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But if even those, who adopt the psychological theory, have been remiss in the observation of particular mental facts,—those who deny the theory have been far more than remiss; they have been blind to obvious facts contradicting the principles which they lay down. Mr Mill, in chap, xiv., deals with this denial, common to Mr Mansel with Sir W. Hamilton. That philosophers so eminent as both of them should declare confidently—'what I cannot but think must be à priori, or original to thought; it cannot be engendered by experience upon custom' (p. 264)—appears to us as extraordinary as it does to Mr Mill. Though no one ever surpassed Sir W. Hamilton in large acquaintance with the actual diversities of human belief, and human incapacities of believing—yet he never seems to have thought of bringing this acquaintance into account, when he assured the students in his lecture-room, that custom, experience, indissoluble association, were altogether insufficient to engender a felt necessity of believing. Such forgetfulness of well-known mental facts cannot be reproached to the advocates of the psychological theory.

In chap. xv. Mr Mill examines Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine on unconscious mental modifications. He points out the confused manner in which Sir W. Hamilton has conceived mental latency, as well as the inconclusive character of the reasoning whereby he refutes the following doctrine of Dugald Stewart—That in the most rapid trains of association, each separate item must have been successively present to consciousness, though for a time too short to leave any memory. Sir W. Hamilton thinks that the separate items may pass, and often do pass, unconsciously; which opinion Mr Mill also, though not approving his reasons, is inclined to adopt.

Mr Mill gives various illustrations in support of this doctrine. He at the same time calls attention to a valuable lecture of Sir W. Hamilton's, the thirty-second lecture on Metaphysics; especially to the instructive citation from Cardaillac contained therein, noting the important fact, which descriptions of the Law of Association often keep out of sight—that the suggestive agency of Association is carried on, not by single antecedents raising up single consequents, but by a mass of antecedents raising up simultaneously a mass of consequents, among which attention is very unequally distributed.

We shall say little upon Mr Mill's remarks on Sir W. Hamilton's Theory of Causation—(chap. xvi.). This theory appears to Mr Mill absurd; while the theory of Mr Mill (continued from Hume, Brown, and James Mill) on the same subject, appears to Sir W. Hamilton insufficient and unsatisfactory—'professing to explain the phenomenon of causality, but, previously to explanation, evacuating the phenomenon of all that desiderates explanation'—(p. 295). For ourselves we embrace the theory of Mr Mill:^[13] yet we are aware that the remark just cited from Sir W. Hamilton represents the dissatisfaction entertained towards it by many objectors. The unscientific and antiscientific yearnings, prevalent among mankind, lead them to put questions which no sound theory of Causation will answer; and they are ready to visit and trust any oracle which professes to deliver a confident affirmative solution of such questions. Among all the terms employed by metaphysicians, none is used in a greater variety of meanings than the term Cause.

In Mr Mill's next chapter (xvi.) he comments on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of Concepts or General Notions. There are portions of this chapter with which we agree less than with most other parts of the volume; especially with his marked hostility to the term Concept, and the reasons given for it, which reasons appear to us not very consistent with what he has himself said in the 'System of Logic,' Book IV. chap. ii. § 1—3. The term Concept has no necessary connection with the theory called Conceptualism. It is equally available to designate the idea called up by a general name, as understood either by Mr Bailey or by James Mill. We think it useful as an equivalent to the German word Begriff, which sense Sir W. Hamilton has in view when he introduces it, though he does not always adhere to his profession. And when Mr Mill says (p. 331)—

we dissent from his opinion. To talk of 'the Concept of an individual,' however, as Mr Mansel does (pp. 338, 339), is improper and inconsistent with the purpose for which the name is given.

We are more fully in harmony with Mr Mill in his two next chapters (xviii. et seq.) on Judgment and Reasoning; which are among the best chapters in this volume. He there combats and overthrows the theory of Reasoning laid down by Sir W. Hamilton; but we doubt the propriety of his calling this 'the Conceptualist theory' (pp. 367, 368); since it has nothing to do with Conceptualism, in the special sense of antithesis to Realism and Nominalism,—but is, in fact, the theory of the Syllogism as given in the Analytics of Aristotle, and generally admitted since. Not merely Conceptualists, but (to use Mr Mill's own language, p. 366) 'nearly all the writers on logic, taught a theory of the science too small and narrow to contain their own facts.' Such, indeed, was the theory constantly taught until the publication of Mr Mill's 'System of Logic;' the first two books of which corrected it, by arguments which are reinforced and amplified in these two chapters on Judgment and Reasoning, as well as in the two chapters next following—chaps, xx. and xxi.—('Is Logic the Science of the Forms of Thought—On the Fundamental Laws of Thought.') The contrast which is there presented, in many different ways, between the limited theory of logic taught by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr Mansel, and the enlarged theory of Mr Mill, is instructive in a high degree. We consider Mr Mill as the real preserver of all that is valuable in Formal Logic, from the unfortunate consequences of an erroneous estimate, brought upon it through the exaggerated pretensions of logicians. When Sir W. Hamilton contrasts it pointedly with physical science (of which he talks with a sort of supercilious condescension, in one of the worst passages of his writings, p. 401)—when all its apparent fruits were produced in the shape of ingenious but barren verbal technicalities—what hope could be entertained that Formal Logic could hold its ground in the estimation of the recent generation of scientific men? Mr Mill has divested it of that assumed demonstrative authority which Bacon called 'regere res per syllogismum;' but he has at the same time given to it a firm root amidst the generalities of objective science. He has shown that in the great problem of Evidence or Proof, the Laws of Formal Logic, though bearing only on one part of the entire procedure, yet bear upon one essential part, proper to be studied separately: and that the maintenance of consistency between our affirmations (which is the only special province of Formal Logic), has great importance and value as a part of the process necessary for ascertaining and vindicating their truth, or exposing their character when false or uncertified—but no importance or value except as a part of that larger exigency.