Economy' were, at the time when they appeared, the most logical and
condensed exposition of the entire science then existing. Lastly, his
latest avowed production, the 'Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human
Mind,' is a model of perspicuous exposition of complex states of
consciousness, carried farther than by any other author before him; and
illustrating the fulness which such exposition may be made to attain, by
one who has faith in the comprehensive principle of association, and has
learnt the secret of tracing out its innumerable windings. It is,
moreover, the first work in which the great fact of Indissoluble
Association is brought into its due theoretical prominence. These are
high merits, of which lasting evidence is before the public; but there
were other merits in Mr James Mill, less publicly authenticated, yet not
less real. His unpremeditated oral exposition was hardly less effective
than his prepared work with the pen; his colloquial fertility on
philosophical subjects, his power of discussing himself, and of
stimulating others to discuss, his ready responsive inspirations through
all the shifts and windings of a sort of Platonic dialogue--all these
accomplishments were, to those who knew him, even more impressive than
what he composed for the press. Conversation with him was not merely
instructive, but provocative to the dormant intelligence. Of all persons
whom we have known, Mr James Mill was one who stood least remote from
the lofty Platonic ideal of Dialectic--[Greek: _Tou didhonai kahi
dhechesthai lhogon_]--(the giving and receiving of reasons) competent
alike to examine others, or to be examined by them, on philosophy. When
to this we add a strenuous character, earnest convictions, and
single-minded devotion to truth, with an utter disdain of mere
paradox--it may be conceived that such a man exercised powerful
intellectual ascendancy over younger minds. Several of those who enjoyed
his society--men now at, or past, the maturity of life, and some of them
in distinguished positions--remember and attest with gratitude such