John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) was the most influential personality of the nineteenth century. He was a liberal, naturalist, and utilitarian. John combined enlightenment thinking of eighteenth century with the emerging fashion of romantic and historical philosophy of nineteenth century.
Ask yourself whether you are happy or you cease to be so
John Mill
The Theory of Poetry Philosophy Changed John Mill
John was the one who was got his early isolation from his friends of his age except his siblings due to continuous pushing of Mill’s father (the Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist James Mill) forming him a genius intellect. John was considered in his family a precious gem. His uninterrupted journey of education had started at the age of three, when Greek became his first foreign language. At eight, he turned the pages of Aesop’s fables, Xenophon’s Anabasis, the whole of Herodotus and many others.
As well as, his brain also scanned thousands of pages of history in English along the way studied astronomical physics. In his reading list he had many historical authors and writers. Moreover, at the age 20 he went under dejection of suicidal depression. According to his biography, he was losing his happiness striving for his goal. It was due to dearth of fearful interest in his objective (creation of just a society).
Poetry of William Wordsworth changed Mill
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.
William Wordsworth
However, It was the poetry of Wordsworth who helped him find joy, and he continued achieving his goal. The theory of William Mill arises from the mental crises of 1826. Mill onwards in his life complete changed man of confused and muddled of two different things, Poetry and Philosophy.
— Miss Caroline Fox (Cornish Diarist) on John Mill,
Not a little; he was most emphatically a philosopher, but then he read Wordsworth and that muddled him, and he has been in a strange confusion ever since endeavouring to unite poetry and philosophy.
In his biography, it revealed that the book was unable to relate his personal experiences to his thoughts. Most of his impotent work seemed to be to hide rather than revealed the man. Some evidence had seen ignored.
“Mill’s early letter to Carlyle and Sterling, his criticism of Benthamism in the 1830s and his autobiography have been seen as indicating emotional tensions, and his praise of WORDSWORTH and COLERIDGE has often been recognized as awareness of these tensions.”
Also, read: Mencius: “Friendship is one mind in two bodies.” and Phule: “Lack of education leads to lag in everything”
