every wave of thought or hint or passion, and the golden-gray hair floating on the old man's shoulders." He had no philosophy himself, and so could not impart it to his pupils. But at times he made a profound remark, as when, in the "Noctes," he says: "Honesty is the best policy, but it is only the honest man who will discover this." Hamilton, who was ardently attached to the man, praises his metaphysical acuteness as shown in a review of Brown's theory of cause and effect in "Blackwood" for 1837.

But his true merit consisted in creating a literary taste among his students. He was not a very rigid examiner or exacter of essays, and idle students passed through his class without much severe study. But he read conscientiously the papers given in to him, and was a discerning critic, particularly appreciative of excellence. The more ambitious youths cherished secretly or avowedly the idea that they might be asked by him to write a communication to dear old North for "Blackwood; " but Wilson had to consult the tastes of his readers, and their hopes had often to be disappointed.

Thus did he pass his rather lengthened life, ever looking after the magazine with which he identified himself, lecturing all winter to his students, taking excursions in the summer, and very often dining in company in the evening where the wine and the wit flowed freely, and where he was always the favorite. In 1850 his health began to break down. He retained his universal sympathy all along. His ruling passion was strong in death. "It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed, with the fishing tackle scattered about his bed where he lay propped up with pillows." "How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book; he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old." The prospect of death produced more solemn feelings, and he betook himself to the Bible, "for is not all human nature and all human life shadowed forth in these pages?" The tender and anxious question which he asked concerning Robert Burns, "Did he read his Bible?" may, perhaps, by some be asked about himself. On a little table near his bedside his Bible lay during his whole illness, and was read morning and evening regularly. His servant also read it frequently to him. Thus departed John Wilson, April 2, 1853.

LVII. - SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.1

HE is the most learned of all the Scottish metaphysicians. Not that the Scottish school ought to be described, as it has sometimes been, as ignorant. Hutcheson was a man of learning, as well as of accomplishment, and visibly experienced great delight in quoting the Greek and Roman philosophers, as he walked up and down in his class-room in Glasgow. Adam Smith had vast stores of information; and the ground-plan which he has left of departments of ancient philosophy, and the sketch of the sects which he has given in his "Moral Sentiments," show that he was more competent, had he devoted his attention to the subject, than any man of his age to write a history of philoso phy. Hume had extensive philosophic, as well as historical, knowledge; but he was so accustomed to twist it to perverse uses, that we cannot trust his candor or accuracy. Reid was pre-eminently a well-informed man. His first printed paper was on quantity. He taught in Aberdeen College, according to the system of rotation which continued even to his day, natural as well as moral philosophy; and continued, even in his old age, to be well read on all topics of general interest. Beattie and Campbell were respectable scholars, as well as elegant writers; and the former was reckoned at Oxford, and by the English clergy, as the great expounder, in his day, of sound philosophy. Lord Monboddo was deeply versed in the Greek and Roman philosophies, and in spite of all his paradoxes has often given excellent accounts of their systems. Dugald Stewart was a mathematician as well as a metaphysician; and, if not of very varied, was of very correct, and, altogether, of very competent, ripe, and trustworthy scholarship. Brown was certainly not widely or extensively read in philosophy; but, besides a knowledge of medicine, he had an acquaintance with Roman and with modern French literature. Sir James Mackintosh was familiar with men and manners, was learned in all social questions,

1 Article by Thomas Spencer Baynes in "Edinburgh Essays" by members of the University of Edinburgh; "Memoir of Sir William Hamilton" by John

Veitch.

and had a general, though certainly not a very minute or correct, knowledge of philosophic systems. But, for scholarship, in the technical sense of the term, and, in particular, for the scholarship of philosophy, they were all inferior to Hamilton, who was equal to any of them in the knowledge of Greek and Roman systems, and of the earlier philosophies of modern Europe; and vastly above them in a comprehensive acquaintance with all schools; and standing alone in his knowledge of the more philosophic fathers, such as Tertullian and Augustine; of the more illustrious schoolmen, such as Thomas Aquinas and Scotus; of the writers of the Revival, such as the elder Scaliger; and of the ponderous systems of Kant, and the schools which ramified from him in Germany.

When he was alive, he could always be pointed to as redeeming Scotland from the reproach of being without high scholarship. Oxford had no man to put on the same level. Germany had not a profounder scholar, or one whose judgment in a disputed point could be so relied on. Nor was his the scholarship of mere words: he knew the history of terms, but it was because he was familiar with the history of opinions. In reading his account, for example, of the different meanings which the word "idea" has had, and of the views taken of sense-perception, one feels that his learning is quite equalled by his power of discrimination. No man has ever done more in clearing the literature of philosophy of common-place mistakes, of thefts and impostures. He has shown all of us how dangerous it is to quote without consulting the original, or to adopt, without examination, the common traditions in philosophy; that those who borrow at second hand will be found out; and that those who steal, without acknowledgment, will, sooner or later, be detected and exposed. He experiences a delight in stripping modern authors of their borrowed feathers, and of pursuing stolen goods from one literary thief to another, and giving them back to their original owner. For years to come, ordinary authors will seem learned by drawing from his stores. In incidental discussions,

in foot-notes, and notes on foot-notes, he has scattered nuts which it will take many a scholar many a day to gather and to crack. It will be long before the rays which shine from him will be so scattered and diffused through philosophic literature — as the sunbeams are through the atmosphere—that they shall

become common property, and men shall cease to distinguish the focus from which they have come.

The only other decided lineament of his character that I shall mention is his logical power, including therein all such exercises as abstraction, generalization, division, definition, formal judgment, and deduction. In this respect he may be placed alongside of those who have been most distinguished for this faculty; such as, Aristotle, Saint Thomas, Descartes, Spinoza, Samuel. Clarke, Kant, and Hegel. In directing his thoughts to a subject, he proceeds to divide, distribute, define, and arrange, very much in the manner of Aristotle: take, as an example, his masterly analysis of the primary qualities of matter. He pursues much the same method, in giving the history of opinions, as on the subjects of the principles of common sense and perception. No man ever displayed such admirable examples of Porphyry's tree, reaching from the summum genus to the infima species. It is quite clear that, had he lived in the days of the schoolmen, he would have ranked with the greatest of them, -- with Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Abelard, — and would have been handed down to future generations by such an epithet as Doctor Criticus, Doctor Doctissimus, or Doctor Indomitabilis.

I

Here, however, his strength is his weakness. He attempts far too much by logical differentiation and formalization. No man purposes now to proceed in physical investigation by logical dissection, as was done by Aristotle and the schoolmen. have at times looked into the old compends of physical science which were used in the colleges down even to an age after the time of Newton. Ingenious they were beyond measure, and perfect in form far beyond what Herschel or Faraday have attempted. I am convinced that logical operations can do nearly as little in the mental as they have done in the material sciences. I admit that Sir William Hamilton had deeply observed the operations of the mind, and that his lectures contribute more largely to psychology than any work published in his day. But his induction is too much subordinated to logical arrangement and critical rules. His system will be found, when fully unfolded, to have a completeness such as Reid and Stewart did not pretend to, but it is effected by a logical analysis and synthesis, and much that he has built up will require to be taken down.

We may compare him with the Scotch metaphysician who had the greatest reputation when Hamilton determined to claim a place for himself. Brown and Hamilton are alike in the fame which they attained, in the influence which they exercised over young and ardent spirits, in the interest which they excited in the study of the human mind, and in their success in upholding the reputation of the Scottish colleges for metaphysical pursuits: each had an ambition to be independent, to appear original and establish a system of his own; both were possessed of large powers of ingenuity and acuteness, and delighted to reduce the compound into elements; and each, we may add, had a considerable acquaintance with the physiology of the senses: but in nearly all other respects they widely diverge, and their points of contrast are more marked than their points of correspondence. They differed even in their natural disposition. The one was amiable, gentle, somewhat effeminate, and sensitive, and not much addicted to criticism; the other, as became the descendant of a covenanting hero, was manly, intrepid, resolute, — at times passionate, and abounding in critical strictures, even on those whom he most admires. As to their manner of expounding their views, there could not be a stronger contrast. Both have their attractions; but the one pleases by the changing hues of his fancy and the glow of his sentiment, whereas the other stimulates our intellectual activity by the sharpness of his discussions, and the variety and aptness of his erudition. The one abounds in illustrations, and excites himself into eloquence and his readers into enthusiasm: the other is brief and curt; seldom giving us a concrete example; restraining all emotion, except it be passion at times; never deigning to warm the students by a flash of rhetoric; and presenting only the naked truth, that it may allure by its own charms. If we lose the meaning of the one, it is in a blaze of light, in a cloud of words, or in repeated repetitions the quickest thinkers are not always sure that they understand the other, because of the brevity of his style, and the compression of his matter; and his admirers are found poring over his notes, as the ancients did over the responses of their oracles. The one helps us up the hill, by many a winding in his path, and allows us many a retrospect, when we might become weary, and where the view is most expanded; whereas