Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Essay m. JAMES MILL. In the essay on Hobbes I have had occasion to mention that James Mill carried on some of the most important discoveries of Hobbes in mental philosophy. But to James Mill is due more than an incidental notice, for he as well as Hobbes ' is a great name in philosophy.' It is a remarkable proof of the truth of a remark in the article ' James Mill' in the Encyclopedia Britannica respecting the general neglect of metaphysical studies in the present age, that so accomplished a man as Lord Macaulay, when intending to be complimentary to James Mill, made favourable mention of his ' History of British India,' but did not seem to be aware of the existence of his 'Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind;' though the powers of mind displayed in the latter work are of a much higher order than those displayed in the former. The remark referred to occurs in a paragraph, written not by the present writer who wrote most of the paper in which it occurs, but by Mr. John Stuart Mill,1 and is this :— ' From the general neglect of metaphysical studies in the present age, this work' [the Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, published in 1829], 'which at some periods of our history would have placed its author on alevel, in point of reputation, with the highest names in the republic of letters, has been less read and appreciated than any of his other writings.' In the same paragraph which contains the sentence just quoted, the characteristic which formed the peculiar value of James Mill's ' Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind' is thus described:—' In this, work he evinced analytical powers rarely, if ever, surpassed; and which have placed him high in the list of those subtile inquirers who have attempted to resolve ah1 the powers of the mind into a very s... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.