Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet Quotes

Scotus... declares that a man’s knowledge is measured by the amount of his mental activity...

The question—Is Truth, or is the Mental Exercise in the pursuit of truth, the superior end?—this is perhaps the most curious theoretical, and certainly the most important practical, problem in the whole compass of philosophy.

The instructor... does not profess to teach philosophy, but to philosophise.

The one condition under which all powers, and consequently the intellectual faculties, are developed, is exercise.

[I]nstruction is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves.

[T]he sciences always studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress and uncertainty: absolute certainty and absolute completion would be the paralysis of any study; and the last worst calamity that could befall man... would be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual happiness.

The primary principle of education is the determination of the pupil to self-activity — the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself.

The past does not interest, the present does not satisfy, the future alone is the object which engages us.

In life," as the great Pascal observes, "we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we ever seek is agitation.

Be sober, and to doubt prepense,
These are the sinews of good sense.

[T]he paramount end of liberal study is the development of the student’s mind, and... knowledge is principally useful as a mean of determining the faculties to that exercise, through which this development is accomplished... the main duty of a Professor to consist not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner... that the information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties.

Analysis and synthesis, though commonly treated as two different methods, are, if properly understood, only the two necessary parts of the same method. Each is the relative and correlative of the other. Analysis, without a subsequent synthesis, is incomplete; it is a mean cut off from its end. Synthesis, without a previous analysis, is baseless; for synthesis receives from analysis the elements which it recomposes.

On this ground I would rest one of the pre-eminent utilities of mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest objects of our theoretical and moral interest; that every (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced from the philosophy of mind, will be at once admitted.

[U]niversities... have gradually allowed to fall into disuse the powerful means which they possess of rousing the pupil to exertion, and have been too often content to act as mere oral instruments of information...

The intellect," says Aristotle... "is perfected, not by knowledge but by activity..." and... "The arts and sciences are powers, but every power exists only for the sake of action; the end of philosophy... is not knowledge, but the energy conversant about knowledge.