Much less well-known than his son John Stuart Mill, James Mill nevertheless occupies a position of importance in the history of Western political thought. Rather than a practical politician, Mill was a theorist with a vision of a society improved by its attachment to moral principles. A man possessed of stern moral principles and a highly developed social conscience, James Mill was one of the leading reformers of his day. He became a principal in a group that initially derived its theories from the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham but later included a wide spectrum of opinion. To blunt the effect of the term Utilitarian, or Benthamite, which in the 1830s had become both misleading and unpopular, John Stuart Mill proposed for them the name Philosophic Radicals, by which they are now known. Although James Mill was a leading proponent of Bentham's ideas, they were considerably modified and enhanced...