Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.

MILL, James.

$7,200.00

Item Number: 141327

London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829.

First edition of this classic exploration of the processes of human thought by the father of John Stuart Mill, whose own “logical and ethical doctrines are evidently suggested” by this work. Octavo, bound in full contemporary calf, armorial stamp to the front panel of the Earl of Shaftesbury, with a four page autographed letter signed by James Mill discussing his interest in the book to Lord Ashley dated 8 July 1829, the year of publication of this volume. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury was a British politician, philanthropist, and a social reformer. He was the eldest son of The 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and his wife, Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of The 4th Duke of Marlborough, and older brother of Henry Ashley, MP. As a social reformer who was called the “Poor Man’s Earl”, he campaigned for better working conditions, reform to lunacy laws, education and the limitation of child labour. He was also an early supporter of the Zionist movement and the YMCA and a leading figure in the evangelical movement in the Church of England. In near fine condition.

Written by James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind theorizes “that the human mind is a store of ‘associations’ of ideas derived from experience (for example, between ‘burn’ and ‘fire’). Reasoning, remembering and other mental phenomena consist of calling up and recombining these associations” (ODNB). “Mill was greatly influenced by Hobbes, Locke, Hume and by the French writers, such as Condillac, Helvetius and Cabanis; but his chief master was Hartley, whose theory of association he applied and extended. The book marks a distinct stage in the development of the empirical school, and many of J.S. Mill’s logical and ethical doctrines are evidently suggested by the attempt to solve problems to which his father’s answers appeared unsatisfactory” (DNB). In Analysis, his magnum opus, “Mill tries to show how all mental activity can be explained by the ways in which the sensations obtained through sense receptors, such as ears, eyes and nose, associate with each other in an organized way, and form more complex emotions, ideas and capacities. It is largely an exercise in logical construction rather than a psychological account… The result is what Mill intended to produce: a small set of general principles derived from an examination of the structure of the human mind, a set that we can then use to formulate practical measures for the improvement of human welfare” (Mander & Sell, 790-91).