ive cognition of the Unconditioned as a
regulative principle of thought, prepared the way for the systems of
Schelling and Hegel, in which this indirect cognition is converted into a
direct one, by investing the reason, thus distinguished as the special
faculty of the unconditioned, with a power of intuition emancipated from
the conditions of space and time, and even of subject and object, or a
power of thought emancipated from the laws of identity and
contradiction.

[AA] The term _absolute_, in the sense of _free from
relation_, may be used in two applications;--1st, To
denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as
distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used
only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation
to human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a
thing as independent of all other things, as having no
relation to any other thing as the condition of its
existence. Here it is used in its highest sense, as
meaning out of relation to anything else.

The theory of Hamilton is a modification of that of Kant, intended to
obviate these consequences, and to relieve the Kantian doctrine itself
from the inconsistency which gave rise to them. So long as the reason is
regarded as a separate faculty from the understanding, and things in
themselves as ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions,
which encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be
regarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the
result of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical
conclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting the distinction
between the understanding and the reason as separate faculties, regarding
the one as the legitimate and positive, the other as the illegitimate and
negative, exercise of one and the same faculty. He thus announces, in
opposition to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the Conditioned, as "the
distinction between intelligence _within_ its legitimate sphere of
operation, impeccable, and intelligence _beyond_ that sphere, affording
(by abuse) the occasions of error."[AB] Hamilton, like Kant, maintained
that all our cognitions are compounded of two elements, one contributed
by the object known, and the other by the mind knowing. But the very
conception of a relation implies the existence of things to be related;
and the knowledge of an object, as in relatio