modified by their relation to each
other. The composition is not a mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which
each part, though acting on the other, retains its own characteristics
unchanged. It may be rather likened to a chemical fusion, in which both
elements are present, but each of them is affected by the composition.
The material part, therefore, is not "as much absolute as if it were not
liable to be mixed up with subjective impressions."

But we must hear the continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism:--

"The admixture of the relative element not only does not take away
the absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our
author is right) prevent us from recognising it. The confusion,
according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us to 'analyse and
distinguish what elements' in an 'act of knowledge' are contributed
by the object, and what by our organs, or by the mind. We may
neglect to do this, and as far as the mind's share is concerned, we
can only do it by the help of philosophy; but it is a task to
which, in his opinion, philosophy is equal. By thus stripping off
such of the elements in our apparent cognitions of things as are
but cognitions of something in us, and consequently relative, we
may succeed in uncovering the pure nucleus, the direct intuitions
of things in themselves; as we correct the observed positions of
the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error due to the refracting
influence of the atmospheric medium, an influence which does not
alter the facts, but only our perception of them."

Surely Mr. Mill here demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton
deems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant,
distinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and
contingent--in other words, between the subjective and the objective
elements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a "direct
intuition of things in themselves?" Why may he not distinguish between
space and time as the forms of our sensitive cognitions, and the things
perceived in space and time, which constitute the matter of the same
cognitions, without thereby having an intuition, on the one hand, of pure
space and time with nothing in them, or on the other, of things in
themselves out of space and time? If certain elements are always present
in perception, while certain others change with every act, I may surely
infer that the one is due to the perm