CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY. 25 



to oust Brown from his place with, and in succession to, 

 Stewart and Reid ? * With all his erudition and his 

 miscellanea of a look here and a look there, Hamilton, 

 on the whole, never undertook what may be allowed as 

 a complete study of any one unless of the two, namely, 

 Stewart and Eeid. He had, too, a fearful temper at 

 times, especially when seriously impugned, as by Hare, 

 say ; at the same time that his impugnment of others, 

 besides Brown (Whately. Whewell), was always con- 

 centrated enough. Even to Reid he bears himself with 

 a sort of ostentatiousness ; and I know not that of 

 contemporaries, there is any one to whom he is perfectly 

 respectful and submissive, unless " Mr. Stewart." Hamil- 

 ton, heart and soul, was too much ever on edge. Hence 

 his susceptible fiery vanity, his keen impatience, his 

 perpetual peremptoriness. Hence, also, on the supposi- 

 tion that the edge was too sharp to ~be seen (of 

 consciousness), existence always for the time only on 

 one side of it. Hamilton has left a considerable amount 

 of writing ; and if he does not add material to his three 

 predecessors, he at least contributes names enow. 

 Carlyle does not often blunder ; but as certainly as he 

 blundered about Keats, so certain is it that he blun- 

 dered about Hamilton Mill, probably, being in his eye 

 for the moment ! 



But, apart from Hamilton, these three psychologists 

 are still valuable, and for these three, the three philo- 

 sophers that preceded them are, in a way, indispensable 

 if only as points and occasions of connection. For 

 neither in them is there much that is substantial for 

 philosophy. Of that, of philosophy, the substance is to 

 be found in the Greeks and the Germans alone : aught 

 else, in that regard, anywhere, and under any name, is 

 but introductory. What concerns an innate element, or, 

 again, the origin of ideas, is not much in Locke ; but, like 



