SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY. G7 



attention is limited to the question wlietlier, in appealing to tlie 

 authority of consciousness as establishing tis theory of perception, he 

 has fulfilled the conditions of his own test for determining the validity 

 of such an appeal. It is evident, then, that, in order to meet the 

 requirements of the prescribed test, his appeal should be made only 

 after the fact appealed to has been shown to be incapable of scientific 

 interpretation except aa one of the absolutely final results in the 

 analysis of mental phenomena. From the circumstance that he 

 adduces reasons to prove this with regard to the fact of external per- 

 ception, he might, at the first glance, be supposed to found his appeal 

 on the conclusiveness of these reasons. Yet a more careful examina- 

 tion will undoubtedly show that this is very far from being the ground 

 on which he bases the validity of his appeal. 



In proof of this it might be deemed sufficient to refer the student of 

 Sir William Hamilton's writings to the impression produced by the 

 general style in which he discusses this subject; but it is possible to 

 point out several facts which establish iucontrovertibly the above 

 assertion. 



1. It is important in this connection to notice, in the first place, the 

 discussion, to which the twenty-fifth of his lectures on Metaphysics is 

 devoted, on the objections to his theory of perception. That discussion 

 is limited to two points, which he considers his opponents bound to 

 establish in order to a successful polemic against his theory. He thinks 

 that they were bound in the first place to adduce reasons sufficient to 

 justify their rejection of the testimony of consciousness to our imme- 

 diate knowledge of the nonego, and in the next place to substitute a 

 legitimate hypothesis in room of the rejected fact. It is evident, from 

 this account of its drift, that his discussion starts with assuming the 

 original immediacy of perception ; and accordingly when we proceed to 

 his criticism of the objections to his doctrine, we do not meet with the 

 slightest expression of even a surmise, that the " testimony" of consci- 

 ousness under consideration might be rejected by some on the ground 

 that perception can be explained by acknowledged psychological laws as 

 a development from more elementary facts. 



2. It is further evident, that Sir W. Hamilton did not found hia 

 appeal to the veracity of consciousness in the present instance on the 

 proved impossibility of analysing the phenomenon of perception, from 

 his citation of the admissions made by his opponents. These admissions 

 have been considered already, and it has been seen that they amount to 



