The account of the cognitive powers in the first 332pages of the second volume, down to the regulative powers, not included, will be regarded in the end, if I do not mistake, as the most valuable part of Sir William Hamilton's metaphysics.His pupils will probably fix on the very part Ihave designedly excepted, viz., the regulative faculties, as being the most important.Farther on in this article I mean to show that he has greatly misapprehended the nature of these regulative powers.Meanwhile let us look at the account which he has given of the other mental faculties.
I.Like the Scotch metaphysicians he paid great attention to the Senses.His views were first given to the world in his article in the " Edinburgh Review," republished in the Discussions, and have been expanded in his notes on Reid and in his class lectures.He has a famous arrangement of the various forms which have been taken by the ideal theory of sense-perception.Realists are either natural, who maintain that we know the external thing directly; or hypothetical (cosmothetic idealists), who suppose that there is a real world not directly known.Idealists are absolute or presentative, who suppose that there is only the idea; or cosmothetic or representative (hypothetical realists) who bold that we know the external thing by a representation.
The possible forms of the representative hypothesis are three: (1) The representative object not a modification of mind, but an extra-mental object, physical or hyperphysical;(2) The representative object a modification of mind, dependent for its apprehension, but not for its existence, on an act of consciousness, say an idea in the mind, as was held apparently by Locke; (3) The representative object a modification of mind, non-existent out of consciousness, the idea and its perception only different relations of an act (state) really identical; the view taken by Arnauld and Brown.The distinctions thus drawn are of great importance, and should be kept steadily in view in judging of theories.
But his divisions do not embrace all cases.Dr.Brown does not bold by the ideal, but the causal or inferential, theory; and Hamilton has missed the mark in his criticism of him.
I am inclined to agree with him that our original perceptions are probably of our organism, or of objects in immediate contact with it.This doctrine seems to have been expounded {433} simultaneously by Hamilton; by Saisset, the French metaphysician; and by John Muller, the physiologist.
On one small point I would differ from Hamilton.Our original perceptions through the eye do not seem to me to be points of light, but of a colored surface affecting our organism, but at what distance we cannot say till experience comes to our aid.But the doctrine identified with his name is that of immediate perception.He intended to take the same view as Reid did, and, when he began to edit Reid's works, he thought that their opinions were the same.But, as he advances, he sees that they differ; and he ends by doubting whether Reid was after all a realist.Reid's doctrine is, that there is first an organic affection; then a sensation in the mind; and, thirdly, a perception suggested by an unreasoning and instinctive process.
Hamilton's doctrine is, that, following the organic affection, there is simultaneously a sensation and perception, the one being strong as the other is weak, and <vice versa>; that is, when the sensation is lively the perception is faint, and when the perception is prominent the impression is feeble.Both, however, agree in the main point, that the process is intuitive and that there is no reasoning involved.Hamilton's doctrine is specially that of <immediate> perception; that is, of perception without a medium.
It is objected to Hamilton's theory, that he overlooks the numerous intermediate processes revealed by physiology.