e 301: "Discussions," p. 21.]

It is manifest, however, that Hamilton does employ these terms as
synonymous, and this we apprehend is the first false step in his
philosophy of the conditioned. "All our knowledge is of the relative
_or_ phenomenal." Throughout the whole of Lectures VIII. and IX., in
which he explains the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge,
these terms are used as precisely analogous. Now, in opposition to this,
we maintain that the relative is not always the phenomenal. A thing may
be "in relation" and yet not be a phenomenon. "The subject or substance"
may be, and really is, on the admission of Hamilton himself,
_correlated_ to the phenomenon. The ego, "the conscious _subject_"[302]
as a "_self-subsisting entity_" is necessarily related to the phenomena
of thought, feeling, etc.; but no one would repudiate the idea that the
conscious subject is a mere phenomenon, or "series of phenomena," with
more indignation than Hamilton. Notwithstanding the contradictory
assertion, "that the _subject_ is unknown," he still teaches, with equal
positiveness, "that in every act of perception I am conscious of self,
as a perceiving _subject."_ And still more explicitly he says: "As
clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious, at
every moment of my existence, that the conscious Ego is not itself a
mere modification [a phenomenon], nor a series of modifications
[phenomena], but that it is itself different from all its modifications,
and a _self-subsisting entity_."[303] Again: "Thought is possible only
in and through the consciousness of Self. The Self, the I, is recognized
in every act of intelligence as the _subject_ to which the act belongs.
It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that remember, etc.; these
special modes are all only the phenomena of the I."[304] We are,
therefore, conscious of the _subject_ in the most immediate, and direct,
and intuitive manner, and the subject of which we are conscious can not
be "_unknown_." We regret that so distinguished a philosophy should deal
in such palpable contradictions; but it is the inevitable consequence of
violating that fundamental principle of philosophy on which Hamilton so
frequently and earnestly insists, viz., "that the testimony of
consciousness must be accepted in all its integrity".

[Footnote 302: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton (edited by O.W.
Wight), p. 181.]

[Footnote 303: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 373.]