John Stuart Mill was born in the
Pentonville area of
London, United Kingdom, the eldest son of the
Scottish philosopher and historian
James Mill. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of
Jeremy Bentham and
Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous, some would say harsh, upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of
Bentham and an adherent of
associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of
utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham were dead.
Mill was a notably precocious child; at the age of three he was taught the
Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents. By the age of eight he had read
Aesop's Fables,
Xenophon's Anabasis, and the whole of
Herodotus, and was acquainted with
Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and six dialogues of
Plato. He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught
arithmetic.
At the age of eight he began learning
Latin, Euclid, and
algebra, and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the
Latin and
Greek authors commonly read in the schools and universities at the time, like
Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Tacitus, Homer, Dionysus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and
Thucydides. He was not taught to compose either in Latin or in Greek, and he was never an exact scholar; it was for the subject matter that he was required to read, and by the age of ten he could read
Plato and
Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of Mill's earliest poetry compositions was a continuation of the
Iliad. In his spare time, he also enjoyed reading about natural sciences and popular novels, such as
Don Quixote and
Robinson Crusoe.
His father's
History of India was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the
scholastic logic, at the same time reading
Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to
political economy and studied
Adam Smith and
David Ricardo with his father - ultimately completing their
classical economic view of
factors of production. Mill's
compte rendus of his daily economy lessons helped his father in writing
Elements of Political Economy, which became the leading textbook exposition of doctrinaire Ricardian economics. Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house and to walk in order to talk about political economy.
In his
Autobiography, Mill described his father's teaching methods:
Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it required to be worked by a thinker, as close and vigorous as my father. The path was a thorny one, even to him, and I am sure it was so to me, notwithstanding the strong interest I took in the subject. He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both. I thought for myself almost from the first, and occasionally thought differently from him, though for a long time only on minor points, and making his opinion the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally convinced him, and altered his opinion on some points of detail: which I state to his honour, not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect candour, and the real worth of his method of teaching.
At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed for one year in France, with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham. The mountain scenery he saw in France made the deepest impression on him, which led to a lifelong taste for mountain landscapes. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a deep impression on him. In Montpellier, he attended the winter courses on chemistry, zoology, logic of the
Faculté des Sciences, as well as taking a course of the higher mathematics with a private professor. While coming and going from France, he stayed in Paris for a few days in the house of the known economist
Jean-Baptiste Say, who was a friend of Mill's father. There he met many leaders of the Liberal party, as well as other notable Parisiens, including
Henri Saint-Simon.
A contemporary record of Mill's studies from eight to thirteen is published in
Bain's sketch of his life. It suggests that his autobiography rather understates the amount of work done.
This intensive study however had injurious effects on Mill's mental health, and state of mind. At the age of 20 he suffered a
nervous breakdown. As explained in chapter V of his
Autobiography, this was caused by the great physical and mental arduousness of his studies which had suppressed any feelings he might have developed normally in childhood. Nevertheless, this depression eventually began to dissipate, as he began to find solace in the
Mémoires of
Jean-François Marmontel and the poetry of
William Wordsworth - his capacity for emotion resurfaced - Mill remarking that the "cloud gradually drew off".
Mill refused to study at
Oxford University or
Cambridge University, because he refused to take
Anglican orders from the "white devil". Instead he followed his father to work for the
British East India Company until 1858. Between the years 1865-1868 he served as Lord Rector of the
University of St. Andrews, where he gave an inaugural speech on the value of culture.
During the same period, 1865-8, he was an independent
Member of Parliament, representing the City and Westminster constituency from 1865 to 1868. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated easing the burdens on
Ireland, and became the first person in Parliament to call for women to be given the right to vote. Mill became a strong advocate of
women's rights and such political and social reforms as proportional representation, labor unions, and farm cooperatives. In 1869, he argued for the right of women to vote. In
Considerations on Representative Government, Mill called for various reforms of Parliament and voting, especially
proportional representation, the
Single Transferable Vote, and the extension of
suffrage. He was godfather to
Bertrand Russell.
In 1851, Mill married
Harriet Taylor after 21 years of an intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they met, and their relationship was close but chaste during the years before her first husband died. Brilliant in her own right, Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage. His relationship with Harriet Taylor reinforced Mill's advocacy of
women's rights. He cites her influence in his final revision of
On Liberty, which was published shortly after her death, and she appears to be obliquely referenced in
The Subjection of Women. Taylor died in 1858 after developing severe
lung congestion, only seven years into her marriage to Mill.
He died in
Avignon, France in
1873, and is buried alongside his wife.
