Gospel, in a way to show that it was then received as authoritative, and as the work of the apostle. As Basilides flourished about A. D. 120, during the period from which so very few Christian writings have come down to us, his is the first instance, yet discovered, of an explicit quotation from that Gospel; and it overthrows some of the Rationalistic hypotheses concerning the date of that book. 7. Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform. Chiefly from the Edinburgh Review; corrected, vindicated, enlarged, in Notes and Appendices. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans. Edinburgh: Maclachlan & Stewart. 1852. pp. 758. The race of giants has not passed away from the earth. In Sir William Hamilton we have the peer of Plato, of Aristotle, of Aquinas, of Descartes, of Kant. He is a power upon the earth, observed, as yet, only by a few solitary thinkers, but doing his work effectually, without noise. In these "Discussions," are the germs of revolutions, in philosophy, in literature, in education, in moral science. The greatest thinker, sooner or later, rules, not over but in all heads. Greatness and influence are to be estimated, not by the applauding mob,-by those who do not see, but by those who have insight. The mob that called for the crucifixion of the Christ, that demanded the death of Socrates, that hooted approbation behind the triumphal car of Cæsar, and behind the funeral car of Wellington, is no judge of truth and worth; with it commences no beneficial revolution,the beneficial revolution rather commences with the quiet, but profoundly earnest devotee of thought, and works its way gradually from rank to rank,-it begins in the brain of the thinker, picks up its apostles by the way-side, sends them filled with strange zeal to the ends of the world, and the movement ends not until new beauty and new excellence have passed into life, until a step has been taken in the progress of the race. Six of the "Discussions" are devoted to philosophy, two to literature, eight to education. There is an appendix, philosophical; an appendix, logical; and an appendix, educational. The book has a wholesome look to those who are seeking for substantial food, but the candy-eaters of literature would do well to let it alone; the first bite would be likely to break their slender teeth. The lotus-eaters who devour certain books called "spiritual" in our times, may take warning, and not venture to open a work that will yield no particle of its meaning to any man in the somnolent state. If any one fancies that he is by nature a thinker, and does not need the discipline of metaphysical studies, we advise him to make the acquaintance of Hamilton;-let him try the discussion on the "philosophy of the unconditioned," and recognize the limited "extent of his tether." Sir William Hamilton has a system, but has not developed it : he has only given hints of it while commenting on the thoughts of others. A long and painful study of him is necessary in order to recognize his system and the relation of its parts. Kant was the first after Aristotle to add any thing essential to the categories of thought. In this respect, Hamilton is the only successor of Kant. The mighty Stagirite, the philosopher of Koenigsburg, and the present professor of logic in Edinburgh University, are, par excellence, the law-givers in the realms of thought. Of course we cannot here explain the categories of either, or attempt to estimate the relative value of these Solons of philosophy. The generic principle of Hamilton's philosophy is the Conditioned -Existence conditioned, which he generalizes as the supremecategory, or categories, of thought; out of which the subaltern applications of this form are immediately developed. He regards the unconditioned as incognizable and inconceivable; its notion being only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be positively known or conceived. In establishing this doctrine, he only completes the work of Kant. Kant did not consider the unconditioned as an object of knowledge, but regarded it as a regulating principle of the mind itself, as something more than a mere negation of the conditioned. In admitting this, he opened the way for new doctrines of the Absolute,' which the rich philosophic soil of Germany has produced in abundance, which have found their way to New England under the loose title of Transcendentalism. Philosophy, from the dawn of speculation until the time of Kant, was a deduction from principles. Kant first investigated principles themselves as psychological phenomena. He abolished all the metaphysical sciences as founded on mere petitiones principiorum. Philosophy, in his hands, was restricted to the observation and analysis of the phenomena of consciousness, but in allowing that the unconditioned is a regulating principle of the mind, he gave rise to a new philosophy, more presumptuous and extravagant than the old. "He had slain the body," says Hamilton, but had not exorcised the spectre of the absolute; and this spectre has continued to haunt the schools of Germany even to the present day." 66 Hamilton has completed the work begun by Kant. He has proved the impossibility of fixing the absolute as a positive in knowledge, and has demonstrated that the absolute, “like the water in the sieves of the Danaides, has always hitherto run through as a negative into the abyss of nothing." Sir William does not seem to have any doubt in regard to the solidity of the foundation upon which he has built, and places a 1 The Absolute and the Infinite are the two species under the genus unconditioned. For a definition of these terms, which one must master at the outset in studying Hamilton, see Discuss. p. 13. high estimate on the practical value of his philosophy. "Such (pavāvтa ovveroïow") says he, "are the hints of undeveloped philoso(φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν phy, which, I am confident, is founded upon truth. To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my own consciousness, but by finding in this system a centre and conciliation for the most opposite of philosophical opinions. Above all, however, I am confirmed in my belief, by the harmony between the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed truth. • Credo equidem, nec vana fides.' The philosophy of the conditioned is indeed pre-eminently a discipline of humility; a learned ignorance,' directly opposed to the false knowledge which puffeth up.' I may indeed say with St. Chrysostom :-The foundation of our philosophy is humility.'-(Homil. de Rerf. Evang.) For it is professedly a scientific demonstration of the impossibility of that wisdom in high matters' which the apostle prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the human powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must admit, to shew articulately why the secret things of God' cannot but be to men past finding out.' Humility thus becomes the cardinal virtue, not only of revelation but of reason. This scheme proves, moreover, that no difficulty emerges in theology, which had not previously emerged in philosophy; that, in fact, if the divine do not transcend what it has pleased the Deity to reveal, and wilfully identify the doctrine of God's word with some arrogant extreme of human speculation, philosophy will be found the most useful auxiliary of theology. For a world of false, and pestilent, and presumptuous reasoning, by which philosophy and theology are now equally discredited, would be at once abolished, in the recognition of this rule of prudent nescience; nor could it longer be too justly said of the code of consciousness, as by reformed divines it has been acknowledged of the Bible: 999 "This is the book, where each his dogma seeks: Hamilton belongs to the Common-Sense school of the Scotch philosophers. He has accepted, vindicated, and elucidated Reid's doctrine of the immediateness of perception, and philosophy has been saved from absolute skepticism, to which Hume, starting with principles universally acknowledged by modern philosophers previous to his time, legitimately reduced it. The only way to refute Hume, is to overthrow the premises conceded to him by all who belong-either in philosophy or theology-to the sensualistic school. Reid and Hamilton believe, with mankind in general, and contrary to the generality of philosophers, that an external world exists, only because they believe that they immediately know it as existent. The argument will be found beautifully developed in the article entitled Philosophy of Perception, in which Dr. Thomas Brown, the sometime successful opponent of Reid, is forever annihilated. Sir William has been a pioneer in Logic as well as in Metaphysics. His New Analytic would seem to leave nothing more to be done for logical forms. He has exposed the error in Aristotle's doctrine which maintains that "the predicate in affirmative propositions could only be formally quantified as particular," and has advanced an other step" by admitting in negative propositions a particular predicate." For a dozen years, as professor of logic in Edinburgh University, he has taught the doctrine of a thorough going quantification of the predicate, with its results. Let him who thinks himself a logician come to this book and put his knowledge to the test. The Discussions on Education and University Reforms are very able and full of practical wisdom. We shall recur to them at an early date. The style of Hamilton is most admirable for philosophical discussion. It is clear, direct, and precise. The same terms have always the same meaning. There are no careless assertions, no loosely constructed sentences. There are few ornaments, but those are the costliest gems. His style is not hard and dry, but severely elegant. Every line is pervaded with strong penetrating thought. As a man is, so he writes. The learning of Sir William is not only astonishing, but even provoking. We are usually stimulated to effort by any exhibition of human excellence, but the affluence of Hamilton's erudition is so great that it discourages us,-fills us with despair,-irritates us, instead of rousing our ambition. In this respect, we know of none, in the annals of philosophy, with whom to compare him, except the younger Scaliger-the most learned of men. All this weight of learning is well digested, is at his command, is borne with ease, is subordinate to thought; his mind possesses his erudition and is not possessed by it. To those who would make a serious study of philosophy (the noblest of all studies with the exception of God's word,) to those who are honest seekers after imperishable truth and the discipline that enables us to discover truth, we would recommend, for the soundness of its doctrines, for its energy of expression and thought, for its luminous exposition of systems, for its profound and accurate erudition, the work that we have here hastily and very imperfectly noticed.. 8. Chambers' Repository of Instructive and With Illustrations. Vol. i. Complete in itself. Lincoln, &c. 1853. 16mo. pp. 256. 0. W. W. Amusing Papers. We are glad to see these papers appear among us. May they do something to displace our present worse than idle "light-reading," by substituting a kind that is perfectly wholesome at the same time that it is attractive, and fitted for leisure hours. There are eight pieces in this volume: The Cotton Metropolis, or Life in the great English Manufacturing Establishments; Australia, and its Gold Regions; Hellen Gray; Madame de Sévigné-her Life and Letters; The Rhine; Mina Block, the face-model; The Pilgrim Fathers of New England; and Spirit of Paradise Lost. While we mention this last piece, we are moved to say that we can hardly bear with the mutilation of Paradise Lost,-it seems a sacrilege in the chief temple of the Muses. But Messrs. Chambers are thorough Utilitarians, in practice at least, and their object in the trespass, is, to induce a more general reading of the entire poem, by presenting its most striking passages accompanied with an abstract of the argument. We would suggest to the American Publishers that it would be a convenience to have the pages of the volume itself numbered, as usual. 9. History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon, in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon, in 1852. By Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., Author of the "History of Europe from the commencement of the French Revolution, in 1789, to the Battle of Waterloo," &c. Vol. I. New York: Harper & Brothers, &c. 1853. 8vo. pp. 196. Such a work, by Alison, needs no other "Literary Notice," than an advertisement of the form in which this American Edition appears. It is printed with small type, in pages of double columns, like the American Edition of the author's former History, of which this may be regarded as a continuation. As a work, however, it is separate and complete in itself. It will probably consist of five volumes. 10. The Macrocosm and Microcosm; or, The Universe Without and the Universe Within; being an unfolding of the Plan of Creation and the Correspondence of Truths, both in the World of Sense and the World of Soul. In two Parts. By William Fishbough. Part I. The Macrocosm; or, The Universe Without, &c. &c. New York: Fowlers & Wells, &c. 1852. 12mo. pp. 259. A book that comes at least six thousand years too late. If the Universe were yet to be created, and Proposals were out for designers to send in their Plans, we will not say but that Mr. Fishbough's might be in order. But the creation having already taken place, we cannot conceive what use there is in such a contribution as his, so long afterwards. For, we take it, the only question now is, not how the Universe might have been constructed, to suit this man or that, but how it is constructed, as a matter of fact. And this is a ques tion which, one would suppose, requires a tolerably profound acquaintance at least with the whole field of Natural Science, in 18 VOL. X. |