Meanwhile.he had been again drawn to politics.After indifference which followed the final the long period of decay of the philosophical Radicals,the English democracy was showing many symptoms of revived animation.The new Reform Bill was becoming the object of practical political agitation;and it seemed that the hopes entertained of the Reform Bill of 1832had now at last a prospect of realisation.Mill thought in 1861that there was 'a more encouraging prospect of the mental emancipation of England,'and that things were looking better for the general advance of Europe.(76)The surviving Utilitarians had declined from the true faith.John Austin before his death had become distinctly Conservative;and the sacred fire of Benthamism was nearly extinct.Mill himself had changed in some respects.While more awake to certain dangers of democracy,he was the more strongly convinced of the possibility of meeting them by appropriate remedies.Meanwhile Radicalism in various forms was raising its head,and willing to accept Mill,now a writer of the first celebrity,as its authorised interpreter.He wrote much at this period,which defines his position and shows his relation to the new parties.His first publication was a pamphlet on Parliamentary Reform,suggested by the futile Reform Bill of Lord Derby and Disraeli in 1859.He now objected to the ballot,the favourite nostrum of the philosophical Radicals to which Grote still adhered,but his main suggestions were in harmony with the scheme proposed by Mr Hare.After the publication of his own pamphlet,he became acquainted with this scheme,of which he immediately became an ardent proselyte.In 1860and 1861he wrote two treatises.He expounded his whole political doctrine in his Considerations on Parliamentary Government (1861),and he wrote for future publication --'at the time when it should seem most likely to be useful'--his Subjection of Women.(77)In this,as he intimates,'all that is most striking and profound belongs to his wife';while it appears that his stepdaughter had also some share in the composition.The outbreak of the civil war in America led him to pronounce himself strongly in support of Bright and other sympathisers with the cause of union.(78)Although his opinions were opposed to those commonest among the English upper classes,they fell in with those of the Radicals,and made him at once a representative of a great current of opinion.His occupation with Hamilton now withdrew him for a time to another department of thought.
In the beginning of 1865Mill published popular editions of his Political Economy,his Liberty,and his Representative Government.At the general election of that year he was invited to stand for Westminster.Mill accepted the invitation,though upon terms which showed emphatically that he would make no sacrifice of his principles.He declined to incur any expense.He would not canvass,although he attended a few public meetings in the week preceding the nomination.He declared that he would answer no questions about his religious beliefs,but upon all other topics would answer frankly and briefly.'Did you,'he was asked at one meeting,'declare that the English working classes,though differing from some other countries in being ashamed of lying,were yet "generally liars"?'His answer,'I did,'produced,he says,'vehement applause.'It certainly deserved the applause.Upon some points,too,of the Radical creed,Mill's views were not acceptable.His condemnation of the ballot,and his adherence to women's suffrage and to minority representation marked his opposition to some democratic tendencies.These opinions,however,referred to questions not prominent enough at the time to be important as disqualifications in a candidate.His election by a considerable majority roused great interest.He came in upon a wave of enthusiasm,which accompanied the beginning of a new political era.The Radicalism which was to succeed was,indeed,very unlike the old Radicalism of 1832;but,for the time at least,it believed itself to be simply continuing the old movement,and was willing to accept the most distinguished representative of the creed for one of its leaders.
In his Autobiography Mill shows a certain self-complacency in describing his proceedings in the new parliament,which is not unnatural in a man called from his study by the strong demand from practical politicians.The voice which had been crying in the wilderness was now to be heard in the senate,and philosophy to be married to practice.Mill took up his duties with his usual assiduity;he watched business as closely as the most diligent of partisans,and was as regular in the House as he had been in his office.The scenes in which he appeared as an orator were remarkable.His figure was spare and slight,his voice weak;a constant twitching of the eyebrow betrayed his nervous irritability;he spoke with excessive rapidity,and at times lost the thread of his remarks,and paused deliberately to regain self-possession.(79)But he poured out continuous and thoroughly well-arranged essays --lucid,full of thought,and frequently touching the point epigrammatically.His old practice at debating societies and the Political Economy Club had qualified him to give full expression to his thoughts.A general curiosity to see so strange a phenomenon as a philosopher in parliament was manifest,and Mill undoubtedly introduced an order of considerations far higher than those of the average politician.
