82 Sir William Hamilton's Fragments of Philosophi/. 



telligence^ would attempt, by a sudden bound, honourable to Iniman na- 

 ture, to attain even to the knowledge of the infinite. 



In a second fragment, still more curious to us, inasmuch as it transports 

 us into a less known field of the Scottish philosophy, Sir William Hamil- 

 ton institutes a comparison between two celebrated metaphysicians, 

 Reid and Brown. Reid, as may easily be seen, obtains all his sympa- 

 thies ; but this does not prevent him, at the same time, judging of Brown 

 with that impartiality becoming a philosopher and a man of letters ; but 

 Reid's philosophy had been combated by Brown ; and Sir William Ha- 

 milton takes this opportunity^ of resenting some unjust attacks, which 

 would have been calculated, without his efforts to establish the truth, to 

 lessen, at least for a time, the merit of the founder of Scotch metaphy- 

 sics, and diminish the number of his followers. 



In order to understand this discussion, it must be remembered that 

 Reid is the founder of a system of philosophy which rests on the obser- 

 vation of the acts of conscience ; and, by interpreting it better, endea- 

 vours radically to destroy the scepticism of Hume. The foundation of 

 Reid's doctrine, and what constitutes his glory, is his new theory of per- 

 ception, by means of which we are enabled to conceive and analyse the 

 foundations of our belief in the existence of exterior objects. According 

 to him, the act of perception is a pure belief, independent of all demon- 

 stration, and instinctivelj' determined by the natural constitution of tlie 

 luiman mind. 



While Sir "William Hamilton assigns to Reid's doctrine the advantage 

 over that of Brown, he discovers several errors in the former. He blames 

 Reid for having classed consciousness among the other intellectual facul- 

 ties, while all philosophers, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, have con- 

 sidered consciousness, not as a particular facidty, but as the condition itself 

 of intelligence. Sir William Hamilton finds fault with this distinction as 

 neither very logical nor natural, and he forcibly exposes the defects in the 

 analysis of this philosopher, who limits the sphere of consciousness by as- 

 signing to it only the knowledge of intellectual operations to the exclu- 

 sion of their objects. Reid affirms that we are conscious of an act of 

 knowledge without being conscious of its object. Sir William Hamilton 

 opposes this assertion of the Scotch philosopher, because, after having 

 himself interpreted the part performed by consciousness in the phenomenon 

 of perception, he reduces the number of the different systems of philo- 

 sophy, which this interpretation can furnish, to six, and ranks the opinion 

 of Brown, Reid's opponent, in the latter of these systems. In this sys- 

 tem one maj' conceive the object of perception as a simple modification 

 of the perceiving subject ; the consequence which naturally flows from 

 tliis is the negation of the external world ; and it is against this conse- 

 quence that the author of the sj'stem defends himself by endeavouring to 

 establish the reality of external things by various hypotheses. This system 

 may be reduced to the following formula : — The mind has no consciousness 

 nor immediate knowledge ofnnyfhiny beyond itx suhjective states. In order 



