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BAILEY, SAMUEL (1791-1870)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 218 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BAILEY, See also:SAMUEL (1791-1870) , See also:British philosopher and author, was See also:born at See also:Sheffield in 1791. He was among the first of those Sheffield merchants who went to the See also:United States to establish See also:trade connexions. After a few years in his See also:father's business, he retired with an ample See also:fortune from all business concerns, with the exception of the Sheffield Banking See also:Company, of which he was chairman for many years. Although an ardent liberal, he took little See also:part in See also:political affairs. On two occasions he stood for Sheffield as a " philosophic See also:radical," but without success. His See also:life is for the most part a See also:history of his numerous and varied publications. His books, if not of first-See also:rate importance, are marked by lucidity, elegance of See also:style and originality of treatment. He diedsuddenly on the 18th of See also:January 187o, leaving over 8o,000 to the See also:town of Sheffield. His first See also:work, Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, published anonymously in 1821 (2nd ed., 1826; 3rd ed., 1837), attracted more See also:attention than any of his other writings. A sequel to it appeared in 1829, Essays on the Pursuit of Truth (2nd ed., 1844). Between these two were Questions in Political See also:Economy, Politics, Morals, &c. (1823), and a See also:Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and Causes of Value (1825), directed against the opinions of See also:Ricardo and his school.

His next publications also were on economic or political subjects, Rationale of Political See also:

Representation (1835), and See also:Money and its Vicissitudes (1837), now practically forgotton; about the same See also:time also appeared some of his See also:pamphlets, Discussion of See also:Parliamentary Reform, Right of See also:Primogeniture Examined, See also:Defence of See also:Joint-Stock See also:Banks. In 1842 appeared his See also:Review of See also:Berkeley's Theory of See also:Vision, an able work, which called forth rejoinders from J. S. See also:Mill in the See also:Westminster Review (reprinted in See also:Dissertations), and from See also:Ferrier in See also:Blackwood (reprinted in Lectures and Remains, ii). Bailey replied to his critics in a See also:Letter to a Philosopher (1843), &c. In 1851 he published Theory of Reasoning (2nd ed., 1852), a discussion of the nature of inference, and an able See also:criticism of the functions and value of the See also:syllogism. In 1852 he published Discourses on Various Subjects; and finally summed up his philosophic views in the Letters on the See also:Philosophy of the Human Mind (three See also:series, 18J5, 1858, 1863). In 1845 he published See also:Moro. a poem in four cantoes (85 pp., See also:Longmans), containing a description of a See also:young poet who printed moo copies of his first poem, of which only to were sold. He was a diligent student of See also:Shakespeare, and his last See also:literary work was On the Received See also:Text of Shakespeare's Dramatic Writings and its Improvement (1862). Many of the emendations suggested are more fantastic than felicitous. The Letters contain a discussion of many of the See also:principal problems in See also:psychology and See also:ethics. Bailey can hardly be classed as belonging either to the strictly empirical or to the idealist school, but his See also:general tendency is towards the former.

(I) In regard to method, he founds psychology ei}tirely on See also:

introspection. He thus, to a certain extent, agrees with the Scottish school, but he differs from them in rejecting altogether the See also:doctrine of See also:mental faculties. What have been designated faculties are, upon his view, merely classified facts or phenomena of consciousness. He criticizes very severely the habitual use of metaphorical See also:language in describing mental operations. (2) His doctrine of See also:perception, which is, in brief, that " the perception of See also:external things through the See also:organs of sense is a See also:direct mental See also:act or phenomenon of consciousness not susceptible of being resolved into anything else," and the reality of which can be neither proved nor disproved, is not worked out in detail, but is supported by elaborate and sometimes subtle criticisms of all other theories. (3) With regard to general and abstract ideas and general propositions, his opinions are those of the empirical school, but his See also:analysis frequently puts the See also:matter in a new See also:light. (4) In the theory of morals, Bailey is an See also:advocate of See also:utilitarianism (though he See also:objects to the See also:term " utility " as being narrow and, to the unthinking, of sordid content), and See also:works out with See also:great skill the steps in the formation of the " complex" mental facts involved in the recognition of See also:duty, See also:obligation, right. He bases all moral phenomena on five facts:—(1) See also:Man is susceptible to See also:pleasure (and See also:pain); (2) he likes (or dislikes) their causes; (3) he desires to reciprocate pleasure and pain received ; (4) he expects such reciprocation from others; (5) he feels more or less sympathy with the same feelings in his See also:fellows (Letters, 3rd series). See A. See also:Bain's Moral See also:Science; Th. See also:Ribot, La Psychologie anglaise contemp.; J. F.

Ferrier, Philos. Remains (Edinb. and Lond., 1875), PP. 351-381.

End of Article: BAILEY, SAMUEL (1791-1870)

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