Elizabeth Hamilton

“ Hamilton’s positive contribution to the progress of thought is comparatively slight, and his writings, even where reinforced by the copious lecture notes taken by his pupils, cannot be said to present a comprehensive philosophic system. None the less he did considerable service by stimulating a spirit of criticism in his pupils, by insisting on the great importance of psychology as opposed to the older metaphysical method, and not least by his recognition of the importance of German philosophy, especially that of Kant. ”

“ In virtue of this assumption Hamilton’s philosophy becomes a “natural realism.” In fact his whole position is a strange compound of Kant and Reid. Its chief practical corollary is the denial of philosophy as a method of attaining absolute knowledge and its relegation to the academic sphere of mental training. The transition from philosophy to theology, i.e. to the sphere of faith, is presented by Hamilton under the analogous relation between the mind and the body. As the mind is to the body, so is the unconditioned Absolute or God to the world of the conditioned. ”

“ In other words, we are not considering the question “what kind are men among the various things which must die?” (as is implied in the form “all men are some mortals”) but “what is the fact about men?” We are not stating a mere identity (see further, e.g., H. W. B. Joseph, Introduction to Logic, 1906, pp. 198 foll.) .
The philosopher to whom above all others Hamilton professed allegiance was Aristotle. His works were the object of his profound and constant study, and supplied in fact the mould in which his whole philosophy was cast. ”

“ The causal concept is, therefore, only one of the ordinary necessary forms of the cognitive consciousness limited, as we have seen, by being confined to that which is relative or conditioned. As regards the problem of the nature of objectivity, Hamilton simply accepts the evidence of consciousness as to the separate existence of the object: “the root of our nature cannot be a lie.” ”

“ The fact, however, that all thought seems to demand the idea of the infinite or absolute provides a sphere for faith, which is thus the specific faculty of theology. It is a weakness characteristic of the human mind that it cannot conceive any phenomenon without a beginning: hence the conception of the causal relation, according to which every phenomenon has its cause in preceding phenomena, and its effect in subsequent phenomena. ”

“ In 1820 he was a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, which had fallen vacant on the death of Thomas Brown, colleague of Dugald Stewart, and the latter’s consequent resignation, but was defeated on political grounds by John Wilson (1785–1854) , the “Christopher North” of Blackwood’s Magazine. Soon afterwards (1821) he was appointed professor of civil history, and as such delivered several courses of lectures on the history of modern Europe and the history of literature. ”

“ As a teacher, he was zealous and successful, and his writings on university organization and reform had, at the time of their appearance, a decisive practical effect, and contain much that is of permanent value.
His posthumous works are his Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, 4 vols., edited by H. L. Mansel, Oxford, and John Veitch (Metaphysics, 1858; Logic, 1860) ; and Additional Notes to Reid’s Works, from Sir W. Hamilton’s MSS., under the editorship of H. L. Mansel, D.D. (1862) . A Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton, by Veitch, appeared in 1869. ”