HAMILTON. 505 HAMILTON. for their artistic merit. Ilis first collection wag sold in 1772 to the Hritish Museum for X8400, tind formed the nucleus of llu> present depart- ment of C4reek and Roman antiquities. Tlii.s collection was described hy D'Hauearville, in AiitUjuitcs (trusiiues, grcajucs et romaines (t vols., Naples, 17(i(!()7; and 2d ed.. Florence, 1801- 08). In 1787 he resumed collecting, and in 17ilS sent a second collection to England for sale, but the vessel was wrecked, and only about two-thirds of the cases were recovered. The whole of the col- lection was drawn by Tischbein in his Colled ian of Engravings from (Jrcck Vases . . . in the Possession of Sir 11". Hamillon (Naples, 1791 et seq.). From 1793 to 1800 Hamilton took an ac- tive part in the di|ilomaey of the Court of Naples, but his health failed, and in 1800 he was recalled. A claim upon the British Government for special services was not allowed, but he was granted a pension of £1200. Hamilton's first wife was Miss Barlow, who died in 1782. In 1791 he married his mistress, Emma Lyon, who as Lady Hamil- ton is prominent in the life of Lord Nelson. HAMILTON, Sir William (1788-1850). An eminent philosopher of the Scottish school. He was born Mareli 8, 1788, at Glasgow, where his father, Dr. William Hamilton, and his grand- father. Dr. Thomas Hamilton, held in succession the chairs of anatomy and botany. After gain- ing distinction, especially in the philosophical classes, at Glasgow, he went in 1807 to Balliol College, Oxford, as a Snell exhibitioner, and made a brilliant record for himself as a student of literature. He left Oxford in 1810, and in- stead of going into the practice of medicine, which he had studied, he became a member of the Scotch bar in 181."?, but seems never to have had any practice in his profession except what became incumbent on him afterwards, on being appointed Crown solicitor of the Court ofTeinds. In 1820, on the death of Dr. Brown, he was an unsuccessful competitor for the chair of moral philosophy in Edinburgh. In the following year, however, Hamilton was appointed to the profes- sorship of history in that university. He took part in 1827 in the discussion of the scientific value of phrenology, and made careful investiga- tions for himself of the brains of various animals in order to iiecome acquainted at first hand with the facts of the case. In 1829 there appeared in the Edinhurgh Review a critique of Cousin's Vours de Philosophie of the previous year, in which was developed Hamilton's famous doctrine of the infinite. The critique, which was en- titled "The Philosophy of the Unconditioned," immediately drew attention to him from philoso- phers both in Great Britain and on the Continent. For some years after this Hamilton was a regu- lar contributor to the Edinburgh Revicic. writing articles on philosophy, literature, medicine, edu- cation, and university reform. Many of these contributions were translated into German, French, and Italian. In 18.52 they were all edited by Hamilton himself, w'ith large notes and ap- pendices, .under the title of Diseiissions in Philos- ophy and Literature. Education, and Universitg Reform. In 18.36, after a severe contest, Hamil- ton was elected to the chair of logic and meta- physics in Edinhurgh. In 184fi he pulilishcd in two volumes The Works of Thoma.'i Rcid. care- fully edited with notes and supplementary de- scriptions, which give fairly satisfactory views of his own philosophy. Extensive notes of his university lectures were t.aken by his students, numerous copies of them, transcribed from sliorl- hand reports, were in circulation during the later years of his life, and formed the basis of Mansel and Veitch's edition. In 1844 he had a stroke of paral3'sis. He was, however, able, with an assistant, to perform the duties of his class till the close of session 1855-50, when his health suddenly became worse. He died .May Otli. In logic Hamilton proposed the so-called doctrine of 'the quantification of the predicate' in allirnia- tive propositions. In his view the ])rcdicale of every proposition has a definite logical quantity assigned to it in thought, and an explicit state- ment of this quantity simplifies logical opera- tions. In this contention, Hamilton may properly be regarded as the forerunner of the algeljraic school of logicians. (See Logic.) His psycholo- gy was a cumbersome analysis of psychic opera- tions that perhaps went to the .extreme length of "faculty psychology.' In philo.sopby be was an exponent of the common sense Scottish school, but in some respects he went beyond the tradition of the school. Agreeing with Reid that 'the root of our nature cannot be a lie,' and that the deliverance of consciousness must be trusted, he accepted a na'ive .sort of natural realism, maintaining that we are directly con- scious of the existence of external objects and of ourselves. And yet knowledge is often all relative. "To think is to condition." In this doctrine of the relativity of knowledge consists his departure from Scottisli traditions, and it led him to maintain in the spirit of Kant that the unconditioned cannot be known. God is an object of faith, not of knowledge. Pliilosophy, according to Hamilton, cannot say whether God is absolutely limited or absolutely unlimited. One or the other He nuist be, for between contradictions there is no compromise ; but either characteristic is inconceivable. Again, our conception of causality is notliing positive. It is notliing but the inatiility of the mind to conceive an absolute beginning. So the infinity of space and time is the inability of the mind to conceive a point when space comes to an end or a moment after which time shall be no more. But this inability to think is no test of unreality. Thus philosophy is only a learned ignorance (docta ignorantia) , or a well-assured conviction of the limits of our knowledge. In many ways this re- minds one of Kant, from whom Hamilton indeed learned much. Some historians have character- ized his philosophy as a hopeless attempt to unite the 'common sense' of Reid with the criti- cism of Kant. His philosophy of relativity changed in the hands of Herbert S])encer, who gave nj) 'common sense,' into agnosticism. Con- sult: Veitch, Memoir of .S'/c William Hamilton (London, 1869) ; id., Hamilton, in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics (Edinburgh, 1879) ; and Hamilton, the Man and His Philosnphu (ib., 1883) ; .J. S. Jlill, Examination of Sir ivilliani Hamilton's Philosophy (London, 18781 : Mnrti- neau. Reviews and Addresses, vol. iii. (London, 1891) ; A. Seth, Seotti.ih Philosophy ( F.dinlmrgb, 1890) ; Stirling, iS'ir Willium Hamilton (London, 1805) ; Monck, Sir William Hamilton (New York, 1881). His principal writings are acces- sible in the four volumes of lectures edited by Mansel and Veitch, reprinted in two volumes
