deal knowledge of business. In 176Ghe was disappointed in his effort to obtain the mathematical chair at Aberdeen university, but three years later he gave up business pur suits and accepted the rectorship of Perth academy. In 1779 he was presented to the chair of natural philosophy at Aberdeen university. For many years, however, by private arrangement with his colleague Professor Copland, Hamilton taught the class of mathematics. In 1817 he was presented to the latter chair. For some years before his death in July 1829 he had retired from the active business of his chair, and quitted his privacy only at rare intervals to take part in important affairs concerning the
college.
Hamilton s most important work is the Essay on the National Debt, which appeared in 1813 and was undoubtedly the first to expose the economic fallacies involved in Pitt s policy of a sinking fund. It is still of value. A posthumous volume published in 1830, The Progress of Society, is also of great ability, and is a very effective treatment of economical principles by tracing their natural origin and position in the development of social life. Some minor works of a practical character (Introduction to Merchandize, 1778 ; Essay on War and Peace, 1790) are now forgotten.
HAMILTON, Thomas (1789–1842), the author of Cyril Thornton, was the younger brother of Professor Sir William Hamilton, Bart., and was born in 1789. In his early years he acquired a thorough mastery of the classics, and notwithstanding that he entered the artillery and was engaged in active service throughout the Peninsular and American campaigns, he continued to cultivate his literary tastes. On the conclusion of peace he withdrew, with the rank of captain, from active professional duties, and amused his leisure hours with the congenial pastime of literature. He was a frequent contributor to Elackwood s Magazine from its commencement, his papers manifesting great variety and versatility of talent, and embracing both prose and poetry. The most important and popular of his contributions to that periodical was the military novel Cyril Thornton, whose deficiency of plot is sufficiently compensated for by the interest of its details, its vivacity of movement, its truthful and clever delineation of character, and its easy, fresh, and graceful style. His Annals of the Peninsular Campaign, published originally in 1829, and republished in 1849 with additions by Frederick Hardman, though too condensed to leave room for graphic description, is written with great clearness and impartiality. His only other work, Men and Manners in America, published originally in 1832, is the result of much careful observation, and its criticisms, though frank and outspoken, and somewhat coloured by British prejudice, are always expressed with courtesy and good taste. He died at Pisa, December 7, 1842.
HAMILTON, Sir William, Bart. (1788–1856), one of the most eminent of Scottish metaphysicians, was born in Glasgow, on the 8th March 1788. His father, Dr William Hamilton, had in 1781, on the strong recommendation of the celebrated William Hunter, been appointed to succeed his father, Dr Thomas Hamilton, as professor of anatomy in the university of Glasgow; and when he died in 1790, in his thirty-second year, he had already gained a reputa tion that caused his early death to be widely and deeply regretted. William Hamilton and a younger brother (after wards Captain Thomas Hamilton, noticed above) were thus brought up under the sole care of their mother, a woman, fortunately, of considerable ability and force of character. William received his early education in Scotland, except during two years which he spent in a private school near London, and went in 1807, as a Snell exhibitioner, to Balliol College, Oxford. There he pursued his studies zealously, though for the most part independently, devoting himself chiefly to Aristotle, but in other directions also laying the foundations of that wide and profound scholarship with which his name is associated. In November 1810 he took the degree of B.A. with first-class honours, after an examination so much above the usual standard in the number and difficulty of the works which it embraced that the memory of it was long preserved at Oxford. He had been intended for the medical profession, but, soon after leaving Oxford, gave up this idea, and in 1813 became a member of the Scottish bar. Henceforward Edinburgh was his place of residence, and, except on occa sion of two short visits to Germany in 1817 and 1821, he never again quitted Scotland. Neither his ambition nor his success was such as to absorb his time in professional pursuits. His life was mainly that of a student ; and the following years, marked by little of outward incident, were rilled by researches of all kinds, through which he daily added to his stores of learning, while at the same time he was gradually forming his philosophic system. The out ward and visible traces of these researches remain in his common-place books, especially in one which, having been in constant use, is a valuable record of his studies from this time onwards to the close of his life. He did not withdraw himself from society, but his favourite com panions were the books of his own and of every library within his reach. Among these he lived in a sort of seclusion, from which only now and then, when stirred by some event of the world around, did he come forth, in vigorous pamphlets, to denounce, or protest, or remonstrate, as the case might be.
His own investigations enabled him to make good his claim to represent the ancient family of Hamilton of Preston, and in 1816 he took up the baronetcy, which had lain dormant since the death (in 1701) of Sir Robert Hamilton, well known in his day as a Covenanting leader.
of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh. Soon afterwards he was appointed professor of civil history, and as such delivered several courses of lectures on the history of modern Europe and the history of literature. In 1829 his career of authorship began with the appearance of the well- known essay on the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, the first of a series of articles contributed by him to the Edin burgh Review. He was elected in 1836 to the Edinburgh chair of logic and metaphysics, and from this time dates the influence which, during the next twenty years, he exerted over the thought of the younger generation in Scotland. Much about the same time he began the preparation of an annotated edition of Reid s works, intending to annex to it a number of dissertations. Before, however, this design had been carried out, he was struck with paralysis of the right side, which seriously crippled his bodily powers, though it left his mind wholly unimpaired. The edition of Reid appeared in 1846, but with only seven of the intended dis sertations, the last, too, unfinished. It was Sir William s distinct purpose to complete the work, but this purpose re mained at his death unfulfilled, and all that could be done afterwards was to print such materials for the remainder, or such notes on the subjects to be discussed, as were found among his MSS. Considerably before this time he had formed his theory of logic, the leading principles of which were indicated in the prospectus of " an essay on a new analytic of logical forms " prefixed to his edition of Reid. But the elaboration of the scheme in its details and appli cations continued during the next few years to occupy much of his leisure. Out of this arose in 1847 a sharp con troversy with the late Professor De Morgan of University College, London. The essay did not appear, but the re sults of the labour gone through are contained in the valuable appendices to his Lectures on Logic. Another occupation of these years was the preparation of extensive materials for a publication which he designed on the per
sonal history, influence, and opinions of Luther. Here he