SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's philosophy. 375 



Hamilton, as in that of Kant also, no mental phenomenon is possibl 

 without a reference of it to a mind as its subject ; so that, though there 

 is never any consciousness of the self which is the subject of such a 

 phenomenon, the idea of self flashes — a Pallas from the human brain 

 — into a certain completeness of existence with the earliest dawn of 

 mental life. 



At this point, however, Hamilton's theory separates from Kant's, 

 strikes in fact into an entirely novel path. There is a passage in his 

 Lectures on Metaphysics,* in which Hamilton notices the three gen- 

 eral facts, revealed in consciousness, of our Mental Existence or Sub- 

 stantiahty, our Mental Unity or Individuality, and our Mental 

 Identity or Personality. In this passage he refers briefly, but with 

 the clear force of his concisest utterances, to Kant's theoretical 

 doctrine, that, inasmuch as the belief in our Individuality and Identity 

 is merely a condition of the possibility of consciousness, it is impos- 

 sible to conclude that that belief reveals to us a reality. The general 

 discussion on this subject, but especially the reference to Kant, I am 

 unable to understand except on the supposition that Hamilton did not 

 always keep in view the applications of his own philosophy in this 

 direction. "In disputing the testimony of consciousness to our 

 mental unity and substantiality," he says, "Kant disputes the possi- 

 bility of philosophy and consequently reduces his own attempts at 

 philosophising to an absurdity." But how does Hamilton himself 

 treat the testimony of consciousness to our mental unity and substan- 

 tiality ? According to the explanation, which undoubtedly represents 

 his raaturest speculations and which is alone consistent with the most 

 essential principles of his philosophy, the belief in a mind as the sub- 

 ject of mental phenomena is merely one of the mental necessities 

 which draw their origin from the widely operating Law of the Con- 

 ditioned. By referring again to the exposition in my previous article 

 it will be found that this law is described as arising either from the 

 relation of knowledge or from the relations of existence, and 

 that the relations of existence are divided into two classes as 

 being either intrinsic or extrinsic. The intrinsic relation is 

 defined to be that which furnishes the subordinate form of the 

 Law of the Conditioned, which is named the Principle of Substance 

 and Phenomenon. This principle, Hamilton expressly states, f applies 



* Vol. I, pp. 371—5. 

 j; Discussions, p. 605. 



