294 EEYIEWS — SIB WM. HAMILTON'S 



representations which (even after the manner of the vulgar) he is 

 prone to ascribe to the presence of objective realities, not be merely 

 phantasmagoria produced by the unconscious activity of the Ego, or 

 otherwise conjured up before his mental eve ? May they not be due 

 to the direct operation of the Divine Being ? Might not God excite 

 within the individual all the sensations which he experiences, even 

 though material objects were not ? Can purely mental phenomena 

 — phenomena which might take place though there were no such 

 thing as matter — warrant the conclusion that matter exists ? It may 

 perhaps be urged that our observer is irresistibly impelled to believe 

 that he is perceiving external objects ; but what of that ? The felt 

 necessity of affirming the non-ego, is a circumstance both intelligible 

 and important, as we shall presently see, on the doctrine of those 

 who hold that the non-ego is immediately cognized; but the 

 Cosmothetic idealist can make no use of it to serve his purpose. For 

 what impels him to believe in outward objects ? His very nature. 

 After all, then, the much-vaunted necessity of believing in material 

 realities, indicates nothing except the manner in which we are con- 

 stituted, and in which we feel ourselves obliged to think. From 

 considerations such as these, Sir W. Hamilton, in common with the 

 most distinguished and consistent idealists themselves, maintains that 

 if an immediate knowledge of the non-ego be denied, scepticism as 

 to its existence becomes logically unavoidable. No better exemplify 

 cation could be afforded of the difficulty of saving an external world 

 on idealistic principles, than is furnished by Dr. Thomas Brown, 

 whom Sir William not only criticizes mercilessly for his opinions on 

 sensitive perception, but whom, we may add, he wonderfully delights 

 to kick on all occasions, and who certainly is exposed, on many 

 inviting points, to the toe of an opponent. Dr. Brown expressly 

 avows that the irresistible belief to which we have referred, is the only 

 thing which stands betwixt himself and Pyrrhonism. Assuming on 

 the one hand that matter is not immediately known, he grants on the 

 other that its existence cannot be legitimately inferred from aught 

 that we do immediately know, but that "the sceptical argument, as a 

 mere play of reasoning, admits of no reply." Yet forsooth, we are 

 irresistibly compelled to believe in matter ! "We are irresistibly com- 

 pelled to believe what we have no knowledge of, either mediate or 

 immediate ! A miserable thing would Philosophy be, were this 

 truly the issue of her speculations. Alas ! if, after she has inscribed 

 on the portals of her temple the great idea, that only what is known 

 is to be believed, she is found to utter as her very first oracle in the 

 ears of her votaries, that an external world is not known, yet must 



