IC-NRLF 
 
 GEORGE GROTE 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 

EE VIE W 
 
 OP 
 
 THE WORK OF MR JOHN STUART MILL, 
 ENTITLED, c EXAMINATION OF 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY.' 
 
 BY GEORGE GROTE, 
 
 'THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE,' 
 PLATO AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOCRATES,' ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 N. TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1868. 
 
 [All Rights reserved.] 
 
Reprinted from, the ' Westminster Reriere 
 January 1, 1866. 
 
 JOHN CiriLDS AND PON, PRINTERS. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's 
 Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophi- 
 cal Questions discussed in his Writings. 
 By JOHN STUART MILL. London : Long- 
 mans. 1865. 
 
 THE work bearing the above title is an 
 octavo volume, consisting of twenty-eight 
 chapters, and five hundred and sixty pages. 
 This is no great amount of print; but the 
 amount of matter contained in it is prodigious, 
 and the quality of that matter such as to 
 require a full stretch of attention. Mr Mill 
 gives his readers no superfluous sentences, 
 scarcely even a superfluous word, above what 
 is necessary to express his meaning briefly and 
 clearly. Of such a book no complete abstract 
 can be given in the space to which we are 
 
 confined. 
 
 1 
 
 1 ^ o o * f\ 
 
2 The Philosophy of 
 
 To students of philosophy doubtless but 
 a minority among the general circle of 
 English readers this work comes recom- 
 mended by the strongest claims both of 
 interest and instruction. It presents in direct 
 antithesis two most conspicuous representa- 
 tives of the modern speculative mind of 
 England Sir "W". Hamilton and Mr John 
 Stuart Mill. 
 
 Sir W. TTmm'1 ton has exercised powerful 
 influence over the stream of thought during 
 the present generation. The lectures on 
 Logic and Metaphysics delivered by him 
 at Edinburgh, for twenty years, determined 
 the view taken of those subjects by a large 
 number of aspiring young students, and 
 determined that view for many of them 
 permanently and irrevocably.* Several emi- 
 
 * Mr Hansel and Mr Veitch, the editors of Sir W. 
 Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, posthumously 
 published, say in their preface (p. xiii.) 
 
 ' For twenty years from 1836 to 1856 the courses 
 of logic and metaphysics were the means through which 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 3 
 
 nent teachers and writers of the present 
 day are proud of considering themselves his 
 disciples, enunciate his doctrines in greater 
 or less proportion, and seldom contradict him 
 without letting it be seen that they depart 
 unwillingly from such a leader. Various 
 
 Sir William Hamilton sought to discipline and imbue 
 with his philosophical opinions the numerous youth who 
 gathered from Scotland and other countries to his class- 
 room ; and while, by these prelections, the author sup- 
 plemented, developed, and moulded the national philo- 
 sophy, leaving thereon the ineffaceable impress of his 
 genius and learning, he, at the same time and by the 
 same means, exercised over the intellects and feelings of 
 his pupils an influence which, for depth, feeling, and 
 elevation, was certainly never surpassed by that of any 
 philosophical instructor. Among his pupils there are not 
 a few who, having lived for a season under the constrain- 
 ing power of his intellect, and been led to reflect on 
 those great questions regarding the character, origin, and 
 bounds of human knowledge, which his teaching stirred and 
 quickened, bear the memory of their beloved and revered 
 instructor inseparably blended with what is highest in 
 their present intellectual life, as well as in their practical 
 aims and aspirations.' 
 
4 The Philosophy of 
 
 new phrases and psychological illustrations 
 have obtained footing in treatises of philo- 
 sophy, chiefly from his authority. We do 
 not number ourselves among his followers ; 
 but we think his influence on philosophy was 
 in many ways beneficial. He kept up the 
 idea of philosophy as a subject to be studied 
 from its own points of view : a dignity which 
 in earlier times it enjoyed, perhaps, to mis- 
 chievous excess, but from which in recent 
 times it has far too much receded especially 
 in England. He performed the great service 
 of labouring strenuously to piece together the 
 past traditions of philosophy, to re-discover 
 those which had been allowed to drop into 
 oblivion, and to make out the genealogy of 
 opinions as far as negligent predecessors had 
 still left the possibility of doing so. 
 
 The forty-six lectures on Metaphysics, and 
 the thirty-five lectures on Logic, published 
 by Messrs Mansel and Yeitch, constitute the 
 biennial course actually delivered by Sir W. 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 5 
 
 Hamilton in the Professorial Chair. They 
 ought therefore to be looked at chiefly with 
 reference to the minds of youthful hearers, as 
 preservatives against that mischief forcibly 
 described by Rousseau ' L'inhabitude de 
 penser dans la jeunesse en ote la capacite pen- 
 dant le reste de la vie.' 
 
 Now, in a subject so abstract, obscure, 
 and generally unpalatable, as Logic and 
 Metaphysics, the difficulty which the teacher 
 finds in inspiring interest is extreme. That 
 Sir "W. Hamilton overcame such difficulty 
 with remarkable success, is the affirmation of 
 his two editors ; and our impression, as 
 readers of his lectures, disposes us to credit 
 them. That Sir W. Hamilton should have 
 done this effectively is in itself sufficient to 
 stamp him as a meritorious professor as a 
 worthy successor to the chair of Dugald 
 Stewart, whose unrivalled perfection in that 
 department is attested by every one. Many 
 a man who ultimately adopted speculative 
 
6 The Philosophy of 
 
 opinions opposed to Dugald Stewart, received 
 his first impulse and guidance in the path of 
 speculation from the lasting impression made 
 by Stewart's lectures. 
 
 But though we look at these lectures, as 
 they ought to be looked at, chiefly with a 
 view to the special purpose for which they 
 were destined, we are far from insinuating 
 that they have no other merits, or that they 
 are useless for readers who have already a 
 metaphysical creed of their own. "We have 
 found them both instructive and interesting : 
 they go over a large proportion of the field of 
 speculative philosophy, partly from the point 
 of view (not always the same) belonging to 
 the author, partly from that of numerous 
 predecessors whom he cites. We recognize 
 also in Sir W. Hamilton an amount of 
 intellectual independence which seldom ac- 
 companies such vast erudition. He recites 
 many different opinions, but he judges them 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 7 
 
 all for himself ; and, what is of still greater 
 moment, lie constantly gives the reasons for 
 his judgments. To us these reasons are 
 always of more or less value, whether we 
 admit them to be valid or not. Many philo- 
 sophers present their own doctrine as if it 
 wre so much ascertained and acknowledged 
 truth, either intimating, or leading you to 
 suppose, that though erroneous beliefs to the 
 contrary formerly prevailed, these have now 
 become discredited with every one. We do 
 not censure this way of proceeding, but we 
 prefer the manner of Sir W. Hamilton. He 
 always keeps before us divergence and dis- 
 crepancy of view as the normal condition of 
 reasoned truth or philosophy ; the character- 
 istic postulate of which is, that every affirma- 
 tive and every negative shall have its appro- 
 priate reasons clearly and fully enunciated. 
 
 In this point of view the appendix annexed 
 to the lectures is also valuable ; and the four 
 copious appendixes or dissertations following 
 
8 The Philosophy of 
 
 the edition of Reid's works, are more valuable 
 still. How far Sir "W. Hamilton has there 
 furnished good proof of his own doctrines on 
 External Perception, and on the Primary 
 Qualities of Matter, we shall not now deter- 
 mine ; but to those who dissent from him, as 
 well as to those who agree with him, his 
 reasonings on these subjects are highly in- 
 structive: while the full citations from so 
 many other writers contribute materially not 
 only to elucidate the points directly approached, 
 but also to enlarge our knowledge of philo- 
 sophy generally. "We set particular value 
 upon this preservation of the traditions of 
 philosophy, and upon this maintenance of a 
 known perpetual succession among the specu- 
 lative minds of humanity, with proper com- 
 parisons and contrasts. We have found 
 among the names quoted by Sir W. Hamilton, 
 and, thanks to his care, several authors hardly 
 at all known to us, and opinions cited from 
 them not less instructive than curious. He 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 9 
 
 deserves the more gratitude, because he 
 departs herein from received usage since 
 Bacon and Descartes. The example set by 
 these great men was admirable, so far as it 
 went to throw off the authority of predecess- 
 ors ; but pernicious so far as it banished those 
 predecessors out of knowledge, like mere 
 magazines of immaturity and error. Through- 
 out the eighteenth century, all study of the 
 earlier modes of philosophizing was, for the 
 most part, neglected. Of such neglect, re- 
 markable instances are pointed out by Sir W. 
 Hamilton. 
 
 While speaking about the general merits 
 and philosophical position of Sir William 
 Hamilton, we have hitherto said nothing 
 about those of Mr Mill. But before we pro- 
 ceed to analyze the separate chapters of his 
 volume, we must devote a few words to the 
 fulfilment of another obligation. 
 
 Mr John Stuart Mill has not been the first 
 to bestow honour on the surname which he 
 
10 The Philosophy of 
 
 bears. His father, Mr James Mill, had 
 already ennobled the name. An ampler title 
 to distinction in history and philosophy can 
 seldom be produced than that which Mr James 
 Mill left behind him. We know no work 
 which surpasses his ' History of British India ' 
 in the main excellencies attainable by histori- 
 cal writers : industrious accumulation, con- 
 tinued for many years, of original authorities 
 careful and conscientious criticism of their 
 statements and a large command of psycho- 
 logical analysis, enabling the author to inter- 
 pret phenomena of society, both extremely 
 complicated, and far removed from his own 
 personal experience. Again, Mr James Mill's 
 ' Elements of Political Economy ' were, at the 
 time when they appeared, the most logical and 
 condensed exposition of the entire science then 
 existing. Lastly, his latest avowed produc- 
 tion, the ' Analysis of the Phenomena of the 
 Human Mind/ is a model of perspicuous expo- 
 sition of complex states of consciousness, 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 1 1 
 
 carried farther than by any other author 
 before him ; and illustrating the fulness which 
 such exposition may be made to attain, by one 
 who has faith in the comprehensive principle 
 of association, and has learnt the secret of 
 tracing out its innumerable windings. It is, 
 moreover, the first work in which the great 
 fact of Indissoluble Association is brought into 
 its due theoretical prominence. These are 
 high merits, of which lasting evidence is 
 before the public ; but there were other merits 
 in Mr James Mill, less publicly authenticated, 
 yet not less real. His unpremeditated oral 
 exposition was hardly less effective than his 
 prepared work with the pen ; his colloquial 
 fertility on philosophical subjects, his power of 
 discussing himself, and of stimulating others 
 to discuss, his ready responsive inspirations 
 through all the shifts and windings of a sort 
 of Platonic dialogue all these accomplish- 
 ments were, to those who knew him, even 
 more impressive than what he composed for 
 
12 The Philosophy of 
 
 the press. Conversation with, him was not 
 merely instructive, but provocative to the dor- 
 mant intelligence. Of all persons whom we 
 have known, Mr James Mill was one who 
 stood least remote from the lofty Platonic ideal 
 of Dialectic Toft bibovai. KOL 8execr0cu Koyov 
 (the giving and receiving of reasons) com- 
 petent alike to examine others, or to be 
 examined by them, on philosophy. When 
 to this we add a strenuous character, earnest 
 convictions, and single-minded devotion to 
 truth, with an utter disdain of mere paradox 
 it may be conceived that such a man exer- 
 cised powerful intellectual ascendancy over 
 younger minds. Several of those who en- 
 joyed his society men now at, or past, 
 the maturity of life, and some of them in 
 distinguished positions remember and attest 
 with gratitude such ascendancy in their own 
 cases : among them the writer of the present 
 article, who owes to the historian of British 
 India an amount of intellectual stimulus 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 13 
 
 and guidance such as he can never forget. 
 
 When a father, such as we have described, 
 declining to send his son either to school or 
 college, constituted himself schoolmaster from 
 the beginning, and performed that duty with 
 laborious solicitude when, besides full infu- 
 sion of modern knowledge, the forcing process 
 applied by the Platonic Socrates to the youth- 
 Theaetetus, was administered by Mr James 
 Mill, continuously and from an earlier age, to 
 a youthful mind not less pregnant than that of 
 Thesetetus it would be surprising if the son 
 thus trained had not reached even a higher 
 eminence than his father. . The fruit borne by 
 Mr John Stuart Mill has been worthy of the 
 culture bestowed, and the volume before us is 
 at once his latest and his ripest product. 
 
 The ' Examination of Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's Philosophy ' is intended by Mr Mill (so 
 he tells us in the preface to the sixth published 
 edition of his ' System of Logic, Ratiocinative 
 and Inductive ') as a sequel and complement 
 
14 The Philosophy of 
 
 to that system. We are happy to welcome 
 so valuable an addition ; but with or without 
 that addition, the ' System of Logic ' appears 
 to us to present the most important advance 
 in speculative theory which the present century 
 has witnessed. Either half of it, the Ratio- 
 cinative or the Inductive, would have surpassed 
 any previous work on the same subject. The 
 Inductive half discriminates and brings into 
 clear view, for the first time, those virtues of 
 method which have insensibly grown into 
 habits among consummate scientific inquirers 
 of the post-Baconian age, as well as the falla- 
 cies by which some of these authors have been 
 misled. The Ratiocinative half, dealing with 
 matters which had already been well handled 
 by Dutrieu and other scholastic logicians, 
 invests their dead though precise formalism 
 with a real life and application to the actual 
 process of finding and proving truth. But 
 besides thus working each half up to perfec- 
 tion, Mr Mill has performed the still more 
 
.i NIVERS1TY J 
 Sir IF. Hamilton. 15 
 
 difficult task of overcoming the repugnance, 
 apparently an inveterate repugnance, between 
 them, so as chemically to combine the two 
 into one homogeneous compound ; thus pre- 
 senting the problem of Reasoned Truth, 
 Inference, Proof, and Disproof, as one con- 
 nected whole. For ourselves, we still recollect 
 the mist which was cleared from our minds 
 when we first read the * System of Logic/ 
 very soon after it was published. "We 
 were familiar with the Syllogistic Logic in 
 Burgersdicius and Dutrieu ; we were also 
 familiar with examples of the best procedure 
 in modern inductive science ; but the two 
 streams flowed altogether apart in our minds, 
 like two parallel lines never joining nor 
 approaching. The irreconcilability of the 
 two was at once removed, when we had read 
 and mastered the second and third chapters 
 of the Second Book of the ' System of Logic ;' 
 in which Mr Mill explains the functions and 
 value of the Syllogism, and the real import 
 
16 The Philosophy of 
 
 of its major premiss. This explanation 
 struck us at the time as one of the most 
 profound and original efforts of metaphysical 
 thought that we had ever perused, and we 
 see no reason to retract that opinion now.* 
 It appears all the more valuable when we 
 contrast it with what is said by Mr Mill's 
 two contemporaries Hamilton and Whately : 
 the first of whom retains the ancient theory 
 of reasoning, as being only a methodized 
 transition from a whole to its parts, and 
 from the parts up to the whole Induction 
 being only this ascending part of the process, 
 whereby, after having given a complete 
 enumeration of all the compound parts, you 
 conclude to the sum total described in one 
 
 * "We are happy to find such high authorities as Dr 
 Whewell, Mr Samuel Bailey, and Sir John Herschel 
 concurring in this estimation of the new logical point of 
 view thus opened by Mr Mill. We will not call it a dis- 
 covery, since Sir John Herschel thinks the expression 
 unsuitable. See the recent sixth edition of the ' System 
 of Logic/ vol. i. p. 229. 
 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 17 
 
 word as a whole ;* while the second (Whately) 
 agrees in subordinating Induction to Syllo- 
 
 * See Sir William Hamilton's e Lectures ou Logic ' 
 (Lect. xvii. p. 320, 321 ; also Appendix to those Lectures, 
 p. 361). He here distinguishes also formal induction from 
 material induction, which latter he brings under the 
 grasp of syllogism, by an hypothesis in substance similar 
 to that of Whately. There is, however, in Lecture xix. 
 (p. 380), a passage in a very different spirit, which one 
 might almost imagine to have been written by Mr Mill : 
 'In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an original 
 dogma of the Platonic school, and an early dogma of the 
 Peripatetic, that science, strictly so called, was- only 
 'conversant with, and was exclusively contained in, 
 universals ; and the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught 
 that all our general knowledge is only an induction from 
 an observation of particulars, was too easily forgotten 
 or perverted by his followers. It thus obtained almost 
 the force of an acknowledged principle that everything 
 to be known must be known under some general form or 
 notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attributed 
 to definition and deduction ; it not being considered that 
 we only take out of a general notion what we had 
 previously placed therein, and that the amplification of 
 our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but 
 from below not from speculation about abstract gener- 
 alities, but from the observation of concrete particulars. 
 
 Bat however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had 
 2 
 
18 The Philosophy of 
 
 gism, but does so in a different way by 
 representing inductive reasoning as a syl- 
 logism, with its major premiss suppressed, 
 from which major premiss it derived its 
 authority. The explanation of Mr Mill 
 attacks the problem from the opposite side. 
 It subordinates syllogism to induction, the 
 technical to the real ; it divests the major 
 premiss of its illusory pretence to be itself 
 the proving authority, or even any real and 
 
 its day and influence, and it perhaps determined, as one 
 of its effects, the total neglect of one half, and that not 
 the least important half of the reasoning process.' 
 
 These very just observations are suggested to Sir 
 William Hamilton by a train of thought which has little 
 natural tendency to suggest them, viz., by the distinction 
 upon which he so much insists, between the logic of 
 comprehension and the logic of extension, and by his 
 anxiety to explain why the former had been exclusively 
 cultivated and the latter neglected. 
 
 That which Sir William Hamilton calls here truly the 
 doctrine of Aristotle (enunciated especially at the close 
 of the Analyt. Post.), and which he states to have been 
 forgotten by Aristotle's followers, was not always re- 
 membered by Aristotle himself. 
 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 19 
 
 essential part of the proof and acknowledges 
 it merely as a valuable precautionary test and 
 security for avoiding mistake in the process 
 of proving. Taking Mr MilPs l System of 
 Logic ' as a whole, it is one of the books by 
 which we believe ourselves to have most 
 profited. The principles of it are constantly 
 present to our mind when engaged in investi- 
 gations of evidence, whether scientific or 
 historical. 
 
 Concerned as we are here with Mr Mill 
 only as a logician and philosopher, we feel 
 precluded from adverting to his works on 
 other topics even to his ( Elements of Politi- 
 cal Economy/ by which he is probably more 
 widely known than by anything else. Of the 
 many obligations which Political Economy 
 owes to him, one only can be noticed consistent 
 with the scope of the present article : the 
 care which he has taken he alone, or at 
 least, he more explicitly and formally than any 
 other expositor to set forth the general 
 
20 The Philosophy of 
 
 position of that science in the aggregate field 
 of scientific research ; its relation to sociology 
 as a whole, or to other fractions thereof, how 
 far derivative or co-ordinate ; what are its 
 fundamental postulates or hypotheses, with 
 what limits the logical methods of induction 
 and deduction are applicable to it, and how 
 far its conclusions may be relied on as approx- 
 imations to truth. All these points will be 
 found instructively handled in the Sixth 
 Book of Mr Mill's ' System of Logic/ as well 
 as in his smaller and less known work, ' Essays 
 on Some Unsettled Questions in Political 
 Economy/ We find him, while methodizing 
 and illustrating the data of the special science, 
 uniformly keeping in view its relation to 
 philosophy as a whole. 
 
 But there is yet another work in which 
 the interests of philosophy, as a whole, come 
 into the foreground and become the special 
 object of vindication in their largest compass 
 and most vital requirements. We mean Mr 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 21 
 
 Mill's ' Essay on Liberty/ one half of which, 
 takes for its thesis the libertas philosophandi. 
 He maintains, emphatically, in this book, 
 the full dignity of reasoned truth against all 
 the jealous exigencies of traditional dogma 
 and self-justifying sentiment. He claims the 
 most unreserved liberty of utterance for 
 negative and affirmative on all questions 
 not merely for the purpose of discriminating 
 truth from falsehood, but also to keep up in 
 individual minds the full sense and under- 
 standing of the matters controverted, in place 
 of a mere partial and one-sided adhesion. At 
 first sight, indeed, it might seem as if 
 Mr Mill was fighting with a shadow ; for 
 liberty of philosophizing is a postulate which, 
 in general terms, every one concedes. But 
 when you come to fathom the real feelings 
 which underlie this concession, you discover 
 that almost every man makes it under re- 
 serves which, though acting in silence, are 
 not the less efficacious. Every one has some 
 
22 The Philosophy of 
 
 dogmas which lie cannot bear to hear advo- 
 cated, and others which he will not allow to 
 be controverted in his presence. A writer 
 has to consider not merely by what reasons 
 any novelty of belief or disbelief may be 
 justified, but also how much it will be safe 
 for him to publish, having regard to the 
 irritable sore places of the public judgment. 
 In July, 1864, we were present at the annual 
 meeting of the French Academy at Paris, 
 where the prizes for essays sent in, pursuant 
 to subjects announced for study beforehand, 
 are awarded. We heard the titles of various 
 compositions announced by the President (M. 
 Yillemain), with a brief critical estimate of 
 each. Their comparative merits were appre- 
 ciated, and the prize awarded to one of the 
 competitors. Among the compositions sent to 
 compete for the prize, one was a work by M. 
 Taine, upon which the President bestowed the 
 most remarkable encomiums, in every different 
 point of view : extent of knowledge, force of 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 23 
 
 thought, style, arrangement, all were praised 
 in a manner which we have rarely heard 
 exceeded. Nevertheless, the prize was not 
 awarded to this work, but to another which 
 the President praised in a manner decidedly 
 less marked and emphatic. What was here 
 the ratio decidendi ? The reason was, and the 
 President declared it in the most explicit 
 language, that the work of M. Taine was 
 deeply tainted with materialism. ' Sans doute,' 
 said the esteemed veteran of French literature 
 in pronouncing his award, * sans doute les 
 opinions sont libres, mais ' It is precisely 
 against this mais ushering in the special 
 anathematized or consecrated conclusion which 
 it is intended to except from the general 
 liberty of enforcing or impugning in matters 
 of philosophical discussion, that Mr Mill, in 
 the ' Essay on Liberty/ declares war as cham- 
 pion of Reasoned Truth. 
 
 He handles this grand theme itevQtpovt 
 eA.ei>0epcos fyiXocrofytlv involving as it does the 
 
24 The Philosophy of 
 
 best interests of philosophy, as an instructress 
 to men's judgments, and a stimulus to their 
 intelligence with great depth of psychological 
 analysis sustained by abundant historical 
 illustration. And he in the same volume 
 discusses most profitably another question akin 
 to it To what extent, and by what principles, 
 the interference of others is justifiable, in 
 restraining the liberty of taste and action 
 for each individual ? A question at once 
 grave and neglected, but the discussion of 
 which does not belong to our present article. 
 A new work from one who has already 
 manifested such mastery of philosophy, both 
 in principle and in detail, and a work exhibit- 
 ing the analysis and appreciation of the 
 philosophical views of an eminent contem- 
 porary, must raise the highest expectation. 
 We think no reader will be disappointed who 
 peruses Mr Mill's ' Examination,' and we shall 
 now endeavour to give some account of the 
 manner in which he performs it. Upon topics 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 25 
 
 so abstract and subtle as the contents of this 
 volume, the antithesis between two rival 
 theories is the best way, and often the only 
 way, for bringing truth into clear view; 
 and the ' Examination ' here before us is 
 professedly controversy. But of controversy 
 in its objectionable sense of captious or 
 acrimonious personality not a trace will 
 here be found. A dignified, judicial equa- 
 nimity of tone is preserved from first to last. 
 Moreover, though the title and direct purpose 
 of the volume is negative and critical, yet the 
 destructive criticism is pervaded by many 
 copious veins of constructive exposition, em- 
 bodying Mr MilPs own views upon some of 
 the most intricate problems of metaphysics. 
 
 Mr Mill begins his work by analyzing 
 and explaining the doctrine called the Rela- 
 tivity of Human Knowledge : 
 
 ' The doctrine (chap. ii. p. 5) which is thought 
 to belong in the most especial manner to Sir "W. 
 
26 The Philosophy of 
 
 Hamilton, and which was the ground of his oppo- 
 sition to the transcendentalism of the later 
 French and German metaphysicians, is that which 
 he and others have called the Relativity of Human 
 Knowledge. It is the subject of the most gen- 
 erally known and impressive of all his writings 
 the one which first revealed to the English meta- 
 physical reader that a new power had arisen in 
 philosophy. Together with its developments, it 
 composes the Philosophy of the Conditioned, 
 which he opposed to the French and German 
 philosophies of the Absolute, and which is re- 
 garded by most of his admirers as the greatest of 
 his titles to a permanent place in the history of 
 metaphysical thought. But, " the relativity of 
 human knowledge," like r most other phrases into 
 which the words relative or relation enter, is 
 vague, and admits of a great variety of mean- 
 ings,' &c. 
 
 Mr Mill then proceeds to distinguish these 
 various meanings, and to determine in which 
 of them the phrase is understood by Sir W. 
 Hamilton. 
 
 One meaning is, that we only know any- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 27 
 
 thing by knowing it as distinguished from 
 something else that all consciousness is of 
 difference. It is not, however, in this sense 
 that the expression is ordinarily or intention- 
 ally used by Sir W. Hamilton, though he 
 fully recognizes the truth which, when thus 
 used, it serves to express. In general, when 
 he says that all our knowledge is relative, 
 the relation he has in view is not between the 
 thing known and other objects compared with 
 it, but between the thing known and the mind 
 knowing (p. 6). 
 
 The doctrine in this last meaning is held 
 by different philosophers in two different 
 forms. Some (e.g. Berkeley, Hume, Ferrier, 
 &c.), usually called Idealists, maintain not 
 merely that all we can possibly know of any- 
 thing is the manner in which it affects the 
 human faculties, but that there is nothing 
 else to be known ; that affections of human 
 or of other minds are all that we can know to 
 exist that the difference between the ego and 
 
28 The Philosophy of 
 
 the non-ego is only a formal distinction 
 between two aspects of the same reality. 
 Other philosophers (Brown, Mr Herbert 
 Spencer, Auguste Comte, with many others) 
 believe that the ego and the non-ego denote 
 two realities, each self- existent, and neither 
 dependent on the other ; that the Noumenon, 
 or ' thing per se^ is in itself a different thing 
 from the Phenomenon, and equally or more 
 real, but that, though we know its existence, 
 we have no means of knowing what it is. All 
 that we can know is, relatively to ourselves, 
 the modes in which it affects us, or the phe- 
 nomena which it produces (pp. 9 11). 
 - 
 
 The doctrine of Relativity, as held by 
 Kant and his many followers, is next distin- 
 guished from the same doctrine as held by 
 Hartley, James Mill, Professor Bain, &c., 
 compatible with either acceptance or rejection 
 of the Berkeleian theory. Kant maintains 
 that the attributes which we ascribe to out- 
 ward things, or which are inseparable from 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 29 
 
 them in thought, contain additional elements 
 over and above sensations plus an unknowable 
 cause additional elements added by the mind 
 itself, and therefore still only relative, but 
 constituting the original furniture of the 
 mind itself inherent laws, partly of our 
 sensitive, partly of our intellectual faculty. 
 It is on this latter point that Hartley and 
 those going along with him diverge. Ad- 
 mitting the same additional elements, these 
 philosophers do not ascribe to the mind any 
 innate forms to account for them, but hold 
 that place, extension, substance, cause, and 
 the rest, &c., are conceptions put together out 
 of ideas of sensation, by the known laws of 
 Association (pp. 12 14). 
 
 Partial Relativity is the opinion professed 
 by most philosophers (and by most persons 
 who do not philosophize). They hold that we 
 know things partly as they are in themselves, 
 partly as they are merely in relation to us. 
 
 This discrimination of the various schools 
 
30 The Philosophy of 
 
 of philosophers is highly instructive, and is 
 given with the full perspicuity belonging to 
 Mr Mill's style. He proceeds to examine in 
 what sense Sir "W. Hamilton maintained the 
 Relativity of Human Knowledge. He cites 
 passages both from the ' Discussions on Phi- 
 losophy' and from the Lectures, in which 
 that doctrine is both affirmed in its greatest 
 amplitude, and enunciated in the most em- 
 phatic language (pp. 17, 18, 22, 23). But 
 he also produces extracts from the most ela- 
 borate of Sir "W. Hamilton's ( Dissertations 
 on Reid,' in which a doctrine quite different 
 and inconsistent is proclaimed that our know- 
 ledge is only partially, not wholly, relative ; 
 that the secondary qualities of matter, indeed, 
 are known to us only relatively, but that the 
 primary qualities are known to us as they 
 are in themselves, or as they exist object- 
 ively, and that they may be even evolved 
 by demonstration a priori (pp. 19 26, 30). 
 The inconsistency between the two doctrines, 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 31 
 
 professed at different times, and in different 
 works, by Sir "W". Hamilton, is certainly mani- 
 fest. Mr Mill is of opinion that one of the 
 two must be taken ' in a non-natural sense/ 
 and that Sir "W. Hamilton either did not 
 hold, or had ceased to hold, the doctrine of 
 the full relativity of knowledge (pp. 20 28) 
 the hypothesis of a flat contradiction being 
 in his view inadmissible. But we think it at 
 least equally possible that Sir W. Hamilton 
 held both the two opinions in their natural 
 sense, and enforced both of them at different 
 times by argument ; his attention never hav- 
 ing been called to the contradiction between 
 them. That such forgetfulness was quite 
 possible, will appear clearly in many parts 
 of the present article. His argument in sup- 
 port of both is equally characterized by that 
 peculiar energy of style which is frequent 
 with him, and which no way resembles the 
 qualifying refinements of one struggling to 
 keep clear of a perceived contradiction. 
 
 - 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ( UNIVERSITY 
 
32 The Philosophy of 
 
 From hence Mr Mill (chap, iv.) proceeds 
 to criticise at considerable length what he 
 justly denominates the celebrated and strik- 
 ing review of Cousin's philosophy, which 
 forms the first paper in Sir W. Hamilton's 
 ' Discussions on Philosophy.' According to 
 Mr Mill 
 
 1 The question really at issue is this : Have 
 we or have we not an immediate intuition of God ? 
 The name of God is veiled under two extremely 
 abstract phrases, " The Infinite and the Absolute," 
 perhaps from a reverential feeling ; such, at least, 
 is the reason given by Sir W. Hamilton's disciple, 
 Mr Mansel, for preferring the more vague expres- 
 sions ; but it is one of the most unquestionable 
 of all logical maxims, that the meaning of the 
 abstract must be sought for in the concrete, and 
 not conversely; and we shall see, both in the 
 case of Sir "William Hamilton, and of Mr Mansel, 
 that the process cannot be reversed with impun- 
 ity.' p. 32. 
 
 Upon this we must remark, that though 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 33 
 
 the ' logical maxim ' here laid down by Mr 
 Mill may be generally sound, we think the 
 application of it inconvenient in the present 
 case. Discussions on points of philosophy 
 are best conducted without either invoking or 
 offending religious feeling. M. Cousin main- 
 tains that we have a direct intuition of the 
 Infinite and the Absolute: Sir W. Hamilton 
 denies that we have. Upon this point Mr 
 Mill sides entirely with Sir W. Hamilton, 
 and considers ' that the latter has rendered 
 good service to philosophy by refuting M. 
 Cousin,' though much of the reasoning em- 
 ployed in such refutation seems to Mr Mill 
 unsound. But Sir W. Hamilton goes further, 
 and affirms that we have no faculties capable 
 of apprehending the Infinite and the Absolute 
 that both of them are inconceivable to us, 
 and by consequence unknowable. Herein Mr 
 Mill is opposed to him, and controverts his 
 doctrine in an elaborate argument. 
 
 Of this argument, able and ingenious, like 
 
34 The Philosophy of 
 
 all those in the present volume, our limits 
 only enable us to give a brief appreciation. 
 In so far as Mr Mill controverts Sir W. 
 Hamilton, we think him perfectly successful, 
 though there are some points in his reasoning 
 in which we do not fully concur. 
 
 In our opinion, as in his, the Absolute 
 alone (in its sense as opposed to relative) can 
 be necessarily unknowable, inconceivable, in- 
 cogitable. Nothing which falls under the 
 condition of relativity can be declared to be 
 so. The structure of our minds renders us 
 capable of knowing everything which is re- 
 lative, though there are many such things 
 which we have no evidence, nor shall ever 
 get evidence, to enable us to know. Now . 
 the Infinite falls within the conditions of re- 
 lativity, as indeed Sir W. Hamilton himself 
 admits, when he intimates (p. 58) that though 
 it cannot be known, it is, must be, and ought 
 to be, believed by us, according to the marked 
 distinction which he draws between belief 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 35 
 
 and knowledge. "We agree with Mr Mill in 
 the opinion that it is thinkable, conceivable, 
 knowable. Doubtless we do not conceive it 
 adequately, but we conceive it sufficiently to 
 discuss and reason upon it intelligibly to our- 
 selves and others. That we conceive the 
 Infinite inadequately, is not to be held as 
 proof that we do not conceive it at all ; for 
 in regard to finite things also, we conceive 
 the greater number of them only inade- 
 quately. 
 
 We cannot construe to the imagination a 
 polygon with an infinite number of sides (i. e. 
 with a number of sides greater than any 
 given number), but neither can we construe 
 to the imagination a polygon with a million 
 of sides ; nevertheless, we understand what is 
 meant by the first description as well as by 
 the second, and can reason upon both. There 
 is, indeed, this difference between the two : 
 That the terms used in describing the first, 
 proclaim at once in their direct meaning that 
 
36 The Philosophy of 
 
 we should in vain attempt to construe it to 
 the imagination ; whereas the terms used in 
 describing the second do not intimate that 
 fact. We know the fact only by trial, or by 
 an estimate of our own mental force which 
 is the result of many past trials. If the 
 difference here noted were all which Sir W. 
 Hamilton has in view when he declares the 
 Infinite to be unknowable and incogitable, 
 we should accede to his opinion ; but we ap- 
 prehend that he means much more, and he 
 certainly requires more to justify the marked 
 antithesis in which he places himself against 
 M. Cousin and Hegel. Indeed, the facility 
 with which he declares matters to be in- 
 cogitable, which these two and other philoso- 
 phers not only cogitate but maintain as truth, 
 is to us truly surprising. The only question 
 which appears to us important is, whether 
 we can understand and reason upon the 
 meaning of the terms and propositions ad- 
 dressed to us. If we can, the subjects pro- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 37 
 
 pounded must be cogitable and conceivable, 
 whether we admit the propositions affirmed 
 concerning them or not ; if we cannot, then 
 these subjects are indeed incogitable by our- 
 selves in the present state of our knowledge, 
 but they may not be so to our opponent who 
 employs the terms. 
 
 In criticising the arguments of Sir W. 
 Hamilton against M. Cousin, Mr Mill insists 
 much on a distinction between (1) the In- 
 finite, and (2) the Infinite in any one or 
 more positive attributes, such as infinite wis- 
 dom, goodness, redness, hardness, &c.* He 
 thinks that Sir W. Hamilton has made out 
 his case against the first, but not against 
 the last ; that the first is really ' an unmean- 
 ing and senseless abstraction/ a fasciculus 
 of negations, unknowable and inconceivable, 
 but not the last. We think that Mr Mill 
 
 * The distinction is given by Stier and other logicians. 
 1. Infiuitum simpliciter. 2. Infinitum secundum quid, 
 sive in certo genere. 
 
38 The Philosophy of 
 
 makes more of this distinction than the case 
 warrants; that the first is not unmeaning, 
 but an intelligible abstraction, only a higher 
 reach of abstraction than the last; that it 
 is knowable inadequately, in the same way as 
 the last though more inadequately, because of 
 its higher abstraction. 
 
 As the finite is intelligible, so also is its 
 negation the Infinite: we do not say (with 
 M. Cousin) that the two are conjointly given 
 in consciousness but the two are under- 
 stood and partially apprehended by the mind 
 conjointly and in contrast. Though the In- 
 finite is doubtless negative as to a degree, 
 it is not wholly or exclusively negative, since 
 it includes a necessary reference to some po- 
 sitive attribute, to which the degree belongs ; 
 the positive element is not eliminated, but 
 merely left undetermined. The Infinite (like 
 the Finite, TO 'n^'n^paa^vov TO aTtapov} is a 
 genus ; it comprehends under it the Infin- 
 itely Hard and the Infinitely Soft, the Infin- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 39 
 
 itely Swift and the Infinitely Slow the infin- 
 ite, in short, of any or all positive attributes. 
 It includes, doubtless, 'a farrago of con- 
 tradictions ; ' but so, also, does the Finite 
 and so, also, do the actual manifestations 
 of the real, concrete universe, which mani- 
 festations constitute a portion of the Finite. 
 Whoever attempts to give any philosophical 
 account of the generation of the universe, 
 tracing its phenomena, as an aggregate, 
 - to some ultra-phenomenal origin, must in- 
 clude in his scheme a fundamentum for all 
 those opposite and contradictory manifesta- 
 tions which experience discloses in the uni- 
 verse. There always have been, and still are, 
 many philosophers who consider the Abstract 
 and General to be prior both in nature and 
 time to the Concrete and Particular ; and 
 who hold further that these two last are ex- 
 plained, when presented as determinate and 
 successive manifestations of the two first, 
 which they k conceive as indeterminate and 
 
40 The Philosophy of 
 
 sempiternal. Now the Infinite (Ens Infini- 
 tum or Entia Infinita, according to the point 
 of view in which we look at it) is a generic 
 word, including all these supposed indeter- 
 minate antecedents; and including therefore, 
 of course, many contradictory agencies. But 
 this does not make it senseless or unmean- 
 ing ; nor can we distinguish it from ' the 
 Infinite in some one or more given attri- 
 butes,' by any other character than by greater 
 reach of abstraction. We cannot admit the 
 marked distinction which Mr Mill contends 
 for that the one is unknowable and the 
 other knowable. 
 
 It may be proper to add that the mode of 
 philosophizing which we have just described 
 is not ours. We do not agree in this way 
 either of conceiving, or of solving, the pro- 
 blem of philosophy. But it is a mode so 
 prevalent that Trendelenberg speaks of it, 
 justly enough, as ' the ancient Hysteron- 
 Proteron of Abstraction.' The doctrine of 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 41 
 
 these philosophers appears to us unfounded, 
 but we cannot call it unmeaning. 
 
 In another point, also, we differ from Mr 
 Mill respecting that inferior abstraction which 
 he calls 'the Infinite in some particular at- 
 tribute.' He speaks as if this could be known 
 not only as an abstraction, a conceivable, an 
 ideal but also as a concrete reality; as if 
 1 we could know a concrete reality as infinite 
 or as absolute ' (p. 45) ; as if there really 
 existed in actual nature ' concrete persons 
 or things possessing infinitely or absolutely 
 certain specific attributes' (pp. 55 93). To 
 this doctrine we cannot subscribe. As we 
 understand concrete reality, we find no evi- 
 dence to believe that there exist in nature 
 any real concrete persons or things, possess- 
 ing to an infinite degree such attributes as 
 they do possess : e. g. any men infinitely 
 wise or infinitely strong, any horses infinitely 
 swift, any stones infinitely hard. Such con- 
 crete real objects appear to us not admissible 
 
42 The Philosophy of 
 
 because experience not only has not certified 
 their existence in any single case, but goes 
 as far to disprove their existence as it can 
 do to disprove anything. All the real ob- 
 jects in nature known to us by observation 
 are finite, and possess only in a finite mea- 
 sure their respective attributes. Upon this 
 is founded the process of Science, so com- 
 prehensively laid out by Mr Mill in his 
 ' System of Logic ' Induction, Deduction 
 from general facts attested by Induction, 
 Verification by experience of the results ob- 
 tained by Deduction. The attributes, white- 
 ness or hardness, in the abstract, are doubtless 
 infinite; that is, the term will designate, 
 alike and equally, any degree of whiteness or 
 hardness which you may think of, and any 
 unknown degree even whiter and harder than 
 what you think of. But when perceived as 
 invested in a given mass of snow or granite 
 before us, they are divested of that indeter- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 43 
 
 minateness, and become restricted to a .deter- 
 minate measure and degree. 
 
 Having thus indicated the points on which 
 we are compelled to dissent from Mr Mill's 
 refutation of Sir W. Hamilton in the plead- 
 ing against M. Cousin, we shall pass to the 
 seventh chapter, in which occurs his first 
 controversy with Mr Mansel. This passage 
 has excited more interest, and will probably 
 be remembered by a larger number of readers, 
 than any portion of the book. We shall 
 give it in his own words (pp. 99 103), since 
 the energetic phraseology is quite as remark- 
 able as the thought : 
 
 'There is but one way for Mr Mansel out 
 of this difficulty, and he adopts it. He must 
 maintain, not merely that an Absolute Being is 
 unknowable in himself, but that the Eelative 
 attributes of an Absolute Being are unknowable 
 also.* He must say that we do not know what 
 
 * This doctrine has been affirmed (so far as reason is 
 concerned, apart from revelation) not merely by Mr Man- 
 
44 The Philosophy of 
 
 Wisdom, Justice, Benevolence, Mercy, &c., are, 
 as they exist in God. Accordingly, he does say 
 so. " It is a fact " (says Mr Mansel) " which ex- 
 perience forces upon us, and which it is useless, 
 were it possible, to disguise, that the representa- 
 tion of God after the model of the highest hu- 
 man morality which we are capable of conceiving, 
 is not sufficient to account for all the phenomena 
 exhibited by the course of his natural Providence. 
 The infliction of physical suffering, the permis- 
 sion of moral evil, the adversity of the good, the 
 prosperity of the wicked, the crimes of the guilty 
 involving the misery of the innocent, the tardy 
 appearance and partial distribution of moral and 
 religious knowledge in the world these are facts, 
 which no doubt are reconcilable, we know not 
 how, with the Infinite Goodness of God, but 
 
 sel, but also by Pascal, one of the most religious philoso- 
 phers of the seventeenth century, in the ' Pensees ' : 
 
 4 Parlons selon les lumieres naturelles. S'il y a un 
 Dieu, il est infiniment incomprehensible ; puisque, n'ayant 
 ni principes ni bornes, il n'a nul rapport a nous ; nous 
 sommes done incapables de connaitre ni ce qu'il est, ni 
 s'ilest.' (See Arago, Biographic de Condorcet, p. Ixxxiv., 
 prefixed to his edition of Condorcet's works.) 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 45 
 
 which certainly are not to be explained on the 
 supposition that its sole and sufficient type is to 
 be found in the finite goodness of man." 
 
 ' In other words ' (continues Mr Mill comment- 
 ing) * it is necessary to suppose that the infinite 
 goodness ascribed to God is not the goodness 
 which we know and love in our fellow-creatures, 
 distinguished only as infinite in degree ; but is 
 different in kind, and another quality altogether. 
 Accordingly Mr Mansel combats as a heresy of 
 his opponents, the opinion that infinite goodness 
 differs only in degree from finite goodness. Here, 
 then, I take my stand upon the acknowledged 
 principle of logic and of morality ; that when we 
 mean different things we have no right to call 
 them by the same name, and to apply to them 
 the same predicates, moral and intellectual. If, 
 instead of the glad tidings that there exists a 
 Being in whom all the excellences which the 
 highest human form can conceive, exist in a de- 
 gree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the 
 world is ruled by a being whose attributes are 
 infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, ex- 
 cept that the highest human morality does not 
 sanction them convince me of this and I will 
 
46 The Philosophy of 
 
 bear my fate as I may. But when I am told 
 that I must believe this, and at the same time 
 call this being by the names which express and 
 affirm the highest human morality, I say, in 
 plain terms, that I will not. Whatever power 
 such a being may have over me, there is one 
 thing he shall not do ; he shall not compel me to 
 worship him. I will call no being good who is 
 not what I mean when I apply that epithet to 
 my fellow-creatures ; and if such a being can 
 sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell 
 I will go.' 
 
 This concluding declaration is memorable 
 in many ways. Mr Mill announces his reso- 
 lution to determine for himself, and according 
 to his own reason and conscience, what God 
 he will worship, and what God lie will not 
 worship. For ourselves, we cordially sympa- 
 thize with his resolution. But Mr Mill must 
 be aware that this is a point on which society 
 is equally resolved that no individual shall 
 determine for himself, if they can help it.* 
 * The indictment under which Socrates was con- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 47 
 
 Each new-born child finds his religious creed 
 
 demned at Athens, as reported by Xenophon at the 
 commencement of the Memorabilia, ran thus ' Socrates 
 is guilty of crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in 
 those Gods in whom the City believes, but introduces 
 other novelties in regard to the Gods ; he is guilty also, 
 inasmuch as he corrupts the youth.' 
 
 These words express clearly a sentiment entertained 
 not merely by the Athenian people, but generally by 
 other societies also. They all agree in antipathy to 
 free, individual, dissenting reason ; though that antipathy 
 manifests itself by acts, more harsh in one place, less 
 harsh in another. The Hindoo who declares himself a 
 convert to Christianity, becomes at the same time an 
 outcast (cHpprjrwp, aOsfitaroQ, aveaTioo) among those whose 
 Gods he has deserted. As a general fact, the man who dis- 
 sents from his fellows upon fundamentals of religion, pur- 
 chases an undisturbed life only by being content with 
 that 'semi-liberty under silence and concealment/ for 
 which Cicero was thankful under the dictatorship of 
 Julius Csesar. 'Obsecro africiamus ista et semi- 
 liberi saltern simus; quod assequemur et tacendo et 
 latendo' (Epist. ad Attic, xiii. 31). Contrast with this 
 the memorable declaration of Socrates, in the Platonic 
 Apology, that silence and abstinence from cross-examin- 
 ation were intolerable to him ; that life would not be 
 worth having under such conditions. 
 
48 The Philosophy of 
 
 ready prepared for him. In his earliest days 
 of unconscious infancy, the stamp of the 
 national, gentile, phratric, God, or Gods, is 
 imprinted upon him by his elders ; and if the 
 future man, in the exercise of his own inde- 
 pendent reason, acquires such convictions as 
 compel him to renounce those Gods, proclaim- 
 ing openly that he does so he must count 
 upon such treatment as will go far to spoil 
 the value of the present life to him, even 
 before he passes to those ulterior liabilities 
 which Mr Mill indicates in the distance. We 
 are not surprised that a declaration so unusual 
 and so impressive should have been often cited 
 in critical notices of this volume ; that during 
 the month preceding the last "Westminster 
 election, it was studiously brought forward by 
 some opponents of Mr Mill, and more or less 
 regretted by his friends, as likely to offend 
 many electors, and damage his chance of 
 success ; and that a conspicuous and noble- 
 minded ecclesiastic, the Dean of Westminster, 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 49 
 
 thought the occasion so grave as to come 
 forward with his characteristic generosity, for 
 the purpose of shielding a distinguished man 
 suspected of heresy. 
 
 The sublime self-assertion, addressed by 
 Prometheus to Zeus, under whose sentence he 
 was groaning, has never before been put into 
 such plain English.* Mr Mill's declaration 
 reminds us also of Hippolytus, the chaste and 
 pure youth, whose tragic fate is so beautifully 
 
 * JSschyl. Prometh., 996-1006 
 
 Tavra, piTTTtoQw ntv ai9a\ovffffa 0\6|, 
 
 )ul KCt p 
 
 %QoviotQ KvKara) Travra Kai 
 a'ju^Ei yap ovdtv raij/^l p - 
 at nr}KOT\ OJQ ( y(i, Atog 
 <poj3r]9tlg, drjXvvovQ yfvrjaojjiai, 
 Kai Xnraprfffb) rbv /isya arvyovfitvov 
 
 \vadi fit 6&fffji(i)v ruivSe' rov Travrog osw. 
 
 Also v. 1047, et seq. The memorable ode of Goethe, 
 entitled Prometheus, embodies a similar vein of sentiment 
 in the finest poetry. 
 
50 The Philosophy of 
 
 described by Euripides. Hippolytus is ex- 
 emplary in his devotions to the Goddess 
 Artemis ; but he dissents from all his country- 
 men, and determines for himself, in refusing 
 to bestow the smallest mark of honour or 
 worship upon Aphrodite, because he considers 
 her to be a very bad Goddess.* In this 
 refusal he persists with inflexible principle 
 (even after having received, from an anxious 
 attendant, warning of the certain ruin which 
 it will bring upon him), until the insulted 
 Aphrodite involves him, along with the un- 
 happy Phaedra and Theseus himself, in one 
 common abyss of misery. In like manner 
 
 * Euripid. Hippol., 10 
 
 (Aph.) 6 yap fif QrjasuQ TTOLIQ, 'Ajua'ovof TOKOQ, 
 P.OVOQ TToXirwv Trjade 
 
 (Hipp.) TTJV aijv dk KvTrptv TroXX' tyai %(f.iptiv Xsya> 
 
 (112.) 
 See also v. 13231402. 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 51 
 
 Mr Mill's declaration stands in marked con- 
 trast with the more cautious proceeding of 
 men like Herodotus. That historian, alike 
 pious and prudent, is quite aware that all the 
 Gods are envious and mischief-making, and 
 expressly declares them to be so.* Yet, far 
 from refusing to worship them on that ac- 
 count, he is assiduous in prayer and sacrifice 
 perhaps, indeed, all the more assiduous in 
 consequence of what he believes about their 
 attributes ;f being persuaded (like the at- 
 tendant who warned Hippolytus) that his 
 only chance of mollifying their ungentle 
 dispositions in regard to himself is, by hon- 
 orific tribute in words and offerings. 
 
 * Herodot. t. 32. Q Kpottrt, iiriGTanivov fit rb Oliov 
 irav lov <[)9ovfp6v re Kal Tapaxudtg, tTrapwrpt; avflpwTTjjtwj/ 
 TrpayfJLCLTitJV Trtpt ; also iii. 40. 
 
 t See Eurip. Hipp., 6-96-149. The language of the 
 attendant, after his affectionate remonstrance to Hip- 
 polytus had been disregarded, supplicating Aphrodite to 
 pardon the recalcitrancy of that virtuous but obstinate 
 youth, is characteristic and touching (114-120.) 
 
52 The Philosophy of 
 
 'When, however, after appreciating as we 
 are bound to do Mr Mill's declaration of 
 subjective sentiment, we pass to its logical 
 bearing on the controversy between him and 
 Mr Mansel, we are obliged to confess that in 
 this point of view it has little objective 
 relevancy. The problem was, how to recon- 
 cile the actual evil and suffering in the 
 universe (which is recited as a fact by Mr 
 Mansel, though in terms conveying a most 
 inadequate idea of its real magnitude) with 
 the goodness of God. Mr Mill repudiates 
 the explanatory hypothesis tendered by Mr 
 Mansel, as a solution, but without suggesting 
 any better hypothesis of his own. For our- 
 selves, we are far from endorsing Mr Mansel's 
 solution as satisfactory ; yet we can hardly 
 be surprised if he considers it less unsatisfac- 
 tory than no solution at all. And when we 
 reflect how frequently and familiarly predi- 
 cates applicable to man are applied to the 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 53 
 
 Supreme Being, when they cannot possibly be 
 understood about Him in the same sense we 
 see no ground for treating the proceeding as 
 disingenu9us, which Mr Mill is disposed to 
 do. Indeed, it cannot easily be avoided : and 
 Mr Mill himself furnishes us with some 
 examples in the present volume. At page 
 491, he says : 
 
 * It would be difficult to find a stronger argu- 
 ment in favour of Theism, thau that the eye 
 must have been made by one who sees, and the 
 ear by one who hears.' 
 
 In the words here employed, seeing and 
 hearing are predicted of God. 
 
 Now when we predicate of men, that they 
 see or hear, we affirm facts of extreme com- 
 plexity, especially in the case of seeing ; facts 
 partly physical, partly mental, involving 
 multifarious movements and agencies of 
 nerves, muscles, and other parts of the organ- 
 
54 The Philosophy of 
 
 ism, together with direct sensational impres- 
 sions, and mental reconstruction of the past, 
 inseparably associated therewith; all which, 
 so far as they are known, are perspicuously 
 enumerated in the work of Professor Bain* 
 on the ' Senses and the Intellect.' Again, 
 Mr Mill speaks (in p. 102 and elsewhere) of 
 * the veracity of God.' When we say of our 
 neighbour that he is a veracious man, we 
 ascribe to him a habit of speaking the truth ; 
 that is, of employing his physical apparatus 
 of speech, and his mental power of recalling 
 and recombining words lodged in the memory, 
 for the purpose of asserting no other propo- 
 sitions except such as ^ declare facts which he 
 knows, or beliefs which he really entertains. 
 But how either seeing, or hearing, or veracity, 
 in these senses, can be predicated of God, we 
 are at a loss to understand. And if they are 
 
 * See especially his chapter ii. on the Sensations of 
 Sight, pp. 222, 241247, in the second edition of this 
 work. 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 55 
 
 to be predicated of God in a different sense, 
 this admits the same license as Mr Mansel 
 contends for in respect to Goodness, when he 
 feels that undeniable facts preclude him 
 from predicating that epithet univocally 
 respecting God and respecting man.* 
 
 On the whole, it seems to us, that though 
 Mr Mill will consent to worship only a God 
 of perfect goodness, he has thrown no new 
 light on the grave problem frankly stated 
 though imperfectly solved, by Mr Mansel 
 how such a conception of God is to be recon- 
 ciled with the extent of evil and suffering 
 actually pervading human life and animal 
 life throughout the earth. We are compelled 
 
 * Descartes says, in his 'Principia Philosophise,' 
 i. 51 ' Et quidem substantia quse nulla plane re iudigeat, 
 unica tantum potest intelligi nempe Deus. Alias vero 
 omnes, non nisi ope concursus Dei existere posse perspi- 
 cimus. Atque ideo nomen substantiee non convenit Deo 
 et illis univoce, ut dici solet in scholis ; hoc est, nulla 
 ejus nominis significatio potest distincte intelligi, quse 
 Deo et creaturis sit communis.' 
 
56 The Philosophy of 
 
 to say, respecting Mr Mill's treatment of this 
 subject what we should not say respecting 
 his treatment of any other that he has left 
 an old perplexing problem not less perplexing 
 than he found it. 
 
 Reverting, not unwillingly, from theology 
 to philosophy, we now pass on to Mr Mill's 
 ninth chapter (p. 128 seq.), of the Interpret- 
 ation of Consciousness. There is assuredly 
 no lesson more requiring to be taught than 
 the proper mode of conducting such inter- 
 pretation ; for the number of different modes 
 in which Consciousness has been interpreted 
 is astonishing. Mr Mill begins by citing 
 from Sir "W. Hamilton's lectures a passage of 
 some length, upon which he bestows con- 
 siderable praise, regarding it as 
 
 * One of the proofs that, whatever may be 
 the positive value of his (Sir "W. Hamilton's) 
 achievements in metaphysics, he had a greater 
 capacity for the subject than many metaphysicians 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 57 
 
 of high reputation ; and particularly than his two 
 distinguished predecessors in the same school of 
 thought" Eeid and Stewart." 'p. 131. 
 
 This is one of the greatest compliments 
 to Sir W. Hamilton that the book contains, 
 and as such we are glad to cite it. 
 
 On the subject of Consciousness, Mr Mill 
 has cited from Sir W. Hamilton other good 
 observations besides the one last alluded to ; 
 but, unfortunately, these are often neutralized 
 by opposite or inconsistent opinions also cited 
 from other parts of his works. The number 
 of such inconsistencies produced is indeed one 
 remarkable feature in Sir W. Hamilton's 
 philosophical character. He seems to follow 
 out energetically (as Plato in his various 
 dialogues) the vein of thought pervading his 
 mind at each particular moment, without 
 troubling himself to look back upon his own 
 prior speculations. Even compared with the 
 best views of Sir W. Hamilton, however, Mr 
 
58 The Philosophy of 
 
 Mill's mode of handling the subject of Con- 
 sciousness exhibits signal improvement. To 
 some of his observations we shall call parti- 
 cular attention. 
 
 All philosophers agree that what Con- 
 sciousness testifies is to be believed ; but they 
 differ much on the question To what 
 points Consciousness does testify ? and even 
 on the still deeper question How shall we 
 proceed to ascertain what are these attested 
 points? What is the proper method of 
 studying or interrogating Consciousness? 
 Upon this Mr Mill remarks (pp. 145 147) : 
 
 ' Here emerges the distinction between two 
 different methods of studying the problems of 
 metaphysics ; forming the radical difference be- 
 tween the two great schools into which meta- 
 physicians are divided. One of these I shall call 
 for distinction, the introspective method ; the 
 other, the psychological. M. Cousin observes 
 that Locke went wrong from the beginning, by 
 placing before himself, as the question to be first 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 59 
 
 resolved, the origin of our ideas. This (he says) 
 was commencing at the wrong end. The proper 
 course would have been to begin by determining 
 what the ideas now are- ; to ascertain what it is 
 that Consciousness now tells us ; postponing till 
 afterwards the attempt to frame a theory con- 
 cerning the origin of any of the mental phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 'I accept the question as M. Cousin states 
 it ; and I contend that no attempt to determine 
 what are the direct revelations of Consciousness 
 can be successful, or entitled to any regard, unless 
 preceded by what M. Cousin says ought only to fol- 
 low it an inquiry into the origin of our acquired 
 ideas. For we have it not in our power to 
 ascertain, by any direct process, what Conscious- 
 ness told us at the time when its revelations were 
 in their pristine purity. It only offers itself to 
 our inspection, as it exists now, when those 
 original revelations are overlaid and buried under 
 a mountainous heap of acquired notions and 
 perceptions. 
 
 * It seems to M. Cousin, that if we examine 
 with care and minuteness our present states of 
 Consciousness, distinguishing and denning every 
 
60 The Philosophy of 
 
 ingredient which we find to enter into them 
 every element that we seem to recognize as. real, 
 and cannot by merely concentrating our attention 
 upon it analyze into anything simpler we reach 
 the ultimate and primary truths, which are the 
 sources of all our knowledge, and which cannot 
 be denied or doubted without denying or doubt- 
 ing the evidence of Consciousness itself that is, 
 the only evidence that there is for anything. I 
 maintain this to be a misconception of the con- 
 dition imposed on inquirers by the difficulties of 
 psychological investigation. To begin the inquiry 
 at the point where M. Cousin takes it up is, in 
 fact, to beg the question. For he must be aware, 
 if not of the fact, at least of the belief of his 
 opponents, that the laws of the mind the Laws 
 of Association, according to one class of thinkers, 
 the Categories of the Understanding, according 
 to another are capable of creating, out of those 
 data of Consciousness which are uncontested, 
 purely mental conceptions, which become so 
 identified in thought with all our states of Con- 
 sciousness, that we seem, and cannot but see?n, to 
 receive them by direct intuition. For example, 
 the belief in matter in the opinion of these 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 61 
 
 thinkers is, or at least may be, thus produced: 
 
 ' " The proof that any of the alleged Uni- 
 versal Beliefs, or Principles of Common Sense, 
 are affirmations of Consciousness supposes two 
 things : that the beliefs exist, and that they 
 cannot possibly have been acquired. The first is, 
 in most cases, undisputed ; but the second is a 
 subject of inquiry which often taxes the utmost 
 resources of psychologists. Locke was therefore 
 right in believing that ' the origin of our ideas ' 
 is the main stress of the problem of mental 
 science, and the subject which must be first 
 considered in forming the theory of the Mind." ' 
 
 This citation from Mr Mill's book is 
 already almost too long, yet we could have 
 wished to prolong it still more, from the im- 
 portance of some of the succeeding paragraphs. 
 It presents, in clear discrimination and con- 
 trast, two opposite points of view accord- 
 ing to which the phenomena of mind are 
 regarded by different philosophers, and the 
 method of studying them determined: the 
 
62 The Philosophy of 
 
 introspective method, adopted by M. Cousin 
 and others the psychological or analytical 
 method, pursued by Locke and by many other 
 eminent men since Locke c the known and 
 approved method of physical science, adapted 
 to the necessities of psychology ' (p. 148). 
 
 There are passages of Sir "W. Hamilton's 
 writings in which he appears to feel that the 
 introspective method alone is insufficient for 
 the interpretation of Consciousness, and that 
 the analytical method must be employed to 
 reinforce it. But on this as on other points 
 he is nst always consistent with himself. For 
 in laying down the principle upon which the 
 primary truths of Consciousness, the original 
 data of intelligence, are to be ascertained 
 and distinguished from generalizations out of 
 experience and custom, he declares that the 
 one single and certain mark is Necessity 
 they must be beliefs which we are under the 
 necessity of believing of which we cannot 
 get rid by any mental effort. He decides 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 63 
 
 this, of course, for himself, by the introspective 
 method alone. He (with M. Cousin and 
 other philosophers who take the same view) 
 does not apply the analytical method to in- 
 quire whether his necessity of belief may not 
 be a purely acquired necessity and nowise 
 congenital. It is, indeed, remarkable that 
 these philosophers do not even seek to apply 
 the introspective method as far as that 
 method will really go. They are satisfied 
 with introspection of their own present minds ; 
 without collecting results of the like process 
 as applied to other minds, in different times 
 and places. They declare various beliefs to 
 be necessary to the human mind universally, 
 merely because such is the actual fact with 
 their own minds and with those immediately 
 around them ; sometimes even in defiance of 
 proof that there are (or have been) persons 
 not sharing such beliefs, and occasionally even 
 believing the contrary ; therefore, when even 
 the introspective method really disallows their 
 
64 The Philosophy of 
 
 affirmative instead of sustaining it. This is, 
 in truth, an abuse of the introspective method ; 
 yet even if that method were employed in its 
 fullest extent if the same incapability of 
 believing otherwise could be shown as com- 
 mon to all mankind it might still be only 
 the effect of a strong association. The ana- 
 lytical method must still be called in to 
 ascertain whether we are forced to suppose 
 such incapability to be an original fact of 
 consciousness, or whether it may not have 
 been generated in the mind by circumstances 
 under the natural working of the laws of 
 association. It is certain that these laws not 
 only may, but must, give birth to artificial 
 inconceivabilities in the mind and that 
 some of these may be equal in strength to 
 such, if any, as are natural. 
 
 < The History of Science ' (says Mr Mill, fol- 
 lowing out the same train of reasoning which 
 we read in the third Book of his ' System of 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 65 
 
 Logic ') ' teems with inconceivabilities which have 
 been conquered ; and with supposed necessary 
 truths, which have first ceased to be thought 
 necessary, then to be thought true, and have 
 finally come to be deemed impossible.' p. 150. 
 
 After various observations, chiefly exhi- 
 biting the rashness of many censures be- 
 stowed by Sir W. Hamilton on Brown, Mr 
 Mill gives us three valuable chapters (xi., 
 xii., xiii.), wherein he analyzes the belief in 
 an External_Wprld, the Belief in Mind as 
 a separate substance or Noumenon, and the 
 Primary Qualities of Matter. To each of 
 these topics he applies what he calls the 
 psychological method, as contrasted with the 
 simply introspective method of Sir W. Ham- 
 ilton (the Ego and Non-Ego affirmed to be 
 given together in the primary deliverance of 
 Consciousness) and so many other philoso- 
 phers. He proves that these beliefs are no 
 way intuitive, but acquired products ; and 
 
66 The Philosophy of 
 
 that the known laws of Association are suffi- 
 cient to explain how they are acquired ; espe- 
 cially the Law of Inseparable Association, 
 together with that of Obliviscence a very 
 useful, discriminating phrase, which we first 
 find employed in this volume (p. 259 et 
 passim). He defines Matter to be a perman- 
 ent possibility of Sensation ; he maintains that 
 this is really all which (apart from philoso- 
 phical theories) mankind in general mean 
 by it; he shows that mere possibilities of 
 sensation not only may, but must, according 
 to the known Laws of Association, come to 
 present ' to our artificialized Consciousness ' 
 a character of objectivity (pp. 198, 199). 
 The correlative subject, though present in 
 fact and indispensable, is eliminated out of 
 conscious notice, according to the Law of 
 Obliviscence. 
 
 These chapters will well repay the most 
 careful perusal. We can only find room for 
 one passage (pp. 214, 215) : 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 67 
 
 ' Throughout the whole of our sensitive life, 
 except its first beginnings, we unquestionably 
 refer our sensations to a me and not-me. As soon 
 as I have formed, on the one hand, the notion 
 of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, and on 
 the other, of that continued series of feelings 
 which I call my life both these notions are, by 
 an irresistible association, recalled by every sens- 
 ation I have. They represent two things, with 
 both of which the sensation of the moment, be 
 it what it may, stands in relation ; and I cannot 
 be conscious of the sensation without being con- 
 scious of it as related to these two things. They 
 have accordingly received relative names, express- 
 ive of the double relation in question. The 
 thread of consciousness which I apprehend the 
 relation as a part of, is called the Subject; the 
 group of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation to 
 which I refer it, and which is partially realized 
 and actualized in it, is called the Object of the 
 sensation. The sensation itself ought to have a 
 correlative name, or rather ought to have two 
 such names one denoting the sensation as op- 
 posed to its Subject, the other denoting it as 
 opposed to its Object; but it is a remarkable 
 fact that this necessity has not been felt, and 
 
68 The Philosophy of 
 
 that the need of a correlative name to every 
 relative one has been considered to be satisfied 
 by the terms Object and Subject themselves. It 
 is true that these two are related to one another, 
 but only through the sensation. We have no 
 conception of either Subject or Object, either 
 Mind or Matter, except as something to which 
 we refer our sensations, and whatever other feel- 
 ings we are conscious of. The very existence of 
 them both, so far as cognizable by us, consists only 
 in the relation they respectively bear to our states of 
 feeling. Their relation to each other is only the 
 relation between those two relations. The im- 
 mediate correlatives are, not the pair, Object, 
 Subject, but the two pairs, Object, Sensation ob- 
 jectively considered Subject, Sensation subjectively 
 considered. The reason why this is overlooked 
 might easily be shown, and would furnish a good 
 illustration of that important part of the Laws of 
 Association, which may be termed the Laws of 
 Obliviscence.' 
 
 This chapter, on the Primary Qualities 
 of Matter, controverts the opinion of Sir 
 "W. Hamilton, that extension, as consisting 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 69 
 
 of co- existent paries extra paries, is immedi- 
 ately and necessarily apprehended by our 
 consciousness. It cites, as well as confirms, 
 the copious proof given by Professor Bain 
 (in his work on the Senses and the Intellect) 
 that our conception of extension is derived 
 from our muscular sensibility : that our sens- 
 sation of muscular motion unimpeded constitutes 
 our notion of empty space, as our sensation 
 of muscular motion impeded constitutes that 
 of filled space : that our conception of ex- 
 tension, as an aggregate of co- existent parts, 
 arises from the sense of sight, which com- 
 prehends a great number of parts in a suc- 
 cession so rapid as to be confounded with 
 simultaneity and which not only becomes the 
 symbol of muscular and tactile succession, but 
 even acquires such ascendancy as to supersede 
 both of them in our consciousness. Confirm- 
 ation is here given to this important doc- 
 trine, not merely by observations from Mr 
 Mill himself, but also from the very curious 
 
70 The Philosophy of 
 
 narrative, discovered and produced by Sir "W. 
 Hamilton, out of a work of the German 
 philosopher, Platner. Platner instituted a 
 careful examination of a man born blind, and 
 ascertained that this man did not conceive 
 extension as an aggregate of simultaneous 
 parts, but as a series of sensations experi- 
 enced or to be experienced in succession (pp. 
 232, 233). The case reported from Platner 
 both corroborates the theory of Professor 
 Bain, and receives its proper interpretation 
 from that theory ; while it is altogether ad- 
 verse to the doctrine of Sir W. Hamilton as 
 is also another case, which he cites from Maine 
 de Biran : 
 
 'It gives a very favourable idea of Sir "W". 
 Hamilton's sincerity and devotion to truth (re- 
 marks Mr Mill, p. 247), that he should have drawn 
 from obscurity, and made generally known, two 
 cases so unfavourable to his own opinions.' 
 
 We think this remark perfectly just ; and 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 71 
 
 we would point out besides, in appreciating 
 Sir "W. Hamilton's merits, that his appetite 
 for facts was useful to philosophy, as well 
 as his appetite for speculation. But the per- 
 son whose usefulness to philosophy we prefer 
 to bring into the foreground, is Platner him- 
 self. He spent three weeks in patient ex- 
 amination of this blind man, and the tenor 
 of his report proves that his sagacity in in- 
 terpreting facts was equal to his patience 
 in collecting them. The rarity of all such 
 careful and premeditated observation of the 
 facts of mind, appears to us one main reason 
 why (what Mr Mill calls) the psychological 
 theory finds so little acceptance; and why 
 those who maintain that what now seems a 
 mental integer was once a multiplicity of 
 separate mental fragments, can describe the 
 antecedent steps of the change only as a 
 latens processus, which the reader never fully 
 understands, and often will not admit. Every 
 man's mind is gradually built up from in- 
 
72 The Philosophy of 
 
 fancy to maturity ; the process is always 
 going on before our eyes, yet the stages of it 
 especially the earliest stages, the most preg- 
 nant with instruction are never studied and 
 put on record by observers trained in induc- 
 tive logic, knowing beforehand what they 
 ought to look for as the sine qua non for 
 proving or disproving any proposed theory. 
 Such cases as that cited by Platner cases 
 of one marked congenital defect of sense, 
 enabling us to apply the Method of Differ- 
 ence are always within reach ; but few Plat- 
 ners are found to scrutinize and record them. 
 Historians of science describe to us the la- 
 borious and multiplied observations, and the 
 elaborate precaution for ensuring accuracy of 
 observation, which recent chemical and phy- 
 sical inquirers have found indispensable for 
 the establishment of their results. We can- 
 not, therefore, be surprised that mental phi- 
 losophers, dealing with facts even more ob- 
 scure, and careless about enlarging, varying, 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 73 
 
 authenticating their records of particular facts, 
 should have had little success in establishing 
 any results at all. 
 
 But if even those, who adopt the psycho- 
 logical theory, have been remiss in the ob- 
 servation of particular mental facts, those who 
 deny the theory have been far more than 
 remiss ; they have been blind to obvious facts 
 contradicting the principles which they lay 
 down. Mr Mill, in chap, xiv., deals with this 
 denial, common to Mr Mansel with Sir W. 
 Hamilton. That philosophers so eminent as 
 both of them should declare confidently ' what 
 I cannot but think must be a priori y or ori- 
 ginal to thought ; it cannot be engendered by 
 experience upon custom ' (p. 264) appears to 
 us as extraordinary as it does to Mr Mill. 
 Though no one ever surpassed Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton in large acquaintance with the actual diver- 
 sities of human belief, and human incapacities 
 of believing yet he never seems to have 
 thought of bringing this acquaintance into 
 
74 The Philosophy of 
 
 account, when he assured the students in his 
 lecture-room, that custom, experience, indis- 
 soluble association, were altogether insufficient 
 to engender a felt necessity of believing. Such 
 forgetfulness of well-known mental facts can- 
 not be reproached to the advocates of the 
 psychological theory. 
 
 In chap. xv. Mr Mill examines Sir "W. 
 Hamilton's doctrine on unconscious mental 
 modifications. He points out the confused 
 manner in which Sir "W. Hamilton has con- 
 ceived mental latency, as well as the incon- 
 clusive character of the reasoning whereby 
 he refutes the following doctrine of Dugald 
 Stewart That in the most rapid trains of 
 association, each separate item must have been 
 successively present to consciousness, though 
 for a time too short to leave any memory. 
 Sir W. Hamilton thinks that the separate 
 items may pass, and often do pass, uncon- 
 sciously ; which opinion Mr Mill also, though 
 not approving his reasons, is inclined to adopt. 
 
Sir^W. 
 
 1 1 am myself inclined (p. 285) to admit un- 
 conscious mental modifications, in the only sense 
 in which I can attach any very distinct meaning 
 to them namely, unconscious modifications of 
 the nerves. It may well be believed that the 
 apparently suppressed links in a chain of associ- 
 ation, those which Sir ~W. Hamilton considers as 
 latent, really are so : that they are not even 
 momentarily felt, the chain of causation being 
 continued only physically by one organic state 
 of the nerves succeeding another so rapidly, that 
 the state of mental consciousness appropriate to 
 each is not produced.' 
 
 Mr Mill gives various illustrations in sup- 
 port of this doctrine. He at the same time 
 calls attention to a valuable lecture of Sir "W. 
 Hamilton's, the thirty-second lecture on Meta- 
 physics ; especially to the instructive citation 
 from Cardaillac contained therein, noting the 
 important fact, which descriptions of the Law 
 of Association often keep out of sight that the 
 suggestive agency of Association is carried 
 on, not by single antecedents raising up 
 
76 The Philosophy of 
 
 single consequents, but by a mass of antece- 
 dents raising up simultaneously a mass of 
 consequents, among which attention is very 
 unequally distributed. 
 
 We shall say little upon Mr Mill's re- 
 marks on Sir W. Hamilton's Theory of Causa- 
 tion (chap. xvi.). This theory appears to 
 Mr Mill absurd; while the theory of Mr 
 Mill (continued from Hume, Brown, and 
 James Mill) on the same subject, appears to 
 Sir W. Hamilton insufficient and unsatisfac- 
 tory 'professing to explain the phenomenon 
 of causality , but, previously to explanation, 
 evacuating the phenomenon of all that desider- 
 ates explanation' (p. 295). For ourselves 
 we embrace the theory of Mr Mill :* yet we 
 
 * At the same time, we cannot go along with. Mr 
 Mill in the following affirmation (p. 201) : 
 
 ' This natural probability is converted into certainty 
 when we take into consideration that universal law of 
 our experience which is termed the Law of Causation, 
 and which makes us unable to conceive the beginning of 
 anything without an antecedent condition, or cause? 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 77 
 
 are aware that the remark just cited from 
 Sir "W. Hamilton represents the dissatisfaction 
 
 Such 'inability to conceive' appears to us not in 
 correspondence with facts. First, it cannot be properly 
 either affirmed or denied, until agreement is obtained 
 what the word cause means. If three persons, A, B, and 
 C, agree in affirming it A adopting the meaning of 
 Aristotle, B that of Sir William Hamilton, and C that of 
 Mr Mill the agreement is purely verbal ; or rather, all 
 three concur in having a mental exigency pressing for 
 satisfaction, but differ as to the hypothesis which satis- 
 fies it. 
 
 Next, if we reason upon Mr Mill's theory as to 
 Cause, certainly those who deny his theory can have 
 no difficulty in conceiving events without any cause 
 (in that sense) : nor have those who adopt this theory 
 any greater difficulty. These latter believe that there 
 are, throughout, constant and uniform conditions on 
 which the occurrence of every event depends ; but they 
 can perfectly conceive events as occurring without any 
 such uniform sequence. In truth, the belief in such 
 causation, as pervading all nature, is an acquired result 
 of scientific training. The greater part of mankind 
 believe that some events occur in regular, others in 
 irregular succession. Moreover, a full half of the meta- 
 physical world espouse the doctrine of free-will, and 
 consider that all volitions occur without any cause at all. 
 
78 The Philosophy of 
 
 entertained towards it by many objectors. 
 The unscientific and antiscientific yearnings, 
 prevalent among mankind, lead them to put 
 questions which no sound theory of Causation 
 will answer ; and they are ready to visit and 
 trust any oracle which professes to deliver a 
 confident affirmative solution of such ques- 
 tions. Among all the terms employed by 
 metaphysicians, none is used in a greater 
 variety of meanings than the term Cause. 
 
 In Mr Mill's next chapter (xvi.) he com- 
 ments on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of Con- 
 cepts or General Notions. There are portions 
 of this chapter with which we agree less than 
 with most other parts of the volume ; especially 
 with his marked hostility to the term Con- 
 cept, and the reasons given for it, which 
 reasons appear to us not very consistent with 
 what he has himself said in the ' System of 
 Logic,' Book IV. chap. ii. 13. The term 
 Concept has no necessary connection with the 
 theory called Conceptualism. It is equally 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 79 
 
 available to designate the idea called up by 
 a general name, as understood either by Mr 
 Bailey or by James Mill. We think it useful 
 as an equivalent to the German word Begriff, 
 which sense Sir W. Hamilton has in view 
 when he introduces it, though he does not 
 always adhere to his profession. And when 
 Mr Mill says (p. 331) 
 
 * I consider it nothing less than a misfortune, 
 that the words Concept, General Notion, or any 
 other phrase to express the supposed mental modi- 
 fication corresponding to a general name, should 
 ever have been invented,' 
 
 we dissent from his opinion. To talk of ' the 
 Concept of an individual/ however, as Mr 
 Mansel does (pp. 338, 339), is improper and 
 inconsistent with the purpose for which the 
 name is given. 
 
 We are more fully in harmony with Mr 
 Mill in his two next chapters (xviii. et seq.) on 
 
80 The Philosophy of 
 
 Judgment and Reasoning ; which are among 
 the best chapters in this volume. He there 
 combats and overthrows the theory of Reason- 
 ing laid down by Sir W. Hamilton ; but we 
 doubt the propriety of his calling this 'the 
 Conceptualist theory ' (pp. 367, 368) ; since 
 it has nothing to do with Conceptualism, in the 
 special sense of antithesis to Realism and 
 Nominalism, but is, in fact, the theory of the 
 Syllogism as given in the Analytics of 
 Aristotle, and generally admitted since. Not 
 merely Conceptualists, but (to use Mr Mill's 
 own language, p. 366) ' nearly all the writers 
 on logic, taught a theory of the science too 
 small and narrow to contain their own facts/ 
 Such, indeed, was the theory constantly taught 
 until the publication of Mr, Mill's ' System of 
 Logic ; ' the first two books of which corrected 
 it, by arguments which are reinforced and 
 amplified in these two chapters on Judgment 
 and Reasoning, as well as in the two chapters 
 next following chaps, xx. and xxi. (' Is 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 81 
 
 Logic the Science of the Forms of Thought 
 On the Fundamental Laws of Thought/) 
 The contrast which is there presented, in 
 many different ways, between the limited 
 theory of logic taught by Sir "W. Hamilton 
 and Mr Hansel, and the enlarged theory of 
 Mr Mill, is instructive in a high degree. We 
 consider Mr Mill as the real preserver of all 
 that is valuable in Formal Logic, from the 
 unfortunate consequences of an erroneous 
 estimate, brought upon it through the exag- 
 gerated pretensions of logicians. When Sir 
 W. Hamilton contrasts it pointedly with 
 physical science (of which he talks with a sort 
 of supercilious condescension, in one of the 
 worst passages of his writings, p. 401) when 
 all its apparent fruits were produced in the 
 shape of ingenious but barren verbal techni- 
 calities what hope could be entertained that 
 Formal Logic could hold its ground in the 
 estimation of the recent generation of scientific 
 
 men ? Mr Mill has divested it of that assumed 
 6 
 
82 The Philosophy of 
 
 demonstrative authority which Bacon called 
 ' regere res per syllogismum ; ' but he has at 
 the same time given to it a firm root amidst 
 the generalities of objective science. He has 
 shown that in the great problem of Evidence 
 or Proof, the Laws of Formal Logic, though 
 bearing only on one part of the entire 
 procedure, yet bear upon one essential part, 
 proper to be studied separately : and that the 
 maintenance of consistency between our affirm- 
 ations (which is the only special province of 
 Formal Logic), has great importance and value 
 as a part of the process necessary for ascertain- 
 ing and vindicating their truth, or exposing 
 their character when false or uncertified but 
 no importance or value except as a part of that 
 larger exigency. 
 
 While Mr Mill was amending the Syllo- 
 gistic theory so as to ensure for Formal Logic its 
 legitimate place among the essentials of scien- 
 tific procedure, Sir "VV. Hamilton was at the 
 same time enlarging it on its technical side, in 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 83 
 
 two modes which are highly esteemed both by 
 himself and by others : 1. The recognition of 
 two kinds of Syllogisms ; one in Extension, the 
 other in Comprehension : 2. The doctrine of 
 the Quantification of the Predicate. Both these 
 novelties are here criticised by Mr Mill in 
 chapter xxii., which we recommend the reader 
 to peruse conjointly with Lectures 15 and 16 
 of Sir W. Hamilton on Logic. 
 
 Now whereas the main objection, by which 
 the study of the syllogistic logic has been 
 weighed down and discredited in modern 
 times, is this, that it encumbers the memory 
 with formal distinctions, having no useful 
 application to the real process and purposes of 
 reasoning the procedure of Sir "W. Hamilton 
 might almost lead us to imagine that he him- 
 self was trying to aggravate that objection to 
 the uttermost. He introduces a variety of new 
 canons (classifying Syllogisms as Extensive 
 and Intensive, by a distinction founded on the 
 double quantity of notions, in Extension and in 
 
84 The Philosophy of 
 
 Comprehension) which he intimates that all 
 former logicians have neglected while it 
 plainly appears, even on his own showing, that 
 the difference between syllogisms, in respect to 
 these two sorts of quantity, is of no practical 
 value ; and that ' we can always change a 
 categorical syllogism of the one quantity into 
 a categorical syllogism of the other, by revers- 
 ing the order of the two premises, and by re- 
 versing the meaning of the copula ' (Lect. xvi. 
 p. 296) ; nay, that every syllogism is already 
 a syllogism in both quantities (Mill, p. 431). 
 Against these useless ceremonial reforms of Sir 
 W. Hamilton, we may set the truly philoso- 
 phical explanation here given by Mr Mill of 
 the meaning of propositions. 
 
 'All judgments' (he says p. 423), 'except 
 where both the terms are proper names, are re- 
 ally judgments in Comprehension ; though it is 
 customary, and the natural tendency of the mind, 
 to express most of them in terms of Extension. 
 In other words, we never really predicate any- 
 
 A 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 85 
 
 thing but attributes ; though, in the usage of lan- 
 guage, we commonly predicate them by means of 
 words which are names of concrete objects 
 because ' (p. 426) ' we have no other convenient 
 and compact mode of speaking. Most attributes, 
 and nearly all large bundles of attributes, have no 
 names of their own. "We can only name them by 
 a circumlocution. We are accustomed to speak of 
 attributes, not by names given to themselves, but 
 by means of the names which they give to the 
 objects they are attributes of.' ' All our ordinary 
 judgments ' (p. 428) * are in Comprehension only ; 
 Extension not being thought of. But we may, if 
 we please, make the Extension of our general 
 terms an express object of thought. "When I 
 judge that all oxen ruminate, I have nothing in 
 my thoughts but the attributes and their co-exist- 
 ence. But when by reflection I perceive what 
 the proposition implies, I remark that other 
 things may ruminate besides oxen, and that the 
 unknown multitude of things which ruminate 
 form a mass, with which the unknown multitude 
 of things having the attributes of oxen is either 
 identical or is wholly comprised in it. "Which of 
 these two is the truth I may not know, and if I 
 did, took no notice of it when I assented to the 
 
86 The Philosophy of 
 
 proposition, all oxen ruminate ; but I perceive, on 
 consideration, that one or other of them must be 
 true. Though I had not this in my mind when I 
 affirmed that all oxen ruminate, I can have it now; 
 I can make the concrete objects denoted by each 
 of the two names an object of thought, as a collect- 
 ive though indefinite aggregate ; in other words, I 
 can make the Extension of the names (or notions) 
 an object of direct consciousness. "When I do 
 this, I perceive that this operation introduces no 
 new fact, but is only a different mode of contem- 
 plating the very fact which I had previously 
 expressed by the words, all oxen ruminate. The 
 fact is the same, but the mode of contemplating it 
 is different. There is thus in all Propositions a 
 judgment concerning attributes (called by Sir "W. 
 Hamilton a Judgment in Comprehension) which 
 we make as a matter of course ; and a possible 
 judgment in or concerning Extension, which we 
 may make, and which will be true if the former is 
 true.' 
 
 From the lucid explanation here cited (and 
 from a following paragraph too long to 
 describe,, p. 433), we see that there is no real 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 87 
 
 distinction between Judgments in Compre- 
 hension and Judgments in Extension; that 
 the appearance of distinction between them 
 arises from the customary mode of enunciation, 
 which custom is here accounted for ; that the 
 addition to the theory of the Syllogism, for 
 which Sir "W. Hamilton takes credit, is alike 
 troublesome and unprofitable. 
 
 The like may also be said about his other 
 innovation, the Quantification of the Predicate. 
 Still more extensive are the changes (as stated 
 by himself) which this innovation would intro- 
 duce in the canons of Syllogism. Indeed, 
 when we read his language (Appendix to 
 ' Lectures on Logic/ pp. 291 297) censuring 
 generally the prior logicians from Aristotle 
 downwards, and contending that 'more than 
 half the value of logic had been lost ' by their 
 manner of handling it we may appreciate the 
 magnitude of the reform which he believed 
 himself to be introducing. The larger the 
 reform, the more it behoved him to be sure of 
 
88 The Philosophy of 
 
 the ground on which, he was proceeding. But 
 on this point we remark a serious deficiency. 
 After laying down, with appropriate emphasis, 
 the valuable logical postulate, to state explicitly 
 what is thought implicitly, on which, Sir W. 
 Hamilton says, 
 
 * Logic ever insists, but which logicians have 
 never fairly obeyed it follows that logically we 
 ought to take into account the quantity, always 
 understood in thought, but usually, and for manifest 
 reasons, elided in expression, not only of the sub- 
 ject, but also of the predicate, of a judgment.' 
 (' Discussions on Philos.,' p. 614.) 
 
 Here Sir "W. Hamilton assumes that the 
 quantity of the predicate is always understood 
 in thought ; and the same assumption is often 
 repeated, in the Appendix to his ' Lectures on 
 Logic/ p. 291 and elsewhere, as if it was alike 
 obvious and incontestable. Now it is precisely 
 on this point that issue is here taken with Sir 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 89 
 
 W. Hamilton. Mr Mill denies altogether (p. 
 437) that the quantity of the predicate is 
 always understood or present in thought, and 
 appeals to every reader's consciousness for an 
 answer : 
 
 * Does he, when he judges that all oxen rumin- 
 ate, advert even in the minutest degree to the 
 question, whether there is anything else that 
 ruminates ? Is this consideration at all in his 
 thoughts, any more thau any other consideration 
 foreign to the immediate subject? One person 
 may know that there are other ruminating 
 animals, another may think that there are none, a 
 third may be without any opinion on the subject ; 
 but if they, all know what is meant by ruminating, 
 they all, when they judge that every ox ruminates, 
 mean precisely the same thing. The mental pro- 
 cess they go through, as far as that one judgment 
 is concerned, is precisely identical ; though some of 
 them may go on farther, and add other judgments 
 to it.' 
 
 The last sentence cited from Mr Mill 
 
90 The Philosophy of 
 
 indicates the vice of Sir "W. Hamilton's pro- 
 ceeding in quantifying the predicate, and 
 explains why it was that logicians before him 
 declined to do so. Sir TV". Hamilton, in this 
 proceeding, insists on stating explicitly, not 
 merely all that is thought implicitly, but a 
 great deal more ; * adding to it something 
 
 * Among the various authorities (upon this question 
 of quantifying the predicate) collected by Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton in the valuable Appendix to his ' Lectures on Logic,' 
 we find one (p. 311) which takes the same ground of 
 objection as Mr Mill, in these words : 'The cause why 
 the quantitative note is not usually joined with the 
 predicate, is, that there would thus be two quasita at 
 once ; to wit, whether the predicate were affirmed of the 
 subject, and whether it were denied of everything beside. 
 For when we say, all man is all rational, we judge that 
 all man is rational, and judge likewise that rational is 
 denied of everything but man. But these are, in reality, 
 two different quaesita ; and therefore it has become usual 
 to state them, not in one, but in two several propositions. 
 And this is self-evident, seeing that a qucesitum, in itself, 
 asks only Does or does not this inhere in that ? and not 
 Does or does not this inhere in that, and, at the same time 
 inhere in nothing else/" 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 91 
 
 else, which may, indeed, be thought conjointly, 
 but which more frequently is not thought at 
 all. He requires us to pack two distinct judg- 
 ments into one and the same proposition : he 
 interpolates the meaning of the Propositio 
 Conversa simpliciter into the form of the Propo- 
 sitio Conyertenda (when an universal Affirma- 
 tive), and then claims it as a great advantage, 
 that the proposition thus interpolated admits 
 of being converted simpliciter, and not merely 
 
 The author of this just and sagacious remark much 
 surpassing what the other writers quoted in the Appendix 
 say was a Jew who died at Perpignan in or near 1370, 
 named Levi Ben Gerson or Gersonides. An interesting 
 account of this man, eminent as a writer and thinker in 
 his age, will he ; found in a biography by Dr Joel, pub- 
 lished at Breslau in 1862, ' Levi Ben Gerson als Religions 
 philosoph/ He distinguished himself as a writer on 
 theology, philosophy, and astronomy ; he was one of the 
 successors to the free speculative vein of Maimonides, 
 and one of the continuators of the Arabic Aristotelian 
 philosophy. He both commented on and combated the 
 doctrines of Averroes. Dr Joel thinks that he died 
 earlier than 1370. 
 
92 The Philosophy of 
 
 per accident. Mr Mill is, nevertheless, of 
 opinion (pp. 439 443) that though 'the 
 quantified syllogism is not a true expression of 
 what is in thought, yet writing the predicate 
 with a quantification may be sometimes a real 
 help to the Art of Logic.' We see little 
 advantage in providing a new complicated 
 form, for the purpose of expressing in one 
 proposition what naturally throws itself into 
 two, and may easily be expressed in two. If 
 a man is prepared to give us information on 
 one Quaesitum, why should he be constrained 
 to use a mode of speech which forces on his 
 attention at the same time a second and dis- 
 tinct Quaesitum so that he must either give 
 us information about the two at once, or con- 
 fess himself ignorant respecting the second ? 
 
 The two next chapters of Mr Mill, noticing 
 some other minor peculiarities (all of them 
 unfortunate, and one, p. 447, really unaccount- 
 able) of Sir W. Hamilton's Formal Logic; 
 and some Fallacious Modes of Thought counte- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 93 
 
 nanced by Sir W. Hamilton (chs. xxiii., xxiv. 
 pp. 446, 478), we are compelled to pass over. 
 We must find space, however, for a few words 
 on the Freedom of the Will (ch. xxv.), which 
 (in Mr Mill's language, pp. 488 549), ' was so 
 fundamental with Sir W. Hamilton, that it 
 may be regarded as the central idea of his 
 system the determining cause of most of his 
 philosophical opinions.' Prior to Sir W. 
 Hamilton, we find some writers who maintain 
 the doctrine of Free-will, others who maintain 
 that of Necessity: each supporting their 
 respective conclusions by reasons which they 
 deem sufficient. Sir W. Hamilton declares 
 that both the one doctrine and the other are 
 inconceivable 'and incomprehensible ; yet that, 
 by the law of Excluded Middle, one or other 
 of them must be true : and he decides in 
 favour of Free-will, of which he believes him- 
 self to be distinctly conscious ; moreover, Free- 
 will is essential (he thinks) to moral responsi- 
 bility, of which also he feels himself conscious. 
 
94 The Philosophy of 
 
 He confesses himself, however, unable to 
 explain the possibility of Free-will; but he 
 maintains that the same may be said about 
 Necessity also. ' The champions of both the 
 two opposite doctrines are at once resistless in 
 attack, and impotent in defence ' (Hamilton's 
 ' Footnotes on Reid,' p. 602.) Mr Hansel 
 also asserts, even more confidently than Sir W. 
 Hamilton, that we are directly conscious of 
 Free-will (p. 503). 
 
 Sir "W. Hamilton has himself given some 
 of the best arguments against the doctrine of 
 Free-will, in refutation of Reid : arguments, 
 some of which are here cited by Mr Mill with 
 praise which they well deserve (pp. 497, 
 498). But Mr Mill's own reasoning on the 
 same side is of a still higher order, enlarging 
 the grounds previously urged in the last book 
 of his ' System of Logic.' He protests against 
 the term Necessity ; and discards the idea of 
 Necessity, if it be understood to imply any- 
 thing more than invariability of antecedence 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 95 
 
 and consequence. If it mean that, experience 
 proves thus much about antecedents in the 
 world of mind, as in the world of matter : if it 
 mean more, experience does not prove more, 
 either in the world of matter or in the world 
 of mind : nor have we any grounds for affirm- 
 ing it in either (p. 501.) If it were true, 
 therefore, that consciousness attested Free- 
 will, we should find the testimony of consci- 
 ousness opposed to a full proof from experience 
 and induction. But does consciousness really 
 attest what is called Free-will? Mr Mill 
 analyzes the case, and declares in the nega- 
 tive. 
 
 ' To be conscious of Eree-will, must mean to be 
 conscious, before I have decided, that I am able to 
 decide either way; exception may be taken in 
 limine to the use of the word consciousness in such 
 an application. Consciousness tells me what I do 
 or feel. But what I am able to do, is not a subject 
 of consciousness. Consciousness is not prophetic ; 
 we are conscious of what is, not of what will or 
 
96 The Philosophy of 
 
 . 
 
 can be. "We never know that we are able to do a 
 thing, except from having done it, or something 
 similar to it. Having acted, we know, as far as 
 that experience reaches, how we are able to act ; 
 and this knowledge, when it has become familiar, is 
 often confounded with, and called by, the name of 
 consciousness. But it does not derive any increase 
 of authority from being misnamed: its truth is 
 not supreme over, but depends upon, experience. 
 If our so-called consciousness is not borne out by 
 experience, it is a delusion. It has no title to 
 credence, but as an interpretation of experience ; 
 and if it is a false interpretation, it must give 
 way.' pp. 503, 504 
 
 After this salutary and much-needed warn- 
 ing against the confusion between conscious- 
 ness as an infallible authority, and belief upon 
 experience, of which we are conscious as a 
 belief Mr Mill proceeds to sift the alleged 
 self-evident connection between Free-will and 
 Accountability. He shows, not merely that 
 there is no connection, but that there is a posi- 
 tive repugnance, between the two. By Free- 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 97 
 
 will is meant that a volition is not determined 
 by motives, but is a spontaneous mental fact, 
 neither having a cause, nor admitting of being 
 predicted. Now, the very reason for giving 
 notice that we intend to punish certain acts, 
 and for inflicting punishment if the acts be 
 committed, is, that we trust in the efficacy of 
 the threat and the punishment as deterring 
 motives. If the volition of agents be not 
 influenced by motives, the whole machinery 
 of law becomes unavailing, and punishment 
 a purposeless infliction of pain. In fact, it is 
 on that very ground that the madman is 
 exempted from punishment ; his volition being 
 presumed to be not capable of being acted 
 upon by the deterring motive of legal sanction. 
 The free agent, thus understood, is one who 
 can neither feel himself accountable, nor be 
 rendered accountable, to or by others. It is 
 only the necessary agent (the person whose 
 volitions are determined by motives, and, in 
 case of conflict, by the strongest desire or the 
 
98 The Philosophy of 
 
 strongest apprehension) that can be held re- 
 ally accountable, or can feel himself to be so. 
 
 * The true doctrine of the Causation of human 
 actions (says Mr Mill, p. 516) maintains, in oppo- 
 sition both to pure and to modified Fatalism, that 
 not only our conduct, but our character, is in part 
 amenable to our will : that we can, by employing 
 the proper means, improve our character: and 
 that if our character is such that, while it remains 
 what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong it will 
 be just to apply motives which will necessitate us 
 to strive for its improvement. "We shall not 
 indeed do so unless we desire our improvement, 
 and desire it more than we dislike the means 
 which must be employed for the purpose.' 
 
 It thus appears that of the two proposi- 
 tions, 1, volitions are necessary, or depend on 
 causes ; 2, volitions are free, or do not depend 
 on causes neither the one nor the other is 
 inconceivable or incomprehensible, as Sir "W. 
 Hamilton supposed them to be. That the first 
 is true, and the second false, we learn by 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 99 
 
 experience, and by that alone ; just as we 
 learn the like in regard to the phenomena of 
 the material world. Indeed, the fact that 
 human volitions are both predictable and 
 modifiable, quite as much as all those physical 
 phenomena that depend upon a complication of 
 causes which is only a corollary from what 
 has just been said is so universally recognized 
 and acted upon by all men, that there would 
 probably be little difference of opinion about 
 this question, if the antithesis were not 
 obscured and mystified by the familiar, but 
 equivocal, phrases of Free-will and Necessity. 
 Passing over chapter xxvii., in which Mr 
 Mill refutes Sir W. Hamilton's opinion that 
 the study of mathematics is worthless, or 
 nearly so, as an intellectual discipline we 
 shall now call attention to the concluding 
 remarks which sum up the results of the 
 volume. After saying that he ' differs from 
 almost everything in Sir "W. Hamilton's philo- 
 sophy, on which he particularly valued him- 
 
100 The Philosophy of 
 
 self, or which is specially his own/ Mr Mill 
 describes Sir "W. Hamilton's general merits as 
 follows : 
 
 ' They chiefly consist in his clear and distinct 
 mode of bringing before the reader many of the 
 fundamental questions of metaphysics : some good 
 specimens of psychological analysis on a small 
 scale : and the many detached logical and psycho- 
 logical truths which he has separately seized, and 
 which are scattered through his writings, mostly 
 applied to resolve some special difficulty, and 
 again lost sight of. I can hardly point to any- 
 thing he has done towards helping the more 
 thorough understanding of the greater mental 
 phenomena, unless it be his theory of Attention 
 (including Abstraction), which seems to me the 
 most perfect we have ; but the subject, though a 
 highly important, is comparatively a simple one. 1 
 p. 547. 
 
 Agreeing in this general view of Sir W. 
 Hamilton's merits, we should be disposed to 
 describe them in language stronger and more 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 101 
 
 emphatic as to degree, than that which has 
 just been cited. But what is stated in the 
 pages immediately following (pp. 550, 551) 
 That Sir W. Hamilton's doctrines appear 
 to be usually taken up under the stimulus of 
 some special dispute, and often afterwards 
 forgotten ; That he did not think out sub- 
 jects until they were thoroughly mastered, or 
 until consistency was attained between the 
 different views which the author took from 
 different points of observation ; That accord- 
 ingly, his philosophy seems made up of scraps 
 from several conflicting metaphysical systems 
 All this is literally and amply borne out 
 by the many inconsistencies and contradic- 
 tions which Mr Mill has brought to view in 
 the preceding chapters. It would appear 
 that the controversial disposition was power- 
 ful with Sir "W. Hamilton, and that a pre- 
 sent impulse of that sort (as has been said 
 respecting Bayle, Burke, and others) not only 
 served to provoke new intellectual combina- 
 
102 The Philosophy of 
 
 tions in his mind, but also exercised a Leth- 
 sean influence in causing obliviscence of the 
 old. But we can hardly follow Mr Mill in 
 ascribing the defect to 'excessive absorption 
 of time and energy by the study of old 
 writers ' (p. 551). If this study did no 
 other good, it at least kept the memory in 
 exercise. Now, what surprises us most in 
 Sir "W. Hamilton's inconsistencies, is the 
 amount of self-forgetfulness which they imply. 
 While the laborious erudition of Sir W. 
 Hamilton cannot be fairly regarded as hav- 
 ing produced any of his intellectual defects, 
 it undoubtedly stamped upon him his special 
 title of excellence as a philosopher. This is 
 fully recognized by Mr Mill ; though he 
 treats it as belonging not so much to a 
 philosopher as to an historian of philosophy. 
 *He concludes (pp. 552 554) : 
 
 ' It is much to be regretted that Sir "W. 
 Hamilton did not write the history of philosophy, 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 103 
 
 instead of choosing, as the direct object of his 
 intellectual exertions, philosophy itself. He pos- 
 sessed a knowledge of the materials such as no 
 one, probably for many generations, will take the 
 trouble of acquiring again. Independently of the 
 great interest and value attaching to a knowledge 
 of the historical development of speculation, there 
 is much in the old writers on philosophy, even 
 those of the middle ages, really worth preserving 
 for its scientific value. But this should be ex- 
 tracted, and rendered into the phraseology of 
 modern thought, by persons as familiar with that 
 as with the ancient, and possessing a command 
 of its language : a combination never yet so per- 
 fectly realized as in Sir W. Hamilton. This, 
 which no one but himself could have done, he 
 has left undone, and has given us, instead, a con- 
 tribution to mental philosophy, which has been 
 more than equalled by many not superior to him 
 in powers, and wholly destitute of erudition. Of 
 all persons in modern times entitled to the name 
 of philosophers, the two, probably, whose reading 
 on the subject was the scantiest, in proportion 
 to their intellectual capacity, were Archbishop 
 Whately and Dr Brown. Accordingly they are 
 the only two of whom Sir "W. Hamilton, though 
 
104 The Philosophy of 
 
 acknowledging their abilities, speaks with some 
 tinge of superciliousness. It cannot be denied 
 that both Dr Brown and Whately would have 
 thought and written better than they did, if they 
 had been better read in the writings of previous 
 thinkers ; but I am not afraid that posterity will 
 contradict me when I say, that either of them 
 has done far greater service to the world in the 
 origination and diffusion of important thought, 
 than Sir ~W. Hamilton with all his learning; 
 because, though indolent readers, they were both 
 of them active and fertile thinkers. 
 
 ' It is not that Sir W. Hamilton's erudition is 
 not frequently of real use to him on particular 
 questions of philosophy. It does him one valu- 
 able service : it enables him to know all the 
 various opinions which can be held on the ques- 
 tions he discusses, and to conceive and express 
 them clearly, leaving none of them out. This it 
 does, though even this not always ; but it does 
 little else, even of what might be expected from 
 erudition when enlightened by philosophy. He 
 knew, with extraordinary accuracy, the on of each 
 philosopher's opinions, but gave himself little 
 trouble about the %i6n. With one exception, I 
 find no remark bearing upon that point in any 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 105 
 
 part of his writings. I imagine he would have 
 been much at a loss if he had been required to 
 draw up a philosophical estimate of the mind of 
 any great thinker. He never seems to look at 
 any opinion of a philosopher in connection with 
 the same philosopher's other opinions. Accord- 
 ingly he is weak as to the mutual relations of 
 philosophical doctrines. One of the most strik- 
 ing examples of this inability is in the case of 
 Leibnitz,' &c. 
 
 Here we find in a few sentences the con- 
 clusion which Mr Mill conceives to be estab- 
 lished by his book. We shall state how 
 far we are able to concur with it. He has 
 brought the matter to a direct issue, by 
 weighing Sir W. Hamilton in the balance 
 against two other actual cotemporaries ; in- 
 stead of comparing him with some unrealized 
 ideal found only in the fancy of critics and 
 reviewers. 
 
 Comparing Sir W. Hamilton with Dr 
 Brown, we cordially subscribe to the opinion 
 of Mr Mill, We think that Dr Brown has 
 
106 The Philosophy of 
 
 ' done far greater service to the world than 
 Sir TV. Hamilton, in the origination and 
 diffusion of important thought/ To speak 
 only of two chief subjects in the field of 
 important thought Causality and the Free- 
 dom of the Will we not only adopt the 
 conclusions of Dr Brown, but we admire 
 both his acuteness and his originality in vin- 
 dicating and illustrating the first of the two, 
 while we dissent entirely from the views of 
 Sir "W. Hamilton. This alone would be suffi- 
 cient to make us approve the superiority 
 assigned by Mr Mill to Dr Brown. TVe 
 discover no compensating item to be placed 
 to the credit of Sir W. Hamilton : for the 
 great doctrine of the Relativity of Know- 
 ledge, which is our chief point of philoso- 
 phical brotherhood with him, was maintained 
 by Brown also. 
 
 But in regard to Dr TVhately, our judg- 
 ment is altogether different. We cannot con- 
 sent to admit him as a superior, or even as 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 107 
 
 an equal, to Sir W. Hamilton, 'in the ori- 
 gination and diffusion of important thought.' 
 He did much service by reviving an inclina- 
 tion and respect for Logic, and by clearing 
 up a part of the technical obscurity which 
 surrounded it : but we look upon him as an 
 acute and liberal-minded English theologian, 
 enlarging usefully, though timidly, the in- 
 tellectual prison in which many orthodox 
 minds are confined rather than as a fit 
 aspirant to the cosmopolitan honours of phi- 
 losophy. ' An active and fertile thinker/ Mr 
 Mill calls Whately ; and such he undoubtedly 
 was. But such also we consider Sir W. 
 Hamilton to have been in a degree, at least 
 equal. If the sentence which we have quoted 
 above be intended to deny the predicate, 
 1 active and fertile thinker/ of Sir "W. Ham- 
 ilton, we cannot acquiesce in it. His intel- 
 lect appears to us thoroughly active and 
 fertile, even when we dissent from his rea- 
 sonings nay, even in the midst of his in- 
 
108 The Philosophy of 
 
 consistencies, when a new growth of opinions 
 is unexpectedly pushed up on ground which 
 we supposed to be already pre-occupied by 
 another both older and different. And we 
 find this same judgment implied in the dis- 
 criminating remarks upon his philosophical 
 procedure made by Mr Mill himself (pp. 
 271, 272). For example, respecting Caus- 
 ality and the Freedom of the Will, we detect 
 no want of activity and fertility, though 
 marked evidence of other defects especially 
 the unconditional surrender of a powerful 
 mind to certain privileged inspirations, wor- 
 shipped as ( necessities of thought.' 
 
 While thus declaring how far we concur 
 in the parallel here drawn of Sir "W. Hamilton 
 with Brown and "Whately, we must at the 
 same time add that the comparison is taken 
 under circumstances unduly favourable to 
 these two last. There has been no exposure 
 of their errors and inconsistencies, equal in 
 penetration and completeness to the crushing 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 109 
 
 volume which Mr Mill has devoted to Sir 
 W. Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he 
 ought to furnish a similar systematic examin- 
 ation to Brown and Whately ; enabling us 
 to read their works (as we now do those of Sir 
 W. Hamilton) with the advantage of his un- 
 rivalled microscope, which detects the minut- 
 est breach or incoherence in the tissue of 
 reasoning and of his large command of phi- 
 losophical premisses, which brings into full 
 notice what the author had overlooked. Thus 
 alone could the competition between the three 
 be rendered perfectly fair. 
 
 We regret, as Mr Mill does, that Sir 
 W. Hamilton did not undertake the compo- 
 sition of a history of philosophy. Neverthe- 
 less we must confess that we should hardly 
 feel such regret, if we could see evidence to 
 warrant Mr Mill's judgment (p. 554) that 
 Sir "W. Hamilton was ' indifferent to the StoVt 
 of a man's opinions, and that he was incom- 
 petent to draw up an estimate of the opinions 
 
1 10 The Philosophy of 
 
 of any great thinker/ &c. Such incompet- 
 ence, if proved to be frequent and consider- 
 able, would deprive an author of all chance 
 of success in writing a history of philosophy. 
 But the study of Sir William Hamilton's 
 works does not prove it to us, though Mr 
 Mill has convicted him of an erroneous esti- 
 mate of Leibnitz. We saj frequent and con- 
 siderable, because no historian of philosophy 
 is exempt from the defect more or less; or 
 rather (to pass out of the self-confidence of 
 the Absolute into the modesty of the Rela- 
 tive) we seldom find any historian whose. esti- 
 mate of great philosophical thinkers does not 
 often differ from our own. Hence we are 
 glad when ample original extracts are pro- 
 duced, enabling us to test the historian, and 
 judge for ourselves a practice which Sir "W. 
 Hamilton would have required no stimulus to 
 enforce upon him. There ought, indeed, to 
 be various histories of philosophy, composed 
 from different points of view ; for the ablest 
 
Sir W. Hamilton. 1 1 1 
 
 historian cannot get clear of a certain exclu- 
 eiveness belonging to himself. But, so far 
 as we can conjecture what Sir W. Hamilton 
 would or could have done, we think that a 
 history of philosophy composed by him would 
 have surpassed any work of the kind in our 
 language. 
 
 We trust that Sir W. Hamilton's works 
 will long continue to be read, along with 
 Mr Mill's examination of them ; and we should 
 be glad if the works of other philosophers 
 could be read along with a comment of equal 
 acuteness and impartiality. Any point of 
 view which could command the adherence of 
 such a mind as Sir W. Hamilton's, deserves 
 to be fully considered. Moreover, the living 
 force of philosophy, as directress of human 
 intelligence, depends upon keeping up in each 
 of her devotees a full mastery of many di- 
 vergent and opposite veins of reasoning a 
 knowledge, negative and affirmative, of the 
 full case of opponents as well as of his own. 
 
1 12 The Philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton. 
 
 It is to Philosophy alone that our allegi- 
 ance is sworn ; and while we concur mostly 
 with Mr Mill's opinions, we number both him 
 and Sir W. Hamilton as a noble pair of bre- 
 thren, serving alike in her train. 
 
 Amicus Hamilton ; magis amiciis Mill ; 
 arnica ante omnes Philosophia. 
 
 JOHX CHILDS AXD SOX, PEIXIEKS. 
 
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