E212: British Literature since 1760

John Stuart Mill Study Questions

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Assigned: Autobiography (1166-73) and On Liberty (1146-55).

from Autobiography

1. Why, according to Mill at the outset of our selection (Chapter 5), did his early enthusiasm for social reform suffer a profound shock? What led the young J.S. Mill into his near-suicidal depression?

2. What, according to Mill, was wrong with the utilitarian education given him by his Benthamist father James Mill? What was wrong with the view of human nature underlying that education?

3. What event led to a lessening of this depression (cf. 1169), and why did it have that effect? What, according to Mill, truly binds people together as a community?

4. How does Mill, after recovering from his breakdown, redefine his concept of the individual? What is the source of human happiness, in Mill's view?

5. How did the poetry of Wordsworth greatly assist Mill in his recovery? What is it that Wordsworth understands about human nature that Bentham and James Mill evidently did not understand?

from On Liberty

6. What ideas play a role in Mill's thinking on human nature? See, for example, his comments about von Humboldt and Wordsworth. To what extent does Mill qualify (i.e. limit) those ideas, insofar as they might be described as "romantic"?

7. How do Mill's comments about "early states of society" (1148) implicitly criticize Carlyle's aristocracy-principle? How, more generally, would you contrast Mill and Carlyle with regard to the ideal society each writer promotes?

8. Who, according to Mill, enforces the present day's "hostile and dreaded censorship"? What is the worst effect of this influence? How does Mill define "character"?

9. What practical model for human community is implied in Mill's notions about individualism? What binds individuals together as a community? What limits must be placed upon an individual's conduct?

10. If social change is as necessary as Mill says it is, who or what group will be the agent of change? What role does "genius" play in effecting change? What role might ordinary people play? Why does Mill disagree with Carlyle's ideas about "hero-worship"?

11. How has Mill redefined his father James Mill's and Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism, if you have done some reading in that philosophy? What does he add to the matrix of Bentham's theory, and where does he disagree with early utilitarianism?

12. Do you believe that Mill's theory of social progress is realistic? How long might it take to achieve the ideal democratic society he favors, by the means he prescribes?

13. What do you consider the "dominant influences" of our own time? What most influences the development of individual children and adults now, in the 21st. century? Are those influences good, bad, or both? Explain.

Edition: Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2B. Seventh edition. New York: Norton, 2000.