To Mr. Charles Eliot Norton.

Cambridge, July 23, 1865.

The time you name for my visit will be a convenient one for me. I wish I could be as sure that Gurney will be able to come with me. I propose to go on Tuesday to Mount Desert Island with Thayer, to revel for a week near the seas and mountains.

I have read Mill’s Hamilton once, and I find it much more difficult to say what I think and feel about it than I anticipated. I feel at present more in the condition of a learner than a critic, but it wouldn’t do to tell the public so. I rebel, nevertheless, against much that Mill says, though I do not feel confident in my opinions. He appears to make sad havoc of Hamilton’s opinions and arguments, and on the latter topic he is certainly strong, and I willingly acknowledge him victor.

This is the way with metaphysics, which are for the most part false, — even clearly false arguments, for opinions vaguely expressive of some ill-apprehended truths. The chief merit of Mill’s book is in the clear exposure he makes of the fallacies, of the metaphysical school which Hamilton represents.

In my second reading, I am taking notes so as to get a summary view of the points which interest me; but these, I fear, will not interest the readers of the “Nation.”

In August, 1865, he writes to Mr. Norton that he has sent to the “Nation” “a very tough and profound criticism,” — an article entitled “Mill on Hamilton.” This was the first

of his contributions to the “Nation” the last appeared only three days before his death. A full list of these contributions is as follows: — Vol. I. No. 9, p. 278, “Mill on Hamilton.” 20, p. 627, “McCosh on Intuitions.” 22, 27, p. 20, “Mill on Comte.” 55, p. 724, “Spencer’s Biology.” 60, p. 804, “Martineau’s Essays.” 23, 72, p. 385, “Masson’s Recent British Philosophy.” 24, 80, p. 27, “Mansel’s Reply to Mill.” 90, p. 231, “Ennis on the Origin of the Stars.” 102, p. 470, “The Reign of Law.” 25, 116, p. 238, Note to “Mathematics in Court.” 26, 148, p. 355, Bledsoe’s “Philosophy of Mathematics.” XIII. 335, p. 355, Two Notes on Mr. C. S. Peirce’s Review of Berkeley. XVI. 412, p. 351, Notice of Mill, from the paragraph beginning, “The standing of Mr. Mill,” to the end. XVIII. 467, p. 381, Lewes’s “Problems of Life and Mind.” XX. 503, p. 113, Two Notes in answer to a request for information about books relating to the theory of Evolution. 505, p. 146, “Sir Charles Lyell.” 508, p. 208, Note on Bastian. 512, p. 277, “McCosh on Tyndall.” 518, p. 379, “Speculative Dynamics.” 520, p. 405, “Who are our Ancestors?” p. 409, Note on Professor Winlock. XXI. 522, p. 9, Two Notes on Sir Henry Maine and the “Greatest Happiness” principle. 524, p. 43, Blackwell’s “Sexes in Nature.” 532, p. 168, “German Darwinism.” ⁴³

In the fall of 1865, his brother George died. It is to this event that the following letter makes reference: —