deny the
predicate, 'active and fertile thinker,' of Sir W. Hamilton, we cannot
acquiesce in it. His intellect appears to us thoroughly active and
fertile, even when we dissent from his reasonings--nay, even in the
midst of his inconsistencies, when a new growth of opinions is
unexpectedly pushed up on ground which we supposed to be already
pre-occupied by another both older and different. And we find this same
judgment implied in the discriminating remarks upon his philosophical
procedure made by Mr Mill himself--(pp. 271, 272). For example,
respecting Causality and the Freedom of the Will, we detect no want of
activity and fertility, though marked evidence of other
defects--especially the unconditional surrender of a powerful mind to
certain privileged inspirations, worshipped as 'necessities of thought.'

While thus declaring how far we concur in the parallel here drawn of Sir
W. Hamilton with Brown and Whately, we must at the same time add that
the comparison is taken under circumstances unduly favourable to these
two last. There has been no exposure of _their_ errors and
inconsistencies, equal in penetration and completeness to the crushing
volume which Mr Mill has devoted to Sir W. Hamilton. To make the odds
fair, he ought to furnish a similar systematic examination to Brown and
Whately; enabling us to read their works (as we now do those of Sir W.
Hamilton) with the advantage of his unrivalled microscope, which detects
the minutest breach or incoherence in the tissue of reasoning--and of
his large command of philosophical premisses, which brings into full
notice what the author had overlooked. Thus alone could the competition
between the three be rendered perfectly fair.

We regret, as Mr Mill does, that Sir W. Hamilton did not undertake the
composition of a history of philosophy. Nevertheless we must confess
that we should hardly feel such regret, if we could see evidence to
warrant Mr Mill's judgment (p. 554) that Sir W. Hamilton was
'indifferent to the [Greek: dihoti] of a man's opinions, and that he was
incompetent to draw up an estimate of the opinions of any great
thinker,' &c. Such incompetence, if proved to be frequent and
considerable, would deprive an author of all chance of success in
writing a history of philosophy. But the study of Sir William Hamilton's
works does not prove it to us, though Mr Mill has convicted him of an
erroneous estimate of Leibnitz. We say _frequent_ and _considerable_,
becaus