and equality, but with a little different emphasis in the conflict between individualism and collectivism, and between liberalism and socialism as economic programs. It has a close relation to the conflict between freedom and authority. In the nineteenth century, both in England and in our own country, both these sets of tendencies have at different times loudly proclaimed themselves on the side of youth and progress. When we examine the course of forward-looking opinion, we seem to see in it two currents. One is represented by the type of individual who looks about on the inefficiency and lack of organization, the waste of effort and of life that surround him, and says, “What is needed is more intelligence, more direction by experts of the lives of this roiling mass which is humanity, direction by experts who are versed in the ways of government, and who, if they were given a free hand, could lead mankind into the paths of prosperity and peace.” The other class is represented by the individual who says, "Man's greatest heritage is freedom; it is better to be poor and ignorant and dirty, than to be taught and washed and made prosperous by the despotism of others, however benevolent that despotism may be." These two types of attitude may be seen more or less clearly opposed to one another in almost all the controversies that trouble mankind, in politics, national and international, in the Church, and in the family. Whether it be the League of Nations, Prohibition, Marriage and Divorce, or any one of a thousand other questions, sooner or later the parties to the controversy find themselves gravitating toward this distinction. One group cries "Personal liberty," "Individual freedom," "National sovereignty" (as opposed to Leagues of Nations and World Courts). The other group cries "Efficiency," "Organization," or "Combination for mutual benefit." Both of these points of view may be philosophies of progress-both, that is, may be opposed to that sort of unreflective conservatism that

different times each of them has been pressed into service as an argument for conservatism, as at other times each has been the battle cry of reform.

As we study concrete social situations now it seems obvious enough that these are not two principles eternal in themselves and eternally and unalterably set over against one another, but rather attitudes of mind, points of view, ideas about ways of getting things done (in part ideas about what things are worth doing), which must be brought together in judicious combination if a progressively more satisfactory social state of things is to be achieved. But there are still people who fail to see this, who declare themselves unqualifiedly as Socialists, or Individualists, or Liberals, with some echo of the old meaning, or, if they be more philosophically inclined, try to find a solution of this "problem" in general terms. They take the names of tendencies or movements that have grown up in specific historical situations, spell them with capitals, and put them behind historical events as dei ex machina. Then they spend the rest of their lives trying to solve the problem which the hypostatization of these general terms has created. Ex-president Hadley would seem to be one of these people. And the inconclusiveness of the volume of lectures from which the foregoing quotation is taken would suggest that there is something unreal about his problem or wrong with his method.

But Ex-president Hadley is eternally right when he emphasizes the importance of historical investigation as a preliminary to intelligent dealing with present day problems. And if, following his suggestion, we were to study the "history of liberty and equality," we could find no more significant period upon which to center our efforts than England during the middle fifty years of the last century. And we could find no better individual upon whom to direct our attention than John Stuart Mill. In his life and his writing the problem of the relation of the individual to the social

group seems to focus itself uniquely. But when we turn to the consideration of Mill's philosophy, this same danger confronts us-of creating artificial problems and then trying vainly to find an answer. Many of the studies of John Stuart Mill that have been made in the past have fallen into this error. Critics start with categories of their own and try to fit the thinkers of past years into those categories, in place of starting the other way around and asking what concretely a given individual's problems were, and how, in his own terms, he tried to solve them. On the one hand it has been customary to think of John Stuart Mill as the inheritor from Jeremy Bentham and James Mill of the leadership of the forces of social and economic liberalism. But on the other hand we find in his writings much that seems to be the very opposite of this liberalism and of the individualism on which it was based. Leslie Stephen says that the latter part of his life Mill was "well on the way to State Socialism."' Mill looked with favor upon the plan of operation by the government of railroads and other industries that had to be carried on on a large scale. In the Autobiography he says: "I shall look forward to the time when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; and when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, in so great a degree as it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice." Having this ideal, he "regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as merely provisional, and welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all Socialistic experiments by select individuals."

So we find a perplexing inconsistency in Mill's social

'Leslie Stephen, English Utilitarians, Vol. III. p. 230.

'J. S. Mill, Political Economy, Vol. 1. p. 190.

*J. S. Mill, Autobiography (Columbia University Press, 1925) pp. 162, 164.

philosophy if we ask whether he favored economic liberalism or socialism, or try to place him arbitrarily in the conflict. between "individualism" and "collectivism" which was going on in England during those years. But this question and others like it perplex because they are based on false assumptions. As far as John Stuart Mill is concerned, an analysis of social philosophy in England in the nineteenth century in terms of individualism and collectivism does not help very much. Mill himself did not think of the problems he was up against in these terms. He did not allow his attitude to be determined by "'isms." He maintained, to be sure, a certain loyalty to the Utilitarian tradition, even though in developing it and redefining it he made some radical changes. There were other Utilitarians, the Grotes and Francis Place among them, who looked askance at what they considered his heterodoxy. And when Mill speaks of "Utilitarianism as understood by its best teachers" as holding this or that doctrine, we must confess to a suspicion that the circle of these "best teachers" is pretty much confined to Mill himself. But the truth of the matter is that Mill's real interest was in solving certain problems which presented themselves to him. He cared more about that than he did about the label that his particular solution might wear.

And yet, from our point of view, looking back over the development of English thought during the last hundred years, there can be seen a very definite line of development running through the thought of the early Utilitarians, and their youthful champion of the second generation. The connecting link in this development is in the idea of the individual. Individualism is as much the key to John Stuart Mill's social philosophy as it is to the philosophy of his teachers. Only-and this is the important point-John Stuart Mill's individualism was a different sort of individualism. It was fuller and richer, and laid more emphasis on the inner development of the individual. The purpose of this book is not to

place Mill with regard to certain schools of thought or to try to show his relation to a hypothetical conflict between the principles of liberty and equality, or individualism and socialism. It is rather to ask what were Mill's own concrete problems?-how did he see them?-how, in his own terms, did he attempt to solve them? Its thesis is that the expanding idea of individuality, and a growing concern for individuality in society (which was directly related to his own growing personality) played an important part in Mill's thought and is essential to the understanding of his social and political philosophy.