Both departed so far from the true Scottish school: but the one went over to France for refinement and sentiment, the other to Germany for abstractions and erudition.If Brown is a mixture of the Scottish and French schools, Hamilton is a union of the schools of Reid and Kant.Brown thought that Reid's influence was too high, and had a secret desire to undermine him and Stewart with him; Hamilton thought that Brown was over-rated, and makes no scruple in avowing that he labors to strip him of the false glory in which he was enveloped; and he took up Reid at the time he was being decried in Scotland, and allowed no man -- but himself -- to censure the commonsense philosopher.Brown had no sense of the merits of Kant, and did his best (along with Stewart) to keep him unknown for an age in Scotland;Hamilton was smitten with a deep admiration of the great German metaphysician, helped to introduce him to the knowledge of Scottish thinkers, was caught in his logical network, and was never able thoroughly to extricate himself.
As to their method of investigation, both employ analysis as their chief instrument, but the one uses a retort and proceeds by a sort of chemical composition, while the other employs a lens and works by logical division.In comparison with Reid and Stewart, both erred by excess of decomposition and overlooked essential parts of the phenomenon; but the object of the one was to resolve all mental states into as few powers as possible, whereas the aim of the other was to divide and subdivide a whole into parts, which be again distributes into compartments of a framework provided for them.The one has added to the body of philosophy mainly by his acute analyses of concrete phenomena and by his illuminated illustrations of psychological laws; the other by his vast erudition, which enabled him to dispose under heads the opinions of all philosophers, and by his skill in arranging the facts of consciousness by means of logical division and distribution.
Brown acquired a wide reputation at an early date; but, like those showy members of the female *** who have many admirers but few who make proposals of union, he has had scarcely any professing to follow him throughout.His most distinguished pupil, Dr.Welsh, was possessed of a fine philosophic spirit, but abandoned Scotch metaphysics for phrenology and for theological and ecclesiastical studies.
Several eminent {421} men, not pupils, have been influenced by Brown.Payne's work on Mental and Moral Science is drawn largely from his lectures.Isaac Taylor, in his "Elements of Thought," has adopted some of his peculiarities.Chalmers had to prepare his lectures Oil moral philosophy when Brown's name was blazing high in Scotland, and, feeling an intense admiration of his eloquence and of the purity of his ethical system, has followed him perhaps further than he should have done, but has been kept from following him in several most important points by his attachment to Reid and Butler.John Stuart Mill has got the very defective metaphysics which underlies and weakens much of his logic from his father, James Mill, from Brown, and from Comte.
Still, Brown has no school and few professed disciples.It is different with Hamilton.His influence, if not so extensive -- to use a favorite distinction of his own -- has been more comprehensive.His articles in the " Edinburgh Review were above the comprehension, and still further above the tastes, of the great body even of metaphysical students in Great Britain when they appeared between 1829 and 1833.
But they were translated by M.Peisse into the French language, and there were penetrating minds in Britain, America, and the Continent which speedily discovered the learning and capacity of one who could write such dissertations.By the force of his genius he raised up a body of pupils ready to defend him and to propagate his influence.He has had a school and disciples, as the Greek philosophers had in ancient times, and as such men as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Kant have had in modern times.His pupils employ his distinctions and delight in his nomenclature: their speech everywhere "bewrayeth" them.Some of them, it is true, remind us of a modern soldier in mediaeval coat of mail, and move very cumbrously under the ponderous armor of their master; but, as a whole, they constituted an able and influential school of abstract philosophy.Some of them seem incapable of looking on any subject except through the well-cut lenses which Hamilton has provided for them others seem dissatisfied with his negative conclusions, and with his rejection a la Kant of final cause as a proof of the divine existence, but then, do not seem to have the courage to examine and separate the truth from the error in that doctrine of relativity on which his whole system is founded.{422}
While Hamilton has thus been establishing a school and acquiring an authority, it has not been without protest.In saying so, I do not refer to the criticisms of his attacks on the character and doctrines of Luther, which have been repelled by Archdeacon Hare and others, but to opposition offered to his philosophic principles.There has been a general dissent even by disciples, such as Mansel, from his doctrine of causation, and, if this tenet is undermined, his elaborate scheme of systematized "Conditions of the Thinkable" is laid in ruins.Dr.Calderwood has opposed his negative doctrine of the infinite.Others, not pupils, have expressed doubts of his whole theory of relativity.Ulrici, in the leading philosophic journal of Germany, "Zeitschrift fur Philosophie" (1855), has charged him with departing in his method from the standpoint of Scotland, with giving in to the critical method of Kant, and ploughing with the German heifer, and alleges that he or his school must advance with Germany.As the unkindest cut of all, Mr.
