all rational economy!-should time and space have been laboriously built into the mind (as Hamilton admits), if (as Hamilton adds) they were there on the outside, actual objects, for the apprehension of which we possessed our own special five senses?

Had Hamilton, indeed, been duly awake here, he would have seen at once that Kant's reine Anschauung, possessing no matter but these à priori sensuous forms of space and time, was, feature for feature, identical with his own perception proper, possessing no matter but those primary qualities which he himself acknowledged to derive from-to be but modes of, space and time. Nay, duly awake, he would have perceived that Kant, not only in naming these forms perceptions (and as against conceptions), but in proving them perceptions (and as against conceptions), actually contemplated their empirical use, or as Hamilton might say, their objective presentation,-and this, their necessary, mental, à priori nature notwithstanding. But to have perceived this-and in a demonstrated doctrine-would have been to have perceived also the supererogatoriness of his own addition. The eyes to a reality of actual outer space which he desiderated in the doctrine of Kant, that doctrine already abundantly possessed; and his own proffered surgery, therefore, was obviously quite uncalled for. In short, the complement of Hamilton is refuted by a reductio ad absurdum.

But, in confutation of Hamilton, we are not limited to his resolution, on the one hand, of his primary qualities into space; and to his adoption, on the other,

of

space

itself as shown to be constituted by Kant;we can readily accomplish the same result by a consideration of these primary qualities themselves. For this purpose, we supplement the quotations already made by a few others, and in the more restricted reference:

Aristotle enumerates five percepts common to all or to a plurality of the senses,-viz.: Magnitude (extension), figure, motion, rest, number; but virtually admits, that these (the common) are abusively termed sensibles at all, and are (in one place he even says they are only apprehended per accidens), in fact, within the domain of sense, merely as being the concomitants, or consequents (ἀκολουθοῦντα, ἑπομένα) οι the proper.... St. Thomas, showing that the common sensibles do not, primarily and of themselves, act upon and affect the sense, carries them all up into modifications of quantity. . . . Sensibilia communia omnia pertinent aliquo modo ad continuum. . . . The several common sensibles are in reality apprehended by other and higher energies than those of sense

are not so much perceptions of sense (in so far as sensible perception depends on corporeal affection) as concomitant cognitions to which the impression on the organ by the proper sensible only affords the occasion. (Reid's Works, pp. 828-830.) [Kant's time and space can be characterised by precisely the same words. Hutcheson holds that] extension, figure, motion, and rest seem to be more properly ideas accompanying the sensations of sight and touch than the sensations of either of these senses. (Reid's Works, pp. 124, 829.) [Reid himself says], upon the whole, it appears that our philosophers have imposed upon themselves and upon us in pretending to deduce from sensation the first origin of our notions of external existences, of space, motion, and extension, and all the primary qualities of body—that is, the qualities whereof we have the most clear and distinct conception... they have no resemblance to any sensation, or to any operation of our minds; and, therefore, they cannot be ideas

either of sensation or of reflection [no, says Kant, they attach to the sensuous, but à priori, spectra, space and time]. (Reid's Works, p. 126.) The primary qualities of matter thus develop themselves with rigid necessity out of the simple datum— substance occupying space. In a certain sort, and by contrast to the others, they are, therefore, notions, à priori, and to be viewed, pro tanto, as products of the understanding. (Reid's Works, p. 848.) [The apprehension of the primary qualities is called] purely spiritual [and they themselves] necessary and universal. (Reid's Works, pp. 858, 865: see also the description of the primary qualities in the previous quotation, Reid's Works, p. 860.)

These extracts and many others might be added to the same effect—we may allowably assume to be sufficient in themselves. The general tenour of them, indeed, goes to show that the primary qualities are not cognitions of sense at all, but result from an intellectual, spiritual, spontaneous energy of the mind itself. In short, the entire relative argumentation of Hamilton unequivocally demonstrates the necessary, à priori, and so mental nature of all his own percepts proper. It is quite certain, nevertheless, that Hamilton does attach a sensuous nature to these percepts all the same, and what we would point out is, that Hamilton, on his own principles, ought to have seen into the preposterousness of this addition, both in their case individually, and in that of space as their matrix in general. Hamilton is perfectly aware that the signs which separate the pure or à priori from the empirical or à posteriori are necessity and universality. We find him again and again stating this: we find him, indeed, with an allure customary to him, quoting Leibnitz on this point with a view to lessen the rela

tive merit of Kant. Leibnitz, he says, remarks that 'the senses indeed inform us what may take place, but not what necessarily takes place,' &c. (Meta. ii. 347.) In truth, with this criterion of necessity so distinctly present to his mind, and in view of the issues so markedly emerging from the theory of Kant, it is surprising that Hamilton should have attempted a task so self-contradictory and absurd as an induction from experience of matters that plainly preceded, and were independent of, all experience; but it is still more surprising that, of Kant's four reasons as regards the nature of space, two of them were advanced directly to prove that space was a perception and not a concep

tion, and that Hamilton should not have known as much.*

Hamilton, then, pronouncing his own percepts proper, or the primary qualities, to hold of the understanding rather than of sense, and ascribing to them, moreover, the peculiar necessity and validity we signalise, ought to have seen that, as they were impossibly contingent or à posteriori, they must be à priori, and not empirical at all. His error with these, in fact, is identical with his error with space: he failed to perceive that, though mental, they might, by projection, pass into the contingent, and return with the contingent for actual apprehension by special sense;— not, however, that they themselves, or any element of

*This is a clear proof that Hamilton was indebted for the very imperfect little he knew of Kant to the literature of the subject.' It is also a clear proof of the precarious nature of book-manipulation, even with the very quickest eye; for few things are more eye-catching in Kant than his formal arguments in reference to space. But see ii. 2.

them, had any source whatever but the mind itself. It is particularly interesting, indeed, to collate the difficulties of Aristotle and the rest with the focal solution into which Kant, almost by their own arguments, finally reduced them.

Apart, then, this untenable sensuous side, which, however, we shall presently examine for itself, it is impossible any longer for Hamilton to refuse the companionship of Kant-it is impossible any longer for Hamilton to refuse the title of cosmothetic idealist. He himself points to the primary qualities as the only septum that in his own belief exists to separate him from Kant. These primary qualities he himself resolves into space, and space itself he accepts at the hands of Kant. There is nothing, then, between them but an unnecessary real space due to his own mistake; and, this mistake corrected, septum there is none, the drops have coalesced, they are now one: Hamilton, already so largely relativist and phenomenalist, is now wholly such, and the discussion is finished.

This sensuous side of Hamilton constitutes, however, perhaps the very most interesting element in the whole of his industry, and cannot be passed over. It is an element, indeed, that, whether in that he read, or whether in that he thought, may be almost named his centre. The following extracts will, with those that precede, elucidate our meaning:

This extreme doctrine [alluding to that referred to in the quotations above from Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Hutcheson, Reid, &c.] is not, however, to be admitted. As sensibles, the common [i. e., the percepts proper, the primary qualities]