[Footnote 305: ][ (return) ] Martineau's "Essays," p. 234.
[Footnote 306: ][ (return) ] M'Cosh's "Defense of Fundamental Truth," p. 106.
[Footnote 307: ][ (return) ] Mansel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant," pp. 21, 22.
This, in its main features, is evidently the doctrine propounded by Hamilton. The special modes in which existence is cognizable" are presented to, and known by, the mind under modifications determined by the faculties themselves." [308] This doctrine he illustrates by the following supposition: "Suppose the total object of consciousness in perception is=12; and suppose that the external reality contributes 6, the material sense 3, and the mind 3; this may enable you to form some rude conjecture of the nature of the object of perception." [309] The conclusion at which Hamilton arrives, therefore, is that things are not known to us as they exist, but simply as they appear, and as our minds are capable of perceiving them.
[Footnote 308: ][ (return) ] Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 148.
[Footnote 309: ][ (return) ] Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129; and also vol. i. p. 147.
Let us test the validity of this majestic deliverance. No man is justified in making this assertion unless, 1. He knows things as they exist; 2. He knows things not only as they exist but as they appear; 3. He is able to compare things as they exist with the same things as they appear. Now, inasmuch as Sir William Hamilton affirms we do not know things as they exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that there is any difference between things as they exist and as they appear? What is this "thing in itself" about which Hamilton has so much to say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing? We readily understand what is meant by the thing; it is the object as existing--a substance manifesting certain characteristic qualities. But what is meant by in itself? There can be no in itself besides or beyond the thing. If Hamilton means that "the thing itself" is the thing apart from all relation, and devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not acknowledge any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may be permitted. With such a definition of Being in se, the logic of Hegel is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."
And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely unknown, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially known? And it is obvious, notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total object of consciousness." [310] The primary qualities of matter are known as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid necessity out of the simple datum of substance occupying space." [311] "The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are the attributes of body as body," and as such "are known immediately in themselves," [312] as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an à priori manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary Qualities may be deduced à priori; they being, in fact, only evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If, then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves," "the things themselves" must also be, at least, partially known; and Hamilton can not consistently assert the relativity of all knowledge. Even if it be granted that our cognitions of objects are only in part dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded by our organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion that all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative. "The admixture of the relative element not only does not take away the absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our author is right) prevent us from recognizing it. The confusion, according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us 'to analyze and distinguish what elements,' in an 'act of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and what by the organs or by the mind." [313]
[Footnote 310: ][ (return) ] "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. ii. p. 129.
[Footnote 311: ][ (return) ] Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, p. 357.