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| '''John Stuart Mill''' (1806-1873), was the leading British philosopher of the nineteenth century. An exponent and developer of the [[empiricism]] of [[John Locke]], [[George Berkeley]] and [[David Hume]], and of the [[utilitarianism]] of [[Jeremy Bentham]], he made major contributions to [[economics]] and [[political philosophy]] and is generally considered to be the founder of British [[Liberalism]]. | | '''John Stuart Mill''' (1806-1873), was the leading British philosopher of the nineteenth century. An exponent and developer of the [[empiricism]] of [[John Locke]], [[George Berkeley]] and [[David Hume]], and of the [[utilitarianism]] of [[Jeremy Bentham]], he made major contributions to [[economics]] and [[political philosophy]] and is generally considered to be the founder of British [[Liberalism]]. |
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| ===Upbringing=== | | ===Biography=== |
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| Mill was born in Pentonville to Harriet Barrow and [[James Mill]], a Scotsman and disciple of [[utilitarianism|utilitarian]] philosopher [[Jeremy Bentham]]. James Mill gave John Stuart an unconventional, rigorous education in Greek, mathematics and many other subjects, from an early age, of which Mill wrote:
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| <blockquote>my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done<ref>''Autobiography'', §1, [http://www.utilitarianism.com/millauto/ online at utilitarianism.com]</ref></blockquote>
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| From the age of eight, Mill started on [[Latin (language)|Latin]], and also started teaching his [[youth|younger]] [[sibling]]s, as well as encountering [[Homer|Homer's]] ''[[Iliad]]'' both in [[Greek (language)|Greek]] and in [[Alexander Pope|Pope's]] translation. Between the age of eight and twelve, Mill writes of having read the [[Aeneid]] of [[Virgil]], [[Horace]], the Fables of [[Phaedrus]], [[Livy]], [[Sallust]], the ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' by [[Ovid]], [[Lucretius]], [[Terence]] and [[Cicero]], as well as [[Sophocles]], [[Euripides]], [[Aristophanes]], [[Thucydides]] and many, many other writers. Mill writes of his education:
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| <blockquote>My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself... One of the [[evil]]s most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme [[vigil|vigilance]], out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very humble opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attainments were anything unusual at my age.<ref>''Autobiography'', §1</ref></blockquote>
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| === References === | | === References === |
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