ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on issue with the fact that commentators argue from the premise that the essay on government presented an “outline waiting to be filled”, advancing the “whole” utilitarian political theory “in compact shape”. Dealing with James Mill’s method of philosophy and of rhetoric, it draws from a number of works and manuscripts, from the beginning to the end of his career. The book lays particular emphasis on the range of Mill’s intellectual debts, highlighting influences outside the Benthamite tradition and ideas developed prior to his meeting Jeremy Bentham. It suggests that the Analytic and Synthetic method is an intellectual apparatus suitable for the solution of an old problem: Mill’s use of deduction. The book shows that other works—early and late—manuscripts, and letters, put the History and “Government” under a different light.
