As his time of crisis abated, Mill found himself attracted to voices beyond the confines of—even antithetical to—the ‘sect’ in which he had been raised: notably, S. T. Coleridge, the Saint-Simonians, Auguste Comte, and Thomas Carlyle, the author of Sartor Resartus. From Comte, Mill gained a theory of history that allowed him to appreciate the contribution that traditional institutions had made. Mill also made his best male friend, the Anglican clergyman John Sterling. Out of this period would emerge a lifelong instinct to try to create a via media between two ostensibly opposing ideologies or viewpoints. This mediating approach found expression in his articles, ‘Bentham’ and ‘Coleridge’. Mill added Romanticism to his Enlightenment birthright.
