Or again, regarding the issue of the influence of Harriet Taylor on Mill’s later work, where some, such as G. Thus, for example, Capaldi is judicious on Mill’s relationship with his father and sensible about Mill’s period of depression: he eschews the attempts at psychoanalysis that one sometimes finds. Where Mill’s version is straightforward, Capaldi follows it, where Mill’s version has been challenged he attempts to as it were set the record straight. The difficulty is that of striking the right balance.

The third is that Mill’s major philosophical work, the Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, so effectively demolished the positions of his opponent that they are now largely forgotten, which means Mill’s work has made itself unnecessary and therefore unknown.Ī new Biography, if it is not to be redundant, will take up Mill’s version and argue with it, or argue with others who argue with it. The second is that the record of a large part of Mill’s life, his career at the East India Company – he worked there over twenty years, rising in the bureaucracy to the highest position possible – remains more or less hidden in the Company archives. But if Mill got it wrong, then one has to respond to that, in which case your structure is again determined by Mill’s. In that case sticking to Mill’s own structure could prematurely close certain interpretative doors: sticking to anyone’s own structure can be a limitation. Or, since even Mill’s memory is selective, it may be that he got it wrong. The first is that Mill himself presented his life in the Autobiography: Mill has effectively structured how others must deal with him – the approach of the new biographer is already more or less settled. His use of evidence beyond the Autobiography is always pellucid, and the exposition of Mill’s work in areas such as economics and philosophy is always clear, with these things skillfully interwoven with the narrative of events in Mill’s life.Īnyone undertaking a life of Mill faces three problems. Capaldi, in this new John Stuart Mill: A Biography does it well, largely following Mill’s own pattern but going well beyond him in an attempt to relate directly the various stages in Mill’s thought, his philosophy in particular, to developments in Mill’s life. All those who would venture a new life have to contend with the reality of Mill’s own account. All these features of Mill’s life are discussed in detail in the Autobiography. There is his education by his father to become a leader among the philosophic radicals then the mental crisis, a period of depression when a young man then his meeting with Harriet Taylor, and his subsequent relationship and marriage and finally his role as a recognized public intellectual.

The life of John Stuart Mill is well known – he made it so when he wrote, what has become a classic, his Autobiography.

Autobiography by john stuart mill