Stuart Books

(This is a trade paperback, published by The Library of Liberal Arts, Introduction by Currin V. Shields.)

"The Aubobiography is mainly Mill's account of his unusual intellectual training and achievements, and of his career as a writer and thinker. In this brief introduction there would be no point in relating what Mill tells in his own words. But some features of his life and character which are not fully treated in the Autobiography are of sufficient import to deserver our special attention.

On Mill's own testimony, as well as that of his friends and chroniclers, the most imprtant fact about Mill's life was his strong and lasting - and unconventional - attachment to Harriet Taylor. Thus Mill's life falls into three periods: before, during , and after his intimate association with Mrs. Taylor.
Before he met Harriet, John Stuart Mill was a brillant leader of a talented circle of younger Benthamites known as the "Philosopical Radicals". The group, intentionally patterned after the eighteeneth-century French school of Philosophes, was devoted to promoting Utilitarianism. Almost from the day of John's birth - May 20, 1806 - both his gifted father and his famous patron, Jeremy Bentham, had groome the young Mill to inherit the mantle fo the Benthamite movement...."

John Stuart Mill, 1806-73, worked for the East India Co. helped run Colonial India from England. Minister of Parliament 1865-68 he served one term. Maiden speech was a disaster his second was great success. He was first MP to propose that women should be given the vote on equal footing with the men who could vote. He got 1/3 support, England gives franchise to women after U.S. He was a great Feminist, his essay "Subjection of Women" is written with great passion and prose. It was a brave position for him to take he was ridiculed for it. He favored democracy, and letting more men from lower classes the right to vote, but believed that people that are more educated should have more votes then less educated because they would make better decisions about what government should do. He would have wanted to extend education to the masses, so that all may have gotten 2-3 votes and so on. He didn't think it should be extended to where a small elite could carry the day on votes. The idea was that if the working class, and middle class, where divided on an issue, the people with more intelligence would have the power to tip the balance. Mill thought that people with more education would probably not only be better able to make political decisions, especially in terms of intellectually being able to see what would be best for the government to do, but that they would also be more concerned about the common good publicly then people in general. He was intensely educated by his father James. John could read Greek, and Latin at 6 yrs.; his Dad tutored him at home. Dad thought environment was everything. He was treated like an adult, never played games with kids; he had a very cerebral upbringing. He had a period of depression in his twenties, it changed his philosophy, and he recognized the importance of developing feelings along with the intellect, this is something that he stressed in his work. He read poetry to get out of depression; he became devoted to poetry and became a romantic. He fell in love with a married woman Harriet Taylor, was a platonic relationship, after her husband's death they married 3 years later and probably never consummated the marriage maybe due to his having syphilis. His dedication to "On Liberty" is to her, very devoted to each other. Both buried together in Avignon France where they used to vacation.

Mill as a moral theorist subscribed to a theory we call Utilitarianism. It means---In some way morality is about the maximization of happiness. Whether actions are right or wrong depends on how happiness can be most effectively maximized. I say in some way, because there are allot of different kinds of Utilitarians. Allot of different ways of saying exactly how it is the maximization of happiness comes into morality. Therefore, happiness is clearly an important idea for Utilitarians. Mill has a hedonistic view of happiness, he thinks that happiness can be defined in terms of "pleasure in the absence of pain." What is distinctive about Mill in this area is that he believes that some kinds of pleasure are better than others are, and add more to a person's happiness than other kinds of pleasures. He believes in what he calls, "higher quality pleasures." These are pleasures, he says, that we get from the exercise of faculties that only human beings happen to have. So the intellect, imagination, the moral feelings, these are the sources of higher quality pleasures people use. His view seems to be that a certain quantity of intellectual pleasure just adds more to your happiness, and a given quantity of some lower pleasure like a kind we would share with the animals such as sensation, taste, sexual pleasure, etc. His "higher quality pleasures" in a way echo Aristotle's ethics. The idea of those things that make us distinctly human that are the real key to our happiness, that is in Mill also. It is not as limited to reason and intellect as Aristotle thinks. Mill recognizes the importance of the appreciation of beauty, aesthetic pleasure, and moral pleasure. He frankly owes a debt to Aristotle that he never properly acknowledges, never gives him proper credit.

"On Liberty" is Mill's is his most widely read and enduring work. It is an indispensable essay on political thought, which strenuously argues for individual liberty. He is defending what he calls the "liberty principle." It is a principle that guarantees individuals quite a bit of personal freedom. "That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." These quoted sentences in John Stuart Mill's book, "On Liberty," embody the crux of his argument; that the power of the state must intrude as little as possible on the liberty of its citizenry. In essence, Mill was against using the power of the state through its lawmaking apparatus to compel citizens to conduct themselves in ways that society deems moral or appropriate. Mill thought that people had not only a right, but also a duty to develop their intellectual faculties, which is indispensable to maximize their happiness. He believed that society improved for all its citizens when they where left unfettered to the maximum extent possible, allowing them to use their imagination and intellect to improve themselves. Mill postulates a theory that societies usually institute laws based primarily on "personal preference" of its citizenry instead of established principles. This lack of clarity of opinion often leads to the government frequently interfering in the lives of its citizens unnecessarily. For Mill, there are very few times when the state can infringe on the personal liberty of others. Firstly, the state has the right to promulgate laws that prevent a person's actions from harming others. Secondly, the state must protect those citizens who are not mature enough to protect themselves, such as children. Thirdly, he exempts, "... backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage." In Mill's view, immature societies need a benevolent leader to rule them until they have developed to a point where they, "... have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion ..." Mill said this third exemption did not apply to any of the countries in Europe. Mill believed that forced morality by the state on its citizen's liberties was destructive to their inward development, and could even lead to a violent reaction by them against the government.


There are different parts of his defense of this, different arguments that he gives. He has a long chapter on freedom of speech and press. He has some very specific reasons why he thinks those freedoms are important. Always in the background for Mill is the idea of development, and making it possible for more people to enjoy these higher quality pleasures. How do we help people develop their distinctly human faculties, in ways that will help them enjoy their higher quality pleasures? Because for him that is the way, we maximize the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed in the world, and that is the object of morality as far as he is concerned. Utilitarianists believe that maximizing happiness is ultimately, what morality is all about. That does not mean maximizing your own happiness that means maximizing the total amount of happiness that is enjoyed, not only by yourself but also by everybody else as well.

Roger Kimball, in his book "Experiments Against Reality" wrote, "On Liberty" was published in 1859, coincidentally the same year as "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's book has been credited--and blamed--for all manner of moral and religious mischief. But in the long run "On Liberty" may have effected an even greater revolution in sentiment.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

Great tallents of these people. I think they are very skilled and talented to the things they do. From brave people to the intelegent Einsteinian people this is a great book

One can see the beginnings a great occultist in this early work of Waite as he delves wholeheartedly into his mostly alchemical subject matter.

All of Stuart Dischell's books are wonderful, and this might be the best. It's a pitch-perfect book, sad, funny, angry, moral, with a Gallic charm. In some ways, it reminds me of Henry Miller's late book "Joey" in its feeling for Paris, and there is a state of mind in this book that is unique, of unencumbered and yet emotional perception. I feel that this is an essential book, one of the best things anybody has written this decade.

Omigod, I remember reading this book when it came out in the early eighties--and was blown away. It was my first Harlequin American, my first Anne Stuart, and I remember thinking, I didn't know romance novels could be like this! The heroine is anorectic and having a nervous breakdown, so she takes a leave of absence from her high-pressure job and becomes a ghost-writer for the hero's gay male-adventure novelist father, who's having writer's block. Every one of his novels included the sentence, "Matt Decker surveyed the carnage around him." This book inspired me to become a romance writer, which I did. If you can possibly get your hands on it, read it!

Review of Banners of Honor

A novel by Keith and Barbara Stuart

The saga, Banners of Honor, tells the story of Betsy Stewart's rite of passage. In 1692, in the Scottish Highlands, young Betsy, through courage and ingenuity, overcomes military assailants and escapes King William's massacre of the MacDonald clan. Many of Betsy's relatives and friends are butchered. In retribution, Betsy steals the King's treasure.

A British officer places Betsy at the crime scenes, unravels her identity and tracks her. As the story unfolds, we are drawn into witnessing Betsy's growth from a bold and independent girl of sixteen to a homemaker, community leader, teacher, business manager, and loving wife and mother. When she marries John MacDonald, she musters the strength to overcome many of the tribulations of married life: reconciling religious and class differences, learning how to handle separations creatively, facing the death of loved ones, and being an inspirational guide for her children.

Betsy's greatest challenge is the non-responsiveness and selfishness of her son, Kevin, who unwittingly commits treason, potentially bringing dishonor on the MacDonald name. Betsy finances Kevin's passage to the colonies. As he embarks, Kevin vows to find his purpose in life, to become worthy of redemption and the restoration of honor. Banners of Liberty continues the saga.


James Quina
Professor of English
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA

This book is the only book that I know of that has the complete FASA rules for running a campaign. It uses the Combat Value system to do it. It is not too difficult to use, and is one of the most helpful BT books. A must for anyone who runs a campaign!

As wrote on the back cover: Before buying or build your beam antenna, take a moment to read this book. It will guide you away of the many myths and bad-pratices.

The book, The Beatinest Boy is about a boy named David who went up on a mountain one day and found a coon puppy in a hollow log that had the mange. In the book, The Beatinest Boy, it is a real setting because it had mountains and flowers and grass. David, Grandma Beverly, and Boliver were believable characters because David had decisions to make like real people and he likes to coon hunt and real people like to coon hunt. Daid was a likable person because he was cheerful and he liked to do fun stuff. I liked the story and it was exciting because when David goes coon hunting and when he robbed the bees exciting things happened. When David went coon hunting, he had to climb a high tree to get a coon. Robbing the bees was exciting because I was wondering if he was going to get stung alot. My favorite part of the story was when he went up on the mountain and found the puppy because I wish I could find a puppy. What the main character learned from this book is that you always shouldn't always kill what you catch. I would recommend this book for a friend because it has lots of exciting events like when David and his Grandma robbed the bees. If my friend liked this book he/she would also like Old Ben.