Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

john stuart mill’s Autobiography offers details of his life, a subjective judgment as to its significance, and lengthy expositions of his leading ideas. It is therefore fitting that it should occupy the first place in an edition of his collected works. Indeed Mill himself, thinking of a smaller collection of essays, suggested to his wife that “the Life” should appear “at their head.” The Autobiography’s comprehensiveness makes the choice of other materials to accompany it less obvious. Those gathered under the rubric of literary essays were decided upon because autobiography is a literary genre, because these essays cast light on some of the personal relations outlined in the memoir, and because they derive from and help us understand a period Mill saw as crucial to his development. Indeed they allow us, as does the Autobiography, to see aspects of his character that are obscured in the more magisterial works. In particular, one finds specific evidence of aesthetic enthusiasm and taste, and of friendships and allegiances, that proves him not to have been the chill pedant of caricature.

the textual precision and inclusiveness of this edition of the Principles of Political Economy are due entirely to the intelligence and industry of the textual editor, Professor Robson, and it is only proper that he has written the second introduction, which is concerned with the successive changes in thought and exposition recorded in this edition, and which lays down the principles of textual criticism and procedure followed in preparing the text. It is my privilege to contribute an economist’s introduction to the Principles as a single complete work, rather than to deal with variations of text. I fully recognize the importance of the work of the textual editor and the value of this edition, but I must explain how different is my own approach. I welcomed an edition which would make the Principles in its final form readily available and easy to read because I believe that it is a living book which has present value and significance. The members of the editorial committee have emphasized always the importance of providing easy reading of the main text of the Works for those who want to ignore changes over successive editions, and I was glad to have this 7th edition of the Principles in such a form. I have always set a high value on the Ashley edition, and was anxious that its virtues should be retained in this edition. Ashley’s was not a fully collated edition: it did not meet the needs of the scholar trying to reconstruct the successive editions after 1848; but as a working edition for the modern economist it was superb. It indicated nearly all the textual changes of importance to the modern economist. I am proud that it was the work of the first professor of economics in this University and it is with some sentiment of filial piety that I, one of his successors in the Department of Political Economy, write this introduction.

Principles of Political EconomyExchange: Of Value, aOfa Demand and Supply, in Their Relation to Value, Of Cost of Production, in Its Relation to Value, Ultimate Analysis of Cost of Production, Of Rent, in Its Relation to Value, Summary of the Theory of Value, Of Money, Of the Value of Money, as Dependent on Demand and Supply, Of the Value of Money, as Dependent on Cost of Production, Of a Double Standard, and Subsidiary Coins, Of Credit, as a Substitute for Money, Influence of Credit on Prices, Of an Inconvertible Paper Currency, Of Excess of Supply, Of a Measure of Value, Of Some Peculiar Cases of Value, Of International Trade, Of International Values, Of Money, Considered as an Imported Commodity, Of the Foreign Exchanges, Of the Distribution of the Precious Metals Through the Commercial World, Influence of the Currency on athea Exchanges and on Foreign Trade, Of the Rate of Interest, Of the Regulation of a Convertible Paper Currency, Of the Competition of Different Countries in the Same Market, Of Distribution, as Affected by Exchange, Influence of the Progress of Society on Production and Distribution: General Characteristics of a Progressive State of Wealth, Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population on Values and Prices, Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population, on Rents, Profits, and Wages, Of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum, Consequences of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum, Of the Stationary State, On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes, On the Influence of GovernmentOf the Functions of Government in General, aOna the General Principles of Taxation, Of Direct Taxes, Of Taxes on Commodities, Of Some Other Taxes, Comparison between Direct and Indirect Taxation, Of a National Debt, Of the Ordinary Functions of Government, Considered as to Their Economical Effects, The Same Subject Continued, Of Interferences of Government Grounded on Erroneous Theories, Of the Grounds and Limits of the Laisser-Faire or Non-Interference Principle

obituary notices suggest that Mill’s contemporaries thought his greatest contribution had been in logic rather than in economics or politics. In the intervening century that judgment has been altered, and Mill is far more often thought of as an economist than as a logician. By quantitative standard alone, the recent view has been more correct, for Mill cultivated his interest in economics more assiduously and constantly than any of his other interests. His first published writings were the letters on the measure of value referred to by Lord Robbins (p. viiin above); the climax of his middle years is signalled by his Principles in 1848 (the date chosen by Professors Mineka and Hayek to terminate the Earlier Letters); and he devoted much thought in his later years to problems of socialism and land tenure. In almost every one of the intervening years he wrote something of interest to students of economics, although seldom is it possible to say that an article or letters or speech is of interest only to economists, and hardly ever that it is of more interest to economists than to others.

The Savings of the Middle and Working Classes 1850: Editor’s Note, The Savings of the Middle and Working Classes, The Regulation of the London Water Supply 1851: Editor’s Note, The Regulation of the London Water Supply, Newman’s Political Economy 1851: Editor’s Note, Newman’s Political Economy, The Law of Partnership 1851: Editor’s Note, The Law of Partnership, The Income and Property Tax 1852: Editor’s Note, The Income and Property Tax, The Bank Acts 1857: Editor’s Note, The Bank Acts, The Income and Property Tax 1861: Editor’s Note, The Income and Property Tax, Currency and Banking 1867: Editor’s Note, Currency and Banking, Endowments 1869: Editor’s Note, Endowments, Thornton on Labour and its Claims 1869: Editor’s Note, Thornton on Labour and Its Claims, Leslie on the Land Question 1870: Editor’s Note, Leslie on the Land Question, Land Tenure Reform 1871: Editor’s Note, Land Tenure Reform, Property And Taxation 1873: Editor’s Note, Property and Taxation, Chapters on Socialism 1879Editor’s Note, Chapters on Socialism

one of john stuart mill’s strongest claims on our attention derives from his political writings. His lifelong concern with the problems of good government produced durable analysis, description, and advice. Best known for their range and perception are his writings on political theory: Considerations on Representative Government, On Liberty, and the other major essays in Volumes XVIII and XIX of this edition, and sections of his Principles of Political Economy and System of Logic; also important are his speeches and newspaper writings, which have a preponderant political bias. A further essential source, however, for an appreciation of Mill’s political thinking is the body of material contained in this volume. These essays make clear, especially when compared with the other works, that the main tenor and focus of his writings altered about 1840. He began and remained a Radical—his speeches in the 1860s match in fervour his articles of the 1830s, and his anger over the condition of Ireland is as evident in 1868 as in 1825—but there are differences in what may simply be called breadth of approach, of subject matter, of polemic, of form, and even of provenance. In general, his approach became more theoretical, his subjects less immediate, his polemic (with marked exceptions) less evident and (almost always) less one-sided, and the form and provenance of his writings more varied. The standard—the Millian—view (which I share) would assess these changes as gains, but the earlier work is not mere apprentice labour; these essays have their place in the study of the development of a powerful and committed thinker, as well as in any history of British radicalism. Most of these matters are dealt with more fully by Joseph Hamburger in his Introduction above; of them, only the form and provenance of the writings properly occupy a textual editor—though in some places my comments, out of necessity (or wilfulness), overlap his.

§ 1. [A definition at the commencement of a subject must be provisional] There is as great diversity among authors in the modes which they have adopted of defining logic, as in their treatment of the details of it. This is what might naturally be expected on any subject on which writers have availed themselves of the same language as a means of delivering different ideas. Ethics and jurisprudence are liable to the remark in common with logic. Almost every writer having taken a different view of some of the particulars which these branches of knowledge are usually understood to include; each has so framed his definition as to indicate beforehand his own peculiar tenets, and sometimes to beg the question in their favour.

Of Operations Subsidiary to Induction: Prelims, Of Observation and Description, Of Abstraction, or the Formation of Conceptions, Of Naming, as Subsidiary to Induction, Of the Requisites of a Philosophical Language, and the Principles of Definition, aOna the Natural History of the Variations in the Meaning of Terms, The Principles of a Philosophical Language Further Considered, Of Classification, as Subsidiary to Induction, Of Classification by Series, On Fallacies: Prelims, Of Fallacies in General, Classification of Fallacies, Fallacies of Simple Inspection; or a priori Fallacies, Fallacies of a Observation, Fallacies of a Generalization, Fallacies of a Ratiocination, Fallacies of Confusion, On The Logic of the Moral SciencesPrelims, Introductory Remarks, Of Liberty and Necessity, That There is, or May Be, a Science of Human Nature, Of the Laws of Mind, Of Ethology, or the Science of the Formation of Character, General Considerations on the Social Science, Of the Chemical, or Experimental, Method in the Social Science, Of the Geometrical, or Abstract Method, Of the Physical, or Concrete Deductive Method, Of the Inverse Deductive, or Historical Method, aAdditional Elucidations of the Science of History, aaOf the Logic of Practice, or Art; Including Morality and Policy

an examination of sir william hamilton’s philosophy is in several respects exceptional among Mill’s works. Although he devoted several major essays (such as “Bentham” and “Coleridge”), and one book (Auguste Comte and Positivism —originally a pair of essays) to individuals, only here did he subject an author’s texts to a searching and detailed analysis, sustained by an admitted polemical intent. Only part of the work is devoted to an exposition of Mill’s own views, and a few passages at most could be said to provide the kind of synthesis so typical of his other major writings. The kinds of revisions revealed by collation of the editions are also unusual in two related respects: a much higher proportion than in his other works is devoted to answering critics; and far more of the changes are in the form of added footnotes than is usual for him. Another difference is that the response to the book was immediate and strong: it elicited more reviews and critical replies in a short period of time than his Principles of Political Economy, System of Logic, and even On Liberty. Published in 1865, the first edition (of 1000 copies) sold out so quickly that a second edition was prepared within a couple of months, and a third edition, which was published two years after the first, would have appeared sooner had Mill not wished to answer his critics fully and at leisure. A fourth edition, the last in his lifetime, appeared in 1872 only five years after the third, and the work continued in demand for about twenty years.

John Stuart Mill occupies an important place in the history of moral philosophy, and moral philosophy occupies a similarly important, indeed a central, part in Mill’s thought. He wrote, however, no ethical treatise comparable in range and depth to his Principles of Political Economy or his System of Logic; and while ethical works generally tend to be shorter than works on political economy and logic, one cannot treat Mill’s Utilitarianism, even apart from length, as commensurate with the Principles or the Logic. So, accepting Utilitarianism as his major ethical work, one must look to other essays if one wishes a comprehensive view of his ethics. In this volume, therefore, Utilitarianism is presented, for the first time, in the context of the other significant essays that establish the scope and development of Mill’s ethics, and indicate its social and religious affiliations.

Philosophy and the classics were life-long passions of John Stuart Mill. In his time philosophy had not been professionally categorized, and his writings tend to ignore the boundaries of logic, the philosophy of mind, and ethics, and to reflect his training in the classics. His major philosophical work, of course, is to be found in his System of Logic which, with Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, has more direct interest for philosophers than his other writings. But it is a mistake to ignore such essays as those here gathered, for they give a rich context to the major philosophical works and illuminate central aspects of his non-philosophical writings.

john stuart mill has not been altogether fortunate in the manner in which his memory was served by those most concerned and best authorized to honour it. It is true that his stepdaughter, heir, and literary executor, Helen Taylor, promptly published the Autobiography, which chiefly determined the picture posterity formed of Mill, and that the only other manuscript ready for publication was also rapidly printed. But during the next forty years, while Mill’s fame persisted undiminished, little was done either to make his literary work more readily accessible or his other activities better known. There are few figures of comparable standing whose works have had to wait nearly a hundred years for a collected edition in English to be published. Nor, while his reputation was at its height, did any significant information become available that would have enabled another hand to round off the somewhat angular and fragmentary picture Mill had given of himself. He had been quite aware that his more public activities would be of interest to later generations and had begun to mark some of the copies of his letters which he had kept as suitable for publication. But Helen Taylor appears increasingly to have been more concerned to prevent others from encroaching upon her proprietary rights than to push on with her own plans for publication. It was only when the material so jealously guarded by her finally passed to one of Mrs. Mill’s granddaughters, Mary Taylor, that an outsider was called in to publish some of the more readily accessible correspondence. Again, however, Mary Taylor reserved to herself part of the task which she was hardly qualified to carry out and in fact did not bring to completion. When at last after her death the papers in her possession became generally accessible, interest in Mill seems to have been at a low point and those papers were allowed to be widely dispersed. Nothing illustrates better the temporary eclipse of his fame than that some of the institutions which then acquired important parts of these papers did not trouble to catalogue them for another fifteen years.

The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812–18481838, 1839, 1840, 1843, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848

the present four volumes and the two volumes of Earlier Letters, published in 1963, constitute a collected edition of all the letters of John Stuart Mill available at this time. The separate publication of earlier and later letters, instead of the more usual multi-volume single publication of a whole collection all in one sequence and provided with one index, was dictated more by circumstances than by any inherent distinction between Mill’s earlier and later letters. The whole correspondence is the life of the man, “and above all the chief part of his life, his inner life.”

1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864

The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–18731865: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1866: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1867: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1868January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–18731869: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1870: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1871: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1872: January, February, March, April, May, June, August, September, October, November, December, 1873January, February, March, April

the essays in this volume comprise the main body of Mill’s writings specifically on political and social theory, including On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, his most valued contributions to this area. Given his abiding interest in the application of theory to experience, and the testing of theory by experience, and given also his view of the “consensus” that obtains in social states, it is impossible to isolate essays that deal only with political and social theory, or to include in one volume (or even in several) all his essays that touch on such matters. Perhaps the most obviously necessary exclusions in a volume of this kind are the final Books of the System of Logic and the Principles of Political Economy, both of which are essential to an understanding of Mill’s ideas. The decision to include or exclude particular essays is in large measure a pragmatic one, and students of Mill’s political and social thought will want to refer, inter alia, to some of his essays and newspaper writings on economics, on particular political and social events, and on law and equality, which will be found in other volumes of the Collected Works. The main characteristics determining the selection of the essays in this volume are the focus on abiding and theoretical questions, and thematic interdependence.

Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform 1859: Editor’s Note, Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, Recent Writers on Reform 1859: Editor’s Note, Recent Writers on Reform, Considerations on Representative Government 1861: Editor’s Note, Preface, To What Extent Forms of Government are a Matter of Choice, The Criterion of a Good Form of Government, That the Ideally Best Form of Government is Representative Government, Under What Social Conditions Representative Government is Inapplicable, Of the Proper Functions of Representative Bodies, Of the Infirmities and Dangers to which Representative Government is Liable, Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority Only, Of the Extension of the Suffrage, Should there be Two Stages of Election?, Of the Mode of Voting, Of the Duration of Parliaments, Ought Pledges to be Required from Members of Parliament?, Of a Second Chamber, Of the Executive in a Representative Government, Of Local Representative Bodies, Of Nationality, as Connected with Representative Government, Of Federal Representative Governments, Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State, Centralisation 1862Editor’s Note, Centralisation

though mill is properly celebrated as a political philosopher, logician, and economist, throughout his work one finds evidence of an intense interest in history. Indeed his first childhood writings, prompted by his father’s History of British India, which was composed at the table across which the child worked at his lessons, were histories of India, Rome, and Holland. He never wrote a history in his adult years, but rather occupied himself with the philosophy of history and with the implications of that philosophy for social theory and practical politics. While he took great interest in British and classical history (see especially Volumes VI and XI of the Collected Works), his principal concentration was on French history, particularly in its social and political manifestations. Rich evidence of his fascination with French affairs is to be found throughout his works, especially in his newspaper writings and letters, as well as in the details of his life, from his boyhood visit to Pompignan and Montpellier in 1820–21 to his death in Avignon in 1873.

Equality, as Stefan Collini asserts in the Introduction above, is the dominant theme in this volume. Perhaps because the word does not appear in the title of any of Mill’s great essays, its importance in his thought and life is not often emphasized. The materials now gathered, which demonstrate its significance in his thought on education and law as well as on sexual, racial, and domestic issues, derive from each of the decades of his writing career, that is, from the 1820s to the 1870s. They also cover a wide range in provenance. The majority, eleven of the eighteen in the text proper, originated as reviews or essays in periodicals: three in each of the Westminster Review and Fraser’s Magazine, two in the Monthly Repository, and one in each of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, the Edinburgh Review, and the Fortnightly Review. Of these eleven, three were reprinted during Mill’s lifetime in the British edition of Dissertations and Discussions, one (“Treaty Obligations”) was republished in the posthumous fourth volume, and one (“The Slave Power”) in the U.S. editions of that collection. Two of the items, the Inaugural Address at St. Andrews (originally a speech) and The Subjection of Women, appeared as books; and one, Remarks on Mr. Fitzroy’s Bill, as a pamphlet. Parliamentary evidence, in written form and as a transcription of oral answers (republished in pamphlet form), supplies two further items. And two more not published by Mill are presented from manuscript. The appendices given to ancillary textual matter include essays and fragments by Harriet Taylor Mill, only one of which was published in her lifetime (in the Westminster), a manuscript fragment of the Inaugural Address, and three publications of the Jamaica Committee under Mill’s chairmanship.

The articles in these volumes span more than fifty years, from Mill’s first published letter in 1822 when he was sixteen years old, until his last leading article in 1873, the year of his death. The subjects range from abstract economics (with which he began) and practical economics (with which he ended), through French and British politics, reviews of music and theatre, and Irish land reform, to domestic cruelty, with glances at a multitude of events and ideas important to the nineteenth century. They therefore provide a needed perspective on his life and thought, giving a record of his ideas and of the development of his argumentative skills, as well as revealing his attitude to public persuasion through the newspaper press, a medium of increasing importance in his lifetime.

August 1831 to July 1832: French News [24], State of Parties in France, The Peerage Question in France, French News [25], French News [26], The Sugar Refinery Bill and the Slave Trade, French News [27], French News [28], Dr. Whately’s Elevation to an Archbishopric, French News [29], French News [30], French News [31], French News [32], French News [33], French News [34], French News [35], French News [36], French News [37], French News [38], French News [39], French News [40], French News [41], French News [42], French News [43], French News [44], The Irish Character, Employment of Children in Manufactories, French News [45], Hickson’s The New Charter, French News [46], French News [47], Todd’s Book of Analysis, French News [48], Female Emigrants, French News [49], French News [50], French News [51], French News [52], Smart’s Outline of Sematology [1], French News [53], Smart’s Outline of Sematology [2], French News [54], Flower’s Songs of the Seasons, French News [55], French News [56], Comparison of the Tendencies of French and English Intllect, Lewis’s Remarks on the Use and Abuse of Political Terms, French News [57], French News [58], The Close of the Session in France, Property in Land, French News [59], French News [60], Deaths Of Casimir Perier and Georges Cuvier, French News [61], Pemberton’s Lectures on Shakespeare, French News [62], Death of Jeremy Bentham, French News [63], French News [64], French News [65], Pledges [1], Lewin’s the Fisherman of Flamborough Head, French News [66], Pledges [2], French News [67], September 1832 to August 1833: Recommendations of Candidates to Parliament, French News [68], French News [69], French News [70], French News [71], The Corn Laws, French News [72], French and English Journals, French News [73], French News [74], Death of Hyde Villiers, French News [75], On the Necessity of Uniting the Question of Corn Laws With That of Tithes, French News [76], Death of Charles Lameth, The President’s Message, Necessity of Revising the Present System of Taxation, Errors and Truths on a Property Tax, Flower’s Hymn of the Polish Exiles, The Monthly Repository for March 1833, French News [77], The Monthly Repository for April 1833, Flower’s Mignon’s Song and when Thou Wert Here, The Budget, Confiscation Scheme of the Times, French News [78], French News [79], Beolchi’s Saggio Di Poesie Italiane, The Monthly Repository for June 1833, The Bank Charter Bill [1], The Ministerial Measure Respecting The Bank, French News [80], Municipal Institutions, The Bank Charter Bill [2], September 1833 to October 1834The Quarterly Review on France, The Monthly Repository for September 1833, Note on Benefactors of Mankind, The Ministerial Manifesto, The Marvellous Ministry, The Review of the Session Continued, Lord Brougham’s Law Reforms, The Corporation Bill, Conduct of the Ministry With Respect to the Poor Laws, Martineau’s a tale of the Tyne, Conduct of the Ministry with Respect to the Post-Office Department, and the Payment if Officers by Fees, Napier’s the Colonies, The Monthly Repository for December 1833, French News [81], French News [82], War With Russia, The Monthly Repository for January 1834, French News [83], Wilson’s History of Rome, French News [84], French News [85], Fontana and Prati’s ST. Simonism in London, French News [86], French News [87], French News [88], French News [89], The Poor Law Report, The Poor Laws, French News [90], French News [91], Reply to DR. Prati, State of Opinion in France, French News [92], French News [93], French News [94], Flower’s Songs of the Months [1], French News [95], French News [96], French News [97], Walter on the Poor Law Amendment Bill, The Poor Law Amendment Bill, Death of Lafayette, The English National Character, Sarah Austin’s Translation of Cousin, French News [98], French News [99], The New Colony [1], French News [100], The New Colony [2], French News [101], Wakefield’s the New British Province of South Australia, French News [102], The Poor Law Bill, French News [103], Garnier’s Deutsches Leben, Kunst, Und Poesie [1], French News [104], French News [105], Garnier’s Deutsches Leben, Kunst, Und Poesie [2], New Australian Colony

January 1835 to June 1846: Senior’s On National Property [1], Flower’s Songs of the Months [2], The Word “Destructive”, Senior’s On National Property [2], Bribery and Intimidation At Elections, The London Review On Municipal Corporation Reform, Senior’s Preface to the Foreign Communications in the Poor Law Report, First Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, The House Of Lords [1], The House of Lords [2], Grant’s Arithmetic for Young Children and Exercises for the Improvement of the Senses, Wakefield’s Popular Politics, The Sale of Colonial Land, Commercial Crisis in the United States of America, Nichol’s Views of the Architecture of the Heavens, Molesworth’s Address to The Electors of Leeds, Exception to the Objections to Nominal Punishments, Petition for Free Trade, Sterling’s The Election, Puseyism [1], Puseyism [2], Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, Lord Ashburton’s Treaty, Torrens’s Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Lord brougham and M. De Tocqueville, The Bank Charter Question [1], The Bank Charter Question [2], The Bank Charter Question [3], The Bank Charter Question [4], The Malt Tax, The Poor Rates as a Burden on Agriculture, The Acquittal of Captain Johnstone, Grote’s History of Greece [1], Dr. Ellis’s Conviction, October 1846 to June 1847The Condition of Ireland [1], The Case of Private Matthewson, The Condition of Ireland [2], The Condition of Ireland [3], The Condition of Ireland [4], The Condition of Ireland [5], The Condition of Ireland [6], The Condition of Ireland [7], The Condition of Ireland [8], The Condition of Ireland [9], The Condition of Ireland [10], The Condition of Ireland [11], The Suicide of Sarah Brown, The Condition of Ireland [12], Poulett Scrope On the Poor Laws, The Condition of Ireland [13], The Condition of Ireland [14], The Condition of Ireland [15], The Condition of Ireland [16], The Condition of Ireland [17], The Condition of Ireland [18], The Appointment of Judges under the New Local Courts Act, The Condition of Ireland [19], The Case of William Burn, The Condition of Ireland [20], The Condition of Ireland [21], The Condition of Ireland [22], The Condition of Ireland [23], The Condition of Ireland [24], The Condition of Ireland [25], The Condition of Ireland [26], The Condition of Ireland [27], The Condition of Ireland [28], The Condition of Ireland [29], The Condition of Ireland [30], The Condition of Ireland [31], The Condition of Ireland [32], The Condition of Ireland [33], The Condition of Ireland [34], The Condition of Ireland [35], The Condition of Ireland [36], The Condition of Ireland [37], The Condition of Ireland [38], The Condition of Ireland [39], The Case of the North Family, The Condition of Ireland [40], The Condition of Ireland [41], The Condition of Ireland [42], The Condition of Ireland [43], The Quarterly Review on French Agriculture [1], The Quarterly Review on French Agriculture [2], The Quarterly Review on French Agriculture [3], The Quarterly Review on French Agriculture [4], The Irish Debates in the House of Commons, Austin on Centralization, The Proposed Irish Poor Law [1], The Proposed Irish Poor Law [2], The General Fast, Emigration From Ireland, “Sanitary” V. “Sanatory”, The Opening of the Prussian Diet, Enlightened Infidelity, Grote’s History of Greece [2]

December 1847 to July 1858: Eugene Sue, The Provisional Government in France, George Sand, England and Ireland, The Reform Debate, On Reform, Electoral Districts, French Affairs, Landed Tenure in Ireland, The French Law Against the Press, Bain’s on the Applications of Science to Human Health and Well-Being, Grote’s History of Greece [3], Grote’s History of Greece [4], The Attempt to Exclude Unbelievers From Parliament, Corporal Punishment, The Czar and the Hungarian Refugees in Turkey [1], The Czar and the Hungarian Refugees in Turkey [2], M. Cabet, Lechevalier’s Declaration, The Californian Constitution, The Case of Mary Ann Parsons [1], The Case of Anne Bird, Grote’s History of Greece [5], The Case of Mary Ann Parsons [2], The Case of Susan Moir, Questionable Charity, The Law of Assault, Punishment of Children, Constraints of Communism, Stability of Society, Religious Sceptics, Wife Murder, Street Organs, The Rules of the Booksellers’ Association [1], The Rules of the Booksellers’ Association [2], The India Bill, I, The India Bill, II, A Recent Magisterial Decision, The Law of Lunacy, March 1863 to July 1873Poland, The Civil War in the United States, England and Europe, On Hare’s Plan, The Westminster Election [1], Romilly’s Public Responsibility and the Ballot, The Westminster Election [2], The Ballot, Gladstone for Greenwich, Bouverie Versus Chadwick, New England Woman’s Suffrage Association, The Case of William Smith, The Education Bill, The Treaty of 1856 [1], The Treaty of 1856 [2], De Laveleye on the Eastern Question, The Society of Arts, Advice to Land Reformers, Should Public Bodies Be Required to Sell Their Lands?, The Right of Property in Land

These volumes contain manuscript materials not prepared for publication by Mill himself. While some of them have been published in the twentieth century, very few have appeared in scholarly form, and never in a comprehensive edition permitting comparison. There are four categories: (a) the journal and notebook describing Mill’s fourteen months in France, the notebook containing his notes of logic lectures taken during that visit, and the “Traité de logique” based on that course of lectures, all of 1820–21; (b) his debating speeches from 1823 to 1829; (c) journals of his walking tours from 1827 to 1832; and (d) his diary for part of 1854.

Walking Tours 1827–32: Prelims, Walking Tour of Sussex, Walking Tour of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Surrey, Walking Tour of Yorkshire and the Lake District, Walking Tour of Hampshire, West Sussex, and the Isle of Wight, Walking Tour of Cornwall, France 1820–21Diary

Most of Mill’s later speeches have never been republished. Those here collected are mainly from Parliamentary Debates and newspapers; one uniquely exists in manuscript and one in typescript, and four others are also extant in manuscript as well as in print; a handful appeared in pamphlets, and one was reprinted in Dissertations and Discussions.

July 1869 to March 1873The Cobden Club, Women’s Suffrage [1], The Education Bill [1], Women’s Suffrage [2], The Education Bill [2], Election to School Boards [1], Election to School Boards [2], Women’s Suffrage [3], The Cumulative Vote, Discussion of the Contagious Diseases Acts, The Army Bill, Land Tenure Reform [1], Land Tenure Reform [2]

of mill’s fourteen published writings on India, eight appeared in anonymous pamphlet form, all in connection with the legislation of 1858 that transferred to the Crown all the affairs of the East India Company. These exist only in the one printed version, except for “The Petition of the East India Company,” which also appeared in Parliamentary Debates. Two other items, “John Stuart Mill, Esq., Is Called in and Examined” (1852), and “Letter from the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Honourable East India Company to the President of the Board of Control” (in connection with the legislation of 1858), were published in Parliamentary Papers.; the latter also appeared in Supplement to Votes, which is the copy-text because a copy of it, corrected by Mill in punctuation, is in his library, Somerville College, Oxford. Three articles appeared in periodicals: “Foreign Dependencies—Trade with India,” in the Parliamentary History and Review (1828); “Penal Code for India,” in the Westminster Review (1838); and “Mr. Maine on Village Communities,” in the Fortnightly Review (1871). The last of these is partly extant in manuscript (Library of Congress) and was republished in the posthumous fourth volume of Mill’s Dissertations and Discussions (1875). There is one manuscript, the “Minute on the Black Act” (1836) in the British Library, deriving (like the pamphlets) from Mill’s employment in the Examiner’s Office of the East India Company.

the range of volume titles in the Collected Works might suggest that “miscellaneous” is redundant in Mill’s case; however, given that the current laws of the political economy of publishing rule out very slender volumes, his breadth of interest has defeated our taxonomical abilities. The label must nevertheless not be seen as denigrating: collectively these materials contribute substantially to a full understanding of Mill’s life and thought, and many have independent value. The following comments are designed to make that statement plausible to any sceptics who may have strayed into these underpopulated Millian territories, although full mapping of them remains a task for cartographers as yet unsighted.

Editors, both past and present, of Mill’s correspondence have had to live with the certain knowledge that the task would remain incomplete. To the second volume of Earlier Letters, Professor Francis E. Mineka had to append three “Additional Letters” that had come to light after the volumes were in page proof. At the conclusion of the fourth volume of Later Letters, he added another, much larger collection of recently discovered letters, one of which had, again, arrived too late to take its proper chronological place, even in the late additions. We have been somewhat more fortunate with timing, in being able to add to this collection at the very last moment a newly arrived series of letters to M.E. Grant Duff. The ever impending problem of new acquisitions bears evidence to the continued flourishing state of Mill studies, and we cannot pretend to undue concern.

this volume, which incorporates in slightly modified and abbreviated form the separate indexes of the individual volumes, consists of four sections: an alphabetical list of all the writings in the Collected Works with their locations; a chronological list of Mill’s writings, also keyed to the Collected Works; an index of persons and works referred to by Mill; and a subject index. Throughout, the “word-by-word” order is used (except that “de,” “la,” and “le” are treated as part of the following word), so that Church rates, for instance, comes before Churches. Basic information on the form of the entry and the abbreviations used is given in the headnote to each list. This introduction is intended as a more detailed guide, explaining some of the dilemmas encountered and choices made in the process of reducing the vast corpus of Mill’s work to four lists.