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+Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by H. L. Mansel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+Title: The Philosophy of the Conditioned
+
+Author: H. L. Mansel
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2009 [EBook #28484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Tim Krajcar and the Online
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+
+                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED
+
+      Reprinted, with Additions, from "The Contemporary Review."
+
+    _Comprising some Remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_
+       _and on Mr. J.S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy_
+
+                        BY H.L. MANSEL, B.D.
+
+       WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY
+                     IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+                     ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
+                         LONDON AND NEW YORK
+                                 1866
+
+
+
+
+               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The circumstance that the following remarks were originally published as
+an anonymous article in a Review, will best explain the style in which
+they are written. Absence from England prevented me from becoming
+acquainted with Mr. Mill's _Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
+Philosophy_ till some time after its publication; and when I was
+requested to undertake the task of reviewing it, I was still ignorant of
+its contents. On proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon discovered,
+not only that the character of the book was very different from what the
+author's reputation had led me to expect, but also that my task would be
+one, not merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of self-defence. The
+remarks on myself, coming from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and
+reputation, were such as I could not pass over without notice; while, at
+the same time, I felt that my principal duty in this instance was the
+defence of one who was no longer living to defend himself. Under these
+circumstances, the best course appeared to be, to devote the greater
+portion of my article to an exposition and vindication of Sir W.
+Hamilton's teaching; and, in the additional remarks which it was
+necessary to make on the more personal part of the controversy, to speak
+of myself in the third person, as I should have spoken of any other
+writer. The form thus adopted has been retained in the present
+republication, though the article now appears with the name of its
+author.
+
+My original intention of writing a review of the entire book was
+necessarily abandoned as soon as I became acquainted with its contents.
+To have done justice to the whole subject, or to Mr. Mill's treatment of
+it, would have required a volume nearly as large as his own. I therefore
+determined to confine myself to the _Philosophy of the Conditioned_, both
+as the most original and important portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching,
+and as that which occupies the first place in Mr. Mill's _Examination_.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED.
+
+
+The reader of Plato's _Republic_ will readily recall to mind that
+wonderful passage at the end of the sixth book, in which the philosopher,
+under the image of geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations of
+the intelligible to the sensible world; especially his lofty aspirations
+with regard to "that second segment of the intelligible world, which
+reason of itself grasps by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses,
+not as principles, but as veritable hypotheses, that is to say, as steps
+and starting-points, in order that it may ascend _as far as the
+unconditioned_ ([Greek: mechri tou anypothetou]), to the first principle
+of the universe, and having grasped this, may then lay hold of the
+principles next adjacent to it, and so go down to the end, using no
+sensible aids whatever, but employing abstract forms throughout, and
+terminating in forms."
+
+This quotation is important for our present purpose in two ways. In the
+first place, it may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to propitiate
+those plain-spoken English critics who look upon new terms in philosophy
+with the same suspicion with which Jack Cade regarded "a noun and a verb,
+and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear," by
+showing that the head and front of our offending, "the Unconditioned," is
+no modern invention of Teutonic barbarism, but sanctioned even by the
+Attic elegance of a Plato. And in the second place, it contains almost a
+history in miniature of the highest speculations of philosophy, both in
+earlier and in later times, and points out, with a clearness and
+precision the more valuable because uninfluenced by recent controversies,
+the exact field on which the philosophies of the Conditioned and the
+Unconditioned come into collision, and the nature of the problem which
+they both approach from opposite sides.
+
+What is the meaning of this problem, the solution of which Plato proposes
+as the highest aim of philosophy--"to ascend to the unconditioned, and
+thence to deduce the universe of conditioned existence?" The problem has
+assumed different forms at different times: at present we must content
+ourselves with stating it in that in which it will most naturally suggest
+itself to a student of modern philosophy, and in which it has the most
+direct bearing on the subject of the present article.
+
+All consciousness must in the first instance present itself as a relation
+between two constituent parts, the person who is conscious, and the
+thing, whatever it may be, of which he is conscious. This contrast has
+been indicated, directly or indirectly, by various names--mind and
+matter; person and thing; subject and object; or, lastly, in the
+distinction, most convenient for philosophy, however uncouth in sound,
+between self and not self--the _ego_ and the _non-ego_. In order to be
+conscious at all, I must be conscious of something: consciousness thus
+presents itself as the product of two factors, _I_ and _something_. The
+problem of the unconditioned is, briefly stated, to reduce these two
+factors to one.
+
+For it is manifest that, so long as they remain two, we have no
+unconditioned, but a pair of conditioned existences. If the _something_
+of which I am conscious is a separate reality, having qualities and modes
+of action of its own, and thereby determining, or contributing to
+determine, the form which my consciousness of it shall take, my
+consciousness is thereby conditioned, or partly dependent on something
+beyond itself. It is no matter, in this respect, whether the influence is
+direct or indirect--whether, for instance, I see a material tree, or only
+the mental image of a tree. If the nature of the thing in any degree
+determines the character of the image--if the visible form of a tree is
+different from that of a house because the tree itself is different from
+the house, my consciousness is, however remotely, influenced by something
+different from itself, the _ego_ by the _non-ego_. And on the other hand,
+if I, who am conscious, am a real being, distinct from the things of
+which I am conscious--if the conscious mind has a constitution and laws
+of its own by which it acts, and if the mode of its consciousness is in
+any degree determined by those laws, the _non-ego_ is so far conditioned
+by the _ego_; the thing which I see is not seen absolutely and _per se_,
+but in a form partly dependent upon the laws of my vision.
+
+The first step towards the reduction of these two factors to one may
+obviously be made in three different ways. Either the _ego_ may be
+represented as a mode of the _non-ego_, or the _non-ego_ of the _ego_, or
+both of a _tertium quid_, distinct from either. In other words: it may be
+maintained, _first_, that matter is the only real existence; mind and all
+the phenomena of consciousness being really the result solely of material
+laws; the brain, for example, secreting thought as the liver secretes
+bile; and the distinct personal existence of which I am apparently
+conscious being only the result of some such secretion. This is
+_Materialism_, which has then to address itself to the further problem,
+to reduce the various phenomena of matter to some one absolutely first
+principle on which everything else depends. Or it may be maintained,
+_secondly_, that mind is the only real existence; the intercourse which
+we apparently have with a material world being really the result solely
+of the laws of our mental constitution. This is _Idealism_, which again
+has next to attempt to reduce the various phenomena to some one
+immaterial principle. Or it may be maintained, _thirdly_, that real
+existence is to be sought neither in mind as mind nor in matter as
+matter; that both classes of phenomena are but qualities or modes of
+operation of something distinct from both, and on which both alike are
+dependent. Hence arises a third form of philosophy, which, for want of a
+better name, we will call _Indifferentism_, as being a system in which
+the characteristic differences of mind and matter are supposed to
+disappear, being merged in something higher than both.
+
+In using the two former of these terms, we are not speaking of
+Materialism and Idealism as they have always actually manifested
+themselves, but only of the distinguishing principle of these systems
+when pushed to its extreme result. It is quite possible to be a
+materialist or an idealist with respect to the immediate phenomena of
+consciousness, without attempting a philosophy of the Unconditioned at
+all. But it is also possible, and in itself natural, when such a
+philosophy is attempted, to attempt it by means of the same method which
+has approved itself in relation to subordinate inquiries; to make the
+relation between the human mind and its objects the type and image of
+that between the universe and its first principle. And such attempts have
+actually been made, both on the side of Materialism and on that of
+Idealism; and probably would be made oftener, did not counteracting
+causes frequently hinder the logical development of speculative
+principles.
+
+In modern times, and under Christian influences, these several systems
+are almost necessarily identified with inquiries concerning the existence
+and nature of God. The influence of Christianity has been indirectly
+felt, even in speculations prosecuted in apparent independence of it; and
+the admission of an absolute first principle of all things distinct from
+God, or the acknowledgment of a God separate from or derived from the
+first principle of all things, is an absurdity which, since the
+prevalence of Christianity, has become almost impossible, even to
+antichristian systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed, this union of
+philosophy with theology was by no means so imperative. A philosophy like
+that of Greece, which inherited its speculations from a poetical
+theogony, would see no difficulty in attributing to the god or gods of
+its religious belief a secondary and derived existence, dependent on some
+higher and more original principle, and in separating that principle
+itself from all immediate connection with religion. It was possible to
+assume, with the Ionian, a material substance, or, with the Eleatic, an
+indifferent abstraction, as the first principle of things, without
+holding that principle to be God, or, as the only alternative, denying
+the existence of a God; and thus, as Aristotle[A] has observed,
+theologians endeavoured to evade the consequences of their abstract
+principles, by attributing to the chief good a later and derived
+existence, as the poets supposed the supreme God to be of younger birth
+than night and chaos and sea and sky. But to a Christian philosophy, or
+to a philosophy in any way influenced by Christianity, this method of
+evasion is no longer possible. If all conditioned existence is dependent
+on some one first and unconditioned principle, either that principle must
+be identified with God, or our philosophical speculations must fall into
+open and avowed atheism.
+
+  [A]  _Metaph._, xiv. 4.
+
+But at this point the philosophical inquiry comes in contact with another
+line of thought, suggested by a different class of the facts of
+consciousness. As a religious and moral being, man is conscious of a
+relation of a personal character, distinct from any suggested by the
+phenomena of the material world,--a relation to a supreme Personal Being,
+the object of his religious worship, and the source and judge of his
+moral obligations and conduct. To adopt the name of God in an abstract
+speculation merely as a conventional denomination for the highest link in
+the chain of thought, and to believe in Him for the practical purposes of
+worship and obedience, are two very different things; and for the latter,
+though not for the former, the conception of God as a Person is
+indispensable. Were man a being of pure intellect, the problem of the
+Unconditioned would be divested of its chief difficulty; but he is also a
+being of religious and moral faculties, and these also have a claim to be
+satisfied by any valid solution of the problem. Hence the question
+assumes another and a more complex form. How is the one absolute
+existence, to which philosophy aspires, to be identified with the
+personal God demanded by our religious feelings?
+
+Shall we boldly assume that the problem is already solved, and that the
+personal God is the very Unconditioned of which we were in search? This
+is to beg the question, not to answer it. Our conception of a personal
+being, derived as it is from the immediate consciousness of our own
+personality, seems, on examination, to involve conditions incompatible
+with the desired assumption. Personal agency, similar to our own, seems
+to point to something very different from an absolutely first link in a
+chain of phenomena. Our actions, if not determined, are at least
+influenced by motives; and the motive is a prior link in the chain, and a
+condition of the action. Our actions, moreover, take place in time; and
+time, as we conceive it, cannot be regarded as an absolute blank, but as
+a condition in which phenomena take place as past, present, and future.
+Every act taking place in time implies something antecedent to itself;
+and this something, be it what it may, hinders us from regarding the
+subsequent act as absolute and unconditioned. Nay, even time itself,
+apart from the phenomena which it implies, has the same character. If an
+act cannot take place except in time, time is the condition of its taking
+place. To conceive the unconditioned, as the first link in a chain of
+conditioned consequences, it seems necessary that we should conceive
+something out of time, yet followed by time; standing at the beginning of
+all duration and succession, having no antecedent, but followed by a
+series of consequents.
+
+Philosophical theologians have been conscious of this difficulty, almost
+from the earliest date at which philosophy and Christian theology came in
+contact with each other. From a number of testimonies of similar import,
+we select one or two of the most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gregory
+Nyssen says: "It is neither in place nor in time, but before these and
+above these in an unspeakable manner, contemplated itself by itself,
+through faith alone; neither measured by ages, nor moving along with
+times."[B] "In the changes of things," says Augustine, "you will find a
+past and a future; in God you will find a present where past and future
+cannot be."[C] "Eternity," says Aquinas, "has no succession, but exists
+all together."[D] Among divines of the Church of England, we quote two
+names only, but those of the highest:--"The duration of eternity," says
+Bishop Pearson, "is completely indivisible and all at once; so that it is
+ever present, and excludes the other differences of time, past and
+future."[E] And Barrow enumerates among natural modes of being and
+operation far above our reach, "God's eternity without succession,"
+coupling it with "His prescience without necessitation of events."[F]
+But it is needless to multiply authorities for a doctrine so familiar to
+every student of theology.
+
+  [B]  _C. Eunom._, i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser.
+
+  [C]  _In Joann. Evang._, tract. xxxvii. 10.
+
+  [D]  _Summa_, pars. i., qu. x., art. 1.
+
+  [E]  _Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 105.
+
+  [F]  Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God's Judgments.
+
+Thus, then, our two lines of thought have led us to conclusions which, at
+first sight, appear to be contradictory of each other. To be conceived as
+unconditioned, God must be conceived as exempt from action in time: to be
+conceived as a person, if His personality resembles ours, He must be
+conceived as acting in time. Can these two conclusions be reconciled with
+each other; and if not, which of them is to be abandoned? The true answer
+to this question is, we believe, to be found in a distinction which some
+recent critics regard with very little favour,--the distinction between
+Reason and Faith; between the power of _conceiving_ and that of
+_believing_. We cannot, in our present state of knowledge, reconcile
+these two conclusions; yet we are not required to abandon either. We
+cannot conceive the manner in which the unconditioned and the personal
+are united in the Divine Nature; yet we may believe that, in some manner
+unknown to us, they are so united. To conceive the union of two
+attributes in one object of thought, I must be able to conceive them as
+united in some particular manner: when this cannot be done, I may
+nevertheless believe _that_ the union is possible, though I am unable to
+conceive _how_ it is possible. The problem is thus represented as one of
+those Divine mysteries, the character of which is clearly and well
+described in the language of Leibnitz:--"Il en est de même des autres
+mystères, où les esprits modérés trouveront toujours une explication
+suffisante pour croire, et jamais autant qu'il en faut pour comprendre.
+Il nous suffit d'un certain _ce que c'est_ ([Greek: ti esti]) mais le
+_comment_ ([Greek: pôs]) nous passe, et ne nous est point
+nécessaire."[G]
+
+  [G]  _Théodicée, Discours de la Conformité de la Foi avec
+       la Raison, § 56._ Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses
+       the expression _pour comprendre_, for which, in the
+       preceding remarks, we have substituted _to conceive_.
+       The change has been made intentionally, on account of an
+       ambiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as
+       Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the
+       manner in which certain attributes can coexist in an
+       object. But sometimes (to say nothing of other senses)
+       it is used to signify a complete knowledge of an object
+       in all its properties and their consequences, such as it
+       may be questioned whether we have of any object
+       whatever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of
+       much confusion and much captious criticism, is well
+       pointed out by Norris in his _Reason and Faith_ (written
+       in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed. 1697: "When we say that
+       _above reason_ is when we do not comprehend or perceive
+       the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of not
+       comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and
+       extent, so that as many truths should be said to be
+       above reason as we cannot thus thoroughly comprehend and
+       pursue throughout all their consequences and relations
+       to other truths (for then almost everything would be
+       above reason), but only of not comprehending the union
+       or connection of those immediate ideas of which the
+       proposition supposed to be above reason consists."
+       _Comprehension_, as thus explained, answers exactly to
+       the ordinary logical use of the term _conception_, to
+       denote the combination of two or more attributes in an
+       unity of representation. In the same sense, M. Peisse,
+       in the preface to his translation of Hamilton's
+       _Fragments_, p. 98, says,--"Comprendre, c'est voir un
+       terme en rapport avec un autre; c'est voir comme un ce
+       qui est donné comme multiple." This is exactly the
+       sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word
+       _conception_. (See _Reid's Works_, p. 377.)
+
+But this distinction involves a further consequence. If the mysteries of
+the Divine Nature are not apprehended by reason as existing in a
+particular manner (in which case they would be mysteries no longer), but
+are accepted by faith as existing in some manner unknown to us, it
+follows that we do not know God as He is in His absolute nature, but only
+as He is imperfectly represented by those qualities in His creatures
+which are analogous to, but not identical with, His own. If, for example,
+we had a knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is in itself, we
+should know it as existing in a certain manner compatible with
+unconditioned action; and this knowledge of the manner would at once
+transform our conviction from an act of faith to a conception of reason.
+If, on the other hand, the only personality of which we have a positive
+knowledge is our own, and if our own personality can only be conceived as
+conditioned in time, it follows that the Divine Personality, in so far as
+it is exempt from conditions, does not resemble the only personality
+which we directly know, and is not adequately represented by it. This
+necessitates a confession, which, like the distinction which gives rise
+to it, has been vehemently condemned by modern critics, but which has
+been concurred in with singular unanimity by earlier divines of various
+ages and countries,--the confession that the knowledge which man in this
+life can have of God is not a knowledge of the Divine Nature as it is in
+itself, but only of that nature as imperfectly represented through
+analogous qualities in the creature. Were it not that this doctrine has
+been frequently denounced of late as an heretical novelty, we should
+hardly have thought it necessary to cite authorities in proof of its
+antiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will venture to produce a few
+only out of many, selecting not always the most important, but those
+which can be best exhibited _verbatim_ in a short extract.
+
+  CHRYSOSTOM.--_De Incompr. Dei Natura_, Hom. i. 3: "_That_ God is
+  everywhere, I know; and _that_ He is wholly everywhere, I know; but
+  the _how_, I know not: _that_ He is without beginning, ungenerated
+  and eternal, I know; but the _how_, I know not."
+
+  BASIL.--Ep. ccxxxiv.: "That God is, I know; but what is His essence
+  I hold to be above reason. How then am I saved? By faith; and faith
+  is competent to know that God is, not what He is."
+
+  GREGORY NAZIANZEN.--Orat. xxxiv.: "A theologian among the Greeks
+  [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that to conceive God is
+  difficult, to express Him is impossible. ... But I say that it is
+  impossible to express Him, and more impossible to conceive Him."
+  [Compare Patrick, _Works_, vol. iii., p. 39.]
+
+  CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.--Catech. vi. 2: "We declare not what God is,
+  but candidly confess that we know not accurately concerning Him.
+  For in those things which concern God, it is great knowledge to
+  confess our ignorance."
+
+  AUGUSTINE.--Enarr. in Psalm, lxxxv. 8: "God is ineffable; we more
+  easily say what He is not than what He is." Serm, cccxli.: "I call
+  God just, because in human words I find nothing better; for He is
+  beyond justice.... What then is worthily said of God? Some one,
+  perhaps, may reply and say, _that He is just._ But another, with
+  better understanding, may say that even this word is surpassed by
+  His excellence, and that even this is said of Him unworthily,
+  though it be said fittingly according to human capacity."
+
+  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA.--_In Joann. Evang_., 1. ii., c. 5: "For those
+  things which are spoken concerning it [the Divine Nature] are not
+  spoken as they are in very truth, but as the tongue of man can
+  interpret, and as man can hear; for he who sees in an enigma also
+  speaks in an enigma."
+
+  DAMASCENUS.--_De Fide Orthod_., i. 4: "That God is, is manifest;
+  but what He is in His essence and nature is utterly
+  incomprehensible and unknown."
+
+  AQUINAS.--_Summa_, pars. i., qu. xiii., art. 1: "We cannot so name
+  God that the name which denotes Him shall express the Divine
+  Essence as it is, in the same way as the name _man_ expresses in
+  its signification the essence of man as it is." _Ibid._, art. 5:
+  "When the name _wise_ is said of a man, it in a manner describes
+  and comprehends the thing signified: not so, however, when it is
+  said of God; but it leaves the thing signified as uncomprehended
+  and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it is evident
+  that this name _wise_ is not said in the same manner of God and of
+  man. The same is the case with other names; whence no name can be
+  predicated univocally of God and of creatures; yet they are not
+  predicated merely equivocally.... We must say, then, that such
+  names are said of God and of creatures according to analogy, that
+  is, proportion."
+
+  HOOKER.--_Ecc. Pol._, I., ii. 2.--"Dangerous it were for the feeble
+  brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom
+  although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet
+  our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He
+  is, neither can know Him."
+
+  USHER.--_Body of Divinity_, p. 45, Ed. 1645: "Neither is it [the
+  wisdom of God] communicated to any creature, neither can be; for it
+  is unconceivable, as the very essence of God Himself is
+  unconceivable, and unspeakable as it is."
+
+  LEIGHTON.--Theol. Lect. XXI., _Works_, vol. iv., p. 327, Ed. 1830:
+  "Though in the schools they distinguish the Divine attributes or
+  excellences, and that by no means improperly, into communicable and
+  incommunicable; yet we ought so to guard this distinction, as
+  always to remember that those which are called communicable, when
+  applied to God, are not only to be understood in a manner
+  incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also, that in Him
+  they are in reality infinitely different [in the original, _aliud
+  omnino_, _immensum aliud_] from those virtues, or rather, in a
+  matter where the disparity of the subjects is so very great, those
+  shadows of virtues that go under the same name, either in men or
+  angels."
+
+  PEARSON.--_Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 13: "God in Himself is
+  an absolute being, without any relation to creatures, for He was
+  from eternity without any creature, and could, had He willed, be to
+  eternity without creature. But God cannot naturally be known by us
+  otherwise than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under the
+  aspect of dominion, or of cause, or in some other relation."[H]
+
+  BEVERIDGE.--_On the Thirty-nine Articles_, p. 16, Ed. 1846: "But
+  seeing the properties of God do not so much denote what God is, as
+  what we apprehend Him to be in Himself; when the properties of God
+  are predicated one of another, one thing in God is not predicated
+  of another, but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated
+  one of another."
+
+  LESLIE.--_Method with the Deists_, p. 63, Ed. 1745: "What we call
+  _faculties_ in the soul, we call _Persons_ in the Godhead; because
+  there are personal actions attributed to each of them.... And we
+  have no other word whereby to express it; we speak it after the
+  manner of men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those
+  unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its proper
+  essence; therefore we must make allowances, and great ones, when we
+  apply words of our nature to the Infinite and Eternal Being."
+  _Ibid._, p. 64: "By the word _Person_, when applied to God (for
+  want of a proper word whereby to express it), we must mean
+  something infinitely different from personality among men."
+
+  [H]  Bishop Pearson's language is yet more explicit in
+       another passage of the same work, which we give in the
+       original Latin:--"Non dantur pro hoc statu nomina quæ
+       Deum significant quidditative. Patet; quia nomina sunt
+       conceptuum. Non autem dantur in hoc statu conceptus
+       quidditativi de Deo."--(P. 136.)
+
+The system of theology represented by these extracts may, as we think, be
+fairly summed up as follows: We believe that God in His own nature is
+absolute and unconditioned; but we can only positively conceive Him by
+means of relations and conditions suggested by created things. We believe
+that His own nature is simple and uniform, admitting of no distinction
+between various attributes, nor between any attribute and its subject;
+but we can conceive Him only by means of various attributes, distinct
+from the subject and from each other.[I] We believe that in verum, aut
+bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse. His own nature He is exempt from all
+relations of time; but we can conceive Him only by means of ideas and
+terms which imply temporal relations, a past, a present, and a
+future.[J] Our thought, then, must not be taken as the measure and
+limit of our belief: we think by means of relations and conditions
+derived from created things; we believe in an Absolute Being, in whose
+nature these conditions and relations, in some manner unknown to us,
+disappear in a simple and indivisible unity.
+
+  [I]  This will be found most distinctly stated in the context
+       of the extract from Beveridge, and in the citations from
+       St. Augustine given in his notes; to which may be added
+       the following from _De Trinitate_, vi. 7:--"Deus vero
+       multipliciter quidem dicitur magnus, bonus, sapiens,
+       beatus, verus, et quidquid aliud non indigne dici
+       videtur; sed eadem magnitudo ejus est quæ sapientia,
+       non enim mole magnus est, sed virtute; et eadem bonitas
+       quæ sapientia et magnitudo, et eadem veritas quæ illa
+       omnia: et non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum,
+       aut sapientem, aut verum, aut bonum esse, aut omnino
+       ipsum esse."
+
+  [J]  Compare the remarkable words of Bishop Beveridge,
+       _l.c._, "And therefore, though I cannot apprehend His
+       mercy to Abel in the beginning of the world, and His
+       mercy to me now, but as two distinct expressions of His
+       mercy, yet as they are in God, they are but one and the
+       same act,--as they are in God, I say, who is not
+       measured by time, as our apprehensions of Him are, but
+       is Himself eternity; a centre without a circumference,
+       eternity without time."
+
+The most important feature of this philosophical theology, and the one
+which exhibits most clearly the practical difference between reason and
+faith, is that, in dealing with theoretical difficulties, it does not
+appeal to our knowledge, but to our ignorance: it does not profess to
+offer a definite solution; it only tells us that we might find one if we
+knew all. It does not profess, for example, to solve the apparent
+contradiction between God's foreknowledge and man's free will; it does
+not say, "This is the way in which God foreknows, and in this way His
+foreknowledge is reconcileable with human freedom;" it only says, "The
+contradiction is apparent, but need not be real. Freedom is incompatible
+with God's foreknowledge, only on the supposition that God's
+foreknowledge is like man's: if we knew exactly how the one differs from
+the other, we might be able to see that what is incompatible with the one
+is not so with the other. We cannot solve the difficulty, but we can
+believe that there is a solution."
+
+It is this open acknowledgment of our ignorance of the highest things
+which makes this system of philosophy distasteful to many minds: it is
+the absence of any similar acknowledgment which forms the attraction and
+the seductiveness of Pantheism in one way, and of Positivism in another.
+The pantheist is not troubled with the difficulty of reconciling the
+philosophy of the absolute with belief in a personal God; for belief in a
+personal God is no part of his creed. Like the Christian, he may profess
+to acknowledge a first principle, one, and simple, and indivisible, and
+unconditioned; but he has no need to give to this principle the name of
+God, or to invest it with such attributes as are necessary to satisfy
+man's religious wants. His God (so far as he acknowledges one at all) is
+not the first principle and cause of all things, but the aggregate of the
+whole--an universal substance underlying the world of phenomena, or an
+universal process, carried on in and by the changes of things. Hence, as
+Aristotle said of the Eleatics, that, by asserting all things to be one,
+they annihilated causation, which is the production of one thing from
+another, so it may be said of the various schools of Pantheism, that, by
+maintaining all things to be God, they evade rather than solve the great
+problem of philosophy, that of the relation between God and His
+creatures. The positivist, on the other hand, escapes the difficulty by
+an opposite course. He declines all inquiry into reality and causation,
+and maintains that the only office of philosophy is to observe and
+register the invariable relations of succession and similitude in
+phenomena. He does not necessarily deny the existence of God; but his
+personal belief, be it what it may, is a matter of utter indifference to
+his system. Religion and philosophy may perhaps go on side by side; but
+their provinces are wholly distinct, and therefore there is no need to
+attempt a reconciliation between them. God, as a first cause, lives like
+an Epicurean deity in undisturbed ease, apart from the world of
+phenomena, of which alone philosophy can take cognisance: philosophy, as
+the science of phenomena, contents itself with observing the actual state
+of things, without troubling itself to inquire how that state of things
+came into existence. Hence, neither Pantheism nor Positivism is troubled
+to explain the relation of the One to the Many; for the former
+acknowledges only the One, and the latter acknowledges only the Many.
+
+It is between these two systems, both seductive from their apparent
+simplicity, and both simple only by mutilation, that the Philosophy of
+the Conditioned, of which Sir William Hamilton is the representative,
+endeavours to steer a middle course, at the risk of sharing the fate of
+most mediators in a quarrel,--being repudiated and denounced by both
+combatants, because it declares them to be both in the wrong. Against
+Pantheism, which is the natural development of the principle of
+Indifferentism, it enters a solemn protest, by asserting that the
+Absolute must be accepted in philosophy, not as a problem to be solved by
+reason, but as a reality to be believed in, though above reason; and that
+the pseudo-absolute, which Pantheism professes to exhibit in a positive
+conception, is shown, by the very fact of its being so conceived, not to
+be the true Absolute. Against Positivism, which is virtually Materialism,
+it protests no less strongly, maintaining that the philosophy which
+professes to explain the whole of nature by the aid of material laws
+alone, proceeds upon an assumption which does not merely dispense with
+God as a scientific hypothesis, but logically involves consequences which
+lead to a denial of His very existence. Between both extremes, it holds
+an intermediate position, neither aspiring, with Pantheism, to solve the
+problems of the Absolute, nor neglecting them, with Positivism, as
+altogether remote from the field of philosophical inquiry; but
+maintaining that such problems must necessarily arise, and must
+necessarily be taken into account in every adequate survey of human
+nature and human thought, and that philosophy, if it cannot solve them,
+is bound to show why they are insoluble.
+
+Let us hear Hamilton's own words in relation to both the systems which he
+opposes. Against Pantheism, and the Philosophy of the Unconditioned in
+general, he says:--
+
+  "The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes,--two
+  inconditionates, exclusive of each other, _neither of which can be
+  conceived as possible_,[K] but of which, on the principles of
+  contradiction and excluded middle, _one must be admitted as
+  necessary_. On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to
+  be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as
+  conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally
+  possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of
+  the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their
+  mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are
+  thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is
+  not to be constituted into the measure of existence; and are warned
+  from recognising the domain of our knowledge as necessarily
+  co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful
+  revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability
+  to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a
+  belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the
+  sphere of all comprehensible reality."--_Discussions_, p. 15.
+
+  [K]  It must be remembered that, to conceive a thing as
+       possible, we must conceive the manner in which it is
+       possible, but that we may believe in the fact without
+       being able to conceive the manner. Had Hamilton
+       distinctly expressed this, he might have avoided some
+       very groundless criticisms, with which he has been
+       assailed for maintaining a distinction between the
+       provinces of conception and belief.
+
+Against Materialism, and virtually against Positivism in general, he
+says:--
+
+  "If in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty
+  extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter;
+  and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence
+  of an immaterial subject--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original
+  independence of intelligence on matter in the human
+  constitution--in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man be
+  supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both
+  the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer,
+  what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same
+  relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the
+  first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the
+  establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative
+  intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our
+  study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter,
+  only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only not
+  afford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on
+  the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying His
+  existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only
+  intelligence of which we have any experience be a consequent of
+  matter,--on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this order
+  to be reversed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his
+  observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively
+  conclude that, as in man, so in the universe, the phenomena of
+  intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products
+  of a brute necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out
+  fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in
+  theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry
+  More, _Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus_. I
+  do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny or
+  actually disbelieve a God. For, in very many cases, this would be
+  at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an
+  unmerited reproach to their faith."--_Lectures_, vol. i, p.
+  31.[L]
+
+  [L]  This part of Hamilton's teaching is altogether
+       repudiated by a recent writer, who, strangely enough,
+       professes to be his disciple, while rejecting all that
+       is really characteristic of his philosophy. Mr. Herbert
+       Spencer, in his work on _First Principles_, endeavours
+       to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism
+       and Positivism together, by adopting the negative
+       portion only of his philosophy--in which, in common with
+       many other writers, he declares the absolute to be
+       inconceivable by the mere intellect,--and rejecting the
+       positive portions, in which he most emphatically
+       maintains that the belief in a personal God is
+       imperatively demanded by the facts of our moral and
+       emotional consciousness. Mr. Spencer regards religion as
+       nothing more than a consciousness of natural facts as
+       being in their ultimate genesis unaccountable--a theory
+       which is simply a combination of the positivist
+       doctrine, that we know only the relations of phenomena,
+       with the pantheist assumption of the name of God to
+       denote the substance or power which lies beyond
+       phenomena. No theory can be more opposed to the
+       philosophy of the conditioned than this. Sir W.
+       Hamilton's fundamental principle is, that consciousness
+       must be accepted entire, and that the moral and
+       religious feelings, which are the primary source of our
+       belief in a personal God, are in no way invalidated by
+       the merely negative inferences which have deluded men
+       into the assumption of an impersonal absolute; the
+       latter not being legitimate deductions from
+       consciousness rightly interpreted. Mr. Spencer, on the
+       other hand, takes these negative inferences as the only
+       basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton's great
+       principle of the distinction between knowledge and
+       belief, by quietly dropping out of his system the facts
+       of consciousness which make such a distinction
+       necessary. His whole system is, in fact, a pertinent
+       illustration of Hamilton's remark, that "the phenomena
+       of matter" [and of mind, he might add, treated by
+       materialistic methods], "taken by themselves (you will
+       observe the qualification, taken by themselves), so far
+       from warranting any inference to the existence of a God,
+       would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his
+       negation." Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the
+       freedom of the will; and this, according to Hamilton,
+       leads by logical consequence to Atheism.
+
+In the few places in which Hamilton speaks directly as a theologian, his
+language is in agreement with the general voice of Catholic theology down
+to the end of the seventeenth century, some specimens of which have been
+given on a previous page. Thus he says (_Discussions_, p. 15): "True,
+therefore, are the declarations of a pious philosophy,--'A God understood
+would be no God at all;' 'To think that God is, as we can think Him to
+be, is blasphemy.' The Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed; in a
+certain sense is concealed: He is at once known and unknown. But the last
+and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar [Greek:
+Agnôstô Theô]--'_To the unknown and unknowable God._'" A little later
+(p. 20) he says: "We should not recoil to the opposite extreme; and
+though man be not identical with the Deity, still is he 'created in the
+image of God.' It is, indeed, only through an analogy of the human with
+the Divine nature, that we are percipient and recipient of Divinity." In
+the first of these passages we have an echo of the language of Basil, the
+two Cyrils, and John Damascene, and of our own Hooker and Usher; while in
+the second we find the counter truth, intimated by Augustine and other
+Fathers,[M] and clearly stated by Aquinas, and which in the last
+century was elaborately expounded in the _Divine Analogy_ of Bishop
+Browne,--namely, that though we know not God in His own nature, yet are
+we not wholly ignorant of Him, but may attain to an imperfect knowledge
+of Him through the analogy between human things and Divine.
+
+  [M]  As _e.g._, by Tertullian (_Adv. Marc._, l. ii., c. 16):
+       "Et hæc ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod
+       eosdem motos et sensus habeat humanus animus quos et
+       Deus, licet non tales quales Deus: pro substantia enim,
+       et status eorum et exitus distant." And by Gregory
+       Nazianzen, Orat. xxxvii.: "[Greek: Ônomasamen gar hôs
+       hêmin ephikton ek tôn hêmeterôn ta tou Theou]" And
+       by Hilary, _De Trin._, i. 19: "Comparatio enim
+       terrenorum ad Deum nulla est; sed infirmitas nostræ
+       intelligentiæ cogit species quasdam ex inferioribus,
+       tanquam superiorum indices quærere; ut rerum
+       familiarium consuetudine admovente, ex sensus nostri
+       conscientia ad insoliti sensus opinionem educeremur."
+
+As regards theological results, therefore, there is nothing novel or
+peculiar in Hamilton's teaching; nor was he one who would have regarded
+novelty in theology as a recommendation. The peculiarity of his system,
+by which his reputation as a philosopher must ultimately stand or fall,
+is the manner in which he endeavoured to connect these theological
+conclusions with psychological principles; and thus to vindicate on
+philosophical grounds the position which Catholic divines had been
+compelled to take in the interests of dogmatic truth. That the absolute
+nature of God, as a supertemporal and yet personal Being, must be
+believed in as a fact, though inaccessible to reason as regards the
+manner of its possibility, is a position admitted, almost without
+exception, by divines who acknowledge the mystery of a personal
+Absolute--still more by those who acknowledge the yet deeper mystery of a
+Trinity in Unity. "We believe and know," says Bishop Sanderson of the
+mysteries of the Christian faith, "and that with fulness of assurance,
+that all these things are so as they are revealed in the Holy Scriptures,
+because the mouth of God, who is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath
+spoken them; and our own reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit
+ourselves and it to _the obedience of faith_, for the [Greek: to hoti],
+that so it is. But then, for the [Greek: to pôs], Nicodemus his
+question, _How can these things be?_ it is no more possible for our weak
+understandings to comprehend that, than it is for the eyes of bats or
+owls to look steadfastly upon the body of the sun, when he shineth forth
+in his greatest strength."[N] This distinction Hamilton endeavoured to
+extend from the domain of Christian theology to that of philosophical
+speculation in general; to show that the unconditioned, as it is
+suggested in philosophy, no less than as it connects itself with revealed
+religion, is an object of belief, not of positive conception; and,
+consequently, that men cannot escape from mystery by rejecting
+revelation. "Above all," he says, "I am confirmed in my belief by the
+harmony between the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed
+truth.... For this philosophy is professedly a scientific demonstration
+of the impossibility of that 'wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle
+prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the
+human powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must
+admit, to show articulately why the 'secret things of God,' cannot but be
+to man 'past finding out.'"[O] Faith in the inconceivable must thus
+become the ultimate refuge, even of the pantheist and the atheist, no
+less than of the Christian; the difference being, that while the last
+takes his stand on a faith which is in agreement alike with the authority
+of Scripture and the needs of human nature, the two former are driven to
+one which is equally opposed to both, as well as to the pretensions of
+their own philosophy.
+
+  [N]  _Works_, vol. i., p, 233.
+
+  [O]  _Discussions_, p. 625.
+
+Deny the Trinity; deny the Personality of God: there yet remains that
+which no man can deny as the law of his own consciousness--_Time_.
+Conditioned existence is existence in time: to attain to a philosophy of
+the unconditioned, we must rise to the conception of existence out of
+time. The attempt may be made in two ways, and in two only. Either we
+may endeavour to conceive an absolutely first moment of time, beyond
+which is an existence having no duration and no succession; or we may
+endeavour to conceive time as an unlimited duration, containing an
+infinite series of successive antecedents and consequents, each
+conditioned in itself, but forming altogether an unconditioned whole. In
+other words, we may endeavour, with the Eleatics, to conceive pure
+existence apart and distinct from all phenomenal change; or we may
+endeavour, with Heraclitus, to conceive the universe as a system of
+incessant changes, immutable only in the law of its own mutability; for
+these two systems may be regarded as the type of all subsequent
+attempts. Both, however, alike aim at an object which is beyond positive
+conception, and which can be accepted only as something to be believed in
+spite of its inconceivability. To conceive an existence beyond the first
+moment of time, and to connect that existence as cause with the
+subsequent temporal succession of effects, we must conceive time itself
+as non-existent and then commencing to exist. But when we make the
+effort to conceive time as non-existent, we find it impossible to do
+so. Time, as the universal condition of human consciousness, clings round
+the very conception which strives to destroy it, clings round the
+language in which we speak of an existence _before_ time. Nor are we more
+successful when we attempt to conceive an infinite regress of time, and an
+infinite series of dependent existences in time. To say nothing of the
+direct contradiction involved in the notion of an unconditioned
+_whole_,--a something completed,--composed of infinite parts--of parts
+never completed,--even if we abandon the Whole, and with it the
+Unconditioned, and attempt merely to conceive an infinite succession
+of conditioned existences--conditioned, absurdly enough, by nothing
+beyond themselves,--we find, that in order to do so, we must add moment to
+moment for ever--a process which would require an eternity for its
+accomplishment.[P] Moreover, the chain of dependent existences in this
+infinite succession is not, like a mathematical series, composed of
+abstract and homogeneous units; it is made up of divers phenomena, of a
+regressive line of causes, each distinct from the other. Wherever,
+therefore, I stop in my addition, I do not positively conceive the terms
+which lie beyond. I apprehend them only as a series of unknown
+_somethings_, of which I may believe _that_ they are, but am unable to
+say _what_ they are.
+
+  [P]  See _Discussions_, p. 29. Of course by this is not meant
+       that no duration can be conceived except in a duration
+       equally long--that a thousand years, _e.g._, can only be
+       conceived in a thousand years. A thousand years may be
+       conceived as one unit: infinity cannot; for an unit is
+       something complete, and therefore limited. What is meant
+       is, that any period of time, however long, is conceived
+       as capable of further increase, and therefore as not
+       infinite. An infinite duration can have no time before
+       or after it; and thus cannot resemble any portion of
+       finite time, however great. When we dream of conceiving
+       an infinite regress of time, says Sir W. Hamilton, "we
+       only deceive ourselves by substituting the _indefinite_
+       for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more
+       opposed." This caution has not been attended to by some
+       later critics. Thus, Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of
+       Discovery_, p. 324) says: "The definition of an infinite
+       number is not that it contains all possible unities; but
+       this--that the progress of numeration, being begun
+       according to a certain law, goes on without limit." This
+       is precisely Descartes' definition, not of the
+       _infinite_, but of the _indefinite_. _Principia_, i. 26:
+       "Nos autem illa omnia, in quibus sub aliqua
+       consideratione nullum finem poterimus invenire, non
+       quidem affirmabimus esse infinita, sed ut indefinita
+       spectabimus." An indefinite time is that which is
+       capable of perpetual addition: an infinite time is one
+       so great as to admit of no addition. Surely "no two
+       notions can be more opposed."
+
+The cardinal point, then, of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, expressly
+announced as such by himself, is the absolute necessity, under any system
+of philosophy whatever, of acknowledging the existence of a sphere of
+belief beyond the limits of the sphere of thought. "The main scope of my
+speculation,"[Q] he says, "is to show articulately that we _must
+believe_, as actual, much that we are unable (positively) _to conceive_
+as even possible." It is, of course, beyond the range of such a
+speculation, by itself, to enter on an examination of the positive
+evidences in support of one form of belief rather than another. So far as
+it aims only at exhibiting an universal law of the human mind, it is of
+course compatible with all special forms of belief which do not
+contradict that law; and none, whatever their pretensions, can really
+contradict it. Hence the service which such a philosophy can render to
+the Christian religion must necessarily, from the nature of the case, be
+of an indirect and negative character. It prepares the way for a fair
+examination of the proper evidences of Christianity, by showing that
+there is no ground for any _à priori_ prejudice against revelation, as
+appealing, for the acceptance of its highest truths, to faith rather than
+to reason; for that this appeal is common to all religions and to all
+philosophies, and cannot therefore be urged against one more than
+another. So far as certain difficulties are inherent in the constitution
+of the human mind itself, they must necessarily occupy the same position
+with respect to all religions alike. To exhibit the nature of these
+difficulties is a service to true religion; but it is the service of the
+pioneer, not of the builder; it does not prove the religion to be true;
+it only clears the ground for the production of the special evidences.
+
+  [Q]  Letter to Mr. Calderwood. See _Lectures_, vol. ii, p.
+       534.
+
+Where those evidences are to be found, Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to
+tell us. If mere intellectual speculations on the nature and origin of
+the material universe form a common ground in which the theist, the
+pantheist, and even the atheist, may alike expatiate, the moral and
+religious feelings of man--those facts of consciousness which have their
+direct source in the sense of personality and free will--plead with
+overwhelming evidence in behalf of a personal God, and of man's relation
+to Him, as a person to a person. We have seen, in a previous quotation,
+Hamilton's emphatic declaration that "psychological materialism, if
+carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, inevitably results in
+theological atheism." In the same spirit he tells us that "it is only as
+man is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he is created after the
+image of God;"[R] that "with the proof of the moral nature of man,
+stands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity;" that "the
+possibility of morality depends on the possibility of liberty;" that "if
+man be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has
+therefore no responsibility, no moral personality at all;"[S] and,
+finally, "that he who disbelieves the moral agency of man, must, in
+consistency with that opinion, disbelieve Christianity."[T] We have
+thus, in the positive and negative sides of this philosophy, both a
+reasonable ground of belief and a warning against presumption. By our
+immediate consciousness of a moral and personal nature, we are led to the
+belief in a moral and personal God: by our ignorance of the
+unconditioned, we are led to the further belief, that behind that moral
+and personal manifestation of God there lies concealed a mystery--the
+mystery of the Absolute and the Infinite; that our intellectual and moral
+qualities, though indicating the nearest approach to the Divine
+Perfections which we are capable of conceiving, yet indicate them as
+analogous, not as identical; that we may naturally expect to find points
+where this analogy will fail us, where the function of the Infinite Moral
+Governor will be distinct from that of the finite moral servant; and
+where, consequently, we shall be liable to error in judging by human
+rules of the ways of God, whether manifested in nature or in revelation.
+Such is the true lesson to be learnt from a philosophy which tells us of
+a God who is "in a certain sense revealed, in a certain sense
+concealed--at once known and unknown."
+
+  [R]  _Lectures_, vol. i., p. 30.
+
+  [S]  _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 33.
+
+  [T]  _Ibid._, p. 42.
+
+It is not surprising that this philosophy, when compared with that of a
+critic like Mr. Mill, should stand out in clear and sharp antagonism. Mr.
+Mill is one of the most distinguished representatives of that school of
+Materialism which Sir W. Hamilton denounces as virtual Atheism. We do not
+mean that he consciously adopts the grosser tenets of the materialists.
+We are not aware that he has ever positively denied the existence of a
+soul distinct from the body, or maintained that the brain secretes
+thought as the liver secretes bile. But he is the advocate of a
+philosophical method which makes the belief in the existence of an
+immaterial principle superfluous and incongruous; he not only
+acknowledges no such distinction between the phenomena of mind and those
+of matter as to require the hypothesis of a free intelligence to account
+for it; he not only regards the ascertained laws of coexistence and
+succession in material phenomena as the type and rule according to which
+all phenomena whatever--those of internal consciousness no less than of
+external observation--are to be tested; but he even expressly denies the
+existence of that free will which Sir W. Hamilton regards as the
+indispensable condition of all morality and all religion.[U] Thus,
+instead of recognising in the facts of intelligence "an order of
+existence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to us in the facts
+of the material universe,"[V] he regards both classes of facts as of
+the same kind, and explicable by the same laws; he abolishes the primary
+contrast of consciousness between the _ego_ and the _non-ego_--the person
+and the thing; he reduces man to a thing, instead of a person,--to one
+among the many phenomena of the universe, determined by the same laws of
+invariable antecedence and consequence, included under the same formulæ
+of empirical generalization. He thus makes man the slave, and not the
+master of nature; passively carried along in the current of successive
+phenomena; unable, by any act of free will, to arrest a single wave in
+its course, or to divert it from its ordained direction.
+
+  [U]  That this is the real battle-ground between the two
+       philosophers is virtually admitted by Mr. Mill himself
+       at the end of his criticism. He says:--"The whole
+       philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton seems to have had its
+       character determined by the requirements of the doctrine
+       of Free-will; and to that doctrine he clung, because he
+       had persuaded himself that it afforded the only premises
+       from which human reason could deduce the doctrines of
+       natural religion. I believe that in this persuasion he
+       was thoroughly his own dupe, and that his speculations
+       have weakened the philosophical foundation of religion
+       fully as much as they have confirmed it."--P. 549. Mr.
+       Mill's whole philosophy, on the other hand, is
+       determined by the requirements of the doctrine of
+       Necessity; and to that doctrine he intrepidly adheres,
+       in utter defiance of consciousness, and sometimes of his
+       own consistency. Which of the two philosophers is really
+       "his own dupe," Mr. Mill in believing that morality and
+       religion can exist without free will--that a necessary
+       agent can be responsible for his acts--or Sir W.
+       Hamilton in maintaining the contrary, is a question
+       which the former has by no means satisfactorily settled
+       in his own favour.
+
+  [V]  Hamilton, _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 29.
+
+This diametrical antagonism between the two philosophers is not limited
+to their first principles, but extends, as might naturally be expected,
+to every subordinate science of which the immediate object is mental, and
+not material. Logic, instead of being, as Sir W. Hamilton regards it, an
+_à priori_ science of the necessary laws of thought, is with Mr. Mill a
+science of observation, investigating those operations of the
+understanding which are subservient to the estimation of evidence.[W]
+The axioms of Mathematics, which the former philosopher regards, with
+Kant, as necessary thoughts, based on the _à priori_ intuitions of space
+and time, the latter[X] declares to be "experimental truths;
+generalizations from observation." Psychology, which with Hamilton is
+especially the philosophy of man as a free and personal agent, is with
+Mill the science of "the uniformities of succession; the laws, whether
+ultimate or derivative, according to which one mental state succeeds
+another."[Y] And finally, in the place of Ethics, as the science of the
+_à priori_ laws of man's moral obligations, we are presented, in Mr.
+Mill's system, with Ethology, the "science which determines the kind of
+character produced, in conformity to the general laws of mind, by any set
+of circumstances, physical and moral."[Z]
+
+  [W]  Mill's _Logic_. Introduction, § 7.
+
+  [X]  _Ibid._, book ii. 5, § 4.
+
+  [Y]  Mill's _Logic_, book vi. 4, § 3.
+
+  [Z]  _Ibid._, book vi. 5, § 4.
+
+The contrast between the two philosophers being thus thoroughgoing, it
+was natural to expect beforehand that an _Examination of Sir William
+Hamilton's Philosophy_, by Mr. Mill, would contain a sharp and vigorous
+assault on the principal doctrines of that philosophy. And this
+expectation has been amply fulfilled. But there was also reason to
+expect, from the ability and critical power displayed in Mr. Mill's
+previous writings, that his assault, whether successful or not in
+overthrowing his enemy, would at least be guided by a clear knowledge of
+that enemy's position and purposes; that his dissent would be accompanied
+by an intelligent apprehension, and an accurate statement, of the
+doctrines dissented from. In this expectation, we regret to say, we have
+been disappointed. Not only is Mr. Mill's attack on Hamilton's
+philosophy, with the exception of some minor details, unsuccessful; but
+we are compelled to add, that with regard to the three fundamental
+doctrines of that philosophy--the Relativity of Knowledge, the
+Incognisability of the Absolute and Infinite, and the distinction between
+Reason and Faith--Mr. Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether
+missed the meaning of the theories he is attempting to assail.
+
+This is a serious charge to bring against a writer of such eminence as
+Mr. Mill, and one which should not be advanced without ample proof.
+First, then, of the Relativity of Knowledge.
+
+The assertion that all our knowledge is relative,--in other words, that
+we know things only under such conditions as the laws of our cognitive
+faculties impose upon us,--is a statement which looks at first sight like
+a truism, but which really contains an answer to a very important
+question,--Have we reason to believe that the laws of our cognitive
+faculties impose any conditions at all?--that the mind in any way reacts
+on the objects affecting it, so as to produce a result different from
+that which would be produced were it merely a passive recipient? "The
+mind of man," says Bacon, "is far from the nature of a clear and equal
+glass, wherein the beams of things shall reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced." Can what
+Bacon says of the fallacies of the mind be also said of its proper
+cognitions? Does the mind, by its own action, in any way distort the
+appearance of the things presented to it; and if so, how far does the
+distortion extend, and in what manner is it to be rectified? To trace the
+course of this inquiry, from the day when Plato compared the objects
+perceived by the senses to the shadows thrown by fire on the wall of a
+cave, to the day when Kant declared that we know only phenomena, not
+things in themselves, would be to write the history of philosophy. We can
+only at present call attention to one movement in that history, which,
+was, in effect, a revolution in philosophy. The older philosophers in
+general distinguished between the senses and the intellect, regarding the
+former as deceptive and concerned with phenomena alone, the latter as
+trustworthy and conversant with the realities of things. Hence arose the
+distinction between the sensible and the intelligible world--between
+things as perceived by sense and things as apprehended by
+intellect--between Phenomenology and Ontology. Kant rejected this
+distinction, holding that the intellect, as well as the sense, imposes
+its own forms on the things presented to it, and is therefore cognisant
+only of phenomena, not of things in themselves. The logical result of
+this position would be the abolition of ontology as a science of things
+in themselves, and, _à fortiori_, of that highest branch of ontology
+which aims at a knowledge of the Absolute[AA] [Greek: kat' exochên],
+of the unconditioned first principle of all things. If the mind, in every
+act of thought, imposes its own forms on its objects, to think is to
+condition, and the unconditioned is the unthinkable. Such was the logical
+result of Kant's principles, but not the actual result. For Kant, by
+distinguishing between the Understanding and the Reason, and giving to
+the latter an indirect yet positive cognition of the Unconditioned as a
+regulative principle of thought, prepared the way for the systems of
+Schelling and Hegel, in which this indirect cognition is converted into a
+direct one, by investing the reason, thus distinguished as the special
+faculty of the unconditioned, with a power of intuition emancipated from
+the conditions of space and time, and even of subject and object, or a
+power of thought emancipated from the laws of identity and
+contradiction.
+
+ [AA]  The term _absolute_, in the sense of _free from
+       relation_, may be used in two applications;--1st, To
+       denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as
+       distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used
+       only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation
+       to human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a
+       thing as independent of all other things, as having no
+       relation to any other thing as the condition of its
+       existence. Here it is used in its highest sense, as
+       meaning out of relation to anything else.
+
+The theory of Hamilton is a modification of that of Kant, intended to
+obviate these consequences, and to relieve the Kantian doctrine itself
+from the inconsistency which gave rise to them. So long as the reason is
+regarded as a separate faculty from the understanding, and things in
+themselves as ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions,
+which encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be
+regarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the
+result of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical
+conclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting the distinction
+between the understanding and the reason as separate faculties, regarding
+the one as the legitimate and positive, the other as the illegitimate and
+negative, exercise of one and the same faculty. He thus announces, in
+opposition to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the Conditioned, as "the
+distinction between intelligence _within_ its legitimate sphere of
+operation, impeccable, and intelligence _beyond_ that sphere, affording
+(by abuse) the occasions of error."[AB] Hamilton, like Kant, maintained
+that all our cognitions are compounded of two elements, one contributed
+by the object known, and the other by the mind knowing. But the very
+conception of a relation implies the existence of things to be related;
+and the knowledge of an object, as in relation to our mind, necessarily
+implies its existence out of that relation. But as so existing, it is
+unknown: we believe _that_ it is; we know not _what_ it is. How far it
+resembles, or how far it does not resemble, the object apprehended by us,
+we cannot say, for we have no means of comparing the two together.
+
+ [AB]  _Discussions_, p. 633.
+
+Instead; therefore, of saying with Kant, that reason is subject to an
+inevitable delusion, by which, it mistakes the regulative principles of
+its own thoughts for the representations of real things, Hamilton would
+say that the reason, while compelled to believe in the existence of these
+real things, is not legitimately entitled to make any positive
+representation of them as of such or such a nature; and that the
+contradictions into which it falls when attempting to do so are due to an
+illegitimate attempt to transcend the proper boundaries of positive
+thought.
+
+This theory does not, in itself, contain any statement of the mode in
+which we perceive the material world, whether directly by presentation,
+or indirectly by representative images; and perhaps it might, without any
+great violence, be adapted to more than one of the current hypotheses on
+this point. But that to which it most easily adjusts itself is that
+maintained by Hamilton himself under the name of _Natural Realism_. To
+speak of perception as a _relation_ between mind and matter, naturally
+implies the presence of both correlatives; though each may be modified by
+its contact with the other. The acid may act on the alkali, and the
+alkali on the acid, in forming the neutral salt; but each of the
+ingredients is as truly present as the other, though each enters into the
+compound in a modified form. And this is equally the case in perception,
+even if we suppose various media to intervene between the ultimate object
+and the perceiving mind,--such, _e.g._, as the rays of light and the
+sensitive organism in vision,--so long as these media are material, like
+the ultimate object itself. Whether the object, properly so called, in
+vision, be the rays of light in contact with the organ, or the body
+emitting or reflecting those rays, is indifferent to the present
+question, so long as a material object of some kind or other is supposed
+to be perceived, and not merely an inmaterial representation of such an
+object. To speak of our perceptions as mere modifications of mind
+produced by an unknown cause, would be like maintaining that the acid is
+modified by the influence of the alkali without entering into combination
+with it. Such a view might perhaps be tolerated, in connection with the
+theory of relativity, by an indulgent interpretation of language, but it
+is certainly not that which the language of the theory most naturally
+suggests.
+
+All this Mr. Mill entirely misapprehends. He quotes a passage from
+Hamilton's Lectures, in which the above theory of Relativity is clearly
+stated as the mean between the extremes of Idealism and Materialism, and
+then proceeds to comment as follows:--
+
+  "The proposition, that our cognitions of objects are only in part
+  dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements
+  superadded by our organs or our minds, is not identical, nor _prima
+  facie_ absurd. It cannot, however, warrant the assertion that all
+  our knowledge, but only that the part so added, is relative. If our
+  author had gone as far as Kant, and had said that all which
+  constitutes knowledge is put in by the mind itself, he would have
+  really held, in one of its forms, the doctrine of the relativity of
+  our knowledge. But what he does say, far from implying that the
+  whole of our knowledge is relative, distinctly imports that all of
+  it which, is real and authentic is the reverse. If any part of what
+  we fancy that we perceive in the objects themselves, originates in
+  the perceiving organs or in the cognising mind, thus much is purely
+  relative; but since, by supposition, it does not all so originate,
+  the part that does not is as much absolute as if it were not liable
+  to be mixed up with, these delusive subjective impressions."--(P.
+  30.)
+
+Mr. Mill, therefore, supposes that _wholly relative_ must mean _wholly
+mental_; in other words, that to say that a thing is wholly due to a
+relation between mind and matter is equivalent to saying that it is
+wholly due to mind alone. On the contrary, we maintain that Sir W.
+Hamilton's language is far more accurate than Mr. Mill's, and that the
+above theory can with perfect correctness be described as one of _total
+relativity_; and this from two points of view. First, as opposed to the
+theory of partial relativity generally held by the pre-Kantian
+philosophers, according to which our sensitive cognitions are relative,
+our intellectual ones absolute. Secondly, as asserting that the object of
+perception, though composed of elements partly material, partly mental,
+yet exhibits both alike in a form modified by their relation to each
+other. The composition is not a mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which
+each part, though acting on the other, retains its own characteristics
+unchanged. It may be rather likened to a chemical fusion, in which both
+elements are present, but each of them is affected by the composition.
+The material part, therefore, is not "as much absolute as if it were not
+liable to be mixed up with subjective impressions."
+
+But we must hear the continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism:--
+
+  "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 recognising it. The confusion,
+  according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us to 'analyse and
+  distinguish what elements' in an 'act of knowledge' are contributed
+  by the object, and what by our organs, or by the mind. We may
+  neglect to do this, and as far as the mind's share is concerned, we
+  can only do it by the help of philosophy; but it is a task to
+  which, in his opinion, philosophy is equal. By thus stripping off
+  such of the elements in our apparent cognitions of things as are
+  but cognitions of something in us, and consequently relative, we
+  may succeed in uncovering the pure nucleus, the direct intuitions
+  of things in themselves; as we correct the observed positions of
+  the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error due to the refracting
+  influence of the atmospheric medium, an influence which does not
+  alter the facts, but only our perception of them."
+
+Surely Mr. Mill here demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton
+deems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant,
+distinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and
+contingent--in other words, between the subjective and the objective
+elements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a "direct
+intuition of things in themselves?" Why may he not distinguish between
+space and time as the forms of our sensitive cognitions, and the things
+perceived in space and time, which constitute the matter of the same
+cognitions, without thereby having an intuition, on the one hand, of pure
+space and time with nothing in them, or on the other, of things in
+themselves out of space and time? If certain elements are always present
+in perception, while certain others change with every act, I may surely
+infer that the one is due to the permanent subject, the other to the
+variable object, without thereby knowing what each would be if it could
+be discerned apart from the other. "A direct intuition of things in
+themselves," according to Kant and Hamilton, is an intuition of things
+out of space and time. Does Mr. Mill suppose that any natural Realist
+professes to have such an intuition?
+
+The same error of supposing that a doctrine of relativity is necessarily
+a doctrine of Idealism, that "matter known only in relation to us" can
+mean nothing more than "matter known only through the mental impressions
+of which it is the unknown cause,"[AC] runs through the whole of Mr.
+Mill's argument against this portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching. That
+argument, though repeated in various forms, may be briefly summed up in
+one thesis; namely, that the doctrine that our knowledge of matter is
+wholly relative is incompatible with the distinction, which Hamilton
+expressly makes, between the primary and secondary qualities of body.
+
+ [AC]  The assumption that these two expressions are or ought
+       to be synonymous is tacitly made by Mr. Mill at the
+       opening of this chapter. He opens it with a passage from
+       the _Discussions_, in which Hamilton says that the
+       existence of _things in themselves_ is only indirectly
+       revealed to us "through certain qualities _related to
+       our faculties of knowledge_;" and then proceeds to show
+       that the author did not hold the doctrine which these
+       phrases "seem to convey in the only substantial meaning
+       capable of being attached to them;" namely, "that we
+       know nothing of _objects_ except their existence, and
+       the impressions produced by them upon the human mind."
+       Having thus quietly assumed that "things in themselves"
+       are identical with "objects," and "relations" with
+       "impressions on the human mind," Mr. Mill bases his
+       whole criticism on this tacit _petitio principii_. He is
+       not aware that though Reid sometimes uses the term
+       _relative_ in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly
+       points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper
+       sense.--(See _Reid's Works_, pp. 313, 322.)
+
+The most curious circumstance about this criticism is, that, if not
+directly borrowed from, it has at least been carefully anticipated by,
+Hamilton himself. Of the distinction between primary and secondary
+qualities, as acknowledged by Descartes and Locke, whose theory of
+external perception is identical with that which Mr. Mill would force on
+Hamilton himself, Hamilton says: "On the general doctrine, however, of
+these philosophers, both classes of qualities, as known, are confessedly
+only states of our own minds; and while we have no right from a
+subjective affection to infer the existence, far less the corresponding
+character of the existence, of any objective reality, it is evident that
+their doctrine, if fairly evolved, would result in a dogmatic or in a
+sceptical negation of the primary no less than of the secondary qualities
+of body, as more than appearances in and for us."[AD] It is astonishing
+that Mr. Mill, who pounces eagerly on every imaginable instance of
+Hamilton's inconsistency, should have neglected to notice this, which, if
+his criticism be true, is the most glaring inconsistency of all.
+
+ [AD]  _Reid's Works_, p. 840.
+
+But Hamilton continues: "It is therefore manifest that the fundamental
+position of a consistent theory of dualistic realism is--that our
+cognitions of Extension and its modes are not wholly ideal--that although
+Space be a native, necessary, _à priori_ form of imagination, and so
+far, therefore, a mere subjective state, that there is, at the same time,
+competent to us, in an _immediate_ perception of external things, the
+_consciousness_ of a really existent, of a really objective, _extended_
+world." Here we have enunciated in one breath, first the subjectivity of
+space, which is the logical basis of the relative theory of perception;
+and secondly, the objectivity of the extended world, which is the logical
+basis of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It is
+manifest, therefore, that Hamilton had not, as Mr. Mill supposes, ceased
+to hold the one theory when he adopted the other.[AE]
+
+ [AE]  See _Examination_, p. 28.
+
+The key to all this is not difficult to find. It is simply that
+_objective existence_ does not mean existence _per se_; and that a
+_phenomenon_ does not mean a mere mode of mind. Objective existence is
+existence _as an object_, in perception, and therefore in relation; and a
+phenomenon may be material, as well as mental. The thing _per se_ may be
+only the unknown cause of what we directly know; but what we directly
+know is something more than our own sensations. In other words, the
+phenomenal effect is material as well as the cause, and is, indeed, that
+from which our primary conceptions of matter are derived. Matter does not
+cease to be matter when modified by its contact with mind, as iron does
+not cease to be iron when smelted and forged. A horseshoe is something
+very different from a piece of iron ore; and a man may be acquainted with
+the former without ever having seen the latter, or knowing what it is
+like. But would Mr. Mill therefore say that the horseshoe is merely a
+subjective affection of the skill of the smith--that it is not iron
+modified by the workman, but the workman or his art impressed by iron?
+
+If, indeed, Hamilton had said with Locke, that the primary qualities are
+in the bodies themselves, whether we perceive them or no,[AF] he would
+have laid himself open to Mr. Mill's criticism. But he expressly rejects
+this statement, and contrasts it with the more cautions language of
+Descartes, "ut sunt, vel saltem esse possunt."[AG] The secondary
+qualities are mere affections of consciousness, which, cannot be
+conceived as existing except in a conscious subject. The primary
+qualities are qualities of body, as perceived in relation to the
+percipient mind, _i.e._, of the phenomenal body perceived as in space.
+How far they exist in the real body out of relation to us, Hamilton does
+not attempt to decide.[AH] They are inseparable from our conception of
+body, which, is derived exclusively from the phenomenon; they may or may
+not be separable from the thing as it is in itself.
+
+ [AF]  _Essay_, ii 8, § 23.
+
+ [AG]  _Reid's Works_, p. 839.
+
+ [AH]  We have been content to argue this question, as Mr.
+       Mill himself argues it, on the supposition that Sir W.
+       Hamilton held that we are directly percipient of primary
+       qualities in external bodies. Strictly speaking, however,
+       Hamilton held that the primary qualities are immediately
+       perceived only in our organism as extended, and
+       inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies. The external
+       world is immediately apprehended only in its
+       secundo-primary character, as resisting our locomotive
+       energy. But as the organism, in this theory, is a
+       material _non-ego_ equally with the rest of matter, and as
+       to press this distinction would only affect the verbal
+       accuracy, not the substantial justice, of Mr. Mill's
+       criticisms, we have preferred to meet him on the ground
+       he has himself chosen. The same error, of supposing that
+       "presentationism" is identical with "noumenalism," and
+       "phenomenalism" with "representationism," runs through
+       the whole of Mr. Stirling's recent criticism of Hamilton's
+       theory of perception. It is curious, however, that the
+       very passage (_Lectures_, i., p. 146) which Mr. Mill cites
+       as proving that Hamilton, in spite of his professed
+       phenomenalism, was an unconscious noumenalist, is
+       employed by Mr. Stirling to prove that, in spite of his
+       professed presentationism, he was an unconscious
+       representationist. The two critics tilt at Hamilton
+       from opposite quarters: he has only to stand aside and let
+       them run against each other.
+
+Under this explanation, it is manifest that the doctrine, that matter as
+a subject or substratum of attributes is unknown and unknowable, is
+totally different from that of cosmothetic idealism, with which Mr Mill
+confounds it;[AI] and that a philosopher may without inconsistency
+accept the former and reject the latter. The former, while it holds the
+material substance to be unknown, does not deny that some of the
+attributes of matter are perceived immediately as material, though, it
+may be, modified by contact with mind. The latter maintains that the
+attributes, as well as the substance, are not perceived immediately as
+material, but mediately through the intervention of immaterial
+representatives. It is also manifest that, in answer to Mr. Mill's
+question, which of Hamilton's two "cardinal doctrines," Relativity or
+Natural Realism, "is to be taken in a non-natural sense,"[AJ] we must
+say, neither. The two doctrines are quite compatible with each other, and
+neither requires a non-natural interpretation to reconcile it to its
+companion.
+
+ [AI]  _Examination_, p. 23.
+
+ [AJ]  _Examination_, p. 20.
+
+The doctrine of relativity derives its chief practical value from its
+connection with the next great doctrine of Hamilton's philosophy, the
+incognisability of the Absolute and the Infinite. For this doctrine
+brings Ontology into contact with Theology; and it is only in relation to
+theology that ontology acquires a practical importance. With respect to
+the other two "ideas of the pure reason," as Kant calls them, the human
+soul and the world, the question, whether we know them as realities or as
+phenomena, may assist us in dealing with certain metaphysical
+difficulties, but need not affect our practical conduct. For we have an
+immediate intuition of the attributes of mind and matter, at least as
+phenomenal objects, and by these intuitions may be tested the accuracy of
+the conceptions derived from them, sufficiently for all practical
+purposes. A man will equally avoid walking over a precipice, and is
+logically as consistent in avoiding it, whether he regard the precipice
+as a real thing, or as a mere phenomenon. But in the province of theology
+this is not the case. We have no immediate intuition of the Divine
+attributes, even as phenomena; we only infer their existence and nature
+from certain similar attributes of which we are immediately conscious in
+ourselves. And hence arises the question, How far does the similarity
+extend, and to what extent is the accuracy of our conceptions guaranteed
+by the intuition, not of the object to be conceived, but of something
+more or less nearly resembling it? But this is not all. Our knowledge of
+God, originally derived from personal consciousness, receives accession
+from two other sources--from the external world, as His work; and from
+revelation, as His word; and the conclusions derived from each have to be
+compared together. Should any discrepancy arise between them, are we at
+once warranted in rejecting one class of conclusions in favour of the
+other two, or two in favour of the third? or are we at liberty to say
+that our knowledge in respect of all alike is of such an imperfect and
+indirect character that we are warranted in believing that some
+reconciliation may exist, though our ignorance prevents us from
+discovering what it is? Here at least is a practical question of the very
+highest importance. In the early part of our previous remarks, we have
+endeavoured to show how this question has been answered by orthodox
+theologians of various ages, and how Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy
+supports that answer. We have now to consider Mr Mill's chapter of
+criticisms.
+
+It is always unfortunate to make a stumble on the threshold; and Mr.
+Mill's opening paragraph makes two. "The name of God," he says, "is
+veiled under two extremely abstract phrases, 'the Infinite and the
+Absolute.'... But it is one of the most unquestionable of all logical
+maxims, that the meaning of the abstract must be sought in the concrete,
+and not conversely."[AK]--Now, in the first place, "the Infinite" and
+"the Absolute," even in the sense in which they are both predicable of
+God, are no more names of God than "the creature" and "the finite" are
+names of man. They are the names of certain attributes, which further
+inquiry may, perhaps, show to belong to God and to no other being, but
+which do not in their signification express this, and do not constitute
+our primary idea of God, which is that of a Person. Men may believe in an
+absolute and infinite, without in any proper sense believing in God; and
+thousands upon thousands of pious men have prayed to a personal God, who
+have never heard of the absolute and the infinite, and who would not
+understand the expressions if they heard them. But, in the second place,
+"the absolute" and "the infinite," in Sir W. Hamilton's sense of the
+terms, cannot both be names of God, for the simple reason that they are
+contradictory of each other, and are proposed as alternatives which
+cannot both be accepted as predicates of the same subject. For Hamilton,
+whatever Mr. Mill may do, did not fall into the absurdity of maintaining
+that God in some of His attributes is absolute without being infinite,
+and in others is infinite without being absolute.[AL]
+
+ [AK]  _Examination_, p. 32.
+
+ [AL]  See _Examination_, p. 35.
+
+But we have not yet done with this single paragraph. After thus making
+two errors in his exposition of his opponent's doctrine, Mr. Mill
+immediately proceeds to a third, in his criticism of it. By following his
+"most unquestionable of all logical maxims," and substituting the name of
+God in the place of "the Infinite" and "the Absolute," he exactly
+reverses Sir W. Hamilton's argument, and makes his own attempted
+refutation of it a glaring _ignoratio elenchi_.
+
+One of the purposes of Hamilton's argument is to show that we have no
+positive conception of an Infinite Being; that when we attempt to form
+such a conception, we do but produce a distorted representation of the
+finite; and hence, that our so-called conception of the infinite is not
+the true infinite. Hence it is not to be wondered at--nay, it is a
+natural consequence of this doctrine,--that our positive conception of
+God as a Person cannot be included under this pseudo-concept of the
+Infinite. Whereas Mr. Mill, by laying down the maxim that the meaning of
+the abstract must be sought in the concrete, quietly assumes that this
+pseudo-infinite is a proper predicate of God, to be tested by its
+applicability to the subject, and that what Hamilton says of _this_
+infinite cannot be true unless it is also true of God. Of this
+refutation, Hamilton, were he living, might truly say, as he said of a
+former criticism on another part of his writings,--"This elaborate parade
+of argument is literally answered in two words--_Quis dubitavit?_"
+
+But if the substitution of God for the Infinite be thus a perversion of
+Hamilton's argument, what shall we say to a similar substitution in the
+case of the Absolute? Hamilton distinctly tells us that there is one
+sense of the term _absolute_ in which it is contradictory of the
+infinite, and therefore is not predicable of God at all. Mr. Mill admits
+that Hamilton, throughout the greater part of his arguments, employs the
+term in this sense; and he then actually proceeds to "test" these
+arguments "by substituting the concrete, God, for the abstract,
+Absolute;" _i.e._, by substituting God for something which Hamilton
+defines as contradictory to the nature of God. Can the force of confusion
+go further? Is it possible for perverse criticism more utterly, we do not
+say to misrepresent, but literally to invert an author's meaning?
+
+The source of all these errors, and of a great many more, is simply this.
+Mr. Mill is aware, from Hamilton's express assertion, that the word
+_absolute_ may be used in two distinct and even contradictory senses; but
+he is wholly unable to see what those senses are, or when Hamilton is
+using the term in the one sense, and when in the other. Let us endeavour
+to clear up some of this confusion.
+
+Hamilton's article on the Philosophy of the Unconditioned is a criticism,
+partly of Schelling, partly of Cousin; and Schelling and Cousin only
+attempted in a new form, under the influence of the Kantian philosophy,
+to solve the problem with which philosophy in all ages has attempted to
+grapple,--the problem of the Unconditioned.
+
+"The unconditioned" is a term which, while retaining the same general
+meaning, admits of various applications, particular or universal. It may
+be the unconditioned as regards some special relation, or the
+unconditioned as regards all relations whatever. Thus there may be the
+unconditioned in Psychology--the human soul considered as a substance;
+the unconditioned in Cosmology--the world considered as a single whole;
+the unconditioned in Theology--God in His own nature, as distinguished
+from His manifestations to us; or, finally, the unconditioned _par
+excellence_--the unconditioned in Ontology--the being on which all other
+being depends. It is of course possible to identify any one of the three
+first with the last. It is possible to adopt a system of Egoism, and to
+maintain that all phenomena are modes of my mind, and that the substance
+of my mind is the only real existence. It is possible to adopt a system
+of Materialism, and to maintain that all phenomena are modes of matter,
+and that the material substance of the world is the only real existence.
+Or it is possible to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to maintain that
+all phenomena are modes of the Divine existence, and that God is the only
+reality. But the several notions are in themselves distinct, though one
+may ultimately be predicated of another.
+
+The general notion of the Unconditioned is the same in all these cases,
+and all must finally culminate in the last, the Unconditioned _par
+excellence_. The general notion is that of the One as distinguished from
+the Many, the substance from its accidents, the permanent reality from
+its variable modifications. Thought, will, sensation, are modes of my
+existence. What is the _I_ that is one and the same in all? Extension,
+figure, resistance, are attributes of matter. What is the one substance
+to which these attributes belong? But the generalisation cannot stop
+here. If matter differs from mind, the _non-ego_ from the _ego_, as one
+thing from another, there must be some special point of difference,
+which, is the condition of the existence of each in this or that
+particular manner. Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the highest
+sense of the term, cannot be the existence of _this_ as distinguished
+from _that_; it must be existence _per se_, the ground and principle of
+all conditioned or special existence. This is the Unconditioned, properly
+so called: the unconditioned in Schelling's sense, as the indifference of
+subject and object: and it is against this that Hamilton's arguments are
+directed.
+
+The question is this. Is this Unconditioned a mere abstraction, the
+product of our own minds; or can it be conceived as having a real
+existence _per se_, and, as such, can it be identified with God as the
+source of all existence? Hamilton maintains that it is a mere
+abstraction, and cannot be so identified; that, far from being "a name of
+God," it is a name of nothing at all. "By abstraction," he says, "we
+annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of
+consciousness. But what remains? _Nothing._" When we attempt to conceive
+it as a reality, we "hypostatise the zero."[AM]
+
+ [AM]  _Discussions_, p. 21.
+
+In order to conceive the Unconditioned existing as a thing, we must
+conceive it as existing out of relation to everything else. For if
+nothing beyond itself is necessary as a condition of its existence, it
+can exist separate from everything else; and its pure existence as the
+unconditioned is so separate. It must therefore be conceivable as the
+sole existence, having no plurality beyond itself; and as simple, having
+no plurality within itself. For if we cannot conceive it as existing
+apart from other things, we cannot conceive it as independent of them;
+and if we conceive it as a compound of parts, we have further to ask as
+before, what is the principle of unity which binds these parts into one
+whole? If there is such a principle, this is the true unconditioned; if
+there is no such principle, there is no unconditioned; for that which
+cannot exist except as a compound is dependent for its existence on that
+of its several constituents. The unconditioned must therefore be
+conceived as one, as simple, and as universal.
+
+Is such a conception possible, whether in ordinary consciousness, as
+Cousin says, or in an extraordinary intuition, as Schelling says? Let us
+try the former. Consciousness is subject to the law of Time. A phenomenon
+is presented to us in time, as dependent on some previous phenomenon or
+thing. I wish to pursue the chain in thought till I arrive at something
+independent. If I could reach in thought a beginning of time, and
+discover some first fact with nothing preceding it, I should conceive
+time as absolute--as completed,--and the unconditioned as the first thing
+in time, and therefore as completed also, for it may be considered by
+itself, apart from what depends upon it. Or if time be considered as
+having no beginning, thought would still be able to represent to itself
+that infinity, could it follow out the series of antecedents for ever.
+But is either of these alternatives possible to thought? If not, we must
+confess that the unconditioned is inconceivable by ordinary
+consciousness; and we must found philosophy, with Schelling, on the
+annihilation of consciousness.
+
+But though Hamilton himself distinguishes between the _unconditioned_ and
+the _absolute_, using the former term generally, for that which is out of
+all relation, and the latter specially, for that which is out of all
+relation as complete and finished, his opponent Cousin uses the latter
+term in a wider sense, as synonymous with the former, and the _infinite_
+as coextensive with both. This, however, does not affect the validity of
+Hamilton's argument. For if it can be shown that the absolute and the
+infinite (in Hamilton's sense) are both inconceivable, the unconditioned
+(or absolute in Cousin's sense), which must be conceived as one or the
+other, is inconceivable also. Or, conversely, if it can be shown that the
+unconditioned, the unrelated in general, is inconceivable, it follows
+that the absolute and the infinite, as both involving the unrelated, are
+inconceivable also.
+
+We may now proceed with Mr. Mill's criticism. He says:--
+
+  "Absolute, in the sense in which, it stands related to Infinite,
+  means (conformably to its etymology) that which is finished or
+  completed. There are some things of which the utmost ideal amount
+  is a limited quantity, though a quantity never actually reached....
+  We may speak of absolutely, but not of infinitely, pure water. The
+  purity of water is not a fact of which, whatever degree we suppose
+  attained, there remains a greater beyond. It has an absolute limit:
+  it is capable of being finished or complete, in thought, if not in
+  reality."--(P. 34.)
+
+This criticism is either incorrect or _nihil ad rem_. If meant as a
+statement of Hamilton's use of the term, it is incorrect: _absolute_, in
+Hamilton's philosophy, does not mean simply "completed," but "out of
+relation as completed;" _i.e._, self-existent in its completeness, and
+not implying the existence of anything else. If meant in any other sense
+than Hamilton's, it is irrelevant. Can Mr. Mill really have believed that
+Schelling thought it necessary to invent an intellectual intuition out of
+time and out of consciousness, in order to contemplate "an ideal limited
+quantity," such as the complete purity of water?
+
+Mr. Mill continues:--
+
+  "Though the idea of Absolute is thus contrasted with that of
+  Infinite, the one is equally fitted with the other to be predicated
+  of God; but not in respect of the same attributes. There is no
+  incorrectness of speech in the phrase Infinite Power: because the
+  notion it expresses is that of a Being who has the power of doing
+  all things which we know or can conceive, and more. But in speaking
+  of knowledge, Absolute is the proper word, and not Infinite. The
+  highest degree of knowledge that can be spoken of with a meaning,
+  only amounts to knowing all that there is to be known: when that
+  point is reached, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. So of
+  goodness or justice: they cannot be more than perfect. There are
+  not infinite degrees of right. The will is either entirely right,
+  or wrong in different degrees."--(P. 35.)
+
+Surely, whatever Divine power can do, Divine knowledge can know as
+possible to be done. The one, therefore, must be as infinite as the
+other. And what of Divine goodness? An angel or a glorified saint is
+absolutely good in Mr. Mill's sense of the term. His "will is entirely
+right." Does Mr. Mill mean to say that there is no difference, even in
+degree, between the goodness of God and that of one of His creatures?
+But, even supposing his statement to be true, how is it relevant to the
+matter under discussion? Can Mr. Mill possibly be ignorant that all these
+attributes are relations; that the Absolute in Hamilton's sense, "the
+unconditionally limited," is not predicable of God at all; and that when
+divines and philosophers speak of the absolute nature of God, they mean a
+nature in which there is no distinction of attributes at all?
+
+Mr. Mill then proceeds to give a summary of Hamilton's arguments against
+Cousin, preparatory to refuting them. In the course of this summary he
+says:--
+
+  "Let me ask, _en passant_, where is the necessity for supposing
+  that, if the Absolute, or, to speak plainly, if God, is only known
+  to us in the character of a cause, he must therefore 'exist merely
+  as a cause,' and be merely 'a mean towards an end?' It is surely
+  possible to maintain that the Deity is known to us only as he who
+  feeds the ravens, without supposing that the Divine Intelligence
+  exists solely in order that the ravens may be fed."[AN]--(P.
+  42.)
+
+ [AN]  In a note to this passage, Mr. Mill makes some sarcastic
+       comments on an argument of Hamilton's against Cousin's
+       theory that God is necessarily determined to create. "On
+       this hypothesis," says Hamilton, "God, as necessarily
+       determined to pass from absolute essence to relative
+       manifestation, is determined to pass either from the
+       better to the worse, or from the worse to the better."
+       Mr. Mill calls this argument "a curiosity of
+       dialectics," and answers, "Perfect wisdom would have
+       begun to will the new state at the precise moment when
+       it began to be better than the old." Hamilton is not
+       speaking of states of things, but of states of the
+       Divine nature, as creative or not creative; and Mr.
+       Mill's argument, to refute Hamilton, must suppose a time
+       when the new nature of God begins to be better than the
+       old! Mr. Mill would perhaps have spoken of Hamilton's
+       argument with more respect had he known that it is taken
+       from Plato.
+
+On this we would remark, _en passant_, that this is precisely
+Hamilton's own doctrine, that the sphere of our belief is more extensive
+than that of our knowledge. The purport of Hamilton's argument is to show
+that the Absolute, as conceived by Cousin, is not a true Absolute
+(_Infinito-Absolute_), and therefore does not represent the real nature
+of God. His argument is this: "Cousin's Absolute exists merely as a
+cause: God does not exist merely as a cause: therefore Cousin's Absolute
+is not God." Mr. Mill actually mistakes the position which Hamilton is
+opposing for that which he is maintaining. Such an error does not lead
+us to expect much from his subsequent refutation.
+
+His first criticism is a curious specimen of his reading in philosophy.
+He says:--
+
+  "When the True or the Beautiful are spoken of, the phrase is meant
+  to include all things whatever that are true, or all things
+  whatever that are beautiful. If this rule is good for other
+  abstractions, it is good for the Absolute. The word is devoid of
+  meaning unless in reference to predicates of some sort.... If we
+  are told, therefore, that there is some Being who is, or which is,
+  the Absolute,--not something absolute, but the Absolute
+  itself,--the proposition can be understood in no other sense than
+  that the supposed Being possesses in absolute completeness _all_
+  predicates; is absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise
+  and absolutely stupid; and so forth."[AO]--(P. 43.)
+
+ [AO]  In support of this position, Mr. Mill cites Hegel--"What
+       kind of an absolute Being is that which does not contain
+       in itself all that is actual, even evil included?" We
+       are not concerned to defend Hegel's position; but he was
+       not quite so absurd as to mean what Mr. Mill supposes
+       him to have meant. Does not Mr. Mill know that it was
+       one of Hegel's fundamental positions, that the Divine
+       nature cannot be expressed by a plurality of
+       predicates?
+
+Plato expressly distinguishes between "the beautiful" and "things that
+are beautiful," as the One in contrast to the Many--the Real in contrast
+to the Apparent.[AP] It is, of course, quite possible that Plato may be
+wrong, and Mr. Mill right; but the mere fact of their antagonism is
+sufficient to show that the meaning of "the phrase" need not be what Mr.
+Mill supposes it must be. In fact, "the Absolute" in philosophy always
+has meant the One as distinguished from the Many, not the One as
+including the Many. But, as applied to Sir W. Hamilton, Mr. Mill's
+remarks on "the Absolute," and his subsequent remarks on "the Infinite,"
+not only misrepresent Hamilton's position, but exactly reverse it.
+Hamilton maintains that the terms "absolute" and "infinite" are perfectly
+intelligible as abstractions, as much so as "relative" and "finite;" for
+"correlatives suggest each other," and the "knowledge of contradictories
+is one;" but he denies that a concrete thing or object can be positively
+conceived as absolute or infinite. Mr. Mill represents him as only
+proving that the "unmeaning abstractions are unknowable,"--abstractions
+which Hamilton does not assert to be unmeaning; and which he regards as
+knowable in the only sense in which such abstractions can be known, viz.,
+by understanding the meaning of their names.[AQ]
+
+ [AP]  _Republic_, book v., p. 479.
+
+ [AQ]  This confusion between conceiving a concrete thing and
+       knowing the meaning of abstract terms is as old as
+       Toland's _Christianity not Mysterious_, and, indeed, has
+       its germ, though not its development, in the teaching of
+       his assumed master, Locke. Locke taught that all our
+       knowledge is founded on simple ideas, and that a complex
+       idea is merely an accumulation of simple ones. Hence
+       Toland maintained that no object could be mysterious or
+       inconceivable if the terms in which its several
+       attributes are expressed have ideas corresponding to
+       them. But, in point of fact, no simple idea can be
+       conceived as an object by itself, though the word by
+       which it is signified has a perfectly intelligible
+       meaning. I cannot, _e.g._, conceive whiteness by itself,
+       though I can conceive a white wall, _i.e._, whiteness in
+       combination with other attributes in a concrete object.
+       To conceive attributes as coexisting, however, we must
+       conceive them as coexisting in a certain manner; for an
+       object of conception is not a mere heap of ideas, but an
+       organized whole, whose constituent ideas exist in a
+       particular combination with and relation to each other.
+       To conceive, therefore, we must not only be able to
+       apprehend each idea separately in the abstract, but also
+       the manner in which they may possibly exist in
+       combination with each other.
+
+  "Something infinite," says Mr. Mill, "is a conception which, like
+  most of our complex ideas, contains a negative element, but which
+  contains positive elements also. Infinite space, for instance; is
+  there nothing positive in that? The negative part of this
+  conception is the absence of bounds. The positive are, the idea of
+  space, and of space greater than any finite space."--(P. 45.)
+
+This definition of _infinite space_ is exactly that which Descartes
+gives us of _indefinite extension_,--"Ita quia non possumus imaginari
+extensionem tam magnam, quin intelligamus adhuc majorem esse posse,
+dicemus magnitudinem rerum possibilium esse indefinitam."[AR] So too,
+Cudworth,--"There appeareth no sufficient ground for this positive
+infinity of space; we being certain of no more than this, that be the
+world or any figurative body never so great, it is not impossible but that
+it might be still greater and greater without end. Which _indefinite
+increasableness_ of body and space seems to be mistaken for a _positive
+infinity_ thereof."[AS] And Locke, a philosopher for whom Mr. Mill
+will probably have more respect than for Descartes or Cudworth, writes
+more plainly: "To have actually in the mind the idea of a space infinite,
+is to suppose the mind already passed over, and actually to have a view
+of all those repeated ideas of space, which an endless repetition can
+never totally represent to it,--which carries in it a plain
+contradiction."[AT] Mr. Mill thus unwittingly illustrates, in his own
+person, the truth of Hamilton's remark, "If we dream of effecting this
+[conceiving the infinite in time or space], we only deceive ourselves by
+substituting the _indefinite_ for the infinite, than which no two notions
+can be more opposed." In fact, Mr. Mill does not seem to be aware that
+what the mathematician calls _infinite_, the metaphysician calls
+_indefinite_, and that arguments drawn from the mathematical use of the
+term _infinite_ are wholly irrelevant to the metaphysical. How, indeed,
+could it be otherwise? Can any man suppose that, when the Divine
+attributes are spoken of as infinite, it is meant that they are
+indefinitely increasable?[AU]
+
+ [AR]  _Principia_, i., 26.
+
+ [AS]  _Intellectual System_, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 131.
+
+ [AT]  _Essay_, ii., 17, 7.
+
+ [AU]  One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most
+       persevering Hamiltono-mastix of the day, maintains the
+       applicability of the metaphysical notion of infinity to
+       mathematical magnitudes; but with an assumption which
+       unintentionally vindicates Hamilton's position more
+       fully than could have been done by a professed disciple.
+       "I shall assume," says Professor De Morgan, in a paper
+       recently printed among the _Transactions of the
+       Cambridge Philosophical Society_, "the notion of
+       infinity and of its reciprocal infinitesimal: that a
+       line can be conceived infinite, and therefore having
+       points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we
+       cannot have, it seems to me clear that a line of
+       infinite length, without points at an infinite distance,
+       is a contradiction." Now it is easy to show, by mere
+       reasoning, without any image, that this assumption is
+       equally a contradiction. For if space is finite, every
+       line in space must be finite also; and if space is
+       infinite, every point in space must have infinite space
+       beyond it in every direction, and therefore cannot be at
+       the greatest possible distance from another point. Or
+       thus: Any two points in space are the extremities of the
+       line connecting them; but an infinite line has no
+       extremities; therefore no two points in space can be
+       connected together by an infinite line.
+
+In fact, it is the "concrete reality," the "something infinite," and not
+the mere abstraction of infinity, which is only conceivable as a
+negation. Every "something" that has ever been intuitively present to my
+consciousness is a something finite. When, therefore, I speak of a
+"something infinite," I mean a something existing in a different manner
+from all the "somethings" of which I have had experience in intuition.
+Thus it is apprehended, not positively, but negatively--not directly by
+what it is, but indirectly by what it is not. A negative idea is not
+negative because it is expressed by a negative term, but because it has
+never been realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied to space, means
+the same thing as being greater than any finite space, both conceptions
+are equally positive or equally negative. If it does not mean the same
+thing, then, in conceiving a space greater than any finite space, we do
+not conceive an infinite space.
+
+Mr. Mill's next string of criticisms may be very briefly dismissed.
+First, Hamilton does _not_, as Mr. Mill asserts, say that "the
+Unconditioned is inconceivable, because it includes both the Infinite and
+the Absolute, and these are contradictory of one another." His argument
+is a common disjunctive syllogism. The unconditioned, if conceivable at
+all, must be conceived _either_ as the absolute _or_ as the infinite;
+neither of these is possible; therefore the unconditioned is not
+conceivable at all. Nor, secondly, is Sir W. Hamilton guilty of the
+"strange confusion of ideas" which Mr. Mill ascribes to him, when he says
+that the Absolute, as being absolutely One, cannot be known under the
+conditions of plurality and difference. The absolute, as such, must be
+out of all relation, and consequently cannot be conceived in the relation
+of plurality. "The plurality required," says Mr. Mill, "is not within the
+thing itself, but is made up between itself and other things." It is, in
+fact, both; but even granting Mr. Mill's assumption, what is a "plurality
+between a thing and other things" but a relation between them? There is
+undoubtedly a "strange confusion of ideas" in this paragraph; but the
+confusion is not on the part of Sir W. Hamilton. "Again," continues Mr.
+Mill, "even if we concede that a thing cannot be known at all unless
+known as plural, does it follow that it cannot be known as plural because
+it is also One? Since when have the One and the Many been incompatible
+things, instead of different aspects of the same thing?... If there is
+any meaning in the words, must not Absolute Unity be Absolute Plurality
+likewise?" Mr. Mill's "since when?" may be answered in the words of
+Plato:--"[Greek: Ouden emoige atopon dokei heinai ei hen hapanta
+apophainei tis tô metechein· tou henos kai tauta tauta polla tô
+plêthous au metechein; all' ei ho estin hen, auto touto polla apodeixei,
+kai au ta polla dê hen, touto êdê thaumasomai.]"[AV] Here we are
+expressly told that "absolute unity" cannot be "absolute plurality." Mr.
+Mill may say that Plato is wrong; but he will hardly go so far as to say
+that there is no meaning in his words. In point of fact, however, it is
+Mr. Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In different relations, no
+doubt, the same concrete object may be regarded as one or as many. The
+same measure is one foot or twelve inches; the same sum is one shilling
+or twelve pence; but it no more follows that "absolute unity must be
+absolute plurality likewise," than it follows from the above instances
+that one is equal to twelve. And, thirdly, when Mr. Mill accuses Sir W.
+Hamilton of departing from his own meaning of the term _absolute_, in
+maintaining that the Absolute cannot be a Cause, he only shows that he
+does not himself know what Hamilton's meaning is. "If Absolute," he says,
+"means finished, perfected, completed, may there not be a finished,
+perfected, and completed Cause?" Hamilton's Absolute is that which is
+"_out of relation_, as finished, perfect, complete;" and a Cause, as
+such, is both in relation and incomplete. It is in relation to its
+effect; and it is incomplete without its effect. Finally, when Mr. Mill
+charges Sir W. Hamilton with maintaining "that extension and figure are
+of the essence of matter, and perceived as such by intuition," we must
+briefly reply that Hamilton does no such thing. He is not speaking of the
+essence of matter _per se_, but only of matter as apprehended in relation
+to us.
+
+ [AV]  _Parmenides_, p. 129.
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an attempt to discover the meaning
+of Hamilton's assertion, "to think is to condition." We have already
+explained what Hamilton meant by this expression; and we recur to the
+subject now, only to show the easy manner in which Mr. Mill manages to
+miss the point of an argument with the clue lying straight before him.
+"Did any," he says (of those who say that the Absolute is thinkable),
+"profess to think it in any other manner than by distinguishing it from
+other things?" Now this is the very thing which, according to Hamilton,
+Schelling actually did. Mr. Mill does not attempt to show that Hamilton
+is wrong in his interpretation of Schelling, nor, if he is right, what
+were the reasons which led Schelling to so paradoxical a position: he
+simply assumes that no man could hold Schelling's view, and there is an
+end of it.[AW] Hamilton's purpose is to reassert in substance the
+doctrine which Kant maintained, and which Schelling denied; and the
+natural way to ascertain his meaning would be by reference to these two
+philosophers. But this is not the method of Mr. Mill, here or elsewhere.
+He generally endeavours to ascertain Hamilton's meaning by ranging the
+wide field of possibilities. He tells us what a phrase means in certain
+authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, or in reference to certain
+matters which Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly ever attempts to
+trace the history of Hamilton's own view, or the train of thought by
+which it suggested itself to his mind. And the result of this is, that
+Mr. Mill's interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes
+a good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant,
+when a little attention in the right quarter would have shown what he did
+mean.
+
+ [AW]  Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in this
+       sentence: but he does so shortly afterwards; and his
+       remark is of the same character with the previous one.
+       "Even Schelling," he says, "was not so gratuitously
+       absurd as to deny that the Absolute must be known
+       according to the capacities of that which knows
+       it--though he was forced to invent a special capacity
+       for the purpose." But if this capacity is an "invention"
+       of Schelling's, and if he was "forced" to invent it,
+       Hamilton's point is proved. To think, according to all
+       the real operations of thought which consciousness makes
+       known to us, is to condition. And the faculty of the
+       unconditioned is an invention of Schelling's, not known
+       to consciousness. In other words: all our real faculties
+       bear witness to the truth of Hamilton's statement; and
+       the only way of controverting it is to invent an
+       imaginary faculty for the purpose.
+
+The third feature of Hamilton's philosophy which we charged Mr. Mill with
+misunderstanding, is the distinction between Knowledge and Belief. In the
+early part of this article, we endeavoured to explain the true nature of
+this distinction; we have now only a very limited space to notice Mr.
+Mill's criticisms on it. Hamilton, he says, admitted "a second source of
+intellectual conviction called Belief." Now Belief is not a "source" of
+any conviction, but the conviction itself. No man would say that he is
+convinced of the truth of a proposition _because_ he believes it; his
+belief in its truth is the same thing as his conviction of its truth.
+Belief, then, is not a source of conviction, but a conviction having
+sources of its own. The question is, have we legitimate sources of
+conviction, distinct from those which constitute Knowledge properly so
+called? Now here it should be remembered that the distinction is not one
+invented by Hamilton to meet the exigencies of his own system. He
+enumerates as many as twenty-two authors, of the most various schools of
+philosophy, who all acknowledged it before him. Such a concurrence is no
+slight argument in favour of the reality of the distinction. We do not
+say that these writers, or Hamilton himself, have always expressed this
+distinction in the best language, or applied it in the best manner; but
+we say that it is a true distinction, and that it is valid for the
+principal purpose to which Hamilton applied it.
+
+We do not agree with all the details of Hamilton's application. We do not
+agree with him, though he is supported by very eminent authorities, in
+classifying our conviction of axiomatic principles as _belief_, and not
+as _knowledge_.[AX] But this question does not directly bear on Mr.
+Mill's criticism. The point of that criticism is, that Hamilton, by
+admitting a _belief_ in the infinite and unrelated, nullifies his own
+doctrine, that all _knowledge_ is of the finite and relative. Let us
+see.
+
+ [AX]  Hamilton's distinction is in principle the same as that
+       which we have given in our previous remarks (pp. 18,
+       19). He says, "A conviction is incomprehensible when
+       there is merely given to us in consciousness--_That its
+       object is_ ([Greek: hoti esti]), and when we are unable
+       to comprehend through a higher notion or belief _Why or
+       How it is_ ([Greek: dioti esti])."--(Reid's Works, p.
+       754.) We would distinguish between _why_ and _how_,
+       between [Greek: dioti], and [Greek: pôs]. We can give
+       no reason _why_ two straight lines cannot enclose a
+       space; but we can comprehend _how_ they cannot. We have
+       only to form the corresponding image, to see the manner
+       in which the two attributes coexist in one object. But
+       when I say that I believe in the existence of a
+       spiritual being who sees without eyes, I cannot conceive
+       the _manner_ in which seeing coexists with the absence
+       of the bodily organ of sight. We believe that the true
+       distinction between knowledge and belief may ultimately
+       be referred to the presence or absence of the
+       corresponding intuition; but to show this in the various
+       instances would require a longer dissertation than our
+       present limits will allow.
+
+We may believe _that_ a thing is, without being able to conceive _how_ it
+is. I believe _that_ God is a person, and also _that_ He is infinite;
+though I cannot conceive _how_ the attributes of personality and infinity
+exist together. All my knowledge of personality is derived from my
+consciousness of my own finite personality. I therefore believe in the
+coexistence of attributes in God, in some manner different from that in
+which they coexist in me as limiting each other: and thus I believe in
+the fact, though I am unable to conceive the manner. So, again, Kant
+brings certain counter arguments, to prove, on the one side, that the
+world has a beginning in time, and, on the other side, that it has not a
+beginning. Now suppose I am unable to refute either of these courses of
+argument, am I therefore compelled to have no belief at all? May I not
+say, I believe, in spite of Kant, _that_ the world has a beginning in
+time, though I am unable to conceive _how_ it can have so begun? What is
+this, again, but a belief in an absolute reality beyond the sphere of my
+relative knowledge?
+
+"I am not now considering," says Mr. Mill, "what it is that, in our
+author's opinion, we are bound to believe concerning the unknowable."
+Why, this was the very thing he ought to have considered, before
+pronouncing the position to be untenable, or to be irreconcilable with
+something else. Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that Mr. Mill
+himself believes, or requires his readers to believe, something
+concerning the unknown. He does not know, or at any rate he does not tell
+his readers, what Hamilton requires them to believe concerning the
+unknowable; but he himself believes, and requires them to believe, that
+this unknown something is incompatible with the doctrine that knowledge
+is relative. We cannot regard this as a very satisfactory mode of
+refuting Hamilton's thesis.[AY]
+
+ [AY]  In a subsequent chapter (p. 120), Mr. Mill endeavours to
+       overthrow this distinction between Knowledge and Belief,
+       by means of Hamilton's own theory of Consciousness.
+       Hamilton maintains that we cannot be conscious of a
+       mental operation without being conscious of its object.
+       On this Mr. Mill retorts that if, as Hamilton admits, we
+       are conscious of a belief in the Infinite and the
+       Absolute, we must be conscious of the Infinite and the
+       Absolute themselves; and such consciousness is
+       Knowledge. The fallacy of this retort is transparent.
+       The immediate object of Belief is a _proposition_ which
+       I hold to be true, not a _thing_ apprehended in an act
+       of conception. I believe in an infinite God; _i.e._, I
+       believe _that_ God is infinite: I believe that the
+       attributes which I ascribe to God exist in Him in an
+       infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I
+       must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am
+       not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object
+       of conception; for this would require further an
+       apprehension of the manner in which these infinite
+       attributes coexist so as to form one object. The whole
+       argument of this eighth chapter is confused, owing to
+       Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages
+       in which Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an _argumentum
+       ad hominem_ in relation to Reid, and those in which he
+       is reasoning from general principles.
+
+But if Mr. Mill is unjust towards the distinction between Knowledge and
+Belief, as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes ample amends to the injured
+theory in the next chapter, by enlarging the province of credibility far
+beyond any extent which Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming for it.
+Conceivability or inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on
+association; and it is quite possible that, under other associations, we
+might be able to conceive, and therefore to believe, anything short of
+the direct contradiction that the same thing is and is not. It is not in
+itself incredible, that a square may at the same time be round, that two
+straight lines may enclose a space, or even that two and two may make
+five.[AZ] But whatever concessions Mr. Mill may make on this point, he
+is at least fully determined that Sir W. Hamilton shall derive no benefit
+from them; for he forthwith proceeds to charge Sir William with confusing
+three distinct senses of the term _conception_--a confusion which exists
+solely in his own imagination,[BA]--and to assert that the Philosophy
+of the Conditioned is entirely founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite
+space on the one hand, and, on the other, both an absolute minimum and an
+infinite divisibility of space, are perfectly conceivable. With regard to
+the former of these two assertions, Mr. Mill's whole argument is
+vitiated, as we have already shown, by his confusion between _infinite_
+and _indefinite_; but it is worth while to quote one of his special
+instances in this chapter, as a specimen of the kind of reasoning which
+an eminent writer on logic can sometimes employ. In reference to Sir W.
+Hamilton's assertion, that infinite space would require infinite time to
+conceive it, he says, "Let us try the doctrine upon a complex whole,
+short of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir W. Hamilton would not,
+I suppose, have maintained that this number is inconceivable. How long
+did he think it would take to go over every separate unit of this whole,
+so as to obtain a perfect knowledge of the exact sum, as different from
+all other sums, either greater or less?"
+
+ [AZ]  In reference to this last paradox, Mr. Mill quotes from
+       _Essays by a Barrister_: "There is a world in which,
+       whenever two pairs of things are either placed in
+       proximity or are contemplated together, a fifth thing is
+       immediately created and brought within the contemplation
+       of the mind engaged in putting two and two together....
+       In such a world surely two and two would make five. That
+       is, the result to the mind of contemplating two twos
+       would be to count five." The answer to this reasoning
+       has been already given by Archdeacon Lee in his Essay on
+       Miracles. The "five" in this case is not the sum of two
+       and two, but of two and two _plus_ the new creature,
+       _i.e._, of two and two _plus_ one.
+
+ [BA]  The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word
+       _conception_ is explained in a note to _Reid's Works_,
+       p. 377--namely, the combination of two or more
+       attributes in a _unity of representation_. The second
+       sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mistake of his
+       own. When Hamilton speaks of being "unable to conceive
+       as possible," he does not mean, as Mr. Mill supposes,
+       physically possible under the law of gravitation or some
+       other law of matter, but mentally possible as a
+       representation or image; and thus the supposed second
+       sense is identical with the first. The third sense may
+       also be reduced to the first; for to conceive two
+       attributes as combined in one representation is to form
+       a notion subordinate to those of each attribute
+       separately. We do not say that Sir W. Hamilton has been
+       uniformly accurate in his application of the test of
+       conceivability; but we say that his inaccuracies, such
+       as they are, do not affect the theory of the
+       conditioned, and that in all the long extracts which Mr.
+       Mill quotes, with footnotes, indicating "first sense,"
+       "second sense," "third sense," the author's meaning may
+       be more accurately explained in the first sense only.
+
+It is marvellous that it should not have occurred to Mr. Mill, while he
+was writing this passage, "How comes this large number to be a 'whole' at
+all; and how comes it that 'this whole,' with all its units, can be
+written down by means of six digits?" Simply because of a conventional
+arrangement, by which a single digit, according to its position, can
+express, by one mark, tens, hundreds, thousands, &c., of units; and thus
+can exhaust the sum by dealing with its items in large masses. But how
+can such a process exhaust the infinite? We should like to know how long
+Mr. Mill thinks it would take to work out the following problem:--"If two
+figures can represent ten, three a hundred, four a thousand, five ten
+thousand, &c., find the number of figures required to represent
+infinity."[BB]
+
+ [BB]  Precisely the same misconception of Hamilton's position
+       occurs in Professor De Morgan's paper in the _Cambridge
+       Transactions_, to which we have previously referred. He
+       speaks (p. 13) of the "notion, which runs through many
+       writers, from Descartes to Hamilton, that the mind must
+       be big enough to _hold_ all it can conceive." This
+       notion is certainly not maintained by Hamilton, nor yet
+       by Descartes in the paragraph quoted by Mr. De Morgan;
+       nor, as far as we are aware, in any other part of his
+       works.
+
+Infinite divisibility stands or falls with infinite extension. In both
+cases Mr. Mill confounds infinity with indefiniteness. But with regard to
+an absolute minimum of space, Mr. Mill's argument requires a separate
+notice.
+
+  "It is not denied," he says, "that there is a portion of extension
+  which to the naked eye appears an indivisible point; it has been
+  called by philosophers the _minimum visibile_. This minimum we can
+  indefinitely magnify by means of optical instruments, making
+  visible the still smaller parts which compose it. In each
+  successive experiment there is still a _minimum visibile_, anything
+  less than which cannot be discovered with that instrument, but can
+  with one of a higher power. Suppose, now, that as we increase the
+  magnifying power of our instruments, and before we have reached the
+  limit of possible increase, we arrive at a stage at which that
+  which seemed the smallest visible space under a given microscope,
+  does not appear larger under one which, by its mechanical
+  construction, is adapted to magnify more, but still remains
+  apparently indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should
+  believe in a minimum of extension; or if some _à priori_
+  metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we should at
+  least be enabled to conceive it."--(P. 84.)
+
+The natural conclusion of most men under such circumstances would be,
+that there was some fault in the microscope. But even if this conclusion
+were rejected, we presume Mr. Mill would allow that, under the supposed
+circumstances, the exact magnitude of the minimum of extension would be
+calculable. We have only to measure the _minimum visibile_, and know what
+is the magnifying power of our microscope, to determine the exact
+dimensions. Suppose, then, that we assign to it some definite
+magnitude--say the ten billionth part of an inch,--should we then
+conclude that it is impossible to conceive the twenty billionth part of
+an inch?--in other words, that we have arrived at a definite magnitude
+which has no conceivable half? Surely this is a somewhat rash concession
+to be made by a writer who has just told us that numbers may be conceived
+up to infinity; and therefore, of course, down to infinitesimality.
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an assertion which, even by itself,
+is sufficient to show how very little he has attended to or understood
+the philosophy which he is attempting to criticise. "The law of Excluded
+Middle," he says, "as well as that of Contradiction, is common to all
+phenomena. But it is a doctrine of our author that these laws are true,
+and cannot but be known to be true, of Noumena likewise. It is not merely
+Space as cognisable by our senses, but Space as it is in itself, which he
+affirms must be either of unlimited or of limited extent" (p. 86). At
+this sentence we fairly stand aghast. "Space as it is in itself!" the
+Noumenon Space! Has Mr. Mill been all this while "examining" Sir William
+Hamilton's philosophy, in utter ignorance that the object of that
+philosophy is the "Conditioned in Time and _Space_;" that he accepts
+Kant's analysis of time and space as formal necessities of thought, but
+pronounces no opinion whatever as to whether time and space can exist as
+Noumena or not? It is the phenomenal space, "space as cognisable by our
+senses," which Sir W. Hamilton says must be either limited or unlimited:
+concerning the Noumenon Space, he does not hazard an opinion whether such
+a thing exists or not. He says, indeed (and this is probably what has
+misled Mr. Mill), that the laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded
+Middle, are laws of things as well as laws of thought;[BC] but he says
+nothing about these laws as predicating infinite or finite extension. On
+the contrary, he expressly classifies Space under the law of Relativity,
+the violation of which indicates what may exist, but what we are unable
+to conceive as existing. Briefly, the law of Excluded Middle (to take
+this instance alone) is a law of things only in its abstract form,
+"Everything must be A or not A" (_extended_, if you please, or _not
+extended_); but in its subordinate form, "Everything extended must be
+extended infinitely or finitely," it is only applicable, and only
+intended by Hamilton to be applied, to those _phenomena_ which are
+already given as extended in some degree.
+
+ [BC]  _Discussions_, p. 603.
+
+We have now examined the first six chapters of Mr. Mill's book,
+containing his remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy
+which he justly regards as comprising the most important of the doctrines
+which specially belong to Hamilton himself. The next chapter is an
+episode, in which Mr. Mill turns aside from Sir W. Hamilton to criticise
+Mr. Mansel's _Bampton Lectures_. As our limits do not permit us to carry
+on the argument at present through the remainder of Mr. Mill's remarks on
+Hamilton himself, we shall conclude our notice with a few words on this
+chapter, as closing the properly metaphysical portion of Mr. Mill's book,
+and as affording ample proof that, in this department of philosophy at
+least, Mr. Mill's powers of misapprehension do not cease when Sir W.
+Hamilton is no longer their object.
+
+Mr. Mill's method of criticism makes it generally necessary to commence
+with a statement of the criticised theory as it really is, before
+proceeding to his exposition of it as it is not. The present instance
+offers no exception to this rule. Mr. Mansel's argument may be briefly
+stated as follows. The primary and essential conception of God,
+imperatively demanded by our moral and religious consciousness, is that
+of a _person_. But personality implies intellectual and moral attributes;
+and the only direct and immediate knowledge which we have of such
+attributes is derived from the testimony of self-consciousness, bearing
+witness to their existence in a certain manner in ourselves. But when we
+endeavour to transfer the conception of personality, thus obtained, to
+the domain of theology, we meet with certain difficulties, which, while
+they are not sufficient to hinder us from _believing_ in the Divine
+Personality as a fact, yet hinder us from _conceiving_ the manner of its
+existence, and prevent us from exhibiting our belief as a philosophical
+conclusion, proved by irrefragable reasoning and secured against all
+objections. These difficulties are occasioned, on the one hand, by the
+so-called Philosophy of the Unconditioned, which in all ages has shown a
+tendency towards Pantheism, and which, in one of its latest and most
+finished manifestations, announces itself as the exhibition of God as He
+is in His eternal nature before creation; and, on the other hand, by the
+limitations and conditions to which our own personality is subject, and
+which, as we have pointed out in the earlier part of this article, have,
+from the very beginning of Christian theology, prevented theologians from
+accepting the limited personality of man as an exact image and
+counterpart of the unlimited personality of God. These difficulties Mr.
+Mansel endeavours to meet in two ways. On the one side, he maintains, in
+common with Sir W. Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, by
+reason of its own incongruities and self-contradictions, has no claim to
+be accepted as a competent witness in the matter; and on the other side,
+he maintains, in common with many theologians before him, that human
+personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as
+that which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things. But these
+two positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding practical conclusion
+as regards the criterion of religious truth or falsehood. Were we
+capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear conception of the
+Unconditioned, or, on the other, of a direct intuition of the Divine
+Attributes as objects of consciousness, we might be able to construct,
+deductively or inductively, an exact science of Theology. As it is, we
+are compelled to reason by analogy; and analogy furnishes only
+probabilities, varying, it may be, from slight presumptions up to moral
+certainties, but whose weight, in any given case, can only be determined
+by comparison with other evidences. There are three distinct sources from
+which we may form a judgment about the ways of God--first, from our own
+moral and intellectual consciousness, by which we judge _à priori_ of
+what God ought to do in a given case, by determining what we should think
+it wise or right for ourselves to do in a similar case; secondly, from
+the constitution and course of nature, from which we may learn by
+experience what God's providence in certain cases actually is; and
+thirdly, from revelation, attested by its proper evidences. Where these
+three agree in their testimony (as in the great majority of cases they
+do) we have the moral certainty which results from the harmony of all
+accessible evidences: where they appear to differ, we have no right at
+once to conclude that the second or the third must give way to the first,
+and not _vice versâ_; because we have no right to assume that the first
+alone is infallible. In the author's own words: "The lesson to be learnt
+from an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought is not that man's
+judgments are _worthless_ in relation to Divine things, but that they are
+_fallible_: and the probability of error in any particular case can never
+be fairly estimated without giving their full weight to all collateral
+considerations. We are indeed bound to believe that a Revelation given by
+God can never contain anything that is really unwise or unrighteous; but
+we are not always capable of estimating exactly the wisdom or
+righteousness of particular doctrines or precepts. And we are bound to
+bear in mind that _exactly in proportion to the strength of the remaining
+evidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is the probability that we
+may be mistaken in supposing this or that portion of its contents to be
+unworthy of God._ Taken in conjunction, the two arguments may confirm or
+correct each other: taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the
+result which should follow from their joint application."[BD]
+
+ [BD]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 156, 4th edition.
+
+In criticising the first part of this argument--that which is directed
+against the deductive philosophy of the Unconditioned--Mr. Mill manifests
+the same want of acquaintance with its meanings, and with the previous
+history of the question; which he had before exhibited in his attack on
+Sir W. Hamilton. He begins by finding fault with the definition of the
+Absolute, which Mr. Mansel (herein departing, and purposely departing,
+from Sir W. Hamilton's use of the term) defines as "that which exists in
+and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being." On this,
+Mr. Mill remarks: "The first words of his definition would serve for the
+description of a Noumenon; but Mr. Mansel's Absolute is only meant to
+denote one Being, identified with God, and God is not the only Noumenon."
+The description of a Noumenon! This is almost equal to the discovery of a
+Noumenon Space. Does Mr. Mill really suppose that all noumena are
+self-existent? A _noumenon_ (in the sense in which we suppose Mr. Mill to
+understand the term, for it has different meanings in different
+philosophies) implies an existence out of relation to the human
+mind.[BE] But is this the same as being out of all relation whatever,
+as existing "in and by itself?" Does Mr. Mill mean to say that a
+creature, whether perceived by us or not, has no relation to its Creator?
+But Mr. Mill, as we have seen before, is not much at home when he gets
+among "noumena." We must proceed to his criticism of the second part of
+the definition,--"having no necessary relation to any other being." Of
+these words he says, that "they admit of two constructions. The words in
+their natural sense only mean, _capable of existing out of relation to
+anything else_. The argument requires that they should mean _incapable of
+existing in relation with anything else_." And why is this non-natural
+sense to be forced upon very plain words? Because, says Mr. Mill,--
+
+ [BE]  Strictly speaking, the term _noumenon_, as meaning that
+       which can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies
+       a relation to the intellect apprehending it; and in this
+       sense [Greek: to nooumenon] is opposed by Plato to
+       [Greek: to horômenon]--the object of intellect to the
+       object of sight. But as the intellect was supposed to
+       take cognisance of things as they are, in opposition to
+       the sensitive perception of things as they appear, the
+       term _noumenon_ became synonymous with _thing in itself_
+       ([Greek: to hon kath' hauto]). And this meaning is
+       retained in the Kantian philosophy, in which the
+       _noumenon_ is identical with the _Ding an sich_. But as
+       Kant denied to the human intellect any immediate
+       intuition of things as they are (though such an
+       intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect),
+       hence the term _noumenon_ in the Kantian philosophy is
+       opposed to all of which the human intellect can take
+       positive cognisance. Hamilton, in this respect, agrees
+       with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton, in opposing
+       the _thing in itself_ to the _phenomenon_, meant to
+       imply that the former is necessarily self-existent, and
+       therefore uncreated.
+
+  "In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation,
+  incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not causes a possible
+  existence apart from their effects? Would the sun, for example, not
+  exist if there were no earth or planets for it to illuminate? Mr.
+  Mansel seems to think that what is capable of existing out of
+  relation, cannot possibly be conceived or known in relation. But
+  this is not so.... Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. Mansel's
+  argument resolves itself into this,--The same Being cannot be
+  thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute, because a Cause _as
+  such_ is not Absolute, and Absolute, as such, is not a Cause; which
+  is exactly as if he had said that Newton cannot be thought by us
+  both as an Englishman and as a mathematician, because an
+  Englishman, as such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician,
+  as such, an Englishman."--(P. 92.)
+
+The "confusion of ideas" is entirely of Mr. Mill's own making, and is
+owing to his having mutilated the argument before criticising it. The
+argument in its original form consists of two parts; the first intended
+to show that the Absolute is not conceived _as such_ in being conceived
+as a Cause; the second to show that the Absolute cannot be conceived
+under different aspects at different times--first as Absolute, and then
+as Cause. It was the impossibility of this latter alternative which drove
+Cousin to the hypothesis of a necessary causation from all eternity. Mr.
+Mill entirely omits the latter part of the argument, and treats the
+former part as if it were the whole. The part criticised by Mr. Mill is
+intended to prove exactly what it does prove, and no more; namely, that a
+cause _as such_ is not the absolute, and that to know a cause _as such_
+is not to know the absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself will admit that
+to know Newton as a mathematician is not to know him as an Englishman.
+Whether he can be known separately as both, and whether the Absolute in
+this respect is a parallel case, depends on another consideration, which
+Mr. Mill has not noticed. The continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism is
+equally confused. He says:--
+
+  "The whole of Mr. Mansel's argument for the inconceivability of the
+  Infinite and of the Absolute is one long _ignoratio elenchi_. It
+  has been pointed out in a former chapter that the words Absolute
+  and Infinite have no real meaning, unless we understand by them
+  that which is absolute or infinite in some given attribute; as
+  space is called infinite, meaning that it is infinite in extension;
+  and as God is termed infinite, in the sense of possessing infinite
+  power, and absolute in the sense of absolute goodness or knowledge.
+  It has also been shown that Sir W. Hamilton's arguments for the
+  unknowableness of the Unconditioned do not prove that we cannot
+  know an object which is absolute or infinite in some specific
+  attribute, but only that we cannot know an abstraction called 'The
+  Absolute' or 'The Infinite,' which is supposed to have all
+  attributes at once."--(P. 93.)
+
+The fallacy of this criticism, as regards Sir W. Hamilton, has been
+already pointed out: as regards Mr. Mansel, it is still more glaring,
+inasmuch as that writer expressly states that he uses the term _absolute_
+in a different sense from that which Mr. Mill attributes to Sir W.
+Hamilton. When Mr. Mill charges Mr. Mansel with "undertaking to prove the
+impossibility" of conceiving "a Being _absolutely_ just or _absolutely_
+wise"[BF] (_i.e._, as he supposes, _perfectly_ just or wise), he
+actually forgets that he has just been criticising Mr. Hansel's
+definition of the Absolute, as something having a possible existence "out
+of all relation." Will Mr. Mill have the kindness to tell us what he
+means by goodness and knowledge "out of all relation;" _i.e._, a goodness
+and knowledge related to no object on which they can be exercised; a
+goodness which is good to nothing, a knowledge which knows nothing? Mr.
+Mill had better be cautious in talking about _ignoratio elenchi_.
+
+ [BF]  _Examination_, p. 95.
+
+From the Absolute, Mr. Mill proceeds to the Infinite; and here he commits
+the same mistake as before, treating a portion of an argument as if it
+were the whole, and citing a portion intended to prove one point as if it
+were intended to prove another. He cites a passage from Mr. Mansel, in
+which it is said that "the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all,
+must be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing; for if
+there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby
+limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it
+is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But, again, it must also
+be conceived as actually everything and potentially nothing; for an
+unrealised potentiality is likewise a limitation. If the Infinite can be
+that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as
+incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually
+everything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be
+distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of
+consciousness." On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, "Can a writer be
+serious who bids us conjure up a conception of something which possesses
+infinitely all conflicting attributes, and because we cannot do this
+without contradiction, would have us believe that there is a
+contradiction in the idea of infinite goodness or infinite wisdom?" The
+answer to this criticism is very simple. The argument is not employed for
+the purpose which Mr. Mill supposes. It is employed to show that the
+metaphysical notion of the absolute-infinite, as the sum, potential or
+actual, of all possible existence, is inconceivable under the laws of
+human consciousness; and thus that the absolutely first existence,
+related to nothing and limited by nothing, the _ens realissimum_ of the
+older philosophers, the _pure being_ of the Hegelians, cannot be attained
+as a starting-point from which to deduce all relative and derived
+existence. How far the empirical conception of certain mental attributes,
+such as goodness or wisdom, derived in the first instance from our own
+personal consciousness, can be positively conceived as extended to
+infinity, is considered in a separate argument, which Mr. Mill does not
+notice.
+
+Mr. Mill continues, "Instead of 'the Infinite,' substitute 'an infinitely
+good Being' [_i.e._, substitute what is not intended], and Mr. Mansel's
+argument reads thus:--'If there is anything which an infinitely good
+Being cannot become--if he cannot become bad--that is a limitation, and
+the goodness cannot be infinite. If there is anything which an infinitely
+good Being actually is (namely, good), he is excluded from being any
+other thing, as being wise or powerful.'" To the first part of this
+objection we reply by simply asking, "Is becoming bad a 'higher
+perfection?'" To the second part we reply by Mr. Mill's favourite mode of
+reasoning--a parallel case. A writer asserts that a creature which is a
+horse is thereby excluded from being a dog; and that, in so far as it has
+the nature of a horse, it has not the nature of a dog. "What!" exclaims
+Mr. Mill, "is it not the nature of a dog to have four legs? and does the
+man mean to say that a horse has not four legs?" We venture respectfully
+to ask Mr. Mill whether he supposes that being wise is being "a thing,"
+and being good is being another "thing?"
+
+But, seriously, it is much to be wished that when a writer like Mr. Mill
+undertakes to discuss philosophical questions, he should acquire some
+slight acquaintance with the history of the questions discussed. Had this
+been done by our critic in the present case, it might possibly have
+occurred to him to doubt whether a doctrine supported by philosophers of
+such different schools of thought as Spinoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant,
+Schelling, could be quite such a piece of transparent nonsense as he
+supposes it to be. All these writers are cited in Mr. Mansel's note, as
+maintaining the theory that the Absolute is the _ens realissimum_, or sum
+of all existence; and their names might have saved Mr. Mill from the
+absurdity of supposing that by this expression was meant something
+"absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise and absolutely
+stupid; and so forth." The real meaning of the expression has been
+already sufficiently explained in our earlier remarks. The problem of the
+Philosophy of the Unconditioned, as sketched by Plato and generally
+adopted by subsequent philosophers, is, as we have seen, to ascend up to
+the first principle of all things, and thence to deduce, as from their
+cause, all dependent and derived existences. The Unconditioned, as the
+one first principle, must necessarily contain in itself, potentially or
+actually, all that is derived from it, and thus must comprehend, in
+embryo or in development, the sum of all existence. To reconcile this
+conclusion with the phenomenal existence of evil and imperfection, is the
+difficulty with which philosophy has had to struggle ever since
+philosophy began. The Manichean, by referring evil to an independent
+cause, denies the existence of an absolute first principle at all; the
+Leibnitzian, with his hypothesis of the best possible world, virtually
+sets bounds to the Divine omnipotence: the Pantheist identifies God with
+all actual existence, and either denies the real existence of evil at
+all, or merges the distinction between evil and good in some higher
+indifference. All these conclusions may be alike untenable, but all alike
+testify to the existence of the problem, and to the vast though
+unsuccessful efforts which man's reason has made to solve it.
+
+The reader may now, perhaps, understand the reason of an assertion which
+Mr. Mill regards as supremely absurd,--namely, that we must believe in
+the existence of an absolute and infinite Being, though unable to
+conceive the nature of such a Being. To believe in such a Being, is
+simply to believe that God made the world: to declare the nature of such
+a Being inconceivable, is simply to say that we do not know how the world
+was made. If we believe that God made the world, we must believe that
+there was a time when the world was not, and when God alone existed, out
+of relation to any other being. But the mode of that sole existence we
+are unable to conceive, nor in what manner the first act took place by
+which the absolute and self-existent gave existence to the relative and
+dependent. "The contradictions," says Mr. Mill, "which Mr. Mansel asserts
+to be involved in the notions, do not follow from an imperfect mode of
+apprehending the Infinite and the Absolute, but lie in the definitions of
+them, in the meaning of the words themselves." They do no such thing: the
+meaning of the words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly what is
+expressed by their definitions: the contradictions arise from the attempt
+to combine the attributes expressed by the words in one representation
+with others, so as to form a positive object of consciousness. Where is
+the incongruity of saying, "I believe that a being exists possessing
+certain attributes, though I am unable in my present state of knowledge
+to conceive the manner of that existence?" Mr. Mill, at all events, is
+the last man in the world who has any right to complain of such a
+distinction--Mr. Mill, who considers it not incredible that in some part
+of the universe two straight lines may enclose a space, or two and two
+make five; though he is compelled to allow that under our present laws of
+thought, or, if he pleases, of association, we are unable to conceive how
+these things can be.
+
+It is wearisome work to wade through this mass of misconceptions; yet we
+must entreat the reader's patience a little longer, while we say a few
+words in conclusion on perhaps the greatest misconception of all--though
+that is bold language to use with regard to Mr. Mill's metaphysics,--at
+any rate, the one which he expresses in the most vehement language. Mr.
+Mansel, as we have said, asserts, as many others have asserted before
+him, that the relation between the communicable attributes of God and the
+corresponding attributes of man is one not of identity, but of analogy;
+that is to say, that the Divine attributes have the same relation to the
+Divine nature that the human attributes have to human nature. Thus, for
+example, there is a Divine justice and there is a human justice; but God
+is just as the Creator and Governor of the world, having unlimited
+authority over all His creatures and unlimited jurisdiction over all
+their acts; and man is just in certain special relations, as having
+authority over some persons and some acts only, so far as is required for
+the needs of human society. So, again, there is a Divine mercy and there
+is a human mercy; but God is merciful in such a manner as is fitting
+compatibly with the righteous government of the universe; and man is
+merciful in a certain limited range, the exercise of the attribute being
+guided by considerations affecting the welfare of society or of
+individuals. Or to take a more general case: Man has in himself a rule of
+right and wrong, implying subjection to the authority of a superior (for
+conscience has authority only as reflecting the law of God); while God
+has in Himself a rule of right and wrong, implying no higher authority,
+and determined absolutely by His own nature. The case is the same when we
+look at moral attributes, not externally, in their active manifestations,
+but internally, in their psychological constitution. If we do not
+attribute to God the same complex mental constitution of reason, passion,
+and will, the same relation to motives and inducements, the same
+deliberation and choice of alternatives, the same temporal succession of
+facts in consciousness, which we ascribe to man,--it will follow that
+those psychological relations between reason, will, and desire, which are
+implied in the conception of human action, cannot represent the Divine
+excellences in themselves, but can only illustrate them by analogies from
+finite things. And if man is liable to error in judging of the conduct of
+his fellow-men, in proportion as he is unable to place himself in their
+position, or to realise to himself their modes of thought and principles
+of action--if the child, for instance, is liable to error in judging the
+actions of the man,--or the savage of the civilised man,--surely there is
+far more room for error in men's judgment of the ways of God, in
+proportion as the difference between God and man is greater than the
+difference between a man and a child.
+
+This doctrine elicits from Mr. Mill the following extraordinary outburst
+of rhetoric:--
+
+  "If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in whom
+  all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive,
+  exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world
+  is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they
+  are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government,
+  except that 'the highest human morality which we are capable of
+  conceiving' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will
+  bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this,
+  and at the same time call this being by the names which express and
+  affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will
+  not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one
+  thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.
+  I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that
+  epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me
+  to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."--(P. 103.)
+
+We will not pause to comment on the temper and taste of this declamation;
+we will simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes the word _good_ to
+lose all community of meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is,
+to different persons among our "fellow-creatures," with express reference
+to their different duties and different qualifications for performing
+them? The duties of a father are not the same as those of a son; is the
+word therefore wholly equivocal when we speak of one person as a _good
+father_, and another as a _good son_? Nay, when we speak generally of a
+man as _good_, has not the epithet a tacit reference to human nature and
+human duties? and yet is there no community of meaning when the same
+epithet is applied to other Creatures? [Greek: Hê aretê pros to ergon
+to oikeion]--the goodness of any being whatever has relation to the
+nature and office of that being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill's
+declamation by a parallel case. A wise and experienced father addresses a
+young and inexperienced son: "My son," he says, "there may be some of my
+actions which do not seem to you to be wise or good, or such as you would
+do in my place. Remember, however, that your duties are different from
+mine; that your knowledge of my duties is very imperfect; and that there
+may be things which you cannot now see to be wise and good, but which you
+may hereafter discover to be so." "Father," says the son, "your
+principles of action are not the same as mine; the highest morality which
+I can conceive at present does not sanction them; and as for believing
+that you are good in anything of which I do not plainly see the
+goodness,"--We will not repeat Mr. Mill's alternative; we will only ask
+whether it is not just possible that there may be as much difference
+between man and God as there is between a child and his father?
+
+This declamation is followed by a sneer, which is worth quoting, not on
+its own account, but as an evidence of the generosity with which Mr. Mill
+deals with the supposed motives of his antagonists, and of the accuracy
+of his acquaintance with the subject discussed. He says:--
+
+  "It is worthy of remark, that the doubt whether words applied to
+  God have their human signification, is only felt when the words
+  relate to his moral attributes; it is never heard of with regard to
+  his power. We are never told that God's omnipotence must not be
+  supposed to mean an infinite degree of the power we know in man and
+  nature, and that perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill
+  us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is always
+  interpreted in a completely human signification; but the Divine
+  Goodness and Justice must be understood to be such only in an
+  unintelligible sense. Is it unfair to surmise that this is because
+  those who speak in the name of God, have need of the human
+  conception of his power, since an idea which can overawe and
+  enforce obedience must address itself to real feelings; but are
+  content that his goodness should be conceived only as something
+  inconceivable, because they are so often required to teach
+  doctrines respecting him which conflict irreconcilably with all
+  goodness that we can conceive?"--(P. 104.)
+
+On the latter part of this paragraph we will not attempt to comment. But
+as regards the former part, we meet Mr. Mill's confident assertion with a
+direct denial, and take the opportunity of informing him that the
+conception of infinite Power has suggested the same difficulties; and has
+been discussed by philosophers and theologians in the same manner, as
+those of infinite Wisdom and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never heard
+of such questions as, Whether Omnipotence can reverse the past?--Whether
+God can do that which He does not will to do?--Whether God's perfect
+foreknowledge is compatible with his own perfect liberty?--Whether God
+could have made a better world than the existing one? Nay, has not our
+critic, in this very chapter, been arguing against Mr. Mansel on the
+question, whether the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause acting in
+time: and what is this but a form of the question, whether power, when
+predicated of God is exactly the same thing as power when predicated of
+man? Or why has it been said that creation _ex nihilo_--an absolutely
+first act of causation, is inconceivable by us, but from the
+impossibility of finding in human power an exact type of Divine power? To
+attribute discreditable motives to an opponent, even to account for
+unquestionable facts, is usually considered as an abuse of criticism.
+What shall we say when the facts are fictitious as well as the motives?
+With regard to Mr. Mansel, the only person who is included by name in
+this accusation, it is "worthy of remark," that the earliest mention of
+the obnoxious theory in his writings occurs in connection with a
+difficulty relating solely to the conception of infinite power, and not
+at all to the moral attributes of God.[BG]
+
+ [BG]  See _Prolegomena Logica_, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with another instance of that _ignoratio
+elenchi_ which has been so abundantly manifested throughout his previous
+criticisms. His opponent, he allows, "would and does admit that the
+qualities as conceived by us bear _some likeness_ to the justice and
+goodness which belong to God, since man was made in God's image." But he
+considers that this "semi-concession" "destroys the whole fabric" of Mr.
+Mansel's argument. "The Divine goodness," he says, "which is said to be a
+different thing from human goodness, but of which the human conception of
+goodness is some imperfect reflexion or resemblance, does it agree with
+what men call goodness in the _essence_ of the quality--in what
+_constitutes_ it goodness? If it does, the 'Rationalists' are right; it
+is not illicit to reason from the one to the other. If not, the divine
+attribute, whatever else it may be, is not goodness, and ought not to be
+called by the name." Now the question really at issue is not whether the
+"Rationalist" argument is licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful
+use, it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible. We have already
+quoted a portion of Mr. Mansel's language on this point; we will now
+quote two more passages, which, without any comment, will sufficiently
+show how utterly Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argument which
+he has undertaken to examine.
+
+  "We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the
+  moral attributes of God: we can but infer and conjecture from what
+  we know of the moral attributes of man: and the analogy between the
+  Finite and the Infinite can never be so perfect as to preclude all
+  possibility of error in the process. But the possibility becomes
+  almost a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by
+  itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, without
+  regard to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be
+  modified and corrected."[BH]... "Beyond question, every doubt
+  which our reason may suggest in matters of religion is entitled to
+  its due place in the examination of the evidences of religion; if
+  we will treat it as a part only, and not the whole; if we will not
+  insist on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is given us
+  for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to believe
+  that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God has not
+  thought fit to annihilate the free will of man, but has permitted
+  speculative difficulties to exist as the trial and the discipline
+  of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has permitted moral
+  temptations to form the trial and the discipline of strong and
+  eager passions.... We do not doubt that the conditions of our moral
+  trial tend towards good, and not towards evil; that human nature,
+  even in its fallen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker,
+  and is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government. And we
+  believe this, notwithstanding the existence of passions and
+  appetites which, isolated and uncontrolled, appear to lead in an
+  opposite direction. Is it then more reasonable to deny that a
+  system of revealed religion, whose unquestionable tendency as a
+  whole is to promote the glory of God and the welfare of mankind,
+  can have proceeded from the same Author, merely because we may be
+  unable to detect the same character in some of its minuter
+  features, viewed apart from the system to which they
+  belong?"[BI]
+
+ [BH]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 157, Fourth Edition.
+
+ [BI]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 166, Fourth Edition.
+
+Surely this is very different from denouncing all reasoning from human
+goodness to Divine as "illicit." To take a parallel case. The manufacture
+of gunpowder is a dangerous process, and, if carried on without due
+precautions, is very likely to lead to disastrous consequences. Surely it
+is one thing to point out what precautions are necessary, and what evils
+are to be apprehended from the neglect of them, and another to forbid the
+manufacture altogether. Mr. Mill does not seem to see the difference.
+
+We have now considered in detail all that part of Mr. Mill's book which
+is devoted to the examination of Sir W. Hamilton's chief and most
+characteristic doctrines--those which constitute the Philosophy of the
+Conditioned. The remainder of the work, which deals chiefly with
+subordinate questions of psychology and logic, contains much from which
+we widely dissent, but which we cannot at present submit to a special
+examination. Nor is it necessary, so far as Sir W. Hamilton's reputation
+is concerned, that we should do so. If the Philosophy of the Conditioned
+is really nothing better than the mass of crudities and blunders which
+Mr. Mill supposes it to be, the warmest admirers of Hamilton will do
+little in his behalf, even should they succeed in vindicating some of the
+minor details of his teaching. If, on the other hand, it can be shown, as
+we have attempted to show, that Mr. Mill is utterly incapable of dealing
+with Hamilton's philosophy in its higher branches, his readers may be
+left to judge for themselves whether he is implicitly to be trusted as
+regards the lower. In point of fact, they will do Mr. Mill no injustice,
+if they regard the above specimens as samples of his entire criticism. We
+gladly except, as of a far higher order, those chapters in which he is
+content with stating his own views; but in the perpetual baiting of Sir
+W. Hamilton, which occupies the greater part of the volume, we recognise,
+in general, the same captiousness and the same incompetence which we have
+so often had occasion to point out in the course of our previous
+remarks.
+
+It is, we confess, an unpleasant and an invidious task, to pick to
+pieces, bit by bit, the work of an author of high reputation. But Mr.
+Mill has chosen to put the question on this issue, and he has left those
+who dissent from him no alternative but to follow his example. He has
+tasked all the resources of minute criticism to destroy piece-meal the
+reputation of one who has hitherto borne an honoured name in philosophy:
+he has no right to complain if the same measure is meted to himself:--
+
+                  "Neque enim lex æquior ulla
+                Quam necis artifices arte perire sua."
+
+But it is not so much the justice as the necessity of the case which we
+would plead as our excuse. Mr. Mill's method of criticism has reduced the
+question to a very narrow compass. Either Sir W. Hamilton, instead of
+being a great philosopher, is the veriest blunderer that ever put pen to
+paper, or the blunders are Mr. Mill's own. To those who accept the first
+of these alternatives it must always remain a marvel how Sir W. Hamilton
+could ever have acquired that reputation which compels even his critic to
+admit that "he alone, of our metaphysicians of this and the preceding
+generation, has acquired, merely as such, an European celebrity;" how he
+could have been designated by his illustrious opponent, Cousin, as the
+"greatest critic of our age," or described by the learned Brandis as
+"almost unparalleled in the profound knowledge of ancient and modern
+philosophy." The marvel may perhaps disappear, should it be the case, as
+we believe it to be, that the second alternative is the true one.
+
+But even in this case, it should be borne in mind that the blow will by
+no means fall on Mr. Mill with the same weight with which he designed it
+to fall on the object of his criticism. Sir W. Hamilton had devoted his
+whole life to the study of metaphysics; he was probably more deeply read
+in that study than any of his contemporaries; and if all his reading
+could produce nothing better than the confusion and self-contradiction
+which Mr. Mill imputes to him, the result would be pitiable indeed. Mr.
+Mill, on the other hand, we strongly suspect, despises metaphysics too
+much to be at the pains of studying them at all, and seems to think that
+a critic is duly equipped for his task with that amount of knowledge
+which, like Dogberry's reading and writing, "comes by nature." His work
+has a superficial cleverness which, together with the author's previous
+reputation, will insure it a certain kind of popularity; but we venture
+to predict that its estimation by its readers will be in the inverse
+ratio to their knowledge of the subject. But Mr. Mill's general
+reputation rests on grounds quite distinct from his performances in
+metaphysics; and though we could hardly name one of his writings from
+whose main principles we do not dissent, there is hardly one which is not
+better fitted to sustain his character as a thinker than this last, in
+which the fatal charms of the goddess Necessity seem to have betrayed her
+champion into an unusual excess of polemical zeal, coupled, it must be
+added, with an unusual deficiency of philosophical knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+It was not till after the preceding pages had been sent to press that I
+became acquainted with a little work recently published under the title
+of _The Battle of the two Philosophies, by an Inquirer_. The author
+appears to have been a personal pupil of Sir W. Hamilton's, as well as a
+diligent student of his writings. At all events, he has "inquired" to
+some purpose, and obtained a far more intelligent knowledge of Hamilton's
+system than is exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is
+gratifying to find many of my remarks confirmed by the concurrent
+testimony of so competent a witness. The following would have been
+noticed in their proper places had I been sooner acquainted with them.
+
+Of the popular confusion between the _infinite_ and the _indefinite_,
+noticed above, pp. 50, 112, "An Inquirer" observes:--
+
+"If we could realise in thought infinite space, that conception would be
+a perfectly definite one; but the notion that is here offered us in its
+place, though it may be real, is certainly not definite; it is merely the
+conception of an indefinite extension.... In truth, when we strive to
+think of infinite space, the nearest approach we can make to it is this
+notion of an indefinite space, which Mr. Mill has substituted for it. But
+these two conceptions are not only verbally, they are really wholly
+distinct. An indefinite space is a space of the extent of which we think
+vaguely, without knowing or without thinking where its boundaries are.
+Infinite space has certainly, and quite distinctly, no boundaries
+anywhere."--(Pp. 18-20.)
+
+On Mr. Mill's strange distinction between the Divine Attributes, as some
+infinite and others absolute, the author's remarks are substantially in
+agreement with what has been said above on pp. 105-6.
+
+"Mr. Mill argues that all the attributes of God cannot be infinite; but
+that some, as power, may be infinite; and some, as goodness and
+knowledge, must be absolute, because neither can knowledge be more than
+complete, nor goodness more than perfect. When we know all there is to be
+known, he says, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. But this is
+merely begging the whole question. If there be an Infinite Being, He
+cannot know all there is to be known unless He know Himself; and
+adequately to know what is infinite is to have infinite knowledge. The
+same thing would be true if there could be a Being whose power and
+duration only were infinite. 'The will,' he adds, 'is either entirely
+right, or wrong in different degrees: downwards there are as many
+gradations as we choose to distinguish; but upwards there is an ideal
+limit. Goodness can be imagined complete,--such that there can be no
+greater goodness beyond it,'... But a Being of infinite power and finite
+goodness would not be perfectly good, because His power would not be
+wholly, but only in part directed by His goodness. Nay, as that which is
+finite bears no proportion whatever to what is infinite: as, however
+great it be absolutely, it is still infinitely less than infinity, such a
+Being would be partly good and yet infinitely evil, which is absurd in
+reason and impossible in fact."--(Pp. 24, 25.)
+
+The following estimate of Mr. Mill's merits as a metaphysician coincides
+with that which, contrary to my expectation, I found forced upon myself
+after a careful examination of his book.--(See above, Pp. 62, 182.)
+
+"We cannot but think that Mr. Mill in this, his first work in pure
+metaphysics, has disappointed just expectation. In leaving the fields of
+practical philosophy, he seems to have left his genius behind him. Even
+the peculiar 'cunning of his right hand'--even his unexcelled logical
+power avails him little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly
+the conception with which he is fencing.... As long as he is applying
+given principles to the solution of practical questions; as long as he
+has to do with the process of an argument, he proves himself a most able
+instructor and guide. But when he has to grapple with a metaphysical
+problem, it almost invariably arrives that the central, the metaphysical
+difficulty, escapes him."--(Pp. 78-80.)
+
+
+
+
+               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by H. L. Mansel.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by H. L. Mansel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Philosophy of the Conditioned
+
+Author: H. L. Mansel
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2009 [EBook #28484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Tim Krajcar and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Million Book Project)
+
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p style='text-align: center; font-size: 2em'>
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+Reprinted, with Additions, from &#8220;The Contemporary Review.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+<i>Comprising some Remarks on Sir William Hamilton&#8217;s Philosophy</i>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+<i>and on Mr. J.S. Mill&#8217;s Examination of that Philosophy</i>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center; font-size: 1.5em'>
+BY H.L. MANSEL, B.D.
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center; font-size: .7em'>
+WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center; font-size: .7em'>
+IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<div class='figcenter'>
+<img src='images/printer.png' alt='' title=''  /><br />
+</div>
+
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+LONDON AND NEW YORK
+</p>
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+1866
+</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+The circumstance that the following remarks
+were originally published as an anonymous
+article in a Review, will best explain the
+style in which they are written. Absence
+from England prevented me from becoming
+acquainted with Mr. Mill&#8217;s <i>Examination of
+Sir William Hamilton&#8217;s Philosophy</i> till some
+time after its publication; and when I was
+requested to undertake the task of reviewing
+it, I was still ignorant of its contents. On
+proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon
+discovered, not only that the character of
+the book was very different from what the
+author&#8217;s reputation had led me to expect,
+but also that my task would be one, not
+merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of
+self-defence. The remarks on myself, coming
+from a writer of Mr. Mill&#8217;s ability and reputation,
+were such as I could not pass over
+without notice; while, at the same time, I
+felt that my principal duty in this instance
+was the defence of one who was no longer
+living to defend himself. Under these circumstances,
+the best course appeared to be,
+to devote the greater portion of my article
+to an exposition and vindication of Sir W.
+Hamilton&#8217;s teaching; and, in the additional
+remarks which it was necessary to make on
+the more personal part of the controversy,
+to speak of myself in the third person, as
+I should have spoken of any other writer.
+The form thus adopted has been retained in
+the present republication, though the article
+now appears with the name of its author.
+</p>
+<p>
+My original intention of writing a review
+of the entire book was necessarily abandoned
+as soon as I became acquainted with its
+contents. To have done justice to the whole
+subject, or to Mr. Mill&#8217;s treatment of it,
+would have required a volume nearly as
+large as his own. I therefore determined
+to confine myself to the <i>Philosophy of the
+Conditioned</i>, both as the most original and
+important portion of Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+teaching, and as that which occupies the
+first place in Mr. Mill&#8217;s <i>Examination</i>.
+</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+The reader of Plato&#8217;s <i>Republic</i> will
+readily recall to mind that wonderful
+passage at the end of the sixth book, in
+which the philosopher, under the image of
+geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations
+of the intelligible to the sensible
+world; especially his lofty aspirations with
+regard to &#8220;that second segment of the intelligible
+world, which reason of itself grasps
+by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses,
+not as principles, but as veritable
+hypotheses, that is to say, as steps and
+starting-points, in order that it may ascend
+<i>as far as the unconditioned</i> (μέχ�ι τοῦ ἀνυποθέτου),
+to the first principle of the universe,
+and having grasped this, may then lay hold
+of the principles next adjacent to it, and
+so go down to the end, using no sensible
+aids whatever, but employing abstract forms
+throughout, and terminating in forms.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+This quotation is important for our present
+purpose in two ways. In the first place, it
+may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to
+propitiate those plain-spoken English critics
+who look upon new terms in philosophy with
+the same suspicion with which Jack Cade
+regarded &#8220;a noun and a verb, and such
+abominable words as no Christian ear can
+endure to hear,&#8221; by showing that the head
+and front of our offending, &#8220;the Unconditioned,&#8221;
+is no modern invention of Teutonic
+barbarism, but sanctioned even by the Attic
+elegance of a Plato. And in the second
+place, it contains almost a history in miniature
+of the highest speculations of philosophy,
+both in earlier and in later times, and
+points out, with a clearness and precision
+the more valuable because uninfluenced by
+recent controversies, the exact field on which
+the philosophies of the Conditioned and the
+Unconditioned come into collision, and the
+nature of the problem which they both approach
+from opposite sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+What is the meaning of this problem, the
+solution of which Plato proposes as the
+highest aim of philosophy&mdash;&#8220;to ascend to
+the unconditioned, and thence to deduce the
+universe of conditioned existence?&#8221; The
+problem has assumed different forms at different
+times: at present we must content
+ourselves with stating it in that in which
+it will most naturally suggest itself to a
+student of modern philosophy, and in which
+it has the most direct bearing on the subject
+of the present article.
+</p>
+<p>
+All consciousness must in the first instance
+present itself as a relation between two constituent
+parts, the person who is conscious,
+and the thing, whatever it may be, of which
+he is conscious. This contrast has been indicated,
+directly or indirectly, by various
+names&mdash;mind and matter; person and thing;
+subject and object; or, lastly, in the distinction,
+most convenient for philosophy, however
+uncouth in sound, between self and not
+self&mdash;the <i>ego</i> and the <i>non-ego</i>. In order to
+be conscious at all, I must be conscious of
+something: consciousness thus presents itself
+as the product of two factors, <i>I</i> and <i>something</i>.
+The problem of the unconditioned is,
+briefly stated, to reduce these two factors
+to one.
+</p>
+<p>
+For it is manifest that, so long as they
+remain two, we have no unconditioned, but
+a pair of conditioned existences. If the <i>something</i>
+of which I am conscious is a separate
+reality, having qualities and modes of action
+of its own, and thereby determining, or contributing
+to determine, the form which my
+consciousness of it shall take, my consciousness
+is thereby conditioned, or partly dependent
+on something beyond itself. It is
+no matter, in this respect, whether the influence
+is direct or indirect&mdash;whether, for
+instance, I see a material tree, or only the
+mental image of a tree. If the nature of
+the thing in any degree determines the character
+of the image&mdash;if the visible form of a
+tree is different from that of a house because
+the tree itself is different from the house, my
+consciousness is, however remotely, influenced
+by something different from itself, the <i>ego</i> by
+the <i>non-ego</i>. And on the other hand, if I,
+who am conscious, am a real being, distinct
+from the things of which I am conscious&mdash;if
+the conscious mind has a constitution and
+laws of its own by which it acts, and if the
+mode of its consciousness is in any degree
+determined by those laws, the <i>non-ego</i> is so
+far conditioned by the <i>ego</i>; the thing which
+I see is not seen absolutely and <i>per se</i>, but
+in a form partly dependent upon the laws of
+my vision.
+</p>
+<p>
+The first step towards the reduction of
+these two factors to one may obviously be
+made in three different ways. Either the
+<i>ego</i> may be represented as a mode of the <i>non-ego</i>,
+or the <i>non-ego</i> of the <i>ego</i>, or both of a
+<i>tertium quid</i>, distinct from either. In other
+words: it may be maintained, <i>first</i>, that
+matter is the only real existence; mind and
+all the phenomena of consciousness being
+really the result solely of material laws; the
+brain, for example, secreting thought as the
+liver secretes bile; and the distinct personal
+existence of which I am apparently conscious
+being only the result of some such secretion.
+This is <i>Materialism</i>, which has then to address
+itself to the further problem, to reduce
+the various phenomena of matter to some
+one absolutely first principle on which everything
+else depends. Or it may be maintained,
+<i>secondly</i>, that mind is the only real
+existence; the intercourse which we apparently
+have with a material world being really
+the result solely of the laws of our mental
+constitution. This is <i>Idealism</i>, which again
+has next to attempt to reduce the various
+phenomena to some one immaterial principle.
+Or it may be maintained, <i>thirdly</i>, that real
+existence is to be sought neither in mind as
+mind nor in matter as matter; that both
+classes of phenomena are but qualities or
+modes of operation of something distinct
+from both, and on which both alike are
+dependent. Hence arises a third form of
+philosophy, which, for want of a better
+name, we will call <i>Indifferentism</i>, as being
+a system in which the characteristic differences
+of mind and matter are supposed to
+disappear, being merged in something higher
+than both.
+</p>
+<p>
+In using the two former of these terms, we
+are not speaking of Materialism and Idealism
+as they have always actually manifested
+themselves, but only of the distinguishing
+principle of these systems when pushed to
+its extreme result. It is quite possible to
+be a materialist or an idealist with respect to
+the immediate phenomena of consciousness,
+without attempting a philosophy of the Unconditioned
+at all. But it is also possible,
+and in itself natural, when such a philosophy
+is attempted, to attempt it by means of the
+same method which has approved itself in
+relation to subordinate inquiries; to make
+the relation between the human mind and
+its objects the type and image of that between
+the universe and its first principle.
+And such attempts have actually been made,
+both on the side of Materialism and on that
+of Idealism; and probably would be made
+oftener, did not counteracting causes frequently
+hinder the logical development of
+speculative principles.
+</p>
+<p>
+In modern times, and under Christian influences,
+these several systems are almost
+necessarily identified with inquiries concerning
+the existence and nature of God. The
+influence of Christianity has been indirectly
+felt, even in speculations prosecuted in apparent
+independence of it; and the admission
+of an absolute first principle of all things distinct
+from God, or the acknowledgment of a
+God separate from or derived from the first
+principle of all things, is an absurdity which,
+since the prevalence of Christianity, has become
+almost impossible, even to antichristian
+systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed,
+this union of philosophy with theology was
+by no means so imperative. A philosophy
+like that of Greece, which inherited its speculations
+from a poetical theogony, would see
+no difficulty in attributing to the god or
+gods of its religious belief a secondary and
+derived existence, dependent on some higher
+and more original principle, and in separating
+that principle itself from all immediate connection
+with religion. It was possible to
+assume, with the Ionian, a material substance,
+or, with the Eleatic, an indifferent
+abstraction, as the first principle of things,
+without holding that principle to be God, or,
+as the only alternative, denying the existence
+of a God; and thus, as Aristotle<a name="FNanchor_A" id="FNanchor_A"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> has observed,
+theologians endeavoured to evade the
+consequences of their abstract principles, by
+attributing to the chief good a later and
+derived existence, as the poets supposed the
+supreme God to be of younger birth than
+night and chaos and sea and sky. But to
+a Christian philosophy, or to a philosophy
+in any way influenced by Christianity, this
+method of evasion is no longer possible. If
+all conditioned existence is dependent on
+some one first and unconditioned principle,
+either that principle must be identified with
+God, or our philosophical speculations must
+fall into open and avowed atheism.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_A' id='Footnote_A'></a><a href='#FNanchor_A'><span class='label'>[A]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Metaph.</i>, xiv. 4.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But at this point the philosophical inquiry
+comes in contact with another line of thought,
+suggested by a different class of the facts of
+consciousness. As a religious and moral
+being, man is conscious of a relation of a
+personal character, distinct from any suggested
+by the phenomena of the material
+world,&mdash;a relation to a supreme Personal
+Being, the object of his religious worship,
+and the source and judge of his moral obligations
+and conduct. To adopt the name of
+God in an abstract speculation merely as a
+conventional denomination for the highest
+link in the chain of thought, and to believe
+in Him for the practical purposes of worship
+and obedience, are two very different things;
+and for the latter, though not for the former,
+the conception of God as a Person is indispensable.
+Were man a being of pure intellect,
+the problem of the Unconditioned
+would be divested of its chief difficulty; but
+he is also a being of religious and moral
+faculties, and these also have a claim to be
+satisfied by any valid solution of the problem.
+Hence the question assumes another
+and a more complex form. How is the
+one absolute existence, to which philosophy
+aspires, to be identified with the personal
+God demanded by our religious feelings?
+</p>
+<p>
+Shall we boldly assume that the problem
+is already solved, and that the personal God
+is the very Unconditioned of which we were
+in search? This is to beg the question, not
+to answer it. Our conception of a personal
+being, derived as it is from the immediate
+consciousness of our own personality, seems,
+on examination, to involve conditions incompatible
+with the desired assumption. Personal
+agency, similar to our own, seems to
+point to something very different from an
+absolutely first link in a chain of phenomena.
+Our actions, if not determined, are at least
+influenced by motives; and the motive is a
+prior link in the chain, and a condition of
+the action. Our actions, moreover, take place
+in time; and time, as we conceive it, cannot
+be regarded as an absolute blank, but as a
+condition in which phenomena take place as
+past, present, and future. Every act taking
+place in time implies something antecedent
+to itself; and this something, be it what it
+may, hinders us from regarding the subsequent
+act as absolute and unconditioned.
+Nay, even time itself, apart from the phenomena
+which it implies, has the same character.
+If an act cannot take place except
+in time, time is the condition of its taking
+place. To conceive the unconditioned, as
+the first link in a chain of conditioned consequences,
+it seems necessary that we should
+conceive something out of time, yet followed
+by time; standing at the beginning
+of all duration and succession, having no
+antecedent, but followed by a series of consequents.
+</p>
+<p>
+Philosophical theologians have been conscious
+of this difficulty, almost from the
+earliest date at which philosophy and Christian
+theology came in contact with each
+other. From a number of testimonies of
+similar import, we select one or two of the
+most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gregory
+Nyssen says: &#8220;It is neither in place
+nor in time, but before these and above these
+in an unspeakable manner, contemplated itself
+by itself, through faith alone; neither
+measured by ages, nor moving along with
+times.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_B" id="FNanchor_B"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> &#8220;In the changes of things,&#8221; says
+Augustine, &#8220;you will find a past and a
+future; in God you will find a present where
+past and future cannot be.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_C" id="FNanchor_C"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> &#8220;Eternity,&#8221;
+says Aquinas, &#8220;has no succession, but exists
+all together.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_D" id="FNanchor_D"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> Among divines of the
+Church of England, we quote two names
+only, but those of the highest:&mdash;&#8220;The duration
+of eternity,&#8221; says Bishop Pearson, &#8220;is
+completely indivisible and all at once; so
+that it is ever present, and excludes the
+other differences of time, past and future.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_E" id="FNanchor_E"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a>
+And Barrow enumerates among natural
+modes of being and operation far above our
+reach, &#8220;God&#8217;s eternity without succession,&#8221;
+coupling it with &#8220;His prescience without
+necessitation of events.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_F" id="FNanchor_F"></a><a href="#Footnote_F" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> But it is needless
+to multiply authorities for a doctrine so familiar
+to every student of theology.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_B' id='Footnote_B'></a><a href='#FNanchor_B'><span class='label'>[B]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>C. Eunom.</i>, i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_C' id='Footnote_C'></a><a href='#FNanchor_C'><span class='label'>[C]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>In Joann. Evang.</i>, tract. xxxvii. 10.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_D' id='Footnote_D'></a><a href='#FNanchor_D'><span class='label'>[D]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Summa</i>, pars. i., qu. x., art. 1.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_E' id='Footnote_E'></a><a href='#FNanchor_E'><span class='label'>[E]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Minor Theol. Works</i>, vol. i., p. 105.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_F' id='Footnote_F'></a><a href='#FNanchor_F'><span class='label'>[F]</span></a>
+<p>
+Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God&#8217;s Judgments.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Thus, then, our two lines of thought have
+led us to conclusions which, at first sight,
+appear to be contradictory of each other.
+To be conceived as unconditioned, God must
+be conceived as exempt from action in time:
+to be conceived as a person, if His personality
+resembles ours, He must be conceived as
+acting in time. Can these two conclusions
+be reconciled with each other; and if not,
+which of them is to be abandoned? The
+true answer to this question is, we believe,
+to be found in a distinction which some
+recent critics regard with very little favour,&mdash;the
+distinction between Reason and Faith;
+between the power of <i>conceiving</i> and that of
+<i>believing</i>. We cannot, in our present state
+of knowledge, reconcile these two conclusions;
+yet we are not required to abandon
+either. We cannot conceive the manner in
+which the unconditioned and the personal
+are united in the Divine Nature; yet we
+may believe that, in some manner unknown
+to us, they are so united. To conceive the
+union of two attributes in one object of
+thought, I must be able to conceive them as
+united in some particular manner: when this
+cannot be done, I may nevertheless believe
+<i>that</i> the union is possible, though I am unable
+to conceive <i>how</i> it is possible. The
+problem is thus represented as one of those
+Divine mysteries, the character of which is
+clearly and well described in the language
+of Leibnitz:&mdash;&#8220;Il en est de même des
+autres mystères, où les esprits modérés trouveront
+toujours une explication suffisante
+pour croire, et jamais autant qu&#8217;il en faut
+pour comprendre. Il nous suffit d&#8217;un certain
+<i>ce que c&#8217;est</i> (τί �στι) mais le <i>comment</i>
+(πῶς) nous passe, et ne nous est point nécessaire.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_G" id="FNanchor_G"></a><a href="#Footnote_G" class="fnanchor">[G]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_G' id='Footnote_G'></a><a href='#FNanchor_G'><span class='label'>[G]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Théodicée, Discours de la Conformité de la Foi avec la Raison,
+§ 56.</i> Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses the expression <i>pour comprendre</i>,
+for which, in the preceding remarks, we have substituted
+<i>to conceive</i>. The change has been made intentionally, on account
+of an ambiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as
+Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the manner in
+which certain attributes can coexist in an object. But sometimes
+(to say nothing of other senses) it is used to signify a complete
+knowledge of an object in all its properties and their consequences,
+such as it may be questioned whether we have of any object whatever.
+This ambiguity, which has been the source of much confusion
+and much captious criticism, is well pointed out by Norris
+in his <i>Reason and Faith</i> (written in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed.
+1697: &#8220;When we say that <i>above reason</i> is when we do not comprehend
+or perceive the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of
+not comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and extent, so
+that as many truths should be said to be above reason as we cannot
+thus thoroughly comprehend and pursue throughout all their consequences
+and relations to other truths (for then almost everything
+would be above reason), but only of not comprehending the union
+or connection of those immediate ideas of which the proposition
+supposed to be above reason consists.&#8221; <i>Comprehension</i>, as thus
+explained, answers exactly to the ordinary logical use of the term
+<i>conception</i>, to denote the combination of two or more attributes in
+an unity of representation. In the same sense, M. Peisse, in the
+preface to his translation of Hamilton&#8217;s <i>Fragments</i>, p. 98, says,&mdash;&#8220;Comprendre,
+c&#8217;est voir un terme en rapport avec un autre; c&#8217;est
+voir comme un ce qui est donné comme multiple.&#8221; This is exactly
+the sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word <i>conception</i>.
+(See <i>Reid&#8217;s Works</i>, p. 377.)
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But this distinction involves a further consequence.
+If the mysteries of the Divine
+Nature are not apprehended by reason as
+existing in a particular manner (in which
+case they would be mysteries no longer), but
+are accepted by faith as existing in some
+manner unknown to us, it follows that we
+do not know God as He is in His absolute
+nature, but only as He is imperfectly represented
+by those qualities in His creatures
+which are analogous to, but not identical
+with, His own. If, for example, we had a
+knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is
+in itself, we should know it as existing in
+a certain manner compatible with unconditioned
+action; and this knowledge of the
+manner would at once transform our conviction
+from an act of faith to a conception of
+reason. If, on the other hand, the only personality
+of which we have a positive knowledge
+is our own, and if our own personality
+can only be conceived as conditioned in time,
+it follows that the Divine Personality, in so
+far as it is exempt from conditions, does not
+resemble the only personality which we directly
+know, and is not adequately represented
+by it. This necessitates a confession,
+which, like the distinction which gives rise
+to it, has been vehemently condemned by
+modern critics, but which has been concurred
+in with singular unanimity by earlier divines
+of various ages and countries,&mdash;the confession
+that the knowledge which man in this life
+can have of God is not a knowledge of the
+Divine Nature as it is in itself, but only
+of that nature as imperfectly represented
+through analogous qualities in the creature.
+Were it not that this doctrine has been frequently
+denounced of late as an heretical
+novelty, we should hardly have thought it
+necessary to cite authorities in proof of its
+antiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will
+venture to produce a few only out of many,
+selecting not always the most important, but
+those which can be best exhibited <i>verbatim</i>
+in a short extract.
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Chrysostom.</span>&mdash;<i>De Incompr. Dei Natura</i>, Hom. i. 3:
+&#8220;<i>That</i> God is everywhere, I know; and <i>that</i> He is
+wholly everywhere, I know; but the <i>how</i>, I know not:
+<i>that</i> He is without beginning, ungenerated and eternal,
+I know; but the <i>how</i>, I know not.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Basil.</span>&mdash;Ep. ccxxxiv.: &#8220;That God is, I know; but
+what is His essence I hold to be above reason. How
+then am I saved? By faith; and faith is competent to
+know that God is, not what He is.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Gregory Nazianzen.</span>&mdash;Orat. xxxiv.: &#8220;A theologian
+among the Greeks [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that
+to conceive God is difficult, to express Him is impossible.
+... But I say that it is impossible to express Him, and
+more impossible to conceive Him.&#8221; [Compare Patrick,
+<i>Works</i>, vol. iii., p. 39.]
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Cyril of Jerusalem.</span>&mdash;Catech. vi. 2: &#8220;We declare not
+what God is, but candidly confess that we know not accurately
+concerning Him. For in those things which concern
+God, it is great knowledge to confess our ignorance.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Augustine.</span>&mdash;Enarr. in Psalm, lxxxv. 8: &#8220;God is
+ineffable; we more easily say what He is not than what
+He is.&#8221; Serm, cccxli.: &#8220;I call God just, because in
+human words I find nothing better; for He is beyond
+justice.... What then is worthily said of God?
+Some one, perhaps, may reply and say, <i>that He is just.</i>
+But another, with better understanding, may say that
+even this word is surpassed by His excellence, and that
+even this is said of Him unworthily, though it be said
+fittingly according to human capacity.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Cyril of Alexandria.</span>&mdash;<i>In Joann. Evang</i>., 1. ii., c. 5:
+&#8220;For those things which are spoken concerning it [the
+Divine Nature] are not spoken as they are in very truth,
+but as the tongue of man can interpret, and as man can
+hear; for he who sees in an enigma also speaks in an
+enigma.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Damascenus.</span>&mdash;<i>De Fide Orthod</i>., i. 4: &#8220;That God is,
+is manifest; but what He is in His essence and nature is
+utterly incomprehensible and unknown.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Aquinas.</span>&mdash;<i>Summa</i>, pars. i., qu. xiii., art. 1: &#8220;We
+cannot so name God that the name which denotes Him
+shall express the Divine Essence as it is, in the same way
+as the name <i>man</i> expresses in its signification the essence
+of man as it is.&#8221; <i>Ibid.</i>, art. 5: &#8220;When the name <i>wise</i> is
+said of a man, it in a manner describes and comprehends
+the thing signified: not so, however, when it is said of
+God; but it leaves the thing signified as uncomprehended
+and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it
+is evident that this name <i>wise</i> is not said in the same
+manner of God and of man. The same is the case with
+other names; whence no name can be predicated univocally
+of God and of creatures; yet they are not predicated
+merely equivocally.... We must say, then, that such
+names are said of God and of creatures according to
+analogy, that is, proportion.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Hooker.</span>&mdash;<i>Ecc. Pol.</i>, I., ii. 2.&mdash;&#8220;Dangerous it were for
+the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the
+Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to
+make mention of His name, yet our soundest knowledge
+is to know that we know Him not as indeed He is,
+neither can know Him.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Usher.</span>&mdash;<i>Body of Divinity</i>, p. 45, Ed. 1645: &#8220;Neither
+is it [the wisdom of God] communicated to any creature,
+neither can be; for it is unconceivable, as the very essence
+of God Himself is unconceivable, and unspeakable as
+it is.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Leighton.</span>&mdash;Theol. Lect. XXI., <i>Works</i>, vol. iv., p. 327,
+Ed. 1830: &#8220;Though in the schools they distinguish the
+Divine attributes or excellences, and that by no means
+improperly, into communicable and incommunicable; yet
+we ought so to guard this distinction, as always to remember
+that those which are called communicable, when
+applied to God, are not only to be understood in a manner
+incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also,
+that in Him they are in reality infinitely different [in the
+original, <i>aliud omnino</i>, <i>immensum aliud</i>] from those
+virtues, or rather, in a matter where the disparity of the
+subjects is so very great, those shadows of virtues that
+go under the same name, either in men or angels.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Pearson.</span>&mdash;<i>Minor Theol. Works</i>, vol. i., p. 13: &#8220;God
+in Himself is an absolute being, without any relation to
+creatures, for He was from eternity without any creature,
+and could, had He willed, be to eternity without creature.
+But God cannot naturally be known by us otherwise
+than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under
+the aspect of dominion, or of cause, or in some other
+relation.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_H" id="FNanchor_H"></a><a href="#Footnote_H" class="fnanchor">[H]</a>
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Beveridge.</span>&mdash;<i>On the Thirty-nine Articles</i>, p. 16, Ed.
+1846: &#8220;But seeing the properties of God do not so much
+denote what God is, as what we apprehend Him to be in
+Himself; when the properties of God are predicated one
+of another, one thing in God is not predicated of another,
+but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated
+one of another.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+<span style='font-variant: small-caps'>Leslie.</span>&mdash;<i>Method with the Deists</i>, p. 63, Ed. 1745:
+&#8220;What we call <i>faculties</i> in the soul, we call <i>Persons</i> in
+the Godhead; because there are personal actions attributed
+to each of them.... And we have no other word
+whereby to express it; we speak it after the manner of
+men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those
+unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its
+proper essence; therefore we must make allowances, and
+great ones, when we apply words of our nature to the
+Infinite and Eternal Being.&#8221; <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 64: &#8220;By the
+word <i>Person</i>, when applied to God (for want of a proper
+word whereby to express it), we must mean something
+infinitely different from personality among men.&#8221;
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_H' id='Footnote_H'></a><a href='#FNanchor_H'><span class='label'>[H]</span></a>
+<p>
+Bishop Pearson&#8217;s language is yet more explicit in another
+passage of the same work, which we give in the original Latin:&mdash;&#8220;Non
+dantur pro hoc statu nomina quæ Deum significant quidditative.
+Patet; quia nomina sunt conceptuum. Non autem
+dantur in hoc statu conceptus quidditativi de Deo.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 136.)
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The system of theology represented by
+these extracts may, as we think, be fairly
+summed up as follows: We believe that God
+in His own nature is absolute and unconditioned;
+but we can only positively conceive
+Him by means of relations and conditions suggested
+by created things. We believe that His
+own nature is simple and uniform, admitting
+of no distinction between various attributes,
+nor between any attribute and its subject;
+but we can conceive Him only by means of
+various attributes, distinct from the subject
+and from each other.<a name="FNanchor_I" id="FNanchor_I"></a><a href="#Footnote_I" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> We believe that in
+verum, aut bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse.
+His own nature He is exempt from all relations
+of time; but we can conceive Him
+only by means of ideas and terms which
+imply temporal relations, a past, a present,
+and a future.<a name="FNanchor_J" id="FNanchor_J"></a><a href="#Footnote_J" class="fnanchor">[J]</a> Our thought, then, must
+not be taken as the measure and limit of
+our belief: we think by means of relations
+and conditions derived from created things;
+we believe in an Absolute Being, in whose
+nature these conditions and relations, in some
+manner unknown to us, disappear in a simple
+and indivisible unity.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_I' id='Footnote_I'></a><a href='#FNanchor_I'><span class='label'>[I]</span></a>
+<p>
+This will be found most distinctly stated in the context
+of the extract from Beveridge, and in the citations from St.
+Augustine given in his notes; to which may be added the following
+from <i>De Trinitate</i>, vi. 7:&mdash;&#8220;Deus vero multipliciter quidem
+dicitur magnus, bonus, sapiens, beatus, verus, et quidquid aliud
+non indigne dici videtur; sed eadem magnitudo ejus est quæ sapientia,
+non enim mole magnus est, sed virtute; et eadem bonitas
+quæ sapientia et magnitudo, et eadem veritas quæ illa omnia: et
+non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum, aut sapientem, aut
+verum, aut bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_J' id='Footnote_J'></a><a href='#FNanchor_J'><span class='label'>[J]</span></a>
+<p>
+Compare the remarkable words of Bishop Beveridge, <i>l.c.</i>,
+&#8220;And therefore, though I cannot apprehend His mercy to Abel
+in the beginning of the world, and His mercy to me now, but as
+two distinct expressions of His mercy, yet as they are in God, they
+are but one and the same act,&mdash;as they are in God, I say, who is
+not measured by time, as our apprehensions of Him are, but is
+Himself eternity; a centre without a circumference, eternity without
+time.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The most important feature of this philosophical
+theology, and the one which exhibits
+most clearly the practical difference between
+reason and faith, is that, in dealing with
+theoretical difficulties, it does not appeal to
+our knowledge, but to our ignorance: it
+does not profess to offer a definite solution;
+it only tells us that we might find one if
+we knew all. It does not profess, for example,
+to solve the apparent contradiction
+between God&#8217;s foreknowledge and man&#8217;s free
+will; it does not say, &#8220;This is the way in
+which God foreknows, and in this way His
+foreknowledge is reconcileable with human
+freedom;&#8221; it only says, &#8220;The contradiction
+is apparent, but need not be real. Freedom
+is incompatible with God&#8217;s foreknowledge,
+only on the supposition that God&#8217;s foreknowledge
+is like man&#8217;s: if we knew exactly
+how the one differs from the other, we might
+be able to see that what is incompatible with
+the one is not so with the other. We cannot
+solve the difficulty, but we can believe
+that there is a solution.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+It is this open acknowledgment of our
+ignorance of the highest things which makes
+this system of philosophy distasteful to many
+minds: it is the absence of any similar
+acknowledgment which forms the attraction
+and the seductiveness of Pantheism in one
+way, and of Positivism in another. The
+pantheist is not troubled with the difficulty
+of reconciling the philosophy of the absolute
+with belief in a personal God; for belief in a
+personal God is no part of his creed. Like
+the Christian, he may profess to acknowledge
+a first principle, one, and simple, and indivisible,
+and unconditioned; but he has no need
+to give to this principle the name of God, or
+to invest it with such attributes as are necessary
+to satisfy man&#8217;s religious wants. His
+God (so far as he acknowledges one at all) is
+not the first principle and cause of all things,
+but the aggregate of the whole&mdash;an universal
+substance underlying the world of phenomena,
+or an universal process, carried on in and by
+the changes of things. Hence, as Aristotle
+said of the Eleatics, that, by asserting all
+things to be one, they annihilated causation,
+which is the production of one thing from
+another, so it may be said of the various
+schools of Pantheism, that, by maintaining
+all things to be God, they evade rather than
+solve the great problem of philosophy, that
+of the relation between God and His creatures.
+The positivist, on the other hand,
+escapes the difficulty by an opposite course.
+He declines all inquiry into reality and causation,
+and maintains that the only office of
+philosophy is to observe and register the
+invariable relations of succession and similitude
+in phenomena. He does not necessarily
+deny the existence of God; but his
+personal belief, be it what it may, is a matter
+of utter indifference to his system. Religion
+and philosophy may perhaps go on side by
+side; but their provinces are wholly distinct,
+and therefore there is no need to attempt a
+reconciliation between them. God, as a first
+cause, lives like an Epicurean deity in undisturbed
+ease, apart from the world of phenomena,
+of which alone philosophy can take
+cognisance: philosophy, as the science of
+phenomena, contents itself with observing
+the actual state of things, without troubling
+itself to inquire how that state of things
+came into existence. Hence, neither Pantheism
+nor Positivism is troubled to explain
+the relation of the One to the Many; for the
+former acknowledges only the One, and the
+latter acknowledges only the Many.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is between these two systems, both
+seductive from their apparent simplicity, and
+both simple only by mutilation, that the
+Philosophy of the Conditioned, of which Sir
+William Hamilton is the representative,
+endeavours to steer a middle course, at the
+risk of sharing the fate of most mediators in
+a quarrel,&mdash;being repudiated and denounced
+by both combatants, because it declares them
+to be both in the wrong. Against Pantheism,
+which is the natural development of
+the principle of Indifferentism, it enters a
+solemn protest, by asserting that the Absolute
+must be accepted in philosophy, not as
+a problem to be solved by reason, but as a
+reality to be believed in, though above reason;
+and that the pseudo-absolute, which
+Pantheism professes to exhibit in a positive
+conception, is shown, by the very fact of its
+being so conceived, not to be the true Absolute.
+Against Positivism, which is virtually
+Materialism, it protests no less strongly,
+maintaining that the philosophy which professes
+to explain the whole of nature by the
+aid of material laws alone, proceeds upon an
+assumption which does not merely dispense
+with God as a scientific hypothesis, but logically
+involves consequences which lead to a
+denial of His very existence. Between both
+extremes, it holds an intermediate position,
+neither aspiring, with Pantheism, to solve
+the problems of the Absolute, nor neglecting
+them, with Positivism, as altogether remote
+from the field of philosophical inquiry; but
+maintaining that such problems must necessarily
+arise, and must necessarily be taken
+into account in every adequate survey of
+human nature and human thought, and that
+philosophy, if it cannot solve them, is bound
+to show why they are insoluble.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let us hear Hamilton&#8217;s own words in relation
+to both the systems which he opposes.
+Against Pantheism, and the Philosophy of
+the Unconditioned in general, he says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes,&mdash;two
+inconditionates, exclusive of each other, <i>neither of
+which can be conceived as possible</i>,<a name="FNanchor_K" id="FNanchor_K"></a><a href="#Footnote_K" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> but of which, on the
+principles of contradiction and excluded middle, <i>one must
+be admitted as necessary</i>. On this opinion, therefore, our
+faculties are shown to be weak, but not deceitful. The
+mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions,
+subversive of each other, as equally possible; but only as
+unable to understand as possible either of the two extremes;
+one of which, however, on the ground of their
+mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true.
+We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity
+of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of
+existence; and are warned from recognising the domain
+of our knowledge as necessarily co-extensive with the
+horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful revelation, we
+are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive
+aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a
+belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond
+the sphere of all comprehensible reality.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Discussions</i>, p. 15.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_K' id='Footnote_K'></a><a href='#FNanchor_K'><span class='label'>[K]</span></a>
+<p>
+It must be remembered that, to conceive a thing as possible,
+we must conceive the manner in which it is possible, but that we
+may believe in the fact without being able to conceive the manner.
+Had Hamilton distinctly expressed this, he might have avoided
+some very groundless criticisms, with which he has been assailed
+for maintaining a distinction between the provinces of conception
+and belief.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Against Materialism, and virtually against
+Positivism in general, he says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;If in man, intelligence be a free power,&mdash;in so far as
+its liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of
+necessity and matter; and a power independent of matter
+necessarily implies the existence of an immaterial subject&mdash;that
+is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence of
+intelligence on matter in the human constitution&mdash;in other
+words, if the spirituality of mind in man be supposed a
+datum of observation, in this datum is also given both the
+condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to
+infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence
+holds the same relative supremacy in the universe which
+it holds in us, and the first positive condition of a Deity
+is established, in the establishment of the absolute priority
+of a free creative intelligence. On the other hand, let us
+suppose the result of our study of man to be, that intelligence
+is only a product of matter, only a reflex of organization,
+such a doctrine would not only not afford no basis
+on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on the
+contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying
+His existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the
+only intelligence of which we have any experience be a
+consequent of matter,&mdash;on this hypothesis, he not only
+cannot assume this order to be reversed in the relations of
+an intelligence beyond his observation, but, if he argue
+logically, he must positively conclude that, as in man, so
+in the universe, the phenomena of intelligence or design
+are only in their last analysis the products of a brute
+necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out fully
+and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in
+theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr.
+Henry More, <i>Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in
+macrocosmo Deus</i>. I do not, of course, mean to assert
+that all materialists deny or actually disbelieve a God.
+For, in very many cases, this would be at once an unmerited
+compliment to their reasoning, and an unmerited
+reproach to their faith.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Lectures</i>, vol. i, p. 31.<a name="FNanchor_L" id="FNanchor_L"></a><a href="#Footnote_L" class="fnanchor">[L]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_L' id='Footnote_L'></a><a href='#FNanchor_L'><span class='label'>[L]</span></a>
+<p>
+This part of Hamilton&#8217;s teaching is altogether repudiated by
+a recent writer, who, strangely enough, professes to be his disciple,
+while rejecting all that is really characteristic of his philosophy.
+Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on <i>First Principles</i>, endeavours
+to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism and Positivism
+together, by adopting the negative portion only of his
+philosophy&mdash;in which, in common with many other writers, he
+declares the absolute to be inconceivable by the mere intellect,&mdash;and
+rejecting the positive portions, in which he most emphatically
+maintains that the belief in a personal God is imperatively demanded
+by the facts of our moral and emotional consciousness.
+Mr. Spencer regards religion as nothing more than a consciousness
+of natural facts as being in their ultimate genesis unaccountable&mdash;a
+theory which is simply a combination of the positivist doctrine,
+that we know only the relations of phenomena, with the pantheist
+assumption of the name of God to denote the substance or power
+which lies beyond phenomena. No theory can be more opposed to
+the philosophy of the conditioned than this. Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+fundamental principle is, that consciousness must be accepted
+entire, and that the moral and religious feelings, which are the
+primary source of our belief in a personal God, are in no way
+invalidated by the merely negative inferences which have deluded
+men into the assumption of an impersonal absolute; the latter not
+being legitimate deductions from consciousness rightly interpreted.
+Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, takes these negative inferences as
+the only basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton&#8217;s great principle
+of the distinction between knowledge and belief, by quietly dropping
+out of his system the facts of consciousness which make such
+a distinction necessary. His whole system is, in fact, a pertinent
+illustration of Hamilton&#8217;s remark, that &#8220;the phenomena of matter&#8221;
+[and of mind, he might add, treated by materialistic methods],
+&#8220;taken by themselves (you will observe the qualification, taken
+by themselves), so far from warranting any inference to the existence
+of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument
+to his negation.&#8221; Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the freedom
+of the will; and this, according to Hamilton, leads by logical consequence
+to Atheism.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+In the few places in which Hamilton
+speaks directly as a theologian, his language
+is in agreement with the general voice of
+Catholic theology down to the end of the
+seventeenth century, some specimens of
+which have been given on a previous page.
+Thus he says (<i>Discussions</i>, p. 15): &#8220;True,
+therefore, are the declarations of a pious
+philosophy,&mdash;&#8216;A God understood would be
+no God at all;&#8217; &#8216;To think that God is, as
+we can think Him to be, is blasphemy.&#8217; The
+Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed; in
+a certain sense is concealed: He is at once
+known and unknown. But the last and
+highest consecration of all true religion must
+be an altar ’Αγνώστῳ Θεῷ&mdash;&#8216;<i>To the unknown
+and unknowable God.</i>&#8217;&#8221; A little later (p.
+20) he says: &#8220;We should not recoil to the
+opposite extreme; and though man be not
+identical with the Deity, still is he &#8216;created
+in the image of God.&#8217; It is, indeed, only
+through an analogy of the human with the
+Divine nature, that we are percipient and
+recipient of Divinity.&#8221; In the first of these
+passages we have an echo of the language
+of Basil, the two Cyrils, and John Damascene,
+and of our own Hooker and Usher;
+while in the second we find the counter
+truth, intimated by Augustine and other
+Fathers,<a name="FNanchor_M" id="FNanchor_M"></a><a href="#Footnote_M" class="fnanchor">[M]</a> and clearly stated by Aquinas,
+and which in the last century was elaborately
+expounded in the <i>Divine Analogy</i>
+of Bishop Browne,&mdash;namely, that though
+we know not God in His own nature, yet
+are we not wholly ignorant of Him, but
+may attain to an imperfect knowledge of
+Him through the analogy between human
+things and Divine.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_M' id='Footnote_M'></a><a href='#FNanchor_M'><span class='label'>[M]</span></a>
+<p>
+As <i>e.g.</i>, by Tertullian (<i>Adv. Marc.</i>, l. ii., c. 16): &#8220;Et hæc
+ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod eosdem motos et
+sensus habeat humanus animus quos et Deus, licet non tales quales
+Deus: pro substantia enim, et status eorum et exitus distant.&#8221;
+And by Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xxxvii.: &#8220;Ὠνομάσαμεν γὰ� ὡς ἡμῖν �φικτὸν �κ τῶν ἡμετέ�ων τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ&#8221;
+And by Hilary, <i>De Trin.</i>,
+i. 19: &#8220;Comparatio enim terrenorum ad Deum nulla est; sed
+infirmitas nostræ intelligentiæ cogit species quasdam ex inferioribus,
+tanquam superiorum indices quærere; ut rerum familiarium
+consuetudine admovente, ex sensus nostri conscientia ad insoliti
+sensus opinionem educeremur.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+As regards theological results, therefore,
+there is nothing novel or peculiar in Hamilton&#8217;s
+teaching; nor was he one who would
+have regarded novelty in theology as a recommendation.
+The peculiarity of his system,
+by which his reputation as a philosopher
+must ultimately stand or fall, is the manner
+in which he endeavoured to connect these
+theological conclusions with psychological
+principles; and thus to vindicate on philosophical
+grounds the position which Catholic
+divines had been compelled to take in the
+interests of dogmatic truth. That the absolute
+nature of God, as a supertemporal and
+yet personal Being, must be believed in as
+a fact, though inaccessible to reason as regards
+the manner of its possibility, is a
+position admitted, almost without exception,
+by divines who acknowledge the mystery
+of a personal Absolute&mdash;still more by those
+who acknowledge the yet deeper mystery
+of a Trinity in Unity. &#8220;We believe and
+know,&#8221; says Bishop Sanderson of the mysteries
+of the Christian faith, &#8220;and that with
+fulness of assurance, that all these things
+are so as they are revealed in the Holy
+Scriptures, because the mouth of God, who
+is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath spoken
+them; and our own reason upon this ground
+teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to
+<i>the obedience of faith</i>, for the τὸ ὅτι, that so
+it is. But then, for the τὸ πῶς, Nicodemus
+his question, <i>How can these things be?</i> it is
+no more possible for our weak understandings
+to comprehend that, than it is for the
+eyes of bats or owls to look steadfastly upon
+the body of the sun, when he shineth forth
+in his greatest strength.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_N" id="FNanchor_N"></a><a href="#Footnote_N" class="fnanchor">[N]</a> This distinction
+Hamilton endeavoured to extend from the
+domain of Christian theology to that of philosophical
+speculation in general; to show that
+the unconditioned, as it is suggested in philosophy,
+no less than as it connects itself with
+revealed religion, is an object of belief, not
+of positive conception; and, consequently,
+that men cannot escape from mystery by
+rejecting revelation. &#8220;Above all,&#8221; he says,
+&#8220;I am confirmed in my belief by the harmony
+between the doctrines of this philosophy,
+and those of revealed truth....
+For this philosophy is professedly a scientific
+demonstration of the impossibility of that
+&#8217;wisdom in high matters&#8217; which the Apostle
+prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes,
+from the limitation of the human
+powers, from our impotence to comprehend
+what, however, we must admit, to show
+articulately why the &#8216;secret things of God,&#8217;
+cannot but be to man &#8216;past finding out.&#8217;&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_O" id="FNanchor_O"></a><a href="#Footnote_O" class="fnanchor">[O]</a>
+Faith in the inconceivable must thus become
+the ultimate refuge, even of the pantheist
+and the atheist, no less than of the Christian;
+the difference being, that while the
+last takes his stand on a faith which is in
+agreement alike with the authority of Scripture
+and the needs of human nature, the
+two former are driven to one which is equally
+opposed to both, as well as to the pretensions
+of their own philosophy.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_N' id='Footnote_N'></a><a href='#FNanchor_N'><span class='label'>[N]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Works</i>, vol. i., p, 233.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_O' id='Footnote_O'></a><a href='#FNanchor_O'><span class='label'>[O]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Discussions</i>, p. 625.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Deny the Trinity; deny the Personality
+of God: there yet remains that which no
+man can deny as the law of his own consciousness&mdash;<i>Time</i>.
+Conditioned existence is
+existence in time: to attain to a philosophy
+of the unconditioned, we must rise to the
+conception of existence out of time. The
+attempt may be made in two ways, and in
+two only. Either we may endeavour to
+conceive an absolutely first moment of time,
+beyond which is an existence having no duration
+and no succession; or we may endeavour
+to conceive time as an unlimited duration,
+containing an infinite series of successive
+antecedents and consequents, each conditioned
+in itself, but forming altogether an
+unconditioned whole. In other words, we
+may endeavour, with the Eleatics, to conceive
+pure existence apart and distinct from
+all phenomenal change; or we may endeavour,
+with Heraclitus, to conceive the universe
+as a system of incessant changes, immutable
+only in the law of its own mutability;
+for these two systems may be regarded as
+the type of all subsequent attempts. Both,
+however, alike aim at an object which is
+beyond positive conception, and which can
+be accepted only as something to be believed
+in spite of its inconceivability. To conceive
+an existence beyond the first moment of
+time, and to connect that existence as cause
+with the subsequent temporal succession of
+effects, we must conceive time itself as non-existent
+and then commencing to exist. But
+when we make the effort to conceive time
+as non-existent, we find it impossible to do
+so. Time, as the universal condition of
+human consciousness, clings round the very
+conception which strives to destroy it, clings
+round the language in which we speak of an
+existence <i>before</i> time. Nor are we more
+successful when we attempt to conceive an
+infinite regress of time, and an infinite series
+of dependent existences in time. To say
+nothing of the direct contradiction involved
+in the notion of an unconditioned <i>whole</i>,&mdash;a
+something completed,&mdash;composed of infinite
+parts&mdash;of parts never completed,&mdash;even if we
+abandon the Whole, and with it the Unconditioned,
+and attempt merely to conceive an
+infinite succession of conditioned existences&mdash;conditioned,
+absurdly enough, by nothing
+beyond themselves,&mdash;we find, that in order
+to do so, we must add moment to moment
+for ever&mdash;a process which would require an
+eternity for its accomplishment.<a name="FNanchor_P" id="FNanchor_P"></a><a href="#Footnote_P" class="fnanchor">[P]</a> Moreover,
+the chain of dependent existences in this
+infinite succession is not, like a mathematical
+series, composed of abstract and homogeneous
+units; it is made up of divers phenomena,
+of a regressive line of causes, each distinct
+from the other. Wherever, therefore, I stop
+in my addition, I do not positively conceive
+the terms which lie beyond. I apprehend
+them only as a series of unknown <i>somethings</i>,
+of which I may believe <i>that</i> they are, but am
+unable to say <i>what</i> they are.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_P' id='Footnote_P'></a><a href='#FNanchor_P'><span class='label'>[P]</span></a>
+<p>
+See <i>Discussions</i>, p. 29. Of course by this is not meant that
+no duration can be conceived except in a duration equally long&mdash;that
+a thousand years, <i>e.g.</i>, can only be conceived in a thousand
+years. A thousand years may be conceived as one unit: infinity
+cannot; for an unit is something complete, and therefore limited.
+What is meant is, that any period of time, however long, is conceived
+as capable of further increase, and therefore as not infinite.
+An infinite duration can have no time before or after it; and thus
+cannot resemble any portion of finite time, however great. When
+we dream of conceiving an infinite regress of time, says Sir W.
+Hamilton, &#8220;we only deceive ourselves by substituting the <i>indefinite</i>
+for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more
+opposed.&#8221; This caution has not been attended to by some later
+critics. Thus, Dr. Whewell (<i>Philosophy of Discovery</i>, p. 324) says:
+&#8220;The definition of an infinite number is not that it contains all
+possible unities; but this&mdash;that the progress of numeration, being
+begun according to a certain law, goes on without limit.&#8221; This is
+precisely Descartes&#8217; definition, not of the <i>infinite</i>, but of the <i>indefinite</i>.
+<i>Principia</i>, i. 26: &#8220;Nos autem illa omnia, in quibus sub
+aliqua consideratione nullum finem poterimus invenire, non quidem
+affirmabimus esse infinita, sed ut indefinita spectabimus.&#8221; An
+indefinite time is that which is capable of perpetual addition: an
+infinite time is one so great as to admit of no addition. Surely
+&#8220;no two notions can be more opposed.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The cardinal point, then, of Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+philosophy, expressly announced as such
+by himself, is the absolute necessity, under
+any system of philosophy whatever, of acknowledging
+the existence of a sphere of
+belief beyond the limits of the sphere of
+thought. &#8220;The main scope of my speculation,&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_Q" id="FNanchor_Q"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q" class="fnanchor">[Q]</a>
+he says, &#8220;is to show articulately that
+we <i>must believe</i>, as actual, much that we are
+unable (positively) <i>to conceive</i> as even possible.&#8221;
+It is, of course, beyond the range
+of such a speculation, by itself, to enter on
+an examination of the positive evidences in
+support of one form of belief rather than
+another. So far as it aims only at exhibiting
+an universal law of the human mind, it is of
+course compatible with all special forms of
+belief which do not contradict that law; and
+none, whatever their pretensions, can really
+contradict it. Hence the service which such
+a philosophy can render to the Christian religion
+must necessarily, from the nature of the
+case, be of an indirect and negative character.
+It prepares the way for a fair examination
+of the proper evidences of Christianity, by
+showing that there is no ground for any <i>à
+priori</i> prejudice against revelation, as appealing,
+for the acceptance of its highest truths,
+to faith rather than to reason; for that this
+appeal is common to all religions and to all
+philosophies, and cannot therefore be urged
+against one more than another. So far as
+certain difficulties are inherent in the constitution
+of the human mind itself, they must
+necessarily occupy the same position with
+respect to all religions alike. To exhibit the
+nature of these difficulties is a service to true
+religion; but it is the service of the pioneer,
+not of the builder; it does not prove the
+religion to be true; it only clears the ground
+for the production of the special evidences.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_Q' id='Footnote_Q'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Q'><span class='label'>[Q]</span></a>
+<p>
+Letter to Mr. Calderwood. See <i>Lectures</i>, vol. ii, p. 534.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Where those evidences are to be found,
+Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to tell us.
+If mere intellectual speculations on the
+nature and origin of the material universe
+form a common ground in which the theist,
+the pantheist, and even the atheist, may
+alike expatiate, the moral and religious feelings
+of man&mdash;those facts of consciousness
+which have their direct source in the sense of
+personality and free will&mdash;plead with overwhelming
+evidence in behalf of a personal
+God, and of man&#8217;s relation to Him, as a
+person to a person. We have seen, in a previous
+quotation, Hamilton&#8217;s emphatic declaration
+that &#8220;psychological materialism, if
+carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions,
+inevitably results in theological atheism.&#8221;
+In the same spirit he tells us that &#8220;it is only
+as man is a free intelligence, a moral power,
+that he is created after the image of God;&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_R" id="FNanchor_R"></a><a href="#Footnote_R" class="fnanchor">[R]</a>
+that &#8220;with the proof of the moral nature of
+man, stands or falls the proof of the existence
+of a Deity;&#8221; that &#8220;the possibility of morality
+depends on the possibility of liberty;&#8221; that
+&#8220;if man be not a free agent, he is not the
+author of his actions, and has therefore no
+responsibility, no moral personality at all;&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_S" id="FNanchor_S"></a><a href="#Footnote_S" class="fnanchor">[S]</a>
+and, finally, &#8220;that he who disbelieves the
+moral agency of man, must, in consistency
+with that opinion, disbelieve Christianity.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_T" id="FNanchor_T"></a><a href="#Footnote_T" class="fnanchor">[T]</a>
+We have thus, in the positive and negative
+sides of this philosophy, both a reasonable
+ground of belief and a warning against presumption.
+By our immediate consciousness
+of a moral and personal nature, we are led to
+the belief in a moral and personal God: by
+our ignorance of the unconditioned, we are
+led to the further belief, that behind that
+moral and personal manifestation of God
+there lies concealed a mystery&mdash;the mystery
+of the Absolute and the Infinite; that our
+intellectual and moral qualities, though indicating
+the nearest approach to the Divine
+Perfections which we are capable of conceiving,
+yet indicate them as analogous, not as
+identical; that we may naturally expect to
+find points where this analogy will fail us,
+where the function of the Infinite Moral
+Governor will be distinct from that of the
+finite moral servant; and where, consequently,
+we shall be liable to error in judging
+by human rules of the ways of God, whether
+manifested in nature or in revelation. Such
+is the true lesson to be learnt from a philosophy
+which tells us of a God who is &#8220;in a
+certain sense revealed, in a certain sense concealed&mdash;at
+once known and unknown.&#8221;
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_R' id='Footnote_R'></a><a href='#FNanchor_R'><span class='label'>[R]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Lectures</i>, vol. i., p. 30.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_S' id='Footnote_S'></a><a href='#FNanchor_S'><span class='label'>[S]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Lectures</i>, vol. i, p. 33.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_T' id='Footnote_T'></a><a href='#FNanchor_T'><span class='label'>[T]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 42.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+It is not surprising that this philosophy,
+when compared with that of a critic like Mr.
+Mill, should stand out in clear and sharp
+antagonism. Mr. Mill is one of the most
+distinguished representatives of that school
+of Materialism which Sir W. Hamilton denounces
+as virtual Atheism. We do not
+mean that he consciously adopts the grosser
+tenets of the materialists. We are not aware
+that he has ever positively denied the existence
+of a soul distinct from the body, or
+maintained that the brain secretes thought
+as the liver secretes bile. But he is the
+advocate of a philosophical method which
+makes the belief in the existence of an immaterial
+principle superfluous and incongruous;
+he not only acknowledges no such distinction
+between the phenomena of mind and those of
+matter as to require the hypothesis of a free
+intelligence to account for it; he not only
+regards the ascertained laws of coexistence
+and succession in material phenomena as the
+type and rule according to which all phenomena
+whatever&mdash;those of internal consciousness
+no less than of external observation&mdash;are
+to be tested; but he even expressly denies
+the existence of that free will which Sir W.
+Hamilton regards as the indispensable condition
+of all morality and all religion.<a name="FNanchor_U" id="FNanchor_U"></a><a href="#Footnote_U" class="fnanchor">[U]</a> Thus,
+instead of recognising in the facts of intelligence
+&#8220;an order of existence diametrically
+in contrast to that displayed to us in the
+facts of the material universe,&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_V" id="FNanchor_V"></a><a href="#Footnote_V" class="fnanchor">[V]</a> he regards
+both classes of facts as of the same kind, and
+explicable by the same laws; he abolishes
+the primary contrast of consciousness between
+the <i>ego</i> and the <i>non-ego</i>&mdash;the person and the
+thing; he reduces man to a thing, instead of
+a person,&mdash;to one among the many phenomena
+of the universe, determined by the
+same laws of invariable antecedence and consequence,
+included under the same formulæ
+of empirical generalization. He thus makes
+man the slave, and not the master of nature;
+passively carried along in the current of
+successive phenomena; unable, by any act
+of free will, to arrest a single wave in its
+course, or to divert it from its ordained
+direction.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_U' id='Footnote_U'></a><a href='#FNanchor_U'><span class='label'>[U]</span></a>
+<p>
+That this is the real battle-ground between the two philosophers
+is virtually admitted by Mr. Mill himself at the end of his
+criticism. He says:&mdash;&#8220;The whole philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton
+seems to have had its character determined by the requirements of
+the doctrine of Free-will; and to that doctrine he clung, because
+he had persuaded himself that it afforded the only premises from
+which human reason could deduce the doctrines of natural religion.
+I believe that in this persuasion he was thoroughly his own dupe,
+and that his speculations have weakened the philosophical foundation
+of religion fully as much as they have confirmed it.&#8221;&mdash;P. 549.
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s whole philosophy, on the other hand, is determined by
+the requirements of the doctrine of Necessity; and to that doctrine
+he intrepidly adheres, in utter defiance of consciousness, and sometimes
+of his own consistency. Which of the two philosophers is
+really &#8220;his own dupe,&#8221; Mr. Mill in believing that morality and
+religion can exist without free will&mdash;that a necessary agent can be
+responsible for his acts&mdash;or Sir W. Hamilton in maintaining the
+contrary, is a question which the former has by no means satisfactorily
+settled in his own favour.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_V' id='Footnote_V'></a><a href='#FNanchor_V'><span class='label'>[V]</span></a>
+<p>
+Hamilton, <i>Lectures</i>, vol. i, p. 29.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+This diametrical antagonism between the
+two philosophers is not limited to their first
+principles, but extends, as might naturally be
+expected, to every subordinate science of
+which the immediate object is mental, and
+not material. Logic, instead of being, as
+Sir W. Hamilton regards it, an <i>à priori</i>
+science of the necessary laws of thought, is
+with Mr. Mill a science of observation,
+investigating those operations of the understanding
+which are subservient to the
+estimation of evidence.<a name="FNanchor_W" id="FNanchor_W"></a><a href="#Footnote_W" class="fnanchor">[W]</a> The axioms of
+Mathematics, which the former philosopher
+regards, with Kant, as necessary thoughts,
+based on the <i>à priori</i> intuitions of space and
+time, the latter<a name="FNanchor_X" id="FNanchor_X"></a><a href="#Footnote_X" class="fnanchor">[X]</a> declares to be &#8220;experimental
+truths; generalizations from observation.&#8221;
+Psychology, which with Hamilton is especially
+the philosophy of man as a free and
+personal agent, is with Mill the science of
+&#8220;the uniformities of succession; the laws,
+whether ultimate or derivative, according to
+which one mental state succeeds another.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_Y" id="FNanchor_Y"></a><a href="#Footnote_Y" class="fnanchor">[Y]</a>
+And finally, in the place of Ethics, as the
+science of the <i>à priori</i> laws of man&#8217;s moral
+obligations, we are presented, in Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+system, with Ethology, the &#8220;science which
+determines the kind of character produced,
+in conformity to the general laws of mind,
+by any set of circumstances, physical and
+moral.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_Z" id="FNanchor_Z"></a><a href="#Footnote_Z" class="fnanchor">[Z]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_W' id='Footnote_W'></a><a href='#FNanchor_W'><span class='label'>[W]</span></a>
+<p>
+Mill&#8217;s <i>Logic</i>. Introduction, § 7.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_X' id='Footnote_X'></a><a href='#FNanchor_X'><span class='label'>[X]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Ibid.</i>, book ii. 5, § 4.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_Y' id='Footnote_Y'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Y'><span class='label'>[Y]</span></a>
+<p>
+Mill&#8217;s <i>Logic</i>, book vi. 4, § 3.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_Z' id='Footnote_Z'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Z'><span class='label'>[Z]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Ibid.</i>, book vi. 5, § 4.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The contrast between the two philosophers
+being thus thoroughgoing, it was natural to
+expect beforehand that an <i>Examination of
+Sir William Hamilton&#8217;s Philosophy</i>, by Mr.
+Mill, would contain a sharp and vigorous
+assault on the principal doctrines of that
+philosophy. And this expectation has been
+amply fulfilled. But there was also reason
+to expect, from the ability and critical power
+displayed in Mr. Mill&#8217;s previous writings,
+that his assault, whether successful or not in
+overthrowing his enemy, would at least be
+guided by a clear knowledge of that enemy&#8217;s
+position and purposes; that his dissent would
+be accompanied by an intelligent apprehension,
+and an accurate statement, of the doctrines
+dissented from. In this expectation,
+we regret to say, we have been disappointed.
+Not only is Mr. Mill&#8217;s attack on Hamilton&#8217;s
+philosophy, with the exception of some minor
+details, unsuccessful; but we are compelled
+to add, that with regard to the three fundamental
+doctrines of that philosophy&mdash;the
+Relativity of Knowledge, the Incognisability
+of the Absolute and Infinite, and the distinction
+between Reason and Faith&mdash;Mr.
+Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether
+missed the meaning of the theories he is
+attempting to assail.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is a serious charge to bring against a
+writer of such eminence as Mr. Mill, and one
+which should not be advanced without ample
+proof. First, then, of the Relativity of
+Knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+The assertion that all our knowledge is
+relative,&mdash;in other words, that we know
+things only under such conditions as the
+laws of our cognitive faculties impose upon
+us,&mdash;is a statement which looks at first sight
+like a truism, but which really contains an
+answer to a very important question,&mdash;Have
+we reason to believe that the laws of our
+cognitive faculties impose any conditions at
+all?&mdash;that the mind in any way reacts on
+the objects affecting it, so as to produce a
+result different from that which would be
+produced were it merely a passive recipient?
+&#8220;The mind of man,&#8221; says Bacon, &#8220;is far
+from the nature of a clear and equal glass,
+wherein the beams of things shall reflect
+according to their true incidence; nay, it is
+rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition
+and imposture, if it be not delivered
+and reduced.&#8221; Can what Bacon says of the
+fallacies of the mind be also said of its proper
+cognitions? Does the mind, by its own
+action, in any way distort the appearance of
+the things presented to it; and if so, how far
+does the distortion extend, and in what manner
+is it to be rectified? To trace the course
+of this inquiry, from the day when Plato
+compared the objects perceived by the senses
+to the shadows thrown by fire on the wall of
+a cave, to the day when Kant declared that
+we know only phenomena, not things in
+themselves, would be to write the history of
+philosophy. We can only at present call
+attention to one movement in that history,
+which, was, in effect, a revolution in philosophy.
+The older philosophers in general
+distinguished between the senses and the
+intellect, regarding the former as deceptive
+and concerned with phenomena alone, the
+latter as trustworthy and conversant with
+the realities of things. Hence arose the
+distinction between the sensible and the
+intelligible world&mdash;between things as perceived
+by sense and things as apprehended
+by intellect&mdash;between Phenomenology and
+Ontology. Kant rejected this distinction,
+holding that the intellect, as well as the
+sense, imposes its own forms on the things
+presented to it, and is therefore cognisant only
+of phenomena, not of things in themselves.
+The logical result of this position would
+be the abolition of ontology as a science
+of things in themselves, and, <i>à fortiori</i>, of
+that highest branch of ontology which aims
+at a knowledge of the Absolute<a name="FNanchor_AA" id="FNanchor_AA"></a><a href="#Footnote_AA" class="fnanchor">[AA]</a> κατ’ �ξοχήν,
+of the unconditioned first principle of all
+things. If the mind, in every act of thought,
+imposes its own forms on its objects, to think
+is to condition, and the unconditioned is the
+unthinkable. Such was the logical result of
+Kant&#8217;s principles, but not the actual result.
+For Kant, by distinguishing between the
+Understanding and the Reason, and giving
+to the latter an indirect yet positive cognition
+of the Unconditioned as a regulative principle
+of thought, prepared the way for the
+systems of Schelling and Hegel, in which
+this indirect cognition is converted into a
+direct one, by investing the reason, thus
+distinguished as the special faculty of the
+unconditioned, with a power of intuition
+emancipated from the conditions of space and
+time, and even of subject and object, or a
+power of thought emancipated from the laws
+of identity and contradiction.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AA' id='Footnote_AA'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AA'><span class='label'>[AA]</span></a>
+<p>
+The term <i>absolute</i>, in the sense of <i>free from relation</i>, may be
+used in two applications;&mdash;1st, To denote the nature of a thing
+as it is in itself, as distinguished from its appearance to us. Here
+it is used only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation to
+human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a thing as
+independent of all other things, as having no relation to any other
+thing as the condition of its existence. Here it is used in its
+highest sense, as meaning out of relation to anything else.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The theory of Hamilton is a modification
+of that of Kant, intended to obviate these
+consequences, and to relieve the Kantian
+doctrine itself from the inconsistency which
+gave rise to them. So long as the reason is
+regarded as a separate faculty from the
+understanding, and things in themselves as
+ideas of the reason, so long the apparent
+contradictions, which encumber the attempt
+to conceive the unconditioned, must be regarded
+as inherent in the constitution of the
+reason itself, and as the result of its legitimate
+exercise on its proper objects. This
+sceptical conclusion Hamilton endeavoured
+to avoid by rejecting the distinction between
+the understanding and the reason as separate
+faculties, regarding the one as the legitimate
+and positive, the other as the illegitimate
+and negative, exercise of one and the same
+faculty. He thus announces, in opposition
+to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the
+Conditioned, as &#8220;the distinction between
+intelligence <i>within</i> its legitimate sphere of
+operation, impeccable, and intelligence <i>beyond</i>
+that sphere, affording (by abuse) the occasions
+of error.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AB" id="FNanchor_AB"></a><a href="#Footnote_AB" class="fnanchor">[AB]</a> Hamilton, like Kant, maintained
+that all our cognitions are compounded of
+two elements, one contributed by the object
+known, and the other by the mind knowing.
+But the very conception of a relation implies
+the existence of things to be related; and
+the knowledge of an object, as in relation to
+our mind, necessarily implies its existence
+out of that relation. But as so existing, it
+is unknown: we believe <i>that</i> it is; we know
+not <i>what</i> it is. How far it resembles, or how
+far it does not resemble, the object apprehended
+by us, we cannot say, for we have
+no means of comparing the two together.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AB' id='Footnote_AB'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AB'><span class='label'>[AB]</span></a>
+<p>
+ <i>Discussions</i>, p. 633.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Instead; therefore, of saying with Kant, that
+reason is subject to an inevitable delusion, by
+which, it mistakes the regulative principles of
+its own thoughts for the representations of
+real things, Hamilton would say that the
+reason, while compelled to believe in the existence
+of these real things, is not legitimately
+entitled to make any positive representation
+of them as of such or such a nature; and
+that the contradictions into which it falls
+when attempting to do so are due to an
+illegitimate attempt to transcend the proper
+boundaries of positive thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+This theory does not, in itself, contain any
+statement of the mode in which we perceive
+the material world, whether directly by presentation,
+or indirectly by representative
+images; and perhaps it might, without any
+great violence, be adapted to more than one
+of the current hypotheses on this point. But
+that to which it most easily adjusts itself is
+that maintained by Hamilton himself under
+the name of <i>Natural Realism</i>. To speak of
+perception as a <i>relation</i> between mind and
+matter, naturally implies the presence of
+both correlatives; though each may be modified
+by its contact with the other. The acid
+may act on the alkali, and the alkali on the
+acid, in forming the neutral salt; but each
+of the ingredients is as truly present as the
+other, though each enters into the compound
+in a modified form. And this is equally the
+case in perception, even if we suppose various
+media to intervene between the ultimate
+object and the perceiving mind,&mdash;such, <i>e.g.</i>,
+as the rays of light and the sensitive organism
+in vision,&mdash;so long as these media
+are material, like the ultimate object itself.
+Whether the object, properly so called, in
+vision, be the rays of light in contact with
+the organ, or the body emitting or reflecting
+those rays, is indifferent to the present question,
+so long as a material object of some
+kind or other is supposed to be perceived,
+and not merely an inmaterial representation
+of such an object. To speak of our perceptions
+as mere modifications of mind produced
+by an unknown cause, would be like maintaining
+that the acid is modified by the
+influence of the alkali without entering into
+combination with it. Such a view might
+perhaps be tolerated, in connection with the
+theory of relativity, by an indulgent interpretation
+of language, but it is certainly not
+that which the language of the theory most
+naturally suggests.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this Mr. Mill entirely misapprehends.
+He quotes a passage from Hamilton&#8217;s Lectures,
+in which the above theory of Relativity
+is clearly stated as the mean between the
+extremes of Idealism and Materialism, and
+then proceeds to comment as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;The proposition, that our cognitions of objects are
+only in part dependent on the objects themselves, and in
+part on elements superadded by our organs or our minds,
+is not identical, nor <i>prima facie</i> absurd. It cannot, however,
+warrant the assertion that all our knowledge, but
+only that the part so added, is relative. If our author
+had gone as far as Kant, and had said that all which
+constitutes knowledge is put in by the mind itself, he
+would have really held, in one of its forms, the doctrine
+of the relativity of our knowledge. But what he does
+say, far from implying that the whole of our knowledge is
+relative, distinctly imports that all of it which, is real and
+authentic is the reverse. If any part of what we fancy
+that we perceive in the objects themselves, originates in
+the perceiving organs or in the cognising mind, thus much
+is purely relative; but since, by supposition, it does not
+all so originate, the part that does not is as much absolute
+as if it were not liable to be mixed up with, these delusive
+subjective impressions.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 30.)
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill, therefore, supposes that <i>wholly
+relative</i> must mean <i>wholly mental</i>; in other
+words, that to say that a thing is wholly due
+to a relation between mind and matter is
+equivalent to saying that it is wholly due to
+mind alone. On the contrary, we maintain
+that Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s language is far more
+accurate than Mr. Mill&#8217;s, and that the above
+theory can with perfect correctness be described
+as one of <i>total relativity</i>; and this
+from two points of view. First, as opposed
+to the theory of partial relativity generally
+held by the pre-Kantian philosophers, according
+to which our sensitive cognitions
+are relative, our intellectual ones absolute.
+Secondly, as asserting that the object of
+perception, though composed of elements
+partly material, partly mental, yet exhibits
+both alike in a form modified by their relation
+to each other. The composition is not a
+mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which each
+part, though acting on the other, retains its
+own characteristics unchanged. It may be
+rather likened to a chemical fusion, in which
+both elements are present, but each of them
+is affected by the composition. The material
+part, therefore, is not &#8220;as much absolute as
+if it were not liable to be mixed up with
+subjective impressions.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+But we must hear the continuation of Mr.
+Mill&#8217;s criticism:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;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
+recognising it. The confusion, according to him, is not
+inextricable. It is for us to &#8216;analyse and distinguish
+what elements&#8217; in an &#8216;act of knowledge&#8217; are contributed
+by the object, and what by our organs, or by the mind.
+We may neglect to do this, and as far as the mind&#8217;s share
+is concerned, we can only do it by the help of philosophy;
+but it is a task to which, in his opinion, philosophy is
+equal. By thus stripping off such of the elements in our
+apparent cognitions of things as are but cognitions of
+something in us, and consequently relative, we may
+succeed in uncovering the pure nucleus, the direct intuitions
+of things in themselves; as we correct the observed
+positions of the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error
+due to the refracting influence of the atmospheric medium,
+an influence which does not alter the facts, but only our
+perception of them.&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+Surely Mr. Mill here demands much more
+of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton deems
+it capable of accomplishing. Why may not
+Hamilton, like Kant, distinguish between the
+permanent and necessary, and the variable
+and contingent&mdash;in other words, between the
+subjective and the objective elements of
+consciousness, without therefore obtaining a
+&#8220;direct intuition of things in themselves?&#8221;
+Why may he not distinguish between space
+and time as the forms of our sensitive cognitions,
+and the things perceived in space and
+time, which constitute the matter of the
+same cognitions, without thereby having an
+intuition, on the one hand, of pure space and
+time with nothing in them, or on the other,
+of things in themselves out of space and time?
+If certain elements are always present in
+perception, while certain others change with
+every act, I may surely infer that the one is
+due to the permanent subject, the other to
+the variable object, without thereby knowing
+what each would be if it could be discerned
+apart from the other. &#8220;A direct intuition
+of things in themselves,&#8221; according to Kant
+and Hamilton, is an intuition of things out
+of space and time. Does Mr. Mill suppose
+that any natural Realist professes to have
+such an intuition?
+</p>
+<p>
+The same error of supposing that a doctrine
+of relativity is necessarily a doctrine of
+Idealism, that &#8220;matter known only in relation
+to us&#8221; can mean nothing more than &#8220;matter
+known only through the mental impressions
+of which it is the unknown cause,&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AC" id="FNanchor_AC"></a><a href="#Footnote_AC" class="fnanchor">[AC]</a> runs
+through the whole of Mr. Mill&#8217;s argument
+against this portion of Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+teaching. That argument, though repeated
+in various forms, may be briefly summed up
+in one thesis; namely, that the doctrine
+that our knowledge of matter is wholly
+relative is incompatible with the distinction,
+which Hamilton expressly makes, between
+the primary and secondary qualities of
+body.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AC' id='Footnote_AC'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AC'><span class='label'>[AC]</span></a>
+<p>
+The assumption that these two expressions are or ought to be
+synonymous is tacitly made by Mr. Mill at the opening of this
+chapter. He opens it with a passage from the <i>Discussions</i>, in
+which Hamilton says that the existence of <i>things in themselves</i> is
+only indirectly revealed to us &#8220;through certain qualities <i>related to
+our faculties of knowledge</i>;&#8221; and then proceeds to show that the
+author did not hold the doctrine which these phrases &#8220;seem to
+convey in the only substantial meaning capable of being attached
+to them;&#8221; namely, &#8220;that we know nothing of <i>objects</i> except their
+existence, and the impressions produced by them upon the human
+mind.&#8221; Having thus quietly assumed that &#8220;things in themselves&#8221;
+are identical with &#8220;objects,&#8221; and &#8220;relations&#8221; with &#8220;impressions
+on the human mind,&#8221; Mr. Mill bases his whole criticism on this
+tacit <i>petitio principii</i>. He is not aware that though Reid sometimes
+uses the term <i>relative</i> in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly
+points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper sense.&mdash;(See
+<i>Reid&#8217;s Works</i>, pp. 313, 322.)
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The most curious circumstance about this
+criticism is, that, if not directly borrowed
+from, it has at least been carefully anticipated
+by, Hamilton himself. Of the distinction
+between primary and secondary qualities,
+as acknowledged by Descartes and Locke,
+whose theory of external perception is identical
+with that which Mr. Mill would force on
+Hamilton himself, Hamilton says: &#8220;On the
+general doctrine, however, of these philosophers,
+both classes of qualities, as known, are
+confessedly only states of our own minds;
+and while we have no right from a subjective
+affection to infer the existence, far less the
+corresponding character of the existence, of
+any objective reality, it is evident that their
+doctrine, if fairly evolved, would result in a
+dogmatic or in a sceptical negation of the
+primary no less than of the secondary qualities
+of body, as more than appearances in and
+for us.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AD" id="FNanchor_AD"></a><a href="#Footnote_AD" class="fnanchor">[AD]</a> It is astonishing that Mr. Mill,
+who pounces eagerly on every imaginable
+instance of Hamilton&#8217;s inconsistency, should
+have neglected to notice this, which, if his
+criticism be true, is the most glaring inconsistency
+of all.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AD' id='Footnote_AD'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AD'><span class='label'>[AD]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Reid&#8217;s Works</i>, p. 840.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But Hamilton continues: &#8220;It is therefore
+manifest that the fundamental position of a
+consistent theory of dualistic realism is&mdash;that
+our cognitions of Extension and its modes
+are not wholly ideal&mdash;that although Space be
+a native, necessary, <i>à priori</i> form of imagination,
+and so far, therefore, a mere subjective
+state, that there is, at the same time, competent
+to us, in an <i>immediate</i> perception
+of external things, the <i>consciousness</i> of a
+really existent, of a really objective, <i>extended</i>
+world.&#8221; Here we have enunciated in one
+breath, first the subjectivity of space, which
+is the logical basis of the relative theory of
+perception; and secondly, the objectivity of
+the extended world, which is the logical
+basis of the distinction between primary and
+secondary qualities. It is manifest, therefore,
+that Hamilton had not, as Mr. Mill
+supposes, ceased to hold the one theory when
+he adopted the other.<a name="FNanchor_AE" id="FNanchor_AE"></a><a href="#Footnote_AE" class="fnanchor">[AE]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AE' id='Footnote_AE'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AE'><span class='label'>[AE]</span></a>
+<p>
+See <i>Examination</i>, p. 28.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The key to all this is not difficult to find.
+It is simply that <i>objective existence</i> does not
+mean existence <i>per se</i>; and that a <i>phenomenon</i>
+does not mean a mere mode of mind.
+Objective existence is existence <i>as an object</i>,
+in perception, and therefore in relation; and
+a phenomenon may be material, as well as
+mental. The thing <i>per se</i> may be only the
+unknown cause of what we directly know;
+but what we directly know is something
+more than our own sensations. In other
+words, the phenomenal effect is material as
+well as the cause, and is, indeed, that from
+which our primary conceptions of matter are
+derived. Matter does not cease to be matter
+when modified by its contact with mind, as
+iron does not cease to be iron when smelted
+and forged. A horseshoe is something very
+different from a piece of iron ore; and a man
+may be acquainted with the former without
+ever having seen the latter, or knowing what
+it is like. But would Mr. Mill therefore say
+that the horseshoe is merely a subjective
+affection of the skill of the smith&mdash;that it is
+not iron modified by the workman, but the
+workman or his art impressed by iron?
+</p>
+<p>
+If, indeed, Hamilton had said with Locke,
+that the primary qualities are in the bodies
+themselves, whether we perceive them or
+no,<a name="FNanchor_AF" id="FNanchor_AF"></a><a href="#Footnote_AF" class="fnanchor">[AF]</a> he would have laid himself open to Mr.
+Mill&#8217;s criticism. But he expressly rejects
+this statement, and contrasts it with the
+more cautions language of Descartes, &#8220;ut
+sunt, vel saltem esse possunt.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AG" id="FNanchor_AG"></a><a href="#Footnote_AG" class="fnanchor">[AG]</a> The secondary
+qualities are mere affections of consciousness,
+which, cannot be conceived as existing
+except in a conscious subject. The primary
+qualities are qualities of body, as perceived
+in relation to the percipient mind, <i>i.e.</i>, of
+the phenomenal body perceived as in space.
+How far they exist in the real body out of
+relation to us, Hamilton does not attempt
+to decide.<a name="FNanchor_AH" id="FNanchor_AH"></a><a href="#Footnote_AH" class="fnanchor">[AH]</a> They are inseparable from our
+conception of body, which, is derived exclusively
+from the phenomenon; they may or
+may not be separable from the thing as it is
+in itself.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AF' id='Footnote_AF'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AF'><span class='label'>[AF]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Essay</i>, ii 8, § 23.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AG' id='Footnote_AG'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AG'><span class='label'>[AG]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Reid&#8217;s Works</i>, p. 839.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AH' id='Footnote_AH'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AH'><span class='label'>[AH]</span></a>
+<p>
+We have been content to argue this question, as Mr. Mill
+himself argues it, on the supposition that Sir W. Hamilton held
+that we are directly percipient of primary qualities in external
+bodies. Strictly speaking, however, Hamilton held that the primary
+qualities are immediately perceived only in our organism as
+extended, and inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies. The external
+world is immediately apprehended only in its secundo-primary
+character, as resisting our locomotive energy. But as the
+organism, in this theory, is a material <i>non-ego</i> equally with the rest
+of matter, and as to press this distinction would only affect the
+verbal accuracy, not the substantial justice, of Mr. Mill&#8217;s criticisms,
+we have preferred to meet him on the ground he has himself
+chosen. The same error, of supposing that &#8220;presentationism&#8221;
+is identical with &#8220;noumenalism,&#8221; and &#8220;phenomenalism&#8221; with &#8220;representationism,&#8221;
+runs through the whole of Mr. Stirling&#8217;s recent
+criticism of Hamilton&#8217;s theory of perception. It is curious, however,
+that the very passage (<i>Lectures</i>, i., p. 146) which Mr. Mill
+cites as proving that Hamilton, in spite of his professed phenomenalism,
+was an unconscious noumenalist, is employed by Mr.
+Stirling to prove that, in spite of his professed presentationism, he
+was an unconscious representationist. The two critics tilt at
+Hamilton from opposite quarters: he has only to stand aside and
+let them run against each other.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Under this explanation, it is manifest that
+the doctrine, that matter as a subject or
+substratum of attributes is unknown and
+unknowable, is totally different from that of
+cosmothetic idealism, with which Mr Mill
+confounds it;<a name="FNanchor_AI" id="FNanchor_AI"></a><a href="#Footnote_AI" class="fnanchor">[AI]</a> and that a philosopher may
+without inconsistency accept the former and
+reject the latter. The former, while it holds
+the material substance to be unknown, does
+not deny that some of the attributes of
+matter are perceived immediately as material,
+though, it may be, modified by contact with
+mind. The latter maintains that the attributes,
+as well as the substance, are not
+perceived immediately as material, but mediately
+through the intervention of immaterial
+representatives. It is also manifest that,
+in answer to Mr. Mill&#8217;s question, which of
+Hamilton&#8217;s two &#8220;cardinal doctrines,&#8221; Relativity
+or Natural Realism, &#8220;is to be taken in
+a non-natural sense,&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AJ" id="FNanchor_AJ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AJ" class="fnanchor">[AJ]</a> we must say, neither.
+The two doctrines are quite compatible with
+each other, and neither requires a non-natural
+interpretation to reconcile it to its companion.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AI' id='Footnote_AI'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AI'><span class='label'>[AI]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Examination</i>, p. 23.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AJ' id='Footnote_AJ'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AJ'><span class='label'>[AJ]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Examination</i>, p. 20.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The doctrine of relativity derives its chief
+practical value from its connection with the
+next great doctrine of Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy,
+the incognisability of the Absolute and the
+Infinite. For this doctrine brings Ontology
+into contact with Theology; and it is only in
+relation to theology that ontology acquires a
+practical importance. With respect to the
+other two &#8220;ideas of the pure reason,&#8221; as
+Kant calls them, the human soul and the
+world, the question, whether we know them
+as realities or as phenomena, may assist us in
+dealing with certain metaphysical difficulties,
+but need not affect our practical conduct.
+For we have an immediate intuition of the
+attributes of mind and matter, at least as
+phenomenal objects, and by these intuitions
+may be tested the accuracy of the conceptions
+derived from them, sufficiently for all practical
+purposes. A man will equally avoid
+walking over a precipice, and is logically as
+consistent in avoiding it, whether he regard
+the precipice as a real thing, or as a mere
+phenomenon. But in the province of theology
+this is not the case. We have no immediate
+intuition of the Divine attributes,
+even as phenomena; we only infer their
+existence and nature from certain similar
+attributes of which we are immediately conscious
+in ourselves. And hence arises the
+question, How far does the similarity extend,
+and to what extent is the accuracy of our
+conceptions guaranteed by the intuition, not
+of the object to be conceived, but of something
+more or less nearly resembling it? But
+this is not all. Our knowledge of God, originally
+derived from personal consciousness,
+receives accession from two other sources&mdash;from
+the external world, as His work; and
+from revelation, as His word; and the
+conclusions derived from each have to be
+compared together. Should any discrepancy
+arise between them, are we at once warranted
+in rejecting one class of conclusions in favour
+of the other two, or two in favour of the
+third? or are we at liberty to say that our
+knowledge in respect of all alike is of such
+an imperfect and indirect character that we
+are warranted in believing that some reconciliation
+may exist, though our ignorance
+prevents us from discovering what it is?
+Here at least is a practical question of the
+very highest importance. In the early part
+of our previous remarks, we have endeavoured
+to show how this question has been
+answered by orthodox theologians of various
+ages, and how Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy
+supports that answer. We have now to consider
+Mr Mill&#8217;s chapter of criticisms.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is always unfortunate to make a stumble
+on the threshold; and Mr. Mill&#8217;s opening
+paragraph makes two. &#8220;The name of God,&#8221;
+he says, &#8220;is veiled under two extremely
+abstract phrases, &#8217;the Infinite and the Absolute.&#8217;...
+But it is one of the most
+unquestionable of all logical maxims, that
+the meaning of the abstract must be sought
+in the concrete, and not conversely.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AK" id="FNanchor_AK"></a><a href="#Footnote_AK" class="fnanchor">[AK]</a>&mdash;Now,
+in the first place, &#8220;the Infinite&#8221; and &#8220;the
+Absolute,&#8221; even in the sense in which they
+are both predicable of God, are no more
+names of God than &#8220;the creature&#8221; and &#8220;the
+finite&#8221; are names of man. They are the
+names of certain attributes, which further
+inquiry may, perhaps, show to belong to God
+and to no other being, but which do not in
+their signification express this, and do not
+constitute our primary idea of God, which is
+that of a Person. Men may believe in an
+absolute and infinite, without in any proper
+sense believing in God; and thousands upon
+thousands of pious men have prayed to a
+personal God, who have never heard of the
+absolute and the infinite, and who would not
+understand the expressions if they heard
+them. But, in the second place, &#8220;the absolute&#8221;
+and &#8220;the infinite,&#8221; in Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+sense of the terms, cannot both be names of
+God, for the simple reason that they are contradictory
+of each other, and are proposed as
+alternatives which cannot both be accepted as
+predicates of the same subject. For Hamilton,
+whatever Mr. Mill may do, did not fall
+into the absurdity of maintaining that God
+in some of His attributes is absolute without
+being infinite, and in others is infinite without
+being absolute.<a name="FNanchor_AL" id="FNanchor_AL"></a><a href="#Footnote_AL" class="fnanchor">[AL]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AK' id='Footnote_AK'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AK'><span class='label'>[AK]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Examination</i>, p. 32.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AL' id='Footnote_AL'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AL'><span class='label'>[AL]</span></a>
+<p>
+See <i>Examination</i>, p. 35.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But we have not yet done with this single
+paragraph. After thus making two errors in
+his exposition of his opponent&#8217;s doctrine, Mr.
+Mill immediately proceeds to a third, in his
+criticism of it. By following his &#8220;most
+unquestionable of all logical maxims,&#8221; and
+substituting the name of God in the place of
+&#8220;the Infinite&#8221; and &#8220;the Absolute,&#8221; he exactly
+reverses Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s argument,
+and makes his own attempted refutation of it
+a glaring <i>ignoratio elenchi</i>.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the purposes of Hamilton&#8217;s argument
+is to show that we have no positive
+conception of an Infinite Being; that when
+we attempt to form such a conception, we do
+but produce a distorted representation of the
+finite; and hence, that our so-called conception
+of the infinite is not the true infinite.
+Hence it is not to be wondered at&mdash;nay, it is
+a natural consequence of this doctrine,&mdash;that
+our positive conception of God as a Person
+cannot be included under this pseudo-concept
+of the Infinite. Whereas Mr. Mill, by laying
+down the maxim that the meaning of the
+abstract must be sought in the concrete,
+quietly assumes that this pseudo-infinite is
+a proper predicate of God, to be tested by its
+applicability to the subject, and that what
+Hamilton says of <i>this</i> infinite cannot be true
+unless it is also true of God. Of this refutation,
+Hamilton, were he living, might truly
+say, as he said of a former criticism on
+another part of his writings,&mdash;&#8220;This elaborate
+parade of argument is literally answered
+in two words&mdash;<i>Quis dubitavit?</i>&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+But if the substitution of God for the
+Infinite be thus a perversion of Hamilton&#8217;s
+argument, what shall we say to a similar
+substitution in the case of the Absolute?
+Hamilton distinctly tells us that there is one
+sense of the term <i>absolute</i> in which it is
+contradictory of the infinite, and therefore is
+not predicable of God at all. Mr. Mill
+admits that Hamilton, throughout the greater
+part of his arguments, employs the term in
+this sense; and he then actually proceeds to
+&#8220;test&#8221; these arguments &#8220;by substituting the
+concrete, God, for the abstract, Absolute;&#8221;
+<i>i.e.</i>, by substituting God for something which
+Hamilton defines as contradictory to the
+nature of God. Can the force of confusion
+go further? Is it possible for perverse criticism
+more utterly, we do not say to misrepresent,
+but literally to invert an author&#8217;s
+meaning?
+</p>
+<p>
+The source of all these errors, and of a
+great many more, is simply this. Mr. Mill
+is aware, from Hamilton&#8217;s express assertion,
+that the word <i>absolute</i> may be used in two
+distinct and even contradictory senses; but he
+is wholly unable to see what those senses are,
+or when Hamilton is using the term in the
+one sense, and when in the other. Let us endeavour
+to clear up some of this confusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hamilton&#8217;s article on the Philosophy of
+the Unconditioned is a criticism, partly of
+Schelling, partly of Cousin; and Schelling
+and Cousin only attempted in a new form,
+under the influence of the Kantian philosophy,
+to solve the problem with which
+philosophy in all ages has attempted to
+grapple,&mdash;the problem of the Unconditioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+&#8220;The unconditioned&#8221; is a term which,
+while retaining the same general meaning,
+admits of various applications, particular or
+universal. It may be the unconditioned as
+regards some special relation, or the unconditioned
+as regards all relations whatever.
+Thus there may be the unconditioned in
+Psychology&mdash;the human soul considered as a
+substance; the unconditioned in Cosmology&mdash;the
+world considered as a single whole; the
+unconditioned in Theology&mdash;God in His own
+nature, as distinguished from His manifestations
+to us; or, finally, the unconditioned
+<i>par excellence</i>&mdash;the unconditioned in Ontology&mdash;the
+being on which all other being
+depends. It is of course possible to identify
+any one of the three first with the last. It
+is possible to adopt a system of Egoism, and
+to maintain that all phenomena are modes of
+my mind, and that the substance of my mind
+is the only real existence. It is possible to
+adopt a system of Materialism, and to maintain
+that all phenomena are modes of matter,
+and that the material substance of the world
+is the only real existence. Or it is possible
+to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to
+maintain that all phenomena are modes of
+the Divine existence, and that God is the
+only reality. But the several notions are in
+themselves distinct, though one may ultimately
+be predicated of another.
+</p>
+<p>
+The general notion of the Unconditioned is
+the same in all these cases, and all must
+finally culminate in the last, the Unconditioned
+<i>par excellence</i>. The general notion is
+that of the One as distinguished from the
+Many, the substance from its accidents, the
+permanent reality from its variable modifications.
+Thought, will, sensation, are modes of
+my existence. What is the <i>I</i> that is one and
+the same in all? Extension, figure, resistance,
+are attributes of matter. What is
+the one substance to which these attributes
+belong? But the generalisation cannot stop
+here. If matter differs from mind, the <i>non-ego</i>
+from the <i>ego</i>, as one thing from another,
+there must be some special point of difference,
+which, is the condition of the existence
+of each in this or that particular manner.
+Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the
+highest sense of the term, cannot be the
+existence of <i>this</i> as distinguished from <i>that</i>;
+it must be existence <i>per se</i>, the ground and
+principle of all conditioned or special existence.
+This is the Unconditioned, properly
+so called: the unconditioned in Schelling&#8217;s
+sense, as the indifference of subject and
+object: and it is against this that Hamilton&#8217;s
+arguments are directed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The question is this. Is this Unconditioned
+a mere abstraction, the product of our
+own minds; or can it be conceived as having
+a real existence <i>per se</i>, and, as such, can it
+be identified with God as the source of all
+existence? Hamilton maintains that it is a
+mere abstraction, and cannot be so identified;
+that, far from being &#8220;a name of God,&#8221; it is a
+name of nothing at all. &#8220;By abstraction,&#8221;
+he says, &#8220;we annihilate the object, and by
+abstraction we annihilate the subject of consciousness.
+But what remains? <i>Nothing.</i>&#8221;
+When we attempt to conceive it as a reality,
+we &#8220;hypostatise the zero.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AM" id="FNanchor_AM"></a><a href="#Footnote_AM" class="fnanchor">[AM]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AM' id='Footnote_AM'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AM'><span class='label'>[AM]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Discussions</i>, p. 21.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+In order to conceive the Unconditioned
+existing as a thing, we must conceive it as
+existing out of relation to everything else.
+For if nothing beyond itself is necessary as a
+condition of its existence, it can exist separate
+from everything else; and its pure existence
+as the unconditioned is so separate. It must
+therefore be conceivable as the sole existence,
+having no plurality beyond itself; and as
+simple, having no plurality within itself.
+For if we cannot conceive it as existing apart
+from other things, we cannot conceive it as
+independent of them; and if we conceive it
+as a compound of parts, we have further to
+ask as before, what is the principle of unity
+which binds these parts into one whole? If
+there is such a principle, this is the true
+unconditioned; if there is no such principle,
+there is no unconditioned; for that which
+cannot exist except as a compound is dependent
+for its existence on that of its several
+constituents. The unconditioned must therefore
+be conceived as one, as simple, and as
+universal.
+</p>
+<p>
+Is such a conception possible, whether in
+ordinary consciousness, as Cousin says, or in
+an extraordinary intuition, as Schelling says?
+Let us try the former. Consciousness is
+subject to the law of Time. A phenomenon
+is presented to us in time, as dependent on
+some previous phenomenon or thing. I wish
+to pursue the chain in thought till I arrive at
+something independent. If I could reach in
+thought a beginning of time, and discover
+some first fact with nothing preceding it, I
+should conceive time as absolute&mdash;as completed,&mdash;and
+the unconditioned as the first
+thing in time, and therefore as completed
+also, for it may be considered by itself, apart
+from what depends upon it. Or if time be
+considered as having no beginning, thought
+would still be able to represent to itself that
+infinity, could it follow out the series of
+antecedents for ever. But is either of these
+alternatives possible to thought? If not, we
+must confess that the unconditioned is inconceivable
+by ordinary consciousness; and we
+must found philosophy, with Schelling, on
+the annihilation of consciousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+But though Hamilton himself distinguishes
+between the <i>unconditioned</i> and the <i>absolute</i>,
+using the former term generally, for that
+which is out of all relation, and the latter
+specially, for that which is out of all relation
+as complete and finished, his opponent Cousin
+uses the latter term in a wider sense, as
+synonymous with the former, and the <i>infinite</i>
+as coextensive with both. This, however,
+does not affect the validity of Hamilton&#8217;s
+argument. For if it can be shown that the
+absolute and the infinite (in Hamilton&#8217;s sense)
+are both inconceivable, the unconditioned (or
+absolute in Cousin&#8217;s sense), which must be
+conceived as one or the other, is inconceivable
+also. Or, conversely, if it can be shown that
+the unconditioned, the unrelated in general,
+is inconceivable, it follows that the absolute
+and the infinite, as both involving the unrelated,
+are inconceivable also.
+</p>
+<p>
+We may now proceed with Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+criticism. He says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;Absolute, in the sense in which, it stands related to
+Infinite, means (conformably to its etymology) that which
+is finished or completed. There are some things of which
+the utmost ideal amount is a limited quantity, though a
+quantity never actually reached.... We may speak
+of absolutely, but not of infinitely, pure water. The
+purity of water is not a fact of which, whatever degree we
+suppose attained, there remains a greater beyond. It has
+an absolute limit: it is capable of being finished or complete,
+in thought, if not in reality.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 34.)
+</p>
+<p>
+This criticism is either incorrect or <i>nihil ad
+rem</i>. If meant as a statement of Hamilton&#8217;s
+use of the term, it is incorrect: <i>absolute</i>, in
+Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy, does not mean simply
+&#8220;completed,&#8221; but &#8220;out of relation as completed;&#8221;
+<i>i.e.</i>, self-existent in its completeness,
+and not implying the existence of anything
+else. If meant in any other sense than
+Hamilton&#8217;s, it is irrelevant. Can Mr. Mill
+really have believed that Schelling thought
+it necessary to invent an intellectual intuition
+out of time and out of consciousness, in order
+to contemplate &#8220;an ideal limited quantity,&#8221;
+such as the complete purity of water?
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill continues:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;Though the idea of Absolute is thus contrasted with
+that of Infinite, the one is equally fitted with the other to
+be predicated of God; but not in respect of the same
+attributes. There is no incorrectness of speech in the
+phrase Infinite Power: because the notion it expresses is
+that of a Being who has the power of doing all things
+which we know or can conceive, and more. But in speaking
+of knowledge, Absolute is the proper word, and not
+Infinite. The highest degree of knowledge that can be
+spoken of with a meaning, only amounts to knowing all
+that there is to be known: when that point is reached,
+knowledge has attained its utmost limit. So of goodness
+or justice: they cannot be more than perfect. There are
+not infinite degrees of right. The will is either entirely
+right, or wrong in different degrees.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 35.)
+</p>
+<p>
+Surely, whatever Divine power can do,
+Divine knowledge can know as possible to be
+done. The one, therefore, must be as infinite
+as the other. And what of Divine goodness?
+An angel or a glorified saint is absolutely
+good in Mr. Mill&#8217;s sense of the term. His
+&#8220;will is entirely right.&#8221; Does Mr. Mill
+mean to say that there is no difference, even
+in degree, between the goodness of God and
+that of one of His creatures? But, even
+supposing his statement to be true, how is
+it relevant to the matter under discussion?
+Can Mr. Mill possibly be ignorant that all
+these attributes are relations; that the Absolute
+in Hamilton&#8217;s sense, &#8220;the unconditionally
+limited,&#8221; is not predicable of God at all; and
+that when divines and philosophers speak of
+the absolute nature of God, they mean a
+nature in which there is no distinction of
+attributes at all?
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill then proceeds to give a summary
+of Hamilton&#8217;s arguments against Cousin,
+preparatory to refuting them. In the course
+of this summary he says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;Let me ask, <i>en passant</i>, where is the necessity for
+supposing that, if the Absolute, or, to speak plainly, if
+God, is only known to us in the character of a cause, he
+must therefore &#8216;exist merely as a cause,&#8217; and be merely &#8216;a
+mean towards an end?&#8217; It is surely possible to maintain
+that the Deity is known to us only as he who feeds the
+ravens, without supposing that the Divine Intelligence exists
+solely in order that the ravens may be fed.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AN" id="FNanchor_AN"></a><a href="#Footnote_AN" class="fnanchor">[AN]</a>&mdash;(P. 42.)
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AN' id='Footnote_AN'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AN'><span class='label'>[AN]</span></a>
+<p>
+In a note to this passage, Mr. Mill makes some sarcastic comments
+on an argument of Hamilton&#8217;s against Cousin&#8217;s theory that
+God is necessarily determined to create. &#8220;On this hypothesis,&#8221;
+says Hamilton, &#8220;God, as necessarily determined to pass from absolute
+essence to relative manifestation, is determined to pass either
+from the better to the worse, or from the worse to the better.&#8221; Mr.
+Mill calls this argument &#8220;a curiosity of dialectics,&#8221; and answers,
+&#8220;Perfect wisdom would have begun to will the new state at the
+precise moment when it began to be better than the old.&#8221; Hamilton
+is not speaking of states of things, but of states of the Divine
+nature, as creative or not creative; and Mr. Mill&#8217;s argument, to
+refute Hamilton, must suppose a time when the new nature of God
+begins to be better than the old! Mr. Mill would perhaps have
+spoken of Hamilton&#8217;s argument with more respect had he known
+that it is taken from Plato.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+On this we would remark, <i>en passant</i>, that
+this is precisely Hamilton&#8217;s own doctrine,
+that the sphere of our belief is more extensive
+than that of our knowledge. The
+purport of Hamilton&#8217;s argument is to show
+that the Absolute, as conceived by Cousin,
+is not a true Absolute (<i>Infinito-Absolute</i>),
+and therefore does not represent the real
+nature of God. His argument is this:
+&#8220;Cousin&#8217;s Absolute exists merely as a cause:
+God does not exist merely as a cause: therefore
+Cousin&#8217;s Absolute is not God.&#8221; Mr.
+Mill actually mistakes the position which
+Hamilton is opposing for that which he is
+maintaining. Such an error does not lead
+us to expect much from his subsequent refutation.
+</p>
+<p>
+His first criticism is a curious specimen of
+his reading in philosophy. He says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;When the True or the Beautiful are spoken of, the
+phrase is meant to include all things whatever that are
+true, or all things whatever that are beautiful. If this
+rule is good for other abstractions, it is good for the Absolute.
+The word is devoid of meaning unless in reference
+to predicates of some sort.... If we are told, therefore,
+that there is some Being who is, or which is, the
+Absolute,&mdash;not something absolute, but the Absolute
+itself,&mdash;the proposition can be understood in no other
+sense than that the supposed Being possesses in absolute
+completeness <i>all</i> predicates; is absolutely good and absolutely
+bad; absolutely wise and absolutely stupid; and so
+forth.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AO" id="FNanchor_AO"></a><a href="#Footnote_AO" class="fnanchor">[AO]</a>&mdash;(P. 43.)
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AO' id='Footnote_AO'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AO'><span class='label'>[AO]</span></a>
+<p>
+In support of this position, Mr. Mill cites Hegel&mdash;&#8220;What
+kind of an absolute Being is that which does not contain in itself
+all that is actual, even evil included?&#8221; We are not concerned to
+defend Hegel&#8217;s position; but he was not quite so absurd as to mean
+what Mr. Mill supposes him to have meant. Does not Mr. Mill
+know that it was one of Hegel&#8217;s fundamental positions, that the
+Divine nature cannot be expressed by a plurality of predicates?
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Plato expressly distinguishes between &#8220;the
+beautiful&#8221; and &#8220;things that are beautiful,&#8221;
+as the One in contrast to the Many&mdash;the
+Real in contrast to the Apparent.<a name="FNanchor_AP" id="FNanchor_AP"></a><a href="#Footnote_AP" class="fnanchor">[AP]</a> It is, of
+course, quite possible that Plato may be
+wrong, and Mr. Mill right; but the mere
+fact of their antagonism is sufficient to show
+that the meaning of &#8220;the phrase&#8221; need not
+be what Mr. Mill supposes it must be. In
+fact, &#8220;the Absolute&#8221; in philosophy always
+has meant the One as distinguished from the
+Many, not the One as including the Many.
+But, as applied to Sir W. Hamilton, Mr.
+Mill&#8217;s remarks on &#8220;the Absolute,&#8221; and his
+subsequent remarks on &#8220;the Infinite,&#8221; not
+only misrepresent Hamilton&#8217;s position, but
+exactly reverse it. Hamilton maintains that
+the terms &#8220;absolute&#8221; and &#8220;infinite&#8221; are perfectly
+intelligible as abstractions, as much so
+as &#8220;relative&#8221; and &#8220;finite;&#8221; for &#8220;correlatives
+suggest each other,&#8221; and the &#8220;knowledge
+of contradictories is one;&#8221; but he denies
+that a concrete thing or object can be positively
+conceived as absolute or infinite. Mr.
+Mill represents him as only proving that the
+&#8220;unmeaning abstractions are unknowable,&#8221;&mdash;abstractions
+which Hamilton does not assert
+to be unmeaning; and which he regards as
+knowable in the only sense in which such
+abstractions can be known, viz., by understanding
+the meaning of their names.<a name="FNanchor_AQ" id="FNanchor_AQ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AQ" class="fnanchor">[AQ]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AP' id='Footnote_AP'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AP'><span class='label'>[AP]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Republic</i>, book v., p. 479.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AQ' id='Footnote_AQ'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AQ'><span class='label'>[AQ]</span></a>
+<p>
+This confusion between conceiving a concrete thing and
+knowing the meaning of abstract terms is as old as Toland&#8217;s
+<i>Christianity not Mysterious</i>, and, indeed, has its germ, though not
+its development, in the teaching of his assumed master, Locke.
+Locke taught that all our knowledge is founded on simple ideas,
+and that a complex idea is merely an accumulation of simple ones.
+Hence Toland maintained that no object could be mysterious or
+inconceivable if the terms in which its several attributes are expressed
+have ideas corresponding to them. But, in point of fact,
+no simple idea can be conceived as an object by itself, though the
+word by which it is signified has a perfectly intelligible meaning.
+I cannot, <i>e.g.</i>, conceive whiteness by itself, though I can conceive
+a white wall, <i>i.e.</i>, whiteness in combination with other attributes
+in a concrete object. To conceive attributes as coexisting, however,
+we must conceive them as coexisting in a certain manner; for
+an object of conception is not a mere heap of ideas, but an organized
+whole, whose constituent ideas exist in a particular combination
+with and relation to each other. To conceive, therefore, we must
+not only be able to apprehend each idea separately in the abstract,
+but also the manner in which they may possibly exist in combination
+with each other.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;Something infinite,&#8221; says Mr. Mill, &#8220;is a conception
+which, like most of our complex ideas, contains a negative
+element, but which contains positive elements also. Infinite
+space, for instance; is there nothing positive in
+that? The negative part of this conception is the absence
+of bounds. The positive are, the idea of space, and of
+space greater than any finite space.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 45.)
+</p>
+<p>
+This definition of <i>infinite space</i> is exactly
+that which Descartes gives us of <i>indefinite
+extension</i>,&mdash;&#8220;Ita quia non possumus imaginari
+extensionem tam magnam, quin intelligamus
+adhuc majorem esse posse, dicemus
+magnitudinem rerum possibilium esse indefinitam.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AR" id="FNanchor_AR"></a><a href="#Footnote_AR" class="fnanchor">[AR]</a>
+So too, Cudworth,&mdash;&#8220;There
+appeareth no sufficient ground for this positive
+infinity of space; we being certain of no
+more than this, that be the world or any
+figurative body never so great, it is not
+impossible but that it might be still greater
+and greater without end. Which <i>indefinite
+increasableness</i> of body and space seems to be
+mistaken for a <i>positive infinity</i> thereof.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AS" id="FNanchor_AS"></a><a href="#Footnote_AS" class="fnanchor">[AS]</a>
+And Locke, a philosopher for whom Mr.
+Mill will probably have more respect than
+for Descartes or Cudworth, writes more
+plainly: &#8220;To have actually in the mind the
+idea of a space infinite, is to suppose the
+mind already passed over, and actually to
+have a view of all those repeated ideas of
+space, which an endless repetition can never
+totally represent to it,&mdash;which carries in it
+a plain contradiction.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AT" id="FNanchor_AT"></a><a href="#Footnote_AT" class="fnanchor">[AT]</a> Mr. Mill thus unwittingly
+illustrates, in his own person, the
+truth of Hamilton&#8217;s remark, &#8220;If we dream
+of effecting this [conceiving the infinite in
+time or space], we only deceive ourselves by
+substituting the <i>indefinite</i> for the infinite,
+than which no two notions can be more
+opposed.&#8221; In fact, Mr. Mill does not seem
+to be aware that what the mathematician
+calls <i>infinite</i>, the metaphysician calls <i>indefinite</i>,
+and that arguments drawn from the
+mathematical use of the term <i>infinite</i> are
+wholly irrelevant to the metaphysical. How,
+indeed, could it be otherwise? Can any man
+suppose that, when the Divine attributes are
+spoken of as infinite, it is meant that they
+are indefinitely increasable?<a name="FNanchor_AU" id="FNanchor_AU"></a><a href="#Footnote_AU" class="fnanchor">[AU]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AR' id='Footnote_AR'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AR'><span class='label'>[AR]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Principia</i>, i., 26.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AS' id='Footnote_AS'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AS'><span class='label'>[AS]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Intellectual System</i>, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 131.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AT' id='Footnote_AT'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AT'><span class='label'>[AT]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Essay</i>, ii., 17, 7.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AU' id='Footnote_AU'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AU'><span class='label'>[AU]</span></a>
+<p>
+One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most persevering
+Hamiltono-mastix of the day, maintains the applicability of the
+metaphysical notion of infinity to mathematical magnitudes; but
+with an assumption which unintentionally vindicates Hamilton&#8217;s
+position more fully than could have been done by a professed disciple.
+&#8220;I shall assume,&#8221; says Professor De Morgan, in a paper
+recently printed among the <i>Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical
+Society</i>, &#8220;the notion of infinity and of its reciprocal infinitesimal:
+that a line can be conceived infinite, and therefore
+having points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we cannot
+have, it seems to me clear that a line of infinite length, without
+points at an infinite distance, is a contradiction.&#8221; Now it is
+easy to show, by mere reasoning, without any image, that this
+assumption is equally a contradiction. For if space is finite, every
+line in space must be finite also; and if space is infinite, every
+point in space must have infinite space beyond it in every direction,
+and therefore cannot be at the greatest possible distance from another
+point. Or thus: Any two points in space are the extremities of
+the line connecting them; but an infinite line has no extremities;
+therefore no two points in space can be connected together by an
+infinite line.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+In fact, it is the &#8220;concrete reality,&#8221; the
+&#8220;something infinite,&#8221; and not the mere
+abstraction of infinity, which is only conceivable
+as a negation. Every &#8220;something&#8221;
+that has ever been intuitively present to my
+consciousness is a something finite. When,
+therefore, I speak of a &#8220;something infinite,&#8221;
+I mean a something existing in a different
+manner from all the &#8220;somethings&#8221; of which
+I have had experience in intuition. Thus it
+is apprehended, not positively, but negatively&mdash;not
+directly by what it is, but indirectly
+by what it is not. A negative idea is not
+negative because it is expressed by a negative
+term, but because it has never been
+realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied
+to space, means the same thing as being
+greater than any finite space, both conceptions
+are equally positive or equally negative.
+If it does not mean the same thing, then, in
+conceiving a space greater than any finite
+space, we do not conceive an infinite space.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s next string of criticisms may
+be very briefly dismissed. First, Hamilton
+does <i>not</i>, as Mr. Mill asserts, say that &#8220;the
+Unconditioned is inconceivable, because it
+includes both the Infinite and the Absolute,
+and these are contradictory of one another.&#8221;
+His argument is a common disjunctive syllogism.
+The unconditioned, if conceivable at
+all, must be conceived <i>either</i> as the absolute
+<i>or</i> as the infinite; neither of these is possible;
+therefore the unconditioned is not
+conceivable at all. Nor, secondly, is Sir W.
+Hamilton guilty of the &#8220;strange confusion
+of ideas&#8221; which Mr. Mill ascribes to him,
+when he says that the Absolute, as being
+absolutely One, cannot be known under the
+conditions of plurality and difference. The
+absolute, as such, must be out of all relation,
+and consequently cannot be conceived in the
+relation of plurality. &#8220;The plurality required,&#8221;
+says Mr. Mill, &#8220;is not within the
+thing itself, but is made up between itself
+and other things.&#8221; It is, in fact, both;
+but even granting Mr. Mill&#8217;s assumption,
+what is a &#8220;plurality between a thing and
+other things&#8221; but a relation between them?
+There is undoubtedly a &#8220;strange confusion
+of ideas&#8221; in this paragraph; but the confusion
+is not on the part of Sir W. Hamilton.
+&#8220;Again,&#8221; continues Mr. Mill, &#8220;even if we
+concede that a thing cannot be known at all
+unless known as plural, does it follow that it
+cannot be known as plural because it is also
+One? Since when have the One and the
+Many been incompatible things, instead of
+different aspects of the same thing?...
+If there is any meaning in the words, must
+not Absolute Unity be Absolute Plurality
+likewise?&#8221; Mr. Mill&#8217;s &#8220;since when?&#8221; may
+be answered in the words of Plato:&mdash;&#8220;Ο�δὲν ἔμoιγε ἄτoπoν δoκεῖ εἶναι εἰ ἓν ἅπαντα ἀπoφαίνει τις τῷ μετέχειν τoῦ ἑνὸς καὶ τα�τὰ ταῦτα πoλλὰ τῷ πλήθoυς αὖ μετέχειν· ἀλλ’ εἰ ὃ ἔστιν ἕν, α�τὸ τoῦτo πoλλὰ ἀπoδείξει, καὶ αὖ τὰ πoλλὰ δὴ ἕν, τoῦτo ἤδη θαυμάσoμαι.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_AV" id="FNanchor_AV"></a><a href="#Footnote_AV" class="fnanchor">[AV]</a>
+Here we are expressly
+told that &#8220;absolute unity&#8221; cannot be
+&#8220;absolute plurality.&#8221; Mr. Mill may say that
+Plato is wrong; but he will hardly go so far
+as to say that there is no meaning in his
+words. In point of fact, however, it is Mr.
+Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In
+different relations, no doubt, the same concrete
+object may be regarded as one or as
+many. The same measure is one foot or
+twelve inches; the same sum is one shilling
+or twelve pence; but it no more follows that
+&#8220;absolute unity must be absolute plurality
+likewise,&#8221; than it follows from the above
+instances that one is equal to twelve. And,
+thirdly, when Mr. Mill accuses Sir W.
+Hamilton of departing from his own meaning
+of the term <i>absolute</i>, in maintaining that
+the Absolute cannot be a Cause, he only
+shows that he does not himself know what
+Hamilton&#8217;s meaning is. &#8220;If Absolute,&#8221; he
+says, &#8220;means finished, perfected, completed,
+may there not be a finished, perfected, and
+completed Cause?&#8221; Hamilton&#8217;s Absolute is
+that which is &#8220;<i>out of relation</i>, as finished,
+perfect, complete;&#8221; and a Cause, as such, is
+both in relation and incomplete. It is in
+relation to its effect; and it is incomplete
+without its effect. Finally, when Mr. Mill
+charges Sir W. Hamilton with maintaining
+&#8220;that extension and figure are of the essence
+of matter, and perceived as such by intuition,&#8221;
+we must briefly reply that Hamilton
+does no such thing. He is not speaking
+of the essence of matter <i>per se</i>, but only
+of matter as apprehended in relation to
+us.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AV' id='Footnote_AV'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AV'><span class='label'>[AV]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Parmenides</i>, p. 129.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an
+attempt to discover the meaning of Hamilton&#8217;s
+assertion, &#8220;to think is to condition.&#8221;
+We have already explained what Hamilton
+meant by this expression; and we recur to
+the subject now, only to show the easy
+manner in which Mr. Mill manages to miss
+the point of an argument with the clue
+lying straight before him. &#8220;Did any,&#8221; he
+says (of those who say that the Absolute is
+thinkable), &#8220;profess to think it in any other
+manner than by distinguishing it from other
+things?&#8221; Now this is the very thing which,
+according to Hamilton, Schelling actually
+did. Mr. Mill does not attempt to show
+that Hamilton is wrong in his interpretation
+of Schelling, nor, if he is right, what were
+the reasons which led Schelling to so paradoxical
+a position: he simply assumes that
+no man could hold Schelling&#8217;s view, and
+there is an end of it.<a name="FNanchor_AW" id="FNanchor_AW"></a><a href="#Footnote_AW" class="fnanchor">[AW]</a> Hamilton&#8217;s purpose
+is to reassert in substance the doctrine
+which Kant maintained, and which Schelling
+denied; and the natural way to ascertain his
+meaning would be by reference to these two
+philosophers. But this is not the method of
+Mr. Mill, here or elsewhere. He generally
+endeavours to ascertain Hamilton&#8217;s meaning
+by ranging the wide field of possibilities.
+He tells us what a phrase means in certain
+authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking,
+or in reference to certain matters which
+Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly
+ever attempts to trace the history of Hamilton&#8217;s
+own view, or the train of thought by
+which it suggested itself to his mind. And
+the result of this is, that Mr. Mill&#8217;s interpretations
+are generally in the potential
+mood. He wastes a good deal of conjecture
+in discovering what Hamilton might have
+meant, when a little attention in the right
+quarter would have shown what he did
+mean.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AW' id='Footnote_AW'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AW'><span class='label'>[AW]</span></a>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in this sentence:
+but he does so shortly afterwards; and his remark is of the same
+character with the previous one. &#8220;Even Schelling,&#8221; he says,
+&#8220;was not so gratuitously absurd as to deny that the Absolute
+must be known according to the capacities of that which knows
+it&mdash;though he was forced to invent a special capacity for the purpose.&#8221;
+But if this capacity is an &#8220;invention&#8221; of Schelling&#8217;s, and
+if he was &#8220;forced&#8221; to invent it, Hamilton&#8217;s point is proved. To
+think, according to all the real operations of thought which consciousness
+makes known to us, is to condition. And the faculty
+of the unconditioned is an invention of Schelling&#8217;s, not known to
+consciousness. In other words: all our real faculties bear witness
+to the truth of Hamilton&#8217;s statement; and the only way of controverting
+it is to invent an imaginary faculty for the purpose.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The third feature of Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy
+which we charged Mr. Mill with misunderstanding,
+is the distinction between Knowledge
+and Belief. In the early part of this
+article, we endeavoured to explain the true
+nature of this distinction; we have now only
+a very limited space to notice Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+criticisms on it. Hamilton, he says, admitted
+&#8220;a second source of intellectual conviction
+called Belief.&#8221; Now Belief is not a
+&#8220;source&#8221; of any conviction, but the conviction
+itself. No man would say that he is
+convinced of the truth of a proposition
+<i>because</i> he believes it; his belief in its truth
+is the same thing as his conviction of its
+truth. Belief, then, is not a source of conviction,
+but a conviction having sources of its
+own. The question is, have we legitimate
+sources of conviction, distinct from those
+which constitute Knowledge properly so
+called? Now here it should be remembered
+that the distinction is not one invented by
+Hamilton to meet the exigencies of his own
+system. He enumerates as many as twenty-two
+authors, of the most various schools
+of philosophy, who all acknowledged it
+before him. Such a concurrence is no slight
+argument in favour of the reality of the
+distinction. We do not say that these
+writers, or Hamilton himself, have always
+expressed this distinction in the best language,
+or applied it in the best manner; but
+we say that it is a true distinction, and that
+it is valid for the principal purpose to which
+Hamilton applied it.
+</p>
+<p>
+We do not agree with all the details of
+Hamilton&#8217;s application. We do not agree
+with him, though he is supported by very
+eminent authorities, in classifying our conviction
+of axiomatic principles as <i>belief</i>, and
+not as <i>knowledge</i>.<a name="FNanchor_AX" id="FNanchor_AX"></a><a href="#Footnote_AX" class="fnanchor">[AX]</a> But this question does
+not directly bear on Mr. Mill&#8217;s criticism.
+The point of that criticism is, that Hamilton,
+by admitting a <i>belief</i> in the infinite and
+unrelated, nullifies his own doctrine, that all
+<i>knowledge</i> is of the finite and relative. Let
+us see.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AX' id='Footnote_AX'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AX'><span class='label'>[AX]</span></a>
+<p>
+Hamilton&#8217;s distinction is in principle the same as that which
+we have given in our previous remarks (pp. 18, 19). He says, &#8220;A
+conviction is incomprehensible when there is merely given to us in
+consciousness&mdash;<i>That its object is</i> (ὅτι ἔστι), and when we are unable
+to comprehend through a higher notion or belief <i>Why or How it
+is</i> (διότι ἔστι).&#8221;&mdash;(Reid&#8217;s Works, p. 754.) We would distinguish
+between <i>why</i> and <i>how</i>, between διότι, and
+πῶς. We can give no
+reason <i>why</i> two straight lines cannot enclose a space; but we can
+comprehend <i>how</i> they cannot. We have only to form the corresponding
+image, to see the manner in which the two attributes
+coexist in one object. But when I say that I believe in the existence
+of a spiritual being who sees without eyes, I cannot conceive
+the <i>manner</i> in which seeing coexists with the absence of the bodily
+organ of sight. We believe that the true distinction between
+knowledge and belief may ultimately be referred to the presence
+or absence of the corresponding intuition; but to show this in the
+various instances would require a longer dissertation than our
+present limits will allow.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+We may believe <i>that</i> a thing is, without
+being able to conceive <i>how</i> it is. I believe
+<i>that</i> God is a person, and also <i>that</i> He is
+infinite; though I cannot conceive <i>how</i> the
+attributes of personality and infinity exist
+together. All my knowledge of personality
+is derived from my consciousness of my own
+finite personality. I therefore believe in the
+coexistence of attributes in God, in some
+manner different from that in which they
+coexist in me as limiting each other: and
+thus I believe in the fact, though I am
+unable to conceive the manner. So, again,
+Kant brings certain counter arguments, to
+prove, on the one side, that the world has a
+beginning in time, and, on the other side,
+that it has not a beginning. Now suppose
+I am unable to refute either of these courses
+of argument, am I therefore compelled to
+have no belief at all? May I not say, I
+believe, in spite of Kant, <i>that</i> the world has
+a beginning in time, though I am unable to
+conceive <i>how</i> it can have so begun? What
+is this, again, but a belief in an absolute
+reality beyond the sphere of my relative
+knowledge?
+</p>
+<p>
+&#8220;I am not now considering,&#8221; says Mr.
+Mill, &#8220;what it is that, in our author&#8217;s
+opinion, we are bound to believe concerning
+the unknowable.&#8221; Why, this was the very
+thing he ought to have considered, before
+pronouncing the position to be untenable, or
+to be irreconcilable with something else.
+Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that
+Mr. Mill himself believes, or requires his
+readers to believe, something concerning the
+unknown. He does not know, or at any rate
+he does not tell his readers, what Hamilton
+requires them to believe concerning the
+unknowable; but he himself believes, and
+requires them to believe, that this unknown
+something is incompatible with the doctrine
+that knowledge is relative. We cannot regard
+this as a very satisfactory mode of
+refuting Hamilton&#8217;s thesis.<a name="FNanchor_AY" id="FNanchor_AY"></a><a href="#Footnote_AY" class="fnanchor">[AY]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AY' id='Footnote_AY'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AY'><span class='label'>[AY]</span></a>
+<p>
+In a subsequent chapter (p. 120), Mr. Mill endeavours to
+overthrow this distinction between Knowledge and Belief, by means
+of Hamilton&#8217;s own theory of Consciousness. Hamilton maintains
+that we cannot be conscious of a mental operation without being
+conscious of its object. On this Mr. Mill retorts that if, as
+Hamilton admits, we are conscious of a belief in the Infinite and
+the Absolute, we must be conscious of the Infinite and the Absolute
+themselves; and such consciousness is Knowledge. The fallacy
+of this retort is transparent. The immediate object of Belief is a
+<i>proposition</i> which I hold to be true, not a <i>thing</i> apprehended in an
+act of conception. I believe in an infinite God; <i>i.e.</i>, I believe
+<i>that</i> God is infinite: I believe that the attributes which I ascribe to
+God exist in Him in an infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition,
+I must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am
+not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object of conception;
+for this would require further an apprehension of the manner
+in which these infinite attributes coexist so as to form one object.
+The whole argument of this eighth chapter is confused, owing to
+Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages in which
+Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an <i>argumentum ad hominem</i> in
+relation to Reid, and those in which he is reasoning from general
+principles.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But if Mr. Mill is unjust towards the
+distinction between Knowledge and Belief,
+as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes
+ample amends to the injured theory in the
+next chapter, by enlarging the province of
+credibility far beyond any extent which
+Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming
+for it. Conceivability or inconceivability, he
+tells us, are usually dependent on association;
+and it is quite possible that, under other
+associations, we might be able to conceive,
+and therefore to believe, anything short of
+the direct contradiction that the same thing
+is and is not. It is not in itself incredible,
+that a square may at the same time be
+round, that two straight lines may enclose a
+space, or even that two and two may make
+five.<a name="FNanchor_AZ" id="FNanchor_AZ"></a><a href="#Footnote_AZ" class="fnanchor">[AZ]</a> But whatever concessions Mr. Mill
+may make on this point, he is at least fully
+determined that Sir W. Hamilton shall
+derive no benefit from them; for he forthwith
+proceeds to charge Sir William with
+confusing three distinct senses of the term
+<i>conception</i>&mdash;a confusion which exists solely
+in his own imagination,<a name="FNanchor_BA" id="FNanchor_BA"></a><a href="#Footnote_BA" class="fnanchor">[BA]</a>&mdash;and to assert that
+the Philosophy of the Conditioned is entirely
+founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite
+space on the one hand, and, on the other,
+both an absolute minimum and an infinite divisibility
+of space, are perfectly conceivable.
+With regard to the former of these two
+assertions, Mr. Mill&#8217;s whole argument is
+vitiated, as we have already shown, by his
+confusion between <i>infinite</i> and <i>indefinite</i>;
+but it is worth while to quote one of his
+special instances in this chapter, as a specimen
+of the kind of reasoning which an
+eminent writer on logic can sometimes employ.
+In reference to Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+assertion, that infinite space would require
+infinite time to conceive it, he says, &#8220;Let us
+try the doctrine upon a complex whole, short
+of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir
+W. Hamilton would not, I suppose, have
+maintained that this number is inconceivable.
+How long did he think it would take to go
+over every separate unit of this whole, so as
+to obtain a perfect knowledge of the exact
+sum, as different from all other sums, either
+greater or less?&#8221;
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_AZ' id='Footnote_AZ'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AZ'><span class='label'>[AZ]</span></a>
+<p>
+In reference to this last paradox, Mr. Mill quotes from <i>Essays
+by a Barrister</i>: &#8220;There is a world in which, whenever two pairs
+of things are either placed in proximity or are contemplated together,
+a fifth thing is immediately created and brought within the contemplation
+of the mind engaged in putting two and two together....
+In such a world surely two and two would make five. That
+is, the result to the mind of contemplating two twos would be to
+count five.&#8221; The answer to this reasoning has been already given
+by Archdeacon Lee in his Essay on Miracles. The &#8220;five&#8221; in this
+case is not the sum of two and two, but of two and two <i>plus</i> the new
+creature, <i>i.e.</i>, of two and two <i>plus</i> one.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BA' id='Footnote_BA'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BA'><span class='label'>[BA]</span></a>
+<p>
+The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word
+<i>conception</i> is explained in a note to <i>Reid&#8217;s Works</i>, p. 377&mdash;namely,
+the combination of two or more attributes in a <i>unity of representation</i>.
+The second sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mistake
+of his own. When Hamilton speaks of being &#8220;unable to
+conceive as possible,&#8221; he does not mean, as Mr. Mill supposes,
+physically possible under the law of gravitation or some other law
+of matter, but mentally possible as a representation or image; and
+thus the supposed second sense is identical with the first. The
+third sense may also be reduced to the first; for to conceive two
+attributes as combined in one representation is to form a notion
+subordinate to those of each attribute separately. We do not say
+that Sir W. Hamilton has been uniformly accurate in his application
+of the test of conceivability; but we say that his inaccuracies, such
+as they are, do not affect the theory of the conditioned, and that in
+all the long extracts which Mr. Mill quotes, with footnotes, indicating
+&#8220;first sense,&#8221; &#8220;second sense,&#8221; &#8220;third sense,&#8221; the author&#8217;s
+meaning may be more accurately explained in the first sense only.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+It is marvellous that it should not have
+occurred to Mr. Mill, while he was writing
+this passage, &#8220;How comes this large number
+to be a &#8217;whole&#8217; at all; and how comes it that
+&#8217;this whole,&#8217; with all its units, can be written
+down by means of six digits?&#8221; Simply
+because of a conventional arrangement, by
+which a single digit, according to its position,
+can express, by one mark, tens, hundreds,
+thousands, &amp;c., of units; and thus can exhaust
+the sum by dealing with its items in
+large masses. But how can such a process
+exhaust the infinite? We should like to
+know how long Mr. Mill thinks it would
+take to work out the following problem:&mdash;&#8220;If
+two figures can represent ten, three a
+hundred, four a thousand, five ten thousand,
+&amp;c., find the number of figures required to
+represent infinity.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_BB" id="FNanchor_BB"></a><a href="#Footnote_BB" class="fnanchor">[BB]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BB' id='Footnote_BB'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BB'><span class='label'>[BB]</span></a>
+<p>
+Precisely the same misconception of Hamilton&#8217;s position occurs
+in Professor De Morgan&#8217;s paper in the <i>Cambridge Transactions</i>,
+to which we have previously referred. He speaks (p. 13) of the
+&#8220;notion, which runs through many writers, from Descartes to
+Hamilton, that the mind must be big enough to <i>hold</i> all it can conceive.&#8221;
+This notion is certainly not maintained by Hamilton, nor
+yet by Descartes in the paragraph quoted by Mr. De Morgan; nor,
+as far as we are aware, in any other part of his works.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Infinite divisibility stands or falls with
+infinite extension. In both cases Mr. Mill
+confounds infinity with indefiniteness. But
+with regard to an absolute minimum of space,
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s argument requires a separate
+notice.
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;It is not denied,&#8221; he says, &#8220;that there is a portion of
+extension which to the naked eye appears an indivisible
+point; it has been called by philosophers the <i>minimum
+visibile</i>. This minimum we can indefinitely magnify by
+means of optical instruments, making visible the still
+smaller parts which compose it. In each successive experiment
+there is still a <i>minimum visibile</i>, anything less
+than which cannot be discovered with that instrument,
+but can with one of a higher power. Suppose, now, that
+as we increase the magnifying power of our instruments,
+and before we have reached the limit of possible increase,
+we arrive at a stage at which that which seemed the
+smallest visible space under a given microscope, does not
+appear larger under one which, by its mechanical construction,
+is adapted to magnify more, but still remains apparently
+indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should
+believe in a minimum of extension; or if some <i>à priori</i>
+metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we
+should at least be enabled to conceive it.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 84.)
+</p>
+<p>
+The natural conclusion of most men under
+such circumstances would be, that there was
+some fault in the microscope. But even if
+this conclusion were rejected, we presume
+Mr. Mill would allow that, under the supposed
+circumstances, the exact magnitude of the
+minimum of extension would be calculable.
+We have only to measure the <i>minimum
+visibile</i>, and know what is the magnifying
+power of our microscope, to determine the
+exact dimensions. Suppose, then, that we
+assign to it some definite magnitude&mdash;say
+the ten billionth part of an inch,&mdash;should we
+then conclude that it is impossible to conceive
+the twenty billionth part of an inch?&mdash;in
+other words, that we have arrived at a
+definite magnitude which has no conceivable
+half? Surely this is a somewhat rash concession
+to be made by a writer who has just
+told us that numbers may be conceived up to
+infinity; and therefore, of course, down to
+infinitesimality.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an
+assertion which, even by itself, is sufficient to
+show how very little he has attended to or
+understood the philosophy which he is attempting
+to criticise. &#8220;The law of Excluded
+Middle,&#8221; he says, &#8220;as well as that of Contradiction,
+is common to all phenomena.
+But it is a doctrine of our author that these
+laws are true, and cannot but be known to
+be true, of Noumena likewise. It is not
+merely Space as cognisable by our senses,
+but Space as it is in itself, which he affirms
+must be either of unlimited or of limited
+extent&#8221; (p. 86). At this sentence we fairly
+stand aghast. &#8220;Space as it is in itself!&#8221;
+the Noumenon Space! Has Mr. Mill been
+all this while &#8220;examining&#8221; Sir William
+Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy, in utter ignorance
+that the object of that philosophy is the
+&#8220;Conditioned in Time and <i>Space</i>;&#8221; that he
+accepts Kant&#8217;s analysis of time and space as
+formal necessities of thought, but pronounces
+no opinion whatever as to whether time and
+space can exist as Noumena or not? It is
+the phenomenal space, &#8220;space as cognisable
+by our senses,&#8221; which Sir W. Hamilton says
+must be either limited or unlimited: concerning
+the Noumenon Space, he does not
+hazard an opinion whether such a thing
+exists or not. He says, indeed (and this is
+probably what has misled Mr. Mill), that the
+laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded
+Middle, are laws of things as well as
+laws of thought;<a name="FNanchor_BC" id="FNanchor_BC"></a><a href="#Footnote_BC" class="fnanchor">[BC]</a> but he says nothing about
+these laws as predicating infinite or finite
+extension. On the contrary, he expressly
+classifies Space under the law of Relativity,
+the violation of which indicates what may
+exist, but what we are unable to conceive as
+existing. Briefly, the law of Excluded
+Middle (to take this instance alone) is a law
+of things only in its abstract form, &#8220;Everything
+must be A or not A&#8221; (<i>extended</i>, if you
+please, or <i>not extended</i>); but in its subordinate
+form, &#8220;Everything extended must be
+extended infinitely or finitely,&#8221; it is only
+applicable, and only intended by Hamilton
+to be applied, to those <i>phenomena</i> which are
+already given as extended in some degree.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BC' id='Footnote_BC'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BC'><span class='label'>[BC]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Discussions</i>, p. 603.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+We have now examined the first six chapters
+of Mr. Mill&#8217;s book, containing his
+remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s
+philosophy which he justly regards as
+comprising the most important of the doctrines
+which specially belong to Hamilton
+himself. The next chapter is an episode,
+in which Mr. Mill turns aside from Sir W.
+Hamilton to criticise Mr. Mansel&#8217;s <i>Bampton
+Lectures</i>. As our limits do not permit
+us to carry on the argument at present
+through the remainder of Mr. Mill&#8217;s remarks
+on Hamilton himself, we shall conclude our
+notice with a few words on this chapter, as
+closing the properly metaphysical portion of
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s book, and as affording ample
+proof that, in this department of philosophy
+at least, Mr. Mill&#8217;s powers of misapprehension
+do not cease when Sir W. Hamilton is
+no longer their object.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s method of criticism makes it
+generally necessary to commence with a
+statement of the criticised theory as it really
+is, before proceeding to his exposition of it as
+it is not. The present instance offers no
+exception to this rule. Mr. Mansel&#8217;s argument
+may be briefly stated as follows. The
+primary and essential conception of God,
+imperatively demanded by our moral and
+religious consciousness, is that of a <i>person</i>.
+But personality implies intellectual and
+moral attributes; and the only direct and
+immediate knowledge which we have of such
+attributes is derived from the testimony of
+self-consciousness, bearing witness to their
+existence in a certain manner in ourselves.
+But when we endeavour to transfer the
+conception of personality, thus obtained, to
+the domain of theology, we meet with certain
+difficulties, which, while they are not sufficient
+to hinder us from <i>believing</i> in the
+Divine Personality as a fact, yet hinder us
+from <i>conceiving</i> the manner of its existence,
+and prevent us from exhibiting our belief as
+a philosophical conclusion, proved by irrefragable
+reasoning and secured against all
+objections. These difficulties are occasioned,
+on the one hand, by the so-called Philosophy
+of the Unconditioned, which in all ages has
+shown a tendency towards Pantheism, and
+which, in one of its latest and most finished
+manifestations, announces itself as the exhibition
+of God as He is in His eternal
+nature before creation; and, on the other
+hand, by the limitations and conditions to
+which our own personality is subject, and
+which, as we have pointed out in the earlier
+part of this article, have, from the very
+beginning of Christian theology, prevented
+theologians from accepting the limited personality
+of man as an exact image and
+counterpart of the unlimited personality of
+God. These difficulties Mr. Mansel endeavours
+to meet in two ways. On the one
+side, he maintains, in common with Sir W.
+Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Unconditioned,
+by reason of its own incongruities
+and self-contradictions, has no claim
+to be accepted as a competent witness in the
+matter; and on the other side, he maintains,
+in common with many theologians before
+him, that human personality cannot be assumed
+as an exact copy of the Divine, but
+only as that which is most nearly analogous
+to it among finite things. But these two
+positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding
+practical conclusion as regards the criterion
+of religious truth or falsehood. Were we
+capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear
+conception of the Unconditioned, or, on the
+other, of a direct intuition of the Divine
+Attributes as objects of consciousness, we
+might be able to construct, deductively or
+inductively, an exact science of Theology.
+As it is, we are compelled to reason by
+analogy; and analogy furnishes only probabilities,
+varying, it may be, from slight
+presumptions up to moral certainties, but
+whose weight, in any given case, can only be
+determined by comparison with other evidences.
+There are three distinct sources
+from which we may form a judgment about
+the ways of God&mdash;first, from our own moral
+and intellectual consciousness, by which we
+judge <i>à priori</i> of what God ought to do in a
+given case, by determining what we should
+think it wise or right for ourselves to do in a
+similar case; secondly, from the constitution
+and course of nature, from which we may
+learn by experience what God&#8217;s providence
+in certain cases actually is; and thirdly,
+from revelation, attested by its proper evidences.
+Where these three agree in their
+testimony (as in the great majority of cases
+they do) we have the moral certainty which
+results from the harmony of all accessible
+evidences: where they appear to differ, we
+have no right at once to conclude that the
+second or the third must give way to the
+first, and not <i>vice versâ</i>; because we have no
+right to assume that the first alone is infallible.
+In the author&#8217;s own words: &#8220;The
+lesson to be learnt from an examination of
+the Limits of Religious Thought is not that
+man&#8217;s judgments are <i>worthless</i> in relation to
+Divine things, but that they are <i>fallible</i>: and
+the probability of error in any particular case
+can never be fairly estimated without giving
+their full weight to all collateral considerations.
+We are indeed bound to believe that
+a Revelation given by God can never contain
+anything that is really unwise or unrighteous;
+but we are not always capable of estimating
+exactly the wisdom or righteousness of particular
+doctrines or precepts. And we are
+bound to bear in mind that <i>exactly in proportion
+to the strength of the remaining
+evidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is
+the probability that we may be mistaken in
+supposing this or that portion of its contents
+to be unworthy of God.</i> Taken in conjunction,
+the two arguments may confirm or
+correct each other: taken singly and absolutely,
+each may vitiate the result which
+should follow from their joint application.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_BD" id="FNanchor_BD"></a><a href="#Footnote_BD" class="fnanchor">[BD]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BD' id='Footnote_BD'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BD'><span class='label'>[BD]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Bampton Lectures</i>, p. 156, 4th edition.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+In criticising the first part of this argument&mdash;that
+which is directed against the deductive
+philosophy of the Unconditioned&mdash;Mr. Mill
+manifests the same want of acquaintance with
+its meanings, and with the previous history of
+the question; which he had before exhibited
+in his attack on Sir W. Hamilton. He
+begins by finding fault with the definition of
+the Absolute, which Mr. Mansel (herein
+departing, and purposely departing, from Sir
+W. Hamilton&#8217;s use of the term) defines as
+&#8220;that which exists in and by itself, having
+no necessary relation to any other Being.&#8221;
+On this, Mr. Mill remarks: &#8220;The first words
+of his definition would serve for the description
+of a Noumenon; but Mr. Mansel&#8217;s
+Absolute is only meant to denote one Being,
+identified with God, and God is not the only
+Noumenon.&#8221; The description of a Noumenon!
+This is almost equal to the
+discovery of a Noumenon Space. Does Mr.
+Mill really suppose that all noumena are self-existent?
+A <i>noumenon</i> (in the sense in
+which we suppose Mr. Mill to understand
+the term, for it has different meanings in
+different philosophies) implies an existence
+out of relation to the human mind.<a name="FNanchor_BE" id="FNanchor_BE"></a><a href="#Footnote_BE" class="fnanchor">[BE]</a> But is
+this the same as being out of all relation
+whatever, as existing &#8220;in and by itself?&#8221;
+Does Mr. Mill mean to say that a creature,
+whether perceived by us or not, has no relation
+to its Creator? But Mr. Mill, as we
+have seen before, is not much at home when
+he gets among &#8220;noumena.&#8221; We must proceed
+to his criticism of the second part of the
+definition,&mdash;&#8220;having no necessary relation to
+any other being.&#8221; Of these words he says,
+that &#8220;they admit of two constructions. The
+words in their natural sense only mean,
+<i>capable of existing out of relation to anything
+else</i>. The argument requires that they should
+mean <i>incapable of existing in relation with
+anything else</i>.&#8221; And why is this non-natural
+sense to be forced upon very plain words?
+Because, says Mr. Mill,&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BE' id='Footnote_BE'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BE'><span class='label'>[BE]</span></a>
+<p>
+Strictly speaking, the term <i>noumenon</i>, as meaning that which
+can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies a relation to the
+intellect apprehending it; and in this sense τὸ νοούμενον is opposed
+by Plato to τὸ ��ώμενον&mdash;the object of intellect to the object of
+sight. But as the intellect was supposed to take cognisance of
+things as they are, in opposition to the sensitive perception of
+things as they appear, the term <i>noumenon</i> became synonymous
+with <i>thing in itself</i> (τὸ ὃν καθ’ αὑτό). And this meaning is retained
+in the Kantian philosophy, in which the <i>noumenon</i> is identical
+with the <i>Ding an sich</i>. But as Kant denied to the human intellect
+any immediate intuition of things as they are (though such an
+intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect), hence the
+term <i>noumenon</i> in the Kantian philosophy is opposed to all of
+which the human intellect can take positive cognisance. Hamilton,
+in this respect, agrees with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton,
+in opposing the <i>thing in itself</i> to the <i>phenomenon</i>, meant to imply
+that the former is necessarily self-existent, and therefore uncreated.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation,
+incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not
+causes a possible existence apart from their effects? Would
+the sun, for example, not exist if there were no earth or
+planets for it to illuminate? Mr. Mansel seems to think
+that what is capable of existing out of relation, cannot
+possibly be conceived or known in relation. But this is
+not so.... Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. Mansel&#8217;s
+argument resolves itself into this,&mdash;The same Being
+cannot be thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute,
+because a Cause <i>as such</i> is not Absolute, and Absolute, as
+such, is not a Cause; which is exactly as if he had said
+that Newton cannot be thought by us both as an Englishman
+and as a mathematician, because an Englishman, as
+such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician, as such,
+an Englishman.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 92.)
+</p>
+<p>
+The &#8220;confusion of ideas&#8221; is entirely of
+Mr. Mill&#8217;s own making, and is owing to his
+having mutilated the argument before criticising
+it. The argument in its original form
+consists of two parts; the first intended to
+show that the Absolute is not conceived <i>as
+such</i> in being conceived as a Cause; the
+second to show that the Absolute cannot be
+conceived under different aspects at different
+times&mdash;first as Absolute, and then as Cause.
+It was the impossibility of this latter alternative
+which drove Cousin to the hypothesis of
+a necessary causation from all eternity. Mr.
+Mill entirely omits the latter part of the
+argument, and treats the former part as if it
+were the whole. The part criticised by Mr.
+Mill is intended to prove exactly what it
+does prove, and no more; namely, that a
+cause <i>as such</i> is not the absolute, and that to
+know a cause <i>as such</i> is not to know the
+absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself
+will admit that to know Newton as a mathematician
+is not to know him as an Englishman.
+Whether he can be known separately
+as both, and whether the Absolute in
+this respect is a parallel case, depends on
+another consideration, which Mr. Mill has
+not noticed. The continuation of Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+criticism is equally confused. He says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;The whole of Mr. Mansel&#8217;s argument for the inconceivability
+of the Infinite and of the Absolute is one long
+<i>ignoratio elenchi</i>. It has been pointed out in a former
+chapter that the words Absolute and Infinite have no real
+meaning, unless we understand by them that which is
+absolute or infinite in some given attribute; as space is
+called infinite, meaning that it is infinite in extension;
+and as God is termed infinite, in the sense of possessing
+infinite power, and absolute in the sense of absolute goodness
+or knowledge. It has also been shown that Sir W.
+Hamilton&#8217;s arguments for the unknowableness of the Unconditioned
+do not prove that we cannot know an object
+which is absolute or infinite in some specific attribute, but
+only that we cannot know an abstraction called &#8216;The
+Absolute&#8217; or &#8216;The Infinite,&#8217; which is supposed to have all
+attributes at once.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 93.)
+</p>
+<p>
+The fallacy of this criticism, as regards
+Sir W. Hamilton, has been already pointed
+out: as regards Mr. Mansel, it is still more
+glaring, inasmuch as that writer expressly
+states that he uses the term <i>absolute</i> in a
+different sense from that which Mr. Mill
+attributes to Sir W. Hamilton. When Mr.
+Mill charges Mr. Mansel with &#8220;undertaking
+to prove the impossibility&#8221; of conceiving &#8220;a
+Being <i>absolutely</i> just or <i>absolutely</i> wise&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_BF" id="FNanchor_BF"></a><a href="#Footnote_BF" class="fnanchor">[BF]</a>
+(<i>i.e.</i>, as he supposes, <i>perfectly</i> just or wise),
+he actually forgets that he has just been
+criticising Mr. Hansel&#8217;s definition of the
+Absolute, as something having a possible
+existence &#8220;out of all relation.&#8221; Will Mr.
+Mill have the kindness to tell us what he
+means by goodness and knowledge &#8220;out of
+all relation;&#8221; <i>i.e.</i>, a goodness and knowledge
+related to no object on which they can be
+exercised; a goodness which is good to
+nothing, a knowledge which knows nothing?
+Mr. Mill had better be cautious in talking
+about <i>ignoratio elenchi</i>.
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BF' id='Footnote_BF'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BF'><span class='label'>[BF]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Examination</i>, p. 95.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+From the Absolute, Mr. Mill proceeds to
+the Infinite; and here he commits the same
+mistake as before, treating a portion of an
+argument as if it were the whole, and citing
+a portion intended to prove one point as if it
+were intended to prove another. He cites a
+passage from Mr. Mansel, in which it is said
+that &#8220;the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at
+all, must be conceived as potentially everything
+and actually nothing; for if there is
+anything in general which it cannot become,
+it is thereby limited; and if there is anything
+in particular which it actually is, it is
+thereby excluded from being any other thing.
+But, again, it must also be conceived as
+actually everything and potentially nothing;
+for an unrealised potentiality is likewise a
+limitation. If the Infinite can be that which
+it is not, it is by that very possibility marked
+out as incomplete, and capable of a higher
+perfection. If it is actually everything, it
+possesses no characteristic feature by which
+it can be distinguished from anything else,
+and discerned as an object of consciousness.&#8221;
+On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, &#8220;Can a
+writer be serious who bids us conjure up a
+conception of something which possesses infinitely
+all conflicting attributes, and because
+we cannot do this without contradiction,
+would have us believe that there is a contradiction
+in the idea of infinite goodness or
+infinite wisdom?&#8221; The answer to this criticism
+is very simple. The argument is not
+employed for the purpose which Mr. Mill
+supposes. It is employed to show that the
+metaphysical notion of the absolute-infinite,
+as the sum, potential or actual, of all possible
+existence, is inconceivable under the laws of
+human consciousness; and thus that the
+absolutely first existence, related to nothing
+and limited by nothing, the <i>ens realissimum</i>
+of the older philosophers, the <i>pure being</i> of
+the Hegelians, cannot be attained as a starting-point
+from which to deduce all relative
+and derived existence. How far the empirical
+conception of certain mental attributes,
+such as goodness or wisdom, derived in the
+first instance from our own personal consciousness,
+can be positively conceived as extended
+to infinity, is considered in a separate
+argument, which Mr. Mill does not notice.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill continues, &#8220;Instead of &#8217;the Infinite,&#8217;
+substitute &#8217;an infinitely good Being&#8217;
+[<i>i.e.</i>, substitute what is not intended], and
+Mr. Mansel&#8217;s argument reads thus:&mdash;&#8216;If
+there is anything which an infinitely good
+Being cannot become&mdash;if he cannot become
+bad&mdash;that is a limitation, and the goodness
+cannot be infinite. If there is anything
+which an infinitely good Being actually is
+(namely, good), he is excluded from being
+any other thing, as being wise or powerful.&#8217;&#8221;
+To the first part of this objection we reply
+by simply asking, &#8220;Is becoming bad a
+&#8216;higher perfection?&#8217;&#8221; To the second part
+we reply by Mr. Mill&#8217;s favourite mode of
+reasoning&mdash;a parallel case. A writer asserts
+that a creature which is a horse is thereby
+excluded from being a dog; and that, in so
+far as it has the nature of a horse, it has not
+the nature of a dog. &#8220;What!&#8221; exclaims Mr.
+Mill, &#8220;is it not the nature of a dog to have
+four legs? and does the man mean to say
+that a horse has not four legs?&#8221; We venture
+respectfully to ask Mr. Mill whether he
+supposes that being wise is being &#8220;a thing,&#8221;
+and being good is being another &#8220;thing?&#8221;
+</p>
+<p>
+But, seriously, it is much to be wished
+that when a writer like Mr. Mill undertakes
+to discuss philosophical questions, he should
+acquire some slight acquaintance with the
+history of the questions discussed. Had this
+been done by our critic in the present case,
+it might possibly have occurred to him to
+doubt whether a doctrine supported by philosophers
+of such different schools of thought
+as Spinoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant, Schelling,
+could be quite such a piece of transparent
+nonsense as he supposes it to be.
+All these writers are cited in Mr. Mansel&#8217;s
+note, as maintaining the theory that the
+Absolute is the <i>ens realissimum</i>, or sum of
+all existence; and their names might have
+saved Mr. Mill from the absurdity of supposing
+that by this expression was meant
+something &#8220;absolutely good and absolutely
+bad; absolutely wise and absolutely stupid;
+and so forth.&#8221; The real meaning of the
+expression has been already sufficiently explained
+in our earlier remarks. The problem
+of the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, as
+sketched by Plato and generally adopted by
+subsequent philosophers, is, as we have seen,
+to ascend up to the first principle of all
+things, and thence to deduce, as from their
+cause, all dependent and derived existences.
+The Unconditioned, as the one first principle,
+must necessarily contain in itself, potentially
+or actually, all that is derived from it, and
+thus must comprehend, in embryo or in
+development, the sum of all existence. To
+reconcile this conclusion with the phenomenal
+existence of evil and imperfection, is the
+difficulty with which philosophy has had to
+struggle ever since philosophy began. The
+Manichean, by referring evil to an independent
+cause, denies the existence of an
+absolute first principle at all; the Leibnitzian,
+with his hypothesis of the best
+possible world, virtually sets bounds to the
+Divine omnipotence: the Pantheist identifies
+God with all actual existence, and either
+denies the real existence of evil at all, or
+merges the distinction between evil and good
+in some higher indifference. All these conclusions
+may be alike untenable, but all
+alike testify to the existence of the problem,
+and to the vast though unsuccessful efforts
+which man&#8217;s reason has made to solve it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The reader may now, perhaps, understand
+the reason of an assertion which Mr. Mill
+regards as supremely absurd,&mdash;namely, that
+we must believe in the existence of an absolute
+and infinite Being, though unable to
+conceive the nature of such a Being. To
+believe in such a Being, is simply to believe
+that God made the world: to declare the
+nature of such a Being inconceivable, is
+simply to say that we do not know how the
+world was made. If we believe that God
+made the world, we must believe that there
+was a time when the world was not, and
+when God alone existed, out of relation to
+any other being. But the mode of that sole
+existence we are unable to conceive, nor in
+what manner the first act took place by
+which the absolute and self-existent gave
+existence to the relative and dependent.
+&#8220;The contradictions,&#8221; says Mr. Mill, &#8220;which
+Mr. Mansel asserts to be involved in the
+notions, do not follow from an imperfect
+mode of apprehending the Infinite and the
+Absolute, but lie in the definitions of them,
+in the meaning of the words themselves.&#8221;
+They do no such thing: the meaning of the
+words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly
+what is expressed by their definitions: the
+contradictions arise from the attempt to
+combine the attributes expressed by the
+words in one representation with others, so
+as to form a positive object of consciousness.
+Where is the incongruity of saying, &#8220;I
+believe that a being exists possessing certain
+attributes, though I am unable in my present
+state of knowledge to conceive the manner of
+that existence?&#8221; Mr. Mill, at all events, is
+the last man in the world who has any right
+to complain of such a distinction&mdash;Mr. Mill,
+who considers it not incredible that in some
+part of the universe two straight lines may
+enclose a space, or two and two make five;
+though he is compelled to allow that under
+our present laws of thought, or, if he pleases,
+of association, we are unable to conceive how
+these things can be.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is wearisome work to wade through this
+mass of misconceptions; yet we must entreat
+the reader&#8217;s patience a little longer, while we
+say a few words in conclusion on perhaps the
+greatest misconception of all&mdash;though that is
+bold language to use with regard to Mr.
+Mill&#8217;s metaphysics,&mdash;at any rate, the one
+which he expresses in the most vehement
+language. Mr. Mansel, as we have said,
+asserts, as many others have asserted before
+him, that the relation between the communicable
+attributes of God and the corresponding
+attributes of man is one not of
+identity, but of analogy; that is to say, that
+the Divine attributes have the same relation
+to the Divine nature that the human attributes
+have to human nature. Thus, for
+example, there is a Divine justice and there
+is a human justice; but God is just as the
+Creator and Governor of the world, having
+unlimited authority over all His creatures
+and unlimited jurisdiction over all their acts;
+and man is just in certain special relations,
+as having authority over some persons and
+some acts only, so far as is required for the
+needs of human society. So, again, there is
+a Divine mercy and there is a human mercy;
+but God is merciful in such a manner as is
+fitting compatibly with the righteous government
+of the universe; and man is merciful
+in a certain limited range, the exercise of
+the attribute being guided by considerations
+affecting the welfare of society or of individuals.
+Or to take a more general case:
+Man has in himself a rule of right and
+wrong, implying subjection to the authority
+of a superior (for conscience has authority
+only as reflecting the law of God); while
+God has in Himself a rule of right and
+wrong, implying no higher authority, and
+determined absolutely by His own nature.
+The case is the same when we look at
+moral attributes, not externally, in their
+active manifestations, but internally, in their
+psychological constitution. If we do not
+attribute to God the same complex mental
+constitution of reason, passion, and will, the
+same relation to motives and inducements,
+the same deliberation and choice of alternatives,
+the same temporal succession of facts
+in consciousness, which we ascribe to man,&mdash;it
+will follow that those psychological relations
+between reason, will, and desire, which
+are implied in the conception of human
+action, cannot represent the Divine excellences
+in themselves, but can only illustrate
+them by analogies from finite things. And
+if man is liable to error in judging of the
+conduct of his fellow-men, in proportion
+as he is unable to place himself in their
+position, or to realise to himself their modes
+of thought and principles of action&mdash;if the
+child, for instance, is liable to error in
+judging the actions of the man,&mdash;or the
+savage of the civilised man,&mdash;surely there
+is far more room for error in men&#8217;s judgment
+of the ways of God, in proportion as the
+difference between God and man is greater
+than the difference between a man and a
+child.
+</p>
+<p>
+This doctrine elicits from Mr. Mill the following
+extraordinary outburst of rhetoric:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being
+in whom all the excellences which the highest human
+mind can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I
+am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose
+attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn,
+nor what are the principles of his government, except that
+&#8217;the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving&#8217;
+does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I
+will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I
+must believe this, and at the same time call this being by
+the names which express and affirm the highest human
+morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever
+power such a being may have over me, there is one thing
+which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship
+him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean
+when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if
+such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling
+him, to hell I will go.&#8221;&mdash;(P. 103.)
+</p>
+<p>
+We will not pause to comment on the
+temper and taste of this declamation; we will
+simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes
+the word <i>good</i> to lose all community of meaning,
+when it is applied, as it constantly is,
+to different persons among our &#8220;fellow-creatures,&#8221;
+with express reference to their
+different duties and different qualifications for
+performing them? The duties of a father are
+not the same as those of a son; is the word
+therefore wholly equivocal when we speak
+of one person as a <i>good father</i>, and another
+as a <i>good son</i>? Nay, when we speak generally
+of a man as <i>good</i>, has not the epithet a
+tacit reference to human nature and human
+duties? and yet is there no community of
+meaning when the same epithet is applied to
+other Creatures? Ἡ ἀ�ετὴ π�ὸs τὸ ἔ�γον τὸ οἰκεῖον&mdash;the goodness of any being whatever
+has relation to the nature and office of that
+being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+declamation by a parallel case. A wise and
+experienced father addresses a young and
+inexperienced son: &#8220;My son,&#8221; he says, &#8220;there
+may be some of my actions which do not
+seem to you to be wise or good, or such as
+you would do in my place. Remember,
+however, that your duties are different from
+mine; that your knowledge of my duties is
+very imperfect; and that there may be
+things which you cannot now see to be wise
+and good, but which you may hereafter
+discover to be so.&#8221; &#8220;Father,&#8221; says the son,
+&#8220;your principles of action are not the same
+as mine; the highest morality which I can
+conceive at present does not sanction them;
+and as for believing that you are good in
+anything of which I do not plainly see the
+goodness,&#8221;&mdash;We will not repeat Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+alternative; we will only ask whether it is
+not just possible that there may be as much
+difference between man and God as there is
+between a child and his father?
+</p>
+<p>
+This declamation is followed by a sneer,
+which is worth quoting, not on its own
+account, but as an evidence of the generosity
+with which Mr. Mill deals with the supposed
+motives of his antagonists, and of the accuracy
+of his acquaintance with the subject
+discussed. He says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;It is worthy of remark, that the doubt whether words
+applied to God have their human signification, is only felt
+when the words relate to his moral attributes; it is never
+heard of with regard to his power. We are never told
+that God&#8217;s omnipotence must not be supposed to mean an
+infinite degree of the power we know in man and nature,
+and that perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill
+us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is
+always interpreted in a completely human signification;
+but the Divine Goodness and Justice must be understood
+to be such only in an unintelligible sense. Is it unfair to
+surmise that this is because those who speak in the name
+of God, have need of the human conception of his power,
+since an idea which can overawe and enforce obedience
+must address itself to real feelings; but are content that
+his goodness should be conceived only as something inconceivable,
+because they are so often required to teach doctrines
+respecting him which conflict irreconcilably with all
+goodness that we can conceive?&#8221;&mdash;(P. 104.)
+</p>
+<p>
+On the latter part of this paragraph we
+will not attempt to comment. But as regards
+the former part, we meet Mr. Mill&#8217;s
+confident assertion with a direct denial, and
+take the opportunity of informing him that
+the conception of infinite Power has suggested
+the same difficulties; and has been
+discussed by philosophers and theologians in
+the same manner, as those of infinite Wisdom
+and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never
+heard of such questions as, Whether Omnipotence
+can reverse the past?&mdash;Whether
+God can do that which He does not will to
+do?&mdash;Whether God&#8217;s perfect foreknowledge
+is compatible with his own perfect liberty?&mdash;Whether
+God could have made a better
+world than the existing one? Nay, has not
+our critic, in this very chapter, been arguing
+against Mr. Mansel on the question, whether
+the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause
+acting in time: and what is this but a form
+of the question, whether power, when predicated
+of God is exactly the same thing as
+power when predicated of man? Or why
+has it been said that creation <i>ex nihilo</i>&mdash;an
+absolutely first act of causation, is inconceivable
+by us, but from the impossibility of
+finding in human power an exact type of
+Divine power? To attribute discreditable
+motives to an opponent, even to account for
+unquestionable facts, is usually considered as
+an abuse of criticism. What shall we say
+when the facts are fictitious as well as the
+motives? With regard to Mr. Mansel, the
+only person who is included by name in this
+accusation, it is &#8220;worthy of remark,&#8221; that the
+earliest mention of the obnoxious theory in
+his writings occurs in connection with a
+difficulty relating solely to the conception
+of infinite power, and not at all to the moral
+attributes of God.<a name="FNanchor_BG" id="FNanchor_BG"></a><a href="#Footnote_BG" class="fnanchor">[BG]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BG' id='Footnote_BG'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BG'><span class='label'>[BG]</span></a>
+<p>
+See <i>Prolegomena Logica</i>, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with
+another instance of that <i>ignoratio elenchi</i>
+which has been so abundantly manifested
+throughout his previous criticisms. His opponent,
+he allows, &#8220;would and does admit
+that the qualities as conceived by us bear
+<i>some likeness</i> to the justice and goodness
+which belong to God, since man was made
+in God&#8217;s image.&#8221; But he considers that
+this &#8220;semi-concession&#8221; &#8220;destroys the whole
+fabric&#8221; of Mr. Mansel&#8217;s argument. &#8220;The
+Divine goodness,&#8221; he says, &#8220;which is said to
+be a different thing from human goodness,
+but of which the human conception of goodness
+is some imperfect reflexion or resemblance,
+does it agree with what men call
+goodness in the <i>essence</i> of the quality&mdash;in
+what <i>constitutes</i> it goodness? If it does, the
+&#8216;Rationalists&#8217; are right; it is not illicit to
+reason from the one to the other. If not, the
+divine attribute, whatever else it may be, is
+not goodness, and ought not to be called by
+the name.&#8221; Now the question really at issue
+is not whether the &#8220;Rationalist&#8221; argument is
+licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful use,
+it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible.
+We have already quoted a portion of Mr.
+Mansel&#8217;s language on this point; we will now
+quote two more passages, which, without any
+comment, will sufficiently show how utterly
+Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argument
+which he has undertaken to examine.
+</p>
+<p style='font-size: 0.9em; margin-left:4em; margin-right:4%'>
+&#8220;We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation
+of the moral attributes of God: we can but infer and
+conjecture from what we know of the moral attributes of
+man: and the analogy between the Finite and the Infinite
+can never be so perfect as to preclude all possibility of
+error in the process. But the possibility becomes almost
+a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by
+itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth,
+without regard to those collateral evidences by which its
+decisions may be modified and corrected.&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_BH" id="FNanchor_BH"></a><a href="#Footnote_BH" class="fnanchor">[BH]</a>... &#8220;Beyond
+question, every doubt which our reason may suggest in
+matters of religion is entitled to its due place in the
+examination of the evidences of religion; if we will treat
+it as a part only, and not the whole; if we will not insist
+on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is given us
+for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to
+believe that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God
+has not thought fit to annihilate the free will of man, but
+has permitted speculative difficulties to exist as the trial
+and the discipline of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has
+permitted moral temptations to form the trial and the discipline
+of strong and eager passions.... We do not
+doubt that the conditions of our moral trial tend towards
+good, and not towards evil; that human nature, even in
+its fallen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker, and
+is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government.
+And we believe this, notwithstanding the existence of passions
+and appetites which, isolated and uncontrolled,
+appear to lead in an opposite direction. Is it then more
+reasonable to deny that a system of revealed religion,
+whose unquestionable tendency as a whole is to promote
+the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, can have
+proceeded from the same Author, merely because we may
+be unable to detect the same character in some of its
+minuter features, viewed apart from the system to which
+they belong?&#8221;<a name="FNanchor_BI" id="FNanchor_BI"></a><a href="#Footnote_BI" class="fnanchor">[BI]</a>
+</p>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BH' id='Footnote_BH'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BH'><span class='label'>[BH]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Bampton Lectures</i>, p. 157, Fourth Edition.
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote'><a name='Footnote_BI' id='Footnote_BI'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BI'><span class='label'>[BI]</span></a>
+<p>
+<i>Bampton Lectures</i>, p. 166, Fourth Edition.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Surely this is very different from denouncing
+all reasoning from human goodness
+to Divine as &#8220;illicit.&#8221; To take a parallel case.
+The manufacture of gunpowder is a dangerous
+process, and, if carried on without due precautions,
+is very likely to lead to disastrous
+consequences. Surely it is one thing to point
+out what precautions are necessary, and what
+evils are to be apprehended from the neglect
+of them, and another to forbid the manufacture
+altogether. Mr. Mill does not seem
+to see the difference.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have now considered in detail all that
+part of Mr. Mill&#8217;s book which is devoted to
+the examination of Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s chief
+and most characteristic doctrines&mdash;those
+which constitute the Philosophy of the Conditioned.
+The remainder of the work, which
+deals chiefly with subordinate questions of
+psychology and logic, contains much from
+which we widely dissent, but which we
+cannot at present submit to a special examination.
+Nor is it necessary, so far as Sir W.
+Hamilton&#8217;s reputation is concerned, that we
+should do so. If the Philosophy of the Conditioned
+is really nothing better than the mass
+of crudities and blunders which Mr. Mill
+supposes it to be, the warmest admirers of
+Hamilton will do little in his behalf, even
+should they succeed in vindicating some of
+the minor details of his teaching. If, on the
+other hand, it can be shown, as we have
+attempted to show, that Mr. Mill is utterly
+incapable of dealing with Hamilton&#8217;s philosophy
+in its higher branches, his readers may
+be left to judge for themselves whether he is
+implicitly to be trusted as regards the lower.
+In point of fact, they will do Mr. Mill no
+injustice, if they regard the above specimens
+as samples of his entire criticism. We gladly
+except, as of a far higher order, those chapters
+in which he is content with stating his
+own views; but in the perpetual baiting of
+Sir W. Hamilton, which occupies the greater
+part of the volume, we recognise, in general,
+the same captiousness and the same incompetence
+which we have so often had occasion to
+point out in the course of our previous remarks.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is, we confess, an unpleasant and an
+invidious task, to pick to pieces, bit by bit,
+the work of an author of high reputation.
+But Mr. Mill has chosen to put the question
+on this issue, and he has left those who
+dissent from him no alternative but to
+follow his example. He has tasked all the
+resources of minute criticism to destroy piece-meal
+the reputation of one who has hitherto
+borne an honoured name in philosophy: he
+has no right to complain if the same measure
+is meted to himself:&mdash;
+</p>
+<div class="poetry">
+	<p>
+		&#8220;Neque enim lex æquior ulla
+	</p>
+	<p>
+		Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.&#8221;
+	</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+But it is not so much the justice as the
+necessity of the case which we would plead
+as our excuse. Mr. Mill&#8217;s method of criticism
+has reduced the question to a very
+narrow compass. Either Sir W. Hamilton,
+instead of being a great philosopher, is
+the veriest blunderer that ever put pen to
+paper, or the blunders are Mr. Mill&#8217;s own.
+To those who accept the first of these
+alternatives it must always remain a marvel
+how Sir W. Hamilton could ever have
+acquired that reputation which compels even
+his critic to admit that &#8220;he alone, of our
+metaphysicians of this and the preceding
+generation, has acquired, merely as such,
+an European celebrity;&#8221; how he could have
+been designated by his illustrious opponent,
+Cousin, as the &#8220;greatest critic of our age,&#8221;
+or described by the learned Brandis as
+&#8220;almost unparalleled in the profound knowledge
+of ancient and modern philosophy.&#8221;
+The marvel may perhaps disappear, should
+it be the case, as we believe it to be, that
+the second alternative is the true one.
+</p>
+<p>
+But even in this case, it should be borne
+in mind that the blow will by no means fall
+on Mr. Mill with the same weight with
+which he designed it to fall on the object of
+his criticism. Sir W. Hamilton had devoted
+his whole life to the study of metaphysics;
+he was probably more deeply read in that
+study than any of his contemporaries; and
+if all his reading could produce nothing
+better than the confusion and self-contradiction
+which Mr. Mill imputes to him, the
+result would be pitiable indeed. Mr. Mill,
+on the other hand, we strongly suspect,
+despises metaphysics too much to be at the
+pains of studying them at all, and seems to
+think that a critic is duly equipped for his
+task with that amount of knowledge which,
+like Dogberry&#8217;s reading and writing, &#8220;comes
+by nature.&#8221; His work has a superficial
+cleverness which, together with the author&#8217;s
+previous reputation, will insure it a certain
+kind of popularity; but we venture to predict
+that its estimation by its readers will be
+in the inverse ratio to their knowledge of the
+subject. But Mr. Mill&#8217;s general reputation
+rests on grounds quite distinct from his performances
+in metaphysics; and though we
+could hardly name one of his writings from
+whose main principles we do not dissent,
+there is hardly one which is not better fitted
+to sustain his character as a thinker than
+this last, in which the fatal charms of the
+goddess Necessity seem to have betrayed
+her champion into an unusual excess of
+polemical zeal, coupled, it must be added,
+with an unusual deficiency of philosophical
+knowledge.
+</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<hr class='major' />
+<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<h2>POSTSCRIPT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+It was not till after the preceding pages had been
+sent to press that I became acquainted with a little
+work recently published under the title of <i>The
+Battle of the two Philosophies, by an Inquirer</i>. The
+author appears to have been a personal pupil of
+Sir W. Hamilton&#8217;s, as well as a diligent student
+of his writings. At all events, he has &#8220;inquired&#8221;
+to some purpose, and obtained a far more intelligent
+knowledge of Hamilton&#8217;s system than is
+exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is
+gratifying to find many of my remarks confirmed
+by the concurrent testimony of so competent a
+witness. The following would have been noticed
+in their proper places had I been sooner acquainted
+with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of the popular confusion between the <i>infinite</i>
+and the <i>indefinite</i>, noticed above, pp. 50, 112, &#8220;An
+Inquirer&#8221; observes:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+&#8220;If we could realise in thought infinite space,
+that conception would be a perfectly definite one;
+but the notion that is here offered us in its place,
+though it may be real, is certainly not definite;
+it is merely the conception of an indefinite extension....
+In truth, when we strive
+to think of infinite space, the nearest approach
+we can make to it is this notion of an indefinite
+space, which Mr. Mill has substituted for it. But
+these two conceptions are not only verbally, they
+are really wholly distinct. An indefinite space is
+a space of the extent of which we think vaguely,
+without knowing or without thinking where its
+boundaries are. Infinite space has certainly, and
+quite distinctly, no boundaries anywhere.&#8221;&mdash;(Pp.
+18-20.)
+</p>
+<p>
+On Mr. Mill&#8217;s strange distinction between the
+Divine Attributes, as some infinite and others absolute,
+the author&#8217;s remarks are substantially in agreement
+with what has been said above on pp. 105-6.
+</p>
+<p>
+&#8220;Mr. Mill argues that all the attributes of God
+cannot be infinite; but that some, as power, may
+be infinite; and some, as goodness and knowledge,
+must be absolute, because neither can knowledge be
+more than complete, nor goodness more than perfect.
+When we know all there is to be known,
+he says, knowledge has attained its utmost limit.
+But this is merely begging the whole question. If
+there be an Infinite Being, He cannot know all
+there is to be known unless He know Himself; and
+adequately to know what is infinite is to have infinite
+knowledge. The same thing would be true
+if there could be a Being whose power and duration
+only were infinite. &#8217;The will,&#8217; he adds, &#8216;is
+either entirely right, or wrong in different degrees:
+downwards there are as many gradations as we
+choose to distinguish; but upwards there is an
+ideal limit. Goodness can be imagined complete,&mdash;such
+that there can be no greater goodness beyond
+it,&#8217;... But a Being of infinite power and
+finite goodness would not be perfectly good, because
+His power would not be wholly, but only in
+part directed by His goodness. Nay, as that which
+is finite bears no proportion whatever to what is infinite:
+as, however great it be absolutely, it is still
+infinitely less than infinity, such a Being would
+be partly good and yet infinitely evil, which is
+absurd in reason and impossible in fact.&#8221;&mdash;(Pp.
+24, 25.)
+</p>
+<p>
+The following estimate of Mr. Mill&#8217;s merits as a
+metaphysician coincides with that which, contrary
+to my expectation, I found forced upon myself after
+a careful examination of his book.&mdash;(See above,
+Pp. 62, 182.)
+</p>
+<p>
+&#8220;We cannot but think that Mr. Mill in this, his
+first work in pure metaphysics, has disappointed
+just expectation. In leaving the fields of practical
+philosophy, he seems to have left his genius behind
+him. Even the peculiar &#8216;cunning of his right hand&#8217;&mdash;even
+his unexcelled logical power avails him
+little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly
+the conception with which he is fencing....
+As long as he is applying given principles to the
+solution of practical questions; as long as he has
+to do with the process of an argument, he proves
+himself a most able instructor and guide. But
+when he has to grapple with a metaphysical problem,
+it almost invariably arrives that the central,
+the metaphysical difficulty, escapes him.&#8221;&mdash;(Pp. 78-80.)
+</p>
+<hr class='ppg-pb' />
+<p style='text-align: center'>
+MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+</p>
+<!-- generated by ppgen.rb version: 2.74 -->
+<!-- timestamp: Thu Apr 02 15:32:25 -0700 2009 -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by H. L. Mansel
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Philosophy of the Conditioned
+
+Author: H. L. Mansel
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2009 [EBook #28484]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Tim Krajcar and the Online
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+
+
+                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED
+
+      Reprinted, with Additions, from "The Contemporary Review."
+
+    _Comprising some Remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy_
+       _and on Mr. J.S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy_
+
+                        BY H.L. MANSEL, B.D.
+
+       WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY
+                     IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+                     ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
+                         LONDON AND NEW YORK
+                                 1866
+
+
+
+
+               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The circumstance that the following remarks were originally published as
+an anonymous article in a Review, will best explain the style in which
+they are written. Absence from England prevented me from becoming
+acquainted with Mr. Mill's _Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
+Philosophy_ till some time after its publication; and when I was
+requested to undertake the task of reviewing it, I was still ignorant of
+its contents. On proceeding to fulfil my engagement, I soon discovered,
+not only that the character of the book was very different from what the
+author's reputation had led me to expect, but also that my task would be
+one, not merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of self-defence. The
+remarks on myself, coming from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and
+reputation, were such as I could not pass over without notice; while, at
+the same time, I felt that my principal duty in this instance was the
+defence of one who was no longer living to defend himself. Under these
+circumstances, the best course appeared to be, to devote the greater
+portion of my article to an exposition and vindication of Sir W.
+Hamilton's teaching; and, in the additional remarks which it was
+necessary to make on the more personal part of the controversy, to speak
+of myself in the third person, as I should have spoken of any other
+writer. The form thus adopted has been retained in the present
+republication, though the article now appears with the name of its
+author.
+
+My original intention of writing a review of the entire book was
+necessarily abandoned as soon as I became acquainted with its contents.
+To have done justice to the whole subject, or to Mr. Mill's treatment of
+it, would have required a volume nearly as large as his own. I therefore
+determined to confine myself to the _Philosophy of the Conditioned_, both
+as the most original and important portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching,
+and as that which occupies the first place in Mr. Mill's _Examination_.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED.
+
+
+The reader of Plato's _Republic_ will readily recall to mind that
+wonderful passage at the end of the sixth book, in which the philosopher,
+under the image of geometrical lines, exhibits the various relations of
+the intelligible to the sensible world; especially his lofty aspirations
+with regard to "that second segment of the intelligible world, which
+reason of itself grasps by the power of dialectic, employing hypotheses,
+not as principles, but as veritable hypotheses, that is to say, as steps
+and starting-points, in order that it may ascend _as far as the
+unconditioned_ ([Greek: mechri tou anypothetou]), to the first principle
+of the universe, and having grasped this, may then lay hold of the
+principles next adjacent to it, and so go down to the end, using no
+sensible aids whatever, but employing abstract forms throughout, and
+terminating in forms."
+
+This quotation is important for our present purpose in two ways. In the
+first place, it may serve, at the outset of our remarks, to propitiate
+those plain-spoken English critics who look upon new terms in philosophy
+with the same suspicion with which Jack Cade regarded "a noun and a verb,
+and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear," by
+showing that the head and front of our offending, "the Unconditioned," is
+no modern invention of Teutonic barbarism, but sanctioned even by the
+Attic elegance of a Plato. And in the second place, it contains almost a
+history in miniature of the highest speculations of philosophy, both in
+earlier and in later times, and points out, with a clearness and
+precision the more valuable because uninfluenced by recent controversies,
+the exact field on which the philosophies of the Conditioned and the
+Unconditioned come into collision, and the nature of the problem which
+they both approach from opposite sides.
+
+What is the meaning of this problem, the solution of which Plato proposes
+as the highest aim of philosophy--"to ascend to the unconditioned, and
+thence to deduce the universe of conditioned existence?" The problem has
+assumed different forms at different times: at present we must content
+ourselves with stating it in that in which it will most naturally suggest
+itself to a student of modern philosophy, and in which it has the most
+direct bearing on the subject of the present article.
+
+All consciousness must in the first instance present itself as a relation
+between two constituent parts, the person who is conscious, and the
+thing, whatever it may be, of which he is conscious. This contrast has
+been indicated, directly or indirectly, by various names--mind and
+matter; person and thing; subject and object; or, lastly, in the
+distinction, most convenient for philosophy, however uncouth in sound,
+between self and not self--the _ego_ and the _non-ego_. In order to be
+conscious at all, I must be conscious of something: consciousness thus
+presents itself as the product of two factors, _I_ and _something_. The
+problem of the unconditioned is, briefly stated, to reduce these two
+factors to one.
+
+For it is manifest that, so long as they remain two, we have no
+unconditioned, but a pair of conditioned existences. If the _something_
+of which I am conscious is a separate reality, having qualities and modes
+of action of its own, and thereby determining, or contributing to
+determine, the form which my consciousness of it shall take, my
+consciousness is thereby conditioned, or partly dependent on something
+beyond itself. It is no matter, in this respect, whether the influence is
+direct or indirect--whether, for instance, I see a material tree, or only
+the mental image of a tree. If the nature of the thing in any degree
+determines the character of the image--if the visible form of a tree is
+different from that of a house because the tree itself is different from
+the house, my consciousness is, however remotely, influenced by something
+different from itself, the _ego_ by the _non-ego_. And on the other hand,
+if I, who am conscious, am a real being, distinct from the things of
+which I am conscious--if the conscious mind has a constitution and laws
+of its own by which it acts, and if the mode of its consciousness is in
+any degree determined by those laws, the _non-ego_ is so far conditioned
+by the _ego_; the thing which I see is not seen absolutely and _per se_,
+but in a form partly dependent upon the laws of my vision.
+
+The first step towards the reduction of these two factors to one may
+obviously be made in three different ways. Either the _ego_ may be
+represented as a mode of the _non-ego_, or the _non-ego_ of the _ego_, or
+both of a _tertium quid_, distinct from either. In other words: it may be
+maintained, _first_, that matter is the only real existence; mind and all
+the phenomena of consciousness being really the result solely of material
+laws; the brain, for example, secreting thought as the liver secretes
+bile; and the distinct personal existence of which I am apparently
+conscious being only the result of some such secretion. This is
+_Materialism_, which has then to address itself to the further problem,
+to reduce the various phenomena of matter to some one absolutely first
+principle on which everything else depends. Or it may be maintained,
+_secondly_, that mind is the only real existence; the intercourse which
+we apparently have with a material world being really the result solely
+of the laws of our mental constitution. This is _Idealism_, which again
+has next to attempt to reduce the various phenomena to some one
+immaterial principle. Or it may be maintained, _thirdly_, that real
+existence is to be sought neither in mind as mind nor in matter as
+matter; that both classes of phenomena are but qualities or modes of
+operation of something distinct from both, and on which both alike are
+dependent. Hence arises a third form of philosophy, which, for want of a
+better name, we will call _Indifferentism_, as being a system in which
+the characteristic differences of mind and matter are supposed to
+disappear, being merged in something higher than both.
+
+In using the two former of these terms, we are not speaking of
+Materialism and Idealism as they have always actually manifested
+themselves, but only of the distinguishing principle of these systems
+when pushed to its extreme result. It is quite possible to be a
+materialist or an idealist with respect to the immediate phenomena of
+consciousness, without attempting a philosophy of the Unconditioned at
+all. But it is also possible, and in itself natural, when such a
+philosophy is attempted, to attempt it by means of the same method which
+has approved itself in relation to subordinate inquiries; to make the
+relation between the human mind and its objects the type and image of
+that between the universe and its first principle. And such attempts have
+actually been made, both on the side of Materialism and on that of
+Idealism; and probably would be made oftener, did not counteracting
+causes frequently hinder the logical development of speculative
+principles.
+
+In modern times, and under Christian influences, these several systems
+are almost necessarily identified with inquiries concerning the existence
+and nature of God. The influence of Christianity has been indirectly
+felt, even in speculations prosecuted in apparent independence of it; and
+the admission of an absolute first principle of all things distinct from
+God, or the acknowledgment of a God separate from or derived from the
+first principle of all things, is an absurdity which, since the
+prevalence of Christianity, has become almost impossible, even to
+antichristian systems of thought. In earlier times, indeed, this union of
+philosophy with theology was by no means so imperative. A philosophy like
+that of Greece, which inherited its speculations from a poetical
+theogony, would see no difficulty in attributing to the god or gods of
+its religious belief a secondary and derived existence, dependent on some
+higher and more original principle, and in separating that principle
+itself from all immediate connection with religion. It was possible to
+assume, with the Ionian, a material substance, or, with the Eleatic, an
+indifferent abstraction, as the first principle of things, without
+holding that principle to be God, or, as the only alternative, denying
+the existence of a God; and thus, as Aristotle[A] has observed,
+theologians endeavoured to evade the consequences of their abstract
+principles, by attributing to the chief good a later and derived
+existence, as the poets supposed the supreme God to be of younger birth
+than night and chaos and sea and sky. But to a Christian philosophy, or
+to a philosophy in any way influenced by Christianity, this method of
+evasion is no longer possible. If all conditioned existence is dependent
+on some one first and unconditioned principle, either that principle must
+be identified with God, or our philosophical speculations must fall into
+open and avowed atheism.
+
+  [A]  _Metaph._, xiv. 4.
+
+But at this point the philosophical inquiry comes in contact with another
+line of thought, suggested by a different class of the facts of
+consciousness. As a religious and moral being, man is conscious of a
+relation of a personal character, distinct from any suggested by the
+phenomena of the material world,--a relation to a supreme Personal Being,
+the object of his religious worship, and the source and judge of his
+moral obligations and conduct. To adopt the name of God in an abstract
+speculation merely as a conventional denomination for the highest link in
+the chain of thought, and to believe in Him for the practical purposes of
+worship and obedience, are two very different things; and for the latter,
+though not for the former, the conception of God as a Person is
+indispensable. Were man a being of pure intellect, the problem of the
+Unconditioned would be divested of its chief difficulty; but he is also a
+being of religious and moral faculties, and these also have a claim to be
+satisfied by any valid solution of the problem. Hence the question
+assumes another and a more complex form. How is the one absolute
+existence, to which philosophy aspires, to be identified with the
+personal God demanded by our religious feelings?
+
+Shall we boldly assume that the problem is already solved, and that the
+personal God is the very Unconditioned of which we were in search? This
+is to beg the question, not to answer it. Our conception of a personal
+being, derived as it is from the immediate consciousness of our own
+personality, seems, on examination, to involve conditions incompatible
+with the desired assumption. Personal agency, similar to our own, seems
+to point to something very different from an absolutely first link in a
+chain of phenomena. Our actions, if not determined, are at least
+influenced by motives; and the motive is a prior link in the chain, and a
+condition of the action. Our actions, moreover, take place in time; and
+time, as we conceive it, cannot be regarded as an absolute blank, but as
+a condition in which phenomena take place as past, present, and future.
+Every act taking place in time implies something antecedent to itself;
+and this something, be it what it may, hinders us from regarding the
+subsequent act as absolute and unconditioned. Nay, even time itself,
+apart from the phenomena which it implies, has the same character. If an
+act cannot take place except in time, time is the condition of its taking
+place. To conceive the unconditioned, as the first link in a chain of
+conditioned consequences, it seems necessary that we should conceive
+something out of time, yet followed by time; standing at the beginning of
+all duration and succession, having no antecedent, but followed by a
+series of consequents.
+
+Philosophical theologians have been conscious of this difficulty, almost
+from the earliest date at which philosophy and Christian theology came in
+contact with each other. From a number of testimonies of similar import,
+we select one or two of the most striking. Of the Divine Nature, Gregory
+Nyssen says: "It is neither in place nor in time, but before these and
+above these in an unspeakable manner, contemplated itself by itself,
+through faith alone; neither measured by ages, nor moving along with
+times."[B] "In the changes of things," says Augustine, "you will find a
+past and a future; in God you will find a present where past and future
+cannot be."[C] "Eternity," says Aquinas, "has no succession, but exists
+all together."[D] Among divines of the Church of England, we quote two
+names only, but those of the highest:--"The duration of eternity," says
+Bishop Pearson, "is completely indivisible and all at once; so that it is
+ever present, and excludes the other differences of time, past and
+future."[E] And Barrow enumerates among natural modes of being and
+operation far above our reach, "God's eternity without succession,"
+coupling it with "His prescience without necessitation of events."[F]
+But it is needless to multiply authorities for a doctrine so familiar to
+every student of theology.
+
+  [B]  _C. Eunom._, i., p. 98, Ed. Gretser.
+
+  [C]  _In Joann. Evang._, tract. xxxvii. 10.
+
+  [D]  _Summa_, pars. i., qu. x., art. 1.
+
+  [E]  _Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 105.
+
+  [F]  Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God's Judgments.
+
+Thus, then, our two lines of thought have led us to conclusions which, at
+first sight, appear to be contradictory of each other. To be conceived as
+unconditioned, God must be conceived as exempt from action in time: to be
+conceived as a person, if His personality resembles ours, He must be
+conceived as acting in time. Can these two conclusions be reconciled with
+each other; and if not, which of them is to be abandoned? The true answer
+to this question is, we believe, to be found in a distinction which some
+recent critics regard with very little favour,--the distinction between
+Reason and Faith; between the power of _conceiving_ and that of
+_believing_. We cannot, in our present state of knowledge, reconcile
+these two conclusions; yet we are not required to abandon either. We
+cannot conceive the manner in which the unconditioned and the personal
+are united in the Divine Nature; yet we may believe that, in some manner
+unknown to us, they are so united. To conceive the union of two
+attributes in one object of thought, I must be able to conceive them as
+united in some particular manner: when this cannot be done, I may
+nevertheless believe _that_ the union is possible, though I am unable to
+conceive _how_ it is possible. The problem is thus represented as one of
+those Divine mysteries, the character of which is clearly and well
+described in the language of Leibnitz:--"Il en est de meme des autres
+mysteres, ou les esprits moderes trouveront toujours une explication
+suffisante pour croire, et jamais autant qu'il en faut pour comprendre.
+Il nous suffit d'un certain _ce que c'est_ ([Greek: ti esti]) mais le
+_comment_ ([Greek: pos]) nous passe, et ne nous est point
+necessaire."[G]
+
+  [G]  _Theodicee, Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec
+       la Raison, Sec. 56._ Leibnitz, it will be observed, uses
+       the expression _pour comprendre_, for which, in the
+       preceding remarks, we have substituted _to conceive_.
+       The change has been made intentionally, on account of an
+       ambiguity in the former word. Sometimes it is used, as
+       Leibnitz here uses it, to denote an apprehension of the
+       manner in which certain attributes can coexist in an
+       object. But sometimes (to say nothing of other senses)
+       it is used to signify a complete knowledge of an object
+       in all its properties and their consequences, such as it
+       may be questioned whether we have of any object
+       whatever. This ambiguity, which has been the source of
+       much confusion and much captious criticism, is well
+       pointed out by Norris in his _Reason and Faith_ (written
+       in reply to Toland), p. 118, Ed. 1697: "When we say that
+       _above reason_ is when we do not comprehend or perceive
+       the truth of a thing, this must not be meant of not
+       comprehending the truth in its whole latitude and
+       extent, so that as many truths should be said to be
+       above reason as we cannot thus thoroughly comprehend and
+       pursue throughout all their consequences and relations
+       to other truths (for then almost everything would be
+       above reason), but only of not comprehending the union
+       or connection of those immediate ideas of which the
+       proposition supposed to be above reason consists."
+       _Comprehension_, as thus explained, answers exactly to
+       the ordinary logical use of the term _conception_, to
+       denote the combination of two or more attributes in an
+       unity of representation. In the same sense, M. Peisse,
+       in the preface to his translation of Hamilton's
+       _Fragments_, p. 98, says,--"Comprendre, c'est voir un
+       terme en rapport avec un autre; c'est voir comme un ce
+       qui est donne comme multiple." This is exactly the
+       sense in which Hamilton himself uses the word
+       _conception_. (See _Reid's Works_, p. 377.)
+
+But this distinction involves a further consequence. If the mysteries of
+the Divine Nature are not apprehended by reason as existing in a
+particular manner (in which case they would be mysteries no longer), but
+are accepted by faith as existing in some manner unknown to us, it
+follows that we do not know God as He is in His absolute nature, but only
+as He is imperfectly represented by those qualities in His creatures
+which are analogous to, but not identical with, His own. If, for example,
+we had a knowledge of the Divine Personality as it is in itself, we
+should know it as existing in a certain manner compatible with
+unconditioned action; and this knowledge of the manner would at once
+transform our conviction from an act of faith to a conception of reason.
+If, on the other hand, the only personality of which we have a positive
+knowledge is our own, and if our own personality can only be conceived as
+conditioned in time, it follows that the Divine Personality, in so far as
+it is exempt from conditions, does not resemble the only personality
+which we directly know, and is not adequately represented by it. This
+necessitates a confession, which, like the distinction which gives rise
+to it, has been vehemently condemned by modern critics, but which has
+been concurred in with singular unanimity by earlier divines of various
+ages and countries,--the confession that the knowledge which man in this
+life can have of God is not a knowledge of the Divine Nature as it is in
+itself, but only of that nature as imperfectly represented through
+analogous qualities in the creature. Were it not that this doctrine has
+been frequently denounced of late as an heretical novelty, we should
+hardly have thought it necessary to cite authorities in proof of its
+antiquity and catholicity. As it is, we will venture to produce a few
+only out of many, selecting not always the most important, but those
+which can be best exhibited _verbatim_ in a short extract.
+
+  CHRYSOSTOM.--_De Incompr. Dei Natura_, Hom. i. 3: "_That_ God is
+  everywhere, I know; and _that_ He is wholly everywhere, I know; but
+  the _how_, I know not: _that_ He is without beginning, ungenerated
+  and eternal, I know; but the _how_, I know not."
+
+  BASIL.--Ep. ccxxxiv.: "That God is, I know; but what is His essence
+  I hold to be above reason. How then am I saved? By faith; and faith
+  is competent to know that God is, not what He is."
+
+  GREGORY NAZIANZEN.--Orat. xxxiv.: "A theologian among the Greeks
+  [Plato] has said in his philosophy, that to conceive God is
+  difficult, to express Him is impossible. ... But I say that it is
+  impossible to express Him, and more impossible to conceive Him."
+  [Compare Patrick, _Works_, vol. iii., p. 39.]
+
+  CYRIL OF JERUSALEM.--Catech. vi. 2: "We declare not what God is,
+  but candidly confess that we know not accurately concerning Him.
+  For in those things which concern God, it is great knowledge to
+  confess our ignorance."
+
+  AUGUSTINE.--Enarr. in Psalm, lxxxv. 8: "God is ineffable; we more
+  easily say what He is not than what He is." Serm, cccxli.: "I call
+  God just, because in human words I find nothing better; for He is
+  beyond justice.... What then is worthily said of God? Some one,
+  perhaps, may reply and say, _that He is just._ But another, with
+  better understanding, may say that even this word is surpassed by
+  His excellence, and that even this is said of Him unworthily,
+  though it be said fittingly according to human capacity."
+
+  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA.--_In Joann. Evang_., 1. ii., c. 5: "For those
+  things which are spoken concerning it [the Divine Nature] are not
+  spoken as they are in very truth, but as the tongue of man can
+  interpret, and as man can hear; for he who sees in an enigma also
+  speaks in an enigma."
+
+  DAMASCENUS.--_De Fide Orthod_., i. 4: "That God is, is manifest;
+  but what He is in His essence and nature is utterly
+  incomprehensible and unknown."
+
+  AQUINAS.--_Summa_, pars. i., qu. xiii., art. 1: "We cannot so name
+  God that the name which denotes Him shall express the Divine
+  Essence as it is, in the same way as the name _man_ expresses in
+  its signification the essence of man as it is." _Ibid._, art. 5:
+  "When the name _wise_ is said of a man, it in a manner describes
+  and comprehends the thing signified: not so, however, when it is
+  said of God; but it leaves the thing signified as uncomprehended
+  and exceeding the signification of the name. Whence it is evident
+  that this name _wise_ is not said in the same manner of God and of
+  man. The same is the case with other names; whence no name can be
+  predicated univocally of God and of creatures; yet they are not
+  predicated merely equivocally.... We must say, then, that such
+  names are said of God and of creatures according to analogy, that
+  is, proportion."
+
+  HOOKER.--_Ecc. Pol._, I., ii. 2.--"Dangerous it were for the feeble
+  brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom
+  although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name, yet
+  our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as indeed He
+  is, neither can know Him."
+
+  USHER.--_Body of Divinity_, p. 45, Ed. 1645: "Neither is it [the
+  wisdom of God] communicated to any creature, neither can be; for it
+  is unconceivable, as the very essence of God Himself is
+  unconceivable, and unspeakable as it is."
+
+  LEIGHTON.--Theol. Lect. XXI., _Works_, vol. iv., p. 327, Ed. 1830:
+  "Though in the schools they distinguish the Divine attributes or
+  excellences, and that by no means improperly, into communicable and
+  incommunicable; yet we ought so to guard this distinction, as
+  always to remember that those which are called communicable, when
+  applied to God, are not only to be understood in a manner
+  incommunicable and quite peculiar to Himself, but also, that in Him
+  they are in reality infinitely different [in the original, _aliud
+  omnino_, _immensum aliud_] from those virtues, or rather, in a
+  matter where the disparity of the subjects is so very great, those
+  shadows of virtues that go under the same name, either in men or
+  angels."
+
+  PEARSON.--_Minor Theol. Works_, vol. i., p. 13: "God in Himself is
+  an absolute being, without any relation to creatures, for He was
+  from eternity without any creature, and could, had He willed, be to
+  eternity without creature. But God cannot naturally be known by us
+  otherwise than by relation to creatures, as, for example, under the
+  aspect of dominion, or of cause, or in some other relation."[H]
+
+  BEVERIDGE.--_On the Thirty-nine Articles_, p. 16, Ed. 1846: "But
+  seeing the properties of God do not so much denote what God is, as
+  what we apprehend Him to be in Himself; when the properties of God
+  are predicated one of another, one thing in God is not predicated
+  of another, but our apprehensions of the same thing are predicated
+  one of another."
+
+  LESLIE.--_Method with the Deists_, p. 63, Ed. 1745: "What we call
+  _faculties_ in the soul, we call _Persons_ in the Godhead; because
+  there are personal actions attributed to each of them.... And we
+  have no other word whereby to express it; we speak it after the
+  manner of men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those
+  unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its proper
+  essence; therefore we must make allowances, and great ones, when we
+  apply words of our nature to the Infinite and Eternal Being."
+  _Ibid._, p. 64: "By the word _Person_, when applied to God (for
+  want of a proper word whereby to express it), we must mean
+  something infinitely different from personality among men."
+
+  [H]  Bishop Pearson's language is yet more explicit in
+       another passage of the same work, which we give in the
+       original Latin:--"Non dantur pro hoc statu nomina quae
+       Deum significant quidditative. Patet; quia nomina sunt
+       conceptuum. Non autem dantur in hoc statu conceptus
+       quidditativi de Deo."--(P. 136.)
+
+The system of theology represented by these extracts may, as we think, be
+fairly summed up as follows: We believe that God in His own nature is
+absolute and unconditioned; but we can only positively conceive Him by
+means of relations and conditions suggested by created things. We believe
+that His own nature is simple and uniform, admitting of no distinction
+between various attributes, nor between any attribute and its subject;
+but we can conceive Him only by means of various attributes, distinct
+from the subject and from each other.[I] We believe that in verum, aut
+bonum esse, aut omnino ipsum esse. His own nature He is exempt from all
+relations of time; but we can conceive Him only by means of ideas and
+terms which imply temporal relations, a past, a present, and a
+future.[J] Our thought, then, must not be taken as the measure and
+limit of our belief: we think by means of relations and conditions
+derived from created things; we believe in an Absolute Being, in whose
+nature these conditions and relations, in some manner unknown to us,
+disappear in a simple and indivisible unity.
+
+  [I]  This will be found most distinctly stated in the context
+       of the extract from Beveridge, and in the citations from
+       St. Augustine given in his notes; to which may be added
+       the following from _De Trinitate_, vi. 7:--"Deus vero
+       multipliciter quidem dicitur magnus, bonus, sapiens,
+       beatus, verus, et quidquid aliud non indigne dici
+       videtur; sed eadem magnitudo ejus est quae sapientia,
+       non enim mole magnus est, sed virtute; et eadem bonitas
+       quae sapientia et magnitudo, et eadem veritas quae illa
+       omnia: et non est ibi aliud beatum esse et aliud magnum,
+       aut sapientem, aut verum, aut bonum esse, aut omnino
+       ipsum esse."
+
+  [J]  Compare the remarkable words of Bishop Beveridge,
+       _l.c._, "And therefore, though I cannot apprehend His
+       mercy to Abel in the beginning of the world, and His
+       mercy to me now, but as two distinct expressions of His
+       mercy, yet as they are in God, they are but one and the
+       same act,--as they are in God, I say, who is not
+       measured by time, as our apprehensions of Him are, but
+       is Himself eternity; a centre without a circumference,
+       eternity without time."
+
+The most important feature of this philosophical theology, and the one
+which exhibits most clearly the practical difference between reason and
+faith, is that, in dealing with theoretical difficulties, it does not
+appeal to our knowledge, but to our ignorance: it does not profess to
+offer a definite solution; it only tells us that we might find one if we
+knew all. It does not profess, for example, to solve the apparent
+contradiction between God's foreknowledge and man's free will; it does
+not say, "This is the way in which God foreknows, and in this way His
+foreknowledge is reconcileable with human freedom;" it only says, "The
+contradiction is apparent, but need not be real. Freedom is incompatible
+with God's foreknowledge, only on the supposition that God's
+foreknowledge is like man's: if we knew exactly how the one differs from
+the other, we might be able to see that what is incompatible with the one
+is not so with the other. We cannot solve the difficulty, but we can
+believe that there is a solution."
+
+It is this open acknowledgment of our ignorance of the highest things
+which makes this system of philosophy distasteful to many minds: it is
+the absence of any similar acknowledgment which forms the attraction and
+the seductiveness of Pantheism in one way, and of Positivism in another.
+The pantheist is not troubled with the difficulty of reconciling the
+philosophy of the absolute with belief in a personal God; for belief in a
+personal God is no part of his creed. Like the Christian, he may profess
+to acknowledge a first principle, one, and simple, and indivisible, and
+unconditioned; but he has no need to give to this principle the name of
+God, or to invest it with such attributes as are necessary to satisfy
+man's religious wants. His God (so far as he acknowledges one at all) is
+not the first principle and cause of all things, but the aggregate of the
+whole--an universal substance underlying the world of phenomena, or an
+universal process, carried on in and by the changes of things. Hence, as
+Aristotle said of the Eleatics, that, by asserting all things to be one,
+they annihilated causation, which is the production of one thing from
+another, so it may be said of the various schools of Pantheism, that, by
+maintaining all things to be God, they evade rather than solve the great
+problem of philosophy, that of the relation between God and His
+creatures. The positivist, on the other hand, escapes the difficulty by
+an opposite course. He declines all inquiry into reality and causation,
+and maintains that the only office of philosophy is to observe and
+register the invariable relations of succession and similitude in
+phenomena. He does not necessarily deny the existence of God; but his
+personal belief, be it what it may, is a matter of utter indifference to
+his system. Religion and philosophy may perhaps go on side by side; but
+their provinces are wholly distinct, and therefore there is no need to
+attempt a reconciliation between them. God, as a first cause, lives like
+an Epicurean deity in undisturbed ease, apart from the world of
+phenomena, of which alone philosophy can take cognisance: philosophy, as
+the science of phenomena, contents itself with observing the actual state
+of things, without troubling itself to inquire how that state of things
+came into existence. Hence, neither Pantheism nor Positivism is troubled
+to explain the relation of the One to the Many; for the former
+acknowledges only the One, and the latter acknowledges only the Many.
+
+It is between these two systems, both seductive from their apparent
+simplicity, and both simple only by mutilation, that the Philosophy of
+the Conditioned, of which Sir William Hamilton is the representative,
+endeavours to steer a middle course, at the risk of sharing the fate of
+most mediators in a quarrel,--being repudiated and denounced by both
+combatants, because it declares them to be both in the wrong. Against
+Pantheism, which is the natural development of the principle of
+Indifferentism, it enters a solemn protest, by asserting that the
+Absolute must be accepted in philosophy, not as a problem to be solved by
+reason, but as a reality to be believed in, though above reason; and that
+the pseudo-absolute, which Pantheism professes to exhibit in a positive
+conception, is shown, by the very fact of its being so conceived, not to
+be the true Absolute. Against Positivism, which is virtually Materialism,
+it protests no less strongly, maintaining that the philosophy which
+professes to explain the whole of nature by the aid of material laws
+alone, proceeds upon an assumption which does not merely dispense with
+God as a scientific hypothesis, but logically involves consequences which
+lead to a denial of His very existence. Between both extremes, it holds
+an intermediate position, neither aspiring, with Pantheism, to solve the
+problems of the Absolute, nor neglecting them, with Positivism, as
+altogether remote from the field of philosophical inquiry; but
+maintaining that such problems must necessarily arise, and must
+necessarily be taken into account in every adequate survey of human
+nature and human thought, and that philosophy, if it cannot solve them,
+is bound to show why they are insoluble.
+
+Let us hear Hamilton's own words in relation to both the systems which he
+opposes. Against Pantheism, and the Philosophy of the Unconditioned in
+general, he says:--
+
+  "The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes,--two
+  inconditionates, exclusive of each other, _neither of which can be
+  conceived as possible_,[K] but of which, on the principles of
+  contradiction and excluded middle, _one must be admitted as
+  necessary_. On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to
+  be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as
+  conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally
+  possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of
+  the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their
+  mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are
+  thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is
+  not to be constituted into the measure of existence; and are warned
+  from recognising the domain of our knowledge as necessarily
+  co-extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful
+  revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability
+  to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a
+  belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the
+  sphere of all comprehensible reality."--_Discussions_, p. 15.
+
+  [K]  It must be remembered that, to conceive a thing as
+       possible, we must conceive the manner in which it is
+       possible, but that we may believe in the fact without
+       being able to conceive the manner. Had Hamilton
+       distinctly expressed this, he might have avoided some
+       very groundless criticisms, with which he has been
+       assailed for maintaining a distinction between the
+       provinces of conception and belief.
+
+Against Materialism, and virtually against Positivism in general, he
+says:--
+
+  "If in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty
+  extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter;
+  and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence
+  of an immaterial subject--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original
+  independence of intelligence on matter in the human
+  constitution--in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man be
+  supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both
+  the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer,
+  what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same
+  relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the
+  first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the
+  establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative
+  intelligence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our
+  study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of matter,
+  only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not only not
+  afford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, but, on
+  the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in denying His
+  existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the only
+  intelligence of which we have any experience be a consequent of
+  matter,--on this hypothesis, he not only cannot assume this order
+  to be reversed in the relations of an intelligence beyond his
+  observation, but, if he argue logically, he must positively
+  conclude that, as in man, so in the universe, the phenomena of
+  intelligence or design are only in their last analysis the products
+  of a brute necessity. Psychological Materialism, if carried out
+  fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus inevitably results in
+  theological Atheism; as it has been well expressed by Dr. Henry
+  More, _Nullus in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus_. I
+  do not, of course, mean to assert that all materialists deny or
+  actually disbelieve a God. For, in very many cases, this would be
+  at once an unmerited compliment to their reasoning, and an
+  unmerited reproach to their faith."--_Lectures_, vol. i, p.
+  31.[L]
+
+  [L]  This part of Hamilton's teaching is altogether
+       repudiated by a recent writer, who, strangely enough,
+       professes to be his disciple, while rejecting all that
+       is really characteristic of his philosophy. Mr. Herbert
+       Spencer, in his work on _First Principles_, endeavours
+       to press Sir W. Hamilton into the service of Pantheism
+       and Positivism together, by adopting the negative
+       portion only of his philosophy--in which, in common with
+       many other writers, he declares the absolute to be
+       inconceivable by the mere intellect,--and rejecting the
+       positive portions, in which he most emphatically
+       maintains that the belief in a personal God is
+       imperatively demanded by the facts of our moral and
+       emotional consciousness. Mr. Spencer regards religion as
+       nothing more than a consciousness of natural facts as
+       being in their ultimate genesis unaccountable--a theory
+       which is simply a combination of the positivist
+       doctrine, that we know only the relations of phenomena,
+       with the pantheist assumption of the name of God to
+       denote the substance or power which lies beyond
+       phenomena. No theory can be more opposed to the
+       philosophy of the conditioned than this. Sir W.
+       Hamilton's fundamental principle is, that consciousness
+       must be accepted entire, and that the moral and
+       religious feelings, which are the primary source of our
+       belief in a personal God, are in no way invalidated by
+       the merely negative inferences which have deluded men
+       into the assumption of an impersonal absolute; the
+       latter not being legitimate deductions from
+       consciousness rightly interpreted. Mr. Spencer, on the
+       other hand, takes these negative inferences as the only
+       basis of religion, and abandons Hamilton's great
+       principle of the distinction between knowledge and
+       belief, by quietly dropping out of his system the facts
+       of consciousness which make such a distinction
+       necessary. His whole system is, in fact, a pertinent
+       illustration of Hamilton's remark, that "the phenomena
+       of matter" [and of mind, he might add, treated by
+       materialistic methods], "taken by themselves (you will
+       observe the qualification, taken by themselves), so far
+       from warranting any inference to the existence of a God,
+       would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his
+       negation." Mr. Spencer, like Mr. Mill, denies the
+       freedom of the will; and this, according to Hamilton,
+       leads by logical consequence to Atheism.
+
+In the few places in which Hamilton speaks directly as a theologian, his
+language is in agreement with the general voice of Catholic theology down
+to the end of the seventeenth century, some specimens of which have been
+given on a previous page. Thus he says (_Discussions_, p. 15): "True,
+therefore, are the declarations of a pious philosophy,--'A God understood
+would be no God at all;' 'To think that God is, as we can think Him to
+be, is blasphemy.' The Divinity, in a certain sense, is revealed; in a
+certain sense is concealed: He is at once known and unknown. But the last
+and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar [Greek:
+Agnosto Theo]--'_To the unknown and unknowable God._'" A little later
+(p. 20) he says: "We should not recoil to the opposite extreme; and
+though man be not identical with the Deity, still is he 'created in the
+image of God.' It is, indeed, only through an analogy of the human with
+the Divine nature, that we are percipient and recipient of Divinity." In
+the first of these passages we have an echo of the language of Basil, the
+two Cyrils, and John Damascene, and of our own Hooker and Usher; while in
+the second we find the counter truth, intimated by Augustine and other
+Fathers,[M] and clearly stated by Aquinas, and which in the last
+century was elaborately expounded in the _Divine Analogy_ of Bishop
+Browne,--namely, that though we know not God in His own nature, yet are
+we not wholly ignorant of Him, but may attain to an imperfect knowledge
+of Him through the analogy between human things and Divine.
+
+  [M]  As _e.g._, by Tertullian (_Adv. Marc._, l. ii., c. 16):
+       "Et haec ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod
+       eosdem motos et sensus habeat humanus animus quos et
+       Deus, licet non tales quales Deus: pro substantia enim,
+       et status eorum et exitus distant." And by Gregory
+       Nazianzen, Orat. xxxvii.: "[Greek: Onomasamen gar hos
+       hemin ephikton ek ton hemeteron ta tou Theou]" And
+       by Hilary, _De Trin._, i. 19: "Comparatio enim
+       terrenorum ad Deum nulla est; sed infirmitas nostrae
+       intelligentiae cogit species quasdam ex inferioribus,
+       tanquam superiorum indices quaerere; ut rerum
+       familiarium consuetudine admovente, ex sensus nostri
+       conscientia ad insoliti sensus opinionem educeremur."
+
+As regards theological results, therefore, there is nothing novel or
+peculiar in Hamilton's teaching; nor was he one who would have regarded
+novelty in theology as a recommendation. The peculiarity of his system,
+by which his reputation as a philosopher must ultimately stand or fall,
+is the manner in which he endeavoured to connect these theological
+conclusions with psychological principles; and thus to vindicate on
+philosophical grounds the position which Catholic divines had been
+compelled to take in the interests of dogmatic truth. That the absolute
+nature of God, as a supertemporal and yet personal Being, must be
+believed in as a fact, though inaccessible to reason as regards the
+manner of its possibility, is a position admitted, almost without
+exception, by divines who acknowledge the mystery of a personal
+Absolute--still more by those who acknowledge the yet deeper mystery of a
+Trinity in Unity. "We believe and know," says Bishop Sanderson of the
+mysteries of the Christian faith, "and that with fulness of assurance,
+that all these things are so as they are revealed in the Holy Scriptures,
+because the mouth of God, who is Truth itself, and cannot lie, hath
+spoken them; and our own reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit
+ourselves and it to _the obedience of faith_, for the [Greek: to hoti],
+that so it is. But then, for the [Greek: to pos], Nicodemus his
+question, _How can these things be?_ it is no more possible for our weak
+understandings to comprehend that, than it is for the eyes of bats or
+owls to look steadfastly upon the body of the sun, when he shineth forth
+in his greatest strength."[N] This distinction Hamilton endeavoured to
+extend from the domain of Christian theology to that of philosophical
+speculation in general; to show that the unconditioned, as it is
+suggested in philosophy, no less than as it connects itself with revealed
+religion, is an object of belief, not of positive conception; and,
+consequently, that men cannot escape from mystery by rejecting
+revelation. "Above all," he says, "I am confirmed in my belief by the
+harmony between the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed
+truth.... For this philosophy is professedly a scientific demonstration
+of the impossibility of that 'wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle
+prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the
+human powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must
+admit, to show articulately why the 'secret things of God,' cannot but be
+to man 'past finding out.'"[O] Faith in the inconceivable must thus
+become the ultimate refuge, even of the pantheist and the atheist, no
+less than of the Christian; the difference being, that while the last
+takes his stand on a faith which is in agreement alike with the authority
+of Scripture and the needs of human nature, the two former are driven to
+one which is equally opposed to both, as well as to the pretensions of
+their own philosophy.
+
+  [N]  _Works_, vol. i., p, 233.
+
+  [O]  _Discussions_, p. 625.
+
+Deny the Trinity; deny the Personality of God: there yet remains that
+which no man can deny as the law of his own consciousness--_Time_.
+Conditioned existence is existence in time: to attain to a philosophy of
+the unconditioned, we must rise to the conception of existence out of
+time. The attempt may be made in two ways, and in two only. Either we
+may endeavour to conceive an absolutely first moment of time, beyond
+which is an existence having no duration and no succession; or we may
+endeavour to conceive time as an unlimited duration, containing an
+infinite series of successive antecedents and consequents, each
+conditioned in itself, but forming altogether an unconditioned whole. In
+other words, we may endeavour, with the Eleatics, to conceive pure
+existence apart and distinct from all phenomenal change; or we may
+endeavour, with Heraclitus, to conceive the universe as a system of
+incessant changes, immutable only in the law of its own mutability; for
+these two systems may be regarded as the type of all subsequent
+attempts. Both, however, alike aim at an object which is beyond positive
+conception, and which can be accepted only as something to be believed in
+spite of its inconceivability. To conceive an existence beyond the first
+moment of time, and to connect that existence as cause with the
+subsequent temporal succession of effects, we must conceive time itself
+as non-existent and then commencing to exist. But when we make the
+effort to conceive time as non-existent, we find it impossible to do
+so. Time, as the universal condition of human consciousness, clings round
+the very conception which strives to destroy it, clings round the
+language in which we speak of an existence _before_ time. Nor are we more
+successful when we attempt to conceive an infinite regress of time, and an
+infinite series of dependent existences in time. To say nothing of the
+direct contradiction involved in the notion of an unconditioned
+_whole_,--a something completed,--composed of infinite parts--of parts
+never completed,--even if we abandon the Whole, and with it the
+Unconditioned, and attempt merely to conceive an infinite succession
+of conditioned existences--conditioned, absurdly enough, by nothing
+beyond themselves,--we find, that in order to do so, we must add moment to
+moment for ever--a process which would require an eternity for its
+accomplishment.[P] Moreover, the chain of dependent existences in this
+infinite succession is not, like a mathematical series, composed of
+abstract and homogeneous units; it is made up of divers phenomena, of a
+regressive line of causes, each distinct from the other. Wherever,
+therefore, I stop in my addition, I do not positively conceive the terms
+which lie beyond. I apprehend them only as a series of unknown
+_somethings_, of which I may believe _that_ they are, but am unable to
+say _what_ they are.
+
+  [P]  See _Discussions_, p. 29. Of course by this is not meant
+       that no duration can be conceived except in a duration
+       equally long--that a thousand years, _e.g._, can only be
+       conceived in a thousand years. A thousand years may be
+       conceived as one unit: infinity cannot; for an unit is
+       something complete, and therefore limited. What is meant
+       is, that any period of time, however long, is conceived
+       as capable of further increase, and therefore as not
+       infinite. An infinite duration can have no time before
+       or after it; and thus cannot resemble any portion of
+       finite time, however great. When we dream of conceiving
+       an infinite regress of time, says Sir W. Hamilton, "we
+       only deceive ourselves by substituting the _indefinite_
+       for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more
+       opposed." This caution has not been attended to by some
+       later critics. Thus, Dr. Whewell (_Philosophy of
+       Discovery_, p. 324) says: "The definition of an infinite
+       number is not that it contains all possible unities; but
+       this--that the progress of numeration, being begun
+       according to a certain law, goes on without limit." This
+       is precisely Descartes' definition, not of the
+       _infinite_, but of the _indefinite_. _Principia_, i. 26:
+       "Nos autem illa omnia, in quibus sub aliqua
+       consideratione nullum finem poterimus invenire, non
+       quidem affirmabimus esse infinita, sed ut indefinita
+       spectabimus." An indefinite time is that which is
+       capable of perpetual addition: an infinite time is one
+       so great as to admit of no addition. Surely "no two
+       notions can be more opposed."
+
+The cardinal point, then, of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, expressly
+announced as such by himself, is the absolute necessity, under any system
+of philosophy whatever, of acknowledging the existence of a sphere of
+belief beyond the limits of the sphere of thought. "The main scope of my
+speculation,"[Q] he says, "is to show articulately that we _must
+believe_, as actual, much that we are unable (positively) _to conceive_
+as even possible." It is, of course, beyond the range of such a
+speculation, by itself, to enter on an examination of the positive
+evidences in support of one form of belief rather than another. So far as
+it aims only at exhibiting an universal law of the human mind, it is of
+course compatible with all special forms of belief which do not
+contradict that law; and none, whatever their pretensions, can really
+contradict it. Hence the service which such a philosophy can render to
+the Christian religion must necessarily, from the nature of the case, be
+of an indirect and negative character. It prepares the way for a fair
+examination of the proper evidences of Christianity, by showing that
+there is no ground for any _a priori_ prejudice against revelation, as
+appealing, for the acceptance of its highest truths, to faith rather than
+to reason; for that this appeal is common to all religions and to all
+philosophies, and cannot therefore be urged against one more than
+another. So far as certain difficulties are inherent in the constitution
+of the human mind itself, they must necessarily occupy the same position
+with respect to all religions alike. To exhibit the nature of these
+difficulties is a service to true religion; but it is the service of the
+pioneer, not of the builder; it does not prove the religion to be true;
+it only clears the ground for the production of the special evidences.
+
+  [Q]  Letter to Mr. Calderwood. See _Lectures_, vol. ii, p.
+       534.
+
+Where those evidences are to be found, Sir W. Hamilton has not failed to
+tell us. If mere intellectual speculations on the nature and origin of
+the material universe form a common ground in which the theist, the
+pantheist, and even the atheist, may alike expatiate, the moral and
+religious feelings of man--those facts of consciousness which have their
+direct source in the sense of personality and free will--plead with
+overwhelming evidence in behalf of a personal God, and of man's relation
+to Him, as a person to a person. We have seen, in a previous quotation,
+Hamilton's emphatic declaration that "psychological materialism, if
+carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, inevitably results in
+theological atheism." In the same spirit he tells us that "it is only as
+man is a free intelligence, a moral power, that he is created after the
+image of God;"[R] that "with the proof of the moral nature of man,
+stands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity;" that "the
+possibility of morality depends on the possibility of liberty;" that "if
+man be not a free agent, he is not the author of his actions, and has
+therefore no responsibility, no moral personality at all;"[S] and,
+finally, "that he who disbelieves the moral agency of man, must, in
+consistency with that opinion, disbelieve Christianity."[T] We have
+thus, in the positive and negative sides of this philosophy, both a
+reasonable ground of belief and a warning against presumption. By our
+immediate consciousness of a moral and personal nature, we are led to the
+belief in a moral and personal God: by our ignorance of the
+unconditioned, we are led to the further belief, that behind that moral
+and personal manifestation of God there lies concealed a mystery--the
+mystery of the Absolute and the Infinite; that our intellectual and moral
+qualities, though indicating the nearest approach to the Divine
+Perfections which we are capable of conceiving, yet indicate them as
+analogous, not as identical; that we may naturally expect to find points
+where this analogy will fail us, where the function of the Infinite Moral
+Governor will be distinct from that of the finite moral servant; and
+where, consequently, we shall be liable to error in judging by human
+rules of the ways of God, whether manifested in nature or in revelation.
+Such is the true lesson to be learnt from a philosophy which tells us of
+a God who is "in a certain sense revealed, in a certain sense
+concealed--at once known and unknown."
+
+  [R]  _Lectures_, vol. i., p. 30.
+
+  [S]  _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 33.
+
+  [T]  _Ibid._, p. 42.
+
+It is not surprising that this philosophy, when compared with that of a
+critic like Mr. Mill, should stand out in clear and sharp antagonism. Mr.
+Mill is one of the most distinguished representatives of that school of
+Materialism which Sir W. Hamilton denounces as virtual Atheism. We do not
+mean that he consciously adopts the grosser tenets of the materialists.
+We are not aware that he has ever positively denied the existence of a
+soul distinct from the body, or maintained that the brain secretes
+thought as the liver secretes bile. But he is the advocate of a
+philosophical method which makes the belief in the existence of an
+immaterial principle superfluous and incongruous; he not only
+acknowledges no such distinction between the phenomena of mind and those
+of matter as to require the hypothesis of a free intelligence to account
+for it; he not only regards the ascertained laws of coexistence and
+succession in material phenomena as the type and rule according to which
+all phenomena whatever--those of internal consciousness no less than of
+external observation--are to be tested; but he even expressly denies the
+existence of that free will which Sir W. Hamilton regards as the
+indispensable condition of all morality and all religion.[U] Thus,
+instead of recognising in the facts of intelligence "an order of
+existence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to us in the facts
+of the material universe,"[V] he regards both classes of facts as of
+the same kind, and explicable by the same laws; he abolishes the primary
+contrast of consciousness between the _ego_ and the _non-ego_--the person
+and the thing; he reduces man to a thing, instead of a person,--to one
+among the many phenomena of the universe, determined by the same laws of
+invariable antecedence and consequence, included under the same formulae
+of empirical generalization. He thus makes man the slave, and not the
+master of nature; passively carried along in the current of successive
+phenomena; unable, by any act of free will, to arrest a single wave in
+its course, or to divert it from its ordained direction.
+
+  [U]  That this is the real battle-ground between the two
+       philosophers is virtually admitted by Mr. Mill himself
+       at the end of his criticism. He says:--"The whole
+       philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton seems to have had its
+       character determined by the requirements of the doctrine
+       of Free-will; and to that doctrine he clung, because he
+       had persuaded himself that it afforded the only premises
+       from which human reason could deduce the doctrines of
+       natural religion. I believe that in this persuasion he
+       was thoroughly his own dupe, and that his speculations
+       have weakened the philosophical foundation of religion
+       fully as much as they have confirmed it."--P. 549. Mr.
+       Mill's whole philosophy, on the other hand, is
+       determined by the requirements of the doctrine of
+       Necessity; and to that doctrine he intrepidly adheres,
+       in utter defiance of consciousness, and sometimes of his
+       own consistency. Which of the two philosophers is really
+       "his own dupe," Mr. Mill in believing that morality and
+       religion can exist without free will--that a necessary
+       agent can be responsible for his acts--or Sir W.
+       Hamilton in maintaining the contrary, is a question
+       which the former has by no means satisfactorily settled
+       in his own favour.
+
+  [V]  Hamilton, _Lectures_, vol. i, p. 29.
+
+This diametrical antagonism between the two philosophers is not limited
+to their first principles, but extends, as might naturally be expected,
+to every subordinate science of which the immediate object is mental, and
+not material. Logic, instead of being, as Sir W. Hamilton regards it, an
+_a priori_ science of the necessary laws of thought, is with Mr. Mill a
+science of observation, investigating those operations of the
+understanding which are subservient to the estimation of evidence.[W]
+The axioms of Mathematics, which the former philosopher regards, with
+Kant, as necessary thoughts, based on the _a priori_ intuitions of space
+and time, the latter[X] declares to be "experimental truths;
+generalizations from observation." Psychology, which with Hamilton is
+especially the philosophy of man as a free and personal agent, is with
+Mill the science of "the uniformities of succession; the laws, whether
+ultimate or derivative, according to which one mental state succeeds
+another."[Y] And finally, in the place of Ethics, as the science of the
+_a priori_ laws of man's moral obligations, we are presented, in Mr.
+Mill's system, with Ethology, the "science which determines the kind of
+character produced, in conformity to the general laws of mind, by any set
+of circumstances, physical and moral."[Z]
+
+  [W]  Mill's _Logic_. Introduction, Sec. 7.
+
+  [X]  _Ibid._, book ii. 5, Sec. 4.
+
+  [Y]  Mill's _Logic_, book vi. 4, Sec. 3.
+
+  [Z]  _Ibid._, book vi. 5, Sec. 4.
+
+The contrast between the two philosophers being thus thoroughgoing, it
+was natural to expect beforehand that an _Examination of Sir William
+Hamilton's Philosophy_, by Mr. Mill, would contain a sharp and vigorous
+assault on the principal doctrines of that philosophy. And this
+expectation has been amply fulfilled. But there was also reason to
+expect, from the ability and critical power displayed in Mr. Mill's
+previous writings, that his assault, whether successful or not in
+overthrowing his enemy, would at least be guided by a clear knowledge of
+that enemy's position and purposes; that his dissent would be accompanied
+by an intelligent apprehension, and an accurate statement, of the
+doctrines dissented from. In this expectation, we regret to say, we have
+been disappointed. Not only is Mr. Mill's attack on Hamilton's
+philosophy, with the exception of some minor details, unsuccessful; but
+we are compelled to add, that with regard to the three fundamental
+doctrines of that philosophy--the Relativity of Knowledge, the
+Incognisability of the Absolute and Infinite, and the distinction between
+Reason and Faith--Mr. Mill has, throughout his criticism, altogether
+missed the meaning of the theories he is attempting to assail.
+
+This is a serious charge to bring against a writer of such eminence as
+Mr. Mill, and one which should not be advanced without ample proof.
+First, then, of the Relativity of Knowledge.
+
+The assertion that all our knowledge is relative,--in other words, that
+we know things only under such conditions as the laws of our cognitive
+faculties impose upon us,--is a statement which looks at first sight like
+a truism, but which really contains an answer to a very important
+question,--Have we reason to believe that the laws of our cognitive
+faculties impose any conditions at all?--that the mind in any way reacts
+on the objects affecting it, so as to produce a result different from
+that which would be produced were it merely a passive recipient? "The
+mind of man," says Bacon, "is far from the nature of a clear and equal
+glass, wherein the beams of things shall reflect according to their true
+incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of
+superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced." Can what
+Bacon says of the fallacies of the mind be also said of its proper
+cognitions? Does the mind, by its own action, in any way distort the
+appearance of the things presented to it; and if so, how far does the
+distortion extend, and in what manner is it to be rectified? To trace the
+course of this inquiry, from the day when Plato compared the objects
+perceived by the senses to the shadows thrown by fire on the wall of a
+cave, to the day when Kant declared that we know only phenomena, not
+things in themselves, would be to write the history of philosophy. We can
+only at present call attention to one movement in that history, which,
+was, in effect, a revolution in philosophy. The older philosophers in
+general distinguished between the senses and the intellect, regarding the
+former as deceptive and concerned with phenomena alone, the latter as
+trustworthy and conversant with the realities of things. Hence arose the
+distinction between the sensible and the intelligible world--between
+things as perceived by sense and things as apprehended by
+intellect--between Phenomenology and Ontology. Kant rejected this
+distinction, holding that the intellect, as well as the sense, imposes
+its own forms on the things presented to it, and is therefore cognisant
+only of phenomena, not of things in themselves. The logical result of
+this position would be the abolition of ontology as a science of things
+in themselves, and, _a fortiori_, of that highest branch of ontology
+which aims at a knowledge of the Absolute[AA] [Greek: kat' exochen],
+of the unconditioned first principle of all things. If the mind, in every
+act of thought, imposes its own forms on its objects, to think is to
+condition, and the unconditioned is the unthinkable. Such was the logical
+result of Kant's principles, but not the actual result. For Kant, by
+distinguishing between the Understanding and the Reason, and giving to
+the latter an indirect yet positive cognition of the Unconditioned as a
+regulative principle of thought, prepared the way for the systems of
+Schelling and Hegel, in which this indirect cognition is converted into a
+direct one, by investing the reason, thus distinguished as the special
+faculty of the unconditioned, with a power of intuition emancipated from
+the conditions of space and time, and even of subject and object, or a
+power of thought emancipated from the laws of identity and
+contradiction.
+
+ [AA]  The term _absolute_, in the sense of _free from
+       relation_, may be used in two applications;--1st, To
+       denote the nature of a thing as it is in itself, as
+       distinguished from its appearance to us. Here it is used
+       only in a subordinate sense, as meaning out of relation
+       to human knowledge. 2ndly, To denote the nature of a
+       thing as independent of all other things, as having no
+       relation to any other thing as the condition of its
+       existence. Here it is used in its highest sense, as
+       meaning out of relation to anything else.
+
+The theory of Hamilton is a modification of that of Kant, intended to
+obviate these consequences, and to relieve the Kantian doctrine itself
+from the inconsistency which gave rise to them. So long as the reason is
+regarded as a separate faculty from the understanding, and things in
+themselves as ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions,
+which encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be
+regarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the
+result of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical
+conclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting the distinction
+between the understanding and the reason as separate faculties, regarding
+the one as the legitimate and positive, the other as the illegitimate and
+negative, exercise of one and the same faculty. He thus announces, in
+opposition to Kant, the fundamental doctrine of the Conditioned, as "the
+distinction between intelligence _within_ its legitimate sphere of
+operation, impeccable, and intelligence _beyond_ that sphere, affording
+(by abuse) the occasions of error."[AB] Hamilton, like Kant, maintained
+that all our cognitions are compounded of two elements, one contributed
+by the object known, and the other by the mind knowing. But the very
+conception of a relation implies the existence of things to be related;
+and the knowledge of an object, as in relation to our mind, necessarily
+implies its existence out of that relation. But as so existing, it is
+unknown: we believe _that_ it is; we know not _what_ it is. How far it
+resembles, or how far it does not resemble, the object apprehended by us,
+we cannot say, for we have no means of comparing the two together.
+
+ [AB]  _Discussions_, p. 633.
+
+Instead; therefore, of saying with Kant, that reason is subject to an
+inevitable delusion, by which, it mistakes the regulative principles of
+its own thoughts for the representations of real things, Hamilton would
+say that the reason, while compelled to believe in the existence of these
+real things, is not legitimately entitled to make any positive
+representation of them as of such or such a nature; and that the
+contradictions into which it falls when attempting to do so are due to an
+illegitimate attempt to transcend the proper boundaries of positive
+thought.
+
+This theory does not, in itself, contain any statement of the mode in
+which we perceive the material world, whether directly by presentation,
+or indirectly by representative images; and perhaps it might, without any
+great violence, be adapted to more than one of the current hypotheses on
+this point. But that to which it most easily adjusts itself is that
+maintained by Hamilton himself under the name of _Natural Realism_. To
+speak of perception as a _relation_ between mind and matter, naturally
+implies the presence of both correlatives; though each may be modified by
+its contact with the other. The acid may act on the alkali, and the
+alkali on the acid, in forming the neutral salt; but each of the
+ingredients is as truly present as the other, though each enters into the
+compound in a modified form. And this is equally the case in perception,
+even if we suppose various media to intervene between the ultimate object
+and the perceiving mind,--such, _e.g._, as the rays of light and the
+sensitive organism in vision,--so long as these media are material, like
+the ultimate object itself. Whether the object, properly so called, in
+vision, be the rays of light in contact with the organ, or the body
+emitting or reflecting those rays, is indifferent to the present
+question, so long as a material object of some kind or other is supposed
+to be perceived, and not merely an inmaterial representation of such an
+object. To speak of our perceptions as mere modifications of mind
+produced by an unknown cause, would be like maintaining that the acid is
+modified by the influence of the alkali without entering into combination
+with it. Such a view might perhaps be tolerated, in connection with the
+theory of relativity, by an indulgent interpretation of language, but it
+is certainly not that which the language of the theory most naturally
+suggests.
+
+All this Mr. Mill entirely misapprehends. He quotes a passage from
+Hamilton's Lectures, in which the above theory of Relativity is clearly
+stated as the mean between the extremes of Idealism and Materialism, and
+then proceeds to comment as follows:--
+
+  "The proposition, that our cognitions of objects are only in part
+  dependent on the objects themselves, and in part on elements
+  superadded by our organs or our minds, is not identical, nor _prima
+  facie_ absurd. It cannot, however, warrant the assertion that all
+  our knowledge, but only that the part so added, is relative. If our
+  author had gone as far as Kant, and had said that all which
+  constitutes knowledge is put in by the mind itself, he would have
+  really held, in one of its forms, the doctrine of the relativity of
+  our knowledge. But what he does say, far from implying that the
+  whole of our knowledge is relative, distinctly imports that all of
+  it which, is real and authentic is the reverse. If any part of what
+  we fancy that we perceive in the objects themselves, originates in
+  the perceiving organs or in the cognising mind, thus much is purely
+  relative; but since, by supposition, it does not all so originate,
+  the part that does not is as much absolute as if it were not liable
+  to be mixed up with, these delusive subjective impressions."--(P.
+  30.)
+
+Mr. Mill, therefore, supposes that _wholly relative_ must mean _wholly
+mental_; in other words, that to say that a thing is wholly due to a
+relation between mind and matter is equivalent to saying that it is
+wholly due to mind alone. On the contrary, we maintain that Sir W.
+Hamilton's language is far more accurate than Mr. Mill's, and that the
+above theory can with perfect correctness be described as one of _total
+relativity_; and this from two points of view. First, as opposed to the
+theory of partial relativity generally held by the pre-Kantian
+philosophers, according to which our sensitive cognitions are relative,
+our intellectual ones absolute. Secondly, as asserting that the object of
+perception, though composed of elements partly material, partly mental,
+yet exhibits both alike in a form modified by their relation to each
+other. The composition is not a mere mechanical juxtaposition, in which
+each part, though acting on the other, retains its own characteristics
+unchanged. It may be rather likened to a chemical fusion, in which both
+elements are present, but each of them is affected by the composition.
+The material part, therefore, is not "as much absolute as if it were not
+liable to be mixed up with subjective impressions."
+
+But we must hear the continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism:--
+
+  "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 recognising it. The confusion,
+  according to him, is not inextricable. It is for us to 'analyse and
+  distinguish what elements' in an 'act of knowledge' are contributed
+  by the object, and what by our organs, or by the mind. We may
+  neglect to do this, and as far as the mind's share is concerned, we
+  can only do it by the help of philosophy; but it is a task to
+  which, in his opinion, philosophy is equal. By thus stripping off
+  such of the elements in our apparent cognitions of things as are
+  but cognitions of something in us, and consequently relative, we
+  may succeed in uncovering the pure nucleus, the direct intuitions
+  of things in themselves; as we correct the observed positions of
+  the heavenly bodies by allowing for the error due to the refracting
+  influence of the atmospheric medium, an influence which does not
+  alter the facts, but only our perception of them."
+
+Surely Mr. Mill here demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton
+deems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant,
+distinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and
+contingent--in other words, between the subjective and the objective
+elements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a "direct
+intuition of things in themselves?" Why may he not distinguish between
+space and time as the forms of our sensitive cognitions, and the things
+perceived in space and time, which constitute the matter of the same
+cognitions, without thereby having an intuition, on the one hand, of pure
+space and time with nothing in them, or on the other, of things in
+themselves out of space and time? If certain elements are always present
+in perception, while certain others change with every act, I may surely
+infer that the one is due to the permanent subject, the other to the
+variable object, without thereby knowing what each would be if it could
+be discerned apart from the other. "A direct intuition of things in
+themselves," according to Kant and Hamilton, is an intuition of things
+out of space and time. Does Mr. Mill suppose that any natural Realist
+professes to have such an intuition?
+
+The same error of supposing that a doctrine of relativity is necessarily
+a doctrine of Idealism, that "matter known only in relation to us" can
+mean nothing more than "matter known only through the mental impressions
+of which it is the unknown cause,"[AC] runs through the whole of Mr.
+Mill's argument against this portion of Sir W. Hamilton's teaching. That
+argument, though repeated in various forms, may be briefly summed up in
+one thesis; namely, that the doctrine that our knowledge of matter is
+wholly relative is incompatible with the distinction, which Hamilton
+expressly makes, between the primary and secondary qualities of body.
+
+ [AC]  The assumption that these two expressions are or ought
+       to be synonymous is tacitly made by Mr. Mill at the
+       opening of this chapter. He opens it with a passage from
+       the _Discussions_, in which Hamilton says that the
+       existence of _things in themselves_ is only indirectly
+       revealed to us "through certain qualities _related to
+       our faculties of knowledge_;" and then proceeds to show
+       that the author did not hold the doctrine which these
+       phrases "seem to convey in the only substantial meaning
+       capable of being attached to them;" namely, "that we
+       know nothing of _objects_ except their existence, and
+       the impressions produced by them upon the human mind."
+       Having thus quietly assumed that "things in themselves"
+       are identical with "objects," and "relations" with
+       "impressions on the human mind," Mr. Mill bases his
+       whole criticism on this tacit _petitio principii_. He is
+       not aware that though Reid sometimes uses the term
+       _relative_ in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly
+       points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper
+       sense.--(See _Reid's Works_, pp. 313, 322.)
+
+The most curious circumstance about this criticism is, that, if not
+directly borrowed from, it has at least been carefully anticipated by,
+Hamilton himself. Of the distinction between primary and secondary
+qualities, as acknowledged by Descartes and Locke, whose theory of
+external perception is identical with that which Mr. Mill would force on
+Hamilton himself, Hamilton says: "On the general doctrine, however, of
+these philosophers, both classes of qualities, as known, are confessedly
+only states of our own minds; and while we have no right from a
+subjective affection to infer the existence, far less the corresponding
+character of the existence, of any objective reality, it is evident that
+their doctrine, if fairly evolved, would result in a dogmatic or in a
+sceptical negation of the primary no less than of the secondary qualities
+of body, as more than appearances in and for us."[AD] It is astonishing
+that Mr. Mill, who pounces eagerly on every imaginable instance of
+Hamilton's inconsistency, should have neglected to notice this, which, if
+his criticism be true, is the most glaring inconsistency of all.
+
+ [AD]  _Reid's Works_, p. 840.
+
+But Hamilton continues: "It is therefore manifest that the fundamental
+position of a consistent theory of dualistic realism is--that our
+cognitions of Extension and its modes are not wholly ideal--that although
+Space be a native, necessary, _a priori_ form of imagination, and so
+far, therefore, a mere subjective state, that there is, at the same time,
+competent to us, in an _immediate_ perception of external things, the
+_consciousness_ of a really existent, of a really objective, _extended_
+world." Here we have enunciated in one breath, first the subjectivity of
+space, which is the logical basis of the relative theory of perception;
+and secondly, the objectivity of the extended world, which is the logical
+basis of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It is
+manifest, therefore, that Hamilton had not, as Mr. Mill supposes, ceased
+to hold the one theory when he adopted the other.[AE]
+
+ [AE]  See _Examination_, p. 28.
+
+The key to all this is not difficult to find. It is simply that
+_objective existence_ does not mean existence _per se_; and that a
+_phenomenon_ does not mean a mere mode of mind. Objective existence is
+existence _as an object_, in perception, and therefore in relation; and a
+phenomenon may be material, as well as mental. The thing _per se_ may be
+only the unknown cause of what we directly know; but what we directly
+know is something more than our own sensations. In other words, the
+phenomenal effect is material as well as the cause, and is, indeed, that
+from which our primary conceptions of matter are derived. Matter does not
+cease to be matter when modified by its contact with mind, as iron does
+not cease to be iron when smelted and forged. A horseshoe is something
+very different from a piece of iron ore; and a man may be acquainted with
+the former without ever having seen the latter, or knowing what it is
+like. But would Mr. Mill therefore say that the horseshoe is merely a
+subjective affection of the skill of the smith--that it is not iron
+modified by the workman, but the workman or his art impressed by iron?
+
+If, indeed, Hamilton had said with Locke, that the primary qualities are
+in the bodies themselves, whether we perceive them or no,[AF] he would
+have laid himself open to Mr. Mill's criticism. But he expressly rejects
+this statement, and contrasts it with the more cautions language of
+Descartes, "ut sunt, vel saltem esse possunt."[AG] The secondary
+qualities are mere affections of consciousness, which, cannot be
+conceived as existing except in a conscious subject. The primary
+qualities are qualities of body, as perceived in relation to the
+percipient mind, _i.e._, of the phenomenal body perceived as in space.
+How far they exist in the real body out of relation to us, Hamilton does
+not attempt to decide.[AH] They are inseparable from our conception of
+body, which, is derived exclusively from the phenomenon; they may or may
+not be separable from the thing as it is in itself.
+
+ [AF]  _Essay_, ii 8, Sec. 23.
+
+ [AG]  _Reid's Works_, p. 839.
+
+ [AH]  We have been content to argue this question, as Mr.
+       Mill himself argues it, on the supposition that Sir W.
+       Hamilton held that we are directly percipient of primary
+       qualities in external bodies. Strictly speaking, however,
+       Hamilton held that the primary qualities are immediately
+       perceived only in our organism as extended, and
+       inferred to exist in extra-organic bodies. The external
+       world is immediately apprehended only in its
+       secundo-primary character, as resisting our locomotive
+       energy. But as the organism, in this theory, is a
+       material _non-ego_ equally with the rest of matter, and as
+       to press this distinction would only affect the verbal
+       accuracy, not the substantial justice, of Mr. Mill's
+       criticisms, we have preferred to meet him on the ground
+       he has himself chosen. The same error, of supposing that
+       "presentationism" is identical with "noumenalism," and
+       "phenomenalism" with "representationism," runs through
+       the whole of Mr. Stirling's recent criticism of Hamilton's
+       theory of perception. It is curious, however, that the
+       very passage (_Lectures_, i., p. 146) which Mr. Mill cites
+       as proving that Hamilton, in spite of his professed
+       phenomenalism, was an unconscious noumenalist, is
+       employed by Mr. Stirling to prove that, in spite of his
+       professed presentationism, he was an unconscious
+       representationist. The two critics tilt at Hamilton
+       from opposite quarters: he has only to stand aside and let
+       them run against each other.
+
+Under this explanation, it is manifest that the doctrine, that matter as
+a subject or substratum of attributes is unknown and unknowable, is
+totally different from that of cosmothetic idealism, with which Mr Mill
+confounds it;[AI] and that a philosopher may without inconsistency
+accept the former and reject the latter. The former, while it holds the
+material substance to be unknown, does not deny that some of the
+attributes of matter are perceived immediately as material, though, it
+may be, modified by contact with mind. The latter maintains that the
+attributes, as well as the substance, are not perceived immediately as
+material, but mediately through the intervention of immaterial
+representatives. It is also manifest that, in answer to Mr. Mill's
+question, which of Hamilton's two "cardinal doctrines," Relativity or
+Natural Realism, "is to be taken in a non-natural sense,"[AJ] we must
+say, neither. The two doctrines are quite compatible with each other, and
+neither requires a non-natural interpretation to reconcile it to its
+companion.
+
+ [AI]  _Examination_, p. 23.
+
+ [AJ]  _Examination_, p. 20.
+
+The doctrine of relativity derives its chief practical value from its
+connection with the next great doctrine of Hamilton's philosophy, the
+incognisability of the Absolute and the Infinite. For this doctrine
+brings Ontology into contact with Theology; and it is only in relation to
+theology that ontology acquires a practical importance. With respect to
+the other two "ideas of the pure reason," as Kant calls them, the human
+soul and the world, the question, whether we know them as realities or as
+phenomena, may assist us in dealing with certain metaphysical
+difficulties, but need not affect our practical conduct. For we have an
+immediate intuition of the attributes of mind and matter, at least as
+phenomenal objects, and by these intuitions may be tested the accuracy of
+the conceptions derived from them, sufficiently for all practical
+purposes. A man will equally avoid walking over a precipice, and is
+logically as consistent in avoiding it, whether he regard the precipice
+as a real thing, or as a mere phenomenon. But in the province of theology
+this is not the case. We have no immediate intuition of the Divine
+attributes, even as phenomena; we only infer their existence and nature
+from certain similar attributes of which we are immediately conscious in
+ourselves. And hence arises the question, How far does the similarity
+extend, and to what extent is the accuracy of our conceptions guaranteed
+by the intuition, not of the object to be conceived, but of something
+more or less nearly resembling it? But this is not all. Our knowledge of
+God, originally derived from personal consciousness, receives accession
+from two other sources--from the external world, as His work; and from
+revelation, as His word; and the conclusions derived from each have to be
+compared together. Should any discrepancy arise between them, are we at
+once warranted in rejecting one class of conclusions in favour of the
+other two, or two in favour of the third? or are we at liberty to say
+that our knowledge in respect of all alike is of such an imperfect and
+indirect character that we are warranted in believing that some
+reconciliation may exist, though our ignorance prevents us from
+discovering what it is? Here at least is a practical question of the very
+highest importance. In the early part of our previous remarks, we have
+endeavoured to show how this question has been answered by orthodox
+theologians of various ages, and how Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy
+supports that answer. We have now to consider Mr Mill's chapter of
+criticisms.
+
+It is always unfortunate to make a stumble on the threshold; and Mr.
+Mill's opening paragraph makes two. "The name of God," he says, "is
+veiled under two extremely abstract phrases, 'the Infinite and the
+Absolute.'... But it is one of the most unquestionable of all logical
+maxims, that the meaning of the abstract must be sought in the concrete,
+and not conversely."[AK]--Now, in the first place, "the Infinite" and
+"the Absolute," even in the sense in which they are both predicable of
+God, are no more names of God than "the creature" and "the finite" are
+names of man. They are the names of certain attributes, which further
+inquiry may, perhaps, show to belong to God and to no other being, but
+which do not in their signification express this, and do not constitute
+our primary idea of God, which is that of a Person. Men may believe in an
+absolute and infinite, without in any proper sense believing in God; and
+thousands upon thousands of pious men have prayed to a personal God, who
+have never heard of the absolute and the infinite, and who would not
+understand the expressions if they heard them. But, in the second place,
+"the absolute" and "the infinite," in Sir W. Hamilton's sense of the
+terms, cannot both be names of God, for the simple reason that they are
+contradictory of each other, and are proposed as alternatives which
+cannot both be accepted as predicates of the same subject. For Hamilton,
+whatever Mr. Mill may do, did not fall into the absurdity of maintaining
+that God in some of His attributes is absolute without being infinite,
+and in others is infinite without being absolute.[AL]
+
+ [AK]  _Examination_, p. 32.
+
+ [AL]  See _Examination_, p. 35.
+
+But we have not yet done with this single paragraph. After thus making
+two errors in his exposition of his opponent's doctrine, Mr. Mill
+immediately proceeds to a third, in his criticism of it. By following his
+"most unquestionable of all logical maxims," and substituting the name of
+God in the place of "the Infinite" and "the Absolute," he exactly
+reverses Sir W. Hamilton's argument, and makes his own attempted
+refutation of it a glaring _ignoratio elenchi_.
+
+One of the purposes of Hamilton's argument is to show that we have no
+positive conception of an Infinite Being; that when we attempt to form
+such a conception, we do but produce a distorted representation of the
+finite; and hence, that our so-called conception of the infinite is not
+the true infinite. Hence it is not to be wondered at--nay, it is a
+natural consequence of this doctrine,--that our positive conception of
+God as a Person cannot be included under this pseudo-concept of the
+Infinite. Whereas Mr. Mill, by laying down the maxim that the meaning of
+the abstract must be sought in the concrete, quietly assumes that this
+pseudo-infinite is a proper predicate of God, to be tested by its
+applicability to the subject, and that what Hamilton says of _this_
+infinite cannot be true unless it is also true of God. Of this
+refutation, Hamilton, were he living, might truly say, as he said of a
+former criticism on another part of his writings,--"This elaborate parade
+of argument is literally answered in two words--_Quis dubitavit?_"
+
+But if the substitution of God for the Infinite be thus a perversion of
+Hamilton's argument, what shall we say to a similar substitution in the
+case of the Absolute? Hamilton distinctly tells us that there is one
+sense of the term _absolute_ in which it is contradictory of the
+infinite, and therefore is not predicable of God at all. Mr. Mill admits
+that Hamilton, throughout the greater part of his arguments, employs the
+term in this sense; and he then actually proceeds to "test" these
+arguments "by substituting the concrete, God, for the abstract,
+Absolute;" _i.e._, by substituting God for something which Hamilton
+defines as contradictory to the nature of God. Can the force of confusion
+go further? Is it possible for perverse criticism more utterly, we do not
+say to misrepresent, but literally to invert an author's meaning?
+
+The source of all these errors, and of a great many more, is simply this.
+Mr. Mill is aware, from Hamilton's express assertion, that the word
+_absolute_ may be used in two distinct and even contradictory senses; but
+he is wholly unable to see what those senses are, or when Hamilton is
+using the term in the one sense, and when in the other. Let us endeavour
+to clear up some of this confusion.
+
+Hamilton's article on the Philosophy of the Unconditioned is a criticism,
+partly of Schelling, partly of Cousin; and Schelling and Cousin only
+attempted in a new form, under the influence of the Kantian philosophy,
+to solve the problem with which philosophy in all ages has attempted to
+grapple,--the problem of the Unconditioned.
+
+"The unconditioned" is a term which, while retaining the same general
+meaning, admits of various applications, particular or universal. It may
+be the unconditioned as regards some special relation, or the
+unconditioned as regards all relations whatever. Thus there may be the
+unconditioned in Psychology--the human soul considered as a substance;
+the unconditioned in Cosmology--the world considered as a single whole;
+the unconditioned in Theology--God in His own nature, as distinguished
+from His manifestations to us; or, finally, the unconditioned _par
+excellence_--the unconditioned in Ontology--the being on which all other
+being depends. It is of course possible to identify any one of the three
+first with the last. It is possible to adopt a system of Egoism, and to
+maintain that all phenomena are modes of my mind, and that the substance
+of my mind is the only real existence. It is possible to adopt a system
+of Materialism, and to maintain that all phenomena are modes of matter,
+and that the material substance of the world is the only real existence.
+Or it is possible to adopt a system of Pantheism, and to maintain that
+all phenomena are modes of the Divine existence, and that God is the only
+reality. But the several notions are in themselves distinct, though one
+may ultimately be predicated of another.
+
+The general notion of the Unconditioned is the same in all these cases,
+and all must finally culminate in the last, the Unconditioned _par
+excellence_. The general notion is that of the One as distinguished from
+the Many, the substance from its accidents, the permanent reality from
+its variable modifications. Thought, will, sensation, are modes of my
+existence. What is the _I_ that is one and the same in all? Extension,
+figure, resistance, are attributes of matter. What is the one substance
+to which these attributes belong? But the generalisation cannot stop
+here. If matter differs from mind, the _non-ego_ from the _ego_, as one
+thing from another, there must be some special point of difference,
+which, is the condition of the existence of each in this or that
+particular manner. Unconditioned existence, therefore, in the highest
+sense of the term, cannot be the existence of _this_ as distinguished
+from _that_; it must be existence _per se_, the ground and principle of
+all conditioned or special existence. This is the Unconditioned, properly
+so called: the unconditioned in Schelling's sense, as the indifference of
+subject and object: and it is against this that Hamilton's arguments are
+directed.
+
+The question is this. Is this Unconditioned a mere abstraction, the
+product of our own minds; or can it be conceived as having a real
+existence _per se_, and, as such, can it be identified with God as the
+source of all existence? Hamilton maintains that it is a mere
+abstraction, and cannot be so identified; that, far from being "a name of
+God," it is a name of nothing at all. "By abstraction," he says, "we
+annihilate the object, and by abstraction we annihilate the subject of
+consciousness. But what remains? _Nothing._" When we attempt to conceive
+it as a reality, we "hypostatise the zero."[AM]
+
+ [AM]  _Discussions_, p. 21.
+
+In order to conceive the Unconditioned existing as a thing, we must
+conceive it as existing out of relation to everything else. For if
+nothing beyond itself is necessary as a condition of its existence, it
+can exist separate from everything else; and its pure existence as the
+unconditioned is so separate. It must therefore be conceivable as the
+sole existence, having no plurality beyond itself; and as simple, having
+no plurality within itself. For if we cannot conceive it as existing
+apart from other things, we cannot conceive it as independent of them;
+and if we conceive it as a compound of parts, we have further to ask as
+before, what is the principle of unity which binds these parts into one
+whole? If there is such a principle, this is the true unconditioned; if
+there is no such principle, there is no unconditioned; for that which
+cannot exist except as a compound is dependent for its existence on that
+of its several constituents. The unconditioned must therefore be
+conceived as one, as simple, and as universal.
+
+Is such a conception possible, whether in ordinary consciousness, as
+Cousin says, or in an extraordinary intuition, as Schelling says? Let us
+try the former. Consciousness is subject to the law of Time. A phenomenon
+is presented to us in time, as dependent on some previous phenomenon or
+thing. I wish to pursue the chain in thought till I arrive at something
+independent. If I could reach in thought a beginning of time, and
+discover some first fact with nothing preceding it, I should conceive
+time as absolute--as completed,--and the unconditioned as the first thing
+in time, and therefore as completed also, for it may be considered by
+itself, apart from what depends upon it. Or if time be considered as
+having no beginning, thought would still be able to represent to itself
+that infinity, could it follow out the series of antecedents for ever.
+But is either of these alternatives possible to thought? If not, we must
+confess that the unconditioned is inconceivable by ordinary
+consciousness; and we must found philosophy, with Schelling, on the
+annihilation of consciousness.
+
+But though Hamilton himself distinguishes between the _unconditioned_ and
+the _absolute_, using the former term generally, for that which is out of
+all relation, and the latter specially, for that which is out of all
+relation as complete and finished, his opponent Cousin uses the latter
+term in a wider sense, as synonymous with the former, and the _infinite_
+as coextensive with both. This, however, does not affect the validity of
+Hamilton's argument. For if it can be shown that the absolute and the
+infinite (in Hamilton's sense) are both inconceivable, the unconditioned
+(or absolute in Cousin's sense), which must be conceived as one or the
+other, is inconceivable also. Or, conversely, if it can be shown that the
+unconditioned, the unrelated in general, is inconceivable, it follows
+that the absolute and the infinite, as both involving the unrelated, are
+inconceivable also.
+
+We may now proceed with Mr. Mill's criticism. He says:--
+
+  "Absolute, in the sense in which, it stands related to Infinite,
+  means (conformably to its etymology) that which is finished or
+  completed. There are some things of which the utmost ideal amount
+  is a limited quantity, though a quantity never actually reached....
+  We may speak of absolutely, but not of infinitely, pure water. The
+  purity of water is not a fact of which, whatever degree we suppose
+  attained, there remains a greater beyond. It has an absolute limit:
+  it is capable of being finished or complete, in thought, if not in
+  reality."--(P. 34.)
+
+This criticism is either incorrect or _nihil ad rem_. If meant as a
+statement of Hamilton's use of the term, it is incorrect: _absolute_, in
+Hamilton's philosophy, does not mean simply "completed," but "out of
+relation as completed;" _i.e._, self-existent in its completeness, and
+not implying the existence of anything else. If meant in any other sense
+than Hamilton's, it is irrelevant. Can Mr. Mill really have believed that
+Schelling thought it necessary to invent an intellectual intuition out of
+time and out of consciousness, in order to contemplate "an ideal limited
+quantity," such as the complete purity of water?
+
+Mr. Mill continues:--
+
+  "Though the idea of Absolute is thus contrasted with that of
+  Infinite, the one is equally fitted with the other to be predicated
+  of God; but not in respect of the same attributes. There is no
+  incorrectness of speech in the phrase Infinite Power: because the
+  notion it expresses is that of a Being who has the power of doing
+  all things which we know or can conceive, and more. But in speaking
+  of knowledge, Absolute is the proper word, and not Infinite. The
+  highest degree of knowledge that can be spoken of with a meaning,
+  only amounts to knowing all that there is to be known: when that
+  point is reached, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. So of
+  goodness or justice: they cannot be more than perfect. There are
+  not infinite degrees of right. The will is either entirely right,
+  or wrong in different degrees."--(P. 35.)
+
+Surely, whatever Divine power can do, Divine knowledge can know as
+possible to be done. The one, therefore, must be as infinite as the
+other. And what of Divine goodness? An angel or a glorified saint is
+absolutely good in Mr. Mill's sense of the term. His "will is entirely
+right." Does Mr. Mill mean to say that there is no difference, even in
+degree, between the goodness of God and that of one of His creatures?
+But, even supposing his statement to be true, how is it relevant to the
+matter under discussion? Can Mr. Mill possibly be ignorant that all these
+attributes are relations; that the Absolute in Hamilton's sense, "the
+unconditionally limited," is not predicable of God at all; and that when
+divines and philosophers speak of the absolute nature of God, they mean a
+nature in which there is no distinction of attributes at all?
+
+Mr. Mill then proceeds to give a summary of Hamilton's arguments against
+Cousin, preparatory to refuting them. In the course of this summary he
+says:--
+
+  "Let me ask, _en passant_, where is the necessity for supposing
+  that, if the Absolute, or, to speak plainly, if God, is only known
+  to us in the character of a cause, he must therefore 'exist merely
+  as a cause,' and be merely 'a mean towards an end?' It is surely
+  possible to maintain that the Deity is known to us only as he who
+  feeds the ravens, without supposing that the Divine Intelligence
+  exists solely in order that the ravens may be fed."[AN]--(P.
+  42.)
+
+ [AN]  In a note to this passage, Mr. Mill makes some sarcastic
+       comments on an argument of Hamilton's against Cousin's
+       theory that God is necessarily determined to create. "On
+       this hypothesis," says Hamilton, "God, as necessarily
+       determined to pass from absolute essence to relative
+       manifestation, is determined to pass either from the
+       better to the worse, or from the worse to the better."
+       Mr. Mill calls this argument "a curiosity of
+       dialectics," and answers, "Perfect wisdom would have
+       begun to will the new state at the precise moment when
+       it began to be better than the old." Hamilton is not
+       speaking of states of things, but of states of the
+       Divine nature, as creative or not creative; and Mr.
+       Mill's argument, to refute Hamilton, must suppose a time
+       when the new nature of God begins to be better than the
+       old! Mr. Mill would perhaps have spoken of Hamilton's
+       argument with more respect had he known that it is taken
+       from Plato.
+
+On this we would remark, _en passant_, that this is precisely
+Hamilton's own doctrine, that the sphere of our belief is more extensive
+than that of our knowledge. The purport of Hamilton's argument is to show
+that the Absolute, as conceived by Cousin, is not a true Absolute
+(_Infinito-Absolute_), and therefore does not represent the real nature
+of God. His argument is this: "Cousin's Absolute exists merely as a
+cause: God does not exist merely as a cause: therefore Cousin's Absolute
+is not God." Mr. Mill actually mistakes the position which Hamilton is
+opposing for that which he is maintaining. Such an error does not lead
+us to expect much from his subsequent refutation.
+
+His first criticism is a curious specimen of his reading in philosophy.
+He says:--
+
+  "When the True or the Beautiful are spoken of, the phrase is meant
+  to include all things whatever that are true, or all things
+  whatever that are beautiful. If this rule is good for other
+  abstractions, it is good for the Absolute. The word is devoid of
+  meaning unless in reference to predicates of some sort.... If we
+  are told, therefore, that there is some Being who is, or which is,
+  the Absolute,--not something absolute, but the Absolute
+  itself,--the proposition can be understood in no other sense than
+  that the supposed Being possesses in absolute completeness _all_
+  predicates; is absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise
+  and absolutely stupid; and so forth."[AO]--(P. 43.)
+
+ [AO]  In support of this position, Mr. Mill cites Hegel--"What
+       kind of an absolute Being is that which does not contain
+       in itself all that is actual, even evil included?" We
+       are not concerned to defend Hegel's position; but he was
+       not quite so absurd as to mean what Mr. Mill supposes
+       him to have meant. Does not Mr. Mill know that it was
+       one of Hegel's fundamental positions, that the Divine
+       nature cannot be expressed by a plurality of
+       predicates?
+
+Plato expressly distinguishes between "the beautiful" and "things that
+are beautiful," as the One in contrast to the Many--the Real in contrast
+to the Apparent.[AP] It is, of course, quite possible that Plato may be
+wrong, and Mr. Mill right; but the mere fact of their antagonism is
+sufficient to show that the meaning of "the phrase" need not be what Mr.
+Mill supposes it must be. In fact, "the Absolute" in philosophy always
+has meant the One as distinguished from the Many, not the One as
+including the Many. But, as applied to Sir W. Hamilton, Mr. Mill's
+remarks on "the Absolute," and his subsequent remarks on "the Infinite,"
+not only misrepresent Hamilton's position, but exactly reverse it.
+Hamilton maintains that the terms "absolute" and "infinite" are perfectly
+intelligible as abstractions, as much so as "relative" and "finite;" for
+"correlatives suggest each other," and the "knowledge of contradictories
+is one;" but he denies that a concrete thing or object can be positively
+conceived as absolute or infinite. Mr. Mill represents him as only
+proving that the "unmeaning abstractions are unknowable,"--abstractions
+which Hamilton does not assert to be unmeaning; and which he regards as
+knowable in the only sense in which such abstractions can be known, viz.,
+by understanding the meaning of their names.[AQ]
+
+ [AP]  _Republic_, book v., p. 479.
+
+ [AQ]  This confusion between conceiving a concrete thing and
+       knowing the meaning of abstract terms is as old as
+       Toland's _Christianity not Mysterious_, and, indeed, has
+       its germ, though not its development, in the teaching of
+       his assumed master, Locke. Locke taught that all our
+       knowledge is founded on simple ideas, and that a complex
+       idea is merely an accumulation of simple ones. Hence
+       Toland maintained that no object could be mysterious or
+       inconceivable if the terms in which its several
+       attributes are expressed have ideas corresponding to
+       them. But, in point of fact, no simple idea can be
+       conceived as an object by itself, though the word by
+       which it is signified has a perfectly intelligible
+       meaning. I cannot, _e.g._, conceive whiteness by itself,
+       though I can conceive a white wall, _i.e._, whiteness in
+       combination with other attributes in a concrete object.
+       To conceive attributes as coexisting, however, we must
+       conceive them as coexisting in a certain manner; for an
+       object of conception is not a mere heap of ideas, but an
+       organized whole, whose constituent ideas exist in a
+       particular combination with and relation to each other.
+       To conceive, therefore, we must not only be able to
+       apprehend each idea separately in the abstract, but also
+       the manner in which they may possibly exist in
+       combination with each other.
+
+  "Something infinite," says Mr. Mill, "is a conception which, like
+  most of our complex ideas, contains a negative element, but which
+  contains positive elements also. Infinite space, for instance; is
+  there nothing positive in that? The negative part of this
+  conception is the absence of bounds. The positive are, the idea of
+  space, and of space greater than any finite space."--(P. 45.)
+
+This definition of _infinite space_ is exactly that which Descartes
+gives us of _indefinite extension_,--"Ita quia non possumus imaginari
+extensionem tam magnam, quin intelligamus adhuc majorem esse posse,
+dicemus magnitudinem rerum possibilium esse indefinitam."[AR] So too,
+Cudworth,--"There appeareth no sufficient ground for this positive
+infinity of space; we being certain of no more than this, that be the
+world or any figurative body never so great, it is not impossible but that
+it might be still greater and greater without end. Which _indefinite
+increasableness_ of body and space seems to be mistaken for a _positive
+infinity_ thereof."[AS] And Locke, a philosopher for whom Mr. Mill
+will probably have more respect than for Descartes or Cudworth, writes
+more plainly: "To have actually in the mind the idea of a space infinite,
+is to suppose the mind already passed over, and actually to have a view
+of all those repeated ideas of space, which an endless repetition can
+never totally represent to it,--which carries in it a plain
+contradiction."[AT] Mr. Mill thus unwittingly illustrates, in his own
+person, the truth of Hamilton's remark, "If we dream of effecting this
+[conceiving the infinite in time or space], we only deceive ourselves by
+substituting the _indefinite_ for the infinite, than which no two notions
+can be more opposed." In fact, Mr. Mill does not seem to be aware that
+what the mathematician calls _infinite_, the metaphysician calls
+_indefinite_, and that arguments drawn from the mathematical use of the
+term _infinite_ are wholly irrelevant to the metaphysical. How, indeed,
+could it be otherwise? Can any man suppose that, when the Divine
+attributes are spoken of as infinite, it is meant that they are
+indefinitely increasable?[AU]
+
+ [AR]  _Principia_, i., 26.
+
+ [AS]  _Intellectual System_, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 131.
+
+ [AT]  _Essay_, ii., 17, 7.
+
+ [AU]  One of the ablest mathematicians, and the most
+       persevering Hamiltono-mastix of the day, maintains the
+       applicability of the metaphysical notion of infinity to
+       mathematical magnitudes; but with an assumption which
+       unintentionally vindicates Hamilton's position more
+       fully than could have been done by a professed disciple.
+       "I shall assume," says Professor De Morgan, in a paper
+       recently printed among the _Transactions of the
+       Cambridge Philosophical Society_, "the notion of
+       infinity and of its reciprocal infinitesimal: that a
+       line can be conceived infinite, and therefore having
+       points at an infinite distance. Image apart, which we
+       cannot have, it seems to me clear that a line of
+       infinite length, without points at an infinite distance,
+       is a contradiction." Now it is easy to show, by mere
+       reasoning, without any image, that this assumption is
+       equally a contradiction. For if space is finite, every
+       line in space must be finite also; and if space is
+       infinite, every point in space must have infinite space
+       beyond it in every direction, and therefore cannot be at
+       the greatest possible distance from another point. Or
+       thus: Any two points in space are the extremities of the
+       line connecting them; but an infinite line has no
+       extremities; therefore no two points in space can be
+       connected together by an infinite line.
+
+In fact, it is the "concrete reality," the "something infinite," and not
+the mere abstraction of infinity, which is only conceivable as a
+negation. Every "something" that has ever been intuitively present to my
+consciousness is a something finite. When, therefore, I speak of a
+"something infinite," I mean a something existing in a different manner
+from all the "somethings" of which I have had experience in intuition.
+Thus it is apprehended, not positively, but negatively--not directly by
+what it is, but indirectly by what it is not. A negative idea is not
+negative because it is expressed by a negative term, but because it has
+never been realised in intuition. If infinity, as applied to space, means
+the same thing as being greater than any finite space, both conceptions
+are equally positive or equally negative. If it does not mean the same
+thing, then, in conceiving a space greater than any finite space, we do
+not conceive an infinite space.
+
+Mr. Mill's next string of criticisms may be very briefly dismissed.
+First, Hamilton does _not_, as Mr. Mill asserts, say that "the
+Unconditioned is inconceivable, because it includes both the Infinite and
+the Absolute, and these are contradictory of one another." His argument
+is a common disjunctive syllogism. The unconditioned, if conceivable at
+all, must be conceived _either_ as the absolute _or_ as the infinite;
+neither of these is possible; therefore the unconditioned is not
+conceivable at all. Nor, secondly, is Sir W. Hamilton guilty of the
+"strange confusion of ideas" which Mr. Mill ascribes to him, when he says
+that the Absolute, as being absolutely One, cannot be known under the
+conditions of plurality and difference. The absolute, as such, must be
+out of all relation, and consequently cannot be conceived in the relation
+of plurality. "The plurality required," says Mr. Mill, "is not within the
+thing itself, but is made up between itself and other things." It is, in
+fact, both; but even granting Mr. Mill's assumption, what is a "plurality
+between a thing and other things" but a relation between them? There is
+undoubtedly a "strange confusion of ideas" in this paragraph; but the
+confusion is not on the part of Sir W. Hamilton. "Again," continues Mr.
+Mill, "even if we concede that a thing cannot be known at all unless
+known as plural, does it follow that it cannot be known as plural because
+it is also One? Since when have the One and the Many been incompatible
+things, instead of different aspects of the same thing?... If there is
+any meaning in the words, must not Absolute Unity be Absolute Plurality
+likewise?" Mr. Mill's "since when?" may be answered in the words of
+Plato:--"[Greek: Ouden emoige atopon dokei heinai ei hen hapanta
+apophainei tis to metechein. tou henos kai tauta tauta polla to
+plethous au metechein; all' ei ho estin hen, auto touto polla apodeixei,
+kai au ta polla de hen, touto ede thaumasomai.]"[AV] Here we are
+expressly told that "absolute unity" cannot be "absolute plurality." Mr.
+Mill may say that Plato is wrong; but he will hardly go so far as to say
+that there is no meaning in his words. In point of fact, however, it is
+Mr. Mill who is in error, and not Plato. In different relations, no
+doubt, the same concrete object may be regarded as one or as many. The
+same measure is one foot or twelve inches; the same sum is one shilling
+or twelve pence; but it no more follows that "absolute unity must be
+absolute plurality likewise," than it follows from the above instances
+that one is equal to twelve. And, thirdly, when Mr. Mill accuses Sir W.
+Hamilton of departing from his own meaning of the term _absolute_, in
+maintaining that the Absolute cannot be a Cause, he only shows that he
+does not himself know what Hamilton's meaning is. "If Absolute," he says,
+"means finished, perfected, completed, may there not be a finished,
+perfected, and completed Cause?" Hamilton's Absolute is that which is
+"_out of relation_, as finished, perfect, complete;" and a Cause, as
+such, is both in relation and incomplete. It is in relation to its
+effect; and it is incomplete without its effect. Finally, when Mr. Mill
+charges Sir W. Hamilton with maintaining "that extension and figure are
+of the essence of matter, and perceived as such by intuition," we must
+briefly reply that Hamilton does no such thing. He is not speaking of the
+essence of matter _per se_, but only of matter as apprehended in relation
+to us.
+
+ [AV]  _Parmenides_, p. 129.
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an attempt to discover the meaning
+of Hamilton's assertion, "to think is to condition." We have already
+explained what Hamilton meant by this expression; and we recur to the
+subject now, only to show the easy manner in which Mr. Mill manages to
+miss the point of an argument with the clue lying straight before him.
+"Did any," he says (of those who say that the Absolute is thinkable),
+"profess to think it in any other manner than by distinguishing it from
+other things?" Now this is the very thing which, according to Hamilton,
+Schelling actually did. Mr. Mill does not attempt to show that Hamilton
+is wrong in his interpretation of Schelling, nor, if he is right, what
+were the reasons which led Schelling to so paradoxical a position: he
+simply assumes that no man could hold Schelling's view, and there is an
+end of it.[AW] Hamilton's purpose is to reassert in substance the
+doctrine which Kant maintained, and which Schelling denied; and the
+natural way to ascertain his meaning would be by reference to these two
+philosophers. But this is not the method of Mr. Mill, here or elsewhere.
+He generally endeavours to ascertain Hamilton's meaning by ranging the
+wide field of possibilities. He tells us what a phrase means in certain
+authors of whom Hamilton is not thinking, or in reference to certain
+matters which Hamilton is not discussing; but he hardly ever attempts to
+trace the history of Hamilton's own view, or the train of thought by
+which it suggested itself to his mind. And the result of this is, that
+Mr. Mill's interpretations are generally in the potential mood. He wastes
+a good deal of conjecture in discovering what Hamilton might have meant,
+when a little attention in the right quarter would have shown what he did
+mean.
+
+ [AW]  Mr. Mill does not expressly name Schelling in this
+       sentence: but he does so shortly afterwards; and his
+       remark is of the same character with the previous one.
+       "Even Schelling," he says, "was not so gratuitously
+       absurd as to deny that the Absolute must be known
+       according to the capacities of that which knows
+       it--though he was forced to invent a special capacity
+       for the purpose." But if this capacity is an "invention"
+       of Schelling's, and if he was "forced" to invent it,
+       Hamilton's point is proved. To think, according to all
+       the real operations of thought which consciousness makes
+       known to us, is to condition. And the faculty of the
+       unconditioned is an invention of Schelling's, not known
+       to consciousness. In other words: all our real faculties
+       bear witness to the truth of Hamilton's statement; and
+       the only way of controverting it is to invent an
+       imaginary faculty for the purpose.
+
+The third feature of Hamilton's philosophy which we charged Mr. Mill with
+misunderstanding, is the distinction between Knowledge and Belief. In the
+early part of this article, we endeavoured to explain the true nature of
+this distinction; we have now only a very limited space to notice Mr.
+Mill's criticisms on it. Hamilton, he says, admitted "a second source of
+intellectual conviction called Belief." Now Belief is not a "source" of
+any conviction, but the conviction itself. No man would say that he is
+convinced of the truth of a proposition _because_ he believes it; his
+belief in its truth is the same thing as his conviction of its truth.
+Belief, then, is not a source of conviction, but a conviction having
+sources of its own. The question is, have we legitimate sources of
+conviction, distinct from those which constitute Knowledge properly so
+called? Now here it should be remembered that the distinction is not one
+invented by Hamilton to meet the exigencies of his own system. He
+enumerates as many as twenty-two authors, of the most various schools of
+philosophy, who all acknowledged it before him. Such a concurrence is no
+slight argument in favour of the reality of the distinction. We do not
+say that these writers, or Hamilton himself, have always expressed this
+distinction in the best language, or applied it in the best manner; but
+we say that it is a true distinction, and that it is valid for the
+principal purpose to which Hamilton applied it.
+
+We do not agree with all the details of Hamilton's application. We do not
+agree with him, though he is supported by very eminent authorities, in
+classifying our conviction of axiomatic principles as _belief_, and not
+as _knowledge_.[AX] But this question does not directly bear on Mr.
+Mill's criticism. The point of that criticism is, that Hamilton, by
+admitting a _belief_ in the infinite and unrelated, nullifies his own
+doctrine, that all _knowledge_ is of the finite and relative. Let us
+see.
+
+ [AX]  Hamilton's distinction is in principle the same as that
+       which we have given in our previous remarks (pp. 18,
+       19). He says, "A conviction is incomprehensible when
+       there is merely given to us in consciousness--_That its
+       object is_ ([Greek: hoti esti]), and when we are unable
+       to comprehend through a higher notion or belief _Why or
+       How it is_ ([Greek: dioti esti])."--(Reid's Works, p.
+       754.) We would distinguish between _why_ and _how_,
+       between [Greek: dioti], and [Greek: pos]. We can give
+       no reason _why_ two straight lines cannot enclose a
+       space; but we can comprehend _how_ they cannot. We have
+       only to form the corresponding image, to see the manner
+       in which the two attributes coexist in one object. But
+       when I say that I believe in the existence of a
+       spiritual being who sees without eyes, I cannot conceive
+       the _manner_ in which seeing coexists with the absence
+       of the bodily organ of sight. We believe that the true
+       distinction between knowledge and belief may ultimately
+       be referred to the presence or absence of the
+       corresponding intuition; but to show this in the various
+       instances would require a longer dissertation than our
+       present limits will allow.
+
+We may believe _that_ a thing is, without being able to conceive _how_ it
+is. I believe _that_ God is a person, and also _that_ He is infinite;
+though I cannot conceive _how_ the attributes of personality and infinity
+exist together. All my knowledge of personality is derived from my
+consciousness of my own finite personality. I therefore believe in the
+coexistence of attributes in God, in some manner different from that in
+which they coexist in me as limiting each other: and thus I believe in
+the fact, though I am unable to conceive the manner. So, again, Kant
+brings certain counter arguments, to prove, on the one side, that the
+world has a beginning in time, and, on the other side, that it has not a
+beginning. Now suppose I am unable to refute either of these courses of
+argument, am I therefore compelled to have no belief at all? May I not
+say, I believe, in spite of Kant, _that_ the world has a beginning in
+time, though I am unable to conceive _how_ it can have so begun? What is
+this, again, but a belief in an absolute reality beyond the sphere of my
+relative knowledge?
+
+"I am not now considering," says Mr. Mill, "what it is that, in our
+author's opinion, we are bound to believe concerning the unknowable."
+Why, this was the very thing he ought to have considered, before
+pronouncing the position to be untenable, or to be irreconcilable with
+something else. Meanwhile, it is instructive to observe that Mr. Mill
+himself believes, or requires his readers to believe, something
+concerning the unknown. He does not know, or at any rate he does not tell
+his readers, what Hamilton requires them to believe concerning the
+unknowable; but he himself believes, and requires them to believe, that
+this unknown something is incompatible with the doctrine that knowledge
+is relative. We cannot regard this as a very satisfactory mode of
+refuting Hamilton's thesis.[AY]
+
+ [AY]  In a subsequent chapter (p. 120), Mr. Mill endeavours to
+       overthrow this distinction between Knowledge and Belief,
+       by means of Hamilton's own theory of Consciousness.
+       Hamilton maintains that we cannot be conscious of a
+       mental operation without being conscious of its object.
+       On this Mr. Mill retorts that if, as Hamilton admits, we
+       are conscious of a belief in the Infinite and the
+       Absolute, we must be conscious of the Infinite and the
+       Absolute themselves; and such consciousness is
+       Knowledge. The fallacy of this retort is transparent.
+       The immediate object of Belief is a _proposition_ which
+       I hold to be true, not a _thing_ apprehended in an act
+       of conception. I believe in an infinite God; _i.e._, I
+       believe _that_ God is infinite: I believe that the
+       attributes which I ascribe to God exist in Him in an
+       infinite degree. Now, to believe this proposition, I
+       must, of course, be conscious of its meaning; but I am
+       not therefore conscious of the Infinite God as an object
+       of conception; for this would require further an
+       apprehension of the manner in which these infinite
+       attributes coexist so as to form one object. The whole
+       argument of this eighth chapter is confused, owing to
+       Mr. Mill not having distinguished between those passages
+       in which Sir W. Hamilton is merely using an _argumentum
+       ad hominem_ in relation to Reid, and those in which he
+       is reasoning from general principles.
+
+But if Mr. Mill is unjust towards the distinction between Knowledge and
+Belief, as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes ample amends to the injured
+theory in the next chapter, by enlarging the province of credibility far
+beyond any extent which Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming for it.
+Conceivability or inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on
+association; and it is quite possible that, under other associations, we
+might be able to conceive, and therefore to believe, anything short of
+the direct contradiction that the same thing is and is not. It is not in
+itself incredible, that a square may at the same time be round, that two
+straight lines may enclose a space, or even that two and two may make
+five.[AZ] But whatever concessions Mr. Mill may make on this point, he
+is at least fully determined that Sir W. Hamilton shall derive no benefit
+from them; for he forthwith proceeds to charge Sir William with confusing
+three distinct senses of the term _conception_--a confusion which exists
+solely in his own imagination,[BA]--and to assert that the Philosophy
+of the Conditioned is entirely founded on a mistake, inasmuch as infinite
+space on the one hand, and, on the other, both an absolute minimum and an
+infinite divisibility of space, are perfectly conceivable. With regard to
+the former of these two assertions, Mr. Mill's whole argument is
+vitiated, as we have already shown, by his confusion between _infinite_
+and _indefinite_; but it is worth while to quote one of his special
+instances in this chapter, as a specimen of the kind of reasoning which
+an eminent writer on logic can sometimes employ. In reference to Sir W.
+Hamilton's assertion, that infinite space would require infinite time to
+conceive it, he says, "Let us try the doctrine upon a complex whole,
+short of infinite, such as the number 695,788. Sir W. Hamilton would not,
+I suppose, have maintained that this number is inconceivable. How long
+did he think it would take to go over every separate unit of this whole,
+so as to obtain a perfect knowledge of the exact sum, as different from
+all other sums, either greater or less?"
+
+ [AZ]  In reference to this last paradox, Mr. Mill quotes from
+       _Essays by a Barrister_: "There is a world in which,
+       whenever two pairs of things are either placed in
+       proximity or are contemplated together, a fifth thing is
+       immediately created and brought within the contemplation
+       of the mind engaged in putting two and two together....
+       In such a world surely two and two would make five. That
+       is, the result to the mind of contemplating two twos
+       would be to count five." The answer to this reasoning
+       has been already given by Archdeacon Lee in his Essay on
+       Miracles. The "five" in this case is not the sum of two
+       and two, but of two and two _plus_ the new creature,
+       _i.e._, of two and two _plus_ one.
+
+ [BA]  The sense in which Sir W. Hamilton himself uses the word
+       _conception_ is explained in a note to _Reid's Works_,
+       p. 377--namely, the combination of two or more
+       attributes in a _unity of representation_. The second
+       sense which Mr. Mill imagines is simply a mistake of his
+       own. When Hamilton speaks of being "unable to conceive
+       as possible," he does not mean, as Mr. Mill supposes,
+       physically possible under the law of gravitation or some
+       other law of matter, but mentally possible as a
+       representation or image; and thus the supposed second
+       sense is identical with the first. The third sense may
+       also be reduced to the first; for to conceive two
+       attributes as combined in one representation is to form
+       a notion subordinate to those of each attribute
+       separately. We do not say that Sir W. Hamilton has been
+       uniformly accurate in his application of the test of
+       conceivability; but we say that his inaccuracies, such
+       as they are, do not affect the theory of the
+       conditioned, and that in all the long extracts which Mr.
+       Mill quotes, with footnotes, indicating "first sense,"
+       "second sense," "third sense," the author's meaning may
+       be more accurately explained in the first sense only.
+
+It is marvellous that it should not have occurred to Mr. Mill, while he
+was writing this passage, "How comes this large number to be a 'whole' at
+all; and how comes it that 'this whole,' with all its units, can be
+written down by means of six digits?" Simply because of a conventional
+arrangement, by which a single digit, according to its position, can
+express, by one mark, tens, hundreds, thousands, &c., of units; and thus
+can exhaust the sum by dealing with its items in large masses. But how
+can such a process exhaust the infinite? We should like to know how long
+Mr. Mill thinks it would take to work out the following problem:--"If two
+figures can represent ten, three a hundred, four a thousand, five ten
+thousand, &c., find the number of figures required to represent
+infinity."[BB]
+
+ [BB]  Precisely the same misconception of Hamilton's position
+       occurs in Professor De Morgan's paper in the _Cambridge
+       Transactions_, to which we have previously referred. He
+       speaks (p. 13) of the "notion, which runs through many
+       writers, from Descartes to Hamilton, that the mind must
+       be big enough to _hold_ all it can conceive." This
+       notion is certainly not maintained by Hamilton, nor yet
+       by Descartes in the paragraph quoted by Mr. De Morgan;
+       nor, as far as we are aware, in any other part of his
+       works.
+
+Infinite divisibility stands or falls with infinite extension. In both
+cases Mr. Mill confounds infinity with indefiniteness. But with regard to
+an absolute minimum of space, Mr. Mill's argument requires a separate
+notice.
+
+  "It is not denied," he says, "that there is a portion of extension
+  which to the naked eye appears an indivisible point; it has been
+  called by philosophers the _minimum visibile_. This minimum we can
+  indefinitely magnify by means of optical instruments, making
+  visible the still smaller parts which compose it. In each
+  successive experiment there is still a _minimum visibile_, anything
+  less than which cannot be discovered with that instrument, but can
+  with one of a higher power. Suppose, now, that as we increase the
+  magnifying power of our instruments, and before we have reached the
+  limit of possible increase, we arrive at a stage at which that
+  which seemed the smallest visible space under a given microscope,
+  does not appear larger under one which, by its mechanical
+  construction, is adapted to magnify more, but still remains
+  apparently indivisible. I say, that if this happened, we should
+  believe in a minimum of extension; or if some _a priori_
+  metaphysical prejudice prevented us from believing it, we should at
+  least be enabled to conceive it."--(P. 84.)
+
+The natural conclusion of most men under such circumstances would be,
+that there was some fault in the microscope. But even if this conclusion
+were rejected, we presume Mr. Mill would allow that, under the supposed
+circumstances, the exact magnitude of the minimum of extension would be
+calculable. We have only to measure the _minimum visibile_, and know what
+is the magnifying power of our microscope, to determine the exact
+dimensions. Suppose, then, that we assign to it some definite
+magnitude--say the ten billionth part of an inch,--should we then
+conclude that it is impossible to conceive the twenty billionth part of
+an inch?--in other words, that we have arrived at a definite magnitude
+which has no conceivable half? Surely this is a somewhat rash concession
+to be made by a writer who has just told us that numbers may be conceived
+up to infinity; and therefore, of course, down to infinitesimality.
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with an assertion which, even by itself,
+is sufficient to show how very little he has attended to or understood
+the philosophy which he is attempting to criticise. "The law of Excluded
+Middle," he says, "as well as that of Contradiction, is common to all
+phenomena. But it is a doctrine of our author that these laws are true,
+and cannot but be known to be true, of Noumena likewise. It is not merely
+Space as cognisable by our senses, but Space as it is in itself, which he
+affirms must be either of unlimited or of limited extent" (p. 86). At
+this sentence we fairly stand aghast. "Space as it is in itself!" the
+Noumenon Space! Has Mr. Mill been all this while "examining" Sir William
+Hamilton's philosophy, in utter ignorance that the object of that
+philosophy is the "Conditioned in Time and _Space_;" that he accepts
+Kant's analysis of time and space as formal necessities of thought, but
+pronounces no opinion whatever as to whether time and space can exist as
+Noumena or not? It is the phenomenal space, "space as cognisable by our
+senses," which Sir W. Hamilton says must be either limited or unlimited:
+concerning the Noumenon Space, he does not hazard an opinion whether such
+a thing exists or not. He says, indeed (and this is probably what has
+misled Mr. Mill), that the laws of Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded
+Middle, are laws of things as well as laws of thought;[BC] but he says
+nothing about these laws as predicating infinite or finite extension. On
+the contrary, he expressly classifies Space under the law of Relativity,
+the violation of which indicates what may exist, but what we are unable
+to conceive as existing. Briefly, the law of Excluded Middle (to take
+this instance alone) is a law of things only in its abstract form,
+"Everything must be A or not A" (_extended_, if you please, or _not
+extended_); but in its subordinate form, "Everything extended must be
+extended infinitely or finitely," it is only applicable, and only
+intended by Hamilton to be applied, to those _phenomena_ which are
+already given as extended in some degree.
+
+ [BC]  _Discussions_, p. 603.
+
+We have now examined the first six chapters of Mr. Mill's book,
+containing his remarks on that portion of Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy
+which he justly regards as comprising the most important of the doctrines
+which specially belong to Hamilton himself. The next chapter is an
+episode, in which Mr. Mill turns aside from Sir W. Hamilton to criticise
+Mr. Mansel's _Bampton Lectures_. As our limits do not permit us to carry
+on the argument at present through the remainder of Mr. Mill's remarks on
+Hamilton himself, we shall conclude our notice with a few words on this
+chapter, as closing the properly metaphysical portion of Mr. Mill's book,
+and as affording ample proof that, in this department of philosophy at
+least, Mr. Mill's powers of misapprehension do not cease when Sir W.
+Hamilton is no longer their object.
+
+Mr. Mill's method of criticism makes it generally necessary to commence
+with a statement of the criticised theory as it really is, before
+proceeding to his exposition of it as it is not. The present instance
+offers no exception to this rule. Mr. Mansel's argument may be briefly
+stated as follows. The primary and essential conception of God,
+imperatively demanded by our moral and religious consciousness, is that
+of a _person_. But personality implies intellectual and moral attributes;
+and the only direct and immediate knowledge which we have of such
+attributes is derived from the testimony of self-consciousness, bearing
+witness to their existence in a certain manner in ourselves. But when we
+endeavour to transfer the conception of personality, thus obtained, to
+the domain of theology, we meet with certain difficulties, which, while
+they are not sufficient to hinder us from _believing_ in the Divine
+Personality as a fact, yet hinder us from _conceiving_ the manner of its
+existence, and prevent us from exhibiting our belief as a philosophical
+conclusion, proved by irrefragable reasoning and secured against all
+objections. These difficulties are occasioned, on the one hand, by the
+so-called Philosophy of the Unconditioned, which in all ages has shown a
+tendency towards Pantheism, and which, in one of its latest and most
+finished manifestations, announces itself as the exhibition of God as He
+is in His eternal nature before creation; and, on the other hand, by the
+limitations and conditions to which our own personality is subject, and
+which, as we have pointed out in the earlier part of this article, have,
+from the very beginning of Christian theology, prevented theologians from
+accepting the limited personality of man as an exact image and
+counterpart of the unlimited personality of God. These difficulties Mr.
+Mansel endeavours to meet in two ways. On the one side, he maintains, in
+common with Sir W. Hamilton, that the Philosophy of the Unconditioned, by
+reason of its own incongruities and self-contradictions, has no claim to
+be accepted as a competent witness in the matter; and on the other side,
+he maintains, in common with many theologians before him, that human
+personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as
+that which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things. But these
+two positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding practical conclusion
+as regards the criterion of religious truth or falsehood. Were we
+capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear conception of the
+Unconditioned, or, on the other, of a direct intuition of the Divine
+Attributes as objects of consciousness, we might be able to construct,
+deductively or inductively, an exact science of Theology. As it is, we
+are compelled to reason by analogy; and analogy furnishes only
+probabilities, varying, it may be, from slight presumptions up to moral
+certainties, but whose weight, in any given case, can only be determined
+by comparison with other evidences. There are three distinct sources from
+which we may form a judgment about the ways of God--first, from our own
+moral and intellectual consciousness, by which we judge _a priori_ of
+what God ought to do in a given case, by determining what we should think
+it wise or right for ourselves to do in a similar case; secondly, from
+the constitution and course of nature, from which we may learn by
+experience what God's providence in certain cases actually is; and
+thirdly, from revelation, attested by its proper evidences. Where these
+three agree in their testimony (as in the great majority of cases they
+do) we have the moral certainty which results from the harmony of all
+accessible evidences: where they appear to differ, we have no right at
+once to conclude that the second or the third must give way to the first,
+and not _vice versa_; because we have no right to assume that the first
+alone is infallible. In the author's own words: "The lesson to be learnt
+from an examination of the Limits of Religious Thought is not that man's
+judgments are _worthless_ in relation to Divine things, but that they are
+_fallible_: and the probability of error in any particular case can never
+be fairly estimated without giving their full weight to all collateral
+considerations. We are indeed bound to believe that a Revelation given by
+God can never contain anything that is really unwise or unrighteous; but
+we are not always capable of estimating exactly the wisdom or
+righteousness of particular doctrines or precepts. And we are bound to
+bear in mind that _exactly in proportion to the strength of the remaining
+evidence for the Divine origin of a religion, is the probability that we
+may be mistaken in supposing this or that portion of its contents to be
+unworthy of God._ Taken in conjunction, the two arguments may confirm or
+correct each other: taken singly and absolutely, each may vitiate the
+result which should follow from their joint application."[BD]
+
+ [BD]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 156, 4th edition.
+
+In criticising the first part of this argument--that which is directed
+against the deductive philosophy of the Unconditioned--Mr. Mill manifests
+the same want of acquaintance with its meanings, and with the previous
+history of the question; which he had before exhibited in his attack on
+Sir W. Hamilton. He begins by finding fault with the definition of the
+Absolute, which Mr. Mansel (herein departing, and purposely departing,
+from Sir W. Hamilton's use of the term) defines as "that which exists in
+and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being." On this,
+Mr. Mill remarks: "The first words of his definition would serve for the
+description of a Noumenon; but Mr. Mansel's Absolute is only meant to
+denote one Being, identified with God, and God is not the only Noumenon."
+The description of a Noumenon! This is almost equal to the discovery of a
+Noumenon Space. Does Mr. Mill really suppose that all noumena are
+self-existent? A _noumenon_ (in the sense in which we suppose Mr. Mill to
+understand the term, for it has different meanings in different
+philosophies) implies an existence out of relation to the human
+mind.[BE] But is this the same as being out of all relation whatever,
+as existing "in and by itself?" Does Mr. Mill mean to say that a
+creature, whether perceived by us or not, has no relation to its Creator?
+But Mr. Mill, as we have seen before, is not much at home when he gets
+among "noumena." We must proceed to his criticism of the second part of
+the definition,--"having no necessary relation to any other being." Of
+these words he says, that "they admit of two constructions. The words in
+their natural sense only mean, _capable of existing out of relation to
+anything else_. The argument requires that they should mean _incapable of
+existing in relation with anything else_." And why is this non-natural
+sense to be forced upon very plain words? Because, says Mr. Mill,--
+
+ [BE]  Strictly speaking, the term _noumenon_, as meaning that
+       which can be apprehended only by the intellect, implies
+       a relation to the intellect apprehending it; and in this
+       sense [Greek: to nooumenon] is opposed by Plato to
+       [Greek: to horomenon]--the object of intellect to the
+       object of sight. But as the intellect was supposed to
+       take cognisance of things as they are, in opposition to
+       the sensitive perception of things as they appear, the
+       term _noumenon_ became synonymous with _thing in itself_
+       ([Greek: to hon kath' hauto]). And this meaning is
+       retained in the Kantian philosophy, in which the
+       _noumenon_ is identical with the _Ding an sich_. But as
+       Kant denied to the human intellect any immediate
+       intuition of things as they are (though such an
+       intuition may be possible to a superhuman intellect),
+       hence the term _noumenon_ in the Kantian philosophy is
+       opposed to all of which the human intellect can take
+       positive cognisance. Hamilton, in this respect, agrees
+       with Kant. But neither Kant nor Hamilton, in opposing
+       the _thing in itself_ to the _phenomenon_, meant to
+       imply that the former is necessarily self-existent, and
+       therefore uncreated.
+
+  "In what manner is a possible existence out of all relation,
+  incompatible with the notion of a cause? Have not causes a possible
+  existence apart from their effects? Would the sun, for example, not
+  exist if there were no earth or planets for it to illuminate? Mr.
+  Mansel seems to think that what is capable of existing out of
+  relation, cannot possibly be conceived or known in relation. But
+  this is not so.... Freed from this confusion of ideas, Mr. Mansel's
+  argument resolves itself into this,--The same Being cannot be
+  thought by us both as Cause and as Absolute, because a Cause _as
+  such_ is not Absolute, and Absolute, as such, is not a Cause; which
+  is exactly as if he had said that Newton cannot be thought by us
+  both as an Englishman and as a mathematician, because an
+  Englishman, as such, is not a mathematician, nor a mathematician,
+  as such, an Englishman."--(P. 92.)
+
+The "confusion of ideas" is entirely of Mr. Mill's own making, and is
+owing to his having mutilated the argument before criticising it. The
+argument in its original form consists of two parts; the first intended
+to show that the Absolute is not conceived _as such_ in being conceived
+as a Cause; the second to show that the Absolute cannot be conceived
+under different aspects at different times--first as Absolute, and then
+as Cause. It was the impossibility of this latter alternative which drove
+Cousin to the hypothesis of a necessary causation from all eternity. Mr.
+Mill entirely omits the latter part of the argument, and treats the
+former part as if it were the whole. The part criticised by Mr. Mill is
+intended to prove exactly what it does prove, and no more; namely, that a
+cause _as such_ is not the absolute, and that to know a cause _as such_
+is not to know the absolute. We presume Mr. Mill himself will admit that
+to know Newton as a mathematician is not to know him as an Englishman.
+Whether he can be known separately as both, and whether the Absolute in
+this respect is a parallel case, depends on another consideration, which
+Mr. Mill has not noticed. The continuation of Mr. Mill's criticism is
+equally confused. He says:--
+
+  "The whole of Mr. Mansel's argument for the inconceivability of the
+  Infinite and of the Absolute is one long _ignoratio elenchi_. It
+  has been pointed out in a former chapter that the words Absolute
+  and Infinite have no real meaning, unless we understand by them
+  that which is absolute or infinite in some given attribute; as
+  space is called infinite, meaning that it is infinite in extension;
+  and as God is termed infinite, in the sense of possessing infinite
+  power, and absolute in the sense of absolute goodness or knowledge.
+  It has also been shown that Sir W. Hamilton's arguments for the
+  unknowableness of the Unconditioned do not prove that we cannot
+  know an object which is absolute or infinite in some specific
+  attribute, but only that we cannot know an abstraction called 'The
+  Absolute' or 'The Infinite,' which is supposed to have all
+  attributes at once."--(P. 93.)
+
+The fallacy of this criticism, as regards Sir W. Hamilton, has been
+already pointed out: as regards Mr. Mansel, it is still more glaring,
+inasmuch as that writer expressly states that he uses the term _absolute_
+in a different sense from that which Mr. Mill attributes to Sir W.
+Hamilton. When Mr. Mill charges Mr. Mansel with "undertaking to prove the
+impossibility" of conceiving "a Being _absolutely_ just or _absolutely_
+wise"[BF] (_i.e._, as he supposes, _perfectly_ just or wise), he
+actually forgets that he has just been criticising Mr. Hansel's
+definition of the Absolute, as something having a possible existence "out
+of all relation." Will Mr. Mill have the kindness to tell us what he
+means by goodness and knowledge "out of all relation;" _i.e._, a goodness
+and knowledge related to no object on which they can be exercised; a
+goodness which is good to nothing, a knowledge which knows nothing? Mr.
+Mill had better be cautious in talking about _ignoratio elenchi_.
+
+ [BF]  _Examination_, p. 95.
+
+From the Absolute, Mr. Mill proceeds to the Infinite; and here he commits
+the same mistake as before, treating a portion of an argument as if it
+were the whole, and citing a portion intended to prove one point as if it
+were intended to prove another. He cites a passage from Mr. Mansel, in
+which it is said that "the Infinite, if it is to be conceived at all,
+must be conceived as potentially everything and actually nothing; for if
+there is anything in general which it cannot become, it is thereby
+limited; and if there is anything in particular which it actually is, it
+is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But, again, it must also
+be conceived as actually everything and potentially nothing; for an
+unrealised potentiality is likewise a limitation. If the Infinite can be
+that which it is not, it is by that very possibility marked out as
+incomplete, and capable of a higher perfection. If it is actually
+everything, it possesses no characteristic feature by which it can be
+distinguished from anything else, and discerned as an object of
+consciousness." On this passage Mr. Mill remarks, "Can a writer be
+serious who bids us conjure up a conception of something which possesses
+infinitely all conflicting attributes, and because we cannot do this
+without contradiction, would have us believe that there is a
+contradiction in the idea of infinite goodness or infinite wisdom?" The
+answer to this criticism is very simple. The argument is not employed for
+the purpose which Mr. Mill supposes. It is employed to show that the
+metaphysical notion of the absolute-infinite, as the sum, potential or
+actual, of all possible existence, is inconceivable under the laws of
+human consciousness; and thus that the absolutely first existence,
+related to nothing and limited by nothing, the _ens realissimum_ of the
+older philosophers, the _pure being_ of the Hegelians, cannot be attained
+as a starting-point from which to deduce all relative and derived
+existence. How far the empirical conception of certain mental attributes,
+such as goodness or wisdom, derived in the first instance from our own
+personal consciousness, can be positively conceived as extended to
+infinity, is considered in a separate argument, which Mr. Mill does not
+notice.
+
+Mr. Mill continues, "Instead of 'the Infinite,' substitute 'an infinitely
+good Being' [_i.e._, substitute what is not intended], and Mr. Mansel's
+argument reads thus:--'If there is anything which an infinitely good
+Being cannot become--if he cannot become bad--that is a limitation, and
+the goodness cannot be infinite. If there is anything which an infinitely
+good Being actually is (namely, good), he is excluded from being any
+other thing, as being wise or powerful.'" To the first part of this
+objection we reply by simply asking, "Is becoming bad a 'higher
+perfection?'" To the second part we reply by Mr. Mill's favourite mode of
+reasoning--a parallel case. A writer asserts that a creature which is a
+horse is thereby excluded from being a dog; and that, in so far as it has
+the nature of a horse, it has not the nature of a dog. "What!" exclaims
+Mr. Mill, "is it not the nature of a dog to have four legs? and does the
+man mean to say that a horse has not four legs?" We venture respectfully
+to ask Mr. Mill whether he supposes that being wise is being "a thing,"
+and being good is being another "thing?"
+
+But, seriously, it is much to be wished that when a writer like Mr. Mill
+undertakes to discuss philosophical questions, he should acquire some
+slight acquaintance with the history of the questions discussed. Had this
+been done by our critic in the present case, it might possibly have
+occurred to him to doubt whether a doctrine supported by philosophers of
+such different schools of thought as Spinoza, Malebranche, Wolf, Kant,
+Schelling, could be quite such a piece of transparent nonsense as he
+supposes it to be. All these writers are cited in Mr. Mansel's note, as
+maintaining the theory that the Absolute is the _ens realissimum_, or sum
+of all existence; and their names might have saved Mr. Mill from the
+absurdity of supposing that by this expression was meant something
+"absolutely good and absolutely bad; absolutely wise and absolutely
+stupid; and so forth." The real meaning of the expression has been
+already sufficiently explained in our earlier remarks. The problem of the
+Philosophy of the Unconditioned, as sketched by Plato and generally
+adopted by subsequent philosophers, is, as we have seen, to ascend up to
+the first principle of all things, and thence to deduce, as from their
+cause, all dependent and derived existences. The Unconditioned, as the
+one first principle, must necessarily contain in itself, potentially or
+actually, all that is derived from it, and thus must comprehend, in
+embryo or in development, the sum of all existence. To reconcile this
+conclusion with the phenomenal existence of evil and imperfection, is the
+difficulty with which philosophy has had to struggle ever since
+philosophy began. The Manichean, by referring evil to an independent
+cause, denies the existence of an absolute first principle at all; the
+Leibnitzian, with his hypothesis of the best possible world, virtually
+sets bounds to the Divine omnipotence: the Pantheist identifies God with
+all actual existence, and either denies the real existence of evil at
+all, or merges the distinction between evil and good in some higher
+indifference. All these conclusions may be alike untenable, but all alike
+testify to the existence of the problem, and to the vast though
+unsuccessful efforts which man's reason has made to solve it.
+
+The reader may now, perhaps, understand the reason of an assertion which
+Mr. Mill regards as supremely absurd,--namely, that we must believe in
+the existence of an absolute and infinite Being, though unable to
+conceive the nature of such a Being. To believe in such a Being, is
+simply to believe that God made the world: to declare the nature of such
+a Being inconceivable, is simply to say that we do not know how the world
+was made. If we believe that God made the world, we must believe that
+there was a time when the world was not, and when God alone existed, out
+of relation to any other being. But the mode of that sole existence we
+are unable to conceive, nor in what manner the first act took place by
+which the absolute and self-existent gave existence to the relative and
+dependent. "The contradictions," says Mr. Mill, "which Mr. Mansel asserts
+to be involved in the notions, do not follow from an imperfect mode of
+apprehending the Infinite and the Absolute, but lie in the definitions of
+them, in the meaning of the words themselves." They do no such thing: the
+meaning of the words is perfectly intelligible, and is exactly what is
+expressed by their definitions: the contradictions arise from the attempt
+to combine the attributes expressed by the words in one representation
+with others, so as to form a positive object of consciousness. Where is
+the incongruity of saying, "I believe that a being exists possessing
+certain attributes, though I am unable in my present state of knowledge
+to conceive the manner of that existence?" Mr. Mill, at all events, is
+the last man in the world who has any right to complain of such a
+distinction--Mr. Mill, who considers it not incredible that in some part
+of the universe two straight lines may enclose a space, or two and two
+make five; though he is compelled to allow that under our present laws of
+thought, or, if he pleases, of association, we are unable to conceive how
+these things can be.
+
+It is wearisome work to wade through this mass of misconceptions; yet we
+must entreat the reader's patience a little longer, while we say a few
+words in conclusion on perhaps the greatest misconception of all--though
+that is bold language to use with regard to Mr. Mill's metaphysics,--at
+any rate, the one which he expresses in the most vehement language. Mr.
+Mansel, as we have said, asserts, as many others have asserted before
+him, that the relation between the communicable attributes of God and the
+corresponding attributes of man is one not of identity, but of analogy;
+that is to say, that the Divine attributes have the same relation to the
+Divine nature that the human attributes have to human nature. Thus, for
+example, there is a Divine justice and there is a human justice; but God
+is just as the Creator and Governor of the world, having unlimited
+authority over all His creatures and unlimited jurisdiction over all
+their acts; and man is just in certain special relations, as having
+authority over some persons and some acts only, so far as is required for
+the needs of human society. So, again, there is a Divine mercy and there
+is a human mercy; but God is merciful in such a manner as is fitting
+compatibly with the righteous government of the universe; and man is
+merciful in a certain limited range, the exercise of the attribute being
+guided by considerations affecting the welfare of society or of
+individuals. Or to take a more general case: Man has in himself a rule of
+right and wrong, implying subjection to the authority of a superior (for
+conscience has authority only as reflecting the law of God); while God
+has in Himself a rule of right and wrong, implying no higher authority,
+and determined absolutely by His own nature. The case is the same when we
+look at moral attributes, not externally, in their active manifestations,
+but internally, in their psychological constitution. If we do not
+attribute to God the same complex mental constitution of reason, passion,
+and will, the same relation to motives and inducements, the same
+deliberation and choice of alternatives, the same temporal succession of
+facts in consciousness, which we ascribe to man,--it will follow that
+those psychological relations between reason, will, and desire, which are
+implied in the conception of human action, cannot represent the Divine
+excellences in themselves, but can only illustrate them by analogies from
+finite things. And if man is liable to error in judging of the conduct of
+his fellow-men, in proportion as he is unable to place himself in their
+position, or to realise to himself their modes of thought and principles
+of action--if the child, for instance, is liable to error in judging the
+actions of the man,--or the savage of the civilised man,--surely there is
+far more room for error in men's judgment of the ways of God, in
+proportion as the difference between God and man is greater than the
+difference between a man and a child.
+
+This doctrine elicits from Mr. Mill the following extraordinary outburst
+of rhetoric:--
+
+  "If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in whom
+  all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive,
+  exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world
+  is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they
+  are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government,
+  except that 'the highest human morality which we are capable of
+  conceiving' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will
+  bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this,
+  and at the same time call this being by the names which express and
+  affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will
+  not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one
+  thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.
+  I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that
+  epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me
+  to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."--(P. 103.)
+
+We will not pause to comment on the temper and taste of this declamation;
+we will simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes the word _good_ to
+lose all community of meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is,
+to different persons among our "fellow-creatures," with express reference
+to their different duties and different qualifications for performing
+them? The duties of a father are not the same as those of a son; is the
+word therefore wholly equivocal when we speak of one person as a _good
+father_, and another as a _good son_? Nay, when we speak generally of a
+man as _good_, has not the epithet a tacit reference to human nature and
+human duties? and yet is there no community of meaning when the same
+epithet is applied to other Creatures? [Greek: He arete pros to ergon
+to oikeion]--the goodness of any being whatever has relation to the
+nature and office of that being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill's
+declamation by a parallel case. A wise and experienced father addresses a
+young and inexperienced son: "My son," he says, "there may be some of my
+actions which do not seem to you to be wise or good, or such as you would
+do in my place. Remember, however, that your duties are different from
+mine; that your knowledge of my duties is very imperfect; and that there
+may be things which you cannot now see to be wise and good, but which you
+may hereafter discover to be so." "Father," says the son, "your
+principles of action are not the same as mine; the highest morality which
+I can conceive at present does not sanction them; and as for believing
+that you are good in anything of which I do not plainly see the
+goodness,"--We will not repeat Mr. Mill's alternative; we will only ask
+whether it is not just possible that there may be as much difference
+between man and God as there is between a child and his father?
+
+This declamation is followed by a sneer, which is worth quoting, not on
+its own account, but as an evidence of the generosity with which Mr. Mill
+deals with the supposed motives of his antagonists, and of the accuracy
+of his acquaintance with the subject discussed. He says:--
+
+  "It is worthy of remark, that the doubt whether words applied to
+  God have their human signification, is only felt when the words
+  relate to his moral attributes; it is never heard of with regard to
+  his power. We are never told that God's omnipotence must not be
+  supposed to mean an infinite degree of the power we know in man and
+  nature, and that perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill
+  us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is always
+  interpreted in a completely human signification; but the Divine
+  Goodness and Justice must be understood to be such only in an
+  unintelligible sense. Is it unfair to surmise that this is because
+  those who speak in the name of God, have need of the human
+  conception of his power, since an idea which can overawe and
+  enforce obedience must address itself to real feelings; but are
+  content that his goodness should be conceived only as something
+  inconceivable, because they are so often required to teach
+  doctrines respecting him which conflict irreconcilably with all
+  goodness that we can conceive?"--(P. 104.)
+
+On the latter part of this paragraph we will not attempt to comment. But
+as regards the former part, we meet Mr. Mill's confident assertion with a
+direct denial, and take the opportunity of informing him that the
+conception of infinite Power has suggested the same difficulties; and has
+been discussed by philosophers and theologians in the same manner, as
+those of infinite Wisdom and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never heard
+of such questions as, Whether Omnipotence can reverse the past?--Whether
+God can do that which He does not will to do?--Whether God's perfect
+foreknowledge is compatible with his own perfect liberty?--Whether God
+could have made a better world than the existing one? Nay, has not our
+critic, in this very chapter, been arguing against Mr. Mansel on the
+question, whether the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause acting in
+time: and what is this but a form of the question, whether power, when
+predicated of God is exactly the same thing as power when predicated of
+man? Or why has it been said that creation _ex nihilo_--an absolutely
+first act of causation, is inconceivable by us, but from the
+impossibility of finding in human power an exact type of Divine power? To
+attribute discreditable motives to an opponent, even to account for
+unquestionable facts, is usually considered as an abuse of criticism.
+What shall we say when the facts are fictitious as well as the motives?
+With regard to Mr. Mansel, the only person who is included by name in
+this accusation, it is "worthy of remark," that the earliest mention of
+the obnoxious theory in his writings occurs in connection with a
+difficulty relating solely to the conception of infinite power, and not
+at all to the moral attributes of God.[BG]
+
+ [BG]  See _Prolegomena Logica_, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)
+
+Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with another instance of that _ignoratio
+elenchi_ which has been so abundantly manifested throughout his previous
+criticisms. His opponent, he allows, "would and does admit that the
+qualities as conceived by us bear _some likeness_ to the justice and
+goodness which belong to God, since man was made in God's image." But he
+considers that this "semi-concession" "destroys the whole fabric" of Mr.
+Mansel's argument. "The Divine goodness," he says, "which is said to be a
+different thing from human goodness, but of which the human conception of
+goodness is some imperfect reflexion or resemblance, does it agree with
+what men call goodness in the _essence_ of the quality--in what
+_constitutes_ it goodness? If it does, the 'Rationalists' are right; it
+is not illicit to reason from the one to the other. If not, the divine
+attribute, whatever else it may be, is not goodness, and ought not to be
+called by the name." Now the question really at issue is not whether the
+"Rationalist" argument is licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful
+use, it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible. We have already
+quoted a portion of Mr. Mansel's language on this point; we will now
+quote two more passages, which, without any comment, will sufficiently
+show how utterly Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argument which
+he has undertaken to examine.
+
+  "We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the
+  moral attributes of God: we can but infer and conjecture from what
+  we know of the moral attributes of man: and the analogy between the
+  Finite and the Infinite can never be so perfect as to preclude all
+  possibility of error in the process. But the possibility becomes
+  almost a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by
+  itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, without
+  regard to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be
+  modified and corrected."[BH]... "Beyond question, every doubt
+  which our reason may suggest in matters of religion is entitled to
+  its due place in the examination of the evidences of religion; if
+  we will treat it as a part only, and not the whole; if we will not
+  insist on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is given us
+  for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to believe
+  that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God has not
+  thought fit to annihilate the free will of man, but has permitted
+  speculative difficulties to exist as the trial and the discipline
+  of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has permitted moral
+  temptations to form the trial and the discipline of strong and
+  eager passions.... We do not doubt that the conditions of our moral
+  trial tend towards good, and not towards evil; that human nature,
+  even in its fallen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker,
+  and is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government. And we
+  believe this, notwithstanding the existence of passions and
+  appetites which, isolated and uncontrolled, appear to lead in an
+  opposite direction. Is it then more reasonable to deny that a
+  system of revealed religion, whose unquestionable tendency as a
+  whole is to promote the glory of God and the welfare of mankind,
+  can have proceeded from the same Author, merely because we may be
+  unable to detect the same character in some of its minuter
+  features, viewed apart from the system to which they
+  belong?"[BI]
+
+ [BH]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 157, Fourth Edition.
+
+ [BI]  _Bampton Lectures_, p. 166, Fourth Edition.
+
+Surely this is very different from denouncing all reasoning from human
+goodness to Divine as "illicit." To take a parallel case. The manufacture
+of gunpowder is a dangerous process, and, if carried on without due
+precautions, is very likely to lead to disastrous consequences. Surely it
+is one thing to point out what precautions are necessary, and what evils
+are to be apprehended from the neglect of them, and another to forbid the
+manufacture altogether. Mr. Mill does not seem to see the difference.
+
+We have now considered in detail all that part of Mr. Mill's book which
+is devoted to the examination of Sir W. Hamilton's chief and most
+characteristic doctrines--those which constitute the Philosophy of the
+Conditioned. The remainder of the work, which deals chiefly with
+subordinate questions of psychology and logic, contains much from which
+we widely dissent, but which we cannot at present submit to a special
+examination. Nor is it necessary, so far as Sir W. Hamilton's reputation
+is concerned, that we should do so. If the Philosophy of the Conditioned
+is really nothing better than the mass of crudities and blunders which
+Mr. Mill supposes it to be, the warmest admirers of Hamilton will do
+little in his behalf, even should they succeed in vindicating some of the
+minor details of his teaching. If, on the other hand, it can be shown, as
+we have attempted to show, that Mr. Mill is utterly incapable of dealing
+with Hamilton's philosophy in its higher branches, his readers may be
+left to judge for themselves whether he is implicitly to be trusted as
+regards the lower. In point of fact, they will do Mr. Mill no injustice,
+if they regard the above specimens as samples of his entire criticism. We
+gladly except, as of a far higher order, those chapters in which he is
+content with stating his own views; but in the perpetual baiting of Sir
+W. Hamilton, which occupies the greater part of the volume, we recognise,
+in general, the same captiousness and the same incompetence which we have
+so often had occasion to point out in the course of our previous
+remarks.
+
+It is, we confess, an unpleasant and an invidious task, to pick to
+pieces, bit by bit, the work of an author of high reputation. But Mr.
+Mill has chosen to put the question on this issue, and he has left those
+who dissent from him no alternative but to follow his example. He has
+tasked all the resources of minute criticism to destroy piece-meal the
+reputation of one who has hitherto borne an honoured name in philosophy:
+he has no right to complain if the same measure is meted to himself:--
+
+                  "Neque enim lex aequior ulla
+                Quam necis artifices arte perire sua."
+
+But it is not so much the justice as the necessity of the case which we
+would plead as our excuse. Mr. Mill's method of criticism has reduced the
+question to a very narrow compass. Either Sir W. Hamilton, instead of
+being a great philosopher, is the veriest blunderer that ever put pen to
+paper, or the blunders are Mr. Mill's own. To those who accept the first
+of these alternatives it must always remain a marvel how Sir W. Hamilton
+could ever have acquired that reputation which compels even his critic to
+admit that "he alone, of our metaphysicians of this and the preceding
+generation, has acquired, merely as such, an European celebrity;" how he
+could have been designated by his illustrious opponent, Cousin, as the
+"greatest critic of our age," or described by the learned Brandis as
+"almost unparalleled in the profound knowledge of ancient and modern
+philosophy." The marvel may perhaps disappear, should it be the case, as
+we believe it to be, that the second alternative is the true one.
+
+But even in this case, it should be borne in mind that the blow will by
+no means fall on Mr. Mill with the same weight with which he designed it
+to fall on the object of his criticism. Sir W. Hamilton had devoted his
+whole life to the study of metaphysics; he was probably more deeply read
+in that study than any of his contemporaries; and if all his reading
+could produce nothing better than the confusion and self-contradiction
+which Mr. Mill imputes to him, the result would be pitiable indeed. Mr.
+Mill, on the other hand, we strongly suspect, despises metaphysics too
+much to be at the pains of studying them at all, and seems to think that
+a critic is duly equipped for his task with that amount of knowledge
+which, like Dogberry's reading and writing, "comes by nature." His work
+has a superficial cleverness which, together with the author's previous
+reputation, will insure it a certain kind of popularity; but we venture
+to predict that its estimation by its readers will be in the inverse
+ratio to their knowledge of the subject. But Mr. Mill's general
+reputation rests on grounds quite distinct from his performances in
+metaphysics; and though we could hardly name one of his writings from
+whose main principles we do not dissent, there is hardly one which is not
+better fitted to sustain his character as a thinker than this last, in
+which the fatal charms of the goddess Necessity seem to have betrayed her
+champion into an unusual excess of polemical zeal, coupled, it must be
+added, with an unusual deficiency of philosophical knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+It was not till after the preceding pages had been sent to press that I
+became acquainted with a little work recently published under the title
+of _The Battle of the two Philosophies, by an Inquirer_. The author
+appears to have been a personal pupil of Sir W. Hamilton's, as well as a
+diligent student of his writings. At all events, he has "inquired" to
+some purpose, and obtained a far more intelligent knowledge of Hamilton's
+system than is exhibited by the majority of recent critics. It is
+gratifying to find many of my remarks confirmed by the concurrent
+testimony of so competent a witness. The following would have been
+noticed in their proper places had I been sooner acquainted with them.
+
+Of the popular confusion between the _infinite_ and the _indefinite_,
+noticed above, pp. 50, 112, "An Inquirer" observes:--
+
+"If we could realise in thought infinite space, that conception would be
+a perfectly definite one; but the notion that is here offered us in its
+place, though it may be real, is certainly not definite; it is merely the
+conception of an indefinite extension.... In truth, when we strive to
+think of infinite space, the nearest approach we can make to it is this
+notion of an indefinite space, which Mr. Mill has substituted for it. But
+these two conceptions are not only verbally, they are really wholly
+distinct. An indefinite space is a space of the extent of which we think
+vaguely, without knowing or without thinking where its boundaries are.
+Infinite space has certainly, and quite distinctly, no boundaries
+anywhere."--(Pp. 18-20.)
+
+On Mr. Mill's strange distinction between the Divine Attributes, as some
+infinite and others absolute, the author's remarks are substantially in
+agreement with what has been said above on pp. 105-6.
+
+"Mr. Mill argues that all the attributes of God cannot be infinite; but
+that some, as power, may be infinite; and some, as goodness and
+knowledge, must be absolute, because neither can knowledge be more than
+complete, nor goodness more than perfect. When we know all there is to be
+known, he says, knowledge has attained its utmost limit. But this is
+merely begging the whole question. If there be an Infinite Being, He
+cannot know all there is to be known unless He know Himself; and
+adequately to know what is infinite is to have infinite knowledge. The
+same thing would be true if there could be a Being whose power and
+duration only were infinite. 'The will,' he adds, 'is either entirely
+right, or wrong in different degrees: downwards there are as many
+gradations as we choose to distinguish; but upwards there is an ideal
+limit. Goodness can be imagined complete,--such that there can be no
+greater goodness beyond it,'... But a Being of infinite power and finite
+goodness would not be perfectly good, because His power would not be
+wholly, but only in part directed by His goodness. Nay, as that which is
+finite bears no proportion whatever to what is infinite: as, however
+great it be absolutely, it is still infinitely less than infinity, such a
+Being would be partly good and yet infinitely evil, which is absurd in
+reason and impossible in fact."--(Pp. 24, 25.)
+
+The following estimate of Mr. Mill's merits as a metaphysician coincides
+with that which, contrary to my expectation, I found forced upon myself
+after a careful examination of his book.--(See above, Pp. 62, 182.)
+
+"We cannot but think that Mr. Mill in this, his first work in pure
+metaphysics, has disappointed just expectation. In leaving the fields of
+practical philosophy, he seems to have left his genius behind him. Even
+the peculiar 'cunning of his right hand'--even his unexcelled logical
+power avails him little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly
+the conception with which he is fencing.... As long as he is applying
+given principles to the solution of practical questions; as long as he
+has to do with the process of an argument, he proves himself a most able
+instructor and guide. But when he has to grapple with a metaphysical
+problem, it almost invariably arrives that the central, the metaphysical
+difficulty, escapes him."--(Pp. 78-80.)
+
+
+
+
+               MUIR AND PATERSON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of the Conditioned, by H. L. Mansel
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