Three Essays on Religion
Matz (Editor), Louis J. MatzBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
John Stuart Mill was one of the most important political and social thinkers of the nineteenth century, and his writings on human rights, feminism, the evils of slavery, and the environment are still widely read and influential today. Published after Mill's death to avoid controversy, the three essays in this edition, Nature, Utility of Religion, and Theism, represent Mill's considered position on religion. Mill argues that belief in a supernatural power holds us back, but that a conception of the meaning and value of being human, or Religion of Humanity, could make the world a better place. Essential in understanding Mill's views on religion and his practical philosophy, these essays are also significant contributions to the philosophy and psychology of religion.Appendices include Mill's other writings on religion, his early influences, contemporary reviews, and other 19th century writings on religion and science.
Synopsis
In these three essays, "Nature," "The Utility of Religion," and "Theism," published between 1850 and 1870, English social and political philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) gives his most sustained analysis of religious belief. Though not prepared to abandon the idea of an overall design in nature, Mill nonetheless argues that its violence and capriciousness militate against moral ends in nature's workings. Moreover, any designer of such a world as we experience it cannot be all powerful and all good, for nature is "too clumsily made and capriciously governed." However, since humankind, by and large, cannot, it seems, be deprived of religion, Mill espouses what he calls a "religion of humanity," whose concepts of justice, morality, and altruism are based on classical models and on the New Testament Sermon on the Mount rather than on the vindictive God of the Old Testament and the world-hating doctrines of St. Paul.
Editorials
New Humanist
"Mill's Three Essays belongs on any shortlist of the towering classics of secularist thought; but it has never yet been given its due. We must therefore be cheered by its appearance in a neat and friendly volume that every one of us would want to have on our bookshelves. And the fact that the essays are supplemented in this edition by a splendid introduction from Louis Matz, and a generous selection from Mill's other writings on religion, is yet another motive for good cheer."— Jonathan Rée