The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - the Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II [1838]
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The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II [1838] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. 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Francis E. Mineka, Introduction by F.A. Hayek (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963). Author: John Stuart Mill Editor: Francis E. Mineka Introduction: Friedrich August von Hayek About This Title: Vol. 13 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill’s letters written between 1838-1848 with an Introdcution by F.A. Hayek. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: The online edition of the Collected Works is published under licence from the copyright holder, The University of Toronto Press. ©2006 The University of Toronto Press. All rights reserved. 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PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II Table Of Contents The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1838-1848 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II [Back to Table of Contents] THE EARLIER LETTERS OF JOHN STUART MILL 1838-1848 Letter 405, to Macvey Napier, from MS in the British Museum PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 6 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II [Back to Table of Contents] 1838 229. TO JOHN ROBERTSON1 Saturday [Jan. (?), 1838] Dear Robertson I am going to have to fight a duel on your account. I have had a half hostile, half expostulatory letter from Hayward2 on the subject of that passage, in the Martineau article,3 in reply to which I have owned the proprietorship, disowned authorship & editorship, admitted having seen the article before it was printed off, & said that I did not consider the terms “blackguardising” & “lying” as applied to any one individually but to a class to which it was made matter of complaint against certain superior men that they allowed themselves to be assimilated. I of course did not tell him either who wrote the article or who edited it, and I told him that I had ordered any letter he might send to be forwarded to me. I have not yet received his answer & perhaps shall not till I leave town which will be today, so hold yourself prepared in case he should write a letter to you. N.B. I told him that the writer had no malice against him, & I believed had never seen him. Ever Yours J. S. Mill If you have anything to write, direct Post Office Southampton.4 230. TO JOHN HILL BURTON1 India House 23d January 1837 [sic, recte 1838] PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 7 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II My Dear Sir, Pray excuse my not having sooner answered your letter, as my whole spare time and thoughts were occupied with poor Canada, about which what I have to say will be published in the L. & W. review on Saturday next. With regard to the note or rather the passage which I propose should be appended to my preface,2 on reperusal I should wish that after the words “accordant with the spirit of the work itself” you would be so kind as to add “and, in Mr. Bentham, admissible” and then proceed “than what would be decorous” &c. as before. Otherwise I shall have the appearance of censuring the tone of the work, which I am very far indeed from intending. I still wish to suppress any direct mention of my name, not to prevent it from being known to the reader if he chuses to enquire about it which I know cannot be done, but because its suppression is as it were, an act of disavowal as to any appropriateness in the notes and additions to my present frame of mind, and because I do not like to perk in the face of the world in general that the person known by my name has written things which he is ashamed of, when my name has never in any instance been put to writings I am not ashamed of. I should think Sir John Campbell’s Law Reform Acts, the orders of the 15 Judges promulgated a few years ago reforming the system of Pleading, and the Reports of the various Law Commissions, were the best authorities for the recent alterations in the law. Not being acquainted with many law books I cannot direct you to any other sources. My notions of Mr. Bentham’s intentions with respect to the “Introduction to the Rationale” (though I confess it is but an indistinct notion) has always been that he intended to put it forth as a kind of feeler, at a time when he did not contemplate finishing the work itself for publication at an early period. My opinion is entirely adverse to publishing the Introduction at all; & if that is decided upon, the later in the collection it comes the better. I would much rather it followed, than preceded, the Rationale. Mr. Smith’s3 proposal appears to me prepos[terous]4 & from all you mention I should not suppose him to be a man to whose judgment any more deference should be paid in constructing the Edition than is indispensable. I know nothing of Mr Smith whatever except that I think I remember hearing that a gentleman of that name had been the editor of the Rationale of Reward. Believe Me Dear Sir Yours Truly J. S. Mill PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 8 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/250 Online Library of Liberty: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XIII - The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848 Part II 231. TO ALBANY FONBLANQUE1 India House 30th Jany 1838 My Dear Fonblanque— I have not said or written one word to you in complaint of the extraordinary unfairness which you appear to me to have practised for some time against those radicals who oppose the present ministry—I know you never intend to be unfair, but you remember I always thought unfairness towards opponents to be one of your qualities even when you & I were on the same side in politics. It is especially in these late Canada discussions that I have thought your unfairness went beyond the bounds which in some degree confined it before.