the that itself requires a more ultimate how. In this Hamilton defers to the natural longing for explanation, the instinct that turns unconsciously and by irresistible necessity in us to solution and resolution of every OTI into a diót. For this, too, is the truth: if the how must rest on a

that, the that must equally rest on a how. The or itself, indeed, is not more that than because. This, however, does not mitigate the contradiction that lies here again at the door of Hamilton, who really ought to have been less violent with his that, seeing that he was minded to follow so soon with his how. In fact, as we saw before, it is a macula in Hamilton that he should have been obliged to supplement the irrefragable consciousness he claimed by any analysis of philosophy at all—a macula, we may say, squared by the actual examples given of this botched analysis itself and a macula raised, finally, even into an unknown degree by the consideration that, despite both the testimony of consciousness and the analysis of philosophy, the external realities themselves, that were, in the first instance, known in themselves and as they existed, were, in the second instance, not known in themselves and as they existed, but remained, at last, and for all instances, incomprehensible, incognisable, unknown, zero!

These are awkward preliminaries certainly; still it is to be allowed that the analysis of philosophy may, after all, show much better in itself than in the examples we know it by; and this notwithstanding even that the cipher of the apparent result would bid us still despair. But, be this as it may, let us see now, in effect, how Hamilton actually has acquitted

himself of that evolution of the fact which, in honour of the fact, he at first refused. This evolution, principally contained in the Dissertations to Reid, is the Hamiltonian Theory of Perception-a word which Hamilton now characteristically allows to reappear, instead of the consciousness in which he formerly sought to merge it.

We premise the following quotations:-

The developed doctrine of Real Presentationism, the basis of Natural Realism, asserts the consciousness of immediate perception of certain essential attributes of matter objectively existing; while it admits that other properties of bodies are unknown in themselves, and only inferred as causes to account for certain subjective affections of which we are cognisant in ourselves. (Reid's Works, p. 825.) I hold that, though sensation proper be the condition of, and therefore anterior to, perception proper in the order of nature, that, in the order of time, both are necessarily co-existent ; — the latter being only realised in and through the present existence of the former. . . . Sensations of secondary qualities imply an idiopathic affection of the nervous organism; but such affection requires only the excitation of an appropriate stimulus; while such stimulus may be supplied by manifold agents of the most opposite nature, both from within the body and from without. . . . I hold that, on the one hand, in the consciousness of sensations, out of each other, contrasted, limited, and variously arranged, we have a perception proper of the primary qualities, in an externality, though not to the nervous organism, as an immediate cognition, and not merely as a notion or concept, of something extended, figured, &c.; and, on the other, as a correlative contained in the consciousness of our voluntary motive energy resisted, and not resisted by aught within the limits of mind and its subservient organs, we have a perception proper of the secundo-primary quality of resistance in an extra-organic force, as an immediate cognition, and not

...

merely as a notion or concept, of a resisting something external to our body;-though certainly in either case there may be, and probably is, a concomitant act of imagination, by which the whole complex consciousness on the occasion is filled up. (Reid's Works, pp. 882-4.) The mind, when a material existence is brought into relation with its organ of sense, obtains two concomitant and immediate cognitions ... the one the secondary qualities of body; the other the primary qualities of body. Of these cognitions, the former is admitted, on all hands, to be subjective and ideal; the latter, the Natural Realist maintains, against the Cosmothetic Idealist, to be objective and real. . . . The secondary qualities, as mere sensations, mere consciousness of certain subjective affections, afford us no immediate knowledge of aught different from self. (Reid's Works, p. 820.) The perception proper, accompanying a sensation proper, is not an apprehension, far less a representation, of the external or internal stimulus, or concause, which determines the affection whereof the sensation is the consciousness. Not the former; for the stimulus or concause of a sensation is always, in itself, to consciousness unknown. Not the latter; for this would turn perception into imagination-reduce it from an immediate and assertory and objective, into a mediate and problematic and subjective cognition. In this respect, perception proper is an apprehension of the relations of sensations to each other, primarily in space, and secondarily in time and degree. (Reid's Works, p. 881.) In the primary, the sensation, the condition of the perception, is not itself caused by the objective quality perceived; in the secundo-primary, the concomitant sensation is the effect of the objective quality perceived; in the secondary, the sensation is the effect of an objective quality supposed, but not perceived. (Reid's Works, p. 860.) All the senses, simply or in combination, afford conditions for the perception of the primary qualities, and all, of course, supply the sensations themselves of the secondary. As only various modifications of resistance, the secundo-primary qualities are all, as percepts proper, as

...

quasi-primary qualities, apprehended through the locomotive faculty, and our consciousness of its energy; as sensations, as secondary qualities, they are apprehended as modifications of touch proper, and of cutaneous and muscular feeling. (Reid's Works, p. 864.) The secondary, as manifested to us, are not, in propriety, qualities of body at all. . . they are only subjective affections . . . of which alone we are immediately cognisant, the external concause of the internal effect remaining to perception altogether unknown. (Reid's Works, p. 854.) The more determinate senses are no less subjective than the others. (Reid's Works, p. 855.) [And he passes in review sight, hearing, &c., asserting of each and all that the sensible affection may be excited by a variety of stimuli, external and internal, that it does not cease with the presence, and, therefore, does not demonstrate the quality of the external object.'] The secundo-primary qualities have all relation to space, and motion in space; and are all contained under the category of resistance or pressure. their primary or objective phasis, they manifest themselves as degrees of resistance opposed to our locomotive energy; on their secondary or subjective phasis, as modes of resistance or pressure affecting our sentient organism. (Reid's Works, p. 848.) On space are dependent what are called the primary qualities of body, and space combined with degree affords, of body, the secundo-primary qualities. (Disc. p. 607.)

On

These extracts will make the various qualities -primary, secondary, and secundo-primary-plain. Evidently, too, any consideration that may decide on the two former will equally decide on the last as but a together of both. Now, as we soon learn, a certain fine, free, easy ascent over Kant is one of Hamilton's commonest grand airs. We have seen, indeed, how, when requiring his testimony to relativity, he sweetly named him, the philosopher of Königsberg. This is by no means, however, his usual

tone. No; on the contrary, the ascent alluded to is generally effected in a mood of the loftiest censure, of the most gravely assumed reprobation. Nevertheless, it is quite plain from these extracts that, on his own showing, Hamilton, so far as he goes in perception, (or all reference to the categories apart), is not in any respect at least, any respect that is not a mistake of his own-different from Kant. They are agreed, namely, on the fact of an external world. They are agreed on the secondary qualities, which are to both but states of our own dependent on unknown stimuli. They are agreed on the primary qualities,—both reducing them to space. And they are agreed lastly, as Hamilton also unequivocally declares, on space itself; so far, that is, as it is to both a native, necessary, and à priori cognition of the mind. Hamilton, however, preserves still his horror of the cosmothetic idealist-pushing him off, indeed, by the infinite breadth of a whole real space; but this concerns only the already mentioned mistake. In a word, Hamilton conceives Kant's space to be wholly inner, sees not that it is outer as well; and so, supervacaneously doubling it, adds on another unnecessary space of his own. Or Hamilton, accepting Kant's space, insists on botching it with an empirical side which it already abundantly possesses. An extract will explain:

That the notion of space is a necessary condition of thought, and that, as such, it is impossible to derive it from experience, has been cogently demonstrated by Kant. But that we may not, through sense, have empirically an immediate perception of something extended, I have yet seen no valid reason to doubt. The à priori conception does not