Autobiography

Description

An autobiography of John Stuart Mill a prolific journalist, brilliant logician, philosopher, liberal MP, and a pioneer of women's suffrage whose remarkable educational feats caused him a severe mental crisis in his thirties. Born in London in 1806, a child of precocious intelligence, he was systematically educated by his father James Mill to follow in his footsteps as the champion of utilitarian philosophy. He was fluent in Greek at three. By the age of 20 he was champion of the younger philosophical radicals, but shortly afterwards he suffered the first of many mental crises. The author also wrote "On Liberty", "Utilitarianism", and "The Subjection of Women". The editor was General Editor of the 25 volume "Collected Works of John Stuart Mill".

John Stuart Mill (1806-73) was educated by his father and through his influence obtained a clerkship at India House. He formed the Utilitarian Society which met to read and discuss essays, and in 1825 he edited Bentham's Treatise upon Evidence. In 1826 he suffered an acute mental crisis and found that poetry helped him recover the will to live, particularly the work of Wordsworth.;;Having reconsidered his aims and those of the Benthamite school, he met Harriet Taylor and she inspired a great deal of his philosophy. They married in 1851. Utilitarianism was published in 1861 but before that Mill published his System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (1848) and On Liberty (1839). His other works include his classic Autobiography (1873). Mill retired in 1858 and became the independent MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868. He spent the rest of his life in France and died in Avignon.;