An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and of the Principal Questions discussed in his writings.

First edition. 8vo. viii, 560 pp. Original purple cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, covers panelled in blind, brown coated endpapers, edges untrimmed (light wear to extremities, spine faded and gently creased at tips, notwithstanding a very good copy). London, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green.

Mill's devastating, book-length critique of the Scottish philosopher Sir William Hamilton's (1788-1856) Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1860), regarded by many as Mill's "most serious onslaught on transcendental belief" (ODNB). Although Hamilton's philosophy is now little-known, the book contains various themes central to Mill's thought, including: "Mill’s analysis of Matter in terms of 'permanent possibilities of sensation', his confessedly abortive analysis of personal identity in similarly phenomenalist terms, his analysis of free-will and responsibility, and his ringing declaration that he would not bow his knee to worship a God whose moral worth he was required to take on trust - all these still find their place in contemporary discussions of empiricism" (Alan Ryan, Introduction to Vol. IX of Mill's Collected Works).

Provenance: contemporary ownership inscription of 'J. M. Marshall' to recto of front free endpaper; later ownership inscription of Ernest Thorp, Professor of Modern and Political Thought at the London School of Economics, dated 'Cambridge, 1959' to verso of front free endpaper.

MacMinn, Hainds & McCrimmon, p. 96.

Stock Code: 246922