Their plan was to take some text-book,and to discuss every point raised thoroughly --sometimes keeping to a single question for weeks --until every one was satisfied with at least his own solution of the question.Ricardo,James Mill,and their like supplied the chief literature;but in logic they went further,and,being disgusted with Aldrich,reprinted the Manuductio ad Logicam of the Jesuit du Trieu.The result of these arguments appears in the review of Whately.Mill,helped by Graham and Ellis (his old allies in the Utilitarian Society),started 'most of the novelties';while Grote and the others formed a critical tribunal.The results formed the materials of several of Mill's writings.These occupations might have been enough for a youth of twenty,but another field for discussion offered itself.The followers of Owen were starting weekly public discussions in 1825.The Utilitarians,headed by Charles Austin,went in a body,and a series of friendly but very energetic debates went on for three months.This led to the foundation of a debating society,upon the model of the,Speculative Society,of Edinburgh.After a failure at starting,the society became active,and until 1829Mill took part in nearly every debate.Besides the Utilitarians,it included Macaulay,Thirlwall,Praed,the Bulwers,Fonblanque,and others.Charles Buller and Cockburn came in as Radicals,and the Tories,of whom there had been a lack in those days of reforming zeal,were reinforced by Shee (afterwards Judge)and A.
Hayward.Maurice and Sterling were representatives of a liberalism widely differing from Utilitarianism,and acceding Coleridge in place of Bentham as intellectual guide.Mill learned to speak fluently,if not gracefully,and improved his style by preparing written speeches.It is not strange that,with all these occupations,he felt it a relief when,in 1828,he was released from contributing to the Westminster.Bowring,the editor,had made arrangements with Perronet Thompson,and it was no longer an organ of the orthodox Utilitarians.In 1829Mill gave up the Speculative Society and resolved to devote himself to private studies and prepare for more elaborate work.New thoughts were being suggested from various quarters.Macaulay's attack upon his father's political theory led him to recognise the inadequacy of the Utilitarian system,and forced him to consider the logical problems involved.He came under the influence of the St.Simonians at the same period.An enthusiastic disciple of the school,Gustave d'Eichthal,two years senior to Mill,was taken by young Tooke to the debating society in May 1828,and was surprised by Mill's skilful and comprehensive summing up of a discussion.He endeavoured to make proselytes of the pair,then full of the enthusiasm and expecting the triumph of their party.
Tooke,apparently Mill's warmest friend at the time,committed suicide early in 1830,in an access of excitement produced by fever ascribed to overwork and tension of mind.Mill became a half-convert.He was greatly impressed by the St.Simonian doctrine of the alternation of,critical,and,constructive,periods.He admitted the necessity of something better than the negative or 'critical philosophy'of the eighteenth century.(21)He desired the formation of a spiritual power.He protested,however,against the excessive spirit of system and against premature attempts to organise such a power.Yet by degrees he modified his objections,and on 30th November 1831declares his belief that the St.Simonian ideal will be the final state of the human race.Were England ripe for an 'organic view,'which it certainly is not,he might renounce everything in the world to become --not one of them,but --like them.Mill kept,as he says,a bureau of St.Simonianism for a time,and suggested to d'Eichthal the names of many persons to whom the publications of the party might be sent.Bulwer,Sterling,Whately,Blanco White,W.J.Fox,and Dr Arnold were among them.(22)Meanwhile,his speculations caused him to be much troubled by the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity;and he worked out a solution which was ultimately published in the Logic.While his mind was thus fermenting with many new thoughts,often,as he says,(23)new only to him,he was profoundly moved by the French revolution of July 1830.He went at once to Paris with Roebuck and Graham;was introduced to Lafayette,made friends with other popular leaders,and came back prepared to take an active part as a writer on behalf of the Reform agitation.For some years he was an active journalist,contributing to the Examiner under Fonblanque.Aseries of articles called,The Spirit of the Age,in this paper led to his acquaintance with Carlyle,who took him to be a 'new Mystic.'(24)In 1830and 1831he wrote his essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy,the fruit of the discussions with Graham (not published till 1844),and in 1832wrote articles upon foundations and upon the 'currency juggle,'which are the first of his collected dissertations.
