According to Hamilton's view of the fundamental processes of the mind, the function of representation is simply the energy of the mind in holding up to its contemplation what it is determined to represent. But he distinguishes as essentially different, the representation, and the determination to represent; for the reproductive faculty is the immediate source whence the representative receives both the material and the determination to represent; and the laws which control the reproductive faculty also control the representative. So if there were no other laws in the combination and construction of thought than those of association, the representative faculty would be solely determined in its manifestation by the reproductive faculty; but comparison-the faculty of relations also comes into operation. Comparison plays an important part in determining in what combinations objects are represented. By its aid, the complex groups of phenomena called up by the representative faculty undergo various operations; they are separated into parts, analysed into elements; and these parts and elements are again compounded and combined in innumerable ways. While in all this, the representative facultyimagination co-operates; as it first exhibits the facts as called up by the laws of association; it then exhibits them as variously arranged by the analysis and synthesis of the comparative faculty, thus acting as a subsidiary both to the reproductive and elaborative faculties. Still, in these operations the imaginative power is often the most active element in the process; it is a condition of the analytic operations, as it holds up the objects in a vivid light to the analytic grasp, that it may observe the various circumstances of relation, and the new reconstruction-the result of its own elaboration.

A vigorous power of imagination-of representing objects, is indispensable in every department of thought; but there are many kinds and degrees of imagination. There is the imagination of abstraction, representing to us certain phases of an object to the exclusion of others; the imagination of reason, which represents a principle in connection with its consequences, the effect in dependence on its cause; the imagination of feeling, which represents the accessory

however, that retention, reproduction, and representation, though not in different persons of the same relative vigour, are, however, in the same individuals, all strong or weak in reference to the same class of subjects. For example, if a man's memory be more peculiarly retentive of words, his verbal reminiscence and imagination will, in like manner, be more particularly energetic.' (Vol. II., p. 260.)

images allied to some particular sentiment, which thus confer on it greater compass and intensity; the imagination of the passions, and

so on.27

He discusses the elaborative faculty-comparison, or faculty of relations, at length, and in an exceedingly interesting style, under the heads of classification, abstraction, generalisation, judgment, and reasoning. A class of subjects which form the transition from psychology to logic, from the analysis and laws of the mental phenomena, "to the science of thought as thought." In connection with these, he discusses, in his usual historic form, the interesting subjects of nominalism and conceptionalism, and also the curious. question as to "the primum cognitum," the first cognition, as it was called in the schools. The latter question assumes this character, Does language originate with general names or proper names? Did mankind in the evolution of language, and do children in their first applications of it, begin with general terms or with particular words; or, in other words, does knowledge begin with general notions, or particular notions? There are many illustrious philosophers on each side of the question. Hamilton himself held that our knowledge neither begins with the general nor the particular, but with the vague and confused, and thence proceeds by degrees to evolve both the general and the particular. 28

The reduction of complicated processes to greater simplicity, or to a single principle, was a marked feature of Hamilton's intellect; and the following statement touching comparison is an instance in point. "In opposition to the views hitherto promulgated in regard to comparison, I will show that this faculty is at work in every, the simplest, act of mind; and that from the primary affirmation of existence in an original act of consciousness to the judgment contained in the conclusion of an act of reasoning, every operation is only an evolution of the same elementary process,—that there is a difference in the complexity, none in the nature of the act; in short, that the various products of analysis and synthesis, of abstraction and generalisation, are all merely the results of comparison, and that the operations of conception or simple apprehension, of judgment, and reasoning, are all only acts of comparison, in various applications and degrees.”29

27 Vol. II., pp. 263-266. Hamilton holds, that the organs which imagination employs in the representation of sensible objects, are the organs of sense themselves, on which the original impressions were made, and through which they were originally perceived. This is the same as Hobbes' view.

28 Vol. Il., p. 279.

29 Vol. II., pp. 319, 335.

He proceeds to develop and to prove this view of comparison. The process of classification is simply an act of comparison, determined by the necessities of the mind-the nature and limits of its powers. In classifying, the mind greatly depends on language for its success, on general names, general and abstract terms, which are used to denote complex and abstract notions. Abstraction, or rather exclusive attention to a particular object or quality of an object, is evidently the work of comparison; it is a process quite familiar to the most uncultured minds. Generalisation is dependent on abstraction, and supposes it; but abstraction does not involve generalisation. It is the process through which we obtain general notions and ideas; thus the points in which a number of objects or things agree, having been discovered, we arrange them by these common points of agreement or similarity, into classes; and from the lowest class ascending step by step till we reach at the highest class. 30

Under the last of the special faculties of cognition-the regulative faculty, which is not, properly speaking, an active faculty-he included those primary notions of intelligence or common sense, variously designated as the fundamental principles of intelligence, laws of thought, necessary cognitions, primary data of consciousness. "There are cognitions in the mind which are not contingent,which are necessary, which we cannot but think, which thought supposes as its fundamental condition. These cognitions, therefore, are not mere generalisations from experience. But if not derived from experience, they must be native to the mind. These native-these necessary cognitions, are the laws by which the mind is governed in its operations, and which afford the conditions of its capacity of knowledge. These necessary laws, or primary conditions of intelligence, are phenomena of a similar character; and we must, therefore, generalise them or collect them into a class; and on the power possessed by the mind of manifesting these phenomena, we may bestow the name of the Regulative Faculty."

It should be observed that the primary and necessary notions of the mind here announced as the laws which afford the conditions of knowledge, are embodied by Hamilton in his philosophy of the conditioned. He recognised a considerable number of primary or ultimate notions and principles; but did not pretend to give an exhaustive and complete enumeration of such notions. What he

30 Vol. II., pp. 279-283, 293-295.

really did, was to argue that there was such a class of notions and principles, and actually employed a certain number of them in the construction of his psychology, his philosophy of the conditioned, and his logic.

With regard to the essential characteristics for discriminating the principles of common sense-the original data of consciousness, he says: "These characters, I think, may be reduced to four: (1) Their incomprehensibility, (2) their simplicity, (3) their necessity and absolute universality, (4) their comparative evidence and certainty."31

What has just been stated, taken in connection with what was said before, of the immediate facts of consciousness, and the intuitive character of perception, will be sufficient to indicate Hamilton's view of the primary and ultimate notions of the mind. Thus far I have signalised three of the fundamental and distinctive principles of his philosophy. But to complete the exposition of his psychology, it is requisite to notice briefly his treatment of the feelings.

These, the second great class of mental phenomena, in his classification, is not exhaustively treated; but so far it is satisfactory, and exceedingly interesting. He devoted six lectures to the feelings, one of which is occupied with an historical account of the theories of pleasure and pain. His classification and division of the feelings may be indicated thus:

I. First, sensations-the five senses and organic sensations. II. The sentiments and internal feelings: first, the contemplative, subdivided into (1) those of the subsidiary faculties, including those of self-consciousness, and (2) those of imagination, order, symmetry, unity in variety; (3) those of the elaborative faculty, wit, the pleasures of truth and science, and the gratification of adapting means to ends; (4) beauty and sublimity springing from the conjoint energy of the imagination and the understanding. III. The practical feelings relate to (1) self-preservation-hunger and thirst, loathing, sorrow, bodily pain, anxiety, etc.; (2) the enjoyment of our existence; (3) the preservation of the species; (4) the tendency towards development and perfection; and (5) moral law.

He delivered a theory of pleasure and pain, and applied it to explain this general mental phenomena; in other words, he considered the feelings as causes-causes of pleasure and pain; and he then

31 Hamilton's Reid, p. 754.

considered them as effects, or products of the action of our different powers. The scope of his standpoint is thus stated by himself:

"What are the general conditions which determine the existence of pain; for pleasure and pain are the phenomena which constitute the essential attribute of true feeling, under all its manifestations? I shall, first of all, state the abstract theory of pleasure and pain, in other words, enounce the fundamental law by which these phenomena are governed, in all their manifestations." Under the ninth and last head of his theory, the following is enounced:"Pleasure is thus the result of certain harmonious relations—of certain agreements; pain, on the contrary, the effect of certain unharmonious relations of certain disagreements. The pleasurable is, therefore, not inappropriately called the agreeable; the painful, the disagreeable; and in conformity to this doctrine, pleasure and pain, may be thus defined :-Pleasure is a reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power, of whose energy we are conscious. Pain a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power." As already stated, he illustrates the application of his theory in the explanation of pleasure and pain at some length, 32 with keen insight and rare breadth of view. In the two last lectures, he treats the feelings as effects-as products of the action of our different powers; and thus considered, his exposition is often very happy. Hamilton's Philosophy of the Conditioned is simply an attempt to systematise the conditions of the thinkable, in the form of an Alphabet of human thought. In its fundamental conception it is restrictive and conservative. Probably he was as well informed and aware of the many aberrations of human thought and speculation as any man that ever lived; and he was fully cognisant of the systems and speculations of those philosophers who had pretended to walk through the dark mountains of eternity and infinity without stumbling, and to return with positive knowledge. Knowing this, he was, therefore, well entitled to make an effort to lay down the conditions and limits of human thought; and thus he has done great service to real philosophy, to science, and mankind.

He grounded his own theory of the Conditioned upon the recog nised laws of identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, and the law of relativity. Thus when he speaks of the Conditioned it is in special reference to relativity; and by existence conditioned is meant

32 Vol. II., pp. 434-440, et seq.