MILL (John Stuart).
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and of the Principal Questions discussed in his writings.
Mill’s devastating, book-length critique of the Scottish philosopher Sir William Hamilton’s (1788-1856) Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1860), regarded by many as Mill’s “most serious onslaught on transcendental belief” (ODNB). Although Hamilton’s philosophy is now little-known, the book contains various themes central to Mill’s thought, including: “Mill’s analysis of Matter in terms of ‘permanent possibilities of sensation’, his confessedly abortive analysis of personal identity in similarly phenomenalist terms, his analysis of free-will and responsibility, and his ringing declaration that he would not bow his knee to worship a God whose moral worth he was required to take on trust - all these still find their place in contemporary discussions of empiricism” (Alan Ryan, Introduction to Vol. IX of Mill’s Collected Works).
Provenance: contemporary ownership inscription of ‘J. M. Marshall’ to recto of front free endpaper; later ownership inscription of Ernest Thorp, Professor of Modern and Political Thought at the London School of Economics, dated ‘Cambridge, 1959’ to verso of front free endpaper.
MacMinn, Hainds & McCrimmon, p. 96.
