would be thought of an argument to this effect? No men were ever known to have wings; therefore all men have actually wings! That is the form of argument which Mr Cairns represents Sir W. Hamilton as using to establish the independency of matter. The conclusion may be true, but it certainly does not follow from the premises. I have shown what Sir William's argument really is, when stated explicitly; for he himself, as has been said, is exceedingly reserved, ambiguous, and inconsistent: it is the argument from knowledge to existence, that is, the argument which maintains that if we know a thing to exist in a particular way, we may reasonably conclude that it does exist in that particular way. Mr Cairns will find a passage bearing on this point in Hamilton's Discussions, p. 89, 2d Ed., where he reproves certain philosophers for holding that we have no knowledge of matter, but only a belief of it; and also in p. 94, where Sir William, defending Reid against the sceptic and idealist, declares that he agrees with him (Reid) in holding "that we have, as we believe we have, an immediate knowledge of the external reality"—of course a knowledge of it in its independency—for, as has been already said, what sort of refutation of scepticism or idealism would it be to argue:—We have a cognizance of matter in its non-independency, therefore it is independent? I admit that Sir William contends, in other places, that we have a knowledge of matter only in its relation to ourselves: so that here Mr Cairns may be debited only with a blunder.
The third result of my system, according to Mr Cairns, is this:—
"III. That it denies the separate existence of Mind, while it has only proved that Mind cannot know without some object of knowledge."
The new philosophy denies the separate existence of mind only in this sense,—that it holds the word mind to be an expression of nonsense, when this mind is represented as existing in no state at all, or with no thoughts or things of any kind present to it. It does not however hold the mind thus circumstanced—
