After the last hope of the formation of a Radical party had disappeared,
it was time for me to stop the heavy expenditure of time and money
which the Review cost me. It had to some extent answered my personal
purpose as a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express in
print much of my altered mode of thought, and to separate myself in a
marked manner from the narrower Benthamism of my early writings. This
was done by the general tone of all I wrote, including various purely
literary articles, but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the
Dissertations) which attempted a philosophical estimate of Bentham and
of Coleridge. In the first of these, while doing full justice to the
merits of Bentham, I pointed out what I thought the errors and
deficiencies of his philosophy. The substance of this criticism I still
think perfectly just; but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right
to publish it at that time. I have often felt that Bentham’s philosophy,
as an instrument of progress, has been to some extent discredited
before it had done its work, and that to lend a hand towards lowering
its reputation was doing more harm than service to improvement. Now,
however, when a counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what
is good in Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on this
criticism of its defects, especially as I have myself balanced it by
vindications of the fundamental principles of Bentham’s philosophy,
which are reprinted along with it in the same collection. In the essay
on Coleridge I attempted to characterize the European reaction against
the negative philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, if the
effect only of this one paper were to be considered, I might be thought
to have erred by giving undue prominence to the favourable side, as I
had done in the case of Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the
impetus with which I had detached myself from what was untenable in the
doctrines of Bentham and of the eighteenth century, may have carried me,
though in appearance rather than in reality, too far on the contrary
side. But as far as relates to the article on Coleridge, my defence is,
that I was writing for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to
dwell most on that in writers of a different school, from the knowledge
of which they might derive most improvement.
Note from KBJ: Mill, like any good writer, was aware of his audience. He says that in his essay on Coleridge, he was "writing for Radicals and Liberals." You might wonder why this matters. It matters because different people start in different places, with different beliefs and values. To persuade rationally, one must start with what one's interlocutor already believes or values. If I use premises that you reject, I have no chance of persuading you to accept my conclusion. I merely beg the question against you.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 