Résumé

An examination of sir William Hamilton’s philosophy is in several respects exceptional among Mill’s works. Although he devoted several major essays (such as “Bentham” and “Coleridge”), and one book (Auguste Comte and Positivism —originally a pair of essays) to individuals, only here did he subject an author’s texts to a searching and detailed analysis, sustained by an admitted polemical intent. Only part of the work is devoted to an exposition of Mill’s own views, and a few passages at most could be said to provide the kind of synthesis so typical of his other major writings. The kinds of revisions revealed by collation of the editions are also unusual in two related respects: a much higher proportion than in his other works is devoted to answering critics; and far more of the changes are in the form of added footnotes than is usual for him. Another difference is that the response to the book was immediate and strong: it elicited more reviews and critical replies in a short period of time than his Principles of Political Economy, System of Logic, and even On Liberty. Published in 1865, the first edition (of 1000 copies) sold out so quickly that a second edition was prepared within a couple of months, and a third edition, which was published two years after the first, would have appeared sooner had Mill not wished to answer his critics fully and at leisure. A fourth edition, the last in his lifetime, appeared in 1872 only five years after the third, and the work continued in demand for about twenty years.