determined that view for many of them permanently and
irrevocably.[1] Several eminent teachers and writers of the present day
are proud of considering themselves his disciples, enunciate his
doctrines in greater or less proportion, and seldom contradict him
without letting it be seen that they depart unwillingly from such a
leader. Various new phrases and psychological illustrations have
obtained footing in treatises of philosophy, chiefly from his authority.
We do not number ourselves among his followers; but we think his
influence on philosophy was in many ways beneficial. He kept up the idea
of philosophy as a subject to be studied from its own points of view: a
dignity which in earlier times it enjoyed, perhaps, to mischievous
excess, but from which in recent times it has far too much
receded--especially in England. He performed the great service of
labouring strenuously to piece together the past traditions of
philosophy, to re-discover those which had been allowed to drop into
oblivion, and to make out the genealogy of opinions as far as negligent
predecessors had still left the possibility of doing so.

The forty-six lectures on Metaphysics, and the thirty-five lectures on
Logic, published by Messrs Mansel and Veitch, constitute the biennial
course actually delivered by Sir W. Hamilton in the Professorial Chair.
They ought therefore to be looked at chiefly with reference to the minds
of youthful hearers, as preservatives against that mischief forcibly
described by Rousseau--'L'inhabitude de penser dans la jeunesse en ote
la capacite pendant le reste de la vie.'

Now, in a subject so abstract, obscure, and generally unpalatable, as
Logic and Metaphysics, the difficulty which the teacher finds in
inspiring interest is extreme. That Sir W. Hamilton overcame such
difficulty with remarkable success, is the affirmation of his two
editors; and our impression, as readers of his lectures, disposes us to
credit them. That Sir W. Hamilton should have done this effectively is
in itself sufficient to stamp him as a meritorious professor--as a
worthy successor to the chair of Dugald Stewart, whose unrivalled
perfection in that department is attested by every one. Many a man who
ultimately adopted speculative opinions opposed to Dugald Stewart,
received his first impulse and guidance in the path of speculation from
the lasting impression made by Stewart's lectures.

But though we look at these lectures, as they ought to be l