Principles of western civilisation

76 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

Mill’s system of ideas, as a consistent whole, has been a leading cause which has determined, down even to the present day in England, the attitude on social questions of nearly all the representatives of the older Liberalism.’

Yet, as the evolutionist follows the ideas developed by J. S. Mill, their controlling meaning is unmistakable. As we turn over the pages of his System of Logic and of his essay Ou Liberty; as we read the chapter in the Principles of Polttical Economy, ‘Of the stationary State,” or follow him through the theory of conduct set forth in U¢zlitarianzsvz,—the ultimate meaning of it all is plainly before us. The fundamental conception which rules all Mill’s ideas is, we see, that the science of the ‘‘ State” constitutes the whole science of society. ‘‘ Society,” as Mill conceived it, is practically comprised of the individuals capable at any particular moment of exercising the rights of universal suffrage. The ideal of the highest social good is continually presented to us as one and the same thing as that of the highest good of these individuals. The main duty of the individual, as Mill sees it, is, therefore, so to influence the tendencies of development and the provisions of government that this ideal should be reached in practice. The end of human effort, and the ideal in all theories of human conduct is, in short, to bring about a state in which the conciliation between the self-interest of the individual and of society as a whole should be completely attained ; and in which, therefore, to use Mill's words, “laws and social arrangements should place the interests

1 Cf. Principles of Economics, by Alfred Marshall, vol. i. p. 65; also Zhe English Utilitarians, by Leslie Stephen, vol. iii. c. iii.

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