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    The Messrs . Bxackwood of Edinburgh announce as forthcoming a collected edition of the Works of Professor Wilson , hy his son-in-law , Professor Febrier , of St . Andrews , -whose Institutes ofMetaphysic we notice in another column . There i 9 no announcement yet of Wjxsok ' s " Life , " by his other son-in-law , Professor Aytoun . Messrs . Low , of Edinburgh , have sold 25 , 000 copies of Mrs . Stowe ' s Sunny Memories , notwithstanding that there have teen eight rival editions in the British market . The American issue of the * work consisted , of 30 , 000 copies ; and more are wanted . A monument to the philosopher Schewjing is to be erected in Ragaz , where he died , by the Kaag of Bavabia . The Americans are on * ' the tiptoe of anxious , expectancy" for the Autobiography of the mighty Bajrnum , which

    is ready . The trade in America had ordered ; 66 , 000 copies ; but a quarrel between Babntjm and the publisher has delayed the appearance of the work . Meanwhile , -we see Babmttm has been * giving snatches of his history at public meetings in America ; particularly at one , where , proposing the toast of" Humbug , " he aaalysed his own career , and told all about the Woolly Horse , the Tom Thumb speculation , and so on . Babnum ' s Autobiography will be a great book . In Berlin they seem to have found a literary mine in recent British politics . We have been hearing of the extraordinary success , on th e Berlin stage * , of a drama entitled Pitt and Fox ; and now , under the title of Morton Varney , a Madame ScHLicHTKJSuii . has produced a novel bringing in the Canning , Pjbex , and Melbotxbnb administrations , and in ¦ which King-Wileiam the Fourth , Queen Victoria , and the Duke of " YVelmngtoh figure . The hero of the book is a liberal and popular

    politician , who crushes a conspiracy for the establishment of the Salic Law in En glands places her present Majesty on the throne , and dies before he can he Premier . Robert Owex goes on with hi&New Existence of Man upon the Earth , in the present part of which he quo tea , letters from the late Duke of Kent , and a passage from a work of the Rev * J . Biao StrMSER , now Archbishop of Canterbury , showing the interest "which these personages , amongst others , took in his early career a * Neve Lanark . The opening sentence of the present part of the simple old Socialist ' s work is worth quoting . " Under the only system * " he says , " which has hitherto existed among men , truths of the highest importance to the well-being and happiness of the human race have been , to this period opposed , and often even ; to the most cruel death of the parties who were filled with the holy desire to promulgate those truths . ' The parties , " course , are Socrates , Hess , and Co .

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    "The revolution in Spain has had the effect of a revival in literature . Journalism , of course , felt the first shock of life , and all phases of opinion were soon represented by their organs in the press . For a time the style of the writing was rather declamatory—an outburst after long restraint . But by degrees the tone has subsided into calmness and concentration of thought and purpose . Political and administrative questions are handled with a force and precision that would not discredit the most distinguished veterans of the European press . As the opening of the Cortes approached the light artillery of political satire opened its fire . Three new flying sheets of the Charivari order , to be edited by writers of approved wit and of known liberal opinions , are announced .

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    SCOTTISH METAPHYSICS , PAST AND PRESENT . The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart , Esq ., F . & . & . & ., cfc ,

    of the present century have been usually regarded , however , as the flourishing _ period of Scottish philosophy . To that period belong Hume , Smith , Ifcoid , Stewart , Brown , and others , usually , though somewhat confusedly , classed togetheT as the philosophers of the Scottish school . Nearer our own dny , but- still reputed as labourers in the same vein of Scottish thought , are such men as Mackintosh and James Mill . Till recently , however , a popular impression has been , that with the last of those men the list of Scottish philosophers closed . We havo heard James Mill spoken of as , in this sense , Ultimus Scutorum . _ The improssion , however , has boon altogether erroneous , Scottish metaphysics arc not and never have fcocn dead . The two works , whose titles \\ e > subjoin , are but part of a good donl of evidence , proving that the present generation of Scotchmen arc neither indifferent to the labours of

    their predecessors in this department , nor unproductive themselves in it . The Scottish philosophy of tho present time , however , is certainly very different from the old article of lloid and Stowairt ; and hence , perhaps , tho mistake wo huvo alluded to . The fact is that , after Reid , tho genuine apostolic succession in metaphysics is to be traced not in Scotland , hut in Germany . At tho very tiino when Keidwnsputting together his Philosophy of Common Sen . se , by way of corrective to the scepticism of Hume , Kant took up the same problem iix Germany , and , proceeding after a very dilfcront method , sought to lay n solid foundation for human belief on the vacant space which Had boon cloarud by tho ruthless reasoning of tho bland Caledonian David . Then followed Jucobi , llorbnrt , Fichtc , Scliolling , Hugol , and all the rcsfc of thorn , improving on Kant , picking holes in Kant , carrying out Kant to his consequences , mm accumulating a quantity of thought » nt

    logomachy , before which the English mind of the present day stands appalled , preferring to attack and take any number of Sebastopols rather than have anything to do with such battlements and fastnesses of printed unintelligibility . Coleridge and one or two others took a look at them and into them , and brought back reports . Meanwhile , Scottish thinkers , all unconscious of the stream of German metaphysical speculation , which had flowed out of Kant ' s grand reconsideration of the problems discussed by their countryman Hume , were plodding on > in their own style , commentin g on Reid , fortifying Reid , or differing from Reid . ° Thus Scottish philosophy , as represented by Stewart , Brown , and their successors , though it answered British purposes , no longer contained the true thread or tradition of European metaphysics . To a Pichte ox a He ° -el what such men were doing would have seemed , philosophically speaking ,

    but child's play . It was destined , however , that Scotland should recover the true tradition—that Scottish philosophy should come into rapport with the great German movement of thought that had been so long going on , and , without being staggered out of her national course by the shock of the contact , should yet reinforce herself with a competent knowledge of the main results of that movement , and proceed with the advantage of that knowledge ia her own farther development . The author of this great change- —the father of the new Scottish philosophical movement , if we may call it such—is undoubtedl y Sir William Hamilton , the present Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh . It is to this profound thinker—whose name , after thirty years of labour , is now recognised as that of a man hardly paralleled among his British contemporaries—that Scotland owes it that she has resumed her career

    of philosophical speculation under new auspices . By his philosophical writings in the Edinburgh Review , beginning as far back as 1827 , and since republished ; by his influence as a teacher in Edinburgh University ; and lastly by his wonderful annotations to his edition of Reid ' s works—he has virtually added to Scottish philosophy all that was wanting to bring it up to the point where it could feel itself to be abreast of the philosophy of the Continent , and able to give and take with that philosophy . Slowly , under his influence , the old medley of odds and ends , which in Scotland passed under the general name of the " Science of the Human Mind , " ory sometimes under that of " Metaphysics , " has partitioned itself distinctly into various separate departments— " Metaphysics , " for example , assuming its proper character as the science of the relations of Reason to Being ; Logic , " starting forth clear , as the science of the necessary or formal laws of ' thought ;

    while " Psychology , " as the general science of mental phenomena , has been kept apart from both . And now , in a generation junior to Sir William Hamilton , there are not a few—reitberhis pupils , or men who have been less directly affected by his influence—who accept his definitions and divisions , and take his doctrines as starting-points for their own independent investigations . In fact a vigorous young philosophy is again rising in Scotland . It is characteristic of Sir VViHia ' m Hamilton—as a philosopher singularly fond of linking Ms own speculations to the history of the speculations of his predecessors—that he has consented to be the editor both of Reid and of btewart . Perhaps the- most profound contributions he has yet made tophilosophy are those which he has put forth in the modest form of disquisitions and elucidations appended to his text of Reid . In the present issue of Dugald . Stewart ' s works , there is to be no such interpolation , or addition of . original philosophical matter . Sir " William simply undertakes to collect all Dugald Stewart ' s writings , arrange them , and publish a correct text of them , with verifications of the quotations and references . We certainly wish that , instead of expending his force on this labour of mere editorship , Sir William were going on with his unfinished Notes on

    Reid , or with some other work presenting to the public the results of his own thinking . For a connected exposition of Sir William Hamilton ' s philosophy , however , we fear we must wait till his class-lectures shall be accessible ; and meanwhile , the effect of Sir William ' s occupation in the inferior labour of editing Stewart is , that we shall have a splendid and complete edition of Stewart's works to place in our libraries . With all the growing activity of the new generation of Scottish philosophers , Mv . Ferner ' s Institutes of Metaphysic is certainly a novelty in literature . It is a single , stout , octavo volume of some five hundred pages divided into an ltI ntroduction , ' * and three " Books " or " Sections . " The " Introduction , " which consists of seventy pages , contains preliminary observations , and explains the aim and method of the book . Mr . Fcrrier aims at nothing less than , establishing a connected system of metaphysical truths , which shall take the placo of , or at least modify , all that has been taught hitherto as philosophy by everybody else , since the beginning of time . Thus : —

    Tho general character of this system is , that it is a body of necessary truth . It starts fro-m a single proposition which , it is conceived , in an essential axiom of aU reason , and one which cannot be denied without running against a contradiction . Tho axiom may not bo self-evident in an instant ; "but that , an has been remarked , is no criterion . A moderates degree of reflection , coupled with the observations by which tho proposition is enforced , may satisfy any one tbut its nature is such as has been stated . ]? rom this single proposition , tho wholo system is deduced in a scries of demonstrations , each of . which professes to bo as strict as any demonstration in JSuclld , -while the wholo of them taken together constitute one groat demonstration .. If this rigorous necessity is not thoir character to the very letter , —if thoro is a singlo weak point in tho system , —if thoro bo any one premiss or any one conclusion which is not as certain as that two and two mako four , the wholo ochemo falls to pieces , and must bo given up , root and branch . Everything in perilled on tho protoiiHion that tho scheme is rigidly demonstrated throughout ; for a philosophy is not entitled to exist , unless it can make good this claim . And again ;—

    All otlior systems confcrovort oaoh othor largel y , nnd at many points . This system is incontrovertible , it In conceived , iu ovoiy point . ; but , ut tho very utmost , it in controvortibla only iu its Nfcurting-point , its fundamental position . This , therefore , hucwh to bo no little gain to philosophy , to concentrate nil possibles controversy upon n ninglo point—to gather into on « foous all the diverging laucoH of the foe , and direot them on a single topic . Two ttyatom , us haw boon remarked , holds thin point , no Iohh than all the other / * , to bo indisputable ; but should tlua b « doubted , it , cannot be doubted that it is tho vnly disputable point . Ilouco tliu » ynton » humbly piques Itwulf on having abridged the grounds of philosophical controversy—on having , if not abolished , ut any rate reduced them to their narrowest possible- limits .

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    1070 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 11, 1854, page 1070, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2064/page/14/