serted that in perception we are conscious of the external object,
immediately and _in itself_." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness
be unconditionally admitted--_if the intuitive knowledge of matter and
mind_, and the consequent reality of their antithesis, be taken as
truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without
any hypothesis or demonstration, the _reality of mind_ and the _reality
of matter_."[289]

[Footnote 287: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.]

[Footnote 288: Ibid., p. 181.]

[Footnote 289: Ibid., pp. 34, 182.]

Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge
of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a
real, "self-subsisting entity," and a knowledge of "an external reality,
immediately and _in itself_," it seems unaccountably strange that
Hamilton should assert "_that all human knowledge, consequently all
human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal_;"[290] and that
"_of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing_."[291] Whilst
teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace
secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it
_necessarily tends_ towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same
time asserts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of
philosophy,"[292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the
First Cause.[293] "The Infinite God can not, by us, be comprehended,
conceived, or thought."[294] God, as First Cause, as infinite, as
unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "_The Unknown_." The
science of Real Being--of Being _in se_--of self-subsisting entities, is
declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the
conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after
pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials,
we find Hamilton virtually assuming the same position as Comte and
Mill--_all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena_.

[Footnote 290: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136]

[Footnote 291: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]

[Footnote 292: Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 293: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]

[Footnote 294: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.]

It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William Hamilton rested
upon his able exposition and defense of the doctrine of Natural Realism.
There are, however, indications in his writings that he regarded "the