sense is concerned, necessarily idle though they be, with more equanimity than Stewart vouchsafes them.

But it is not with Stewart's forgetfulness of his own doctrine, and his consequent limitless absorption in speculation on the connection of colour and figure by a certain necessity, not only of fact, but of reason— which necessity of reason, did it exist (and it probably did exist to Hegel), would, by the mediacy it offered, destroy the immediacy attributed by himself to the cognition of the primary qualities-it is not with these aspects of Stewart that we are here concerned, but with this special averment of his in itself and in its special bearing on Hamilton's perceptive theory; of which theory surely it is at least capable of being regarded as the germ. For, not only does it declare the perception figure (the objective cognition) to be impossible without the sensation colour (the subjective passion), but it attributes to the variety of colour that same necessary, active, and positive function which Hamilton also attributes to the variety of colour, though under the name of the relative localisation and reciprocal externality of colours. The reflexion, or revulsion, of the mind from the subjective sensation to the objective membrane, this, indeed, is Hamilton's salto mortale, this is the centre of his theory, and it might quite possibly have been suggested by these passages which he himself signalises in Reid and Stewart.

But, as regards a theory so striking and so evidently the centre of his thought, if one be curious to know what suggested it, one is equally curious to know how it is that Hamilton has not given it all the prominence

which his mastery of expression and his fervid personality might, had he so chosen, have so easily extended to it. For it is a remarkable fact that one shall have mastered the two volumes of the Logic, the two volumes of the Metaphysic, the one volume of the Discussions-that one shall have advanced far even into the text of the Dissertations to Reid—and yet that one shall remain absolutely blunt to the distinction in question until it suddenly dawn on him from the corner of some hardly readable, small-print footnote under these mentioned Dissertations. This is no solitary experience, and it is well-fitted to surprise. Nay, Hamilton's philosophical reading seems to have been undertaken for no other purpose than to give breadth to this distinction; yet, hardly mentioning it to his pupils, he allows it only a dark and stifled existence principally in foot-notes! We shall not attempt to account for this-we shall leave it simply to conjecture.

The reader who has now reached this centre of the nervous net will do well to turn round and survey the ground he has travelled. All, so, will be easier to him, and in readier proportion. The contradiction of presentationism and phenomenalism, the dogged ötı, the conversion of consciousness into perception, the unsatisfactory analysis of philosophy with its 3 or 4 of the external reality, &c.—all this, as he now looks back on it from Hamilton's point of view, will appear mitigated, and more natural. Nevertheless, all has been presented to him really as it strikes himself in Hamilton, and in that order which the interests of a full intelli

gence required. Nor, however softened the distant landscape may appear from the point we now occupy, is there a single dark spot the less in it; and we would remind summarily of the various objections to this point of view itself: 1. It is a petitio principii to begin with a nervous envelope, &c.-2. The theory is too predominatingly physiological.-3. The position of consciousness in the nervous net is not proved.4. The entire modus operandi explains nothing, and the metaphor of light is but a delusion.-5. It is absurd to derive what is à priori from an à posteriori source.-6. It is extravagant to transfer out the nervous net in its sensations and in its perceptions as the entire outer universe.-7. It is to do violence to consciousness to transfer it from things it knows to nerves it knows not.-8. Such transference vitiates Hamilton's own appeal to consciousness.-9. The intercourse of mind and matter is as difficult as ever.-10. The theory performs on its self its own Elenchus—proving what it would disprove, and disproving what it would prove. Lastly, we would point out, in conclusion, that two of the above arguments are precisely those which convince himself of the erroneousness of that theory which derives the idea of power from a transference to outer objects of our own nisus in volition, namely, that there is no consciousness of the fact alleged (the presence of the mind to the net), and that even such consciousness would not yield the apodictic nature which the primary qualities bring with them.

4. The Principle of Common Sense.

It is manifest that some of the points just touched on are repugnant, as has been already hinted indeed, to the principles of common sense; and yet it is to common sense that Hamilton, in company with Reid, appeals; or it is in the name and interests of common sense that Hamilton, in the same company, works. Obviously, then, our review of the present subject will be only complete when we have carried it up into that complement of principles which constitute, by profession at least, both its motive and its measure.

Now, by its very name, common sense is a common property: it is no man's fee-simple to do with as he will; it is every man's universal privilege; it is no man's particular advantage. The first inference we have to make here, then, is, that no use of the name will justify any departure from the standard, no matter however much he who leaves may praise what he leaves or deny that he leaves.

Now Reid, in a passage which has received the impress of Hamilton himself, describes (Reid's Works, p. 302) the platform of common sense thus:

We have here a remarkable conflict between two contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On the one side stand all the vulgar who are unpractised in philosophical researches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the other side stand all the philosophers, ancient and modern; every man, without exception, who reflects. In this division, to my great humiliation, I find myself classed with the vulgar.

The court, then, before which Reid-with the express approbation of Hamilton-would arraign philosophy, cannot well be misunderstood; nor more the general situation. As proclaiming the criterion of common sense, Reid stands with 'the vulgar;' he is 'guided by the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature,' to which instincts it is no prejudice that they are 'unpractised in philosophical researches ;' he finds himself opposed by all the philosophers, ancient and modern' by 'every man, without exception, who reflects;' and he has no resource but to appeal from the latter to the former,-from the 'philosophers' to the 'vulgar,'-from every man, without exception, who reflects, to every man-presumably-without exception, who does not reflect.

Before passing specially to Hamilton, we may remark that the contradiction in itself, which destroys this statement, is sufficiently obvious. Reflection, thought, is the single instrument of truth; and we do not usually listen twice to any man who tells us, Reflection unexceptively says A, irreflection unexceptively says B, nevertheless it is irreflection that is right. But Reid not only thus negates himself by his own first word, he equally negates himself by his own first act. No sooner, indeed, has he called to us not to reflect, than he sets himself to reflect. If, alarmed at 'philosophy,' he had said, Philosophy is naught, let us return to our usual beliefs, that what we taste we taste, and what we touch we touch, and leave reflection, he would have been perfectly consistent with himself, and dispute there could have been none; but,