The thirteen essays in this volume comprise a complete survey of the golden age of English philosophy.  Forerunners of the Industrial Revolution, the thinkers here represented are the prophets and the creators of the twentieth-century world. From them stem the economists, sociologists and the political leaders whose work has so profoundly influenced the life and thought of our own time.

This volume of 1,042 pages include the essential writings of Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, John Gay, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill. Such famous essays as Bacon’s  “Novum Orgamun,” Berkeley’s “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Under-standing,” Gay’s “Concerning the Fundamental  Principle of Virtue or Morality,” James Mill’s “Essay on Government,” and John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” and “Utilitarianism” appear in their entirety.

Edwin A. Burtt, Professor of Philosophy, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, is the editor under whose supervision the whole undertaking was carried to completion. He contributes a long interpretive and critical Introduction, as well as nine biographical prefaces.

The publication of The English Philosophers From Bacon to Mill, the forty-seventh title in The Modern Library Giant series, again confirms the statement made by the conservative New York Times that this is “the greatest book bargain in all the world today.”