306 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON S PHILOSOPHY: 



3. tbe Conations &r tlie phenomena of desire and will (I. pp. 183-4). 

 This classification indeed has met with objections. 



I. It has been argued that, as every mental phenomenon is possible 

 only through consciousness and consciousness is an act of knowledge, 

 knowledge must be the fundamental power of the mind, from which 

 the others are derivative ; and that consequently the other two classes 

 are notcoordinate with knowledge. But this objection overlooks the 

 fact that, though feehngs and conations exist only in so far as they 

 are known, yet they contain an element which was never involved in, 

 and could therefore never have been evolved out of, mere knowledge 

 (I., pp. 187-8). 



II. By others it is maintained that all mental action is either in an 

 inward, or in an outward direction, the former being immanent and 

 cognitive, the latter transeunt and conative. Hence it is argued that, 

 if we interpolate a third species of activity, its direction must be either 

 immanent or transeunt, or both, or neither of these ; but on the first 

 three suppositions there are still only two kinds of mental activity, 

 and on the fourth there is merely an additional activity in no direction, 

 which is no activity at all. In answer to this it may be said, 1 . that, 

 in place of two forms of mental activity, we may competently suppose 

 three, ineunt, immanent, and transeunt ; 2. that directions are properly 

 ascribed only to the movements of external things (II. pp. 421-5.) 



Though these three classes of mental phenomena are thus dis- 

 tinguishable, they never actually exist apart ; every moment of our 

 mental life is made up of some form of all the three (I. pp. 188-9.) 

 Of the three, however, knowledge is first in order ; for on the one 

 hand a being may be conceived capable of knowledge, yet devoid of 

 feeling as well as of will or desire, while on the other hand we cannot 

 conceive a being possessed of feeling or desire without the knowledge 

 of any object on which his affections may be employed and without 

 a consciousness of these affections (I. pp. 188-9; II. pp. 425-8). 



The phenomena of knowledge come therefore first under considera- 

 tion, and philosophy is principally and primarily the Science of Know- 

 ledge (ReicTs WorJcs, p. 808, note). 



FIRST PART OF PHENOMENAL PSYCHOLOGY. PHENOMENOLOGY 



OF THE COGNITIONS. 



The phenomena of knowledge cannot but be conceived as effects, as 

 the manifestations of a power of knowledge possessed by the mind ; 

 and therefore the different kinds of knowledge may be viewed as the 



