[Footnote 1: Ribot: Heredity, 2d ed., 1882 [English translation, 1875]; The Diseases of Memory, 1881 [English translation, 1882]; The Diseases of the Will, 1883 [English. 1884]; The Diseases of Personality, 1885 [English, 1887]; The Psychology of Attention, 1889 [English, 1890]; German Psychology of To-day, 2d ed., 1885 [English translation by Baldwin, 1886].]
%3. Great Britain and America.%
Prominent among the British philosophers of the nineteenth century[1] are Hamilton, Bentham, J.S. Mill, and Spencer. Hamilton is the leading representative of the Scottish School; Bentham is known as the advocate of utilitarianism; Mill, an exponent of the traditional empiricism of English thinking, develops the theory of induction and the principle of utility; Spencer combines an agnostic doctrine of the absolute and thoroughgoing evolution in the phenomenal world into a comprehensive philosophical system.[2] In recent years there has been a reaction against empirical doctrines on the basis of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian principles. Foremost among the leaders of this movement we may mention T.H. Green.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Harald Höffding, Einleitung in die englische Philosophie unserer Zeit (Danish, 1874), German (with alterations and additions by the author) by H. Kurella, 1889; David Masson, Recent British Philosophy, 1865, 3d ed., 1877; Ribot, La Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine, 1870, 2d ed., 1875 [English, 1874] Guyau, La Morale Anglaise Contemporaine, 1879 [Morris, British Thought and Thinkers, 1880; Porter, "On English and American Philosophy," Ueberweg's History, English translation, vol. ii. pp. 348-460; O. Pfleiderer, Development of Theology, 1890, book iv.—TR.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. on Mill and Spencer, Bernh. Pünjer, Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, 1878.]
The Scottish philosophy has been continued in the nineteenth century by James Mackintosh (Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, 1830, 3d ed., 1863), and William Whewell (History of the Inductive Sciences, 3d ed., 1857; Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 1840, 3d ed., 1858-60). Its most important representative is Sir William Hamilton[1] of Edinburgh (1788-1856), who, like Whewell, is influenced by Kant. Hamilton bases philosophy on the facts of consciousness, but, in antithesis to the associational psychology, emphasizes the mental activity of discrimination and judgment. Our knowledge is relative, and relations its only object. Consciousness can never transcend itself, it is bound to the antithesis of subject and object, and conceives the existent under relations of space and time. Hence the unconditioned is inaccessible to knowledge and attainable by faith alone. Among Hamilton's followers belong Mansel (Metaphysics, 3d. ed., 1875; Limits of Religions Thought, 5th ed., 1870) and Veitch. The Scottish doctrine was vigorously opposed by J.F. Ferrier (1808-64; Institutes of Metaphysics, 2d ed., 1856), who himself developed an idealistic standpoint.
[Footnote 1: Hamilton: Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, 1852, 3d ed., 1866; Lectures on Metaphysics, 2d ed., 1860, and on Logic, 2d ed., 1866, edited by his pupils, Mansel and Veitch; Reid's Works, with notes and dissertations, 1846, 7th ed., 1872. On Hamilton cf. Veitch, 1882, 1883 [Monck, 1881].]
In the United States the Scottish philosophy has exercised a wide influence. In recent times it has been strenuously advocated, chiefly in the spirit of Reid, by James McCosh (a native of Scotland, but since 1868 in America; The Intuitions of the Mind, 3d ed., 1872; The Laws of Discursive Thought, new ed., 1891; First and Fundamental Truths, 1889); while in Noah Porter (died 1892; The Human Intellect, new ed., 1876; The Elements of Moral Science, 1885) it appears modified by elements from German thinking.
Jeremy Bentham[1] (1748-1832) is noteworthy for his attempt to revive Epicureanism in modern form. Virtue is the surest means to pleasure, and pleasure the only self-evident good. Every man strives after happiness, but not every one in the right way. The honest man calculates correctly, the criminal falsely; hence a careful calculation of the value of the various pleasures, and a prudent use of the means to happiness, is the first condition of virtue; in this the easily attainable minor joys, whose summation amounts to a considerable quantum, must not be neglected. The value of a pleasure is measured by its intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity in the production of further pleasure, purity or freedom from admixture of consequent pain, and extent to the greatest possible number of persons. Every virtuous action results in a balance of pleasure. Inflict no evil on thyself or others from which a balance of good will not result. The end of morality is the "greatest happiness of the greatest number," in the production of which each has first to care for his own welfare: whoever injures himself more than he serves others acts immorally, for he diminishes the sum of happiness in the world; the interest of the individual coincides with the interest of society. The two classes of virtues are prudence and benevolence. The latter is a natural, though not a disinterested affection: happiness enjoyed with others is greater than happiness enjoyed alone. Love is a pleasure-giving extension of the individual; we serve others to be served by them.
[Footnote 1: Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789; new ed., 1823, reprinted 1876; Deontology, 1834, edited by Bowring, who also edited the Works, 1838-43. The Principles of Civil and Criminal Legislation, edited in French from Bentham's manuscripts by his pupil Etienne Dumont (1801, 2d ed., 1820; English by Hildreth, 5th ed., 1887), was translated into German with notes by F.E. Beneke, 1830.]