It was during these years, too, that he sometimes varied his occupation with the anatomical studies to which reference has been made, with investigating the theories of animal magnetism, or even with observing the effects upon himself of large doses of morphia. The first of his purely philosophical publications was the famous article "On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned." It required much perseverance on the part of Professor Napier-who was stimulated by the determination to make the first number of the Edinburgh Review that appeared under his editorial care a success-to gain this from his learned friend. Hamilton's admiration of Cousin rendered him loath to assail so important a part of his doctrine as his assertion of the cognizability of the absolute; and he felt then-as he was compelled afterward to declare, when, as candidate for the chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Edinburgh, obscurity in his writings was claimed to unfit him for the officethat there would be an obscurity about it which no care on the part of the author could obviate, because of its being the result of a lack of proper preparation for understanding it in the reader. This article at once established his reputation on the Continent, where Kant's influence made it understood and read with admiration; and it is amusing to find Sir William compelled to reply to the letters that came from distinguished men asking for his previous works, that he could say nothing for himself excepting that he was "a graduate of Oxford and a member of the Scottish bar," and confessing his shame that he had written but little else.

Perhaps a feeling of this kind helped to conquer his reluctance to drive the pen, and so won from him other gems of philosophic thought. Napier continued to urge and Hamilton to write, and various complaints by the former because articles had been withheld till beyond the proper time and then sent in of length to exceed the limits stipulated for, were the pastscenii that introduced to the world the articles on Perception, on Logic, on the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, the various papers on University Discipline, the Study of Mathematics, etc. It is difficult at the present day to assign

to the first of these their proper relative positions in the philosophy of Britain. The thinker had pursued a line of thought differing from all the home influence that bore upon him, and had reached conviction strange to the British Isles. We now know them to be in some respects unapproached; but then no one recognized their merit, and their first welcome came from abroad in Cousin's noble appreciation of his assailant, and like messages of approval. Then first took root in Britain a high and daring philosophic thought, which the language of Britain could once hardly express, but which she would now unwillingly forget. Even to his doctrine of the Unconditioned there is now no general hostility. Though startled by his assertion of the philosophic impossibility of an ontology, most men were willing to believe that its dangerous significance had disappeared when they found its author acknowledging with St. Austin that, although knowledge rests upon reason, belief may be founded upon authority; and confessing that it may be necessary to believe in order that we may understand, with Anselm, rather than, with Abelard, to seek to understand in order that we may believe. In fact, when Hamilton advocated the relativity of human knowledge, he but boldly asserted what all noted philosophers-with the exception of Schelling, Hegel, Fichte, and Cousin-had, either willingly or unwillingly, admitted before him. It was but another instance in which he gained admittance where others had knocked in vain. We cannot, of course, here turn aside and follow him; but we believe that he could safely venture among the Germans, who would carry the Scotchman with him; and that the definition of Schelling's opinion, with the criticism on it contained in this article, would better prepare for an understanding of our own Emerson than would all the remarks upon him that Britain has recently produced. During the sixteen years that had elapsed since their refusal to assign the chair of Moral Philosophy to Hamilton, the Town Council of Edinburgh had grown, if not wiser, at least more persuadable; and, in 1836, the emphatic

VOL. XXX.-NO. LIX.

4

testimony in his favor of Cousin and others best prepared to judge of his merits, prevailed over the charge of obscurity, of unsoundness, over the claims to honor of so able a rival as Isaac Taylor, and over (what was deemed by his friends the most dangerous to his success) Hamilton's refusal to acknowledge, by personal solicitation of the votes of the electors, that he sought the office as a favor rather than as a right—and a majority of four elevated him to the professorship of Logic and Metaphysics.

Hamilton, already in his forty-ninth year, was now compelled to be useful. Till the last moment, however, he read instead of wrote. The election took place in July, and the session commenced in November, but found Hamilton still in doubt as to the subject of the introductory lecture. Before, his wife had not only incited him to work, but had copied for him all he had written for publication, with much beside. Now, though the need of meeting his class three times each week compelled him to write, she still acted as his amanuensis. Each lecture was composed the night before its delivery upon rough sheets which Lady Hamilton copied as they were prepared—the lecturer and his secretary usually retiring at five or six in the morning, and awakening so that he could meet the class at one in the afternoon. Throughout the session of five months the work proceeded thus without interruption; and a new course was prepared in like manner during the following year-the first being those now known as the Lectures on Metaphysics, and the second as the Lectures on Logic. And what lectures they are, when viewed in connec

*"Sachez que M. Hamilton est de tous vos compatriotes celui qui connait le mieux Aristote; et s'il y a dans les trois royaumes de sa Majesté Brittannique une chaire de logique vacante, n'hésitez pas, hâtezvous, donnez-le à M. Hamilton."-M. Cousin, Fragmens de la Philosophie, p. lxxv. de la préface.

t "Un rôle special, ou tout au moins principal, peut être assigné à chacun d'entre les philosophes Écossais. Hamilton fut le logicien de cette école, comme Hutcheson et Reid en avaient été les psychologues, Smith l'économiste, Ferguson le publiciste, Oswald le theologien, Beattie le moraliste."-Biographie Générale, t. 23, p. 255.

tion with the purpose for which they were prepared. We can even read them with enthusiasm; with how much greater could we have listened to them, knowing them to be the hastened thought of him who spoke them. The noble appearance of the man-the order without a flaw-the learning that knew no exhaustion—the most inspiring feeling that he spoke of what he knew—all would have conspired to enkindle the interest which is so necessary for the understanding of the subjects of which he treated. It matters not how he taught, or whether he adopted any peculiar devices. Such a man must make his manners, rather than his manners the man. To know the relation he bore to that of which he spoke, was to grant him the attention he required; and the recollections of students clung not to philosophy alone, but to philosophy as it manifested itself in Sir William Hamilton. And what an impetus and catholicity-still surviving-he gave to the thought of Britain, when, at his touch, the dead recovered life. Under him Scottish philosophy first learned to recognize the existence of certain definite principles, to the determination of which the whims of individuals must be subordinate; and to acknowledge that the whole can be determined and constructed only by an understanding and conjunction of all its parts. All special pleading and local or sectarian exclusiveness must go to the winds. He who would know his own was taught to feel that he must learn another's strength. The Scotchman could not be perfect if he neglected the thought of Germany; nor could German or Scotchman count his positions secure till he had ascertained where the intelligence of France had established itself or striven to establish.*

* "Il n'est pas peut-être en Europe un homme qui possède une connaissance aussi complète et aussi minutieuse, une intelligence aussi profonde, des livres, des systèmes et des philosophes d'Allemagne. L'érudition de M. Hamilton n'est pas cette érudition morte qui s'occupe plus des livres que des idées, et qui étouffe l'esprit philosophe au lieu de le nourrir; c'est une érudition active, qui laisse à la pensée toute son indépendance; elle n'est pas à elle-même sa propre fin, mais seulement un instrument pour la récherche de la vérité. Quoique infiniment variée, car elle embrasse presque tout le champ des sciences morales et ration

It appears that the reasons for the regret, felt by all who have known him, that Hamilton did not continue the preparation of lectures in subsequent years until he had traversed the whole field of discussion in the manner which his first conception had worked out, are again the fault of that ruling council which had at first declared in his favor by so small a majority. In 1838, he had, at the solicitation of interested and advanced students, entered on a special course of lectures on the highest departments of speculative science, when the authorities interfered to prevent their continuance. Hamilton never outgrew—as such a mind as his could not outgrow-his disposition to be his own master; and it became interesting to his pupils to notice the contrast between the keen dialectic of his controversies and the kindly manner of his addresses to them. It was because he had not consulted them before commencing it that the Town Council objected to the continuance of the special course of 1838; and, as a subsequent attempt to deliver both of the prepared series during the same session led to further dissatisfaction, he was in the habit, during the remainder of the twenty years that he occupied the chair, of delivering them on alternate years. Here was one of the severest penalties that the caprice of a few individuals, significant or insignificant, has ever imposed upon the world. A Prometheus, who would only serve mortals while bound, was loosed and bid go useless, because he had not asked Smith and Jones for a rock! Small matter to those who could not begin to enumerate the cost of their victory; small matter, too, to Prometheus himself; great matter to those who, in the twelve hundred pages of his Common-Place Book, read the proof that centuries were beggared by the triumph of an hour.

nelles, et de la literature générale, elle est en même temps complète et profonde, principalement en philosophie ancienne et moderne, et en matière d'instruction publique. Peu d'hommes en Europe sont aussi familiers avec la philosophie, et en particulier avec Aristote."— M. Peisse, Préface aux Fragmens de Philosophie, par Sir William Hamilton, pp. lxxxi., lxxxiii.