But,stated absolutely,it implies pure self-interest.Robinson Crusoe was responsible in the sense that if he did not work he would starve.And,if we could,in fact,mark off each man's separate sphere,or regard society as a collection of Robinson Crusoes,the principle might be applied.Each man should have a right to what he has himself 'created.'But when a man 'creates'nothing;when his 'environment'is not a desert island but an organised society,the principle must be differently stated.
'Responsibility,'indeed,always implies liberty --the existence of a sphere within which a man's fortunes depend upon his personal character,and his character should determine his fortune.But,as Mill can most clearly recognise,social responsibility means something more.One most 'certain incident'of social progress is the growth of co-operation,and that involves,as he says,the 'subordination of individual caprice'to a 'preconceived determination'and the performance of parts allotted in a 'combined undertaking.'(25)The individual,then,is part of an organisation,in which every individual should play his part.The over-centralisation which would crush him into an automaton is not more fatal than the individual independence which would be incompatible with organisation.The desirable 'responsibility'is not that of a Robinson Crusoe but that of the soldier in an army.It should be enforced by other motives than mere self-interest,for it affects the interests of the whole body corporate.Now Mill,believing even to excess in the power of education,included in education the whole discipline of life due to the relations of the individual to his social environment;and it is his essential principle that this force should be directed to enforcing a sense of 'responsibility'in the widest acceptation of the word.
V.POLITICAL APPLICATION
A similar doctrine is implied in his political writings,of which the Representative Government is the most explicit.The book is hardly on a level with his best work.Treatises of 'political philosophy'are generally disappointing.The difficulty lies,I suppose,in combining the practical with the general point of view.In some treatises,the 'philosophy'is made up of such scraps about the social contract or mixture of the three forms of government as excited Bentham's contempt in Blackstone's treatise.They are a mere juggle of abstractions fit only for schoolboys.Others,like James Mill's,are really party pamphlets,masquerading as philosophy,and importing obvious principles into the likeness of geometrical axioms.A good deal of wisdom no doubt lurks in the speeches of statesmen;but it is not often easy to extricate it from the mass of personal and practical remarks.Mill's treatise might suggest some such criticism;and yet it is interesting as an indication of his leading principles.Some passages show how long experience in a public office affects a philosophic thinker.Mill's exposition,for example,of the defects of the House of Commons in administrative legislation,(26)his discussion of the fact (as he takes it to be)that governments remarkable for sustained vigour and ability have generally been aristocratic,(27)and his panegyric upon the East India Company,(28)record the genuine impressions of his long administrative career,and are refreshing in the midst of more abstract discussions.I have,however,only to notice a general principle which runs through the book.
Mill starts by emphasising the distinction applied in the Political Economy between the natural and the artificial.
Political institutions are the work of men and created by the will.The doctrine that governments 'are not made,but grow,'would lead to 'political fatalism'if it were regarded as true exclusively of the other.In fact,we might reply,there is no real opposition at all.'Making'is but one kind of 'growing.'
Growing by conscious forethought is still growing,and the antithesis put absolutely is deceptive.Mill is striving to enlarge the sphere of voluntary action.He wishes to prove that he can take the ground generally supposed to imply the doctrine of 'freewill.'Institutions,he fully admits,presuppose certain qualities in the people;but,given those qualities,they are 'a matter of choice.'(29)In politics,as in machinery,we are turning existing powers to account;but we do not say that,because rivers will not run uphill,'water-mills are not made but grow.'The political theorist can invent constitutions as the engineer can invent machinery,which will materially alter the results;and to inquire which is the best form of government 'in the abstract'is 'not a chimerical but a highly practical employment of the scientific intellect.'The illustration is difficult to apply if the 'river'means the whole society,and the 'water-mill'is itself,therefore,one part of the 'river.'
The legislator is not an external force but an integral part of internal forces.
In the next place,Mill rejects a distinction made by Comte(30)between order and progress.Comte had made a distinction between 'statics'and 'dynamics'in sociology,which are to each other like anatomy and physiology.The conditions of existence,and the conditions of continuous movement of a society correspond to 'order and progress.'(31)Mill replies that 'progress'includes 'order,'and that the two conditions cannot give independent criteria of the merits of the institutions.
