ings as they exist, but only as they appear, how can he know that
there is any difference between things as they exist and as they appear?
What is this "_thing in itself_" about which Hamilton has so much to
say, and yet about which he professes to know nothing? We readily
understand what is meant by the _thing_; it is the object as existing--a
substance manifesting certain characteristic qualities. But what is
meant by _in itself_? There can be no _in itself_ besides or beyond the
_thing_. If Hamilton means that "the thing itself" is the thing apart
from all relation, and devoid of all properties or qualities, we do not
acknowledge any such thing. A thing apart from all relation, and devoid
of all qualities, is simply pure nothing, if such a solecism may be
permitted. With such a definition of Being _in se_, the logic of Hegel
is invincible, "Being and Nothing are identical."

And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely
_unknown_, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what
right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its
predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in
relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain
that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be
inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially _known_? And it is obvious,
notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that
Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The
external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total
object of consciousness."[310] The primary qualities of matter are known
as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid
necessity out of the simple datum of _substance occupying space_."[311]
"The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are
the attributes of _body as body_," and as such "are known immediately in
themselves,"[312] as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that
we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as
they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an _a
priori_ manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary
Qualities may be deduced _a priori_; they being, in fact, only
evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If,
then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves,"
"the things themselves" must also b