76 Sir William Hamilton's Fragments of Fhilosophy. 



Ham Humiiton in 1826-1827, On the Practical Consequences of Dr Gall's 

 Theory of the Functions of the Brain. These memoirs, and such as ap- 

 peared in the English reviews, of which we have formerly spoken^ com- 

 pose all the literary' works which Sir William Hamilton has published ; 

 but of what importance is the quantity of his works ? is it not ffom their 

 effect solely that the public ought definitively to form a judgment ? 



The general character of thisj author's thought is that which marks the 

 spirit of the whole Scottish philosoj^hy; the examination of the funda- 

 mental point of metaj)hysical science. Now, what is this fundamental 

 ontological point ? It is the very possibility of philosophy^ the determi- 

 nation of its object and its domain. The Scottish school has defined 

 philosophy to be, the natural history of the human mind. According to 

 this definition, all that is beyond the reach of observation, is by that very 

 circumstance without the limits of the science. Sir William Hamilton 

 has illustrated and developed this idea ; he has explained the doctrine of 

 common sense. He has skilfully taken up a position between scepticism 

 and dogmatism, and, drawing from the principles of the school of Kant, 

 he has combined them with those of Reid and Dugald Stewart. He has 

 perceived how to avoid tlic rock on which the Scottish philosophy has 

 struck, the want of a logical tic and connection in the explanation of facts. 

 It is the absence of this systematic method which has subjected this school 

 to the reproach of eluding questions instead of answering them — of sup- 

 jiressing difficulties rather than solving them. Restoring dialectic to 

 its true place, he has replaced it in the rank it ought of right to occupy 

 at the head of the sciences. The richest erudition in all matters of phi- 

 losophy likewise distinguishes Sir William Hamilton's works ; versed in 

 the study of the German philosophy, he has not neglected antiquity, the 

 primary source of all our researches and of our means of comparison. 

 Mr Brandls, a professor of high reputation in Germany, has called him 

 the great master of perlpatetism. Finally, Sir AVilllam Hamilton, while 

 preserving all the philosophical character of his nation, and losing none of 

 his orio'Inallty, has been enabled to unite therewith all the benefits that 

 flow from an enlightened criticism, and the examination of the principal 

 scientific results among foreign nations. 



These preliminary considerations, useful when we are about to enter 

 upon the examination of a work so important as the present, are pre- 

 ceded, in the translator's volume, by some general views of the charac- 

 ter of philosophy in France In the nineteenth century, of which we shall 

 give a rapid exposition. 



According to M. Pelsse, the principal schools may be summed up as 

 the following: — the Sensralist school, the Spiritualist, the Scotch, German, 

 the Progressive {celledupr ogres), and another, which combines the attri- 

 butes of Scepticism and 3Iysticism. In his opinion, the first mentioned of 

 these is the most numerous, the most popular, and the most national. 

 Sensualism prevails among all the learned professions, medicine, the 

 natural sciences,, and even in political economy. But, banished from the 



