The Driving Force of Progress: National Character, Government, and Civilization in James Mill’s Political Thought

Abstract

What was the relationship between national character, government, and civilization for James Mill? This article answers this question by focusing on Indian and British national characters. For Mill, Indian national character was unsuited to trigger the progress of civilization. He questioned how a society with a flawed character could be led toward improvement. This article underlines the importance of human agency for the progress of civilization in Mill’s thought. In order to cause progress, individuals had to voluntarily guide society toward improvement by embracing the principle of utility. Governmental action should create the conditions necessary to bring about individuals of suitable character. Members of the middle class could foster progress better than those of any other class. They could oppose the despotism of the aristocracy and be the driving force of civilization by voluntarily shaping their ideas in accordance with the public good.

Introduction

According to James Mill (1773–1836), the character of a people and their government were entangled. “It is very important … that we should possess as accurate a knowledge as possible respecting the character and civilization of the men whom we govern. Our proceedings must necessarily be wise or foolish beneficent or prejudicial, according as they are well or ill adapted to the intellectual and moral condition of the people upon whom they are to operate.” ¹ In this article, I investigate the concept of national character in Mill’s thought in relation to government and civilization.

Mill argued that “a national character, when once fairly acquired, is a thing which pretty strongly adheres.” ² This view depended on his psychological associationism, according to which feelings form mental images, or ideas, combining into complex ideas and trains of ideas. ³ The human mind and character were shaped by these trains of ideas, especially those acquired at a young age, and were not easily reshaped. ⁴ Thus changing only the political setting might not be enough to improve society: laws “are but so many imperfect substitutes for the defects of character. … No laws, where character is universally depraved, can save any society from wretchedness.” ⁵ Despite the relevance of government action to societal improvement, this was not enough: people of active character had to trigger the progress of civilization.

There are several ways to approach this question, given the significant role the concept of character played in Mill’s political, educational, and economic thought. In particular, the relationship between national character, government, and civilization is relevant to his works on India. Mill spent twelve years, from 1806 to 1817, ⁶ writing his monumental History of British India. Not only did this book make his name, but it also earned Mill an appointment as Assistant to the Examiner of the India Correspondence (in 1819), at the East India Company. ⁷ In his opus magnum, there is frequent reference to Indian national character. Mill’s imperialism was rooted in the belief that the United Kingdom, qua civilized nation, was responsible for governing India and guiding it toward higher stages of civilization. ⁸ Such responsibility implied forming correct ideas about the character of the people governed. The alleged “civilizing mission,” which was often the justification of British imperialistic pursuits, rested on the understanding of Indian, as well as of British, national character.

Focusing on the concept of character highlights the role of human agency in Mill’s views on civilization. Prior studies of Indian and British national character in Mill’s thought have overlooked that individual action was a driving force of societal progress. ⁹ Lynn Zastoupil has argued that for Mill the agent was an entirely passive receiver of policy-making. ¹⁰ The progress of civilization would thus depend solely on political reform. My article reconsiders the relevance of political reform to the progress of civilization and underlines the crucial role played by human agency. Some individuals were capable of voluntarily shaping their ideas in accordance with common good, thus leading society toward progress. For Mill, these individuals came, at least in the case of societies at the commercial stage of civilization, from the middle class. While some have noted the importance of agency in Mill’s conception of history, ¹¹ the connection with the concept of character has been neglected. This has prevented the scholarship from noting how crucial the role played by this concept in Mill’s account of civilization was. My article also challenges the prevalent interpretation of Mill as a hard determinist thinker. ¹² According to that interpretation, Mill saw the mind and character as passively shaped by the environment. I argue, by contrast, that the individual mind also had an active role for Mill: individuals could select ideas to form their own character in accordance with the principle of utility. These individuals voluntarily shaping their own character could lead society towards progress.

After introducing some key elements of Mill’s thought, I present his portrait of India’s stage of civilization and of Indian national character. I outline his criticism of the British rule of India to show how governmental action had been unsuited to trigger the progress of civilization in India. This failure depended on the British ignorance not only of Indian, but also on British national character. I then focus on the character of the British middle class to show how human agency had a role in the progress of civilization. I show that individuals could shape their ideas in accordance with the principle of utility and voluntary lead society towards progress.

1. Character, Civilization, Utility

According to Mill, “human beings are for the most part creatures of the circumstances in which they are placed.” ¹³ Some of these circumstances affect every person living in a given territory, while others are distinctive of a group of people only (for example, a class, or a social group), or even of a single person. Therefore, Mill distinguished national from individual character. ¹⁴ Individual character resulted from circumstances affecting only one individual, while national character resulted from circumstances affecting the entire population of a given nation. The uniformity of the impressions affecting everyone in a given country “produces in the citizens that resemblance of ideas and of sentiments, which is called national intelligence, the national character.” ¹⁵

The concept of national character was related to the concept of civilization. According to Mill, human civilization admitted of degrees of development, which corresponded to different national characters. ¹⁶ Mill’s thought echoed and furthered the Scottish Enlightenment tradition, or the so-called “four stages” or “stadial” theory. According to this theory, human civilization takes its first steps as a hunting society, then becomes a pastoral, agricultural, and eventually a commercial society. The passage from one stage to the next was supposed to be slow and often accidental, and seldom the result of human design, but rather of “unintended consequences.” ¹⁷

Progress through these stages implied an axiological evaluation, described as a passage from the “rudeness” of the earliest stages of civilization to the “refinement” associated in particular with the commercial stage. The four stages theory was clearly elaborated by Adam Smith, ¹⁸ but was developed by several other Scottish thinkers—also called “conjectural historians” ¹⁹—with whom Mill had been familiar since his student days in Edinburgh, ²⁰ such as William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, and John Millar. Mill’s work on national character, especially through his History of British India, entered into a dialogue with these authors, among others. ²¹ Conjectural historians believed that, to assess the level of civilization, all aspects of human society had to be considered, such as the economic and political situation, environmental circumstances, and cultural and social life. Mill acknowledged his debt to these thinkers ²² and stressed that history’s most useful contribution consists in exhibiting the ways of living, manners, and character of human beings. ²³ The bundle of these entangled factors had to be taken into consideration in order to produce the correct account of historical development and to determine the stage of civilization of a given society.

Determining the stage of development of a given society and understanding the national character of its people was essential in order for a government to make informed decisions. A successful government has to adapt its policies to the national character of the people governed. As Mill argued in his History,

to ascertain the true state of the Hindus in the scale of civilization, is not only an object of curiosity in the history of human nature; but to the people of Great Britain, charged as they are with the government of that great portion of the human species, it is an object of the highest practical importance. No scheme of government can happily conduce to the ends of government, unless it is adapted to the state of the people for whose use it is intended. (HBI, II: 135)

As a utilitarian, the aim of all government for Mill was the greatest happiness of the greatest number. ²⁴ The government of a colony was no exception. The citizens of the British colonies were citizens of the British Empire, and their happiness should be treated as equally important as that of Britons. ²⁵ The British responsibility to take care of the governance of India thus implied giving the happiness of the people of India priority.

Moreover, for Mill the principle of utility was not only the government’s aim, but also the ultimate criterion for determining the stage of civilization of a given nation: “exactly in proportion as Utility is the object of every pursuit, may we regard a nation as civilized” (HBI, II: 134). ²⁶ The principle of utility was the polestar of his political thought: everything was relative to the ladder of civilization, except for the utility principle—which was the criterion to determine on what stage of the ladder every society and action were.

Mill’s History aimed to prove that utility was the most suitable principle for any government, colonial or not. ²⁷ Eighteenth-century and Christian universalism and rationalism were mirrored in his version of imperialism. ²⁸ The principle of utility, as Antis Loizides has emphasized, ²⁹ is a crucial element in this ecumenical, cosmopolitan universalism, in which all humans are considered to be equal and all deserving of happiness. For Loizides, utility cannot be seen as a mere justification for imperialist pursuits, whereas for Adam Knowles Mill used utility solely to justify British imperialism. ³⁰ The core of Mill’s imperialistic views is this eighteenth-century universalism, which only admits of one standard of civilization and good government. ³¹ This standard was used to judge Indian as well as British society. Mill was no cultural relativist: his views on civilization and the British rule of India were consistent with his will to fulfill the greatest happiness principle, eventually for humanity as a whole. ³² This was the keystone of his liberal imperialism and alleged “mission to civilize” nations at lower stages of development.

2. Indian National Character

For Mill, India was at a lower stage of civilization compared with the United Kingdom. India was an agricultural society (see HBI, I: 148–72) and the United Kingdom had reached the commercial stage. ³³ Their different positions also entailed mental differences in the people; different national characters. The attempt to determine India’s stage of civilization and progress with respect to the ladder of civilization is essential for the History, as Élie Halévy has noted. ³⁴ Mill tackled this issue in book II, while also providing his own account of the four stages theory (see HBI, I: 148–72). He stressed how gradual and slow the passage from the pastoral to the agricultural stage was in the case of India, as “slow is the progress, made by the human understanding, in its rude and ignorant state” (HBI, I: 153). What triggered progress was a restricted number of individuals, “superior spirits, capable of seizing the best ideas of their times, and, if they are not opposed by circumstances, of accelerating the progress of the community to which they belong” (HBI, I: 154). These “superior spirits” responded to the need of Indian society by introducing a division of labor, thus creating the first distribution of occupations (HBI, I: 156–57) and eventually the caste system (HBI, I: 158–59). After reaching that stage, no further progress was made by Indian society (HBI, I: 173).

After this stage, Indian society changed with the foundation of the Moghul dynasty. Mill divided the history of India into three periods, the Hindu, Muslim, and British period, an idea found in the work of William Jones. ³⁵ The periodization is related both to his views on national character and to the role of utilitarianism in the British rule in India. The Indians—identified as Hindu—were subject to an oppressive religious system, which divided society into castes and prevented it from changing. With the Muslim conquerors, change arrived from the outside. Representing Hindu society as static and closed to change echoed the position of the so-called Scottish orientalists (such as William Jones). ³⁶ The orientalists believed that Hindu society had remained in a high state of civilization, in a sort of a golden age. According to them, the founders of the Moghul Empire made it fall from this golden age. As Jeng-Guo Chen observes, Mill maintained the idea of the unchangeability of Hindu society, but denied that India ever had a high civilization. ³⁷

In Mill’s view, the change introduced by the Moghul dynasty slightly improved the condition of India, as the character and civilization of the “Mahomedan conquerors” were more advanced than those of the Hindu. ³⁸ However, for Mill, both the Hindu and their Muslim conquerors were “rude” people. His definition of the first two periods in terms of Hindu and Muslim religious identities is pejorative. In sharp contrast, the secular definition of the British period shows Mill’s utilitarian political agenda. He suggested that Indian society and national character could and should be changed from the outside. British rule should change India in accordance with the rational principle of utility.

The main traits of Indian national character as Mill described them can be divided into three areas, connected to intellectual, political, or moral virtues. Mill’s portrait of Indian national character shows that, for him, this kind of character was unsuitable to foster the progress of civilization. First, Indian national character lacked a number of important intellectual powers. ³⁹ This is of course typical of all people in “rude” stages of civilization (see for instance HBI, I: 153). The Preface to the History used the general term “infirmity of the human mind” (HBI, I: ix) to describe this intellectual weakness. Such “infirmity” amounted to a lack of analytical powers, which accounted, in Mill’s view, for the faults of Indian laws (HBI, I: 193), the incapability of assessing judicial evidence (HBI, I: 235–36), and evaluating the effects of their government. ⁴⁰ In the early stages of civilization, the mind was incapable of discerning real objects, or reality from fiction (HBI, II: 70). A civilized mind would be capable of making an accurate description of reality, which consists in a proper analysis of its objects, and precise denotation: “the highest merit of language,” states Mill, “would consist in having one name for every thing which required a name, and no more than one” (HBI, II: 80–81). ⁴¹

Their flawed intellect led the Indians to believe what Mill called “fables” or “fictions.” ⁴² This is a recurring statement in the History. Discussing the chronology of ancient India, he denied their myths any chronological value: “the Hindu legends” present “a maze of unnatural fictions, in which a series of real events can by no artifice be traced … The offspring of a wild and ungoverned imagination, they mark the state of a rude and credulous people, whom the marvellous delights” (HBI, I: 142–43). For the Indians, “fables stand in the place of fact” (HBI, I: 140). Consequently, Indians enjoyed story-telling (HBI, I: 416). ⁴³ Mill’s harsh criticism of the tendency to take fictions for reality appears to be a criticism of the Brahmans, who in his opinion controlled knowledge and used fictions to enhance their power over the people (HBI, I: 282–83; II: 145).

The second group of character flaws relates to social virtues: Indian national character was connected to antisocial passions. Mill highlighted that the “rude” stages of civilization were characterized by selfishness and hostility: “jealousy or enmity is the sentiment with which every tribe is regarded by every other” (HBI, I: 152). These antisocial passions were not only addressed to other societies, but could also be found within the same body politic, as Indian society showed. According to Mill, “it is the mixture of this fearfulness, with their antisocial passions, which has given existence to that litigiousness of character which almost all witnesses have ascribed to this ancient race” (HBI, I: 407). These traits also caused the Indians’ “propensity to the war of contentious tongues” (HBI, I: 408). Their antisocial character engendered several other vices, such as cruelty (HBI, I: 296, 406), especially toward women (HBI, I: 383–94) and the members of the lowest castes (see in particular HBI, I: 376).

The third area concerns moral vices. The abundance of details and harshness of Mill’s description concerning the moral flaws of Indian national character could give the impression of arbitrariness. However, on closer inspection, most of these vices turn out to be engendered by despotism. This is consistent with Mill’s idea that government is one of the main determinants of national character. ⁴⁴ In India, “according to the Asiatic model, the government was monarchical, and, with the usual exception of religion and its ministers, absolute” (HBI, I: 175). ⁴⁵ Despotism was defined by the absence of checks controlling the exercise of governmental power. ⁴⁶

Mill often highlighted the mendacity and duplicity of the Indian national character and attached them to their despotic polity: the monarch’s absolute power left the subject no other choice than to find ways to protect themselves, leading them to lie. “Hindus are full of dissimulation and falsehood, the universal concomitants of oppression” (HBI, I: 402, emphasis added). Mill noted that many Europeans have been impressed by the “gentleness of manners” of the Indians (HBI, I: 399) but he interpreted such gentleness as flattery and hypocrisy, and attached it to political subjugation: where slavery prevails, “and any departure from the most perfect obsequiousness is followed with the most direful consequences, an insinuating and fawning behaviour is the interest, and thence becomes the habit of the people” (HBI, I: 401). ⁴⁷ In India falsehood was also triggered by the flaws of the taxation system, which left too many matters undetermined and thus incited fraud (HBI, I: 253).

Mill also characterized the Indians as effeminate (HBI, I: 399; II: 188) and their passivity of character made them liable to fall under a despotic government (HBI, II: 434). Mill stressed their alleged laziness or “love of repose” (HBI, I: 412). This trait was also attributed to despotism. ⁴⁸ This disposition “must arise from the absence of the motives to work,” and was ascribed to “their subjection to a wretched government, under which the fruits of labour were never secure” (HBI, I: 413). ⁴⁹ In India, as well as in other “rude” societies, the monarch was the universal owner of the land (HBI, I: 258), which he rented to farmers. Even if the monarch should not be allowed to raise this rent, he often abused his power and raised it (HBI, I: 274–75). The uncertainty of the laws regulating property and commercial exchange also discouraged the Indians from working (HBI, I: 254). Moreover, the violence embedded in every “rude” society jeopardized any possession (HBI, I: 201). All these factors created circumstances unfavorable to industry (HBI, I: 204) making it unsurprising that for Mill the Indian national character involved a tendency to idleness.

Indian national character, according to this unflattering portrait, could not produce the progress of civilization. Mill depicted the Indians as slaves to despotic power. Their intellect was unsuited to grasp reality, leaving them at the mercy of the Brahmans’ fables and the monarch’s whimsical desires. The Indians had a character detrimental to societal progress, because they were selfish and cruel. As the principle of utility was the ultimate goal of civilization, the Indian antisocial passions hindered progress. More importantly, Indian national character was soft and passive. Contrasting Indians and the founders of the Moghul Empire, Mill emphasized this feature of the Indian national character: there was “in the manners of the Mahomedan conquerors of India, an activity, a manliness, an independence, which rendered it less easy for despotism to sink, among them, to that disgusting state of weak and profligate barbarism, which is the natural condition of government among such a passive people as the Hindus” (HBI, II: 434).

Mill’s description of the Indians as passive and effeminate follows in the footsteps of the Scottish conjectural historians who described the Indians—and especially the Bengalis—as effeminate. ⁵⁰ Ferguson, for instance, wrote that “the Asiatic of India, being addicted to pleasure, was sunk in effeminacy.” ⁵¹ For Robertson, the Indians were “effeminate” and had an “unwarlike spirit.” ⁵² The whig historian Thomas Babington Macaulay claimed that “the physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy.” ⁵³

As John Rosselli has shown, this portrait of the effeminate Indian was commonplace, going back to the beginning of the East India Company’s rule in India. ⁵⁴ The Company’s historian Richard Orme, in History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan (1763–78), wrote that, “notwithstanding the general effeminacy of character which is visible in all the Indians throughout the empire, the natives of Bengal are still of weaker frames and more enervated disposition than those of any other province.” ⁵⁵ Highlighting the effeminacy of the Indian national character played an important role for all these historians as well as for Mill in justifying the British Empire. The Indians’ passivity and effeminacy made them liable to be conquered and governed by others. The founders of the Moghul Empire were the first to conquer them, and the British did the same. For Mill, the effeminate Indians were susceptible to be conquered and ruled by manlier people. ⁵⁶

The justification of the British Empire also explains the harsh language Mill used while describing Indian national character. As some post-colonial scholars have noted, the colonized and the colonizer are in a dialectical relationship, in which the colonized is represented as the “Other” of the colonizer. ⁵⁷ The traits of the “rude” Indians were opposed to the characteristics of the “refined” British (or, as I show, some of the British). The colonized is as effeminate, irrational, and selfish as the colonizer is manly, rational, and altruistic. Because of these flaws, the colonized could not rule themselves: the “Other” of the colonizer is a people who cannot govern, and should rather be governed by the colonizers. The right and even the duty of the colonizer was thus to rule over “rude” people, so the colonized could become more civilized. Mill’s language was part of a rhetorical strategy to persuade his readers that Indians could not govern themselves and advance toward higher stages on their own, unassisted by the British. Thus he represented their national character in denigrating terms. Mill’s descriptions led his readers to think that Britons were justified in ruling Indians.

The passive and feminine Indian character, as well as their other character traits, made the Indians liable to be conquered and better governed by more civilized people. In particular, their passivity was the perfect breeding-ground for despotism. This form of government was typical of “rude” societies and unsuited to highest stages of civilization. Oppressed by despotism and discouraged from working, the Indians could not trigger progress. The “superior spirits” (HBI, I: 154) of Mill’s History were able to lead their society toward the agricultural stage, but not farther. This raises the question of how Indian society could advance toward higher stages of civilization.

3. Opposing Progress

In Mill’s opinion, the British rulers in India were not up to this task through policy-making. British governors had been misled by flattering descriptions of the Indian character, which portrayed the stage of civilization as higher than it was. ⁵⁸ Based on these misconceptions, typical of the Scottish orientalists, several erroneous policy measures were taken, with awful outcomes (HBI, II: 135). ⁵⁹ These blunders resulted from the British ignorance of Indian national character and pursuing policies ill-adapted to that national character. ⁶⁰ However, British rulers were also ignorant of their own national character. They did not know what had caused the progress of civilization in Britain. Consequently, British rule fostered a model of society opposed to progress, to the detriment of Indian society.

Mill takes the so-called “permanent settlement”, or Lord Cornwallis’s new revenue system in Bengal (1793), as an example of ill-advised policy. Before Cornwallis’s reform, as Mill explained in the History, the land was divided among small communities. As mentioned above, the owner was the monarch, who gave portions of land to the farmers (called ryots by Mill) to rent on an annual basis. However, once their yearly contracts expired, the ryots seldom left their land, and even had the right to make their children heirs to their allotted lands. The zemindars—the sovereign’s agents invested with governmental powers in their territories—were in charge of collecting the revenues (HBI, V: 404–06). Cornwallis’s permanent settlement created a new agreement with the zemindars, who became hereditary proprietors of the land. The East India Company relied on them for collecting revenues and enhanced their powers over the ryots (HBI, V: 408–09, 411).

This reform, in Mill’s opinion, hindered societal progress. It entailed the ruin and misery of the ryots, whose condition worsened considerably as they were oppressed by the zemindars and could be sent away at the zemindars’ will (HBI, V: 442–43 and 411). ⁶¹ More importantly, the permanent settlement fostered an idea of society which Mill strongly opposed, as based on aristocratic privilege and contrary to public good. ⁶² The reform was inspired by the “fanaticism of aristocracy.” ⁶³ The members of the British government, as well as the directors of the East India Company, were under the “influence of prejudices” and “full of the aristocratical ideas of modern Europe” (HBI, V: 408). Hence, they aimed to reproduce a “landed aristocracy” (HBI, V: 438) where there was none.

As Zastoupil has noted, the British rulers assumed that the zemindars would recognize “the value of Western concepts of property rights” and thus improve the Indian economy, eventually taking on “the nobler qualities of the British landlords.” ⁶⁴ Zastoupil has highlighted that, in Mill’s view, this reform could not foster economic improvement because the zemindars were not inclined to pursue it. However, the British rulers’ misjudgment depended on ignorance concerning national character—Indian as well as British. This reform was based on a misrepresentation of aristocratic character and of its impact on societal progress. British rulers did not consider that aristocratic character could not possibly trigger the progress of civilization from the agricultural to the commercial stage. Even if the British were, for Mill, a commercial and highly civilized society compared to India, not everything in it was consistent with this level of civilization. Mill’s comparison of British and Indian civilization ultimately revealed the faults and merits of British institutions and national character, according to the self-reflexive function of his History. ⁶⁵

Had the British been more attentive to the features of their own national character, they could have realized how aristocracy was unsuited to trigger societal progress. British civilization might be “refined,” but aristocratic character was not in Mill’s view. Aristocracy was an inconvenient legacy of feudal times, contrary to every form of societal progress and a threat to the public good. A description of the aristocratic character can be found in Aristocracy (1836) where Mill clarified that the aristocracy perverted the natural laws of economy. Aristocratic wealth was not the result of “the natural laws of accumulation” but of “unnatural restraint put on the natural laws of distribution,” i.e., inheritance. ⁶⁶ The aristocracy was not rich by virtue of their efforts and business capacities, but because the laws created an unnatural privilege. ⁶⁷ This arguably was the foundation of the awfulness of the aristocratic character.

After reading both the History and Aristocracy, one can hardly overlook the similarities between the Indian national character and the aristocratic character. For Mill, people of such character could never lead society toward progress. First, their privilege discouraged aristocrats from cultivating any kind of virtue, which echoes the idleness of the Indians. Consequently, in Mill’s opinion, aristocrats rejected intellectuals, and instead, “the men whom they delight to honour are rhymesters, story-makers.” ⁶⁸ Their admiration for poetry and imagination thus echoed the Indians’ attachment to “fables,” and their love for story-telling. Aristocracy was characterized by “the unmanly and frivolous state of mind which characterizes a class overloaded with wealth.” ⁶⁹ Mill accused the aristocracy of having a taste for “barbarous” architecture, which points to their appreciation for cruelty. ⁷⁰ Their riches made them loath to accumulate capital, as Mill explained in the Elements of Political Economy: “the man who is already in possession of a fortune, yielding him all the enjoyments which fortune can command, has little inducement to save.” ⁷¹ The aristocrats were thus improvident and wasteful.

Antisocial feelings were typical components of the aristocratic character, as well as of the Indian national character. Because nobles preferred portraits, a form of painting which had only value for the person portrayed, their taste in art was “pure selfishness.” ⁷² Their conversations were displays of either mockery or flattery. All these elements were evidence of their lack of social virtues. As Mill wrote, “what is desirable above all things in society is a spirit of mutual benevolence … To this the tone of scorn and mockery is in direct hostility.” ⁷³ Moreover, the nobility tried to maintain their “monopoly of honour and power” ⁷⁴ by gaining the favour of the monarch. “Paying court to the sovereign and, by the arts of obsequiousness, winning their way to favour and power” ⁷⁵ was their strategy. Thus, they foster despotic power. ⁷⁶

Mill’s aristocrats had a lot in common with the unintelligent, lazy, effeminate, selfish, passive, and oppressed Indians. He was aware that most of the Indian population was not as wealthy as the British aristocrats. But notwithstanding their different material condition, there were physical and moral conditions common to both. While discussing the Indians’ “gentleness of manners” and “feminine softness” (HBI, I: 399), Mill argued that the causes of these traits were “partly physical, and partly moral” (HBI, I: 401). The physical cause was favorable environmental conditions, leading to prosperity. As he wrote, “where the commodities of life, by a happy union of climate and soil, are abundant, gentleness of manners … is by no means unnatural to men in the earliest period of improvement” (HBI, I: 401). Hence, even if Indians were not as rich as British aristocrats, environmental conditions made their life comfortable enough. Indians could avoid working and acquired a softness of manners similar to the aristocracy which was rich by heritage.

As I have explained, the moral cause of the alleged gentleness of manners and effeminacy of the Indians—and in general of Indian national character—was despotism (HBI, I: 401). The aristocracy and the Indians both fostered despotic power, even if the aristocrats were oppressors and the Indians more often oppressed. Thus the similarity of character between the Indians and British aristocracy was rooted in the abundance of resources and despotism. Their characters were similar because they came from the same stage of civilization: Indians were a “rude” population, and British aristocracy was a legacy of feudal times and an agricultural stage of society. The character of the Indians and of British aristocrats had the same flaws, connected to a “rude” stage of civilization.

The similarity between the Indian and British aristocratic character shows that in Mill’s view a commercial society might still present elements of less advanced stages, which could hinder its development. Aristocracy, and the institutions connected to it, were for Mill unsuited to the commercial stage of civilization, based on liberty, industry, and equal opportunities. ⁷⁷ Consistent with this idea, Mill fiercely opposed the corn laws, the expression of the egoistic privilege of the landed aristocracy. ⁷⁸ For the same reason, he criticized monopoly, such as the East India Company’s monopoly over commerce with the Indian colony, ⁷⁹ calling it a “relict of a semi-barbarous” ⁸⁰ age; an expression which could well represent aristocratic privilege too. Therefore, the comparison with India and its administration revealed how barbarous some British institutions still were. ⁸¹ Aristocratic character was a hindrance to progress. If the British wanted to fulfill their “civilizing mission” in India, they could not rely on aristocrats, nor on people with similar “rude” characters. They could not rely on Indians either, at least not as far as the Indian national character remained unchanged, as at that stage of development it was too akin to the aristocratic character. The driving force of civilization would have to be found in the middle ranks.

4. Leading toward Progress

For Mill, the British administration should dispose of these aristocratic institutions and stop relying on the alleged noble qualities of aristocracy. The middle ranks were much better suited to be the driving force of civilization. He aimed to create in India a class like the British “middling ranks”: a class of people intermediate between the rich aristocrats and poor labourers. ⁸² He was not clear how a similar class could be created in India. In “Affairs of India” (1810) he suggested sending a member of the British royal family to India and favoured European emigration. The emigration would create a union of interests in India and a favorable environment for the “commercial enterprise of Britons.” ⁸³

However, as Chief Examiner of the India Correspondence, in 1831 Mill appeared to propose a different solution. He suggested revising the permanent settlement to the advantage of the ryots. The East India Company should buy all the zemindars’ lands and allocate them to the ryots. Eventually, this would have made the ryots proprietors. ⁸⁴ The reform of the permanent settlement could thus create a class of independent proprietors in India, not relying on European emigration but rather on changing the condition of the ryots. Thus Mill advocated creation of an Indian middle class. This appeal would not be surprising because, in his view, if the British national character was excellent, it was thanks to the middle ranks. They were “the glory and the characteristic feature of England—a middle class, more intelligent, better educated, and more virtuous than either of the extremes.” ⁸⁵ This class “gives to science, to art, and to legislation itself, their most distinguished ornaments, and is the chief source of all that has exalted and refined human nature.” ⁸⁶

“Middle class” and “civilization” were almost equivalent terms for Mill. As he wrote in an article on Bonaparte’s despotism:

a middling class is itself, in fact, a creature of civilization. It had no existence in the rude state of society; and it increases as the benefits of civilization increase. … in this class … a power is really provided sufficient to prevent the passive or active principle of despotism in the other classes from finally consummating their deplorable consequences, and rendering civilization its own destroyer. ⁸⁷

The middling ranks could protect society from despotism through a free press, providing information within the community on the acts of the government. ⁸⁸ This would prevent the government from taking advantage of the ignorance of the people. Another important quality was thrift, which played a crucial role in societal progress through capital accumulation, as highlighted in Mill’s Elements. ⁸⁹ Thrift, industry, love of freedom, wisdom, independence, and refusal of despotic power were the qualities typical of the ideal middle-class character. ⁹⁰

Mill believed that the middle class was lacking in India. ⁹¹ For this reason, the people were easy prey for despotic rulers, as despotism could find opposition solely “in the increasing numbers and improving character of the middling class of the people.” ⁹² The middle ranks were thus the natural foe of despotism and ally of the public good, as well as the only sound foundation of representative government. ⁹³ Thanks to the individuals of this class, independence and attachment to liberty, the sentiments arising in a commercial society led by the middle ranks, would spread. ⁹⁴ The crucial element in middle-class character, making it the opposite of aristocratic character, consisted in the inclination to actively foster public good. If assisted by the efficient machinery of a representative government and by a free press, this class was the most suited to represent the interest of the entire community. This middle class would be the embodiment of societal, moral, intellectual, and economic progress: it was the best candidate to accomplish the goal of civilization, which Mill defined, as I have explained, by the principle of utility. If British national character could be a model for the Indians, the model should be found in the middle-class character, the very foundation of British excellence.

By opposing despotism and supporting the public good, individuals from the middle ranks would foster the progress of civilization more than any political reform. Hence the great role played by human agency in Mill’s conception of history. As some scholars have noted, Mill did not endorse the idea, typical of the Scottish tradition of conjectural history, that progress resulted from “unintended consequences.” ⁹⁵ As Victor Bianchini has claimed based on some passages from the Elements, Mill “focused on the role of individual human agency in the development of society.” ⁹⁶ I argue that individuals exercised their agency by voluntarily shaping their minds and ideas in accordance with the utilitarian goal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This is consistent with Mill’s notion of “superior spirits,” people capable of grasping the needs of society and knowingly supporting progress.

As Mill wrote in the Elements, the middle ranks were led by the “desire of a command over the sentiments of mankind.” ⁹⁷ This echoes his statement in Education that “the grand object of human desire is a command over the wills of other men.” ⁹⁸ He did not consider this motive to be per se detrimental to public good: ⁹⁹ it all came down to whether the goal, as well as the means to attain it, were consistent with the principle of utility. ¹⁰⁰ This “desire of a command over the sentiments” of others needed to be subservient to the greatest happiness of the greatest number for it to serve the advancement of civilization—as civilization could be “refined” only if the principle of utility was fulfilled. This could not be pursued mechanically, nor could the greatest happiness be an “unintended consequence” of individuals focusing on their private interests. Mill stressed more than once that virtuous actions had to be voluntary. Virtuous behavior consisted in deliberately choosing those actions aimed at the public good. As he clarified in the Fragment on Mackintosh (1835), an act could only be described as moral if the agent was convinced of its “general utility”: ¹⁰¹ there “is no virtuous act … in which the good of others is not intended.” ¹⁰² The voluntary nature of virtuous action was emphasized in Education (1819), in which Mill argued that intelligence consisted in developing the capacity to discern and pursue “what we deliberately approve.” ¹⁰³

The agent needed to learn to desire only what was consistent with the public good: “the man,” as he wrote again in the Fragment, “who has learned to fix his esteem upon the actions which promote these great interests [of large communities], and in whom the motives to the performance of such actions overpower all other motives, is the only man who has reached the elevation of true morality.” ¹⁰⁴ The greatest end of education was teaching desires and motives consistent with the greatest happiness. ¹⁰⁵ According to his interpretation of psychological associationism, this end could be attained by selecting the appropriate experiences and thus forming trains of ideas in an individual mind in which agents see the public good as consistent with their own good. However, the agent was not completely passive in this process: there was still latitude for individuals to shape their trains of ideas. Agents could orient desires and motives toward what they “deliberately approved” by discerning and selecting ideas. ¹⁰⁶

Such a process of selection with a view to a goal rested on the mental capacities of attention and of recollecting something forgotten. These were the only capacities through which the agent could control the trains of ideas. ¹⁰⁷ By exercising attention, or by trying to recollect something, agents could organize their ideas in a way consistent with their goal, just as good rhetors organized their speeches. ¹⁰⁸ In a similar way, some people, as Mill argued, “are distinguished for a steady direction of their actions, through the course of their lives, to some general end, or ends.” ¹⁰⁹ Regardless of what this end might be, for Mill there were individuals able to orient their own behavior with regard to their objectives and control their ideas. ¹¹⁰ However, the greatest control over one’s ideas was accomplished when there were strong and numerous associations with the “grand sources of felicity”; ¹¹¹ when there were strong associations with general happiness. As Mill concluded, “when the grand sources of felicity are formed into the leading and governing Ideas … Education has then performed its most perfect work; and thus the individual becomes, to the greatest degree, the source of utility to others, and of happiness to himself.” ¹¹²

These passages are at odds with the scholarly interpretation of Mill as a hard determinist. They show that, for Mill, the human mind was not completely passive: despite the influence of the environment on character, individuals could form their own train of ideas consistent with their goals. Moreover, the goal of the greatest happiness had to be deliberately pursued. Mill’s conception of policy-making in India and of the possible progress of Indian civilization can be seen in a different light if placed in dialogue with these views of the human mind and character. He wanted to establish a middle class, on the British model, in India. Governmental action would be needed to create the necessary material conditions for the development of the human mind, very much akin to those conditions described in Elements. After the government had established such conditions, the progress of civilization depended on the “improving character” of the middle ranks, and notably on their capacity to shape their ideas and desires in accordance with the principle of utility. The so-called “superior spirits” (HBI, I: 154) would then be capable of guiding the entire society towards progress, as Mill argued in the Elements. When India was at the pastoral stage, the “superior spirits” guided it toward the agricultural stage. These “superior spirits” could not have come from the middle class, which, Mill thought, was still absent in India in his contemporary period. However, to accomplish the passage from the agricultural to the commercial stage, a middle class was needed, because for Mill the middle class was “a creature of civilisation.” ¹¹³ No class could embody progress better than the middle class. Only under the beneficent influence on the “refined” middle-class character could Indian national character be modified in accordance with the ultimate aim of civilization: the establishment of the greatest happiness.

5. Conclusion

This article focuses on the role played by national character in Mill’s conception of civilization. Existing studies have overlooked the importance of national character in his views on government and civilization. As I have shown, character could either foster or oppose progress. Changes in political setting were not enough to trigger the progress of civilization if unsupported by national character. National character was not necessarily homogeneous in Mill’s eyes. British national character was composed of different types, in accordance with the characters of the different classes. Aristocratic character, a “relict of a semi-barbarous” age, ¹¹⁴ was opposed to societal improvement, while middle-class character was almost equivalent to civilization itself.

My analysis has highlighted the relevance of human agency to Mill’s views of history, which prior scholarship has underestimated. The progress of civilization rested on the action of the “superior spirits” (HBI, I: 154), able to guide society toward progress. Human agency is also connected with the voluntary nature of virtuous action, challenging the scholarly interpretation of Mill as a hard determinist. Individuals could shape their trains of ideas in accordance with the demands of the public good. The progress of civilization required individuals acting in the name of the principle of utility. Such enlightened individuals were to be found in the midst of the middle ranks. Middle-class virtues, such as thrift, independence, and love of freedom, were important for the advancement of civilization, especially from the agricultural to the commercial stage. However, the key element that made the middle ranks able to trigger civilization was their connection with the public good: the middle class was the best candidate for representing the interests of the entire community, against the “sinister interest” of the aristocracy. Thus, middle-class character and its special connection with the public good was to be the basis for the progress of civilization. Individuals who voluntarily shape their ideas in accordance with the principle of utility were the driving force of civilization.