The history of words is curious. Nobody in Mill’s time, with the possible exception of Marx, could have guessed that the word “Communism” would come to denote the military, administrative, and judicial tyranny of an oligarchy, permitting to the workers only so much of the produce of their labor as might be necessary to keep them from violent revolt. Marx, whom we can now see to have been the most influential of Mill’s contemporaries, is, so far as I have been able to discover, not mentioned in any of Mill’s writings, and it is quite probable that Mill never heard of him. The Communist Manifesto was published in the same year as Mill’s Political Economy, but the men who represented culture did not know of it. I wonder what unknown person in the present day will prove, a hundred years hence, to have been the dominant figure of our time.
Apart from the pronouncements on Socialism and Communism, Mill’s Political Economy, is not important. Its main principles are derived from his orthodox predecessors with only minor modifications. Ricardo’s theory of value, with which on the whole he is in agreement, was superseded by Jevon’s introduction of the concept of marginal utility, which represented an important theoretical improvement. As in his Logic, Mill is too ready to acquiesce in a traditional doctrine provided he is not aware of any practical evil resulting from it.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-100.HTM
(松下注:つまり,ミルがここで使っている “Communism” という言葉を「共産主義」ではなく,「社会主義」と訳さないと=解さないと誤解・誤読することになる,ということです。ロシア革命が起こる前であれば,”Communism” という言葉を「社会主義」という意味合いで使ってもそれほど誤解する人はいなかったでしょうが,ロシア革命以後は誤解のもとになり,その意味合いで使用しない方がよいという指摘です。 実際,ラッセルは,1920年に出した The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism で Communism を「社会主義」の意味で使っており,1949年版の第2版の「まえがき」では,次のページにあるように,「多くの箇所で「共産主義」という語を「社会主義」に変えた。・・・。このように訂正しなければ間違った印象を与えることになるであろう。」と注意喚起しています。 https://russell-j.com/cool/15T-NOTE.HTM
Mill distinguishes between Communism and Socialism. He prefers the latter, while not wholly condemning the former. The distinction in his day was not so sharp as it has since become. Broadly speaking, as he explains it, the distinction is that Communists object to all private property while Socialists contend only that “land and the instruments of production should be the property, not of individuals, but of communities or associations, or of the Government.” There is a famous passage in which he expresses his opinion on Communism:
“If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a consequence, that the produce of labor should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labor the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labor cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism would be but as dust in the balance. But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best, with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. The principle of private property has never yet had a fair trial in any country; and less so, perhaps, in this country than in some others.”
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-090.HTM
私的資本家は国家によってとって代わられなければならないということを社会主義の意味の一部だと理解している現代(=当時)の読者は,ミル(の著作)を読むときに誤解(誤読)を避けることは困難である。ミルは,マンチェスター学派が封建主義的貴族政治との戦いにおいて発展させた国家への不信をすべて保存(維持)していた。また,彼がそこから引き出した不信の念は,彼の自由への熱烈な信仰によって強化された。政府の権力(国家権力)は常に危険である,と彼は言う。彼は,国家権力は減少するだろう,と確信する。将来においては,これまで存在してきた程度(量)の政府の干渉を信用する(あてにする)ことは不可能であろうと主張する。
この種の記述を読むのは苦痛である。なぜなら,それは将来の発展の方向をそのおおざっぱな輪郭ですら予見することの不可能さを我々に実感させるからである。このことについてある程度正確に将来を予見した19世紀唯一の著作家はニーチェ(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844-1900:ドイツの古典文献学者,哲学者)であったが,それは彼が他の人たちより賢かったからではなく,起こりつつあった憎むべきことがみな彼の見たいと思っていたことだったからである。オーウェル(George Orwell, 1903-1950:イギリスの作家,ジャーナリスト/ユートピアの逆の,全体主義的国家であるディストピアの世界を描いた『1984年』で有名)のような予言者たちが,(彼らが)希望したというよりはむしろ恐れたことを予言し始めたのは,幻想から覚まされた我々の時代(現代)になってからのことである。 ミルは,予言においても希望においても,大規模な組織の増大しつつあるカ(権力)を予見できなかったことによって,誤った方向に進んでしまった。このことは経済においてばかりでなく他の領域についてもあてはまる。たとえば彼は,国家は一般教育の重要性を強調すべきであるが,国家自身は教育(活動)自体を行うべきではない,と主張した。初等教育に関するかぎり,国家に代わる唯一つの重要なものは教会であるということを彼は決して悟らなかった(注:ラッセルは宗教を否定するので,ここはもちろん,「(国家がまったく関与しなければ教初等育の主体がは)教会になってしまう」といったニュアンスであろう)。そして教会が初等教育の主体になるようなことは,彼がほとんど好まなかったことであろう。
To readers of our time, who take it as part of the meaning of Socialism that private capitalists should be replaced by the State, it is difficult to avoid misunderstanding in reading Mill. Mill preserved all the distrust of the State which the Manchester School had developed in fighting the feudal aristocracy; and the distrust which he derived from this source was strengthened by his passionate belief in liberty. The power of governments, he says, is always dangerous. He is confident that this power will diminish. Future ages, he maintains, will be unable to credit the amount of government interference which has hitherto existed. It is painful to read a statement of this sort, since it makes one realize the impossibility of foreseeing, even in its most general outlines, the course of future development. The only nineteenth-century writer who foresaw the future with any approach to accuracy was Nietzsche, and he foresaw it, not because he was wiser than other men, but because all the hateful things that have been happening were such as he wished to see. It is only in our disillusioned age that prophets like Orwell have begun to foretell what they feared rather than what they hoped.
Mill, both in his prophecies and in his hopes, was misled by not foreseeing the increasing power of great organizations. This applies not only in economics, but also in other spheres. He maintained, for example, that the State ought to insist upon universal education, but ought not to do the educating itself. He never realized that, so far as elementary education is concerned, the only important alternative to the State is the Church, which he would hardly have preferred.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-080.HTM
In his chapter on “The Probable Futurity of the Laboring Classes” he develops a Utopia to which he looks forward. He hopes to see production in the hands of voluntary societies of workers. Production is not to be in the hands of the State, as Marxian Socialists have maintained that it should be. The Socialism to which Mill looks forward is that of St. Simon and Fourier. (Robert Owen, to my mind, is not sufficiently emphasized.) Pre-Marxian Socialism, which is that of which Mill writes, did not aim at increasing the power of the State. Mill argues emphatically that even under Socialism there will still have to be competition, though the competition will be between rival societies of workers, not between rival capitalists. He is inclined to admit that in such a Socialist system as he advocates the total production of goods might be less than under capitalism, but he contends that this would be no great evil provided everybody could be kept in reasonable comfort.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-070.HTM
『政治経済学原理(経済学原理)』(The Principles of Political Economy)は,ミルの二番目の主要著作であった。第一版は1848年に出版されたが,翌年にかなり修正された版が出された。パック氏は,彼の賞賛すべき伝記(The Life of John Stuart Mill, by Michael St. John Packe, 1954)の中で,この2つの版の相違について,言及する必要のある大部分のことを述べている。その相違は,主に社会主義の問題に関係していた(注:Socialism と大文字になっているが,小文字の場合と意味は同じ)。第一版においては,社会主義は従来の(正当的な)見地から批判されていた。しかし,これはテーラー夫人を驚かせ,新しい版が要求された時,彼女はミルに大規模な修正を行わせた。パック氏の本の中で最も価値のあるものの一つは,テーラー夫人に偏見のない光をあてて,彼女のミルに対する影響の源(出所)をついに我々が理解できるようにしたことである。だが,社会主義に対するミルの意見の変化に対するパック氏の批判は,恐らく少し厳しすぎたのではないか,と私は考える。テーラー夫人がこの点で彼のためになしたことは,(ミルが父から)教えられたことではなく(と対立するものとして),彼自身の本性が彼に考えるように導く事柄について考える(注:つまり,自分の頭で考える)ことを可能にしたことである,としか考えられない(考えざるを得ない)。第二版以降に現れる彼の社会主義への態度は決して無批判的なものではない。彼は,それでなお,社会主義者がまともに取り組もうとしないいくつかの困難があることを感じている(のである)。たとえば,彼は次のように言っている,「人類は,生まれつき怠惰であることを見過ごすことは,社会主義者の共通な誤謬である。」この理由で,彼は,社会主義社会が停滞する可能性があることを恐れる。彼は我々の時代(現代)よりも幸福な時代に生きていたのである。(即ち)われわれが停滞のような快適なものを望むことができるとすれば,喜びに満ちた精神的高揚を感ずることであろう(注:このエッセイが発表されたのは,ビキニ水爆事件直後の,またラッセル=アインシュタイン宣言直前の,核戦争の脅威により気を張り詰めていなければいけない時代であった,ということであろう)。
The Principles of Political Economy was Mill’s second major work. The first edition appeared in 1848, but it was followed by a substantially modified edition in the next year. Mr. Packe, in his admirable biography, has said most of what needs to be said about the difference between these two editions. The difference was mainly concerned with the question of Socialism. In the first edition, Socialism was criticized from the point of view of the orthodox tradition. But this shocked Mrs. Taylor, and she induced Mill to make very considerable modifications when a new edition was called for. One of the most valuable things in Mr. Packe’s book is that he has at last enabled us to see Mrs. Taylor in an impartial light, and to understand the sources of her influence on Mill. But I think perhaps Mr. Packe is a little too severe in criticizing Mill for his change as regards Socialism. I cannot but think that what Mrs. Taylor did for him in this respect was to enable him to think what his own nature led him to think, as opposed to what he had been taught. His attitude to Socialism, as it appears in the later editions of the book, is by no means uncritical. He still feels that there are difficulties which Socialists do not adequately face. He says, for example, “It is the common error of Socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind”; and on this ground he fears that a Socialist community might stagnate. He lived in a happier age than ours: we should feel a joyful ecstasy if we could hope for anything as comfortable as stagnation.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-060.HTM
It is rather surprising that Mill was so little influenced by Darwin and the theory of evolution. This is the more curious as he frequently quotes Herbert Spencer. He seems to have accepted the Darwinian theory but without realizing its implications. In the chapter on “Classification” in his Logic, he speaks of “natural kinds” in an entirely pre-Darwinian fashion, and even suggests that the recognized species of animals and plants are infimae species in the scholastic sense, although Darwin’s book on the Origin of Species proved this view to be untenable. It was natural that the first edition of his Logic, which appeared in 1843, should take no account of the theory of evolution, but it is odd that no modifications were made in later editions. What is perhaps still more surprising is that in his Three Essays on Religion, written very late in his life, he does not reject the argument from design based upon the adaptation of plants and animals to their environment, or discuss Darwin’s explanation of this adaptation. I do not think that he ever imaginatively conceived of man as one among animals or escaped from the eighteenth-century belief that man is fundamentally rational. I am thinking, now, not of what he would have explicitly professed, but of what he unconsciously supposed whenever he was not on his guard. Most of us go about the world with such subconscious presuppositions which influence our beliefs more than explicit arguments do, and in most of us these presuppositions are fully formed by the time we are twenty-five. In the case of Mill, Mrs. Taylor effected certain changes, but these were not in the purely intellectual realm. In that realm, James continued to reign supreme over his son’s subconscious.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-050.HTM
ミルは数学を一定程度知っていたが(中村秀吉氏は,”a certain amount of” を”相当”と訳している。),数学的に考えることを知らなかった。彼の(言う)因果法則は数理物理学で使われているものではない。それは未開人や哲学者たちによって日常生活における行為において使われる実際的な行動原理(格言)であるが,微分積分学を知っているいかなる人によっても,物理学では使われないものである。物理法則(物理学の法則)はミルの因果法則のように,Aは常にBによって随伴される(Aならば必ずB)とは決して言わない。物理法則は,Aが現存する時には,ある一定方向の変化が存在することを主張するだけである。A(自身)もまた変化するので,変化の方向もそれ自身絶えず変化し続けている。因果法則は「AはBを惹き起こす」という形をしているという考えはあまりに原子(論)的であり,変化の連続性を想像上理解しているいかなる人によっても受け入れられなかった。
しかし独断的にならないようにしよう。物理的変化は連続的でなく,爆発的(注:原子核の周りをまわる電子が軌道を変える時などは「断続的」/「不連続」)であるという人たちがいる。けれども,これらの人々もまた,個々の事象はいかなる因果的な規則性にも従わないとも言うし,世界の外見的な規則性はただ平均の法則のみによっていると言う(注:このあたりは,量子力学の研究者のことを言っていると思われる)。私はこの学説が正しいか間違っているか知らないが,とにかくそれはミルの因果法則とは非常に異なったものである。 ミルの因果法則は,事実,日常的にまた非科学的意味において,ただおおざっぱかつ近似的に真であるにすぎない。にもかかわらず,ミルは,ほかのところではあてにならないとしている推論--(即ち)単純枚挙による帰納推理--によってこの法則が証明されていると考えている。この過程(推論過程)はあてにならないばかりでなく,より多くの場合において,真なる結果よりも偽なる結果に決定的に導くことをまったく明らかに証明できる。AとBの二つの特性をそれぞれもっているN個の対象をみつけたあとで,Aの特性をもっている別の対象をみつけると,その対象はBの特性をもっていそうでないことが容易に証明される。このことは(この事実は),我々の帰納(推理)へと向かう動物的な性癖は帰納(推理)が正しい結果を与えがちである事例に閉じ込められるという事実によって,常識からは隠されている。
次のこと(事例)を誰も行わない帰納(推理)の一例としてとろう。カントがかつて見たあらゆる羊はケーニヒスベルクから10マイル以内にいたが,彼はあらゆる羊がケーニヒスベルクから10マイル以内にいると帰納する気にはまったくならなかった。(注:一般の常識人は,もしもケーニヒスベルクのことしか知らなければ,幼い子どもがそうであるように,羊はケーニヒスベルクにしかいないと思ってしまいがちだということ? 羊だとわかりにくければ,「こうのとり」とか「雷鳥」とかにすれば、そう思いがち?)
Mill, although he knew a certain amount of mathematics, never learned to think in a mathematical way. His law of causation is not one which is employed in mathematical physics. It is a practical maxim employed by savages and philosophers in the conduct of daily life, but not employed in physics by anyone acquainted with the calculus. The laws of physics never state, as Mill’s causal laws do, that A is always followed by B. They assert only that when A is present, there will be certain directions of change; since A also changes, the directions of change are themselves continually changing. The notion that causal laws are of the form “A causes B” is altogether too atomic, and could never have been entertained by anybody who had imaginatively apprehended the continuity of change.
But let us not be too dogmatic. There are those who say that physical changes are not continuous but explosive. These people, however, also say that individual events are not subject to any causal regularity, and that the apparent regularities of the world are only due to the law of averages. I do not know whether this doctrine is right or wrong; but, in any case, it is very different from Mill’s.
Mill’s law of causation is, in fact, only roughly and approximately true in an everyday and unscientific sense. Nevertheless, he thinks it is proved by an inference which elsewhere he considers very shaky: that of induction by simple enumeration. This process is not only shaky, but can be proved quite definitely to lead to false consequences more often than to true ones. If you find n objects all of which possess two properties, A and B, and you then find another object possessing the property A, it can easily be proved that it is unlikely to possess the property B. This is concealed from common sense by the fact that our animal propensity toward induction is confined to the sort of cases in which induction is liable to give correct results. Take the following as an example of an induction which no one would make: all the sheep that Kant ever saw were within ten miles of Konigsberg, but he felt no inclination to induce that all sheep were within ten miles of Konigsberg.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-030.HTM
ミルの最初の重要な著作は,『論理学』である。それはアプリオリな方法ではなく,実験的な方法に対する弁明(抗弁)として執筆されたことは明らかであり,そうして,そのようなものとしてはそれほど独創的なものではないが有用なものであった。彼は,1854年に出版されたブール(著)『思考の法則』に始まった演繹論理の広大かつ驚くべき発展を予知できず,その重要性はかなり後になって明らかになったのである。彼が『論理学』のなかで帰納推理以外のことについて言っていることは,御座なりかつ伝統的なもの(従来の論理学に従ったもの)である。たとえば,命題は,一つは主語でもう一つは述語である名辞を組合せることによって構成される(作られる),と述べている。彼にとってこれは無害な自明の理にみえたのだと思われるが,実際は,これは過去二千年間続いた誤謬のもと(源泉)であった。 近代論理学が大いに関心を払ってきた名辞について彼が言っていることは,まったく不十分なものであり,事実,ドン・スコトゥス(Johannes Duns Scotus 1266-1308:中世ヨーロッパの神学者・哲学者)やウィリアム・オッカム(William of Ockham,1285-1347:節約の原理「オッカムの剃刀」の提唱者として有名)が言ったことよりも劣っている。バルバラ(Barbara)における三段論法は,一種の論点先取(注:前提において結論を仮定する論理的な誤り)であり,推論は実際は特称(特殊)から特称(特殊)へと行われているのだという彼の有名な主張(議論)は,一定の場合においてはいくらか真実を含んでいるが,一般的原理として受け入れることはできない【注:Barbara: 大前提:「全ての人間」は,「死ぬ存在」である。 (MaP) → 小前提:「全てのギリシア人」は,「人間」である。(SaM) → 結論:ゆえに(∴)「全てのギリシア人」は,「死ぬ存在」である。(SaP)】。たとえば,ミルの主張によれば,「あらゆる人間は死ぬ(べき存在である)」という命題は,その主張をする人がウェリントン公爵について聞いたことがなくても,「ウェリントン公爵は死ぬ(べき存在である)」を主張している。これは明らかに成り立たない。即ち,「人間」及び「死ぬ」という語の意味を知っている人は,「あらゆる人間は死ぬ」という陳述を理解できるが,聞いたことのない人についての推論をすることはできない。一方(しかるに),ウェリントン公爵について,ミルの言っていることが正しいと仮定すると,かつて生存し,あるいはこれから生存するだろうあらゆる人びとの一覧表を知らなければ(注:一覧表を持っていて,いざとなれば見ることが出来なければ),この陳述を理解することはできないことになる(注:ウェリントン公爵のことを知らなくても,「あらゆる人間は死ぬ(べき存在である)」と言えるためには,あらゆる人のリストを持っていなければならない。そういう場合に限り,ウェリントン公爵について知らなくとも,「ウェリントン公爵は死ぬ」と言える。実際はそんなことはないので,そういった「推論」は論理的にはできない。)。 推論は,特称(特殊)から特称(特殊)へとなされるものだという彼の(学)説は,私の言うところの「動物的帰納」に適用される場合には正しい心理学であるが,決して正しい論理学ではない。過去における人間の死から,まだ死んでいない人間の死を推論することは,帰納の一般的原理がある場合にのみ正当なものとなる。大雑把に言って,一般的な結論は一般的な前提がなければ決して引き出し得ないし,一般的前提のみが,事例の不完全な枚挙からの一般的結論を保証するだろう。
さらに,事例はひとつも与えられなくても,誰もその真理を疑うことのできない一般的命題が存在する。たとえば,次のような命題である。「西暦紀元二千年以前(注:この文章は1955年に発表されていることに注意)には誰も考えつかなかったすべての数は百万よりも大きい」という例をとろう。あなたは自己矛盾をおこさないで,その事例(注:考えつかなかった数)を与えることができないし,そのすべての数が誰かによって考えられたと言いはることもできない。
ロックの時代からずっと,英国の経験主義者たちは,数学に適用(応用)できない知識論をもっていた。一方,大陸の哲学者たちは,フランスの哲学者たちを例外として,数学に不当な強調点をおき,幻想的な形而上学の体系(体系的な哲学)を産みだしていた。経験主義の領域が,数学と論理学の領域からはっきりと切りはなされ(境界が設けられ),両者の平和的共存が可能となったのはミルの時代以後(になってのみ)のことである。
私は18歳の年にはじめて,ミルの『論理学』を読んだが,当時私は彼の考えに深い好意を寄せていた。しかし,その時でさえも,「2と2を加えると4になる」という命題を受け入れるのは経験からの一般化であると信ずることは出来なかった。私は,どのようにして我々がこの知識(2+2=4などの算術の知識)に達したのか,どう言ったらよいか途方に暮れた。しかし,その命題は,「あらゆる白鳥は白い(all swans are white)」というような命題 -経験が論破するかもしれないし,また事実論破した命題(注: black swan が発見された)- とは異なっていると思われた。2に2を加えると4になるというような新鮮な例がいかなる程度にも私の信念を強めるとは思えなかったが,私にこのような初期の感情を正当化し,数学と経験的知識をひとつの枠組みにぴったりはめ込むことを可能にしたのは,数理論理学の最近の発展だけである。
Mill’s first important book was his Logic, which no doubt presented itself in his mind as a plea for experimental rather than a priori methods, and, as such, it was useful though not very original. He could not foresee the immense and surprising development of deductive logic which began with Boole’s Laws of Thought in 1854, but only proved its importance at a considerably later date. Everything that Mill has to say in his Logic about matters other than inductive inference is perfunctory and conventional. He states, for example, that propositions are formed by putting together two names, one of which is the subject and the other the predicate. This, I am sure, appeared to him an innocuous truism; but it had been, in fact, the source of two thousand years of important error. On the subject of names, with which modern logic has been much concerned, what he has to say is totally inadequate, and is, in fact, not so good as what had been said by Duns Scotus and William of Occam. His famous contention that the syllogism in Barbara is a petitio principii, and that the argument is really from particulars to particulars, has a measure of truth in certain cases, but cannot be accepted as a general doctrine. He maintains, for example, that the proposition “all men are mortal” asserts “the Duke of Wellington is mortal” even if the person making the assertion has never heard of the Duke of Wellington. This is obviously untenable: a person who knows the meaning of the words “man” and “mortal” can understand the statement “all men are mortal” but can make no inference about a man he has never heard of; whereas, if Mill were right about the Duke of Wellington, a man could not understand this statement unless he knew the catalogue of all the men who ever have existed or ever will exist. His doctrine that inference is from particulars to particulars is correct psychology when applied to what I call “animal induction,” but is never correct logic. To infer, from the mortality of men in the past, the mortality of those not yet dead, can only be legitimate if there is a general principle of induction. Broadly speaking, no general conclusion can be drawn without a general premise, and only a general premise will warrant a general conclusion from an incomplete enumeration of instances. What is more, there are general propositions of which no one can doubt the truth, although not a single instance of them can be given. Take, for example, the following: “All the whole numbers which no one will have thought of before the year A.D. 2000, are greater than a million.” You cannot attempt to give me an instance without contradicting yourself, and you cannot pretend that all the whole numbers have been thought of by someone. From the time of Locke onward, British empiricists had had theories of knowledge which were inapplicable to mathematics; while Continental philosophers, with the exception of the French Philosophes, by an undue emphasis upon mathematics, had produced fantastic metaphysical systems. It was only after Mill’s time that the sphere of empiricism was clearly delimited from that of mathematics and logic so that peaceful co-existence became possible. I first read Mill’s Logic at the age of eighteen, and at that time I had a very strong bias in his favor; but even then I could not believe that our acceptance of the proposition “two and two are four” was a generalization from experience. I was quite at a loss to say how we arrived at this knowledge, but it felt quite different from such a proposition as “all swans are white”, which experience might, and in fact did, confute. It did not seem to me that a fresh instance of two and two being four in any degree strengthened my belief. But it is only the modern development of mathematical logic which has enabled me to justify these early feelings and to fit mathematics and empirical knowledge into a single framework.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-020.HTM
ジョン・スチュアート・ミル(注:John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873。英国の思想家で,『ミル自伝』や『自由論』で有名。/因みに,ミルはラッセルの名付け親) の19世紀の英国における重要性を評価することは簡単ではない。彼のなしとげたことは,純粋な知的な長所よりも,道徳的な高尚さ(倫理的気高さ)と人生の目的の正しい評価に,より多く依存していた。
It is not easy to assess the importance of John Stuart Mill in nineteenth-century England. What he achieved depended more upon his moral elevation and his just estimate of the ends of life than upon any purely intellectual merits.
His influence in politics and in forming opinion on moral issues was very great and, to my mind, wholly good. Like other eminent Victorians he combined intellectual distinction with a very admirable character. This intellectual distinction gave weight to his opinions, and was thought at the time to be greater than it appears in retrospect. There are various modern trends which are adverse also to his ethical and moral theories, but in these respects I cannot feel that the world has made any advance since his day.
Intellectually, he was unfortunate in the date of his birth. His predecessors were pioneers in one direction and his successors in another. The substructure of his opinions remained always that which had been laid down for him in youth by the dominating personality of his father, but the theories which he built upon this substructure were very largely such as it could not support. Skyscrapers, I am told, cannot be built in London because they need to be founded on rock. Mill’s doctrines, like a skyscraper founded on clay, were shaky because the foundations were continually sinking. The new stories, which he added under the inspiration of Carlyle and Mrs. Taylor, were intellectually insecure. To put the matter in another way: morals and intellect were perpetually at war in his thought, morals being incarnate in Mrs. Taylor and intellect in his father. If the one was too soft, the other was too harsh. The amalgam which resulted was practically beneficent, but theoretically somewhat incoherent.
出典: John Stuart Mill,1955.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/1097_JSM-010.HTM
More is to be hoped, I think, from the progress of reason and science. Gradually men will come to realise that a world whose institutions are based upon hatred and injustice is not the one most likely to produce happiness. The late war taught this lesson to a few, and would have taught it to many more if it had ended in a draw. We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and positive achievement, not upon repression and prohibition. A man should be regarded as ‘good’ if he is happy, expansive, generous and glad when others are happy; if so, a few peccadilloes should be regarded as of little importance. But a man who acquires a fortune by cruelty and exploitation should be regarded as at present we regard what is called an ‘immoral’ man; and he should be so regarded even if he goes to church regularly and gives a portion of his ill-gotten gains to public objects. To bring this about, it is only necessary to instil a rational attitude towards ethical questions, instead of the mixture of superstition and oppression which still passes muster as ‘virtue’ among important personages. The power of reason is thought small in these days, but I remain an unrepentant rationalist. Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife. Therefore every orgy of unreason in the end strengthens the friends of reason, and shows afresh that they are the only true friends of humanity.
出典: The Harm That Good Men Do,1926.
詳細情報:http://russell-j.com/beginner/0393_HGMD-150.HTM