Date of Award
1996
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Buckton, Oliver
Abstract
In Chapter Five of his Autobiography, John Stuart Mill discusses a "mental crisis" which struck in 1826 and lingered for some time. Mill addresses one causative element of this crisis, a perception of himself at twenty as a "mechanical man." Yet these much-quoted words understate a greater point. I shall argue that Mill's crisis was the destruction of an almost purely mechanical consciousness, or at least a strike at his foundations of a breadth and severity that has not been fully addressed by Mill scholarship. I shall consider various aspects of Mill's life and thought before and after the crisis as a means of identifying the nature of this fundamental change in Mill. These aspects of Mill's thought include philosophy, economics, epistemology, poetry, and politics, and these aspects of Mill's life include education, his relationship with his father and Bentham, his early activism, his influences, and his perceptions of man and society.
Extent
136 p.
Recommended Citation
Dhuwalia, Raj Kumar, ""mental crisis" of John Stuart Mill: The destruction of a mechanical consciousness" (1996). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1990 - 1999. 860.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_4/860
Identifier
FADT15319
Comments
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters