2. As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality.--As phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled, by the constitution of our nature, to think them conjoined in and by something; and as they are phenomena, we can not think them phenomena of nothing, but must regard them as properties or qualities of something. [283] Now that which manifests its qualities--in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their subject, or substance, or substratum. [284] The subject of one grand series of phenomena (as, e.g., extension, solidity, figure, etc.) is called matter, or material substance. The subject of the other grand series of phenomena (as, e.g., thought, feeling, volition, etc.) is termed mind, or mental substance. We may, therefore, lay it down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an ultimate fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the ego in relation and contrast to the non-ego, and a knowledge of the non-ego in relation and contrast to the ego [285] Natural Dualism thus establishes the existence of two worlds of mind and matter on the immediate knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena; whilst the Cosmothetic Idealists discredit the veracity of consciousness as to our immediate knowledge of material phenomena, and, consequently, our immediate knowledge of the existence of matter. [286]
[Footnote 283: ][ (return) ] Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.
[Footnote 284: ][ (return) ] Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.
[Footnote 285: ][ (return) ] Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.
[Footnote 286: ][ (return) ] Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.
The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we have an immediate knowledge of the "existence of matter" as well as of "the phenomena of matter;" that is, we know "substance" as immediately and directly as we know "qualities." Phenomena are known only as inherent in substance; substance is known only as manifesting its qualities. We never know qualities without knowing substance, and we can never know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known in one concrete act; substance is known quite as much as quality; quality is known no more than substance. That we have a direct, immediate, presentative "face to face" knowledge of matter and mind in every act of consciousness is asserted again and again by Hamilton, in his "Philosophy of Perception." [287] In the course of the discussion he starts the question, "Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally immediate?" His answer to this question may be condensed in the following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge of mind there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the qualities of matter. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious of myself as a perceiving subject, and of an external reality as the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible amount of intuition." [288] Again he says, "I have frequently asserted that in perception we are conscious of the external object, immediately and in itself." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness be unconditionally admitted--if the intuitive knowledge of matter and mind, and the consequent reality of their antithesis, be taken as truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without any hypothesis or demonstration, the reality of mind and the reality of matter." [289]
[Footnote 287: ][ (return) ] Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.
[Footnote 288: ][ (return) ] Ibid., p. 181.
[Footnote 289: ][ (return) ] Ibid., pp. 34, 182.
Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a real, "self-subsisting entity," and a knowledge of "an external reality, immediately and in itself," it seems unaccountably strange that Hamilton should assert "that all human knowledge, consequently all human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal;" [290] and that "of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing." [291] Whilst teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it necessarily tends towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same time asserts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of philosophy," [292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the First Cause. [293] "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended, conceived, or thought." [294] God, as First Cause, as infinite, as unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "The Unknown." The science of Real Being--of Being in se--of self-subsisting entities, is declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials, we find Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and Mill--all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena.