Torquay
Dec. 5, 18542
My dear Sir
I have been unable
to answer earlier your note of the10th of last month, having only
found time to read the book3 youwere so kind as to send me during
a few days passed at this place
before going abroad for the winter.4
Mr Ferrier has the rare
merit in a controversialist, ofcomplete fairness. He understands
the opinions of all the opponents
whom he notices, as fully and states
them as clearly and forcibly as his own.
He has a very telling mode of discussion.
His fabric of speculation is so effectively
constructed, and imposing, that it almost
ranks as a work of art. It is theromance of logic.
I should be very happy if I
could add that I believed it had done,
what the author is firmly persuaded
it has ―― solved the problem which
all philosophers from the first originof speculation have been vainly
hammering at. On the contrary, it isdepressing to me to see a man of so muchcapacity under what appears to me
so deep a delusion. Truly the main
hindrance of philosophy is not its
intrinsic difficulties, great as theyare, but the extreme rarity of men
1who can reason. It is enough to makeone despair of speculation when aman of so much talent and knowledge
as this book displays, and who piques
himself peculiarly on his reasoning
faculty, commits nearly every fallacy
set down in books of logic, and thisat all the most critical points of
his argument. He says that whoever
admits his first proposition, must
admit all the rest. I do not admit
his first preposition5 but even if I did, his
first great paralogism as it seems
to me consists in thinking that his
second proposition6 follows7 from his
first, and there is a similar or astill greater logical blunder eachtime that he makes any really fresh
advance in his argument. The wholesystem is one great specimen of reasoning
in a circle. Unless each successive
conclusion is presupposed, it is impossible
to admit the premises in the sense inwhich alone they can support it. All
this I am satisfied I could prove to you
book in hand, in an hour’s conversation.
Before I had finished the book
I understood his mode of proceedingso well that I could generally
see beforehand in what manner
he was going to beg the next question.
The effect is most disheartening ――
for when a writer who can so well pointout the fallacies of others, builds an2

entire system of philosophy on paralogisms,
what confidence is it possible to feelin avoiding them ―― and how vain seems
all hope that one has done or can doanything to help these subjects forward.
The only thing which alleviates this
discouragement is the belief that theauthor was from the first on a wrong
tack ―― as all metaphysicians, inmy opinion, will be, until theyleave off revolving in the eternal roundof Descartes and Spinoza (of the formerof whom this book continually remindsme), and cease to imagine thatphilosophy can be founded on "necessary
truths of reason" or indeed that there
are such things as necessary truths ――
any at least which can be known tobe necessary, in the metaphysicalsense of the word. Pray excuse
the seeming crudity with which
I have expressed the opinion you
asked from me ―― it has not been
crudely formed.
I am Dear Sirvery truly yoursJ. S. Mill
注 1 自筆下書き前半は、LSE〔The British Library of Political and Economic Science, atthe London School of Economics and Social Science〕所蔵、残りは、Leeds〔BrothertonLibrary, University of Leeds〕所蔵。エリオット、第 1 巻、184-185 頁に公開済み〔Elliot,The Letters of John Stuart Mill, ed. Hugh S. R. Elliot, 2 vol., London, 1910〕。
医者で、インドとペルシアで勤務した外交官のマクニール（Sir John McNeill. 1795-1883）
は、1845 年スコットランド救貧法管理委員会委員長に任命され、そして、クリミアにおける軍補給調査任務（commission of inquiry on the supplying of troops in the Crimea）に3参加した。
2 日付けはエリオットによるもの。下書きには日付はない。
3

James Ferrier, 『形而上学原理：知と存在の理論』Institutes of Metaphysic, The Theoryof Knowing and Being （[William Blackwood and Sons] Edinburgh and London, 1854）.
ジェームズ・フレデリック・フェリア（James Frederick Ferrier. 1808-1864）は、1845年から 1864 年まで、セント・アンドリューズ大学の道徳哲学および経済学教授であった。
4 ミルは、妻を〔イングランド南西部〕トーキー（Torquay）に連れて行き、彼女は冬をそこで過ごした。その後ミルは、ロンドンを 1854 年 12 月 8 日に離れて、イタリア、シシリーそしてギリシャを含む長期旅行に向かった。ミルは妻と、1855 年 6 月 22 日パリで再会した。
5 「あらゆる知性が知るところのものと共に、知の根拠あるいは条件として、知には、知それ自体の認識がなければならない。」"Along with whatever any intelligence knows, it
must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some cognisance ofitself."[Ferrier, Institutes of Metaphysic, p.75.]
6 「知の対象は、それがどんなものであろうとも、対象として自然にあるいは普段にとらえられている以上のものであるのが常である。対象は常に、自分自身がつけ加えられたも．．．
．．．．．．．の――対象プラス主体――であり、そうあらねばならない。すなわち、自分と共にあるものあるいは思考なのである。自我は、認識のあらゆる対象の完全で必要不可欠な一部分である。」"The object of knowledge, whatever it may be, is always something more thanwhat is naturally or usually regarded as the object. It always is, and must be, the object
with the addition of oneself,―― object plus subject,―― thing, or thought, mecum. Self
is an integral and essential part of every object of cognition." [Ferrier, Institutes ofMetaphysic, p.93.]
7

LSE 所蔵自筆下書き部分はここで終わっている。

4