One characteristic of Mill as an editor may be noted before proceeding.Under his management,a large number of distinguished contributors were enlisted.Professor Bain mentions Bulwer,Charles Buller,Roebuck,James and Harriet Martineau,W.J.Fox,Mazzini,and others.The independent authorship of many articles was indicated by appending letters,although Mill could not introduce the more modern plan of full signatures.He occasionally attaches notes to express his personal dissent from some of the opinions advocated,and aims at representing various shades of thought.He was especially anxious to help rising men of genius.In the London Review in 1835he wrote one of the first appreciations of Tennyson,and answered some depreciatory criticisms of the Quarterly Review and Blackwood.(35)On the publication of Carlyle's French Revolution he called attention to its merits in an article (July 1837),which,though rather clumsy in form,shows no want of generous appreciation of Carlyle's historical powers;and in a later number (October 1839)admitted,with a note to explain his personal reservations,an exposition of Carlyle by Sterling.To his review of Carlyle's book,as to the Durham article,he attributes considerable success.(36)It set people right,he thinks,in regard to a writer who had set commonplace critics at defiance.From a letter quoted by Professor Bain,(37)he reckoned at the time as a third success the result of his constant,dinning into people's ears,that Guizot was,a great thinker and writer.'His opinion of Guizot was to change;but the article republished in the dissertations from the Edinburgh Review of 1845shows that he retained a high admiration for Guizot's work.Other articles upon Carrel,A.De Vigny,and Michelet in the same collection show his constant desire to rouse Englishmen to an appreciation of French literature.Tocqueville's Democracy in America was twice reviewed by him,and had an important influence upon his thought.(38)The rigid Utilitarianism of Grote was a little scandalised by the width of Mill's sympathies even with his opponents.The orthodoxy of a man who could see and even insist upon the good side of Coleridge and Carlyle was precarious.In any case,we may admit that Mill showed the generous desire to meet and encourage whatever seemed good in others,which is one of his strong claims upon our personal respect.
For many years Mill's relation to Carlyle,who represented a Radicalism of a very different type,was significant.The first personal acquaintance began in 1831,when Carlyle came to London,and desired to see the author of the articles upon the 'Spirit of the Age.'For a time there was a warm liking on both sides.Mill appeared as a candid and eager disciple,and Carlyle hoped that he would become a 'mystic.'During Carlyle's subsequent retirement at Craigenputtock,they carried on an intimate correspondence.(39)Mill's letters,of which Froude gives an interesting summary,show Mill's characteristic candour and desire to profit by a new light.Though he speaks with the deference becoming to the younger man,and to one who admits his senior's superiority as a poet,if not as a mere logician,he confesses with a certain shyness to a radical dissent upon very vital points.But the most remarkable characteristic is Mill's conviction that he has emerged from the old dry Benthamism into some higher creed.What precisely that may be is not so obvious.
When in 1834Carlyle finally settled in London,the intercourse became frequent.Mill supplied Carlyle with books on the French revolution,and was responsible for the famous destruction of the manuscript of the first volume.The review in the Westminster was perhaps prompted partly by remorse for this catastrophe,though mainly,no doubt,by a generous desire to help his friend.At one time Carlyle hoped to be under-editor to the newly started London Review;and,as the old tutor of Charles Buller,he was naturally acquainted with the Utilitarian circle.The divergence of the whole creed and ways of thought of the men was certain to cool the alliance.Carlyle expresses respect for the honesty of the Utilitarians,and considered them as allies in the war against cant.But his 'mysticism'implied the conviction that their negative attitude in regard to religion was altogether detestable;while.in political theories,he was at the very opposite pole.Mill sympathised with his Chartism (1839)and Past and Present (1843),published at this period,as remonstrances against the sins of the governing classes;but altogether rejects what he took to be the reactionary tendency of the Carlylese gospel.Ultimately.when Carlyle attacked the anti-slavery agitators in 1849,Mill made an indignant reply,(40)and all intercourse ceased.(41)Mill's judgment of Carlyle,as given in his Autobiography,shows the vital difference.Carlyle was a poet,he says,and a man of intuitions;and Mill was neither.
Carlyle saw at once many things which Mill could only,hobble after and prove,when pointed out.'I knew that I could not see round him,and could never be certain that I saw over him,and Inever presumed to judge him with any definiteness until he was interpreted to me by one greatly superior to us both,who was more a poet than he and more a thinker than I 'whose own mind and nature included his and infinitely more';(42)in short,by Mrs Taylor,of whom I shall speak directly.Carlyle's aversion to scepticism (in some sense),to Utilitarianism,to logic,and to political economy --the 'dismal science,--was indeed too inveterate to allow of any real alliance;and though Mill did his best to appreciate Carlyle,he learned from him only what one learns from an antagonist,that is,to be more confident in one's own opinions.
IV.PHILOSOPHIC LEADERSHIP
