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2018 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

6. Historical Knowledge and the Theory of Social Change

verfasst von : Yuichiro Kawana

Erschienen in: Logic and Society

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

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Abstract

This chapter is devoted to a discussion of J.S. Mill’s interest in historical knowledge, his ideas about its nature and roles, and his aspiration to form a science of history whose objective was to discover the laws of social change. Without giving serious consideration to the views on history he formed while writing several historical essays in the form of review articles especially in the mid-1840s, it is impossible to understand properly his thought, not only in the 1840s, but also from the 1850s onwards when many important works were written.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Projected Science of Society

Nächstes Kapitel The Science of the Formation of Character

Varouxakis (2002, 95).

Forbes (1954, 670).

In October 1845 Mill wrote to Napier that, ‘there is, as you say, a considerable similarity between some of his [i.e., Millar’s] historical speculations and Guizot’s’. (JSM to Macvey Napier, 20 October 1845, CW, xiii, 683 [Napier 1879, 510])

JSM, Logic, CW, viii, 889–894.

JSM to Auguste Comte, 28 January 184[3], CW, xiii, 566 [Haac 1995, 129]; JSM, PPE, CW, ii, 321.

JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 15.

See ‘Appendix B: Mill’s Early Reading, 1809–1822’, CW, i, 551–581.

JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 9–11.

JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 17. In the early draft, he mentioned his interest in writing a history of India as well. (JSM, Autobiography, early draft, ibid., 16)

JSM, Autobiography, ibid., 15.

JSM to Thomas Carlyle, 17 September 1832, CW, xii, 120. See also JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 135.

JSM, ‘Scott’s Life of Napoleon’, CW, xx, 53–110. He later called this article ‘a labour of love’. (JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 135)

This phrase is the title of Chapter IV of his Autobiography.

Mill (1817: India, i, x).

JSM, ‘The Use of History’, CW, xxvi, 393.

Ibid.

Ibid., 393–394.

See Mill (1836: Theory and Practice). See also JMS, Autobiography, CW, i, 35: ‘I recollect also his [i.e., James Mill’s] indignation at my using the common expression that something was true in theory but required correction in practice; and how, after making me vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its meaning, and shewed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had used: leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as something which might be at variance with practice, I had shewn unparalleled ignorance.’

JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 169.

Ibid., 171.

JSM, ‘The Spirit of the Age [3]’ (6 February 1831), CW, xxii, 252.

Ibid., 238.

JSM, ‘Alison’s History of the French Revolution [1]’ (July 1833), CW, xx, 117–118.

Ibid., 118.

E.g. JSM, ‘Modern French Historical Works’ (July 1826), ibid., 15–52; JSM, ‘Scott’s Life of Napoleon’ (April 1828), ibid., 53–110.

JSM, ‘Carlyle’s French Revolution’ (July 1837), ibid., 162.

Ibid., 134, 162.

JSM, ‘Civilization’, CW, xviii, 145.

JSM, Autobiography, CW, i, 171.

JSM, ‘America’, CW, xviii, 93.

Ibid.

In ‘Bentham’ in 1838, Mill criticized Bentham for lacking imagination: ‘the faculty by which one mind understands a mind different from itself, and throws itself into the feelings of that other mind, was denied him by his deficiency of Imagination. … The Imagination which he had not, was that to which the name is generally appropriated by the best writers of the present day; that which enables us, by a voluntary effort, to conceive the absent as if it were present, the imaginary as if it were real, and to clothe it in the feelings which, if it were indeed real, it would bring along with it. This is the power by which one human being enters into the mind and circumstances of another’. (JSM, ‘Bentham’, CW, x, 91–92) Interestingly, Mill later ascribed British misrule in India to ‘the inability of ordinary minds to imagine a state of social relations fundamentally different from those with which they are practically familiar’. (JSM, PPE, CW, ii, 320)

JSM, ‘Definition’, CW, iv, 333.

Burns (1976, 7).

Pierre Henri Larcher (1726–1812) was a French classical scholar, to whom Mill referred as ‘the translator of Herodotus’. (JSM, ‘Guizot on History’, CW, xx, 222.) Larcher published Histoire d’Hérodote, 7 vols. (Paris, 1786), which was the French translation of Herodotus’ Histories, and subsequently his commentary on it was published in English as Larcher’s Notes on Herodotus. Historical and Critical Remarks on the Nine Books of the History of Herodotus, 2 vols., trans. W. D. Cooley (London, 1829; new edn. 1844).

JSM, ‘Michelet’s History of France’, CW, xx, 223.

Ibid., 224.

See JSM, ‘Carlyle’s French Revolution’ (July 1837), ibid., 133: ‘This [i.e., Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, 3 vols. (London, 1837)] is not so much a history, as an epic poem: and notwithstanding, or even in consequence of this, the truest of histories.’

JSM, ‘Michelet’s History of France’, ibid., 225.

Ibid.

See Collini (1999, 132–133).

JSM, ‘Michelet’s History of France’, CW, xx, 228.

Ibid.

JSM, ‘Coleridge’, CW, x, 138–139.

E.g. JSM to John Austin, 7 July 1842, CW, xiii, 529; JSM to Sarah Austin, 22 August 1842, ibid., 542; JSM to Macvey Napier, 15 October 1842, ibid., 551. Needless to say, Mill’s neglect of English historical scholarship was apparent; to his mind, it was ‘merely empirical’.

Collini (1999, 138–139).

JSM, ‘Michelet’s History of France’, CW, xx, 229.

JSM, ‘Guizot on History’, ibid., 269–270. He had presented this idea as early as 1836 in ‘Guizot’s Lectures on European Civilization’. In regard to this idea, he referred to China as a good example of stationariness due to lack of social diversity. (ibid., 270). See also JSM to Auguste Comte, 25 February 1842, CW, xiii, 502 [Haac 1995, 51–52].

JSM, ‘Guizot on History’, CW, xx, 279–280.

It should be remembered that Mill thought that the power of the individual tended to diminish, and in turn the power of the masses became greater, as civilization advanced. (JSM, ‘Civilization’, CW, xviii, 121) Collective action tended to predominate over that of individuals, and subsequently the change of society would deviate less from a preappointed course.

Ibid., 262. Mill had appreciated Guizot’s mode of argument in his joint essay with Joseph Blanc White of 1836, ‘Guizot’s Lectures on European Civilization’.

JSM, ‘Guizot on History’, CW, xx, 262.

See also JSM, Logic, CW, viii, 914–915.

Mill used either ‘feudality’ or ‘feudal system’ where we now usually used ‘feudalism’. I follow the present usage of the term unless quoting his statements.

JSM, ‘Guizot on History’, CW, xx, 287–288.

Ibid., 288.

Ibid., 288–289.

Ibid., 289.

Ibid.

In a similar vein, in ‘Michelet’s History of France’, Mill wrote favourably of the Catholic Church: ‘it was not only a beneficent institution, but the only means capable of being now assigned, by which Europe could have been reclaimed from barbarism.’ (JSM, ‘Michelet’s History of France’, ibid., 240) He had presented the same view as early as 1829. See JSM to Gustav d’Eichthal, 7 November 1829, CW, vii, 41.

JSM, Logic, CW, viii, 926.

Even though Mill often wished to hold a seat in the House of Commons, his position at the East India Company did not allow him to put himself forward as a candidate. For his wish to enter Parliament, see, for example, JSM to John Pringle Nichol, 29 January 1837, CW, xii, 324; JSM to John Robertson, 6 August 1837, ibid., 345; JSM to Auguste Comte, 18 December 1841, CW, xiii, 492 [Haac 1995, 43].

JSM to Macvey Napier, [30 July 1841], CW, xiii, 483. See also Mill’s comment in a Morning Chronicle article: ‘Without a change in the people, the most beneficent change in their mere outward circumstances would not last a generation’ (JSM, ‘Ireland [20]’ (19 November 1846), CW, xxiv, 955).

JSM, Logic, CW, viii, 926.

Ibid.

Ibid., 927.

Ibid., 928. See also Comte (1975a, 21) and passim.

JSM, Logic, CW, xiii, 928.

Ibid.

Comte insisted that social change also had three successive stages corresponding to the three stages of the development of the human mind: from the military, through the legal, to the industrial. Mill paid little attention to it. In Mill’s opinion, this formula, though reasonable, should be seen as a derivative law of the ultimate law of the development of the human mind. See ibid., 924–925.

He later stated: ‘The natural tendency of men and their works was to degenerate … we ought not to forget, that there is an incessant and ever-flowing current of human affairs towards the worse, consisting of all the follies, all the vices, all the negligences, indolences, and supinenesses of mankind ….’ (JSM, CRG, CW, xix, 388)

See Feuer (1976, 90), Alexander (1976, 138 ff). In ‘Grote’s History of Greece [2]’ (October 1853), Mill wrote: ‘That the former [i.e., stationary] condition is far more congenial to ordinary human nature than the latter [i.e., progressive], experience unfortunately places beyond doubt.’ (JSM, ‘Grote’s History of Greece [2]’, CW, xi, 313)

Comte, A. (1975a). Philosophie première: Cours de philosophie positive, leçons 1 à 45 (ed. M. Serres, F. Dagognet, & A. Sinaceur). Paris. Reprint of the first three volumes of Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols. (Paris, 1830–1842).

Haac, O. A. (Ed.) (1995). The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

Mill, J. (1817: India). History of British India (1st ed., 3 vols.). London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.

Mill, J. (1836: Theory and Practice). Theory and Practice: A Dialogue, London and Westminster Review, 3 & 25, 223–234.

Napier, M. (1879). Selection from the Correspondence of the Late Macvey Napier. (ed. M. Napier). London.

Alexander, E. (1976). The Principles of Permanence and Progression in the Thought of J. S. Mill. In J. M. Robson & M. Laine (Eds.), James and John Stuart Mill: Papers of the Centenary Conference. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Burns, J. H. (1976). The Light of Reason: Philosophical History in the Two Mills. In J. M. Robson & M. Laine (Eds.), James and John Stuart Mill: Papers of the Centenary Conference. Toronto.

Collini, S. (1999). English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Feuer, L. S. (1976). John Stuart Mill as a Sociologist: The Unwritten Ethology. In J. M. Robson & M. Laine (Eds.), James and John Stuart Mill: Papers of the Centenary Conference. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Forbes, D. (1954). “Scientific” Whiggism: Adam Smith and John Miller. Cambridge Journal, 7, 643–670.

Varouxakis, G. (2002). Mill on Nationality. London: Routledge.CrossRef

Titel: Historical Knowledge and the Theory of Social Change
verfasst von: Yuichiro Kawana
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Buch: Logic and Society
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-52219-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-52221-4

Copyright-Jahr: 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52221-4_6

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