| Show JOHN STUART MILL I i A mong the many names that are dear to lovers of liberty and individualism few are more worthy to be enshrined than that of John Stuart hill His father was Barnes Mill author of the History of r British India and famous for his Westminster j West-minster Review papers James Mill made I his son a scholar at an age when I most English boys are at Harrow Har-row Winchester or Eaton and I at twelve year of age young Mill had read more of the classics than the graduates of Oxford J and Cambridge usually read before I taking their degrees The range and i depth of this knowledge were wonderful andHtranger than all it increased with his I years while his thought and his speculation I I specula-tion were still more wonderful I I i and did not end in writing con I edits t and praising folly nor in endeavoring I I deavoring to see how many quaint and I curious phrases he could cull from unknown I un-known and forgotten authors He praised I man and not folly and in a long and j busy life found no time and no inclina I lion to deal in trivialities he anatomized j hociety and social wrongs and not melancholy melan-choly i His father was a man who i would in no way allow of any departure from the idea of life which he 11 himself had formed which idea was that life was a thing to be used in bettering the condition of man in this world physically socially morally and intellectually The I I father made the son his pupil and when i I he had completed his education to a II point absolutely necessary according to his I standard he made the son his coworker I and friend The first work he had him I do was to read through the entire series I of the Edinburgh llcvlfw and make notes I for the father of such articles as the son 1 might think he would wish to examine in j his review of the Review These I early articles are the ones in which James Mill so thoroughly I j exposed and denounced the English aristocracy aris-tocracy and more especially did he attack I at-tack the rights of primogeniture Having i been thus raised and early associated with such men as Betham and the disci i ples of utilitarianism John Stuart Mill I could not have been other than what he wasa man whose whole life was devoted to the contemplation and solution of the l problems of philosophy and logic of society I soci-ety and social phenomena and the political politi-cal destiny of man Among his better I known works are his Dissertations and Discussions System of Logic Political Economy Representative Government etc His most widely known work in America at least is his On Liberty It is written in the calm dispassionate I spirit of a philosopher and after the I manner of a scientist whose only end is the t finding of truth As a political treatise it stands in the same rank for thoroughness and sincerity as Darwins Origin of Species does in the scientific scien-tific world of research after the cause and evolution of life It is a difficult matter I to tell which is most admirable in the I work the frank clear treatment of theI I I subject or the dissipation of the many conventional one may say sanctified sanc-tified errors which it explodes It treats the relation of man to man and to the government under which he lives as founded upon necessity and not upon the idea of a contract To treat of government as a social contract j is toJlluBtrate and not to define It I treats of man as he is an animal thinking think-ing it is true but with his thought circumscribed cir-cumscribed by nature and by man himself I him-self Mans truths are treated as they are found an admixture of truth error I and prejudice It is a book that should be read by all and will aid in a clearer j and better comprehension of what true I i liberty is From it people will learn that many of the cherished ideals of life arc after all but bigoted prejudice and that I with their loss there is a much greater j gain while the view will be enlarged and I the vision made stronger I Probably the chapter most applicable to affairs in Utah is the one entitled Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion We close this article with the following extract from it We have now recognized the necessity neces-sity to the mental wellbeing of mankind on which all other wellbeing depends of I freedom of opinion and freedom of the I oxpression of opinion on four distinct I grounds which we will now briefly recapitulate I re-capitulate H First if any opinion is compelled to silence that opinion may for aught wo < an certainly know be true To deny this I is to assume our own infallibility 1 Secondly though the silenced opinion be an error it may and very commonly I does contain a portion of truth and since the general or prevailing opinion on any I subject is rarely or never the whole truth tit t-it is only by the collision of adverse t opinions that the remainder of the truth 1 has any chance of being supplied Thirdly even if the recieved opinion I be not only true but the whole truth I unless it is suffered to be and actually is vigorously and earnestly contested it I will by most of those who receive it beheld be-held in the manner of a prejudice with little comprehension or feeling of its I rational grounds I |
