All speculation, however, on the possible future developments of my father’s opinions, and on the probabilities of permanent co-operation between him and me in the promulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be cut short. During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: his symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary consumption, and after lingering to the last stage of debility, he died on the 23rd of June, 1836. Until the last few days of his life there was no apparent abatement of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor did the approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as in so strong and firm a mind it was impossible that it should) in his convictions on the subject of religion. His principal satisfaction, after he knew that his end was near, seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make the world better than he found it; and his chief regret in not living longer, that he had not had time to do more.
Note from KBJ: Mill survived his father by almost 37 years. I share his father's view of life, incidentally. My aim is to leave the world a better place than when I came into it on 7 April 1957, even if it's not by much. (Yes, animals count.) Some people leave the world a worse place; some leave it the same (on balance); some leave it better. Imagine how good the world would be if everyone, or even most people, left it better. It would be heaven on earth.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 