James Mill was a distinguished historian, philosopher and administrator of the Indian civil service (although he never visited India), a very influential proponent of Utilitarian philosophy, and the father of John Stuart Mill who was to become among the most important British intellectuals and proponents of a revised Utlitarianism in the 1850s and 1860s. John Stuart Mill left a telling and not exactly flattering portrait of James Mill in his Autobiography (1873).
Born in Forfar, Scotland, in 1773, and raised a Presbyterian, James Mill studied Greek at Edinburgh University before being licensed as Presbyterian minister in 1798. Drawn to London and journalism, from 1802 he was contributing to the conservative and …
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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "James Mill". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 December 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3112, accessed 23 November 2024.]
