That modern philosophy begins with David Hume is universally admitted; that it ends with Sir William Hamilton will not be allowed by those who see in his system only a new line of railway to infidelity, but it is firmly maintained by a majority of his pupils, and by most of those who profess to have mastered his method. Unfortunately, it is not very easy to scrape an acquaintance with that method. A great thinker and an incessant reader, Sir William Hamilton had a mortal hatred of the pen. His prodigious learning was utterly unable to crush his power of thought, but learning and thought combined to cripple the faculty of composition. If ever he made a remark his erudition reminded him that a thousand previous remarks had been made which had some relation to his own, and he could not resist the opportunity of tracing the stream of thought from age to age, until finally it welled up in a particular form into his own consciousness. Then he must not only trace the history of the idea, he must also trace the history of the words in which it was conveyed, and attack somebody in passing for a curious mistake as to the language of the Aristotelians, this mistake. being a signal proof of the degradation of the particular University to which the

sinner belongs, and a capital excuse for digressing into a discussion of University training in general. While he was thus hampered in the act of composition by the suggestions of a too abtrusive memory, he was also hampered by the demands. of a too exacting thought. He never could look at a subject from the one point of view which suited his present purpose without first of all analyzing all the possible modes of looking at it, making a philosophical genuflexion to every point of the intellectual compass, and explaining why every one of these in turn must be rejected in order that we may trim our sails to the glowing west. In every topic he saw a universe of thought; in every atom of life the microcosm of existence; and he was always striving to compress a library into an essay, a system into a sentence. The thing was impossible. His ideal of composition was extravagant, and so utterly beyond human attainment that he threw aside his pen in despair, and never wrote except on compulsion. His writing almost always took the form of criticism, which is of itself fragmentary. His critiques are saddled with appendices, the appendices have explanatory notes attachedthere are notes to the notes, to these notes there are other notes, and these other

Edited by the Edinburgh, W

VOL. XXIX-1

notes contain learned references that require to be verified in still smaller print. So the writing accumulates, note budding out of note, and the print ever getting "small by degrees and beautifully less," until at last we begin to think of spectacles both to read the type and to discover the connection between the subject of the text and the subject of the annotations. The consequence was that very few persons beyond those who passed through his class in the University of Edinburgh during the 20 years of his professorship, were able to follow him in his discussions, and he, who never uttered a word which was not as gold tried in the fire was regarded by many good people as an erudite splitter of hairs, as one of those philosophers who would veil their ignorance and deify their intellects by assuming the clouds and thick darkness of the God. Complete mistake! Be it true or false, never has any philosophical system been enounced so humble, so simple, and so intelligible as that of Sir William Hamilton; and if it be true, it has, no doubt, the merit which he and all his pupils claim for it as its crowning glory, of putting an end to controversy and reconciling in its arms every previous system of philosophy.

The lectures on metaphysics, which are now published, and which are to be followed by two more volumes containing lectures on logic, are the best possible introduction to the speculations of this great thinker, though they are very far from conveying a full idea of what he really was. They were written more than 20 years ago, when he was first appointed to the chair of metaphysics, and when his system was not half developed. They were evidently composed in great haste, each lecture, in fact, being written on the night preceding its delivery. This nightly toil of composition Sir William Hamilton sustained unremittingly through a period of five months, producing a course of lectures which he never afterwards materially altered, and which in the abundance of their quotations give ample evidence of the pressure of time. With all their defects, however, they are a splendid monument of the author's ge

nius, and we know not what other philosopher of his day could have produced anything so profound, so learned, and so full of common sense. From the fact, too, of their being addressed to beginners, they are in a more popular style than his other writings, while the necessities of oral discourse saved the author from the besetting sin of digression. One can see in these prelections what an iron grasp he took of every subject which he handled, and can understand the immense influence which he exerted over youthful minds, even although the burden of his discourse is something abhorrent to young enthusiasts-the limitation of the human faculties and the infinity of human ignorance. Add to all this the majestic presence of the man, that noble brow, those dark flashing eyes, that manly voice, which rang through the dim class-room like a sledge-hammer on an anvil, the bursts of familiar talk with a couple of hundred students at once, and we have some clue to the idolatry with which he was regarded by his pupils, Perhaps there never was a class in any University into which so much life was thrown as into the class over which Sir William presided. It was a class conducted on democratic principles. On three days of the week the Professor lectured; on the other two days the students were masters of the field, and on these occasions one after another would stand up in his place, now to volunteer a report of the previous lectures, now to attack the theory which the Professor had propounded, now to state any of the results of his reading which bore on the subjects discussed in the class. It was a sort of half-conversation, half-debate, between Sir William Hamilton and his pupils, in which he met them on almost even terms; and it is a curious illustration of the equality on which they met, that the honours of the class were awarded at the end of the year by vote, and the vote of the Professor had no more value than that of any student. The system worked well, for it was generally found that he agreed with the award of his students, and in any case he succeeded in thoroughly awakening their interest and in

attracting pupils not only from the English and American Universities, but also from those of France and Germany. As we have heard a good deal of the defects of the Scottish Universities, it is but fair also to look at their excellencies. No one can read these lectures without seeing that they afford a magnificent gymnastic to the young mind, and that undergraduates able to follow these discussions from

year to year, if they were boys, must have been very old boys, capable of digesting very strong meat.

Mr. Punch once propounded a system of metaphysics in wonderfully simple terms. He asked, "What is matter?" and he answered, "Never mind." He asked, "What is mind?" and he answered, "No matter." That is very nearly the total result of all our metaphysical researches, expressed with a wit to which philosophers can make no claim. The first act of philosophy is to doubt our knowledge, and the last act of it is to be certain of our ignorance. All philosophy tends but to show the impossibility of breaking from our prison house, and to enforce the Apostolic saying-"We know in part." History is the record of it; science is the proof of it-We know but in part. Formed in the image of God, we are not gods; driven from the garden we still lust after the forbidden fruit, and have to learn that the great end of life is not to know, but to do. When we say, therefore, that the object of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy is to establish the theory of human ignorance and to determine the boundaries of human thought, simple folk will imagine that he has undertaken a very superfluous task, and that he might as well have attempted an elaborate demonstration of the facts that night is dark, that most men have noses, and that ginger is hot i' the mouth. Unhappily, the demonstration of human ignorance is not an idle labour. Many are the noble minds that have not attained that highest wisdom which lies in intellectual content. Magna, immo maxima pars sapientiæ est, quædam æquo animo nescire velle. And the error of those who have not yet learned to be content with the limitation of our faculties is not

merely speculative-it is of immense practical importance. Were it merely speculative, we might pass it by with a laugh at the folly of those who, in the spirit of Mrs. Partington sweeping the Atlantic from her door with a broom, would decant the infinite into a pint pot, and measure the universe with a two foot rule. But the fact is that questions of the most awful interest hang upon our decision as to the jurisdiction of human reason. Under the name of reason, infidelity flourishes in our time, the most sacred truths are aspersed, and the ground of morals is undermined. Demonstration must be met by demonstration. It is incumbent on us to show the insufficiency of logic as the invariable standard of truth; to demonstrate the limits of human understanding; to compel reason by reason to the simplicity of the faith; and Sir William Hamilton claimed this as the chief practical value of his system, that on rational principles it deprives reason of its usurped authority, and proves it to be incapable of pronouncing upon the great mysteries of our being and the cardinal doctrines of revelation. No difficulty emerges in theology, he says, which has not previously emerged in philosophy; and before all these difficulties the human understanding must rest in patience, if they are demonstrated to be insoluble. This is the system which has been applied with incomparable force of reasoning to the defence of Christianity in the Bampton Lectures of Mr. Mansel, and the celebrity which the book instantly acquired has made many a reader who would have cared not a jot for Sir William Hamilton or his speculations inquire into the nature of this wonderful philosophy out of which our Oxford friend has obtained such extraordinary results. Great as the success of Mr. Mansel's argument has been, it would have probably been still greater had the public been better acquainted with the elementary principles on which it is based, and from which the author started with scarcely a word of explanation. When Sir William Hamilton's lectures are completed, this want will be pretty fully met in the published writings of the profound thinker to

whom the whole argument is due; and, in the meantime, we propose, without entering into useless details, to give as popular an account as we can of what has been called in rather crabbed terms the Philosophy of the Conditioned.

Only before plunging into the thick of argument it may be as well to come to some understanding as to the terms on which we are to argue. Is it to be a fair fight? Are words to have a certain

meaning, and are we to stick to that meaning? or are we to play fast and loose with words? to set up a principle in one sentence, and to knock it down in the next when it seems to turn against us? Strange that it should be necessary to ask these questions; but the reception given in many quarters both to the writings of Sir William Hamilton and to the lectures of his Oxford disciple has convinced us that there is a difference at starting between those who defend and those who attack the new philosophy, and that the latter have not sufficiently studied the logical law upon which the whole argument proceeds. It is called the law of contradiction, and in order to give an example we may here so far anticipate as to remind our readers that Sir William Hamilton maintains in general, and Mr. Mansel maintains in relation to religious doctrine, that human knowledge lies between two extremes which are at once inconceivable and contradictory. Let this be true or false. Our present concern is to understand thoroughly what is meant by proving a contradiction. We could point to many criticisms of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy, and Mr. Mansel's application of it, in which, when the adversary is finally at bay, and we expect him to yield like a good soldier, he coolly turns tail and walks off, with the assumption that a contradiction is nothing, means nothing, and proves nothing. Grant this assumption, that a lie may be a truth, that nothing may be something, that the finite can be the infinite, and that a contradiction is not a contradiction, and you may prove anything you please. It is by frankly denying the principle of contradiction that Hegel and other Germans get out their

grand results. They start by asserting the identity of A and not-A, and after wandering through the dreary desert many days, in which they feed upon angel's food, the Canaan where at last they rest their weary feet is the glorious dogma that pure being is pure nothing. Are Englishmen ready for the remorselessly logical results of the Hegelian premises? Are they prepared for the most desolating scepticism which is the inevitable sequence of reason stultified and common sense ignored? How is it possible, it may be asked, that Englishmen could even by an unguarded expression seem to sanction a denial of the primary law of reason? We fancy that the train of thought which led to so impotent a conclusion was somewhat of this nature:"Sir W. Hamilton and Mr. Mansel talk much of things inconceivable which are nevertheless true. Now, no doubt, the contradictions which they prove are also inconceivable, but why may they not be true, just like so many other things which the human mind cannot comprehend? Why in the matter of contradictions must the human reason be the test of truth any more than in the case of whatever else is inconceivable?" Here the opponents of Mr. Mansel entirely overlook the distinction between what is merely above reason and what is against reason. That two contradictions can both be true is not merely incomprehensibleit is impossible. If we deny this we begin the combat by pleasantly cutting our throats. It is an act of suicide. We cannot advance a step. If it be possible for contradictions to coexist, then all assertion loses its meaning, and there is no difference in any case between affirmative and negative. We must confess the validity of reason within its limits, though we deny its power to overstep these limits.

And this brings us to another oversight which those who have been attempting to master Mr. Mansel's argument, and have failed to do so, constantly commit. They look at the law of contradiction as merely a negative principle, and they do not see how we can get any positive result out of a philosophy which

is nothing but an agglomerate of negations. This philosophy proves that so many things are utterly inconceivable, and then it goes on to prove that all these inconceivables are a mass of contradictions. It is surely a sufficiently negative result to arrive at the conclusion that we can form no positive idea of the infinite God, and that He and His attributes are alike incomprehensible to the children of the dust; but, not satisfied with this, here are the great Edinburgh philosopher and the eloquent Oxford lecturer, uniting their efforts to pile Pelion upon Ossa, to break a butterfly upon a wheel, to discredit still further the sum of human knowledge, and to prove that all our ideas of infinite and absolute are not simply a wildering round of negations, but also a pretty muddle of contradictions. The philosophy, it is presumed, that preaches such a doctrine may be cunningly contrived and wondrously clever, but cannot be convincing, and is very nearly worthless. The conclusion is not very complimentary, we do not say to the philosophical acumen, but to the common sense of two such men as Hamilton and Mansel; and their critics arrive at it by a gross misunderstanding of what a logical contradiction is, and what it involves. It is perfectly true that the law of contradiction is the principle of all logical negation. Prove your contradictory, and you at once prove a negative. But that is not all. For implied in the law of contradiction and co-ordinate with it is that other law to which Leibnitz gave the name of Excluded Middle. The moment, therefore, that we prove a contradiction, we have a double result; we have a positive as well as a negative conclusion. If we prove of two extremes that they cannot both be true, we prove in the selfsame act of judgment that one must be true. A is either B, or it is not B. That is easily granted; but Sir William Hamilton next goes on to show that in the region of those higher truths, with which philosophy and religion have to do, B is utterly inconceivable; we cannot conceive of A being B, or of its not being B. Grant that also for the sake of argument. The reader sighs to think that the

human faculty should be so weak, but we have heard so many homilies on human ignorance that thus far the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton makes but little impression on us. He has no doubt proved his point in magnificent style, but the conclusion is so disheartening, as well as so stale, that if this be the whole of the great man's philosophy (and it is all that many persons see in it) one scarcely perceives wherein consists the originality of Sir William Hamilton, and on what rests the satisfaction of Mr. Mansel. But these metaphysicians do not stop here; they have the consummate audacity to assert that the existence and the non-existence of B, as predicated of A, are contradictory as well as inconceivable. This is too much for nibbling thinkers; they are frighted from their propriety; they find that besides the heaven being darkened above them, the earth is now being swept from beneath them: here is negation upon negation: and they ask where is it all to end? It ends in the very simple assertion, that because those inconceivables, B and not B, are contradictory, both cannot be and one must be true. We cannot conceive of either, and yet we must believe in one or the other. In which we are to believe, mere logic, which deals with the form of thought and not with the matter, cannot tell us; that must be decided for us either by the authority of our instincts or by the authority of revelation. All that reason can do is to prove that while both extremes are beyond the grasp of human understanding, one or other is compulsory on human faith.

If we have succeeded in making clear the precise form which Sir William Hamilton's argument assumes, it will not take long to show that as applied to the highest objects of contemplation, the result must be that system which has been called the philosophy of the conditioned. What is meant by this curious phrase? What is conditioned? It means something that exists only on conditions; the unconditioned is something that exists irrespective of conditions; and the philosophy of the conditioned is a system which professes to elucidate the conditions of