The occasion of the change,according to his family,was his intercourse with General Miranda,who was sitting at Bentham's feet about this time.
J.S.Mill states that the turning-point in his father's mind was the study of Butler's Analogy .That book,he thought,as others have thought,was conclusive against the optimistic deism which it assails;but he thought also that the argument really destroyed Butler's own standing-ground.The evils of the world are incompatible with the theory of Almighty benevolence.
The purely logical objection was combined with an intense moral sentiment.
Theological doctrines,he thought,were not only false,but brutal.His son had heard him say 'a hundred times'that men have attributed to their gods every trait of wickedness till the conception culminated in the Christian doctrine of hell.Mill still attended church services for some time after his marriage,and the children were christened.But the eldest son did not remember the period of even partial conformity,and considered himself to have been brought up from the first without any religious belief.James Mill had already taken up the uncompromising position congenial to his character,although the reticence which the whole party observed prevented any open expression of his sentiments.
Mill's propaganda of Benthamism was for some time obscure.He helped to put together some of Bentham's writings,especially the book upon evidence.He was consulted in regard to all proposed publications,such as the pamphlet upon jury-packing,which Mill desired to publish in spite of Romilly's warning.Mill endeavoured also to disseminate the true faith through various periodicals.He obtained admission to the Edinburgh Review ,probably through its chief contributor,Brougham.Neither Brougham nor Jeffrey was likely to commit the great Whig review to the support of a creed still militant and regarded with distrust by the respectable.Mill contributed various articles from 1808to 1813,but chiefly upon topics outside of the political sphere.The Edinburgh Review ,as I have said,had taken a condescending notice of Bentham in 1804.Mill tried to introduce a better tone into an article upon Bexon's Code de la Législation pénale ,which he was permitted to publish in the number for October 1809.Knowing Jeffrey's 'dislike of praise,'he tried to be on his guard,and to insinuate his master's doctrine without openly expressing his enthusiasm.Jeffrey,however,sadly mangled the review,struck out every mention but one of Bentham,and there substituted words of his own for Mill's.Even as it was,Brougham pronounced the praise of Bentham to be excessive.7Mill continued to write for a time,partly,no doubt,with a view to Jeffrey's cheques.Almost his last article (in January 1813)was devoted to the Lancasterian controversy,in which Mill,as we shall directly see,was in alliance with the Whigs.But the Edinburgh Review ers were too distinctly of the Whig persuasion to be congenial company for a determined Radical.They would give him no more than a secondary position,and would then take good care to avoid the insertion of any suspicious doctrine.Mill wrote no more after the summer of 1813.
Meanwhile he was finding more sympathetic allies.First among them was William Allen (1770-1843),chemist,of Plough Court.Allen was a Quaker,a man of considerable scientific tastes;successful in business,and ardently devoted throughout his life to many philanthropic schemes.He took,in particular,an active part in the agitation against slavery.He was,as we have seen,one of the partners who bought Owen's establishment at New Lanark;and his religious scruples were afterwards the cause of Owen's retirement,these,however,were only a part of his multifarious schemes.He was perhaps something of a busybody;his head may have been a little turned by the attentions which he received on all hands;he managed the affairs of the duke of Kent;was visited by the Emperor Alexander in 1814;and interviewed royal personages on the Continent,in order to obtain their support in attacking the slave-trade,and introducing good schools and prisons,But,though he may have shared some of the weaknesses of popular philanthropists,he is mentioned with respect even by observers such as Owen and Place,who had many prejudices against his principles.He undoubtedly deserves a place among the active and useful social reformers of his time.
I have already noticed the importance of the Quaker share in the various philanthropic movements of the time.The Quaker shared many of the views upon practical questions which were favoured by the freethinker,Both were hostile to slavery,in favour of spreading education,opposed to all religious tests and restrictions,and advocates of reform in prisons,and in the harsh criminal law.The fundamental differences of theological belief were not so productive of discord in dealing with the Quakers as with other sects;for it was the very essence of the old Quaker spirit to look rather to the spirit than to the letter,Allen,therefore,was only acting in the spirit of his society when he could be on equally good terms with the Emperor Alexander or the duke of Kent,and,on the other hand,with James Mill,the denouncer of kings and autocrats.He could join hands with Mill in assailing slavery,insisting upon prison reform,preaching toleration and advancing civilisation,although he heartily disapproved of the doctrines with which Mill's practical principles were associated.Mill,too,practised even to a questionable degree the method of reticence,and took good care not to offend his coadjutor.
Their co-operation was manifested in a quarterly journal called the Philanthropist ,which appeared during the seven years,1811-1817,and was published at Allen's expense.
Mill found in it the opportunity of advocating many of his cherished opinions.