532 GEORGE BENTHAM. 



Warlow sent from the coast of "Wales a letter to the Athenfrum, in 

 which he refers to Bentham's book as one which had lonsr before 

 anticipated this discovery. Although Hamilton himself never offered 

 explanation of his now unpleasant position (for tlie note obliquely 

 referring to the matter in the second edition of his Discussions is 

 not an explanation), ]\Ir. Baine did (in the Athenaeum for Feb- 

 ruary 1, 1851) immediately endeavor to discredit the importance of 

 Bentham's work, and again in 1873 (Contemporary Review, xxi.), 

 in reply to Herbert Spencer's reclamation of Bentham's discovery. 

 To this Stanley-Jevons made reply in the same volume (pp. 821— 

 824) ; and later, in his Principles of Science (ii. 387), this competent 

 and impartial judge, in speaking of the connection of Bentham's work 

 "with the great discovery of the quantification of the predicate," 

 adds : — 



" I must continue to hold that the principle of quantification is 

 explicitly stated by Mr. Bentham ; and it must be regarded as a 

 remarkable fact in the history of logic, that Hamilton, while vindi- 

 cating, in 1847, his own claims to originality and priority as against 

 the scheme of De Morgan, should have overlooked the much earlier 

 and more closely related discoveries of Bentham." 



It must be that Hamilton reviewed Bentham's book without read- 

 ing it through, or that its ideas did not at the time leave any con- 

 scious impression upon the reviewer's mind, yet may have fructified 

 afterwards. 



After his uncle's death, in 1832, Mr. Bentham gave his undivided 

 attention to botany. He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 

 1828. Robert Brown soon after presented his name to the Royal 

 Society, but withdi'ew it before the election, to mark the dissatisfaction 

 on the part of scientific men with the management of the Society when 

 a Royal Duke was made President. Consequently he did not become 

 F. R. S. until 1862. In 1829, when the Royal Horticultural Society 

 was much embarrassed, he accepted the position of Honorary Secre- 

 tary, with his friend Lindley as an associate. Under their manage- 

 ment it was soon extricated from its perilous condition, attained its 

 highest prosperity and renown, and did its best work for horticulture 

 and botany. In 1833 he married the daughter of Sir Harford 

 Brydges, for many years British Ambassador in Persia, and the 

 next year he took up his residence in the house in Queen Square 

 Place, Westminster, inherited from his uncle, in which the Benthams, 

 Jeremy and his own paternal grandfather, had dwelt for almost a 

 century. The house no longer exists, but upon its site stands the 



