The circumstance that the following remarks were originally published as an anonymous article in a Review, will best explain the style in which they are written. Absence from England prevented me from becoming acquainted with Mr. Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy till some time after its publication; and when I was requested to undertake the task of reviewing it, I was still ignorant of its contents. On proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon discovered, not only that th

The reader of Plato’s Republic will readily recall to mind that wonderful passage at the end of the sixth book, in which the philosopher, under the image of geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations of the intelligible to the sensible world; especially his lofty aspirations with regard to “that second segment of the intelligible world, which reason of itself grasps by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses, not as principles, but as veritable hypotheses, that is to say, as steps an

It was not till after the preceding pages had been sent to press that I became acquainted with a little work recently published under the title of The Battle of the two Philosophies, by an Inquirer . The author appears to have been a personal pupil of Sir W. Hamilton’s, as well as a diligent student of his writings. At all events, he has “inquired” to some purpose, and obtained a far more intelligent knowledge of Hamilton’s system than is exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is gratif