James Mill

James Mill 1773-1836, British philosopher, economist, and historian, b. Scotland; father of John Stuart Mill. Educated as a clergyman at Edinburgh through the patronage of Sir John Stuart, Mill gave up the ministry and went to London in 1802 to pursue a career writing for and editing periodicals. He met Jeremy Bentham c.1808 and became an ardent advocate of utilitarianism. On the strength of his History of British India (3 vol., 1817), on which he had worked for over 10 years, he secured a permanent position with the East India Company. Others of his works were Elements of Political Economy (1821), Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (2 vol., 1829), and A Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), which contains the best exposition of his psychological and ethical theories. Mill furnished a psychological basis for utilitarian ethics by expanding the associationism of David Hume. Association by contiguity, where ideas that occur frequently together form combinations, may be such a subtle process that the merging of ideas may occur without leaving any trace of the elements that went into their formulation. Derived conceptions may thus achieve autonomy of value quite apart from their obvious egoistic advantage. This is the origin of altruistic motives, which are otherwise difficult to explain on utilitarian grounds. It is also the origin of conscience.

Bibliography: See W. H. Burston, James Mill on Philosophy and Education (1973).

Mill, James (1773–1836) Scottish philosopher, father of John Stuart Mill. Mill became a friend of Jeremy Bentham, and together they evolved the doctrine of utilitarianism. He wrote an Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829) and, among other works, a multi-volume history of the East India Company, for which he worked.