Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled Part 2

The like may also be said about his other innovation, the Quantification of the Predicate. Still more extensive are the changes (as stated by himself) which this innovation would introduce in the canons of Syllogism. Indeed, when we read his language (Appendix to 'Lectures on Logic,' pp. 291--297) censuring generally the prior logicians from Aristotle downwards, and contending that 'more than half the value of logic had been lost' by their manner of handling it--we may appreciate the magnitude of the reform which he believed himself to be introducing.

The larger the reform, the more it behoved him to be sure of the ground on which he was proceeding. But on this point we remark a serious deficiency. After laying down, with appropriate emphasis, the valuable logical postulate, _to state explicitly what is thought implicitly_, on which, Sir W. Hamilton says,

'Logic ever insists, but which logicians have never fairly obeyed--it follows that logically we ought to take into account the quant.i.ty, _always understood in thought_, but usually, and for manifest reasons, elided in expression, not only of the _subject_, but also of the _predicate_, of a judgment.'--('Discussions on Philos.,' p. 614.)

Here Sir W. Hamilton a.s.sumes that the quant.i.ty of the predicate is always understood in thought; and the same a.s.sumption is often repeated, in the Appendix to his 'Lectures on Logic,' p. 291 and elsewhere, as if it was alike obvious and incontestable. Now it is precisely on this point that issue is here taken with Sir W. Hamilton. Mr Mill denies altogether (p. 437) that the quant.i.ty of the predicate is always understood or present in thought, and appeals to every reader's consciousness for an answer:--

'Does he, when he judges that all oxen ruminate, advert even in the minutest degree to the question, whether there is anything else that ruminates? Is this consideration at all in his thoughts, any more than any other consideration foreign to the immediate subject? One person may know that there are other ruminating animals, another may think that there are none, a third may be without any opinion on the subject; but if they all know what is meant by ruminating, they all, when they judge that every ox ruminates, mean precisely the same thing. The mental process they go through, _as far as that one judgment is concerned_, is precisely identical; though some of them may go on farther, and _add other judgments_ to it.'

The last sentence cited from Mr Mill indicates the vice of Sir W.

Hamilton's proceeding in quantifying the predicate, and explains why it was that logicians before him declined to do so. Sir W. Hamilton, in this proceeding, insists on stating explicitly, not merely all that is thought implicitly, but a great deal more;[14] adding to it something else, which _may_, indeed, be thought conjointly, but which more frequently _is not_ thought at all. He requires us to pack two distinct judgments into one and the same proposition: he interpolates the meaning of the Propositio Conversa _simpliciter_ into the form of the Propositio Convertenda (when an universal Affirmative), and then claims it as a great advantage, that the proposition thus interpolated admits of being converted _simpliciter_, and not merely _per accidens_. Mr Mill is, nevertheless, of opinion (pp. 439-443) that though 'the quantified syllogism is not a true expression of what is in thought, yet writing the predicate with a quantification may be sometimes a real help to the Art of Logic.' We see little advantage in providing a new complicated form, for the purpose of expressing in one proposition what naturally throws itself into two, and may easily be expressed in two. If a man is prepared to give us information on one Quaesitum, why should he be constrained to use a mode of speech which forces on his attention at the same time a second and distinct Quaesitum--so that he must either give us information about the two at once, or confess himself ignorant respecting the second?

The two next chapters of Mr Mill, noticing some other minor peculiarities (all of them unfortunate, and one, p. 447, really unaccountable) of Sir W. Hamilton's Formal Logic; and some Fallacious Modes of Thought countenanced by Sir W. Hamilton (chs. xxiii., xxiv.--pp. 446, 478), we are compelled to pa.s.s over. We must find s.p.a.ce, however, for a few words on the Freedom of the Will (ch. xxv.), which (in Mr Mill's language, pp. 488--549), 'was so fundamental with Sir W.

Hamilton, that it may be regarded as the central idea of his system--the determining cause of most of his philosophical opinions.' Prior to Sir W. Hamilton, we find some writers who maintain the doctrine of Free-will, others who maintain that of Necessity: each supporting their respective conclusions by reasons which they deem sufficient. Sir W.

Hamilton declares that both the one doctrine and the other are inconceivable and incomprehensible; yet that, by the law of Excluded Middle, one or other of them must be true: and he decides in favour of Free-will, of which he believes himself to be distinctly conscious; moreover, Free-will is essential (he thinks) to moral responsibility, of which also he feels himself conscious. He confesses himself, however, unable to explain the possibility of Free-will; but he maintains that the same may be said about Necessity also. 'The champions of both the two opposite doctrines are at once resistless in attack, and impotent in defence'--(Hamilton's 'Footnotes on Reid,' p. 602.) Mr Mansel also a.s.serts, even more confidently than Sir W. Hamilton, that we are directly conscious of Free-will--(p. 503).

Sir W. Hamilton has himself given some of the best arguments against the doctrine of Free-will, in refutation of Reid: arguments, some of which are here cited by Mr Mill with praise which they well deserve--(pp. 497, 498). But Mr Mill's own reasoning on the same side is of a still higher order, enlarging the grounds previously urged in the last book of his 'System of Logic,' He protests against the term _Necessity_; and discards the idea of Necessity, if it be understood to imply anything more than invariability of antecedence and consequence. If it mean _that_, experience proves thus much about antecedents in the world of mind, as in the world of matter: if it mean more, experience does not prove more, either in the world of matter or in the world of mind: nor have we any grounds for affirming it in either--(p. 501.) If it were true, therefore, that consciousness attested Free-will, we should find the testimony of consciousness opposed to a full proof from experience and induction. But does consciousness really attest what is called Free-will? Mr Mill a.n.a.lyzes the case, and declares in the negative.

'To be conscious of Free-will, must mean to be conscious, before I have decided, that I am able to decide either way; exception may be taken _in limine_ to the use of the word _consciousness_ in such an application. Consciousness tells me what I do or feel. But what I am _able_ to do, is not a subject of consciousness. Consciousness is not prophetic; we are conscious of what is, not of what will or can be. We never know that we are able to do a thing, except from having done it, or something similar to it. Having acted, we know, as far as that experience reaches, how we are able to act; _and this knowledge, when it has become familiar, is often confounded with, and called by, the name of consciousness._ But it does not derive any increase of authority from being misnamed: its truth is not supreme over, but depends upon, experience. If our so-called consciousness is not borne out by experience, it is a delusion. It has no t.i.tle to credence, but as an interpretation of experience; and if it is a false interpretation, it must give way.'--pp. 503, 504

After this salutary and much-needed warning against the confusion between consciousness as an infallible authority, and belief upon experience, of which we are conscious as a belief--Mr Mill proceeds to sift the alleged self-evident connection between Free-will and Accountability. He shows, not merely that there is no connection, but that there is a positive repugnance, between the two. By Free-will is meant that a volition is not determined by motives, but is a spontaneous mental fact, neither having a cause, nor admitting of being predicted.

Now, the very reason for giving notice that we intend to punish certain acts, and for inflicting punishment if the acts be committed, is, that we trust in the efficacy of the threat and the punishment as deterring motives. If the volition of agents be not influenced by motives, the whole machinery of law becomes unavailing, and punishment a purposeless infliction of pain. In fact, it is on that very ground that the madman is exempted from punishment; his volition being presumed to be not capable of being acted upon by the deterring motive of legal sanction.

The _free_ agent, thus understood, is one who can neither feel himself accountable, nor be rendered accountable, to or by others. It is only the _necessary_ agent (the person whose volitions are determined by motives, and, in case of conflict, by the strongest desire or the strongest apprehension) that can be held really accountable, or can feel himself to be so.

'The true doctrine of the Causation of human actions (says Mr Mill, p. 516) maintains, in opposition both to pure and to modified Fatalism, that not only our conduct, but our character, is in part amenable to our will: that we can, by employing the proper means, improve our character: and that if our character is such that, while it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong--it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us to strive for its improvement. We shall not indeed do so unless we desire our improvement, and desire it more than we dislike the means which must he employed for the purpose.'

It thus appears that of the two propositions, 1, volitions are necessary, or depend on causes; 2, volitions are free, or do not depend on causes--neither the one nor the other is inconceivable or incomprehensible, as Sir W. Hamilton supposed them to be. That the first is true, and the second false, we learn by experience, and by that alone; just as we learn the like in regard to the phenomena of the material world. Indeed, the fact that human volitions are both predictable and modifiable, quite as much as all those physical phenomena that depend upon a complication of causes--which is only a corollary from what has just been said--is so universally recognized and acted upon by all men, that there would probably be little difference of opinion about this question, if the ant.i.thesis were not obscured and mystified by the familiar, but equivocal, phrases of Free-will and Necessity.

Pa.s.sing over chapter xxvii., in which Mr Mill refutes Sir W. Hamilton's opinion that the study of mathematics is worthless, or nearly so, as an intellectual discipline--we shall now call attention to the concluding remarks which sum up the results of the volume. After saying that he 'differs from almost everything in Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, on which he particularly valued himself, or which is specially his own,'

Mr Mill describes Sir W. Hamilton's general merits as follows:--

'They chiefly consist in his clear and distinct mode of bringing before the reader many of the fundamental questions of metaphysics: some good specimens of psychological a.n.a.lysis on a small scale: and the many detached logical and psychological truths which he has separately seized, and which are scattered through his writings, mostly applied to resolve some special difficulty, and again lost sight of. I can hardly point to anything he has done towards helping the more thorough understanding of the greater mental phenomena, unless it be his theory of Attention (including Abstraction), which seems to me the most perfect we have; but the subject, though a highly important, is comparatively a simple one.'--p. 547.

Agreeing in this general view of Sir W. Hamilton's merits, we should be disposed to describe them in language stronger and more emphatic as to degree, than that which has just been cited. But what is stated in the pages immediately following (pp. 550, 551)--That Sir W. Hamilton's doctrines appear to be usually taken up under the stimulus of some special dispute, and often afterwards forgotten; That he did not think out subjects until they were thoroughly mastered, or until consistency was attained between the different views which the author took from different points of observation; That accordingly, his philosophy seems made up of sc.r.a.ps from several conflicting metaphysical systems--All this is literally and amply borne out by the many inconsistencies and contradictions which Mr Mill has brought to view in the preceding chapters. It would appear that the controversial disposition was powerful with Sir W. Hamilton, and that a present impulse of that sort (as has been said respecting Bayle, Burke, and others) not only served to provoke new intellectual combinations in his mind, but also exercised a Lethaean influence in causing obliviscence of the old. But we can hardly follow Mr Mill in ascribing the defect to 'excessive absorption of time and energy by the study of old writers' (p. 551). If this study did no other good, it at least kept the memory in exercise.

Now, what surprises us most in Sir W. Hamilton's inconsistencies, is the amount of self-forgetfulness which they imply.

While the laborious erudition of Sir W. Hamilton cannot be fairly regarded as having produced any of his intellectual defects, it undoubtedly stamped upon him his special t.i.tle of excellence as a philosopher. This is fully recognized by Mr Mill; though he treats it as belonging not so much to a philosopher as to an historian of philosophy.

He concludes (pp. 552--554):--

'It is much to be regretted that Sir W. Hamilton did not write the history of philosophy, instead of choosing, as the direct object of his intellectual exertions, philosophy itself. He possessed a knowledge of the materials such as no one, probably for many generations, will take the trouble of acquiring again. Independently of the great interest and value attaching to a knowledge of the historical development of speculation, there is much in the old writers on philosophy, even those of the middle ages, really worth preserving for its scientific value. But this should be extracted, and rendered into the phraseology of modern thought, by persons as familiar with that as with the ancient, and possessing a command of its language: a combination never yet so perfectly realized as in Sir W.

Hamilton. This, which no one but himself could have done, he has left undone, and has given us, instead, a contribution to mental philosophy, which has been more than equalled by many not superior to him in powers, and wholly dest.i.tute of erudition. Of all persons in modern times ent.i.tled to the name of philosophers, the two, probably, whose reading on the subject was the scantiest, in proportion to their intellectual capacity, were Archbishop Whately and Dr Brown.

Accordingly they are the only two of whom Sir W. Hamilton, though acknowledging their abilities, speaks with some tinge of superciliousness. It cannot be denied that both Dr Brown and Whately would have thought and written better than they did, if they had been better read in the writings of previous thinkers; but I am not afraid that posterity will contradict me when I say, that either of them has done far greater service to the world in the origination and diffusion of important thought, than Sir W. Hamilton with all his learning; because, though indolent readers, they were both of them active and fertile thinkers.

'It is not that Sir W. Hamilton's erudition is not frequently of real use to him on particular questions of philosophy. It does him one valuable service: it enables him to know all the various opinions which can be held on the questions he discusses, and to conceive and express them clearly, leaving none of them out. This it does, though even this not always; but it does little else, even of what might be expected from erudition when enlightened by philosophy.

He knew, with extraordinary accuracy, the [Greek: hoti] of each philosopher's opinions, but gave himself little trouble about the [Greek: dihoti]. With one exception, I find no remark bearing upon that point in any part of his writings.

I imagine he would have been much at a loss if he had been required to draw up a philosophical estimate of the mind of any great thinker. He never seems to look at any opinion of a philosopher in connection with the same philosopher's other opinions. Accordingly he is weak as to the mutual relations of philosophical doctrines. One of the most striking examples of this inability is in the case of Leibnitz,' &c.

Here we find in a few sentences the conclusion which Mr Mill conceives to be established by his book. We shall state how far we are able to concur with it. He has brought the matter to a direct issue, by weighing Sir W. Hamilton in the balance against two other actual cotemporaries; instead of comparing him with some unrealized ideal found only in the fancy of critics and reviewers.

Comparing Sir W. Hamilton with Dr Brown, we cordially subscribe to the opinion of Mr Mill. We think that Dr Brown has 'done far greater service to the world than Sir W. Hamilton, in the origination and diffusion of important thought.' To speak only of two chief subjects in the field of important thought--Causality and the Freedom of the Will--we not only adopt the conclusions of Dr Brown, but we admire both his acuteness and his originality in vindicating and ill.u.s.trating the first of the two, while we dissent entirely from the views of Sir W.

Hamilton. This alone would be sufficient to make us approve the superiority a.s.signed by Mr Mill to Dr Brown. We discover no compensating item to be placed to the credit of Sir W. Hamilton: for the great doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, which is our chief point of philosophical brotherhood with him, was maintained by Brown also.

But in regard to Dr Whately, our judgment is altogether different. We cannot consent to admit him as a superior, or even as an equal, to Sir W. Hamilton, 'in the origination and diffusion of important thought.' He did much service by reviving an inclination and respect for Logic, and by clearing up a part of the technical obscurity which surrounded it: but we look upon him as an acute and liberal-minded English theologian, enlarging usefully, though timidly, the intellectual prison in which many orthodox minds are confined--rather than as a fit aspirant to the cosmopolitan honours of philosophy. 'An active and fertile thinker,' Mr Mill calls Whately; and such he undoubtedly was. But such also we consider Sir W. Hamilton to have been in a degree, at least equal. If the sentence which we have quoted above be intended to deny the predicate, 'active and fertile thinker,' of Sir W. Hamilton, we cannot acquiesce in it. His intellect appears to us thoroughly active and fertile, even when we dissent from his reasonings--nay, even in the midst of his inconsistencies, when a new growth of opinions is unexpectedly pushed up on ground which we supposed to be already pre-occupied by another both older and different. And we find this same judgment implied in the discriminating remarks upon his philosophical procedure made by Mr Mill himself--(pp. 271, 272). For example, respecting Causality and the Freedom of the Will, we detect no want of activity and fertility, though marked evidence of other defects--especially the unconditional surrender of a powerful mind to certain privileged inspirations, worshipped as 'necessities of thought.'

While thus declaring how far we concur in the parallel here drawn of Sir W. Hamilton with Brown and Whately, we must at the same time add that the comparison is taken under circ.u.mstances unduly favourable to these two last. There has been no exposure of _their_ errors and inconsistencies, equal in penetration and completeness to the crushing volume which Mr Mill has devoted to Sir W. Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he ought to furnish a similar systematic examination to Brown and Whately; enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir W.

Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled microscope, which detects the minutest breach or incoherence in the tissue of reasoning--and of his large command of philosophical premisses, which brings into full notice what the author had overlooked. Thus alone could the compet.i.tion between the three be rendered perfectly fair.

We regret, as Mr Mill does, that Sir W. Hamilton did not undertake the composition of a history of philosophy. Nevertheless we must confess that we should hardly feel such regret, if we could see evidence to warrant Mr Mill's judgment (p. 554) that Sir W. Hamilton was 'indifferent to the [Greek: dihoti] of a man's opinions, and that he was incompetent to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great thinker,' &c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and considerable, would deprive an author of all chance of success in writing a history of philosophy. But the study of Sir William Hamilton's works does not prove it to us, though Mr Mill has convicted him of an erroneous estimate of Leibnitz. We say _frequent_ and _considerable_, because no historian of philosophy is exempt from the defect more or less; or rather (to pa.s.s out of the self-confidence of the Absolute into the modesty of the Relative) we seldom find any historian whose estimate of great philosophical thinkers does not often differ from our own.

Hence we are glad when ample original extracts are produced, enabling us to test the historian, and judge for ourselves--a practice which Sir W.

Hamilton would have required no stimulus to enforce upon him. There ought, indeed, to be various histories of philosophy, composed from different points of view; for the ablest historian cannot get clear of a certain exclusiveness belonging to himself. But, so far as we can conjecture what Sir W. Hamilton _would_ or _could_ have done, we think that a history of philosophy composed by him would have surpa.s.sed any work of the kind in our language.

We trust that Sir W. Hamilton's works will long continue to be read, along with Mr Mill's examination of them; and we should be glad if the works of other philosophers could be read along with a comment of equal acuteness and impartiality. Any point of view which could command the adherence of such a mind as Sir W. Hamilton's, deserves to be fully considered. Moreover, the living force of philosophy, as directress of human intelligence, depends upon keeping up in each of her devotees a full mastery of many divergent and opposite veins of reasoning--a knowledge, negative and affirmative, of the full case of opponents as well as of his own.

It is to Philosophy alone that _our_ allegiance is sworn; and while we concur mostly with Mr Mill's opinions, we number both him and Sir W.

Hamilton as a n.o.ble pair of brethren, serving alike in her train.

_Amicus Hamilton; magis amicus Mill; amica ante omnes Philosophia._ FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Mr Mansel and Mr Veitch, the editors of Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, posthumously published, say in their preface (p. xiii.)--

'For twenty years--from 1836 to 1856--the courses of logic and metaphysics were the means through which Sir William Hamilton sought to discipline and imbue with his philosophical opinions the numerous youth who gathered from Scotland and other countries to his cla.s.sroom; and while, by these prelections, the author supplemented, developed, and moulded the national philosophy, leaving thereon the ineffaceable impress of his genius and learning, he, at the same time and by the same means, exercised over the intellects and feelings of his pupils an influence which, for depth, feeling, and elevation, was certainly never surpa.s.sed by that of any philosophical instructor. Among his pupils there are not a few who, having lived for a season under the constraining power of his intellect, and been led to reflect on those great questions regarding the character, origin, and bounds of human knowledge, which his teaching stirred and quickened, bear the memory of their beloved and revered instructor inseparably blended with what is highest in their present intellectual life, as well as in their practical aims and aspirations.']

[Footnote 2: We are happy to find such high authorities as Dr Whewell, Mr Samuel Bailey, and Sir John Herschel concurring in this estimation of the new logical point of view thus opened by Mr Mill. We will not call it a _discovery_, since Sir John Herschel thinks the expression unsuitable.--See the recent sixth edition of the 'System of Logic,' vol.

i. p. 229.]

[Footnote 3: See Sir William. Hamilton's 'Lectures on Logic' (Lect.

xvii. p. 320, 321; also Appendix to those Lectures, p. 361). He here distinguishes also formal induction from, material induction, which latter he brings under the grasp of syllogism, by an hypothesis in substance similar to that of Whately. There is, however, in Lecture xix.

(p. 380), a pa.s.sage in a very different spirit, which one might almost imagine to have been written by Mr Mill: 'In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an original dogma of the Platonic school, and an early dogma of the Peripatetic, that science, strictly so called, was only conversant with, and was exclusively contained in, universals; and the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught that all our general knowledge is only an induction from an observation of particulars, was too easily forgotten or perverted by his followers. It thus obtained almost the force of an acknowledged principle that everything to be known must be known under some general form or notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attributed to definition and deduction; it not being considered that we only take out of a general notion what we had previously placed therein, and that the amplification of our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but from below--not from speculation about abstract generalities, but from the observation of concrete particulars. Bat however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had its day and influence, and it perhaps determined, as one of its effects, the total neglect of one half, and that not the least important half of the reasoning process.'

These very just observations are suggested to Sir William Hamilton by a train of thought which has little natural tendency to suggest them, viz., by the distinction upon which he so much insists, between the logic of comprehension and the logic of extension, and by his anxiety to explain why the former had been exclusively cultivated and the latter neglected.

That which Sir William Hamilton calls here truly the doctrine of Aristotle (enunciated especially at the close of the a.n.a.lyt. Post.), and which he states to have been forgotten by Aristotle's followers, was not always remembered by Aristotle himself.]

[Footnote 4: The distinction is given by Stier and other logicians. 1.

Infinitum simpliciter. 2. Infinitum secundum quid, sive in certo genere.]

[Footnote 5: This doctrine has been affirmed (so far as reason is concerned, apart from revelation) not merely by Mr Mansel, but also by Pascal, one of the most religious philosophers of the seventeenth century, in the 'Pensees':--

'Parlons selon les lumieres naturelles. S'il y a un Dieu, il est infiniment incomprehensible; puisque, n'ayant ni principes ni bornes, il n'a nul rapport a nous; nous sommes done incapables de connaitre ni ce qn'il est, ni s'il est.'--(See Arago, Biographie de Condorcet, p.

lx.x.xiv., prefixed to his edition of Condorcet's works.)]

[Footnote 6: The indictment under which Socrates was condemned at Athens, as reported by Xenophon at the commencement of the Memorabilia, ran thus--'Socrates is guilty of crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in those G.o.ds in whom the City believes, but introduces other novelties in regard to the G.o.ds; he is guilty also, inasmuch as he corrupts the youth.'

These words express clearly a sentiment entertained not merely by the Athenian people, but generally by other societies also. They all agree in antipathy to free, individual, dissenting reason; though that antipathy manifests itself by acts, more harsh in one place, less harsh in another. The Hindoo who declares himself a convert to Christianity, becomes at the same time an outcast ([Greek: _aphrhetor, athhemistos, anhestios_]) among those whose G.o.ds he has deserted. As a general fact, the man who dissents from his fellows upon fundamentals of religion, purchases an undisturbed life only by being content with that 'semi-liberty under silence and concealment,' for which Cicero was thankful under the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. 'Obsecro--abiiciamus ista et semi-liberi saltern, simus; quod a.s.sequemur _et tacendo et latendo'_ (Epist. ad Attic, xiii. 31). Contrast with this the memorable declaration of Socrates, in the Platonic Apology, that silence and abstinence from cross-examination were intolerable to him; that life would not be worth having under such conditions.]

[Footnote 7: Aeschyl. Prometh., 996-1006--

pros tauta, rhipthestho men aithaloussa phlox, leykoptherps de niphadi kai bronthemasin chthonhiois kykhato phanta kahi tara.s.sheto gnhampsei gar ouden tondhe m'---- eiseltheto se mhepot, hos ego, Dios gnhomen phobetheis, thelhynoys genhesomai, kai liparheso ton mhega stygohymenon gynaikomhimois hyptihysmasin cherhon, lyshai me dhesmon tonde toy pantos oheo.

Also v. 1047, et seq. The memorable ode of Goethe, ent.i.tled _Prometheus_, embodies a similar vein of sentiment in the finest poetry.]