62 SIR WILLIAM Hamilton's niiLosopHY. 



wliieli objects are perceived, as well as tlie categories of tlie under- 

 standing, under which they are thought, are derived not from the 

 objects, but from the mind's own laws. Mr. Mill also holds that these 

 elements in our knowledge of objects are derived from the mind's own 

 laws, and are not furnished by the objects themselves. The only differ- 

 ence between his doctrine and Kant's is in reference to the time at 

 which these elements make their appearance in consciousness, the former 

 maintaining, in opposition to the latter, that they are produced, not at 

 once, but only after a more or less gradual process of association, 

 although of course that process must have been accomplished before the 

 period at which memory begins, and consequently at a period not very 

 much later than that which is supposed in the theory of Kant. It id 

 therefore an essential point in Mr. Mill's doctrine regarding our know- 

 ledge of matter, that the illusion of the externality, under which mate- 

 rial things appear to us, is generated inevitably in accordance with the 

 laws by which sensations and other mental states become associated ; 

 and that this illusion, from the date of our earliest reminiscences, is so 

 irresistible, that it can be dispelled only by the conclusions of psycho- 

 logical enquiry — conclusions which are still so inadequately established, 

 that they are rejected by a large number of those who are engaged in 

 such inquiry. I do not on this account lay to the charge of Mr. Mill's 

 doctrine, that it exhibits, as Hamilton is fond of saying, '' our Maker 

 as a deceiver, and the root of our nature as a lie." It is competent for 

 any one to maintain, and every scientific man does maintain, that there 

 are illusions which the human mind naturally and inevitably creates, 

 which it is the function of science to remove. But as this plea maybe 

 urged by Mr. Mill, it may with equal right be urged by the disciple of 

 Kant. It matters not whether the mental forces, which give birth to 

 the illusions destroyed by science, operate so slowly as to produce their 

 results only after a comparatively long process, or so swiftly that their 

 results emerge on the first outburst of mental activity. If indeed it 

 were maintained by Kant that the human mind is so constituted as to 

 be incapable of exposing the illusions to which it is naturally subject, 

 his doctrine might be held liable to the accusation which Sir William 

 Hamilton brings against it, and in which Mr. Mill joins But the 

 creator of the modern German philosophy has not marred his system 

 by such a flaw. If he holds that the mental fliculties, from the very 

 commencement of their exercise, originate illusory appearances, he holds 

 quite as unequivocally that these fliculties are themselves competent to 



