60 SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's philosophy. 



is between the natural belief of mankind in the reality of the pheno- 

 mena presented in perception and the philosophical doctrine which 

 attributes reality only to an unperceived substance underlying these 

 phenomena. Now, although Sir William Hamilton does maintain the 

 immediate objects of perception to be in some sense real, yet there is 

 another sense in which he persistently refuses to predicate real exis- 

 tence of anything but the unknown substratum of phenomena, for 

 which, in the passage under consideration, Hume asserts that there is 

 no proof. The sceptic therefore cannot be said to reject the above 

 natural belief of men in any important sense in which it is not also 

 '■rejected by his opponent 3 and consequently his evidence cannot be 

 admitted in the case in which it is adduced. 



It may, however, be allowed that Hume's positive doctrine is 

 founded on a rejection of this natural belief, which he yet acknow- 

 ledges to exist. The belief, to which Hamilton appeals, must be an 

 original belief of the human mind; and he admits that his reasoning 

 would be invalidated by disproving the originality of the belief.* Now, 

 this is precisely what Hume endeavours to disprove. The belief of 

 men, the existence of which he acknowledges, is one which he holds 

 to be acquired ; and, as already mentioned in the first article of this 

 series, he employs an elaborate chapter in the Treatise of Human 

 Nature in tracing its genesis. There is thus an additional ground on 

 which it is imposssible to accept Hume's evidence as testimony to the 

 existence of the belief, to which Hamilton appeals; and it is the more 

 remarkable that Hamilton did not see this, as one of the passages, to 

 which he refers in this connection, seems to be in the chapter of 

 Hume's Treatise, which endeavours to explain the origin of the belief. 



The remaining testimonies, it is to be feared, will all evaponite 

 likewise before the light of examination. They all admit of being 

 explained as referring to a belief which is either not original or not 

 rejected by the witnesses adduced in any sense in which it is not also 

 ■rejected by Hamilton in his doctrine of the Conditioned. There is, 

 for example, a brief quotation from the Cartesian De Kaei, stating the 

 belief of mankind, '' Kes ipsas secundum se in sensum incurrere." 

 Can anyone be far amiss in saying that Sir William Hamilton is 

 among the philosophers who reject the doctrine that things in them- 

 selves (res ipsae secundum se, Dinge an sicK) enter immediately into 



* Discussions, p. 92, note. 



