LECTURES

ON

METAPHYSICS AND LOGIC

BY

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART.

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH ;
ADVOCATE, A. M. (OXON.), ETC.; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; HONORARY
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES; AND OF THE
LATIN SOCIETY of JENA, ETC.

EDITED BY

THE REV. HENRY L. MANSEL, B. D., OXFORD,

AND

JOHN VEITCH, M. A., EDINBURGH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

METAPHYSICS.

BOSTON:

GOULD AND LINCOLN,

59 WASHINGTON STREET.

NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY.
CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD.

1859.

LECTURES

ON

METAPHYSICS

BY

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART.

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

EDITED BY THE

REV. HENRY LONGUEVILLE MANSEL, B. D., OXFORD,

KF46016

HARVARD UNIVERSITY,

Philos. Dept. Library,

Harvard College Library,

22 May, 1890.
From the Library of
PROF. E. W, GURNEY ·

AUTHORIZATION.

MESSRS. GOULD AND LINCOLN, OF BOSTON, UNITED STATES, ARE EXCLUSIVELY AUTHOR-
IZED BY ME TO PUBLISH IN AMERICA THE LECTURES, METAPHYSICAL AND LOGICAL,
OF THE LATE SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, bart.

16 GREAT KING STREET,

EDINBURGH, 14 SEPT., 1858.

HUBERT HAMILTON.

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY

W. F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS.

PREFACE.

THE following Lectures on Metaphysics constitute the first portion of the Biennial Course which the lamented Author was in the habit of delivering during the period of his occupation of the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics, in the University of Edinburgh. The Lectures on Logic, which were delivered in the alternate years, will follow as soon as they can be prepared for publication.

In giving these Lectures to the world, it is due, both to the Author and to his readers, to acknowledge that they do not appear in that state of completeness which might have been expected, had they been prepared for publication by the Author himself. As Lectures on Metaphysics, whether that term be taken in its wider or its stricter sense, they are confessedly imperfect. The Author himself, adopting the Kantian division of the mental faculties into those of Knowledge, Feeling, and Conation, considers the Philosophy of Mind as comprehending, in relation to each of these, the three great subdivisions of Psychology, or the Science of the Phænomena of Mind; Nomology, or the Science of its Laws; and Ontology, or the Science of Results and Inferences.1 The term Metaphysics, in its strictest sense, is synonymous with the last of these subdivisions; while, in its widest sense, it may be regarded as including the first also, the second

1 See below, Lecture vii., p. 86 et seq.

B