15 

 7. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 



Priestley's connection with the development of this view is 

 important, as in the republication of Hartley's almost for- 

 gotten work, he brought it to the attention of the scientific 

 world about fifty years after its first appearance. He con- 

 tributed practically nothing to it, but just as the world of 

 Hartley's day was not ready to receive the view, the world of 

 Priestley's day may be regarded as ready for it. In any case it 

 immediately received strong support, and was kept promi- 

 nently before those interested until in James Mill it received 

 what may be regarded as its purely psychological elaboration. 



8. JAMES MILL. 



' 'At an early period of Mr. Mill's philosophical life, Hart- 

 ley's work had taken a strong hold of his mind; and in the 

 maturity of his powers he formed and executed the purpose of 

 following up Hartley's leading thought, and completing what 

 that thinker had begun. The result was the present work, 

 which is not only an immense advance on Hartley's in the 

 qualities which facilitate the access of recondite thoughts to 

 minds to which they are new, but attains an elevation far 

 beyond Hartley's in the thoughts themselves. Compared 

 with it, Hartley's is little more than a sketch, though an emi- 

 nently suggestive one : often rather showing where to seek for 

 the explanation of the more complex mental phenomena, than 

 actually explaining them. The present treatise makes clear, 

 much that Hartley left obscure: it possesses the great secret 

 for clearness, though a secret commonly neglected it bestows 

 an extra amount of explanation and exemplification on the 

 most elementary parts. It analyses many important mental 

 phenomena which Hartley passed over, and analyses more 

 completely and satisfactorily most of those of which he com- 

 menced the analysis." 1 



4 'I am far from thinking that the more recondite specimens 

 of analysis in this work are always successful, or that the 

 author has not left something to be corrected as well as much 

 to be completed by his successors. The completion has been 

 especially the work of two distinguished thinkers in the present 

 generation, Professor Bain and Mr. Herbert Spencer; in the 

 writings of both of whom, the Association Psychology has 

 reached a still higher development. * * What there is in 



Barnes Mill, "Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind", edited 

 by J. S. Mill. 2nd ed. 1878. Vol. I, preface, pp. xvii-xviii. 



