EDITOR'S TABLE. 



373 



the study of mental phenomena into 

 more close and vital relations with the 

 surrounding universe than had been 

 possible with the older metaphysical 

 views. James Mill was the author of 

 the ablest exposition of this doctrine 

 that had yet appeared; and his son, 

 therefore, through his father's early and 

 able teaching, had the rarest advan- 

 tages for pursuing the inquiry and oc- 

 cupying the field. But another and a 

 younger man came into that field, and 

 took possession of it. At the age of 

 thirty-five, Mr. Herbert Spencer pub- 

 lished his "Principles of Psychology," 

 of which Mr. Mill himself says, "it is 

 one of the finest examples we possess 

 of the psychological method in its 

 full power." Subsequent criticism has 

 strengthened this judgment, and as- 

 signed to that work an unrivaled posi- 

 tion in the original psychological liter- 

 ature of its time. Mr. J. S. Mill's 

 greatest work upon mind is undoubt- 

 edly his polemical criticism of Sir "Wil- 

 liam Hamilton ; but, after this was 

 published, and the works of Spencer 

 and Mill were left to their influence 

 upon the British public, Prof. Masson, 

 in a lecture before the Koyal Institu- 

 tion, gave expression to the growing 

 conviction concerning Spencer, that, 

 " if any individual influence is visibly 

 encroaching on Mill's in this country, 

 it is his." 



What, now, was the secret by which 

 Mr. Spencer was enabled to beat Mr. 

 Mill in the field where he was most at 

 home, aud had every apparent advan- 

 tage ? It was simply the difference in 

 the education of the two men. Both 

 were examples of great native power 

 of mind ; both were educated by their 

 fathers, and neither went to the uni- 

 versities. But while Mill was sent 

 back in childhood to the world of two 

 thousand years ago, and spent his force 

 in learning half a dozen languages, and 

 in loading himself down with the eru- 

 dition of antiquity, Mr. Spencer was 

 content with his English, left antiquity 



to itself, and entered in childhood into 

 the sphere of modern thought. Mr. 

 Mill had spent his energies on his splen- 

 did scholastic preparation, and could 

 give only the remnant of his powers to 

 the profounder intellectual movement 

 of his own time. Mr. Spencer broke 

 freshly into the study of Nature and 

 science, unperverted by ancient ideas, 

 and unincumbered by antiquated learn- 

 ing, and was thus enabled to make 

 those extensive modern acquisitions by 

 which he has attained such power over 

 the thought of his own time. While 

 Mr. Mill was drilling with the school- 

 logic, which calls for no original 

 thought, Mr. Spencer was making dis- 

 coveries in experimental science, and 

 forming his own opinions on the basis 

 of the most recent knowledge ; and 

 while, in the study of mind, Mr. Mill 

 sunk into little better than a mere com- 

 mentator on his father's ideas, Mr. 

 Spencer took up the great question 

 from his own independent point of view, 

 and has given his contemporaries, per- 

 haps, the most original contribution 

 of the century to the science of mind. 

 "Wherever the two men are brought 

 into comparison, the enormous advan- 

 tage of Spencer, through his mastery of 

 scientific thought, is confessedly appar- 

 ent. Mr. Mill wrote a formal work upon 

 the woman question, as he might have 

 written it two thousand years ago, 

 and as if science had contributed noth- 

 ing that is valuable in its elucidation : 

 Mr. Spencer has lately crossed the field, 

 treating the psychology of the sexes 

 incidentally, and, as a contemporary 

 remarks, his brief sketch makes the 

 " Subjection of Woman " appear " ob- 

 solete and antediluvian " in comparison 

 with it. 



The question that Mr. Mill put to 

 the students, " Why not both ? " finds 

 thus a sufficient answer in his own 

 career. " Both " are impossible ; and 

 Mr. Mill gave himself to the past, at 

 the expense of the future. 



