also to enlarge our knowledge of philosophy generally.  We set particular value upon this preservation of the traditions of philosophy, and upon this maintenance of a known perpetual succession among the speculative minds of humanity, with proper comparisons and contrasts.  We have found among the names quoted by Sir W. Hamilton, and, thanks to his care, several authors hardly at all known to us, and opinions cited from them not less instructive than curious.  He deserves the more gratitude, because he departs herein from received usage since Bacon and Descartes.  The example set by these great men was admirable, so far as it went to throw off the authority of predecessors; but pernicious so far as it banished those predecessors out of knowledge, like mere magazines of immaturity and error.  Throughout the eighteenth century, all study of the earlier modes of philosophizing was, for the most part, neglected.  Of such neglect, remarkable instances are pointed out by Sir W. Hamilton.

While speaking about the general merits and philosophical position of Sir William Hamilton, we have hitherto said nothing about those of Mr Mill.  But before we proceed to analyze the separate chapters of his volume, we must devote a few words to the fulfilment of another obligation.

Mr John Stuart Mill has not been the first to bestow honour on the surname which he bears.  His father, Mr James Mill, had already ennobled the name.  An ampler title to distinction in history and philosophy can seldom be produced than that which Mr James Mill left behind him.  We know no work which surpasses his ‘History of British India’ in the main excellencies attainable by historical writers:  industrious accumulation, continued for many years, of original authorities—­careful and conscientious criticism of their statements—­and a large command of psychological analysis, enabling the author to interpret phenomena of society, both extremely complicated, and far removed from his own personal experience.  Again, Mr James Mill’s ’Elements of Political Economy’ were, at the time when they appeared, the most logical and condensed exposition of the entire science then existing.  Lastly, his latest avowed production, the ’Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind,’ is a model of perspicuous exposition of complex states of consciousness, carried farther than by any other author before him; and illustrating the fulness which such exposition may be made to attain, by one who has faith in the comprehensive principle of association, and has learnt the secret of tracing out its innumerable windings.  It is, moreover, the first work in which the great fact of Indissoluble Association is brought into its due theoretical prominence.  These are high merits, of which lasting evidence is before the public; but there were other merits in Mr James Mill, less publicly authenticated, yet not less real.  His unpremeditated oral exposition was hardly less effective than his prepared work with the pen; his colloquial fertility