An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and of the Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed in His Writings Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 edition. Excerpt: ... sublimity and beauty, would require much study, and a wide survey of the subject, as well as of the speculations of other thinkers regarding it. The question has no direct connection with any other of those discussed in the present volume, and but a slight one with SirW. Hamilton's merits as a philosopher; since the brevity with which he treats it, gives ground for believing that he had not bestowed on it the amount of thought which would enable his opinion to claim the rank of a philosophic theory. CHAPTER XXVI. OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. The last of the three classes of mental phenomena, that of Conation, in other words, of Desire and Will, is barely commenced upon in the last pages of Sir W. Hamilton's last lecture: whether it be that in the many years during which he taught the class, he never got beyond this point, or that his teaching in the concluding part of the course was purely oral, and has not been preserved. Nor has he, in any of his writings, treated ex professo of this subject; though doubtless he would have done so, had his health permitted him to complete the Dissertations on Reid. We consequently know little of what his sentiments were on any of the topics comprised in this branch of Pyschology, except the vexata qucestto of the Freedom of the Will; on which he could not help giving indications, in various parts of his works, both of his opinion and of the reasons on which he grounded it. The doctrine of Free-will was indeed so fundamental with him, that it may be regarded as the central idea of his system -- the determining cause of most of his philosophical opinions; and, in a peculiar manner, of the two which are most completely emanations from his own mind, the Law of the Conditioned, and his singular theory of...