presents stronger claims to the name of Natural Realism than can be urged in favour of Hamilton's. For (1) while the former attributes reality, in the sense in which he understands the term, to all sensible objects, the secondary as well as the primary qualities of matter indifferently, the latter limits our perception of reality to the primary qualities, though there cannot be a doubt that the natural instinct of mankind, unchecked by scientific reflection, is to believe, when a rose is before the eyes, that its color is not less real than its figure. Moreover (2) while the gist of Berkeley's arguments is to prove that there is no unperceived reality underlying the objects of perception, Hamilton, in a measure, destroys the realistic aspect of his system by restoring, in his doctrine of the Conditioned, the unknown material substance which his opponent relegates to the category of unfounded hypotheses, contradicted by the natural convictions of mankind. It must thus (3) be evident further, and it will appear more fully in the sequel, that we are left in irremediable perplexity as to what Hamilton meant by reality in consequence of his recognising realities underlying those. which are the immediate objects of perception, whereas the reality which Berkeley attributes to these objects, and which, he believes, is also attributed to them by the vulgar, has always a specific signification. But whatever may be thought of these remarks on the comparative claims of the Hamiltonian and Berkeleyan philosophies to be regarded as systems of Realism, it does not admit of doubt that Berkeley can, in no fair view of his system, be represented as rejecting the admitted belief of the human mind as the reality of the things perceived through the senses. The utmost that can be said is, that his understanding of what is meant by reality differs from Hamilton's; but a different interpretation is very far from a total denial of the reality attributed to material things. The evidence wrung from Berkeley in favour of his Scottish opponent's assertion is thus found to break down under examination; and when we look into Hume's evidence, we find that it can scarcely stand such a test any better. The passage quoted, it must be remembered, occurs in the Essay on the Sceptical or Academical Philosophy; and the statements cited are written from the Sceptical point of view, asserting nothing dogmatically either for or against our natural beliefs, but merely poising against each other antagonistic conclusions of the human mind, so as to exhibit the instability of all purely speculative results. In the passage adduced by Hamilton the equipoise instituted is between the natural belief of mankind in the reality of the phenomena presented in perception and the philosophical doctrine which attributes reality only to an unperceived substance underlying these phenomena. Now, although Sir William Hamilton does maintain the immediate objects of perception to be in some sense real, yet there is another sense in which he persistently refuses to predicate real existence of anything but the unknown substratum of phenomena, for which, in the passage under consideration, Hume asserts that there is no proof. The sceptic therefore cannot be said to reject the above natural belief of men in any important sense in which it is not also rejected by his opponent; and consequently his evidence cannot be admitted in the case in which it is adduced. It may, however, be allowed that Hume's positive doctrine is founded on a rejection of this natural belief, which he yet acknowledges to exist. The belief, to which Hamilton appeals, must be an original belief of the human mind; and he admits that his reasoning would be invalidated by disproving the originality of the belief. Now, this is precisely what Hume endeavours to disprove. The belief of men, the existence of which he acknowledges, is one which he holds to be acquired; and, as already mentioned in the first article of this series, he employs an elaborate chapter in the Treatise of Human Nature in tracing its genesis. There is thus an additional ground on which it is imposssible to accept Hume's evidence as testimony to the cxistence of the belief, to which Hamilton appeals; and it is the more remarkable that Hamilton did not see this, as one of the passages, to which he refers in this connection, seems to be in the chapter of Hume's Treatise, which endeavours to explain the origin of the belief. The remaining testimonies, it is to be feared, will all evaporate likewise before the light of examination. They all admit of being explained as referring to a belief which is either not original or not rejected by the witnesses adduced in any sense in which it is not also rejected by Hamilton in his doctrine of the Conditioned. There is, for example, a brief quotation from the Cartesian De Raei, stating the belief of mankind, "Res ipsas secundum se in sensum incurrere." Can any one be far amiss in saying that Sir William Hamilton is among the philosophers who reject the doctrine that things in themselves (res ipsae secundum se, Dinge an sich) enter immediately into *Discussions, p. 92, note. the sensuous perceptions of the mind? Similarly the quotation from Stiedenroth's Psychologie is capable of interpretation on either of the above suppositions, though one would require to be acquainted with the general doctrine of its author to explain with certainty the particular drift of this passage. It is unnecessary to dwell upon those passages to which Sir William Hamilton has referred without quoting them; but one may well ask, though one can scarcely hope to answer, what interpretation, inconsistent with the doctrine of the Conditioned, it is possible to put on the following quotation from Tennemann: "The illusion that things in themselves are cognisable is so natural, that we need not marvel if even philosophers have not been able to emancipate themselves from the prejudice. The common sense of mankind, which remains steadfast within the sphere of experience, recognises no distinction between things in themselves and phenomena; and the philosophising reason commences therewith its attempt to investigate the foundations of this knowledge and to recall itself into system.' The witnesses, summoned with so much confidence by Sir William Hamilton, might therefore all be allowed to retire, on the ground that their testimony does not bear upon the point which it is adduced to prove, were it not that Sir William's most distinguished antagonist allows the evidence of a certain class of these witnesses. "Those indeed," says Mr. Mill," who, like Kant, believe that there are elements present, even at the first moment of internal consciousness, which do not exist in the object, but are derived from the mind's own laws, are fairly open to Sir W. Hamilton's criticism. . . But, as regards all existing schools of thought not descended from Kant, Sir W. Hamilton's accusation is without ground." One cannot but feel at a loss in dealing with an assertion of this kind, not illustrated by any explanation, or supported by any defence; but the authority of the philosopher who makes the assertion claims for it some recognition in this connection. Are we then, in deference to this authority, to admit that Hamilton is justified in compelling Kant and his followers at least to give evidence in his favour? I am obliged to acknowledge that I have altogether misinterpreted the drift of Kant's philosophy, if Mr. Mill's charge against it is well founded. Undoubtedly Kant holds that, even in our earliest perceptions, the relations of space and time, under *Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 160-1. which objects are perceived, as well as the categories of the understanding, under which they are thought, are derived not from the objects, but from the mind's own laws. Mr. Mill also holds that these elements in our knowledge of objects are derived from the mind's own laws, and are not furnished by the objects themselves. The only difference between his doctrine and Kant's is in reference to the time at which these elements make their appearance in consciousness, the former maintaining, in opposition to the latter, that they are produced, not at once, but only after a more or less gradual process of association, although of course that process must have been accomplished before the period at which memory begins, and consequently at a period not very much later than that which is supposed in the theory of Kant. It is therefore an essential point in Mr. Mill's doctrine regarding our knowledge of matter, that the illusion of the externality, under which material things appear to us, is generated inevitably in accordance with the laws by which sensations and other mental states become associated; and that this illusion, from the date of our earliest reminiscences, is so irresistible, that it can be dispelled only by the conclusions of psychological enquiry-conclusions which are still so inadequately established, that they are rejected by a large number of those who are engaged in such inquiry. I do not on this account lay to the charge of Mr. Mill's doctrine, that it exhibits, as Hamilton is fond of saying, "our Maker as a deceiver, and the root of our nature as a lie." It is competent for any one to maintain, and every scientific man does maintain, that there are illusions which the human mind naturally and inevitably creates, which it is the function of science to remove. But as this plea may urged by Mr. Mill, it may with equal right be urged by the disciple of Kant. It matters not whether the mental forces, which give birth to the illusions destroyed by science, operate so slowly as to produce their results only after a comparatively long process, or so swiftly that their results emerge on the first outburst of mental activity. If indeed it were maintained by Kant that the human mind is so constituted as to be incapable of exposing the illusions to which it is naturally subject, his doctrine might be held liable to the accusation which Sir William Hamilton brings against it, and in which Mr. Mill joins But the creator of the modern German philosophy has not marred his system by such a flaw. If he holds that the mental faculties, from the very commencement of their exercise, originate illusory appearances, he holds quite as unequivocally that these faculties are themselves competent to be discover the illusory character of such appearances by a scientific criticism of the elements which constitute human knowledge. What, then, must we suppose, led Sir W. Hamilton to imagine that the statements of antagonistic philosophers, which we have now examined, are to be interpreted as admissions in his favour? A solution of this question will probably be reached by examining the nature of the belief to which these statements refer, and by considering the manner in which that belief ought to be treated by the scientific student of the human mind. II. There cannot be a doubt that a belief, conviction, intuition, knowledge, consciousness, or whatever else one may choose to call it, of something external to, or different from, oneself, must be acknowledged to exist in the mind of every man. That in all my consciousness I am aware of that which is not I, apprehended as occupying space and as enduring in time, and that I cannot choose but be aware of it except by ceasing to be conscious, this statement will be admitted by every human being to be the expression of a fact in his consciousness from the date of his most distant reminiscences down to the latest hour at which reflection is possible. Though it may be generally true, as Sir W. Hamilton more than once asserts after Varro, that there is no absurdity too great not to have found a supporter among any of the philosophers, I am confident that a special exception must be made in reference to the denial of this mental fact. At least it would have been interesting if Sir W. Hamilton, instead of collecting acknowledgments of this fact, had employed some of that curious learning, which has endeavoured to discover the "local habitation and the name" of the philosophical sect of Egoists, in hunting out any philosophers by whom the fact has been denied. The truth is, that this is not only one of the facts which the investigator of the human mind must study, but, when properly viewed, it is, as the most obtrusive fact in our mental history, also the prime fact in mental science, the explanation of which inevitably drags in all the general questions suggested by the phenomena of human knowledge. On this account the fact under consideration necessarily occupies the most prominent place in the speculations of schools representing the most antagonistic tendencies of philosophical inquiry; and there are not wanting, in the writings of philosophers, most opposed to Sir W. Hamilton in their interpretation of the fact, statements, quite as explicit as any which he has penned, of the irresistibility and the immediacy with which in our ordinary consciousness |