do wrong—­it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us to strive for its improvement.  We shall not indeed do so unless we desire our improvement, and desire it more than we dislike the means which must he employed for the purpose.’

It thus appears that of the two propositions, 1, volitions are necessary, or depend on causes; 2, volitions are free, or do not depend on causes—­neither the one nor the other is inconceivable or incomprehensible, as Sir W. Hamilton supposed them to be.  That the first is true, and the second false, we learn by experience, and by that alone; just as we learn the like in regard to the phenomena of the material world.  Indeed, the fact that human volitions are both predictable and modifiable, quite as much as all those physical phenomena that depend upon a complication of causes—­which is only a corollary from what has just been said—­is so universally recognized and acted upon by all men, that there would probably be little difference of opinion about this question, if the antithesis were not obscured and mystified by the familiar, but equivocal, phrases of Free-will and Necessity.

Passing over chapter xxvii., in which Mr Mill refutes Sir W. Hamilton’s opinion that the study of mathematics is worthless, or nearly so, as an intellectual discipline—­we shall now call attention to the concluding remarks which sum up the results of the volume.  After saying that he ’differs from almost everything in Sir W. Hamilton’s philosophy, on which he particularly valued himself, or which is specially his own,’ Mr Mill describes Sir W. Hamilton’s general merits as follows:—­

’They chiefly consist in his clear and distinct mode of bringing before the reader many of the fundamental questions of metaphysics:  some good specimens of psychological analysis on a small scale:  and the many detached logical and psychological truths which he has separately seized, and which are scattered through his writings, mostly applied to resolve some special difficulty, and again lost sight of.  I can hardly point to anything he has done towards helping the more thorough understanding of the greater mental phenomena, unless it be his theory of Attention (including Abstraction), which seems to me the most perfect we have; but the subject, though a highly important, is comparatively a simple one.’—­p. 547.

Agreeing in this general view of Sir W. Hamilton’s merits, we should be disposed to describe them in language stronger and more emphatic as to degree, than that which has just been cited.  But what is stated in the pages immediately following (pp. 550, 551)—­That Sir W. Hamilton’s doctrines appear to be usually taken up under the stimulus of some special dispute, and often afterwards forgotten; That he did not think out subjects until they were thoroughly mastered, or until consistency was attained between the different views which the author took from different points of observation; That accordingly,