James Mill
James Mill | |
---|---|
Born | James Milne[1] 6 April 1773 Northwater Bridge, parish of Logie Pert, Angus, Scotland |
Died | 23 June 1836 Kensington, London, England | (aged 63)
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Notable work | The History of British India (1817) |
Spouse | Harriet Burrow |
Children | John Stuart Mill |
Era | Modern philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Associationism Utilitarianism Liberalism Ricardian economics |
Main interests | Psychology Ethics Economics |
Part of Radicalism |
James Mill (born James Milne;
Mill was the father of John Stuart Mill, a noted philosopher of liberalism and utilitarianism, and a colonial administrator at the East India Company.
Biography
James Milne, later known as James Mill, was born in Northwater Bridge, in the parish of Logie Pert,
In October 1789, he was ordained as a
In that year, too, he married Harriet Burrow, whose mother, a widow, kept what was then known as an establishment for lunatics in Hoxton. They took a house in Pentonville where their eldest son John Stuart Mill was born in 1806.[2]
In 1808, he became acquainted with
The History of British India was published in 1818, and obtained a great immediate and enduring success.[8] It brought about a matching change in the author's fortunes, and in the year following, he was appointed an official in India House in the important department of the Examiner of Indian Correspondence. He gradually rose through the ranks until, in 1830, he was appointed head of the office, with a salary of £1900, raised in 1836 to £2000. His great work on economics, the Elements of Political Economy, appeared in 1821 (3rd and revised ed. 1825).[2][9]
From 1824 to 1826, Mill contributed a number of articles to
Intellectual legacy
The History of British India
Mill was a proponent of British imperialism, justifying it on
Mill preferred to take a more theoretical approach to social subjects than the
According to Thomas Trautmann, "James Mill's highly influential History of British India (1817) – most particularly the long essay "Of the Hindus" comprising ten chapters – is the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism".[14] In the chapter titled General Reflections in "Of the Hindus", Mill wrote "under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy".[15] According to Mill, "the same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indifference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venality" were the conspicuous characteristics of both the Hindoos and the Muslims. The Muslims, however, were perfuse, when possessed of wealth, and devoted to pleasure; the Hindoos almost always penurious and ascetic; and "in truth, the Hindoo like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave". Furthermore, similar to the Chinese, the Hindoos were "dissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society". Both the Chinese and the Hindoos were "disposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves". Both were "cowardly and unfeeling". Both were "in the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others". And both were "in physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses".[16]
Max Müller argued against the opinion that Indians were an 'inferior race', not only because such a view was wrong but because it made an Englishman's life there a 'moral exile'. One source of such mistaken notions and 'poison' had been, and still was, Mill's History of British India, which in his view was 'responsible for some of the greatest misfortunes' that had happened to India. Those who were going out to rule India 'should shake off national prejudices, which are apt to degenerate into a kind of madness'.
British politics
Mill also played a great part in British politics, and was a dominant figure in the establishment of what was called "
- that the chief problem of practical reformers is to limit the increase of population, on the assumption that capital does not naturally increase at the same rate as population (ii. § 2, art. 3)
- that the value of a thing depends entirely on the quantity of labour put into it; and
- that what is now known as the "unearned increment" of land is a proper object for taxation.
Other areas
By his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind and his Fragment on Mackintosh Mill acquired a position in the history of psychology and ethics. He took up the problems of mind very much after the fashion of the Scottish Enlightenment, as then represented by Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown, but made a new start, due in part to David Hartley, and still more to his own independent thinking. He carried out the principle of association into the analysis of the complex emotional states, as the affections, the aesthetic emotions and the moral sentiment, all which he endeavoured to resolve into pleasurable and painful sensations. But the salient merit of the Analysis is the constant endeavour after precise definition of terms and clear statement of doctrines. He had a great effect on Franz Brentano who discussed his work in his own empirical psychology.[17] The Fragment on Mackintosh severely criticizes the alleged flimsiness and misrepresentations of Sir James Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830), and discusses the foundations of ethics from the author's utilitarian point of view.[18]
Major works
- An essay of the impolicy of a bounty on the exportation of grain, 1804.
- "Lord Lauderdale on Public Wealth", 1804, Literary Journal Vol. IV, No. 1[19]
- Commerce Defended, 1808.
- "Thomas Smith on Money and Exchange", 1808, Edinburgh Review no. XXV, pp. 35–68[20]
- The History of British India, 3 vols., 1817 (and many later editions)
- "Government", 1820, Encyclopædia Britannica
- Elements of Political Economy, 1821
- "Liberty of the Press", 1825, Encyclopædia Britannica
- Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the Press, Education, and Prisons and Prison Discipline, 1823.
- Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 2 vols., 1829.[21] Revised edn, 2 vols, 1869.[22]
- Essay on the Ballot [23] and Fragment on Mackintosh [24], 1830.
- "Whether Political Economy is Useful", 1836, London Review, vol. II, pp. 553–572.
- The Principles of Toleration, 1837.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Ball, Terence (19 June 2014). "James Mill". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Chisholm 1911, p. 453.
- ^ Keynes, John Maynard. "The General Theory". The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
- ISBN 978-8179306888.
- ^ "Explained: Who was Prithviraj Chauhan, the fearless hero of folk legend?". The Indian Express. 25 May 2022. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
- ^ "AUTO Chapter 2, John Stuart Mill, Autobiography".
- ^ Stephen 1894, p. 32.
- ^ Mill, James (1817), The History of British India (1 ed.), London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, retrieved 11 December 2012
- ^ Mill, James (1821), Elements of Political Economy (First ed.), London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, retrieved 11 December 2012
- ^ Kanopiadmin (28 March 2012). "James Mill: Laissez-Faire's Lenin". Mises Institute.
- ^ ISBN 978-1400826636.
- ISBN 978-0593320082.
- ^ Amartya Sen's address given to the Millennium Session of the Indian History Congress [1]
- ISBN 8190227211.
- ^ Mill, James (1858). The History of British India. Madden. p. 150.
- ^ Dharampal, The Beautiful Tree.
- ^ Franz Brentano: Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Ed. Oskar Kraus, 2 vols. Leipzig: Meiner, 1924–25; ed. Mauro Antonelli. Heusenstamm: Ontos, 2008
- ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 4543.
- ISBN 978-1400871223. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ISBN 978-1461561293. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
- ^ Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Vol. 1. 1829. Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Vol. 2. New York, A. M. Kelley. 1829.
- ^ Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Vol. 1. Longmans, Green, Reader , and Dyer. 1869. Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Vol. 2. New York, A. M. Kelley. 1869.
- ^ Essay on the Ballot. 1830.
- ^ A Fragment on Mackintosh. 1835.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mill, James". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 453–454. Endnotes:
- Stephen, Leslie (1900). The English Utilitarians: James Mill. Vol. ii. Duckworth & Co.
- Stephen, Leslie (1894). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 382–388. . In
- Bain, Alexander (1882). James Mill, A Biography (1 ed.). London: Logmans, Green & Co.
- Bower, G.S. (1881). Hartley and James Mill. Putnam.
- McCosh, James (1885). Scottish Philosophy.
- Mill, J.S. (1873). Autobiography. Henry Holt.
- Ribot, Théodule-Armand (1873) [1870]. La Psychologie anglaise (Eng. trans. ed.).
- Morley, John (1882). "The Life of James Mill". Fortnightly Review. xxxvii: 476.
- Wallas, Graham (1898). The Life of Francis Place.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Bain, Alexander (January 1876). "The Early Life of James Mill". Mind. 1 (1).
- Rudolph, Lloyd I. (2008). "Tod vs Mill: Clashing Perspectives on British Rule in India and Indian Civilization". In Tillotson, Giles (ed.). James Tod's Rajasthan: The Historian and His Collections. Mumbai: Radhika Sabavala for Marg Publications on behalf of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. ISBN 978-8185026800.
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
.
- "Mill, James", A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910 – via Wikisource
- Stephen, Leslie (1894). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 38. p. 32. .
External links
- James Mill at Find a Grave
- Works by James Mill at Project Gutenberg
- James Mill
- Works by James Mill at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
- James Mill's common place books
- E-text of Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, as edited by J.S. Mill, with commentaries by himself and others.
- "James Mill". HET, The Institute for New Economic Thinking.