apply both, and in support of one and the same thing. This, indeed, is characteristic that Hamilton, with such materials before him, should seek to apply two direct logical contradictories, and in support of his own direct logical contradictory to his own self!

But in the sentence from Protagoras there is that intercalated '[for himself]'-did Hamilton intend thus to meet objection, to remove discrepancy? What really could have been his object here, for, if the intercalation is adequate to anything, is it not adequate only to intensify the peculiar, and peculiarly offensive meaning which the phrase conveys and was intended to convey? Then, again, as regards Bacon, why should a Presentationist, a pupil of Reid, &c., &c., rejoice in his authority for the falsity of sense? Were sense false, could perception be true? Has Hamilton forgotten his own words: 'The very things which we perceive by our senses do really exist?' But Bacon, as we have seen, is no exception: we may put the same question as regards the whole of them, seeing that the whole of them simply maintain that Ideal System which Reid and Hamilton believed themselves specially sent to combat and destroy. Really, to love one's enemies is Christian; but, on the part of a philosopher, it is occasionally, we fear, somewhat inconsequent!

'Protagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustin, Boethius, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Gerson, Leo Hebræus, Melancthon, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, Francis Piccolomini, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, Bacon, Spinoza, Sir Isaac Newton, Kant'-(will the reader forgive me

for pointing out in passing that Leo Hebræus must be the Hebrew Lion?)-here is a goodly list of names, indeed, and any two of them, say Kant and Aristotle, for example, are quite enough for any single man, but what really at bottom is the value of this whole thing? For testimony, is it enough to get a crumb of each of the Doctorum Eruditorum? If we point out that the doctors differ, will you still eagerly demand their crumbs? Nay, if we point out that the crumbs themselves differ, will you still eagerly exclaim, Give, give? Is it enough for you just to get your pages covered with those glittering spiculæ and the more glittering names of which the spicule themselves are but the occasions and the pretence? Is there authority then, so, in either glittering spicula or glittering name? Or are they not both idle? Strange that Hamilton should have thought so boyish, so very easy, an industry service! To be weak to a quotation that might seem erudite-flauntingly to wear the same, inconsiderate of the occasion:-this is the simple delight of the foreigner in his orders-this is the simple delight of the Negro in his Birmingham buttons. We would, indeed, be just here; but can any man well draw any other or better reflection from that, Sir William Hamilton's long sand-rope of authorities? He calls them a cloud of witnesses, and, folding his hands on his conspicuous erudition the while, he smiles to himself with serene complacency. A cloud of witnesses! Scatter me such clouds, one gleam of sense, one breath of manliness!

It may seem now, that we must have exhausted the

subordinate contradictions present in these extracts; but we feel sure that the reader, should he be inclined to try, has it still in his power to discover more. For our own part, we find ourselves, on turning to the question we left behind us concerning Hamilton's motives for his apparent confusion of noumenalism and phenomenalism, at once encountered by others. These motives, namely, lie in our last two extracts but one, but so that they seem to lie also in very 'nests' of discrepancy. As we have already seen, the former of these extracts asserts knowledge not to be a simple relation between subject and object, but a sum of several elements, which elements it is the business of philosophy to analyse and discriminate. The latter, again, contains such deliverances as these:-It is contrary to the testimony of consciousness to believe an action or affection of the bodily sense previous to the mental perception; we have no reason whatever to doubt the report of consciousness that we actually perceive at the external point of sensation, and that we perceive the material reality,-not a representation, not a modification of the ego,-no, the non-ego itself, modified and relative it may be, but still the non-ego; for example, the total object perceived this book— being 12, the external reality may contribute 6, the material sense 3, and the mind 3; or the external reality may contribute 4, all that intervenes between the external reality and the organ 4, and the living organ itself 4.

Now, a touch or two will readily reveal the contradictions here. We know from the quotation (Disc.

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p. 54), for example, that the object stands 'in direct and immediate relation to the conscious mind,' and from quotations of the first series we have abundantly learned that the external reality itself is the immediate and only object of perception,' and that this object is only one.' We learn now, nevertheless, that this immediate and direct relation is a 'sum of elements,' of which elements, constitutive of the whole object of perception, the external reality itself is but one. It will suffice to point out this, however; we shall leave it to the reader himself to reconcile, if he can, a direct and immediate (and so, one would think, simple) relation, as well as an object which is described as one and only-we shall leave it to the reader himself to reconcile both with the many-ness and also-ness of a sum, and that too, as we shall presently see, a very complicated and peculiar sum.

But, again, it is said, 'mental modifications are dependent on certain corporeal conditions,' the mind perceives only through certain organs of sense, and through these different organs it perceives in a different manner.' Now, if mental modifications depend on corporeal conditions, surely a certain priority of existence is assigned to the latter by the very nature of the words themselves. Nor is it different with the accompanying allegation that the mind perceives through organs, and differently through the different ones: there too, surely, the very words ascribe priority to the organs, and not only priority, but action as well. (Difference of organ produces difference of object.) Hamilton, however, has no sooner committed

himself to such allegations, than he proceeds, as usual, directly to contradict himself. We have no reason whatever,' he says, 'to believe, contrary to the testimony of consciousness, that there is an action or affection of the bodily sense previous to the mental perception; or that the mind only perceives in the head, in consequence of the impression on the organ: whether the senses be instruments, whether they be media, or whether they be only particular outlets to the mind incarcerated in the body,-on all this we can only theorise and conjecture.' Now, if it is to the testimony of consciousness that Hamilton owes these latter statements, one would like to know what testimony he owes those former to. One sees that he is not entitled to doubt as to whether the senses are media, &c., for he has already pronounced then media, and media that operate difference. Perhaps to a mind so constituted as that of Hamilton to perceive immediately through media is not by any means a contradiction in terms! Even suppose him to perceive 'at the point of contact,' is it so certain that he is not still in presence of a medium-the sensitive spot? Or, on the other aspect, suppose him to perceive the external reality itself—it quite directly, it all and it only—is he still free to name his perception phenomenal?

Further, Hamilton, as we see from these extracts, rests what noumenalism they contain on two grounds: first, the testimony of consciousness; and second, the analysis and discrimination of philosophy. These grounds we have to see at full again; at present we remark only, firstly, that the testimony of conscious