itself only in being inconsistent with the dictates of our natural beliefs

For Truth is catholic and Nature one

it follows, that philosophy has simply to return to natural consciousness, to return to unity and truth.

"In doing this we have only to attend to three maxims or precautions:

"1. That we admit nothing, not either an original datum of consciousness, or the legitimate consequence of such datum; "2. That we embrace all the original data of consciousness, and all their legitimate consequences; and,

"3. That we exhibit each of these in its individual integrity, neither distorted nor mutilated, and in its relative place, whether of pre-eminence or subordination."-(Reid, p. 747.)

But Sir William does not stop his directions for investigation with these maxims. He gives marks by which we can distinguish our original from our derivative convictions--by which we can determine what is, and what is not, a primary datum of consciousness. These marks or characters are four:1st. Their incomprehensibility; 2d. Their simplicity; 3d. Their necessity and absolute universality; 4th. Their comparative evidence and certainty. These characters are explicated by him, and rendered entirely capable of application to the purpose of analysing thought into its elements.

But, besides these positive directions for ascertaining truth, Sir William Hamilton exposes the very roots of the false systems of philosophy which have prevailed in different times. As he shows, by the most searching analysis, that the philosophy of common sense has its root in the recognition of the absolute veracity of consciousness in sensible perception, so he shows that all philosophical aberrations, or false systems of philosophy, have their respective roots either in a full or partial denial of its veracity. And he does not deal merely in generalities, but he articulately sets forth five great variations from truth and nature, which have prevailed as systems of philosophy, and shows the exact degree of rejection of the veracity of consciousness which constitutes the root of each. We are thereby enabled to see the roots of these great heresies laid bare, and can extirpate them by the argument from

common sense.

Such are the rules which Sir William Hamilton lays down for conducting inquiry in the province of mind. They are a development of the method of Bacon in its application to psychology, the highest branch of phenomenal philosophy.

We now approach a new development of the philosophy of common sense, called the philosophy of the conditioned. It constitutes the distinguishing feature of the philosophical

system of Sir William Hamilton, and was developed by him to satisfy the needs of intelligence in combating the proud and vain-glorious philosophy of Germany. It is a remarkable monument of the largeness, the profundity, and the penetrating acuteness, of his intellect.

The philosophy of common sense assumes that consciousness is the supreme faculty,-in fact, that it is the complement of all the faculties,—that what are called faculties are but acts of consciousness running into each other, and are not separated by those lines of demarcation which are imposed upon them by language for the needs of thinking about our intelligent nature. The supremacy of consciousness was the doctrine of Aristotle, of Des Cartes, and of Locke. Reid and Stewart reduced consciousness in their system to a special faculty only coordinate with the others. This heresy Sir William Hamilton, amongst his innumerable rectifications and developments of Reid's philosophy, has exposed, and by a singular felicity of analysis and explication, has restored consciousness to its rightful sovereignty over the empire of intelligence.

Having postulated that consciousness is the highest and fundamental faculty of the human mind, it becomes necessary, in order to determine the nature of human knowledge, to determine the nature of consciousness.

Now, consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of the thinking mental self, and an object thought about, in correlation and limiting each other. It is therefore manifest, that knowledge, in its most fundamental and thoroughgoing analysis, is discriminated into two elements in contrast of each other. These elements are appropriately designated the subject and the object, the first applying to the conscious mind knowing, and the last to that which is known. And all that pertains to the first is called subjective, and all that pertains to the last is called objective.

Philosophy is the science of knowledge. Therefore, philosophy must especially regard the grand fundamental discrimination of the two primary elements of the subjective and objective, in any theory of knowledge it may propound.

Now, the first and fundamental problem which presents itself in the science of knowledge is, What can we know? Upon the principles of the philosophy of common sense, the solution of the problem is found by showing what are the conditions of our knowledge. These conditions, according to the thoroughgoing fundamental analysis of our knowledge just evinced, arise out of the nature of both of the two elements of our knowledge, the subjective and the objective.

Aristotle, who did so much towards analysing human thought into its elements, strove also to classify all objects real under

their ultimate identifications or categories in relation to thought. In modern times, Kant endeavoured to analyse intelligence into its ultimate elements in relation to its objects, and to show in these elements the basis of all thinking, and the guarantee of all certainty. Aristotle's categories, though extremely incomplete, and indeed we may say bungling, as they confound derivative with simple notions, did something for correct thinking, in pointing out with more exactness the relations of objects real to thought. But Kant, making a false division of intelligence itself, into reason and understanding, blundered at the threshold, and while he analysed reason into its supposed peculiar elements, to which he gave the Platonic name of ideas, he analysed understanding into its supposed peculiar elements, and gave them the Aristotelic name of categories. Kant's analysis of our intelligence into its pure forms made the human mind a fabric of mere delusion. The ideas of reason he proposed as purely subjective and regulative, and yet delusively positing themselves objectively in thought. And so too, in like manner, are his categories of understanding expounded as deceptive. His philosophy is thus rendered, at bottom, a system of absolute scepticism.

It is seen, from this account of them, that Aristotle's categories or predicaments, are exclusively objective, of things understood; and that those of Kant are exclusively subjective, of the mind understanding. Each is therefore one-sided.

Sir William Hamilton, discriminating more accurately than his predecessors the dual nature of thought, has distinguished its two fundamental elements, the subjective and the objective, by a thoroughgoing analysis, and at the same time has observed that these elements are ever held together in a synthesis which constitutes thought in its totality. He has therefore endeavoured to accomplish in one analysis of thought what Aristotle and Kant failed to do by their several but partial analyses. As thought is constituted of both a subjective and an objective element, the conditions of the thinkable or of thinking must be the conditions of both knowledge and existence of the possibility of knowing, both from the nature of thought and from the nature of existence; and must therefore embrace intelligence in relation to its objects, and objects in relation to intelligence, and thus supersede the onesided predicaments of Aristotle and Kant.

The first step towards discriminating the fundamental conditions of thought, is to reduce thought itself to its ultimate simplicity. This Sir William Hamilton has done, by showing that it must be either positive or negative when viewed subjectively, and either conditioned or unconditioned when viewed objectively. And he has discriminated, and signalised

the peculiar nature of negative thought, by showing that it is conversant about the unconditioned, while positive thought is conversant about the conditioned. This is a salient point in Sir William's philosophy. He shows that the Kantean ideas of pure reason, are nothing but negations or impotences of the mind, and are swallowed up in the unconditioned; and that the Kantean categories of the understanding are but subordinate forms of the conditioned. And while he thus reduces the predicaments of Kant to ultimate elements, he annihilates his division of our intelligence into reason and understanding. He shows that what Kant calls the reason is in fact an impotence, and what he calls the understanding is the whole intellect.

It had been shown by Aristotle that negation involves affirmation that non-existence can only be predicated by referring to existence. This discrimination has become a fruitful principle in the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton. He therefore begins the announcement of the conditions of the thinkable by showing the nature of negative thought. He shows that negative thought is realised only under the condition of relativity and positive thinking. For example: We try to think, to predicate existence, and find ourselves unable. We then predicate incogitability. This incogitability is what is meant by negation or negative thought.

If, then, negative thinking be the opposite of positive thinking, it must be the violation of one or more of the conditions of positive thinking. The conditions of positive thinking are two: 1st. The condition of non-contradiction; 2d. The condition of relativity. To think at all (that is positively, for positive thinking is properly the only thinking), our thinking must not involve a contradiction, and it must involve relativity. If it involve contradiction, the impossible both in thought and in reality results. If the condition of relativity be not purified, the impossible in thought only results.

Now, the condition of non-contradiction is brought to bear in thinking under three phases constituting three laws:-1st. The law of identity; 2d. The law of contradiction; 3d. The law of excluded middle. The science of these laws is logic. Thus is shown the ultimate condition of the thinkable, on which depends the science of explicative or analytical reasoning. This we shall show fully in the sequel, when we come to treat of what Sir William Hamilton has done for logic.

The condition of non-contradiction is in no danger of being violated in thinking; therefore its explication is only of theoretical importance.

The condition of relativity is the important one in thought. This condition, in so far as it is necessary, is brought to bear

under two principal relations, one of which arises from the subjective element of thought,-the mind thinking (called the relation of knowledge),-the other arises from the objective element of thought, the thing thought about, (called the relation of existence.)

The relation of knowledge arises from the reciprocal relation of the subject and the object of thought. Whatever comes into consciousness is thought, by us, as belonging to the mental self exclusively, or as belonging to the not-self exclusively, or as belonging partly to both.

The relation of existence arising from the object of thought is two-fold; this relation being sometimes intrinsic, and sometimes extrinsic, according as it is determined by the qualitative or quantitative character of existence. Existence conceived as substance and quality, presents the intrinsic relation, called qualitative; substance and quality are only thought as mutual relatives inseparable in conception. We cannot think either separate from the other.

All that has thus far been said applies to both mind and

matter.

The extrinsic relation of existence is three-fold; and as constituted by three species of quantity, it may be called quantitative. It is realised in or by the three quantities, time, space, and degree, called respectively, protensive, extensive, and intensive quantity. The notions of time and space are the necessary conditions of all positive thought. Positive thought cannot be realised except in time and space. Degree is not, like time and space, an absolute condition of thought. Existence is not necessarily thought under degree. It applies only to quality, and not to quantity; and only to quality in a restricted sense, which Sir William Hamilton has explicated in his doctrine of the qualities of bodies, dividing them into primary, secundo-primary, and secondary.

Of these conditions and their relations in their proper subordinations and co-ordinations, Sir William has presented a table, which he calls the Alphabet of Thought.

Out of the condition of relativity springs the science of metaphysics, just as we have indicated that logic springs out of the condition of non-contradiction. Thus the respective roots of the two great cognate branches of philosophy are traced to their psychological bases in the alphabet of thought.

We will now exhibit the metaphysical doctrine which Sir William Hamilton educes from the analysis of thought which we have endeavoured to present. And here he elevates the philosophy of common sense into the philosophy of the conditioned, borrowing this appellation from the different point of view from which philosophy is considered. The former appel