Journals and Debating Speeches - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill Volumes 26 & 27 (Hardcover)

One of the most constant fascinations Mill holds for the general public as well as scholars derives from the early flowering of his genius. This development is seen in detail in the journal and notebooks he kept in France during his 15th year, and in the debating speeches and walking-tour journals dating from his 18th to 24th years. This was the period when he first adopted Benthamism as "a religion", worked intensively as a propagandist for the faith, and then began the painful reassessment that led to his independent mature thought and action. Some of the results of that reassessment are seen in the diary entries from 1854, written for his wife, which reveal in personal form many of their most passionately held ideas. These materials throw light on contemporary social interests and behaviour, and should encourage new assessments of Mill's life and thought. The texts, the great majority drawn from manuscripts, are presented in critical form, collated, with explanatory and textual notes.