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CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS

By

Lord Macaulay

With A Memoir And Index

In Six Volumes.

Vol. II.

New York: Published By Sheldon And Company.

1860

[Illustration: 0007]





ESSAYS.




MILL ON GOVERNMENT.(1)

(_Edinburgh Review_, March 1829.)


Of {5}those philosophers who call themselves Utilitarians, and whom
others generally call Benthamites, Mr. Mill is, with the exception of
the illustrious founder of the sect, by far the most distinguished. The
little work now before us contains a summary of the opinions held by
this gentleman and his brethren on several subjects most important to
society. All the seven essays of which it consists abound in curious
matter. But at present we intend to confine our remarks to the Treatise
on Government, which stands first in the volume. On some future
occasion, we may perhaps attempt to do justice to the rest.

It must be owned that to do justice to any composition of Mr. Mill is
not, in the opinion of his admirers, a very easy task. They do not,
indeed, place him in the same rank with Mr. Bentham; but the terms in
which they extol the disciple, though feeble when compared with the
hyperboles of adoration employed by

     (1) _Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of the
     Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law of
     Nations, and Education_, By James Mill, Esq., author of the
     History of British India. Reprinted by permission from the
     Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. (Not for sale.)
     London, 1828.

{6}them in speaking of the master, are as strong as any sober man would
allow himself to use concerning Locke or Bacon. The essay before us
is perhaps the most remarkable of the works to which Mr. Mill owes
his fame. By the members of his sect