SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's philosophy. 373 



Of the three elements enumerated in this analysis, the first two 

 'viz., a mind and a modification of that mind, are, as Hamilton, 

 explains, the terms of a relation. That relation is a knowledge 

 of the latter term by the former, and constitutes the third element in 

 the analysis. Now, it is a principle, more than once adduced by Sir 

 William under the technical formula, that the knowledge of correla- 

 tive terms is one, or in other words, that the same act of knowledge, 

 which apprehends one term]]of a relation, must of necessity apprehend 

 the other also. It might, therefore, be supposed that, when he 

 explains consciousness as a recognition by a mind of some modifi- 

 cation of itself, he meant it to be understood that the mind recognizes 

 itself along with the modification to which it is related by such recog- 

 nition. This supposition might be confirmed by observing the illus- 

 trations which he uses to show what consciousness is. He draws 

 attention to the fact that, when I know I must know that I know, 

 when I feel I must know that I feel, when I desire I must know that 

 I desire ; and he explains that, while the various mental phenomena may 

 be represented by the formulae, I know, I feel, I desire, the conscious- 

 ness of them may be represented by the formulae, I know that I know, 

 I know that I feel, I know that I desire. The most natural inter- 

 pretation of this language would understand it as implying that, when 

 I know feel, or desire, inasmuch as I must know that it is I who do 

 know, feel or desire, I require to know myself in the same sense in 

 which I know the action or state of knowing, feeling or desiring. 

 Finally, it seems impossible to avoid this interpretation when an 

 attempt is made to construe into its real meaning the expression, a 

 modification of the mind: for when that expression is taken as represent- 

 ing not an abstraction of thought, but a fact of actual experience, it 

 can be understood as denoting only the mind modified; and, therefore, 

 the terms, my knowledge, my feeling, my desire, must be regarded as 

 merely abstract modes of designating me knowing, me feeling, me 

 ■desiring. 



Irresistible as seems to be the conclusion, that the preceding para- 

 graph merely states explicitly what is evidently implied in Hamilton's 

 analysis of consciousness, there- is no doctrine which he has taken 

 more care to repudiate. There is, probably, nothing in his philosophy 

 -which he would regard as more essential to its distinctive character 

 than the position, that we know not real existences, but only their 

 phenomena, modifications, qualities, attributes, properties. This gen- 



