JOHN STUART MILL. 507 



tion besides pain or pleasure ; but, as regards such, both reward and 

 punishment are irrelevant. I think Mill very successful in illustrating 

 the independence of moral good and evil on the question of the will. 

 He is not too strong in his remonstrance against Hamilton's attempt 

 to frighten people into free-will by declaring that the existence of the 

 Creator hangs upon it. It was quite in Hamilton's way to destroy all 

 the other arguments in favor of a doctrine that he espoused, in order 

 to give freer course to his own. He damages the advocacy of free-will 

 by his slashing antinomy of the two contrary doctrines. It is certain- 

 ly a clearing of the ground, if nothing more, to affirm, as he does so 

 strongly, that " a determination by motives can not escape from neces- 

 sitation." Such admissions give an opponent some advantage, but 

 only as respects him individually. The general controversy, how- 

 ever, miist proceed on different lines from his, and hence the waste of 

 strength in following his lead. 



Hamilton's attack on the study of mathematics Avas a battery of 

 learned quotations brought out to confound Whewell and Cambridge. 

 It is not very convincing ; it hardly even does what Mill thinks tolera- 

 tion of hostile criticism tends to do, namely, bring out the half-truth 

 neglected by the other side. It was not worth while to write so long 

 a chapter in reply ; but Mill, partly from what he learned from Comte, 

 and partly from his own logical studies, had a pat answer to every one 

 of Hamilton's ^joints. Most notable, in my view, is the paragraph 

 about the disastrous influence of the mathematical method of Descartes 

 in all subsequent speculation. He seems there to say that the a priori 

 spirit has been chiefly kept up by the example of mathematics. Now, 

 I freely admit that the axioms of mathematics have been the favorite 

 illustration of intuition ; but there is no certainty that, in the absence 

 of that example, intuitionism would not have had its full swing dur- 

 ing the last two centuries. Mill admits that the crudity of Bacon's 

 inductive canons had an equally bad effect on English speculation ; 

 but all this shows simply that error is the parent of error. 



The two subjects taken up while the " Hamilton " was still in hand 

 — John Austin and Comte — deserve to be ranked among the best of 

 his minor compositions. The " Austin " article took him back to his 

 early days when he worked with Bentham and attended the lectures 

 of Austin at University College. It does not seem to contain much 

 originality, but it is a logical treat. The two " Comte " articles are 

 still more valuable, as being Mill's contribution to the elucidation of 

 Comte's philosophy. It will be long ere an equally searching and dis- 

 passionate estimate of Comte be given to the world ; indeed, no one 

 can again combine the same qualifications for the work. 



