Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.'

Chapter II: Part 2

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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 not 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 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 inquire 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 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 common to all mankind--it might still be only the effect of a strong association. The analytical 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, following out the
same train of reasoning which we read in the third Book of
his 'System of 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 exhibiting the rashness of many censures bestowed by Sir W. Hamilton on Brown, Mr Mill gives us three valuable chapters (xi., xii., xiii.), wherein he analyzes the belief in an External World, 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. Hamilton (the Ego and Non-Ego affirmed to be given together in the primary deliverance of Consciousness) and so many other philosophers. He proves that these beliefs are no way intuitive, but acquired products; and that the known laws of Association are sufficient to explain how they are acquired; especially 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 _permanent possibility of Sensation_; he maintains that this is really all which (apart from philosophical 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):--

'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 sensation 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 conscious
of it as related to these two things. They have accordingly
received relative names, expressive 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 opposed
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 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 feelings 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 immediate correlatives are, not the pair,
_Object, Subject,_ but the two pairs, Object, _Sensation
objectively 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 of co-existent _partes extra partes_, is immediately 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 sensation of _muscular motion impeded_ constitutes that of filled space: that our conception of extension, as an aggregate of co-existent parts, arises from the sense of sight, which comprehends a great number of parts in a succession 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. Confirmation is here given to this important doctrine, not merely by observations from Mr Mill himself, but also from the very curious 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 experienced 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 adverse 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 (remarks 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 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 person whose usefulness to philosophy we prefer to bring into the foreground, is Platner himself. He spent three weeks in patient examination of this blind man, and the tenor of his report proves that his sagacity in interpreting 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 infancy to maturity; the process is always going on before our eyes, yet the stages of it--especially the earliest stages, the most pregnant with instruction--are never studied and put on record by observers trained in inductive logic, knowing beforehand what they ought to look for as the _sine quâ 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 Difference--are always within reach; but few Platners are found to scrutinize and record them. Historians of science describe to us the laborious and multiplied observations, and the elaborate precaution for ensuring accuracy of observation, which recent chemical and physical inquirers have found indispensable for the establishment of their results. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that mental philosophers, dealing with facts even more obscure, and careless about enlarging, varying, authenticating their records of particular facts, should have had little success in establishing any results at all.

But if even those, who adopt the psychological theory, have been remiss in the observation 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 _à priori_, or original 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. Hamilton in large acquaintance with the actual diversities of human belief, and human incapacities of believing--yet he never seems to have thought of bringing this acquaintance into account, when he assured the students in his lecture-room, that custom, experience, indissoluble association, were altogether insufficient to engender a felt necessity of believing. Such forgetfulness of well-known mental facts cannot 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 conceived _mental latency_, as well as the inconclusive 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, unconsciously; which opinion Mr Mill also, though not approving his reasons, is inclined to adopt.

'I am myself inclined (p. 285) to admit unconscious 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 association,
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 support of this doctrine. He at the same time calls attention to a valuable lecture of Sir W. Hamilton's, the thirty-second lecture on Metaphysics; 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 single consequents, but by a mass of antecedents raising up simultaneously a mass of consequents, among which attention is very unequally distributed.

We shall say little upon Mr Mill's remarks on Sir W. Hamilton's Theory of Causation--(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 unsatisfactory--'professing to explain the phenomenon of causality, but, previously to explanation, evacuating the phenomenon of all that desiderates explanation'--(p. 295). For ourselves we embrace the theory of Mr Mill:[13] yet we are aware that the remark just cited from Sir W. Hamilton represents the dissatisfaction 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 questions. 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 comments on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of Concepts 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 _Concept_, 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. § 1--3. The term _Concept_ has no necessary connection with the theory called Conceptualism. It is equally 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 modification 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 Judgment and Reasoning; which are among the best chapters in this volume. He there combats and overthrows the theory of Reasoning 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 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 Mansel, 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 exaggerated 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 technicalities--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 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 affirmations (which is the only special province of Formal Logic), has great importance and value as a part of the process necessary for ascertaining 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 Syllogistic theory so as to ensure for Formal Logic its legitimate place among the essentials of scientific procedure, Sir W. Hamilton was at the same time enlarging it on its technical side, in 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 himself 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 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 reversing the order of the two premises, and by reversing 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 philosophical 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 really 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
anything but attributes; though, in the usage of language,
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-existence. 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 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 collective 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 contemplating 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 distinction between Judgments in Comprehension 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 introduce 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 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 _subject_, 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 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 ruminate, 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 than 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 process 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 indicates the vice of Sir W. Hamilton's proceeding in quantifying the predicate, and explains why it was that logicians before him declined to do so. Sir W. Hamilton, in this proceeding, insists on stating explicitly, not merely all that is thought implicitly, but a great deal more;[14] adding to it something else, which _may_, indeed, be thought conjointly, but which more frequently _is not_ thought at all. He requires us to pack two distinct judgments into one and the same proposition: he interpolates the meaning of the Propositio Conversa _simpliciter_ into the form of the Propositio Convertenda (when an universal Affirmative), and then claims it as a great advantage, that the proposition thus interpolated admits of being converted _simpliciter_, and not merely _per accidens_. 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 distinct Quaesitum--so that he must either give us information about the two at once, or confess 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 unaccountable) of Sir W. Hamilton's Formal Logic; and some Fallacious Modes of Thought countenanced 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 himself to be distinctly conscious; moreover, Free-will is essential (he thinks) to moral responsibility, of which also he feels himself conscious. 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 Mansel 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 anything more than invariability of antecedence 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 affirming it in either--(p. 501.) If it were true, therefore, that consciousness attested Free-will, we should find the testimony of consciousness 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 negative.

'To be conscious of Free-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 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 warning against the confusion between consciousness 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 positive repugnance, between the two. By Free-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 strongest apprehension) that can be held really accountable, or can feel himself to be so.

'The true doctrine of the Causation of human actions (says
Mr Mill, p. 516) maintains, in opposition 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 he employed for the purpose.'

It thus appears that of the two propositions, 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 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 philosophy, on which he particularly valued himself, 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
psychological 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 anything 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.'--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 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 subjects until they were thoroughly mastered, or until consistency was attained between the different views which the author took from different points of observation; That accordingly, 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 contradictions which Mr Mill has brought to view in the preceding chapters. It would appear that the controversial disposition was powerful with Sir W. Hamilton, and that a present impulse of that sort (as has been said respecting Bayle, Burke, and others) not only served to provoke new intellectual combinations in his mind, but also exercised a Lethæan 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 having 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, instead of choosing, as
the direct object of his intellectual exertions, philosophy
itself. He possessed 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
extracted, 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 perfectly 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 contribution
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 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 valuable service: it enables him
to know all the various opinions which can be held on the
questions 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 [Greek: hoti] of
each philosopher's opinions, but gave himself little trouble
about the [Greek: dihoti]. With one exception, I find no
remark bearing upon that point in any 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. Accordingly he is weak as to the mutual
relations of philosophical doctrines. One of the most
striking examples of this inability is in the case of
Leibnitz,' &c.

Here we find in a few sentences the conclusion which Mr Mill conceives to be established 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; instead 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 'done far greater service to the world than Sir W. 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 Freedom of the Will--we not only adopt the conclusions of Dr Brown, but we admire both his acuteness and his originality in vindicating and illustrating the first of the two, while we dissent entirely from the views of Sir W. Hamilton. This alone would be sufficient to make us approve the superiority assigned by Mr Mill to Dr Brown. We discover no compensating item to be placed to the credit of Sir W. Hamilton: for the great doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, which is our chief point of philosophical brotherhood with him, was maintained by Brown also.

But in regard to Dr Whately, our judgment is altogether different. We cannot consent to admit him as a superior, or even as an equal, to Sir W. Hamilton, 'in the origination and diffusion of important thought.' He did much service by reviving an inclination 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 intellectual prison in which many orthodox minds are confined--rather than as a fit aspirant to the cosmopolitan honours of philosophy. '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, 'active and fertile thinker,' of Sir W. Hamilton, we cannot acquiesce in it. His intellect appears to us thoroughly active and fertile, even when we dissent from his reasonings--nay, even in the midst of his inconsistencies, 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 discriminating remarks upon his philosophical procedure made by Mr Mill himself--(pp. 271, 272). For example, respecting Causality 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, worshipped 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 volume which Mr Mill has devoted to Sir W. Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he ought to furnish a similar systematic examination to Brown and Whately; enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir W. Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled microscope, which detects the minutest breach or incoherence in the tissue of reasoning--and of his large command of philosophical 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 composition of a history of philosophy. Nevertheless 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 [Greek: dihoti] of a man's opinions, and that he was incompetent to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great thinker,' &c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and considerable, 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 estimate of Leibnitz. We say _frequent_ and _considerable_, 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 Relative) we seldom find any historian whose estimate of great philosophical thinkers does not often differ from our own. Hence we are glad when ample original extracts are produced, 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 historian cannot get clear of a certain exclusiveness 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 divergent and opposite veins of reasoning--a knowledge, negative and affirmative, of the full case of opponents as well as of his own.

It is to Philosophy alone that _our_ allegiance 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 brethren, serving alike in her train.

_Amicus Hamilton; magis amicus Mill; amica ante omnes Philosophia._ FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Mr Mansel 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 William Hamilton sought to discipline and imbue with his philosophical opinions the numerous youth who gathered from Scotland and other countries to his classroom; and while, by these prelections, the author supplemented, developed, and moulded the national philosophy, 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 constraining 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.']

[Footnote 2: 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 _discovery_, since Sir John Herschel thinks the expression unsuitable.--See the recent sixth edition of the 'System of Logic,' vol. i. p. 229.]

[Footnote 3: See Sir William. Hamilton's 'Lectures on 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 generalities, but from the observation of concrete particulars. Bat however erroneous and irrational, the persuasion had 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 remembered by Aristotle himself.]

[Footnote 4: The distinction is given by Stier and other logicians. 1. Infinitum simpliciter. 2. Infinitum secundum quid, sive in certo genere.]

[Footnote 5: This doctrine has been affirmed (so far as reason is concerned, apart from revelation) not merely by Mr Mansel, but also by Pascal, one of the most religious philosophers of the seventeenth century, in the 'Pensées':--

'Parlons selon les lumieres naturelles. S'il y a un Dieu, il est infiniment incompréhensible; puisque, n'ayant ni principes ni bornes, il n'a nul rapport à nous; nous sommes done incapables de connâitre ni ce qn'il est, ni s'il est.'--(See Arago, Biographie de Condorcet, p. lxxxiv., prefixed to his edition of Condorcet's works.)]

[Footnote 6: The indictment under which Socrates was condemned 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 ([Greek: _aphrhêtôr, athhemistos, anhestios_]) among those whose Gods he has deserted. As a general fact, the man who dissents from his fellows upon fundamentals of religion, purchases 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 Cæsar. 'Obsecro--abiiciamus 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-examination were intolerable to him; that life would not be worth having under such conditions.]

[Footnote 7: Aeschyl. Prometh., 996-1006--

pros tauta, rhipthesthô men aithaloussa phlox,
leykoptherps de niphadi kai bronthêmasin
chthonhiois kykhatô phanta kahi tarasshetô
gnhampsei gar ouden tôndhe m'----
eiselthetô se mhêpot, hôs egô, Dios
gnhômên phobêtheis, thêlhynoys genhêsomai,
kai liparhêsô ton mhega stygohymenon
gynaikomhimois hyptihysmasin cherhôn,
lyshai me dhesmôn tônde toy pantos oheô.

Also v. 1047, et seq. The memorable ode of Goethe, entitled _Prometheus_, embodies a similar vein of sentiment in the finest poetry.]

[Footnote 8: Euripid Hippol., 10--

(Aph) oh gar me thaeseos pais, 'Amazonos tokos
monos politon taesde gaes Troizaenias
legei kakistaen daimonon pephukenai
Phoibou d' adelphaen Artemin,--
tima, megiotaen daimonon aegoumenos--

(Hipp.) taen saen dhe Khyprin pholl' hegô Chairein lhego--
(112.)

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Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.'Chapter II: Part 2

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