He always seems to fancy that he can avoid all ambiguities by a definition,and does not remember that the words by which he defines are as shifting in their sense as the word defined.The consideration is especially important because it is Hamilton's main purpose to mediate between conflicting opinions.He starts from Reid's 'common-sense,'and has to show how the position can be protected against scepticism on the one side and mysticism on the other.
Cousin,as a disciple of the Scottish philosophers,represented one line of deviation from the judicious mean.
Beginning with Reid,he had become,with certain reserves,a follower or developer of Schelling.Coleridge's 'genial coincidence'with Schelling had led to no very tangible result;but Cousin's systematic development showed the philosophy diverging into a false track,and wasting itself upon the pursuit of utterly chimerical aims.Hamilton,therefore,endeavoured to expose the fallacies involved in the whole procedure.He agreed,as we shall see,with an important part of Kant's doctrine;but thought that by certain oversights Kant had opened the door to Schelling's empty speculations.There was an opposite danger to which Hamilton was equally awake.He insisted upon it in an article published October 1830upon the 'Philosophy of Perception.'This is,in the main,a fierce attack upon Brown --the one philosophical writer of whom he cannot speak without betraying prejudice.Hamilton's antipathy has been already explained.Brown shows Scottish philosophy lapsing into mere empiricism and 'inductive psychology.'Hamilton never mentions him without accusing him of blunders and of crass ignorance.
Hamilton thus stands up for the orthodox common-sense theory of Reid,and resents backslidings into transcendentalism on the right hand and sensationalism on the left.Like the excellent David Deans,he would keep the 'ridge of the hill,where wind and water shears.'When,however,he set about the edition of Reid's works,he began to discover inconsistencies.He doubted whether Reid had really taught the true faith;and he was led to restate more articulately his own view.To the end of his life,however,Hamilton called himself a Natural Realist;and held,though with increasing qualifications,that Reid's doctrine was an approximate statement of the same doctrine.What Natural Realism may be is another question.
The two essays just mentioned(7)give the pith of Hamilton's philosophical theories.His other writings on philosophy are mainly remodelled versions of the same views,or classifications of.other solutions of the problems.His speculations in logic,whatever their value,belong to a sphere which fortunately lies outside my province.In treating of perception,Hamilton gives the rationale of our belief in the external world;and in treating of the 'Unconditioned'the rationale of our belief in a deity.The results are in both cases remarkable.
II.HAMILTON ON PERCEPTION
What is the relation between the world of matter and the world of mind?That had been Reid's problem,and Hamilton starts from the acceptance of Reid's common-sense reply.We have to steer between opposing difficulties.Give too much to the mind and you will drift into mysticism,idealism,or ultimately to 'nihilism.'Give too much to matter and you will become a materialist or a mere sensationalist.Common sense gives the true answer.Reid was in the right path when he declared himself to be on the side of the 'vulgar.'(8)Things are just what they seem to be.It is the philosophers who,in Berkeley's famous phrase,have raised a dust,and complain that they cannot see.This doctrine gives the principle of an elaborate classification of philosophers generally,and supplies the test of their soundness.(9)The truth lies with the 'Natural Realists'or 'Natural Dualists,'who do justice to both sides.They believe both in mind and matter 'in absolute co-equality';in a 'duality'which presents the elements of consciousness in 'equal counterpoise and independence.'(10)Unluckily,there is a mock dualism which virtually makes the true position untenable.It surrenders the real key of the position.This is the unfortunate case of the 'Cosmothetic Idealists,'whose theory represents an illogical compromise.They assert that the mind perceives --not matter but --something which 'represents'matter.It is conscious only of its own 'ideas.'These form the visible imagery,an unreal screen,somehow 'representing'a real world behind.The sceptic,then,had only to point out that the world behind was a superfluity,and our whole world turns out to be illusion.Reid had answered Hume by sweeping away all this superfluous machinery,and proving (or at least asserting)that what we see is itself real.Reid's analysis of consciousness,when duly corrected,showing that,we have,as we believe we have,an immediate knowledge of the material world,accomplished everything at once.'(11)'Natural Realism'and 'Absolute Idealism'are the only systems worthy of a philosopher.(12)The Cosmothetic Idealist occupies a position from which he can be driven at any moment by the more thoroughgoing idealist.Yet,as Hamilton declares,Cosmothetic Idealism has been held in various forms by the immense majority of philosophers,(13)indeed,by almost all who have not been driven by its absurdity into materialism or scepticism.A few 'stray speculators'(14)alone have found the narrow way.The list is apparently exhausted by the names of Peter Poiret,Reid,and Sir William Hamilton,(15)and even Reid may be said with much plausibility to have held a version of the creed which would make his whole philosophy 'one mighty blunder.'(16)What has caused this universal apostasy?
