_Lectures on Metaphysics._ By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of
Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by the
Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A.,
Edinburgh. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 8vo.

Few persons, with any pretensions to a knowledge of the metaphysicians
of the century, are unacquainted with Sir William Hamilton. His articles
in the "Edinburgh Review" on Cousin and Dr. Brown, and his Dissertations
on Reid, are the most important contributions to philosophy made in
Great Britain for many years. The present volume contains his Course
of Lectures, forty-six in number, which he delivered as Professor
of Metaphysics; and being intended for young students, they are, as
compared with his other works, more comprehensible without being less
comprehensive. The most conclusive proof of the excellence of these
Lectures is to be found in their influence on the successive classes of
students before whom they were pronounced. The universal testimony of
the young men who were fortunate enough to listen to Hamilton has been,
that his teaching not only inspired them with an enthusiasm for the
science, and gave them clear ideas and accurate information, but
directly aided them in the discipline of their minds. Some of his
students became, later in life, champions of his system; others became
its opponents; but opponents as well as champions warmly professed their
obligations to their instructor, and dated their interest in philosophy
from the period when they were brought by these Lectures within the
contagious sphere of his powerful intellect. So numerous were these
testimonials, that they gradually roused public curiosity to see
and read what was so effective as spoken. That curiosity has now an
opportunity of being gratified, and we do not doubt that these Lectures
will have a greater popularity than usually attends philosophical