This was at a time when women ceased to be separate legal entities and property-owners upon marriage. He was the second MP to call for women’s suffrage, 4 and supported gender equality more generally, particularly in the domestic sphere.
He was a member of the “Philosophical Radicals”, a group of political and philosophical thinkers inspired by the utilitarianism and radicalism of Jeremy Bentham. Mill was a committed advocate of social and political reform. Mill died in 1873, outliving Harriet Taylor Mill by 15 years. 3 Mill became active in politics in the later stage of his life, sitting as an MP for the Liberal Party and representing the working class. Mill admired Harriet greatly, and insisted that she inspired many of his later works, including On Liberty and The Subjection of Women. Mill’s thought was also heavily influenced by Harriet Taylor, an important utilitarian and feminist thinker in her own right, whom he fell in love with while she was still married to another man.
He dived into poetry, particularly that of Wordsworth, and explored the thought of more radical thinkers such as Auguste Comte and Saint-Simon. This depression was only lifted when he moved beyond the confines of his Enlightenment intellectual background. T occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: “Suppose that all your objects in life were realized that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!”… I seemed to have nothing left to live for. However, his commitment to Benthamite utilitarianism was cut short by a depression he experienced at 20. Mill was influenced by the thought of both Jeremy Bentham and political economist David Ricardo (another friend of his father’s), and himself committed to utilitarianism after reading Bentham’s Traités de Legislation.
James intended that his son carry on the radical utilitarian empiricist tradition, and this was reflected in his upbringing: John learned Greek and arithmetic at 3, and helped to edit his father’s book ( the History of India) at 11. He was the son of James Mill, a friend of Jeremy Bentham’s who shared many of his principles. John Stuart Mill was born in 1806, in London.
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