rand and powerful a mind as his
left behind it such insufficient traces in the estimation of
successors." That regret was natural. The grand and powerful mind of
James Mill left very notable traces, however, in the philosophical
literature of his country, and in the training of the son who was to
carry on his work, and to be the most influential teacher in a new
school of thought and action, by which society is likely to be
revolutionized far more than it has been by any other agency since
the period of Erasmus and Martin Luther. James Mill was something more
than the disciple of Bentham and Ricardo. He was a profound and
original philosopher, whose depth and breadth of study were all the
more remarkable because his thoughts were developed and his knowledge
was acquired mainly by his own exertions. He had been helped out of
the humble life into which he had been born by Sir John Stuart, who
assisted him to attend the lectures of Dugald Stewart and others at
Edinburgh with a view to his becoming a minister in the Church of
Scotland. Soon finding that calling distasteful to him, he had, in or
near the year 1800, settled in London as a journalist, resolved by
ephemeral work to earn enough money to maintain him and his family in
humble ways while he spent his best energies in the more serious
pursuits to which he was devoted. His talents soon made him friends,
and the greatest of these was Jeremy Bentham.

As erroneous opinions have been current as to the relations between
Bentham and James Mill and have lately been repeated in more than one
newspaper, it may be well here to call attention to the contradiction
of them that was published by the son of the latter in "The Edinburgh
Review" for 1844. "Mr. Mill and his family," we there read, "lived
with Mr. Bentham for half of four years at Ford Abbey,"--that is,
between 1814 and 1817,--"and they passed small portions of previous
summers with him at Barrow Green. His last visit to Barrow Green was
of not more than a month's duration, and the previous ones all
together did not extend to more than six months, or seven at most.
The pecuniary benefit which Mr. Mill derived from his intimacy with
Bentham consisted in this,--that he and his family lived with him as
his guests, while he was in the country, periods amounting in all to
about two years and a half. I have no reason to think that his
hospitality was either given or accepted as pecuniary assistance, and
I will add that the