The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill (The Modern Library)

About this book

The thirteen essays in this Modern Library edition comprise a complete survey of the golden age of English philosophy. The anthology begins in the early seventeenth century with Francis Bacons comprehensive program for the total reorganization of all knowledge; it culminates some two hundred and fifty years later with John Stuart Mill. The thinkers represented here are the creators of the twentieth-century world. Indebted to them is a long line of economists sociologists and political leaders whose work has profoundly influenced the life and thought of our own time. Included are the excerpts from Francis Bacons The Great Instauration Thomas Hobbess Leviathan Jeremy Benthams An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation and John Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The complete texts are provided for Lockes second "Treatise of Government" George Berkeleys "Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge" David Humes "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" John Gays "Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality" James Mills "Government" and John Stuart Mills "Utilitarianism" and "On Liberty". With an introduction as well as nine biographical prefaces by Edwin A. Burtt.