17
Christian Knowledge, and provided a roadmap for the Christianisation of non-European
societies. Human beings, Hardy argued against Hume, are naturally attracted to simple
truth of religion, and repulsed by complicated rituals and superstition: the early “religion
of nature” had been simple and universal, before it became corrupted by superstition.
70
Revelation had restored some of this early simplicity while providing new proof of divine
grace. The best way to help Christianity spread outside of Europe was to further improve
its doctrines and purify them of all superstition, until it became a universally-accessible
“true religion”.
71
Like Robertson, Hardy analyzed the Reformation as a mere step in a
broader divine plan of religion improvement, but his imagined “true religion” was not
Robertson’s tolerant and diverse faith: it was a universal doctrine, perhaps closer to
Hume and Smith’s calls for a religion divested of superstition and enthusiasm.
72
Of
course Mill did not share Hardy’s aims; for him the universal spread of Christianity was
not an end in itself, but rather the means by which social and political improvements
could be achieved. Mill divested Hardy's argument of its providentialist and evangelical
character, but he did heartily approve of its account of a gradual evolution towards a
true, universal religion purified of rituals and superstitions, which would help further
along the progress of society.
Like Scotland’s enlightened historians, Mill portrayed the Reformation not as the original
impetus of the progress of Enlightenment, but rather as one factor in its acceleration,
produced by the same general causes and in turn reinforcing them.
73
It did so by
transforming the manners of contemporaries, as illustrated by the direct role played by
the “spirit” of French Protestantism in the Revolution of 1789.
74
Hardy and Mill’s
evolutionary assessment of religion and of its role in societal progress was broadly in line
with the previously discussed Scottish discourses, and shared with Robertson the
ambition to forcibly expand the reach of the more civilized forms of religion. For Hardy,
as it had for Robertson, this served a primarily religious purpose - but Mill was already
suggesting to instrumentalize religion with an aim to social improvement. This was a
theme he would develop in detail in the coming years.
In his 1805 notes to Villers’ text Mill discussed the natural progress of religion in the
framework of Stewart’s perfectibilist view of progress, based on the “natural and fixed”
70
Ibid, 5.
71
Ibid, 46.
72
Christianity is “calculated for universal reception as the religion of the human race.” Ibid, 14.
73
“The general tendency of things at the time of the Reformation was towards liberty, both in thought and
action, but the Reformation was a circumstance which in a most extraordinary manner accelerated that
progress.” Mill, in An Essay on the Spirit and Influence of the Reformation of Luther, 294n.
74
Ibid, 255n.
18
human impulse towards improvement and perfection.
75
This allowed him to turn both
Robertson’s providentialist narrative of religious progress, and Hume and Smith’s
rational understanding of “true religion”, into a secular narrative of progress towards a
less superstitious, more rational form of religion. Therefore he offered a triumphalist
teleological narrative of religious progress, as a long-term process leading to religion's
most advanced form to date, Protestantism. In its most perfect form, Mill was later to
argue, religion would eventually be rid of all superstition and would become entirely
rational.
III.
That a young Mill interpreted Villers’ Essay in the light of Scottish narratives of religious
progress is significant because it provides an alternative interpretative framework for
some of his later historical and political writings. These are usually discussed in relation
to Jeremy Bentham and his undoubtedly transformative influence on Mill’s life and
writings – from the moment the two men met in 1807, Mill became Bentham’s friend,
associate and propagandist in a collaboration that continued, with various degrees of
intensity, until Bentham’s death in 1832.
From the 1810s onward, Mill clearly borrowed Benthamite concepts and language in his
critique of established religion. In some cases, such as Mill’s repeated attacks on all
authorities that would have men suppress the use of their reason, Bentham helped him
sharpen pre-existing arguments. In others, such as the corruptive effects of religious
rewards and punishments on religious beliefs and their ineffectiveness to correct
behaviour, Bentham’s influence was more direct. Mill’s Common Place Books strongly
suggest that Bentham’s works (especially his Théorie des peines et des recompenses, and his
Analysis of Natural Religion under the pen name Philip Beauchamp) informed much of
Mill’s public critique of religious authority.
76
It is clear, overall, that Bentham provided
75
Mill explicitly ascribed his perfectibilism to Dugald Stewart, quoting lengthy passages from the Elements.
Ibid, 25n.
76
Grint, “The Freedom of the Press in James Mill’s Political Thought,” 197–200.