Civilization

John Stuart Mill

Footnote #03
Whewell's point maintained against a critic


The erudite and able writer in the `Edinburgh Review' [Sir William Hamilton], who has expended an almost superfluous weight of argument and authority in combating the position incidentally maintained in Mr. Whewell's pamphlet, of the great value of mathematics as an exercise of the mind, was, we think, bound to have noticed the fact that the far more direct object of the pamphlet was one which partially coincided with that of its reviewer. We do not think that Mr. Whewell has done well what he undertook: he is vague, and is always attempting to be a profounder metaphysician than he can be; but the main proposition of his pamphlet is true and important, and he is entitled to no little credit for having discerned that important truth, and expressed it so strongly.


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