The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 is part of Leslie Stephen’s three-volume study of the utilitarian school of thought that shaped British political and moral philosophy in the nineteenth century. This volume centers on James Mill, the philosopher, historian, and disciple of Jeremy Bentham who did much to organize and propagate utilitarian ideas.
Stephen, a leading Victorian critic and the father of Virginia Woolf, examines Mill’s writings on economics, psychology, and government, situating him within the wider movement led by Bentham and carried forward by John Stuart Mill. The result is both a biography of ideas and an intellectual history of an influential reforming creed. A thoughtful work of scholarship, it is presented here as a free EPUB download.