'It is much to be regretted that Sir W. Hamilton did not write the history of philosophy, instead of choosing, as the direct object of his intellectual exertions, philosophy itself. He possessed a knowledge of the materials such as no one, probably for many generations, will take the trouble of acquiring again. Independently of the great interest and value attaching to a knowledge of the historical development of speculation, there is much in the old writers on philosophy, even those of the middle ages, really worth preserving for its scientific value. But this should be extracted, and rendered into the phraseology of modern thought, by persons as familiar with that as with the ancient, and possessing a command of its language: a combination never yet so perfectly realized as in Sir W. Hamilton. This, which no one but himself could have done, he has left undone, and has given us, instead, a contribution to mental philosophy, which has been more than equalled by many not superior to him in powers, and wholly destitute of erudition. Of all persons in modern times entitled to the name of philosophers, the two, probably, whose reading on the subject was the scantiest, in proportion to their intellectual capacity, were Archbishop Whately and Dr Brown. Accordingly they are the only two of whom Sir W. Hamilton, though acknowledging their abilities, speaks with some tinge of superciliousness. It cannot be denied that both Dr Brown and Whately would have thought and written better than they did, if they had been better read in the writings of previous thinkers; but I am not afraid that posterity will contradict me when I say, that either of them has done far greater service to the world in the origination and diffusion of important thought, than Sir W. Hamilton with all his learning; because, though indolent readers, they were both of them active and fertile thinkers.
'It is not that Sir W. Hamilton's erudition is not frequently of real use to him on particular questions of philosophy. It does him one valuable service: it enables him to know all the various opinions which can be held on the questions he discusses, and to conceive and express them clearly, leaving none of them out. This it does, though even this not always; but it does little else, even of what might be expected from erudition when enlightened by philosophy. He knew, with extraordinary accuracy, the [Greek: hoti] of each philosopher's opinions, but gave himself little trouble about the [Greek: dihoti]. With one exception, I find no remark bearing upon that point in any part of his writings. I imagine he would have been much at a loss if he had been required to draw up a philosophical estimate of the mind of any great thinker. He never seems to look at any opinion of a philosopher in connection with the same philosopher's other opinions. Accordingly he is weak as to the mutual relations of philosophical doctrines. One of the most striking examples of this inability is in the case of Leibnitz,' &c.
Here we find in a few sentences the conclusion which Mr Mill conceives to be established by his book. We shall state how far we are able to concur with it. He has brought the matter to a direct issue, by weighing Sir W. Hamilton in the balance against two other actual cotemporaries; instead of comparing him with some unrealized ideal found only in the fancy of critics and reviewers.
Comparing Sir W. Hamilton with Dr Brown, we cordially subscribe to the opinion of Mr Mill. We think that Dr Brown has 'done far greater service to the world than Sir W. Hamilton, in the origination and diffusion of important thought.' To speak only of two chief subjects in the field of important thought—Causality and the Freedom of the Will—we not only adopt the conclusions of Dr Brown, but we admire both his acuteness and his originality in vindicating and illustrating the first of the two, while we dissent entirely from the views of Sir W. Hamilton. This alone would be sufficient to make us approve the superiority assigned by Mr Mill to Dr Brown. We discover no compensating item to be placed to the credit of Sir W. Hamilton: for the great doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, which is our chief point of philosophical brotherhood with him, was maintained by Brown also.
But in regard to Dr Whately, our judgment is altogether different. We cannot consent to admit him as a superior, or even as an equal, to Sir W. Hamilton, 'in the origination and diffusion of important thought.' He did much service by reviving an inclination and respect for Logic, and by clearing up a part of the technical obscurity which surrounded it: but we look upon him as an acute and liberal-minded English theologian, enlarging usefully, though timidly, the intellectual prison in which many orthodox minds are confined—rather than as a fit aspirant to the cosmopolitan honours of philosophy. 'An active and fertile thinker,' Mr Mill calls Whately; and such he undoubtedly was. But such also we consider Sir W. Hamilton to have been in a degree, at least equal. If the sentence which we have quoted above be intended to deny the predicate, 'active and fertile thinker,' of Sir W. Hamilton, we cannot acquiesce in it. His intellect appears to us thoroughly active and fertile, even when we dissent from his reasonings—nay, even in the midst of his inconsistencies, when a new growth of opinions is unexpectedly pushed up on ground which we supposed to be already pre-occupied by another both older and different. And we find this same judgment implied in the discriminating remarks upon his philosophical procedure made by Mr Mill himself—(pp. 271, 272). For example, respecting Causality and the Freedom of the Will, we detect no want of activity and fertility, though marked evidence of other defects—especially the unconditional surrender of a powerful mind to certain privileged inspirations, worshipped as 'necessities of thought.'
While thus declaring how far we concur in the parallel here drawn of Sir W. Hamilton with Brown and Whately, we must at the same time add that the comparison is taken under circumstances unduly favourable to these two last. There has been no exposure of their errors and inconsistencies, equal in penetration and completeness to the crushing volume which Mr Mill has devoted to Sir W. Hamilton. To make the odds fair, he ought to furnish a similar systematic examination to Brown and Whately; enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir W. Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled microscope, which detects the minutest breach or incoherence in the tissue of reasoning—and of his large command of philosophical premisses, which brings into full notice what the author had overlooked. Thus alone could the competition between the three be rendered perfectly fair.
We regret, as Mr Mill does, that Sir W. Hamilton did not undertake the composition of a history of philosophy. Nevertheless we must confess that we should hardly feel such regret, if we could see evidence to warrant Mr Mill's judgment (p. 554) that Sir W. Hamilton was 'indifferent to the [Greek: dihoti] of a man's opinions, and that he was incompetent to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great thinker,' &c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and considerable, would deprive an author of all chance of success in writing a history of philosophy. But the study of Sir William Hamilton's works does not prove it to us, though Mr Mill has convicted him of an erroneous estimate of Leibnitz. We say frequent and considerable, because no historian of philosophy is exempt from the defect more or less; or rather (to pass out of the self-confidence of the Absolute into the modesty of the Relative) we seldom find any historian whose estimate of great philosophical thinkers does not often differ from our own. Hence we are glad when ample original extracts are produced, enabling us to test the historian, and judge for ourselves—a practice which Sir W. Hamilton would have required no stimulus to enforce upon him. There ought, indeed, to be various histories of philosophy, composed from different points of view; for the ablest historian cannot get clear of a certain exclusiveness belonging to himself. But, so far as we can conjecture what Sir W. Hamilton would or could have done, we think that a history of philosophy composed by him would have surpassed any work of the kind in our language.
We trust that Sir W. Hamilton's works will long continue to be read, along with Mr Mill's examination of them; and we should be glad if the works of other philosophers could be read along with a comment of equal acuteness and impartiality. Any point of view which could command the adherence of such a mind as Sir W. Hamilton's, deserves to be fully considered. Moreover, the living force of philosophy, as directress of human intelligence, depends upon keeping up in each of her devotees a full mastery of many divergent and opposite veins of reasoning—a knowledge, negative and affirmative, of the full case of opponents as well as of his own.
It is to Philosophy alone that our allegiance is sworn; and while we concur mostly with Mr Mill's opinions, we number both him and Sir W. Hamilton as a noble pair of brethren, serving alike in her train.
Amicus Hamilton; magis amicus Mill; amica ante omnes Philosophia. FOOTNOTES: