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of Edinburgh, Session 1873 - 74 . 
minster,” and “Edinburgh ” Reviews, as well as to other periodicals : 
a third volume followed in 1867. A pamphlet of “ Thoughts on 
Parliamentary Reform” was also produced in 1859. In 1861 he 
published “ Considerations on Representative Government.” 
In 1862 the essay on “Utilitarianism” appeared. It contains 
his latest view of ethical theory, and of the new criterion of morality 
which it was one great endeavour of his life to make known. 
Mr Mill’s principal contribution to analytical psychology and 
metaphysics was made in 1865. It took the form of an “ Examin- 
ation of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy;” a large and elaborate 
volume, equal in scope and comprehensiveness to his greatest works. 
The “ Examination ” is a sort of philosophical supplement to his 
“Logic,” in which many of the principles here argued had been 
silently assumed. Its tendency is to promote an explanation, 
through circumstances and association, of beliefs and feelings, 
which are apparently necessary and universal ; in opposition to 
those who treat them as ultimate elements of human nature, and 
even as absolute or ontological necessities of reason. By Mr Mill 
this, like other questions, was not regarded as a mere matter of 
abstract speculation. Like his illustrious predecessor Locke, he 
thought he saw, in a prevailing tendency to consider some princi- 
ples to be independent of the verification of experience, one of the 
most powerful obstructions to the efforts of the social reformer; 
and, like his predecessors on the same path, it may be thought that 
his theory makes science speculatively impossible for man. If 
rationality in nature is the basis of science, knowledge must pre- 
suppose reason in nature as the condition of its own existence ; and 
then all ordinary inductive verification proceeds on the assumption 
of beliefs which do not admit themselves of being verified by obser- 
vation. 
This remarkable essay in metaphysics was followed by an essay 
in which he offers his final estimate of “ Auguste Comte and Posi- 
tivism.” 
After this productive literary period, Mr Mill was withdrawn for 
three years from his studious seclusion at Avignon. At the general 
election in 1865 he was chosen member for Westminster, and he 
appeared in the House of Commons when Parliament met in 
February 1866. In that and the two following sessions he was an 
