Note (return) — Chapter VII

And now, if "the thing in itself" be, as Hamilton says it is, absolutely unknown, how can he affirm or deny any thing in regard to it? By what right does he prejudge a hidden reality, and give or refuse its predicates; as, for example, that it is conditioned or unconditioned, in relation or aloof from relation, finite or infinite? Is it not plain that, in declaring a thing in its inmost nature or essence to be inscrutable, it is assumed to be partially known? And it is obvious, notwithstanding some unguarded expressions to the contrary, that Hamilton does regard "the thing in itself" as partially known. "The external reality" is, at least, six elements out of twelve in the "total object of consciousness." 310 The primary qualities of matter are known as in the things themselves; "they develop themselves with rigid necessity out of the simple datum of substance occupying space." 311 "The Primary Qualities are apprehended as they are in bodies"--"they are the attributes of body as body," and as such "are known immediately in themselves," 312 as well as mediately by their effects upon us. So that we not only know by direct consciousness certain properties of things as they exist in things themselves, but we can also deduce them in an à priori manner. "The bare notion of matter being given, the Primary Qualities may be deduced à priori; they being, in fact, only evolutions of the conditions which that notion necessarily implies." If, then, we know the qualities of things as "in the things themselves," "the things themselves" must also be, at least, partially known; and Hamilton can not consistently assert the relativity of all knowledge. Even if it be granted that our cognitions of objects are only in part dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements superadded by our organism, or by our minds, it can not warrant the assertion that all our knowledge, but only the part so added, is relative. "The admixture of the relative element not only does not take away the absolute character of the remainder, but does not even (if our author is right) prevent us from recognizing it. The confusion, according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us 'to analyze and distinguish what elements,' in an 'act of knowledge,' are contributed by the object, and what by the organs or by the mind." 313