 1814 (in the family autograph book).

much.”1 Place answers: "What you have said of your circumstances does not in the least surprise me. My wife and I saw as much long since, and we loved you the more for it." 2

Place and Wakefield wrote to each other, full of care for Mill and schemes for his future. Mill and his family were now living for a great part of the year at Ford Abbey,3 the huge Devonshire mansion which Bentham had rented, and Wakefield was afraid that he might slip into a permanently dependent position. "I am deeply interested about Mill, for, with all my admiration of Mr. Bentham, he is too good a man to become a dependant upon any individual; and I fear that the increasing expenses of his young family must render him so, unless we can place him at the head of this new school." "Mill is hard at work upon his Indian work, and has wrote it up to the year 1790. I wish it may ever repay him for his labour. He says he is very well, but looks otherwise-thin in the face; and I misread him if he be not in a state of anxiety."5 "Do you think he is calculating upon the sale of his work upon India? If that is the case, then I fear he will be disappointed; and as for maintaining a large family entirely by his pen, the thing is, I think, impossible, unless he had managed to tumble on to some popular work, such as Hayley's Life of Cowper,' or something as great."

Place, in answer, asked, "Shall such a man be left to the chance of sickness to reduce him to absolute want? Shall he be destroyed by anxiety and corroding cares, which the

1 James Mill to Place, October 14, 1814. [Letter dated afterwards by F. Place, Jun., and accidentally ascribed to 1817.]

2 Place to Mill, October 17, 1814.

For a good description of the life at Ford Abbey in 1814, cf. "Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner" (London, 1843), vol. ii. p. 178.

4 Wakefield to Place, August 17, 1814. The school is the Christomathic School, cf. p. 130 (note).

5 Wakefield to Place (from Ford Abbey), October 1, 1814.

• Wakefield to Place, October 17, 1814.

firmest mind cannot always repel when no prospect of better days presents itself?" He then proposed a scheme for raising £300 among Mill's friends, to be put anonymously to his credit at the bank, a scheme which Wakefield thought might do more harm than good. During Mill's long absences from London, Place managed his business affairs; and Professor Bain says that he has "heard from very good authority that Francis Place . . . made him advances while he was writing the history. These, of course, were all repaid." 2

3

Mill, on his part, tried to cure Place of his habit of "raving." In a letter of December 1814 he says: "But I am satisfied you are going on in the right path, and I know now that you can do better than you are doing. Only observe as much as possible of suavity in the manner, while there is anything of asperity in the matter, and you will be sure to succeed." 4 And some months later Place wrote, after describing an outburst, "I suppose you to be looking at me. I see the whole of what you intend, and feel how deficient I often am, but I cannot talk of some things with some people as calmly as I do of two and two being four, but I will endeavour to improve."5 At the same time, he fears that if he ceases to feel intensely and immoderately, he may ultimately sink into the vegetable Philistinism of the ordinary retired tradesman. “I have always contemplated the probability of being released from business, and I have been afraid of too much caution as tending to produce cold-heartedness. It would be damnable to have little employment and no feeling."6

1 Place to Wakefield, October 7, 1814.

2 See "James Mill: a Biography," by Alex. Bain (London, 1882), page 163.

3 Place, in a letter to Ensor, October 13, 1816, quotes Mill's expression, "to rave like Place."

James Mill to Place, December 31, 1814.

Place to Mill, July 20, 1815.

Place to Mill, August 30, 1816.