His first work, Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, published anonymously in 1821, attracted more attention than any of his other writings.
[2]: 79 About the same time, there also appeared some of his pamphlets, Discussion of Parliamentary Reform, Right of Primogeniture Examined, Defence of Joint-Stock Banks.
In 1852 he published Discourses on Various Subjects; and finally summed up his philosophic views in the Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (three series, 1855, 1858, 1863).
He thus, to a certain extent, agrees with the Scottish School, but he differs from them in rejecting altogether the doctrine of mental faculties.
In the theory of morals, Bailey is an advocate of utilitarianism (though he objects to the term "utility" as being narrow and, to the unthinking, of sordid content), and works out with great skill the steps in the formation of the "complex" mental facts involved in the recognition of duty, obligation, right.