looked essential elements." In so far," he says, "as two objects resemble each other, the notion we have of them is identical, and, therefore, to us, the objects may be considered as the same." (Vol.II.pp.294.) I cannot give my adherence to this doctrine of the identity of resembling objects.Altogether his account of the relations which the mind can discover is narrow and exclusive.He specifies first the judgment virtually pronounced in an act of perception of the <non-ego>, or an act of self-consciousness of the <ego>; then secondly the something of which we are conscious and of which the predicate existence is twofold, the <ego> and the <non-ego>; thirdly, the recognition of the multiplicity of the co-existent or successive phenomena, and the judgment in regard to their resemblance or dissimilarity; fourthly, the comparison of the phenomena with the native notion of substance; fifthly, the collection of successive phenomena under the native notion of causation.He might have seen a much broader and more comprehensive account of the relations which the mind can perceive in Locke's "Essay" (B.II.C.28); in Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature" (B.I.P.i. 5); or in Brown's Lectures (Lect.xlv.) I am surprised he has never made a reference to such relations -- on which the mind so often dwells -- as those of space, time, quantity, properties of objects, cause and effect, and moral good.
V.We have now only to consider, and in doing so have to discuss, the Regulative Faculties of the mind.I like the phrase regulative, only we must dissociate it from the peculiar sense in which it is used by Kant (from whom Hamilton has borrowed it), who supposes that the mind in judging of objects imposes on them a relation not in the objects themselves.The epithet expresses that such principles as substance and quality, cause and effect, are "the laws by which the mind is governed in its operations "(Vol.II., P.I 5), which laws I may add -- but Hamilton would not-are not before the consciousness as principles when we exercise them.In calling them faculties, he acknowledges that he uses the word in a peculiar signification.(P.347.) The truth is Hamilton does not see the relation in which they stand to the faculties: they are not separate faculties, but are involved in all the faculties, being, in fact, the necessary laws which spontaneously and unconsciously {443} guide their exercise.
His treatment of this subject in a more elaborate manner, in the " Conditions of the Thinkable Systematized, or the Alphabet of Human Thought," appended to the Discussions, and in a somewhat more popular manner in his Lectures, was probably regarded by himself, and is certainly regarded by his admiring pupils, as the most important contribution made by him to philosophy.On the other hand, I look on the system as being, on the whole, a failure.He has labored to combine the philosophies of Reid and Kant; but we see everywhere the chinks at the line of junction.The principles of common sense looking at objective truth, will not join on to the empty forms which imply and -- guarantee no reality.In the construction of his philosophy of the relative or conditioned, as he calls it, he has expended an immense amount of logical ability; but he has lost himself in Kantian distinctions, giving in to Kant's theory as to space and time, making them, and also cause and effect, merely subjective laws of thought and not of things; and the system which be has reared is an artificial one, in which the flaws and oversights and rents are quite as evident as the great skill which he has shown in its erection.Idispute three of his fundamental and favorite positions.
(1) I dispute his theory of relativity.I acknowledge that there is a sense in which human knowledge is relative.