SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY. 387 



It would certainly be a point of some importance in the interpreta- 

 tion of Hamilton's system, if we could be assured that he placed the 

 foundation of philosophy in the fact of consciousness, that is, in the 

 fact that consciousness exists. It is undeniable by those who have 

 carried their inquiries back to the primitive chaos which the light of 

 human thought has irradiated with its order, that after all, even the 

 oldest, beliefs have slipped from under their feet and they are stepping 

 timidly on the pathless waste of universal doubt, there remains in the 

 doubt itself one fact which no doubt can remove ; and that is the 

 fact of consciousness. It is scarcely possible that this truth can ever 

 be more clearly or more beautifully expressed than in the Meditations 

 of Descartes, whose Cogito, I am conscious, undoubtedly embodies 

 the ultimate resting-point as well as the primal starting-point of all 

 human belief, even though it may not be admitted that the first step 

 in advance from that point is Sum, I exist, without an explanation 

 of what both '' I " and " exist " imply. But it is far from certain 

 that Sir William Hamilton perceived this fact to be the sole basis of 

 philosophy, because he confounds it with another fact which is by no 

 means on a par with it in absolute certainty. "VVe find ourselves met 

 by a similar difficulty in attempting to define the next stage in the 

 upbuilding of Hamilton's philosophy. While he maintains that it is 

 impossible to doubt a deliverance of consciousness as a testimony to 

 the fact of its own actuality, it is possible, he admits, to question the 

 truthfulness of its testimony to anything beyond that fact. When 

 the question therefore is asked, on what ground the deliverances of 

 consciousness are to be accepted as truthful, the most natural answer 

 we should have expected from Hamilton, according to his own prin- 

 ciples, would be, that these deliverances carry their evidence in them- 

 selves, that, while they form the proofs of other things, they cannot 

 be proved by anything more evident; and I am inclined to believe 

 that this was really his opinion. But after a careful comparison of 

 various passages in which he treats of the subject one can scarcely 

 believe that he was perfectly or at least uniformly clear in his own 

 mind on the point. It is especially perplexing to find occasionally 

 something like an attempt to prove the veracity of consciousness by 

 arguments, such as the consideration that, if consciousness were men- 

 dacious, God would be a deceiver and the root of our nature a lie. 

 That this or any other argument must ultimately appeal to one or 

 other of the self-evident deliverances of consciousness is, however, so 



