The Metaphysics of Sir William Hamilton

of Philosophy ? The causes of philosophy lie in the original elements of our constitution. We are created with the faculty of knowledge, and, consequently, created with the tendency to exert it. Man philosophizes as he lives. He may philosophize well or ill, but philosophize he must . Philosophy can, indeed, only be assailed through philosophy itself. " If," says Aristotle, in a passage preserved to us by Orympiodorus, " we must philosophize, we must philosophize; if we must not philosophize, we must philosophize ; ? in any case, therefore, we must philosophize." " Were philosophy," says Clement of Alexandria, " an evil, still philosophy is to be studied, in order that it may be scientifically contemned." And Averroes, ? " Philosophi solum est spernere philosophiam." Of the causes of philosophy some are, therefore, contained in man's very capacity for knowledge ; these are essential and necessary. But there are others, again, which lie in certain feelings with which he is endowed; these are complementary and assistant. . Essential Causes of Philosophy. ? Of the former class, ? that is, of the essential causes, ? there are in all two: the one is, the necessity we feel to connect Causes with Effects; the other, to carry vp our knowledge into Unity. These tendencies, however, if not identical in their origin, coincide in their result; for, as I have previously explained to you, in ascending fromcause to cause, we necessarily (could we carry our analysis to its is...