The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers covers the period beginning (approximately) with Jeremy Bentham and ending with J.H. Muirhead. All the major 19th-century philosophers are here, but so too is a very wide range of less well-known writers, many of whom have not been mentioned elsewhere in philosophical encyclop dias or dictionaries. The importance of looking at minor figures is now widely accepted. These lesser lights often posed the problems that stimulated greater intellects, and it is usually the more obscure figures, not the luminaries, who are the typical representatives of the thought of a period. If an author contributed directly to the history of ideas or wrote for non-specialist readers about the way human beings perceive or respond to the world, he or she is included.