Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/461

 448 CRITICAL NOTICES : consisting to a certain extent of Hamilton's own words ; but placing these summaries within marks of quotation is calculated to mislead the reader, and make him suppose that he is dealing with Hamilton's words, when in point of fact the words are often widely distinct from those of Hamilton. Some of these summary- quotations I have failed to identify, though the author has indi- cated between what pages they are to be found. In other cases I have only identified a summary-quotation to find it a summary- misquotation. For instance, in describing Hamilton's distinction between knowledge and consciousness, the author informs us (within marks of quotation) that " in an act of knowledge my attention may be fixed either on the object-known or on the subject-knowing, and this act of knowledge in relation to the knowing-subject is called knowledge " (p. 52). Nor is this a mere slip of the pen, for the author has told us immediately before (also within marks of quotation) that according to Hamif- ton "pleasure and pain, desire and volition, are phenomena absolutely new and superadded to consciousness, and were never involved in, and could therefore never be evolved out of it " (p. 51 ; see also p. 41). Indeed, throughout the work the Hamil- tonian distinction between knowledge and consciousness is not merely misunderstood, but inverted, and the inversion is usually described as a quotation. When the author has occasion to refer to the same passage for the second time, he refers not to the original work, but to his own previous note. Thus at p. 83 we find : u In note 17 Hamilton speaks of ' the whole divisible mental phenomena,' " the reference being not to any writing of Hamilton's, but to the author's own note numbered 17. And his talent for misquotation is such that sometimes he actually mis- quotes his own note. Thus, after italicising a word which Hamilton uses in his summary-quotation at p. 24, he alters this very word in quoting his own note at p. 125. As a specimen of the absurdities attributed to Hamilton in these summary-quota- tions, I may refer to p. 115, where he is represented as saying : " A complex or collective notion is made up of the repetition of the notion of an army, &c.". But the author is, in fact, as little accurate in his own language as in that which he ascribes to others. I find him speaking at p. 63 of the subject, predicate and conclusion as forming " a syllogistic whole " which by intuition we view in space. This is enough to make the hair of a logician stand on end. Other authors fare no better than Hamilton. Not only the page, but even the name of the book cited is not given, and " W. Thomson," I believe, at one time stands for the Archbishop of York and at another for Sir William Thomson, while " Stewart " is applied indifferently to Dugald and Balfour. In short, the best advice that I can give to the reader is to dis- card the quotations (or summary-quotations) altogether, and deal with the work as if it was an original treatise, not a criticism, and as if it emanated from an independent School of Philosophy