NO. PAGE THERE is no name in England which carries with it so much weight, whether it be at Oxford or Cambridge, or in the two Houses of Legislature, as that of John Stuart Mill, the philosopher, logician and political economist. Among all classes of thinking men all over the country there is no one whose opinion of the right or wrong of a political measure is so much respected. It is he who has suggested by his forethought and wisdom many of the most important measures of the last twenty years for the amelioration of the condition of the people. One will be readily remembered by most of us, as a daring innovation which would hardly have been attempted if it had not been suggested by one so entirely respected for his high principles, his unbiassed judgment, and his practical good sense. We are thinking of the Act authorizing the sale of encumbered estates in Ireland. John Stuart Mill has not been a voluminous writer; his works are all contained in eight volumes. But the weight must not be judged by the bulk. His books can never be popular, yet no man's works have affected the people more deeply. His profound treatises and essays, addressed to the most educated minds of our time, affect indirectly every individual, however ignorant. It is he who has in a great measure educated our journalists. What he has written is founded on reason, and stands like a solid rock amidst the shifting sands of public opinion. Whether a newspaper writer may agree with him or not, he is certain before writing to study the political economy of John Stuart Mill; and if in opposition to him, probably cites his opinion as a necessary piece of information to be given to his readers. Mr. Mill's clear reason lights up difficult and dark questions; and it is often his opinion, always respected as a perfectly candid one, which throws in the deciding weight in the midst of balancing and contending parties, decides for right and liberty, and shows the prudent way. It is not a little important that women engaged in the present movement for extending the right to work to their sex should know exactly what are the opinions of such a man as Mr. Mill upon this question and all connected with it. We have said before, that Mr. Mill's works VOL. VI. B are not popular, and we must therefore presume that few women, however desirable for their instruction it may be, will take the trouble to wade through eight volumes of political economy and philosophical writing. We therefore propose to abstract and to extract from his works everything which we think will be useful and interesting to the readers of the ENGLISH WOMAN'S JOURNAL. John Stuart Mill is the son of James Mill, the historian of India, author of a well-known book on the Elements of Political Economy, and other works of very great merit. His son was brought up in intercourse with the most distinguished men of the time, who were counted among his father's friends; and he inherited his father's peculiar genius for political and philosophical studies. The name of Mill will belong to the son by preference, for he is a greater man than his father. The first work which we shall mention will be one which seems to lie the farthest from our subject. A book which has probably not been read by many thousand men, and certainly not by many hundred women. The title-page is enough to frighten most female students; but we beg of them to allow us to copy it entire, and to bear with us patiently whilst we try to prove to them with how very profound a thinker we have here to deal. They must please to respect it for the reputation it bears. "A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John Stuart Mill, in two volumes." This work embodies and systematises the best ideas which have been put forth by speculative writers or acted upon by accurate thinkers in making scientific inquiries. It is not to be read until the student is well acquainted with the elements of logic, some mathematics, and a few such books as Dr. Brown's "Cause and Effect." This book is the most complete treatise upon logic in the English language. To read it properly, and thoroughly to understand it, is quite an education to the logical faculties of the student. He or she will be continually trying to put his or her opinions to the test of Mr. Mill's rigorous method. Most women are told that they cannot understand such books, that they have not logical intellects, that they cannot follow consecutive reasoning, and that such studies are altogether unfeminine. We picture to ourselves one such, having perused carefully and with great interest (for we believe any woman who chooses to apply herself to the study can understand everything which Mr. Mill has written) the two hundred and four pages on "names and propositions," going on to the study of the chapters on reasoning and on induction, rather anxiously looking out to see if any method will prove her logically incapable of understanding what she is about, or any paragraph insinuate that the great master himself holds such an opinion. She feels she understands perfectly; and she reasons logically enough from this instance of her own consciousness, that other women also can understand it. Yet she wishes directly and distinctly to see what the logician himself has to say on this most important question to her and her sisters. When reading the beautiful examples of the four great methods of experimental inquiry, she is suddenly struck with the applicability of the "method of residues" to the case of the present position of her sex. The following passage, quoted from Sir John Herschel, strikes home, and she marks it with her pencil. "It is by this process, in fact, that science, in its present advanced state, is chiefly promoted. Most of the phenomena which nature presents are very complicated; and when the effects of all known causes are estimated with exactness, and subducted, the residual facts are constantly appearing in the form of phenomena altogether new, and leading to the most important conclusions." Two pages farther on, she reads this remarkable passage-"To add one more example: those who assert, what no one has ever succeeded in proving, that there is in one human individual, one sex, or one race of mankind over another, an inherent and inexplicable superiority in mental faculties, could only substantiate their proposition by subtracting from the differences of intellect, which we in fact see, all that can be traced by known laws either to the ascertained differences of physical organization, or to the differences which have existed in the outward circumstances in which the subjects of the comparison have hitherto been placed. What these causes might fail to account for, would constitute a residual phenomenon, which, and which alone, would be the evidence of an ulterior original distinction, and the measure of its amount. But the strongest assertors of such supposed differences have hitherto been very negligent of providing themselves with these necessary logical conditions of the establishment of their doctrines." This shows distinctly enough-if we rightly understand it, and think it out in all its bearings-what are the opinions of John Stuart Mill upon the education of women, and our female student ought to feel a bound of joy, and will go on with her studies with renewed courage and spirits. The second volume of the "Logic" treats of induction, of operations subsidiary to induction, of fallacies, and of the logic of the moral sciences. All these subjects are illustrated with copious examples, which very much increase the interest of the book, but there is nowhere any passage which bears so directly on our subject as the one we have just quoted, though certainly, in reading the chapter on fallacies, the champion of the cause of women finds readily instances of much appositeness. Can there be a better example of the fallacy of Petitio principii, popularly known as "begging the question," or reasoning in a circle, than the constant assertion which puts down so much young effort by asserting it to be unfeminine, and insisting that a woman must not be unfeminine, and all the common verbiage to that effect. Best to be answered by doing the right thing bravely, and proving it, therefore, feminine. The whole weight of the book leans to the advantage of the female student; and none, whether men or women, can close these two volumes without holding a more reasonable view of this and all other questions. But we have no more space to spare for the "Logic," having shown that the greatest logician has openly and strongly declared his opinion. Now let us see what we can find in the "Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy." This book is to that science what the work on logic is to logic, the longest and most complete treatise in our language. Here we find so much to extract that is interesting, that we are fain to content ourselves by saying, that this book is much less difficult to understand than the logic, and we most earnestly desire that every young woman might read it. With the exception of the chapters on currency and the calculation of chances, there is nothing which a well educated girl of eighteen or twenty would not enjoy mastering. Political Economy is to the nation what domestic economy is to the family; the subject of this science is "Wealth, its production and distribution, including directly or remotely the operation of all the causes by which the condition of mankind or of any society of human beings in respect of this universal object of human desire is made prosperous or the reverse." This science bears directly on all philanthropic efforts; and as women take so large a share in these movements, it is their plain duty to study scientifically the laws of national wellbeing. For in spite of all their goodheartedness, if they do not also throw some hardheadedness into these questions, they are apt to do more harm than good in their work. The chapter in the first volume on wages, and on remedies for low wages, we would particularly point out as bearing on philanthropy-Mr. Mill distinctly declares his opinion, that the inferior position and helpless submission, which working women hold and show in regard to working men, is one of the reasons of the misery and poverty of the lower classes. And in the following chapter, on the difference of wages in different employments, he treats of the peculiar difficulties which beset the introduction of women into trades, because their labor is apt to contain an amateur element which interferes with the uniform scale of wages. Female workers are constantly in the same position as literary men; they possess some other means of livelihood, more or less sufficient. Thus they are willing to work for less than the absolute market value of what they produce. An immediate example is found in the excessive cheapness of the spinning and knitting done by the families of agricultural laborers; the wives and daughters will work for anything rather than be quite unable to add to the small family resources; though, were they wholly dependent on their own labor, they would be forced to ask a higher price, or go to the workhouse; but as a matter of actual fact, they would get a higher price if forced to demand it, since the other alternative, death from want of the necessaries of life, is an outrage which society inevitably redresses when it is discovered to exist. |