Part 13

HAMILTON, JOHN (c. 1511-1571), Scottish prelate and politician, was a natural son of James Hamilton, 1st earl of Arran. At a very early age he became a monk and abbot of Paisley, and after studying in Paris he returned to Scotland, where he soon rose to a position of power and influence under his half-brother, the regent Arran. He was made keeper of the privy seal in 1543 and bishop of Dunkeld two years later; in 1546 he followed David Beaton as archbishop of St Andrews, and about the same time he became treasurer of the kingdom. He made vigorous efforts to stay the growth of Protestantism, but with one or two exceptions "persecution was not the policy of Archbishop Hamilton," and in the interests of the Roman Catholic religion a catechism called _Hamilton's Catechism_ (published with an introduction by T. G. Law in 1884) was drawn up and printed, possibly at his instigation. Having incurred the displeasure of the Protestants, now the dominant party in Scotland, the archbishop was imprisoned in 1563. After his release he was an active partisan of Mary queen of Scots; he baptized the infant James, afterwards King James VI., and pronounced the divorce of the queen from Bothwell. He was present at the battle of Langside, and some time later took refuge in Dumbarton Castle. Here he was seized, and on the charge of being concerned in the murders of Lord Darnley and the regent Murray he was tried, and hanged on the 6th of April 1571. The archbishop had three children by his mistress, Grizzel Sempill.

HAMILTON, PATRICK (1504-1528), Scottish divine, second son of Sir Patrick Hamilton, well known in Scottish chivalry, and of Catherine Stewart, daughter of Alexander, duke of Albany, second son of James II. of Scotland, was born in the diocese of Glasgow, probably at bis father's estate of Stanehouse in Lanarkshire. He was educated probably at Linlithgow. In 1517 he was appointed titular abbot of Ferne, Ross-shire; and it was probably about the same year that he went to study at Paris, for his name is found in an ancient list of those who graduated there in 1520. It was doubtless in Paris, where Luther's writings were already exciting much discussion, that he received the germs of the doctrines he was afterwards to uphold. From Alexander Ales we learn that Hamilton subsequently went to Louvain, attracted probably by the fame of Erasmus, who in 1521 had his headquarters there. Returning to Scotland, the young scholar naturally selected St Andrews, the capital of the church and of learning, as his residence. On the 9th of June 1523 he became a member of the university of St Andrews, and on the 3rd of October 1524 he was admitted to its faculty of arts. There Hamilton attained such influence that he was permitted to conduct as precentor a musical mass of his own composition in the cathedral. But the reformed doctrines had now obtained a firm hold on the young abbot, and he was eager to communicate them to his fellow-countrymen. Early in 1527 the attention of James Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews, was directed to the heretical preaching of the young priest, whereupon he ordered that Hamilton should be formally summoned and accused. Hamilton fled to Germany, first visiting Luther at Wittenberg, and afterwards enrolling himself as a student, under Franz Lambert of Avignon, in the new university of Marburg, opened on the 30th of May 1527 by Philip, landgrave of Hesse. Hermann von dem Busche, one of the contributors to the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_, John Frith and Tyndale were among those whom he met there. Late in the autumn of 1527 Hamilton returned to Scotland, bold in the conviction of the truth of his principles. He went first to his brother's house at Kincavel, near Linlithgow, in which town he preached frequently, and soon afterwards he married a young lady of noble rank, whose name has not come down to us. Beaton, avoiding open violence through fear of Hamilton's high connexions, invited him to a conference at St Andrews. The reformer, predicting that he was going to confirm the pious in the true doctrine by his death, resolutely accepted the invitation, and for nearly a month was permitted to preach and dispute, perhaps in order to provide material for accusation. At length, however, he was summoned before a council of bishops and clergy presided over by the archbishop; there were thirteen charges, seven of which were based on the doctrines affirmed in the _Loci communes_. On examination Hamilton maintained that these were undoubtedly true. The council condemned him as a heretic on the whole thirteen charges. Hamilton was seized, and, it is said, surrendered to the soldiery on an assurance that he would be restored to his friends without injury. The council convicted him, after a sham disputation with Friar Campbell, and handed him over to the secular power. The sentence was carried out on the same day (February 29, 1528) lest he should be rescued by his friends, and he was burned at the stake as a heretic. His courageous bearing attracted more attention than ever to the doctrines for which he suffered, and greatly helped to spread the Reformation in Scotland. The "reek of Patrick Hamilton infected all it blew on." His martyrdom is singular in this respect, that he represented in Scotland almost alone the Lutheran stage of the Reformation. His only book was entitled _Loci communes_, known as "Patrick's Places." It set forth the doctrine of justification by faith and the contrast between the gospel and the law in a series of clear-cut propositions. It is to be found in Foxs's _Acts and Monuments_.

HAMILTON, ROBERT (1743-1829), Scottish economist and mathematician, was born at Pilrig, Edinburgh, on the 11th of June 1743. His grandfather, William Hamilton, principal of Edinburgh University, had been a professor of divinity. Having completed his education at the university of Edinburgh, where he was distinguished in mathematics, Robert was induced to enter a banking-house in order to acquire a practical knowledge of business, but his ambition was really academic. In 1769 he gave up business pursuits and accepted the rectorship of Perth academy. In 1779 he was presented to the chair of natural philosophy at Aberdeen University. For many years, however, by private arrangement with his colleague Professor Copland, Hamilton taught the class of mathematics. In 1817 he was presented to the latter chair.

Hamilton's most important work is the _Essay on the National Debt_, which appeared in 1813 and was undoubtedly the first to expose the economic fallacies involved in Pitt's policy of a sinking fund. It is still of value. A posthumous volume published in 1830, _The Progress of Society_, is also of great ability, and is a very effective treatment of economical principles by tracing their natural origin and position in the development of social life. Some minor works of a practical character (_Introduction to Merchandise_, 1777; _Essay on War and Peace_, 1790) are now forgotten.

HAMILTON, THOMAS (1789-1842), Scottish writer, younger brother of the philosopher, Sir William Hamilton, Bart., was born in 1789. He was educated at Glasgow University, where he made a close friend of Michael Scott, the author of _Tom Cringle's Log_. He entered the army in 1810, and served throughout the Peninsular and American campaigns, but continued to cultivate his literary tastes. On the conclusion of peace he withdrew, with the rank of captain, from active service. He contributed both prose and verse to _Blackwood's Magazine_, in which appeared his vigorous and popular military novel, _Cyril Thornton_ (1827). His _Annals of the Peninsular Campaign_, published originally in 1829, and republished in 1849 with additions by Frederick Hardman, is written with great clearness and impartiality. His only other work, _Men and Manners in America_, published originally in 1833, is somewhat coloured by British prejudice, and by the author's aristocratic dislike of a democracy. Hamilton died at Pisa on the 7th of December 1842.

HAMILTON, WILLIAM (1704-1754), Scottish poet, the author of "The Braes of Yarrow," was born in 1704 at Bangour in Linlithgowshire, the son of James Hamilton of Bangour, a member of the Scottish bar. As early as 1724 we find him contributing to Allan Ramsay's _Tea Table Miscellany_. In 1745 Hamilton joined the cause of Prince Charles, and though it is doubtful whether he actually bore arms, he celebrated the battle of Prestonpans in verse. After the disaster of Culloden he lurked for several months in the Highlands and escaped to France; but in 1749 the influence of his friends procured him permission to return to Scotland, and in the following year he obtained possession of the family estate of Bangour. The state of his health compelled him, however, to live abroad, and he died at Lyons on the 25th of March 1754. He was buried in the Abbey Church of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh. He was twice married--"into families of distinction" says the preface of the authorized edition of his poems.

Hamilton left behind him a considerable number of poems, none of them except "The Braes of Yarrow" of striking originality. The collection is composed of odes, epitaphs, short pieces of translation, songs, and occasional verses. The longest is "Contemplation, or the Triumph of Love" (about 500 lines). The first edition was published without his permission by Foulis (Glasgow, 1748), and introduced by a preface from the pen of Adam Smith. Another edition with corrections by himself was brought out by his friends in 1760, and to this was prefixed a portrait engraved by Robert Strange.

In 1850 James Paterson edited _The Poems and Songs of William Hamilton_. This volume contains several poems till then unpublished, and gives a life of the author.

HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM (1730-1803), British diplomatist and archaeologist, son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, governor of Greenwich hospital and of Jamaica, was born in Scotland on the 13th of December 1730, and served in the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards from 1747 to 1758. He left the army after his marriage with Miss Barlow, a Welsh heiress from whom he inherited an estate near Swansea upon her death in 1782. Their only child, a daughter, died in 1775. From 1761 to 1764 he was member of parliament for Midhurst, but in the latter year he was appointed envoy to the court of Naples, a post which he held for thirty-six years--until his recall in 1800. During the greater part of this time the official duties of the minister were of small importance. It was enough that the representative of the British crown should be a man of the world whose means enabled him to entertain on a handsome scale. Hamilton was admirably qualified for these duties, being an amiable and accomplished man, who took an intelligent interest in science and art. In 1766 he became a member of the Royal Society, and between that year and 1780 he contributed to its Philosophical Transactions a series of observations on the action of volcanoes, which he had made, or caused to be made, at Vesuvius and Etna. He employed a draftsman named Fabris to make studies of the eruption of 1775 and 1776, and a Dominican, Resina, to make observations at a later period. He published several treatises on earthquakes and volcanoes between 1776 and 1783. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Dilettanti, and a notable collector. Many of his treasures went to enrich the British Museum. In 1772 he was made a knight of the Bath. The last ten years of his life presented a curious contrast to the elegant peace of those which had preceded them. In 1791 he married Emma Lyon (see the separate article on Lady Hamilton). The outbreak of the French Revolution and the rapid extension of the revolutionary movement in Western Europe soon overwhelmed Naples. It was a misfortune for Sir William that he was left to meet the very trying political and diplomatic conditions which arose after 1793. His health had begun to break down, and he suffered from bilious fevers. Sir William was in fact in a state approaching dotage before his recall, a fact which, combined with his senile devotion to Lady Hamilton, has to be considered in accounting for his extraordinary complaisance in her relations with Nelson. He died on the 6th of April 1803.

See E. Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_ (London, 1870); and the authorities given in the article on Emma, Lady Hamilton.

HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1788-1856), Scottish metaphysician, was born in Glasgow on the 8th of March 1788. His father, Dr William Hamilton, had in 1781, on the strong recommendation of the celebrated William Hunter, been appointed to succeed _his_ father, Dr Thomas Hamilton, as professor of anatomy in the university of Glasgow; and when he died in 1790, in his thirty-second year, he had already gained a great reputation. William Hamilton and a younger brother (afterwards Captain Thomas Hamilton, q.v.) were thus brought up under the sole care of their mother. William received his early education in Scotland, except during two years which he spent in a private school near London, and went in 1807, as a Snell exhibitioner, to Balliol College, Oxford. He obtained a first-class _in literis humanioribus_ and took the degree of B.A. in 1811, M.A. in 1814. He had been intended for the medical profession, but soon after leaving Oxford he gave up this idea, and in 1813 became a member of the Scottish bar. His life, however, was mainly that of a student; and the following years, marked by little of outward incident, were filled by researches of all kinds, through which he daily added to his stores of learning, while at the same time he was gradually forming his philosophic system. Investigation enabled him to make good his claim to represent the ancient family of Hamilton of Preston, and in 1816 he took up the baronetcy, which had been in abeyance since the death of Sir Robert Hamilton of Preston (1650-1701), well known in his day as a Covenanting leader.

Two visits to Germany in 1817 and 1820 led to his taking up the study of German and later on that of contemporary German philosophy, which was then almost entirely neglected in the British universities. In 1820 he was a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, which had fallen vacant on the death of Thomas Brown, colleague of Dugald Stewart, and the latter's consequent resignation, but was defeated on political grounds by John Wilson (1785-1854), the "Christopher North" of _Blackwood's Magazine_. Soon afterwards (1821) he was appointed professor of civil history, and as such delivered several courses of lectures on the history of modern Europe and the history of literature. The salary was L100 a year, derived from a local beer tax, and was discontinued after a time. No pupils were compelled to attend, the class dwindled, and Hamilton gave it up when the salary ceased. In January 1827 he suffered a severe loss in the death of his mother, to whom he had been a devoted son. In March 1828 he married his cousin Janet Marshall.

In 1829 his career of authorship began with the appearance of the well-known essay on the "Philosophy of the Unconditioned" (a critique of Comte's _Cours de philosophie_)--the first of a series of articles contributed by him to the _Edinburgh Review_. He was elected in 1836 to the Edinburgh chair of logic and metaphysics, and from this time dates the influence which, during the next twenty years, he exerted over the thought of the younger generation in Scotland. Much about the same time he began the preparation of an annotated edition of Reid's works, intending to annex to it a number of dissertations. Before, however, this design had been carried out, he was struck (1844) with paralysis of the right side, which seriously crippled his bodily powers, though it left his mind wholly unimpaired. The edition of Reid appeared in 1846, but with only seven of the intended dissertations--the last, too, unfinished. It was his distinct purpose to complete the work, but this purpose remained at his death unfulfilled, and all that could be done afterwards was to print such materials for the remainder, or such notes on the subjects to be discussed, as were found among his MSS. Considerably before this time he had formed his theory of logic, the leading principles of which were indicated in the prospectus of "an essay on a new analytic of logical forms" prefixed to his edition of Reid. But the elaboration of the scheme in its details and applications continued during the next few years to occupy much of his leisure. Out of this arose a sharp controversy with Augustus de Morgan. The essay did not appear, but the results of the labour gone through are contained in the appendices to his _Lectures on Logic_. Another occupation of these years was the preparation of extensive materials for a publication which he designed on the personal history, influence and opinions of Luther. Here he advanced so far as to have planned and partly carried out the arrangement of the work; but it did not go further, and still remains in MS. In 1852-1853 appeared the first and second editions of his _Discussions in Philosophy, Literature and Education_, a reprint, with large additions, of his contributions to the _Edinburgh Review_. Soon after, his general health began to fail. Still, however, aided now as ever by his devoted wife, he persevered in literary labour; and during 1854-1855 he brought out nine volumes of a new edition of Stewart's works. The only remaining volume was to have contained a memoir of Stewart, but this he did not live to write. He taught his class for the last time in the winter of 1855-1856. Shortly after the close of the session he was taken ill, and on the 6th of May 1856 he died in Edinburgh.

Hamilton's positive contribution to the progress of thought is comparatively slight, and his writings, even where reinforced by the copious lecture notes taken by his pupils, cannot be said to present a comprehensive philosophic system. None the less he did considerable service by stimulating a spirit of criticism in his pupils, by insisting on the great importance of psychology as opposed to the older metaphysical method, and not least by his recognition of the importance of German philosophy, especially that of Kant. By far his most important work was his "Philosophy of the Unconditioned," the development of the principle that for the human finite mind there can be no knowledge of the Infinite. The basis of his whole argument is the thesis, "To think is to condition." Deeply impressed with Kant's antithesis between subject and object, the knowing and the known, Hamilton laid down the principle that every object is known only in virtue of its relations to other objects (see RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE). From this it follows limitless time, space, power and so forth are humanly speaking inconceivable. The fact, however, that all thought seems to demand the idea of the infinite or absolute provides a sphere for faith, which is thus the specific faculty of theology. It is a weakness characteristic of the human mind that it cannot conceive any phenomenon without a beginning: hence the conception of the causal relation, according to which every phenomenon has its cause in preceding phenomena, and its effect in subsequent phenomena. The causal concept is, therefore, only one of the ordinary necessary forms of the cognitive consciousness limited, as we have seen, by being confined to that which is relative or conditioned. As regards the problem of the nature of objectivity, Hamilton simply accepts the evidence of consciousness as to the separate existence of the object: "the root of our nature cannot be a lie." In virtue of this assumption Hamilton's philosophy becomes a "natural realism." In fact his whole position is a strange compound of Kant and Reid. Its chief practical corollary is the denial of philosophy as a method of attaining absolute knowledge and its relegation to the academic sphere of mental training. The transition from philosophy to theology, i.e. to the sphere of faith, is presented by Hamilton under the analogous relation between the mind and the body. As the mind is to the body, so is the unconditioned Absolute or God to the world of the conditioned. Consciousness, itself a conditioned phenomenon, must derive from or depend on some different thing prior to or behind material phenomena. Curiously enough, however, Hamilton does not explain how it comes about that God, who in the terms of the analogy bears to the conditioned mind the relation which the conditioned mind bears to its objects, can Himself be unconditioned. He can be regarded only as related to consciousness, and in so far is, therefore, not absolute or unconditioned. Thus the very principles of Hamilton's philosophy are apparently violated in his theological argument.

Hamilton regarded logic as a purely formal science; it seemed to him an unscientific mixing together of heterogeneous elements to treat as parts of the same science the formal and the material conditions of knowledge. He was quite ready to allow that on this view logic cannot be used as a means of discovering or guaranteeing facts, even the most general, and expressly asserted that it has to do, not with the objective validity, but only with the mutual relations, of judgments. He further held that induction and deduction are correlative processes of formal logic, each resting on the necessities of thought and deriving thence its several laws. The only logical laws which he recognized were the three axioms of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, which he regarded as severally phases of one general condition of the possibility of existence and, therefore, of thought. The law of reason and consequent he considered not as different, but merely as expressing metaphysically what these express logically. He added as a postulate--which in his theory was of importance--"that logic be allowed to state explicitly what is thought implicitly."

In logic, Hamilton is known chiefly as the inventor of the doctrine of the "quantification of the predicate," i.e. that the judgment "All A is B" should really mean "All A is _all_ B," whereas the ordinary universal proposition should be stated "All A is _some_ B." This view, which was supported by Stanley Jevons, is fundamentally at fault since it implies that the predicate is thought of in its extension; in point of fact when a judgment is made, e.g. about men, that they are mortal ("All men are mortal"), the intention is to _attribute a quality_ (i.e. the predicate is used in connotation). In other words, we are not considering the question "what kind are men among the various things which must die?" (as is implied in the form "all men are some mortals") but "what is the fact about men?" We are not stating a mere identity (see further, e.g., H. W. B. Joseph, _Introduction to Logic_, 1906, pp. 198 foll.).