James
Mill,
the son of a shoemaker from Montrose, was born in 1773. He studied
for the ministry at Edinburgh and was
ordained in 1798. In 1802 Mill left the Church for journalism
and after moving to London he began writing articles for the Edinburgh
Review and the St.
James Chronicle.
In London James
Mill became a friend and disciple of Jeremy
Bentham and fully supported his ideas on utilitarianism. Mill
became a prominent member of the Philosophical Radicals, a group which
included Bentham, David Ricardo, George
Grote and John Austin.
In 1817 James Mill finished his major
work, the History of British India.
This book resulted in him being offered a position with the East
India Company. Mill continued to write articles for newspapers
and journals and in 1824 he joined Jeremy
Bentham to help establish the Westminster
Review.Mill's son, John Stuart Mill,
also wrote for the Westminster Review
and eventually became editor of the journal.
Mill wrote several important books including Elements
of Political Economy (1821) and Analysis
of the Phenomenon of the Human Mind (1829) where he attempted
to provide a psychological basis for utilitarianism.
James
Mill died in 1836.
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