Item 227 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

4 pp.

Trinity Lodge - WW would like to know what RJ has to say about John Mill's book ['A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation', 1843]: 'he appears to me to write like a man whose knowledge is new (indeed he confesses that he had much of it from Herschel [John Herschel, 'A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy', 1830] and me ['The History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time', 3 vols., 1837]) - and not very well appreciated'. He relies far too much on the new work of Liebig [Justus von Liebig] and Herschel's version of Wells's book on Dew: 'Tell Herschel he has something to answer for in persuading people that they could so completely understand the process of discovery from a single example'. With regard to 'the part of Mill's book of which you speak I agree with you that the logic is fairly logical; - also, that it is already dull. The Whateleian logicians are to me far more offensive than the Aristotelians'. Mill's conceit is offensive and he is 'quite subjugated by one whom I think a very bad philosopher, Comte [Auguste Comte], of whom he constantly talks with a veneration which I could easily show you is a most gross idolatry. I had written an article for my philosophy about Comte, but suppressed it wishing to avoid unnecessary controversy' ['The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon their History', 2 vols., 1840].