296 BEVIEWS — SIB, WH. HAMILTON S 



objects in proximate relation to the organism — though the observer, 

 for instance, whom we supposed to be sailing among the Thousand 

 Isles, is not held to be immediately cognizant of the islands by which 

 he is surrounded, but only to know them through inference, medi- 

 ately — there is nothing at all dangerous to our faith in a material 

 world, in this limitation of the range of consciousness. For why 

 do the various idealistic systems inevitably lead to scepticism ? Be- 

 cause they furnish no basis whatever for our belief in the non-ego. 

 Assuming that we immediately know only what is in the mind, they 

 weary themselves in vain to infer from this the existence of anything 

 without the mind. But Hamilton in affirming that we are conscious 

 of material objects (though not of those which are distant,) destroys 

 scepticism : for however narrow the sphere within which we commu- 

 nicate with an external world, the external world is, on his doctrine 

 positively known to exist ; and what we do immediately know of it, 

 forms a foundation on which conclusions can safely be erected, 

 regarding the existence of objective realities out of the reach of our 

 immediate apprehension. " The doctrine of Natural Realism," Sir 

 William writes, " requires no such untenable assumption for its 

 basis," [as that distant realities are immediately perceived]. " It 

 is sufficient to establish the simple fact, that we are competent, as 

 consciousness assures us, immediately to apprehend, through sense 

 the non-ego in certain limited relations ; and it is of no consequence 

 whatever either to our certainty of the reality of a material world, 

 or to our ultimate knowledge of its properties, whether by this pri- 

 mary apprehension we lay hold, in the first instance, on a larger or a 

 lesser portion of its contents." 



But should it be denied that the existence of the non-ego is revealed 

 in consciousness, what then ? In fact, the whole body of Idealists 

 maintain that consciousness gives no such testimony as Hamilton 

 ascribes to it. How shall we decide this question ? Philosophers, 

 since the time of Kant, have commonly consented to regard univer- 

 sality and necessity as the sure criteria of first truths ; and applying 

 these, among other kindred tests, Sir William contends that mankind 

 are universally and necessarily determined to believe that they im- 

 mediately apprehend the non-ego. No man living — not even a 

 philosopher — can help being fully persuaded, when he perceives, that 

 he is apprehending immediately something finite and extended which 

 is not self, but exists without self. Either, therefore, universality 

 and necessity must be rejected from being criteria of first truths, or 

 the existence of the non-ego must be allowed to be a datum of con- 

 sciousness. Observe the difference between this use of the criterion 



