Chapter 2

'It would be difficult to find a stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must have been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears.'

In the words here employed,seeingandhearingare predicted of God.

Now when we predicate of men, that theyseeorhear, we affirm facts of extreme complexity, especially in the case ofseeing; facts partly physical, partly mental, involving multifarious movements and agencies of nerves, muscles, and other parts of the organism, together with direct sensational impressions, and mental reconstruction of the past, inseparably associated therewith; all which, so far as they are known, are perspicuously enumerated in the work of Professor Bain[11]on the 'Senses and the Intellect,' Again, Mr Mill speaks (in p. 102 and elsewhere) of 'the veracity of God.' When we say of our neighbour that he is a veracious man, we ascribe to him a habit of speaking the truth; that is, of employing his physical apparatus of speech, and his mental power of recalling and recombining words lodged in the memory, for the purpose of asserting no other propositions except such as declare facts which he knows, or beliefs which he really entertains. But how eitherseeing, orhearing, orveracity, in these senses, can be predicated of God, we are at a loss to understand. And if they are to be predicated of God in a different sense, this admits the same license as Mr Mansel contends for in respect to Goodness, when he feels that undeniable facts preclude him from predicating that epithet univocally respecting God and respecting man.[12]

On the whole, it seems to us, that though Mr Mill will consent to worship only a God of perfect goodness, he has thrown no new light on the grave problem—frankly stated though imperfectly solved, by Mr Mansel—how such a conception of God is to be reconciled with the extent of evil and suffering actually pervading human life and animal life throughout the earth. We are compelled to say, respecting Mr Mill's treatment of this subject—what we should not say respecting his treatment of any other—that he has left an old perplexing problem not less perplexing than he found it.

Reverting, not unwillingly, from theology to philosophy, we now pass on to Mr Mill's ninth chapter (p. 128 seq.), of the Interpretation of Consciousness. There is assuredly no lesson more requiring to be taught than the proper mode of conducting such interpretation; for the number of different modes in which Consciousness has been interpreted is astonishing. Mr Mill begins by citing from Sir W. Hamilton's lectures a passage of some length, upon which he bestows considerable praise, regarding it as—

'One of the proofs that, whatever may be the positive value of his (Sir W. Hamilton's) achievements in metaphysics, he had a greater capacity for the subject than many metaphysicians of high reputation; and particularly than his two distinguished predecessors in the same school of thought—"Reid and Stewart."'—p. 131.

This is one of the greatest compliments to Sir W. Hamilton that the book contains, and as such we are glad to cite it.

On the subject of Consciousness, Mr Mill has cited from Sir W. Hamilton other good observations besides the one last alluded to; but, unfortunately, these are often neutralized by opposite or inconsistent opinions also cited from other parts of his works. The number of such inconsistencies produced is indeed one remarkable feature in Sir W. Hamilton's philosophical character. He seems to follow out energetically (as Plato in his various dialogues) the vein of thought pervading his mind at each particular moment, without troubling himself to look back upon his own prior speculations. Even compared with the best views of Sir W. Hamilton, however, Mr Mill's mode of handling the subject of Consciousness exhibits signal improvement. To some of his observations we shall call particular attention.

All philosophers agree that what Consciousness testifies is to be believed; but they differ much on the question—To what points Consciousness does testify? and even on the still deeper question—How shall we proceed to ascertain whatarethese attested points? What is the proper method of studying or interrogating Consciousness? Upon this Mr Mill remarks (pp. 145—147):—

'Here emerges the distinction between two different methods of studying the problems of metaphysics; forming the radical difference between the two great schools into which metaphysicians are divided. One of these I shall call for distinction, theintrospectivemethod; the other, thepsychological. M. Cousin observes that Locke went wrong from the beginning, by placing before himself, as the question to be first resolved, the origin of our ideas. This (he says) was commencing at the wrong end. The proper course would have been to begin by determining what the ideas now are; to ascertain what it is that Consciousness now tells us; postponing till afterwards the attempt to frame a theory concerning the origin of any of the mental phenomena.'I accept the question as M. Cousin states it; and I contend that no attempt to determine what are the direct revelations of Consciousness can be successful, or entitled to any regard, unless preceded by what M. Cousin says ought only to follow it—an inquiry into the origin of our acquired ideas. For we have it not in our power to ascertain, by any direct process, what Consciousness told us at the time when its revelations were in their pristine purity. It only offers itself to our inspection, as it exists now, when those original revelations are overlaid and buried under a mountainous heap of acquired notions and perceptions.'It seems to M. Cousin, that if we examine with care and minuteness our present states of Consciousness, distinguishing and defining every ingredient which we find to enter into them—every element that we seem to recognize as real, and cannot "by merely concentrating our attention upon it analyze into anything simpler—we reach the ultimate and primary truths, which are the sources of all our knowledge, and which cannot be denied or doubted without denying or doubting the evidence of Consciousness itself—that is, the only evidence that there is for anything. I maintain this to be a misconception of the condition imposed on inquirers by the difficulties of psychological investigation. To begin the inquiry at the point where M. Cousin takes it up is, in fact, to beg the question. For he must be aware, if not of the fact, at least of the belief of his opponents, that the laws of the mind—the Laws of Association, according to one class of thinkers, the Categories of the Understanding, according to another—are capable of creating, out of those data of Consciousness which are uncontested, purely mental conceptions, which become so identified in thought with all our states of Consciousness, thatwe seem, and cannot but seem, to receive them by direct intuition. For example, the belief in matter in the opinion of these thinkers is, or at least may be, thus produced:—'"The proof that any of the alleged Universal Beliefs, or Principles of Common Sense, are affirmations of Consciousness—supposes two things: that the beliefs exist, and that they cannot possibly have been acquired. The first is, in most cases, undisputed; but the second is a subject of inquiry which often taxes the utmost resources of psychologists. Locke was therefore right in believing that 'the origin of our ideas' is the main stress of the problem of mental science, and the subject which must be first considered in forming the theory of the Mind."'

'I accept the question as M. Cousin states it; and I contend that no attempt to determine what are the direct revelations of Consciousness can be successful, or entitled to any regard, unless preceded by what M. Cousin says ought only to follow it—an inquiry into the origin of our acquired ideas. For we have it not in our power to ascertain, by any direct process, what Consciousness told us at the time when its revelations were in their pristine purity. It only offers itself to our inspection, as it exists now, when those original revelations are overlaid and buried under a mountainous heap of acquired notions and perceptions.

'It seems to M. Cousin, that if we examine with care and minuteness our present states of Consciousness, distinguishing and defining every ingredient which we find to enter into them—every element that we seem to recognize as real, and cannot "by merely concentrating our attention upon it analyze into anything simpler—we reach the ultimate and primary truths, which are the sources of all our knowledge, and which cannot be denied or doubted without denying or doubting the evidence of Consciousness itself—that is, the only evidence that there is for anything. I maintain this to be a misconception of the condition imposed on inquirers by the difficulties of psychological investigation. To begin the inquiry at the point where M. Cousin takes it up is, in fact, to beg the question. For he must be aware, if not of the fact, at least of the belief of his opponents, that the laws of the mind—the Laws of Association, according to one class of thinkers, the Categories of the Understanding, according to another—are capable of creating, out of those data of Consciousness which are uncontested, purely mental conceptions, which become so identified in thought with all our states of Consciousness, thatwe seem, and cannot but seem, to receive them by direct intuition. For example, the belief in matter in the opinion of these thinkers is, or at least may be, thus produced:—

'"The proof that any of the alleged Universal Beliefs, or Principles of Common Sense, are affirmations of Consciousness—supposes two things: that the beliefs exist, and that they cannot possibly have been acquired. The first is, in most cases, undisputed; but the second is a subject of inquiry which often taxes the utmost resources of psychologists. Locke was therefore right in believing that 'the origin of our ideas' is the main stress of the problem of mental science, and the subject which must be first considered in forming the theory of the Mind."'

This citation from Mr Mill's book is already almost too long, yet we could have wished to prolong it still more, from the importance of some of the succeeding paragraphs. It presents, in clear discrimination and contrast, two opposite points of view according to which the phenomena of mind are regarded by different philosophers, and the method of studying them determined: theintrospectivemethod, adopted by M. Cousin and others—thepsychologicalor analytical method, pursued by Locke and by many other eminent men since Locke—'the known and approved method of physical science, adapted to the necessities of psychology'—(p. 148).

There are passages of Sir W. Hamilton's writings in which he appears to feel that theintrospectivemethod alone is insufficient for the interpretation of Consciousness, and that the analytical method must be employed to reinforce it. But on this as on other points he is not always consistent with himself. For in laying down the principle upon which the primary truths of Consciousness, the original data of intelligence, are to be ascertained and distinguished from generalizations out of experience and custom, he declares that the one single and certain mark is Necessity—they must be beliefs which we are under the necessity of believing—of which we cannot get rid by any mental effort. He decides this, of course, for himself, by theintrospectivemethod alone. He (with M. Cousin and other philosophers who take the same view) does not apply the analytical method to inquire whether his necessity of belief may not be a purely acquired necessity and nowise congenital. It is, indeed, remarkable that these philosophers do not even seek to apply the introspective method as far as that method will really go. They are satisfied with introspection of their own present minds; without collecting results of the like process as applied to other minds, in different times and places. They declare various beliefs to be necessary to the human mind universally, merely because such is the actual fact with their own minds and with those immediately around them; sometimes even in defiance of proof that there are (or have been) persons not sharing such beliefs, and occasionally even believing the contrary; therefore, when even the introspective method really disallows their affirmative instead of sustaining it. This is, in truth, an abuse of the introspective method; yet even if that method were employed in its fullest extent—if the same incapability of believing otherwise could be shown as common to all mankind—it might still be only the effect of a strong association. The analytical method must still be called in to ascertain whether we are forced to suppose such incapability to be an original fact of consciousness, or whether it may not have been generated in the mind by circumstances under the natural working of the laws of association. It is certain that these laws not only may, but must, give birth to artificial inconceivabilities in the mind—and that some of these may be equal in strength to such, if any, as are natural.

'The History of Science' (says Mr Mill, following out the same train of reasoning which we read in the third Book of his 'System of Logic') 'teems with inconceivabilities which have been conquered; and with supposed necessary truths, which have first ceased to be thought necessary, then to be thought true, and have finally come to be deemed impossible.'—p. 150.

After various observations, chiefly exhibiting the rashness of many censures bestowed by Sir W. Hamilton on Brown, Mr Mill gives us three valuable chapters (xi., xii., xiii.), wherein he analyzes the belief in an External World, the Belief in Mind as a separate substance or Noumenon, and the Primary Qualities of Matter. To each of these topics he applies what he calls thepsychologicalmethod, as contrasted with the simplyintrospectivemethod of Sir W. Hamilton (the Ego and Non-Ego affirmed to be given together in the primary deliverance of Consciousness) and so many other philosophers. He proves that these beliefs are no way intuitive, but acquired products; and that the known laws of Association are sufficient to explain how they are acquired; especially the Law of Inseparable Association, together with that ofObliviscence—a very useful, discriminating phrase, which we first find employed in this volume—(p. 259 et passim). He defines Matter to be apermanent possibility of Sensation; he maintains that this is really all which (apart from philosophical theories) mankind in general mean by it; he shows that mere possibilities of sensation not only may, but must, according to the known Laws of Association, come to present 'to our artificialized Consciousness' a character of objectivity—(pp. 198, 199). The correlative subject, though present in fact and indispensable, is eliminated out of conscious notice, according to the Law of Obliviscence.

These chapters will well repay the most careful perusal. We can only find room for one passage (pp. 214, 215):—

'Throughout the whole of our sensitive life, except its first beginnings, we unquestionably refer our sensations to ameandnot-me. As soon as I have formed, on the one hand, the notion of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation, and on the other, of that continued series of feelings which I call my life—both these notions are, by an irresistible association, recalled by every sensation I have. They represent two things, with both of which the sensation of the moment, be it what it may, stands in relation; and I cannot be conscious of the sensation without being conscious of it as related to these two things. They have accordingly received relative names, expressive of the double relation in question. The thread of consciousness which I apprehend the relation as a part of, is called theSubject; the group of Permanent Possibilities of Sensation to which I refer it, and which is partially realized and actualized in it, is called theObjectof the sensation. The sensation itself ought to have a correlative name, or rather ought to have two such names—one denoting the sensation as opposed to its Subject, the other denoting it as opposed to its Object; but it is a remarkable fact that this necessity has not been felt, and that the need of a correlative name to every relative one has been considered to be satisfied by the terms Object and Subject themselves. It is true that these two are related to one another, but only through the sensation. We have no conception of either Subject or Object, either Mind or Matter, except as something to which we refer our sensations, and whatever other feelings we are conscious of.The very existence of them both, so far as cognizable by us, consists only in the relation they respectively bear to our states of feeling.Their relation to each other is only the relation between those two relations. The immediate correlatives are, not the pair,Object, Subject,but the two pairs, Object,Sensation objectively considered—Subject,Sensation subjectively considered. The reason why this is overlooked might easily be shown, and would furnish a good illustration of that important part of the Laws of Association, which may be termed the Laws of Obliviscence.'

This chapter, on the Primary Qualities of Matter, controverts the opinion of Sir W. Hamilton, that extension, as consisting of co-existentpartes extra partes, is immediately and necessarily apprehended by our consciousness. It cites, as well as confirms, the copious proof given by Professor Bain (in his work on the Senses and the Intellect) that our conception of extension is derived from our muscular sensibility: that our sensation ofmuscular motion impededconstitutes that of filled space: that our conception of extension, as an aggregate of co-existent parts, arises from the sense of sight, which comprehends a great number of parts in a succession so rapid as to be confounded with simultaneity—and which not only becomes the symbol of muscular and tactile succession, but even acquires such ascendancy as to supersede both of them in our consciousness. Confirmation is here given to this important doctrine, not merely by observations from Mr Mill himself, but also from the very curious narrative, discovered and produced by Sir W. Hamilton, out of a work of the German philosopher, Platner. Platner instituted a careful examination of a man born blind, and ascertained that this man did not conceive extension as an aggregate of simultaneous parts, but as a series of sensations experienced or to be experienced in succession—(pp. 232, 233). The case reported from Platner both corroborates the theory of Professor Bain, and receives its proper interpretation from that theory; while it is altogether adverse to the doctrine of Sir W. Hamilton—as is also another case, which he cites from Maine de Biran:—

'It gives a very favourable idea of Sir W. Hamilton's sincerity and devotion to truth (remarks Mr Mill, p. 247), that he should have drawn from obscurity, and made generally known, two cases so unfavourable to his own opinions.'

We think this remark perfectly just; and we would point out besides, in appreciating Sir W. Hamilton's merits, that his appetite for facts was useful to philosophy, as well as his appetite for speculation. But the person whose usefulness to philosophy we prefer to bring into the foreground, is Platner himself. He spent three weeks in patient examination of this blind man, and the tenor of his report proves that his sagacity in interpreting facts was equal to his patience in collecting them. The rarity of all such careful and premeditated observation of the facts of mind, appears to us one main reason why (what Mr Mill calls) thepsychologicaltheory finds so little acceptance; and why those who maintain that what now seems a mental integer was once a multiplicity of separate mental fragments, can describe the antecedent steps of the change only as alatens processus, which the reader never fully understands, and often will not admit. Every man's mind is gradually built up from infancy to maturity; the process is always going on before our eyes, yet the stages of it—especially the earliest stages, the most pregnant with instruction—are never studied and put on record by observers trained in inductive logic, knowing beforehand what they ought to look for as thesine quâ nonfor proving or disproving any proposed theory. Such cases as that cited by Platner—cases of one marked congenital defect of sense, enabling us to apply the Method of Difference—are always within reach; but few Platners are found to scrutinize and record them. Historians of science describe to us the laborious and multiplied observations, and the elaborate precaution for ensuring accuracy of observation, which recent chemical and physical inquirers have found indispensable for the establishment of their results. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that mental philosophers, dealing with facts even more obscure, and careless about enlarging, varying, authenticating their records of particular facts, should have had little success in establishing any results at all.

But if even those, who adopt the psychological theory, have been remiss in the observation of particular mental facts,—those who deny the theory have been far more than remiss; they have been blind to obvious facts contradicting the principles which they lay down. Mr Mill, in chap, xiv., deals with this denial, common to Mr Mansel with Sir W. Hamilton. That philosophers so eminent as both of them should declare confidently—'what I cannot but think must beà priori, or original to thought; it cannot be engendered by experience upon custom' (p. 264)—appears to us as extraordinary as it does to Mr Mill. Though no one ever surpassed Sir W. Hamilton in large acquaintance with the actual diversities of human belief, and human incapacities of believing—yet he never seems to have thought of bringing this acquaintance into account, when he assured the students in his lecture-room, that custom, experience, indissoluble association, were altogether insufficient to engender a felt necessity of believing. Such forgetfulness of well-known mental facts cannot be reproached to the advocates of the psychological theory.

In chap. xv. Mr Mill examines Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine on unconscious mental modifications. He points out the confused manner in which Sir W. Hamilton has conceivedmental latency, as well as the inconclusive character of the reasoning whereby he refutes the following doctrine of Dugald Stewart—That in the most rapid trains of association, each separate item must have been successively present to consciousness, though for a time too short to leave any memory. Sir W. Hamilton thinks that the separate items may pass, and often do pass, unconsciously; which opinion Mr Mill also, though not approving his reasons, is inclined to adopt.

'I am myself inclined (p. 285) to admit unconscious mental modifications, in the only sense in which I can attach any very distinct meaning to them—namely, unconscious modifications of the nerves. It may well be believed that the apparently suppressed links in a chain of association, those which Sir W. Hamilton considers as latent, really are so: that they are not even momentarily felt, the chain of causation being continued only physically—by one organic state of the nerves succeeding another so rapidly, that the state of mental consciousness appropriate to each is not produced.'

Mr Mill gives various illustrations in support of this doctrine. He at the same time calls attention to a valuable lecture of Sir W. Hamilton's, the thirty-second lecture on Metaphysics; especially to the instructive citation from Cardaillac contained therein, noting the important fact, which descriptions of the Law of Association often keep out of sight—that the suggestive agency of Association is carried on, not by single antecedents raising up single consequents, but by a mass of antecedents raising up simultaneously a mass of consequents, among which attention is very unequally distributed.

We shall say little upon Mr Mill's remarks on Sir W. Hamilton's Theory of Causation—(chap. xvi.). This theory appears to Mr Mill absurd; while the theory of Mr Mill (continued from Hume, Brown, and James Mill) on the same subject, appears to Sir W. Hamilton insufficient and unsatisfactory—'professing to explain the phenomenon of causality, but, previously to explanation, evacuating the phenomenon of all that desiderates explanation'—(p. 295). For ourselves we embrace the theory of Mr Mill:[13]yet we are aware that the remark just cited from Sir W. Hamilton represents the dissatisfaction entertained towards it by many objectors. The unscientific and antiscientific yearnings, prevalent among mankind, lead them to put questions which no sound theory of Causation will answer; and they are ready to visit and trust any oracle which professes to deliver a confident affirmative solution of such questions. Among all the terms employed by metaphysicians, none is used in a greater variety of meanings than the term Cause.

In Mr Mill's next chapter (xvi.) he comments on Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of Concepts or General Notions. There are portions of this chapter with which we agree less than with most other parts of the volume; especially with his marked hostility to the termConcept, and the reasons given for it, which reasons appear to us not very consistent with what he has himself said in the 'System of Logic,' Book IV. chap. ii. § 1—3. The termConcepthas no necessary connection with the theory called Conceptualism. It is equally available to designate the idea called up by a general name, as understood either by Mr Bailey or by James Mill. We think it useful as an equivalent to the German wordBegriff, which sense Sir W. Hamilton has in view when he introduces it, though he does not always adhere to his profession. And when Mr Mill says (p. 331)—

'I consider it nothing less than a misfortune, that the words Concept, General Notion, or any other phrase to express the supposed mental modification corresponding to a general name, should ever have been invented.'

we dissent from his opinion. To talk of 'the Concept of an individual,' however, as Mr Mansel does (pp. 338, 339), is improper and inconsistent with the purpose for which the name is given.

We are more fully in harmony with Mr Mill in his two next chapters (xviii. et seq.) on Judgment and Reasoning; which are among the best chapters in this volume. He there combats and overthrows the theory of Reasoning laid down by Sir W. Hamilton; but we doubt the propriety of his calling this 'the Conceptualist theory' (pp. 367, 368); since it has nothing to do with Conceptualism, in the special sense of antithesis to Realism and Nominalism,—but is, in fact, the theory of the Syllogism as given in the Analytics of Aristotle, and generally admitted since. Not merely Conceptualists, but (to use Mr Mill's own language, p. 366) 'nearly all the writers on logic, taught a theory of the science too small and narrow to contain their own facts.' Such, indeed, was the theory constantly taught until the publication of Mr Mill's 'System of Logic;' the first two books of which corrected it, by arguments which are reinforced and amplified in these two chapters on Judgment and Reasoning, as well as in the two chapters next following—chaps, xx. and xxi.—('Is Logic the Science of the Forms of Thought—On the Fundamental Laws of Thought.') The contrast which is there presented, in many different ways, between the limited theory of logic taught by Sir W. Hamilton and Mr Mansel, and the enlarged theory of Mr Mill, is instructive in a high degree. We consider Mr Mill as the real preserver of all that is valuable in Formal Logic, from the unfortunate consequences of an erroneous estimate, brought upon it through the exaggerated pretensions of logicians. When Sir W. Hamilton contrasts it pointedly with physical science (of which he talks with a sort of supercilious condescension, in one of the worst passages of his writings, p. 401)—when all its apparent fruits were produced in the shape of ingenious but barren verbal technicalities—what hope could be entertained that Formal Logic could hold its ground in the estimation of the recent generation of scientific men? Mr Mill has divested it of that assumed demonstrative authority which Bacon called 'regere res per syllogismum;' but he has at the same time given to it a firm root amidst the generalities of objective science. He has shown that in the great problem of Evidence or Proof, the Laws of Formal Logic, though bearing only on one part of the entire procedure, yet bear upon one essential part, proper to be studied separately: and that the maintenance of consistency between our affirmations (which is the only special province of Formal Logic), has great importance and value as a part of the process necessary for ascertaining and vindicating their truth, or exposing their character when false or uncertified—but no importance or value except as a part of that larger exigency.

While Mr Mill was amending the Syllogistic theory so as to ensure for Formal Logic its legitimate place among the essentials of scientific procedure, Sir W. Hamilton was at the same time enlarging it on its technical side, in two modes which are highly esteemed both by himself and by others: 1. The recognition of two kinds of Syllogisms; one in Extension, the other in Comprehension: 2. The doctrine of the Quantification of the Predicate.—Both these novelties are here criticised by Mr Mill in chapter xxii., which we recommend the reader to peruse conjointly with Lectures 15 and 16 of Sir W. Hamilton on Logic.

Now whereas the main objection, by which the study of the syllogistic logic has been weighed down and discredited in modern times, is this, that it encumbers the memory with formal distinctions, having no useful application to the real process and purposes of reasoning—the procedure of Sir W. Hamilton might almost lead us to imagine that he himself was trying to aggravate that objection to the uttermost. He introduces a variety of new canons (classifying Syllogisms as Extensive and Intensive, by a distinction founded on the double quantity of notions, in Extension and in Comprehension) which he intimates that all former logicians have neglected—while it plainly appears, even on his own showing, that the difference between syllogisms, in respect to these two sorts of quantity, is of no practical value; and that 'we can always change a categorical syllogism of the one quantity into a categorical syllogism of the other, by reversing the order of the two premises, and by reversing the meaning of the copula' (Lect. xvi. p. 296); nay, that every syllogism is already a syllogism in both quantities (Mill, p. 431). Against these useless ceremonial reforms of Sir W. Hamilton, we may set the truly philosophical explanation here given by Mr Mill of the meaning of propositions.

'All judgments' (he says—p. 423), 'except where both the terms are proper names, are really judgments in Comprehension; though it is customary, and the natural tendency of the mind, to express most of them in terms of Extension. In other words, we never really predicate anything but attributes; though, in the usage of language, we commonly predicate them by means of words which are names of concrete objects—because' (p. 426)—'we have no other convenient and compact mode of speaking. Most attributes, and nearly all large bundles of attributes, have no names of their own. We can only name them by a circumlocution. We are accustomed to speak of attributes, not by names given to themselves, but by means of the names which they give to the objects they are attributes of.' 'All our ordinary judgments' (p. 428) 'are in Comprehension only; Extension not being thought of. But we may, if we please, make the Extension of our general terms an express object of thought. When I judge that all oxen ruminate, I have nothing in my thoughts but the attributes and their co-existence. But when by reflection I perceive what the proposition implies, I remark that other things may ruminate besides oxen, and that the unknown multitude of things which ruminate form a mass, with which the unknown multitude of things having the attributes of oxen is either identical or is wholly comprised in it. Which of these two is the truth I may not know, and if I did, took no notice of it when I assented to the proposition, all oxen ruminate; but I perceive, on consideration, that one or other of them must be true. Though I had not this in my mind when I affirmed that all oxen ruminate, I can have it now; I can make the concrete objects denoted by each of the two names an object of thought, as a collective though indefinite aggregate; in other words, I can make the Extension of the names (or notions) an object of direct consciousness. When I do this, I perceive that this operation introduces no new fact, but is only a different mode of contemplating the very fact which I had previously expressed by the words, all oxen ruminate. The fact is the same, but the mode of contemplating it is different. There is thus in all Propositions a judgment concerning attributes (called by Sir W. Hamilton a Judgment in Comprehension) which we make as a matter of course; and a possible judgment in or concerning Extension, which wemaymake, and which will be true if the former is true.'

From the lucid explanation here cited (and from a following paragraph too long to describe p. 433), we see that there is no real distinction between Judgments in Comprehension and Judgments in Extension; that theappearanceof distinction between them arises from the customary mode of enunciation, which custom is here accounted for; that the addition to the theory of the Syllogism, for which Sir W. Hamilton takes credit, is alike troublesome and unprofitable.

The like may also be said about his other innovation, the Quantification of the Predicate. Still more extensive are the changes (as stated by himself) which this innovation would introduce in the canons of Syllogism. Indeed, when we read his language (Appendix to 'Lectures on Logic,' pp. 291—297) censuring generally the prior logicians from Aristotle downwards, and contending that 'more than half the value of logic had been lost' by their manner of handling it—we may appreciate the magnitude of the reform which he believed himself to be introducing. The larger the reform, the more it behoved him to be sure of the ground on which he was proceeding. But on this point we remark a serious deficiency. After laying down, with appropriate emphasis, the valuable logical postulate,to state explicitly what is thought implicitly, on which, Sir W. Hamilton says,

'Logic ever insists, but which logicians have never fairly obeyed—it follows that logically we ought to take into account the quantity,always understood in thought, but usually, and for manifest reasons, elided in expression, not only of thesubject, but also of thepredicate, of a judgment.'—('Discussions on Philos.,' p. 614.)

Here Sir W. Hamilton assumes that the quantity of the predicate is always understood in thought; and the same assumption is often repeated, in the Appendix to his 'Lectures on Logic,' p. 291 and elsewhere, as if it was alike obvious and incontestable. Now it is precisely on this point that issue is here taken with Sir W. Hamilton. Mr Mill denies altogether (p. 437) that the quantity of the predicate is always understood or present in thought, and appeals to every reader's consciousness for an answer:—

'Does he, when he judges that all oxen ruminate, advert even in the minutest degree to the question, whether there is anything else that ruminates? Is this consideration at all in his thoughts, any more than any other consideration foreign to the immediate subject? One person may know that there are other ruminating animals, another may think that there are none, a third may be without any opinion on the subject; but if they all know what is meant by ruminating, they all, when they judge that every ox ruminates, mean precisely the same thing. The mental process they go through,as far as that one judgment is concerned, is precisely identical; though some of them may go on farther, andadd other judgmentsto it.'

The last sentence cited from Mr Mill indicates the vice of Sir W. Hamilton's proceeding in quantifying the predicate, and explains why it was that logicians before him declined to do so. Sir W. Hamilton, in this proceeding, insists on stating explicitly, not merely all that is thought implicitly, but a great deal more;[14]adding to it something else, whichmay, indeed, be thought conjointly, but which more frequentlyis notthought at all. He requires us to pack two distinct judgments into one and the same proposition: he interpolates the meaning of the Propositio Conversasimpliciterinto the form of the Propositio Convertenda (when an universal Affirmative), and then claims it as a great advantage, that the proposition thus interpolated admits of being convertedsimpliciter, and not merelyper accidens. Mr Mill is, nevertheless, of opinion (pp. 439-443) that though 'the quantified syllogism is not a true expression of what is in thought, yet writing the predicate with a quantification may be sometimes a real help to the Art of Logic.' We see little advantage in providing a new complicated form, for the purpose of expressing in one proposition what naturally throws itself into two, and may easily be expressed in two. If a man is prepared to give us information on one Quaesitum, why should he be constrained to use a mode of speech which forces on his attention at the same time a second and distinct Quaesitum—so that he must either give us information about the two at once, or confess himself ignorant respecting the second?

The two next chapters of Mr Mill, noticing some other minor peculiarities (all of them unfortunate, and one, p. 447, really unaccountable) of Sir W. Hamilton's Formal Logic; and some Fallacious Modes of Thought countenanced by Sir W. Hamilton (chs. xxiii., xxiv.—pp. 446, 478), we are compelled to pass over. We must find space, however, for a few words on the Freedom of the Will (ch. xxv.), which (in Mr Mill's language, pp. 488—549), 'was so fundamental with Sir W. Hamilton, that it may be regarded as the central idea of his system—the determining cause of most of his philosophical opinions.' Prior to Sir W. Hamilton, we find some writers who maintain the doctrine of Free-will, others who maintain that of Necessity: each supporting their respective conclusions by reasons which they deem sufficient. Sir W. Hamilton declares that both the one doctrine and the other are inconceivable and incomprehensible; yet that, by the law of Excluded Middle, one or other of them must be true: and he decides in favour of Free-will, of which he believes himself to be distinctly conscious; moreover, Free-will is essential (he thinks) to moral responsibility, of which also he feels himself conscious. He confesses himself, however, unable to explain the possibility of Free-will; but he maintains that the same may be said about Necessity also. 'The champions of both the two opposite doctrines are at once resistless in attack, and impotent in defence'—(Hamilton's 'Footnotes on Reid,' p. 602.) Mr Mansel also asserts, even more confidently than Sir W. Hamilton, that we are directly conscious of Free-will—(p. 503).

Sir W. Hamilton has himself given some of the best arguments against the doctrine of Free-will, in refutation of Reid: arguments, some of which are here cited by Mr Mill with praise which they well deserve—(pp. 497, 498). But Mr Mill's own reasoning on the same side is of a still higher order, enlarging the grounds previously urged in the last book of his 'System of Logic,' He protests against the termNecessity; and discards the idea of Necessity, if it be understood to imply anything more than invariability of antecedence and consequence. If it meanthat, experience proves thus much about antecedents in the world of mind, as in the world of matter: if it mean more, experience does not prove more, either in the world of matter or in the world of mind: nor have we any grounds for affirming it in either—(p. 501.) If it were true, therefore, that consciousness attested Free-will, we should find the testimony of consciousness opposed to a full proof from experience and induction. But does consciousness really attest what is called Free-will? Mr Mill analyzes the case, and declares in the negative.

'To be conscious of Free-will, must mean to be conscious, before I have decided, that I am able to decide either way; exception may be takenin limineto the use of the wordconsciousnessin such an application. Consciousness tells me what I do or feel. But what I amableto do, is not a subject of consciousness. Consciousness is not prophetic; we are conscious of what is, not of what will or can be. We never know that we are able to do a thing, except from having done it, or something similar to it. Having acted, we know, as far as that experience reaches, how we are able to act;and this knowledge, when it has become familiar, is often confounded with, and called by, the name of consciousness.But it does not derive any increase of authority from being misnamed: its truth is not supreme over, but depends upon, experience. If our so-called consciousness is not borne out by experience, it is a delusion. It has no title to credence, but as an interpretation of experience; and if it is a false interpretation, it must give way.'—pp. 503, 504

After this salutary and much-needed warning against the confusion between consciousness as an infallible authority, and belief upon experience, of which we are conscious as a belief—Mr Mill proceeds to sift the alleged self-evident connection between Free-will and Accountability. He shows, not merely that there is no connection, but that there is a positive repugnance, between the two. By Free-will is meant that a volition is not determined by motives, but is a spontaneous mental fact, neither having a cause, nor admitting of being predicted. Now, the very reason for giving notice that we intend to punish certain acts, and for inflicting punishment if the acts be committed, is, that we trust in the efficacy of the threat and the punishment as deterring motives. If the volition of agents be not influenced by motives, the whole machinery of law becomes unavailing, and punishment a purposeless infliction of pain. In fact, it is on that very ground that the madman is exempted from punishment; his volition being presumed to be not capable of being acted upon by the deterring motive of legal sanction. Thefreeagent, thus understood, is one who can neither feel himself accountable, nor be rendered accountable, to or by others. It is only thenecessaryagent (the person whose volitions are determined by motives, and, in case of conflict, by the strongest desire or the strongest apprehension) that can be held really accountable, or can feel himself to be so.

'The true doctrine of the Causation of human actions (says Mr Mill, p. 516) maintains, in opposition both to pure and to modified Fatalism, that not only our conduct, but our character, is in part amenable to our will: that we can, by employing the proper means, improve our character: and that if our character is such that, while it remains what it is, it necessitates us to do wrong—it will be just to apply motives which will necessitate us to strive for its improvement. We shall not indeed do so unless we desire our improvement, and desire it more than we dislike the means which must he employed for the purpose.'

It thus appears that of the two propositions, 1, volitions are necessary, or depend on causes; 2, volitions are free, or do not depend on causes—neither the one nor the other is inconceivable or incomprehensible, as Sir W. Hamilton supposed them to be. That the first is true, and the second false, we learn by experience, and by that alone; just as we learn the like in regard to the phenomena of the material world. Indeed, the fact that human volitions are both predictable and modifiable, quite as much as all those physical phenomena that depend upon a complication of causes—which is only a corollary from what has just been said—is so universally recognized and acted upon by all men, that there would probably be little difference of opinion about this question, if the antithesis were not obscured and mystified by the familiar, but equivocal, phrases of Free-will and Necessity.

Passing over chapter xxvii., in which Mr Mill refutes Sir W. Hamilton's opinion that the study of mathematics is worthless, or nearly so, as an intellectual discipline—we shall now call attention to the concluding remarks which sum up the results of the volume. After saying that he 'differs from almost everything in Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, on which he particularly valued himself, or which is specially his own,' Mr Mill describes Sir W. Hamilton's general merits as follows:—

'They chiefly consist in his clear and distinct mode of bringing before the reader many of the fundamental questions of metaphysics: some good specimens of psychological analysis on a small scale: and the many detached logical and psychological truths which he has separately seized, and which are scattered through his writings, mostly applied to resolve some special difficulty, and again lost sight of. I can hardly point to anything he has done towards helping the more thorough understanding of the greater mental phenomena, unless it be his theory of Attention (including Abstraction), which seems to me the most perfect we have; but the subject, though a highly important, is comparatively a simple one.'—p. 547.

Agreeing in this general view of Sir W. Hamilton's merits, we should be disposed to describe them in language stronger and more emphatic as to degree, than that which has just been cited. But what is stated in the pages immediately following (pp. 550, 551)—That Sir W. Hamilton's doctrines appear to be usually taken up under the stimulus of some special dispute, and often afterwards forgotten; That he did not think out subjects until they were thoroughly mastered, or until consistency was attained between the different views which the author took from different points of observation; That accordingly, his philosophy seems made up of scraps from several conflicting metaphysical systems—All this is literally and amply borne out by the many inconsistencies and contradictions which Mr Mill has brought to view in the preceding chapters. It would appear that the controversial disposition was powerful with Sir W. Hamilton, and that a present impulse of that sort (as has been said respecting Bayle, Burke, and others) not only served to provoke new intellectual combinations in his mind, but also exercised a Lethæan influence in causing obliviscence of the old. But we can hardly follow Mr Mill in ascribing the defect to 'excessive absorption of time and energy by the study of old writers' (p. 551). If this study did no other good, it at least kept the memory in exercise. Now, what surprises us most in Sir W. Hamilton's inconsistencies, is the amount of self-forgetfulness which they imply.

While the laborious erudition of Sir W. Hamilton cannot be fairly regarded as having produced any of his intellectual defects, it undoubtedly stamped upon him his special title of excellence as a philosopher. This is fully recognized by Mr Mill; though he treats it as belonging not so much to a philosopher as to an historian of philosophy. He concludes (pp. 552—554):—

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